#and those classes are going to tell you the exact same thing I just did

[lunalikestowriteanddraw]

So my sister likes to draw and stuff, and recently she asked my grandma if she could teach her how to paint, so my grandma got her some watercolors, a mini easel, and paper.

I’d like to point out that my sister is not the first, or only, person in our family who does art. My grandma would draw and paint, until she stopped a few years before my sister was born. I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember, took art classes for half of my time in public school (as well as external painting classes with my grandma), and literally showed my sister how to do digital art.

AND YET, my 8yo sister acts like she knows better when it comes to basic tricks or knowledge. For example, i literally just had an argument with her because she had just finished a painting and wanted to put it with her other paintings. I told her to let it dry first (since it was VERY wet), and she acted like I was stupid for suggesting such a thing until I told her that it’ll get paint on her other paintings until it dried.

And I know it’s petty to get irritated about an 8yo acting like an 8yo. I’m the oldest in my family, even amongst my cousins, so I know how kids her age act like know-it-alls. She’s not different. But also, like. I’ve been doing art for longer than she’s been alive, I know what I’m talking about, goddammit. At least with basic stuff, like NOT PUTTING A WET PAINTING WITH YOUR OTHER PROJECTS.

[wookgerine]

Love that they take Bella with the gym with them all the time

[noyasmashing]

Tamaki is literally my only anime crush 😭 and then you write for him 🫶

Can we have yan Tamaki hcs? I don’t know if you write yan or not

ANYTHING FOR U MILLY!! I have not written yandere before so ill try my best ;3 (sorry if it sucks)

CW: soft yandere?? nothing to crazy just a bit of stalking and sexual fantasies, sub coded Tamaki, praise, and degradation.

First and foremost, this man is the epitome of shy. I mean, seriously, he blends in pretty well, never going out of his way to bring attention to himself. And he totally plays that to his advantage. You'll catch him subtly trailing after you, taking mental notes of your every move, even down to the exact time you do things. He insists it's for your protection, unwilling to acknowledge to himself just how unsettling his behavior is. If you're into coffee, he's got your order and the precise moment you grab it each morning memorized.

And he's definitely strategic about it. Say he knows you tend to stroll over to the library after classes, he'll just happen to "accidentally" cross paths with you during his "routine afternoon jog."

But don't expect him to strike up a conversation just yet. No, instead, he's content to admire you from a distance, pulling all the stops to catch your eye without saying a word.

Oh, and let's talk about compliments. This guy eats those up like candy. Anytime you praise him for his heroics or strength, his elf-like ears turning bright red, stumbling over his words to thank you.

He gets oddly possessive if he catches you chatting with any other guy, especially if it's Mirio. In his mind, he's already picturing you two planning the wedding. But, of course, he's way too timid to voice any of that. Instead, he'll just retreat to a quiet corner, silently brooding, hoping you'll notice he's upset without him having to say a word.

I can just tell physical touch is his weakness. You'll find him "accidentally" bumping into you, using any excuse to press his body against yours just to get by, or letting his hands brush against yours as he hands you something. All those little moments of contact? Yeah, he's definitely not immune to those.

Growing up, he was never one to show much interest in girls. Crushes were foreign to him, until you came along. Your laughter at his silly jokes alone was enough to make his head spin. He craved the rush of dopamine and nerves he felt when he was around you, wanting more with each passing moment. Eventually, he took things too far.

Following you home was undoubtedly one of the most reckless actions he had ever taken, and predictably, he got caught. Even if you did return feelings for him, your initial response would be to scold him for his invasive behavior.

He feels remorseful, tears falling down his red cheeks, but the attention you're suddenly giving him weakens his knees. It's a revelation to him that he also enjoys being degraded by you. Suddenly, all he can think about is you tugging on his long locks and calling him nothing but a toy for your own pleasure.

That is when he starts experiencing wet dreams about you. Humping his pillow in his sleep as he moans your name, along with little gasps and sighs. At the same time, he is wetting his underwear with an embarrassing amount of cum. Never once did he feel so perverted and horny, but he's too caught up in the moment to worry about it.

[sea-of-dust]

You gotta be kidding...

5wirl x GN! Reader

Summary: They make a reference to something personal between you two while performing live. Almost putting a spotlight on you.

Notes: Modern AU, mention of irl video game and band: Remmber Sports (they're good recommend Tiny Planets),

Warnings: suggestive humor, swearing, never expect proof reading

He met you before he was an idol. High school to be exact. You two were in the same music class bonding over how much you dreaded your music teacher. "He sounds like a divorced mom.." "isn't he married?" "Exactly" you flop onto your desk

You two have been in almost every class together years afterward, just so you didn't have to work with a stranger for group projects. People would would find you two around school alot and walking home together. "And they were roommates," one of your classmates giggle as you two casually hold hands while speaking to eatchother, in reality, you both didn't notice

He was always so calm but also somehow could smell your problems?!? "Ughhhh" "Lemme guess they chewed gum loudly again?" You spring up placing your head back down. "Stop knowing based off my grunts!" "And you're mad at me for not noticing something earlier" "HA!-" "nm it's because I didn't let you sleep in" "...I genuinely despise you"

He started catching feelings midway through your first semester of the new school year. You did notice he sometimes hugged you tighter, looked at you a little longer, he even got small trinkets for you, noticing how fond he looked when you casually wore them.

It was by the end of the year he had told you he got a scouted as an idol, it took alot for him to tell you but it worked thank god you didn't ditch him like he thought.

"So uh..." "?" "I got scouted" your eyes widen, he thought all his fears came to life before you hugged him tightly and squealed. "I TOLD YOU YOU HAD A NICE VOICE!!" "You didn't have to yell" "Shut up you cry over stuff like this!" Now you were the one that oddly knew things about him...you were right...he did cry...alot like the whole group knew the next day.

The group try to hype him up into asking you out. "DUDEEEE COME ON THEYRE NOT GOING ANYWHERE" "I can ask to hangout" he mutters holding his phone in his hand "COME ONNN" venti and heizou sync up kazuha speaking up "ask them to go for dinner" his cheeks turn pink almost instantly "UH MAYBE NOT COME ON- WHAT IF-" "and sent" "WHEN DID YOU TAKE MY PHONE?!" "You'll live" Xiao rolls his eyes as aether bickers with him, his phone noti goes off. "Sure what time?" There's a silence in the room as Xiao gives him the phone. "At 4?" "bet ☆" you and those star emojis how are you like this. "ITS A DATE!!" "YEAAAAAAA" they sounded like a frat house.

He gets all giddy on that date and when you two finally go on one you finally hit the maybe were dating phase but you both don't wanna admit it to eatchother. So the rest of 5wirl planned something for you two. "Alr we know he likes them nowww...." "we...." "Why don't we perform for them" "on their friend ani?" "How do you know that..." they turn to heizou "because he saved it on his calander" "..." and so they planned out your ani for you two.

And so their evil plans acted out perfectly, you two went out on another date and later that day you dropped him off at the concert. What you didn't expect was heizou dragging you to a seat. "Stay right here and don't move alright" you watched them get on stage aether seeming to be looking for you, they get to performing when one of the lyrics hit you. "Hey why don't you meet me at four?" An almost slured pronunciation followed by aether finally finding you. His eyes so tender yet teasing. You felt your heart skip a beat a small wink only making you more bashful.

To think the performance would end there nope. As you tried to get off your seat aether greets you with a cheeky smile a small ring in his hand. You turn around quickly. "I guess I flustered you more than he ever will" he leans on you wrapping his arms casually around your waist while you continues to fluster you. "He was just a small crush..." "enough to have you gush for 4 months about it" he laughs softly kissing you cheek. "When did you even gain this much confidence" "small words of advice" your mind immediately goes to Heizou. "Alrighty then..." without a warning you pull your face closer forcing him to slouch over you. "Did heizou tell you what to do incase of this situation aswell?" Thank god that concert hall was almost empty and the seat you were at made it almost impossible to see you two because the next thing you see and hear are a bunch of idiots going YEAAAAAAAAAAA. Aether x y/n shirts and a poster held up by Xiao. They ship it.

You made cute accessories! He's seen your work on social media and reached out. "You're accessories are so cute do you have a store?" "Nah I only sell locally near my college" turns out you both went to the same college he's never did a double check so fast in his life. As soon as he saw you he cupped one of your hands, his eyes sparkling in pure joy. "GIMMIE EVERYTHING IN STOCK!" "HUH?!"

Number one fan he's following you around. He'd be your personal advertisement always wearing your stuff and flexing it to others. He WILL be the most annoying person on campus

When you tell him to stop he just kinda tilts his head until he realizes what your saying as if he finally loaded. "Oh! Alright!" That's when you make an almost massive mistake "I did enjoy your support tho but youre-" "SO YOU LIKE HAVING A FAN?!" And so began the simping. He's all over you. Every class your with him? He's leaning into you, whispering random stuff in your ear. Your eyebags got darker everytime he did this but he was more chill than your online fans.

The days you also leaned into him are the days you've never seen someone more flustered. "Hm?" You lift up your head watching him cover his face quickly. "Venti?" He turns away from you even more. "Don't look at me! Where did you even learn that-" "I mean you do that to me all the time" "don't say it outloud-" "did you just whimper?" He stops suddenly using is braids to cover his face as he mumbles to himself. You bring that up to traumatize him

He had to get used to you showing affection, you weren't even dating yet! Come on, don't do this! Even a small smile he'd tease you for it but he'd definitely scream into his pillow about it.

He only asked you out when you made your feeling for him known. A small note under his door telling asking him to meet up at an amusement park later that weekend was where it clicked he looked and sounded like a little girl you could hear his "YEAAAAAAAA" from your room.

He's doing everything he's on a call with the others he just needs them to hear his my story animated from start to finish. "Can you not play that effen punk music main stream shit can barely hear you" "Shut the fuck up hot topic this is important!" "This is why you fucked up your eyeliner" "I DID?!?!" He checked in his mirror realizing he didn't and mostly argued with Xiao. "If they ditch you you deserve it" "quit being a downer! Good luck Venti!" They all mostly wave at the camera before hanging up leaving you and him alone for the evening

He loved it. He was like a child pointing at things he wanted. "Do you have the money?" He looks away pounting "not an actual question I'll play for it" his eyes widen almost sparkling. You two left flexing your carnival game knowledge and venti covered in plush prizes you won for him.

As payback for the newfound plush army, he invited you to a concert. "Oh so you did have money" "Shut up" "hehe" your teasingly small laugh is so cute stop doing that. What you didn't know is that he strapped some keychains you made on his belt, and he NEVER STOPPED WINKING, if you had to drink everytime he found you in the audience and winked you'd have five drinks...per song. It was cute seeing him smirk whenever you slightly blushed at him.

"Y/n!!" He smiles as you wait for him outside the concert hall. "Lets go to another amusement park!" He giggles embracing you "right now?" "Yea!" He nuzzles his face into your chest "sure..when you take off all of those keychains Jesus how much did you-" "200 bucks" "...VENTI" "THEYRE CUTE I KNOW YOU EYED THEM!" You blush slightly smirking "I did...they look adorable on you" you struck him right in the heart leaving both of you flustered. "The amusement parks a few blocks away" "LETS GO!" as if it never happened you both headed to the amusement park.

You beat him at a rhythm game he liked. You got first in a video game event he liked since then him he's declared you his rival. "Who the hell is this guy getting in the way of the number one spot" he grits his teeth checking your profile. "347 full combed songs...300 all perfects...and maxed out cards" he rolls his eyes

He wanted to let off some steam at an arcade only to find out he got beat in that game also! With the same name tag as the rythum game champ. He nearly smashes the machine when he notices you step up to it. "Shame, this games kinda better when I'm kicking someone's ass..." You sigh only now, noticing him, smirking at this chance you take it. "You mind playing this with me?" You perk up. Thinking this is a good way to let off steam, he accepts. "I won't go easy." "Alright!" You let him pick the song and almost immediately grab the handbar

Strange, he thinks he doesn't need it. As soon as the song starts, he hears your feet absolutely slam on the board. He's shocked but doesn't look over he's focused on his side of the screen. By the end, you huff heavily, looking up. "You won." You put your fist up for a fist bump. "Ah that songs so annoying~" he dosent give you one back putting in his names for national ranks. That's when he noticed that you put in the name the person on every rythum game had and as soon as you pressed confirm he nearly pounces on you. "SO YOURE THE ONE TAKING THE NUMBER 1 SPOTS EVERYWHERE!" "Yea what about it-" he looks at you angrily, calming down a bit before turning back to you. "I declare you my rival" "well...If you wanna we could rematch sometime gimmie your number?"

Ever since then you two have skeduled days to go to the arcade to whale on eatchother and going out to eat afterword. "I'm pretty sure you'd like it reminds me of your face ☆" you say as you point to a horrible cgi skeleton. "Screw you" "heh". You'd eventually open up to him more and invited him out to places more often. He didn't wanna say it outloud but he genuinely enjoyed those moments

One of the times you two went, you try to teach him gutair hero, he kinda mumbles to himself. "You can just play on your lap" "hmmhmm mhm em You can't be this msm hm" "what-" he realizes he said that outloud and covers his face nearly dropping the gutair. "I didn't hear that last part" he sighs in relief "but do you think im cute?" And so he's even more ashamed of himself. "Context clues" you scratch your cheek in a bit of embrassment "I think you're pretty cute too" you embarssingly laugh leaning away

you're pretty sure you could see his heart skip a beat as he looks up at you, his face nearly entirely pink. Peaking at you through his hand. You decide to tease your friend. "Seems like you wanna date me~" He moves back quickly, covering his mouth to hide his blushing. "I'm fine with that ya know~" you lean into him him still covering his face. He looks away looking back at you,his eyes softening "I'm fine with the thought of kissing you..well maybe a little more than fine but-" your words were cut off as you feel his lips touch yours. Quick yet soft, his hands wrapping around your shoulders. You lean back trying to catch your breath "...how long have you've been waiting to do that?" "...a few months now" "That's kinda adorable Xiao" you lean in for another kiss. You two recount that day as your first date

Ever since then he's more willing to hang out a little more clingy too. Whenever he had a show he would ask you if you were busy that day before sending you the ticket link. "Hey are you busy on the 14th?" "No why?" He'd send you the link without a secound thought "you know I'm not really into idols that much" "I'm in the group..." "...bought"

He actively looks for you in the audience. You would text him where you were sitting beforehand, yet he'd still look like a lost puppy. As soon as he finds you, his eyes sparkled. He forced himself to calm down before giving you a small wave

It was by the end of the show where he was performing the last song and you noticed something about their dance it kinda looked like what you would do on a song you knew well. It was then that you realized Xiao made a dance routine inspired by your sweaty gaming dance. You covered your face in embrassment but peaked through your hands. You couldn't believe he paid that much attention to you. He smirks noticing this

As the show ends, he runs over to you, "That was...a little embrassing" you blush a bit. "..." "dosent mean I didn't like it tho!" Trying not to offend him further you mumble on of how great the performance was. At first he's pretty stiff with his arms crossed you'd think he was annoyed till he kissed you again leaning in to hug you. "I'm glad you liked it" he whispers ever so softly in your ear.

He offen saw you working on projects for bands he likes and decided to commission you. He invited you to a studio and you both began to focus on what he commissioned you on. "I'm looking for something calm yet something someone would listen to in the morning to wake them up..." "hmmm" you play a calm chord progression on your gutair. "Speed up a bit" he taps his foot as if keeping pace as you speed up your playing. "That's pretty good! Sounds like a Remmber sports song" " YOU LISTEN TO THEM?" "Yea?" "Oh my god I thought you wouldn't catch that-" "they're a bit of a guilty pleasure"

You two always worked together after that whenever he would be lost in thought you'd just play hall of the mountain king behind him. He'd turn around slowly as your playing got more intense. "You think of something?" "..."

You pretty much became 5wirl's offical gutairst after kazuha recommended you. They'd make fun of him for how long you two stayed at the studio together. "Kazuha~, you left us sleeping in the shopping cart again!" Venti grins ear to ear "must really like that gutairst." Kazuha smiles."They're just a friend I find it easy to get along with" he thinks about what you two were talking about his eyes softening as if it were an old fond memory "and he's doing it again" heizou sighs jokingly

A few months of performing together, they treat you as family, almost apart of 5wirl. As soon as Kazuha ever left the room they'd turn to you in a heartbeat. "You sure you don't kiss when we're not looking?" "Eh?!" "Does kazuha usually get all mumbly around you" "he does but-" "I KNEW IT" "dose he show you his unironic leaf collection" they all lean in expectingly. "No wha-" You made sure kazuha was too far to hear what you were about to say "...OK so this one time..." they listened to you like their lives depended on it.

The day you told them about that is the day you regret the most, they always looked you and kazuha up and down. Snicker to themselves. "How much you wanna bet they might kiss today" "CAN YOU TWO CUT IT OUT" you let out a sigh walking into the recording studio to practice, a familiar humming following you in a few secounds later. You two sing together and when you finish he finally speaks up. "You know... this the song I was playing when I first realized I was into you" "heh really" you stop strumming, realizing what he said "wait what-" he laughs softly at your reaction placing a hand on your cheek. "That songs kinda special to me..." he holds your hand tenderly with his unbandaged hand. "Reminds me of how much I love you" your eyes widen a bit as he looks at you with the most soft eyes. "I love you too kazuha" you smile gently, letting him lean in to kiss you

All of them noticed you two were dating it was odvious, the way you two acted around eatchother gave litterally everything away. "You two give eatchother less personal space than before are you dating?" "What?" "And you smell like him-" "how do you know what he smells like" "so you're dating?!" "How did you come to that conclusion?!" You and venti would bicker trying to hide your relationship with kazuha after he forgot to tell you he already told them.

Finally a show came along a small gig surprising a popular idol group would show, but still nice. You looked at the music sheet for the song looked up at him, sighed, and looked back. He looked so pleased giving you a few riffs and you look down to see another reason to go to therapy.

What he didn't put on hell on paper was a very veryyy familiar cord progression. He played it himself and put it in post. Making another version so if you ever asked you wouldn't notice, and a few weeks later they went live

You watched them in the audience, hearing the song you helped on and felt your smile fade into a straight face as you heard your solo along with the memorable melody gutair. He saw this trying to avoid a giggle while performing, he's suffering from you brainrot the rest of the show, some fancams caught him getting kicked by heizou or Xiao.

"So how did you like the show~" "Xiao almost kicked you off the stage..." There's a silence. "He dosent kick hard enough for that...but at least you enjoyed it" he smiles, pinching your cheeks and rubing your face, you look away hearing him giggle at your behavior. "I'll make you a coffee-" "don't you dare make a reference" he smirks at you "hehe"

You were online friends usually playing main stream games or random stuff you found. Youd always play together though, never single player! He hates that

"Are you playing a single player game..." "no-" "LIAR ITS ON YOUR STATUS" "SHIT- I mean I have no idea what your talking about" "...atleast stream it" he always got all pouty when he couldn't play with you

He'd definitely randomly interrogate you because you found something out on someone you both knew. "IS IT ABOUT-" "shush shus shu stfu quiet" "oh come on dude what is she gonna hear you?" "We're in a public call" "oh...LMAO" "DUDE"

When you combine both these loves, his love for you playing a co-op detective game with you has become the best thing for him to ever experience. "Who will be first to solve this?" "We're supposed to work together heizou" "oh...oh 😏" "nevermind I'm gonna play hitman without you" his avatar suddenly turns to face you and emotes a shocked reaction "OH COME ON"

He started catching feelings for a while. Ever since you two got on a call for the first time, your voice kinda intransted him. "Your voice Is so nicee" muttering into the mic yet you heard him clearly. "Thank you?" "It really is" its like you can see him currently slumped over his desk just day dreaming about you.

Didn't stop your offline friend for teasing you about him too. "Ooo he's into you~" "nuh uh nope nope!" The tips of your ears turn a pink. "And you like him back might aswell seal the deal" "STOP IT!" Blushing heavily you slam your hand down. Unsurprisingly Heizous in a simular situation 4nemo teasing him over just how much he talks about you. "Ohhh they're so cool" "they smell nice" "stop mocking me" he huffs "then get with them" they say in sync "stop weirdly harmonizing" he sits down covering his currently pink face.

Didn't help when you two first saw eatchother. "What the hell you live so closeby" "I know right what's next you're at my favorite Cafe conveniently the next table over" you turn over your shoulder seeing someone smile at their phone turn back and type "you mentioned before you had moles under both eyes right?" The persons face dropping looking around."Yea?" Without typing back, you walk over sitting infrot of him. "Bro, someone's sitting at my table, hold on" you smile at him typing back "oh sorry lemme just leave then my mistake 😔" "WAIT HUH?!?!" his eyes widen as he grabs your wrist "y/n?" small tears forming in his eyes pulling you into a hug with desperation. "Heizou" he hugs you tighter when he hears his name come out your mouth. "You're as pretty as I thought you'd be..." patting his head as he nuzzles into your chest. "You wanna go back to mine after this" "Yes!" With sudden enthusiasm, you two talk about your irl lives while bullying his drink of choice. "Pumpkin spice.." "oh my god shut up my again" "it's nasty" "it's good to me!!" "Shut up mom with 2 kids living in a van"

He's been going to your house at least once a week now "we should play together" he overbites his lip "I barely charged my secound controller" you overbite your lip back at him "then let's just hang out then I got news bby" visibly cringing at that last bit you let him in with him near instantly showing you a picture of him being accepted into an idol group. "Ohh you're gonna have real fangirls now" "Shut up!" "I'm gonna lead them just to make fun of you" "you're the only fangirl I'd date" "..." You visibly cringe "OH COME ON" "HAHAHA"

And so you were invited to the hell known as a debut concert and dear god was it near impossible to not be as hype as the crowd. Especially catching the fancams with him winking at you. Anyone could tell he was super inlove with whoever he was winking at especially after the group stopped in between a song witch you were barely paying attention to until you heard "I hope you guys never have to play solo!" Could have swore you felt him glare at you "speaking of solo the next songs title is-" all you paid attention to yet you look like you just woke up from a really loud noise.

"Y/n! Did you see it! Did ya like my moves" he smiles at you like a happy little dog. "It was surprisingly great Heizou" "surprising huh?" He pouts as if saddened by that comment. "But the show was amazing Heizou I'd go again" that bright glow of a smile you had is something hell never let go of, without hesitation he holds your hand "marry me" "come again?" "I mean it we should date!" Accidental slip up. He's screwed, you're gonna reject him so blatantly he's never gonna bother you again. "Heizou...that's so sudden" your eyes meet warmly "but I've been thinking the same" kissing his cheek you walk off letting him process what just happened. "WAIT WAIT WAIT YOURE NOT DITCHING ME AFTER SAYING THAT" "MAYBE I AM!" You had to run home that day but it was worth it laughing at him trying to keep up.

[sturncakez]

𝐬𝐨𝐟𝐭𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐞 ෆ

contains: bsf!chris, plot, smut, oral (fem receiving), n fingering.

reader discretion is advised.

christopher owen sturniolo. your bestfriend, but also the love of your life.

you’ve known him and his brothers matt, nick, and justin ever since you were little.

your father and jimmy have been extremely close since they grew up with each other, and of course passing the tradition along, they wanted their children to do the same. despite you being an only child.

you loved all of the boys equally, of course. but you seemed to gravitate towards chris. growing up you couldn’t tell why, but as you got older it seemed to be more obvious. i mean, look at the boy. he’s perfection.

there were so many reasons why you used this word to describe him. but you couldn’t even wrap your finger around just one.

was it the way his beautiful blue eyes shined in the summertime? or was it the way he was so calm and caring, only when it came down to you? perhaps it was the way you guys treated each other, almost like you guys were soulmates, but with no real feelings attached.

you can go on and on about him. his soft and dark locks that seemed to shine with no effort, his listening skills, eye contact that could and always easily melted your heart away, the way it felt like you guys could talk for ages for hours, or even days. in your eyes he had zero flaws, and as you got older, you realized you were in love with your bestfriend.

ྀིྀི

you’re seventeen now. junior in highschool. you peaked quite early to say the least. you’ve had confidence ever since you were young, but as the years went by it’s gotten better and better.

what type of person would chris be to not notice that? he was your “bestfriend” of course.

you had your own sense of taste and style, and your personality wasn’t like the rest. the last thing you would want to do was fit in with any girl at somerville.

little did you know that this is what made chris fall inlove with you. but you being oblivious, you payed no mind to that. thinking that there was no way in hell that your best friend of 15 years would ever feel the same.

one thing you really liked about yourself was your music taste. you had at least 6 favorite artists, but the neighbourhood being your absolute fave. you listened to them all the time. getting ready, in your car, during class, whenever.

one of your favorite songs by the band was softcore. it was your comfort song growing up, and you felt like you could relate to some of the lyrics given the situation with you and chris.

‘..you’ve been my muse for a long time

you get me through every dark night..

i’m always gone, out on the go

i’m on the run and you’re home alone..’

the lyrics touched you physically when you listened to that song for the first time. it was true. chris was your muse. he did get you through every single dark night. when your parents were fighting almost every single night as a kid, or that time they were so focused on your grades instead of your mental health. you were way too young for all of that to happen to you. chris was the one that got you through all that. no one else. it’s almost like if you didn’t have him you would break.

another reason why you felt so touched by those lyrics is because you were almost always out of the house.

it was an escape from reality for you. whether it was walks in the park, going to parties, or sneaking out. chris on the other hand, was the exact opposite.

ྀིྀི

it was friday, but today was different. you weren’t in the mood for anything today. every few months your body gave out from all of the constant going out you would do. you decided maybe tonight was the night you would be an average teen girl and just stay home and watch movies. you were pretty tired anyway.

you decided to just binge watch 2000’s movies and fall asleep watching baylen levine. those plans seemed to be interrupted though, as you heard a ‘ding’ noise coming from your phone.

confused, because your phone always seemed to be on do not disturb, you checked to see who it was. forgetting that there was only one person that you allowed yourself to get notifications from.

it was chris.

chris: Hey

Was just wondering if you wanted to come over, nick n matt are gone for a bit and i’m pretty bored 😭

If not it’s fine tho

your heart began to pound in your chest as you stayed staring at the message. realizing you had your read receipts on you immediately jumped back into reality and began typing away a reply.

should you say yes? or should you say no? you told yourself you wouldn’t let your crush change anything between you guys but something felt different today..

a feeling lurking inside of you telling you that you couldn’t hold it back.

you started to type away.

you: ofc i’d loved to come over

just give me like 10 mins to get ready

chris: Alr np, just text me when you’re otw

you received a sick feeling in your stomach getting that last text. nonetheless, you got up out of your bed and began getting ready.

you threw on a cropped white tee and comfy sweatpants. it didn’t really matter what you wore around chris, and you didn’t think much of what he thought either. because of this you decided to not throw on a bra thinking it wouldn’t matter, but oh were you wrong.

after throwing on your outift and popping your gold hoops and remaining jewelry in, you put your hair in a low half up, got your belongings, and headed out while texting him you were on the way.

it wasn’t that far of a drive to chris’s, his house only being a few blocks away. you parked in the driveway and contemplated going in.

ྀིྀི

finally, you knocked. letting him know of your arrival.

you could hear his footsteps on the other end of the door, and the clicks and clacks of him unlocking it.

“heyyy! i missed you kid!” he exclaimed joyfully, pulling you into an embrace.

“i missed you too, chris! how have you been?” you replied back, feeling as safe as a baby in their mothers arms with him.

“bored outta my mind honestly man. nick and matt have been out for hours, and fortnite was started to get boring believe it or not.” chris said back as he pulled you in, shutting and locking the door behind you.

“surprised to hear that coming from you chris. so was hanging with best friend of fifteen years a last resort or what?” you said in a playful tone while taking off your shoes.

“kinda didn’t wanna bother you ‘cause i thought you had better things to do” chris replied.

you chuckled and looked up at him. “okay so what now?”

chris sighs. “movie?” he says with a cheesy smile on his face.

“gosh you know me so well” you respond back to him.

“kid i’ve known you since we were 2, ‘course i do.”

silence lingers in the air for a while as you both just stare at each other. a smile starts to creep up chris’s face as he full on lunges towards you and picks up right off of the ground as if you weighed nothing. you squeal “CHRIS WHAT THE FUCK PUT ME DOWN!” as he begins running up the stairs to his bedroom and throwing you down onto his bed. this was one of his many ways to mess with you. “calm down kid i wasn’t gonna throw you that hard.” he replies and starts to laugh his ass off as if it was the funniest thing in the world.

you just start to look at him as he laughs, loving the way his smile is, and adoring the sound of his laugh — which most may call obnoxious.

“you’re insane i hope you know that.” you reply.

after he calms down from his laughing fit that seemed to last ages, a moment of silence begins to brew again. lasting longer than the first time. this time was different though. the eye contact didn’t seem like ‘friendly’ eye contact, but at the same time you never really had that eye contact with each other in the first place.

you start to look down at his lips. and right now, in this moment, they looked as delectable as ever. something about them. the rosy pink color they had, the same one displayed on his cheeks. the way they were plump and looked kissable. so kissable.

a feeling started to brew in your stomach. butterflies.

you could tell chris felt the same way. he looked down at your lips, admiring the brown and pink colors. before you could even get a breath out, his lips collided with yours. the kiss was perfect, more than that. they fit so well together, like a mold. he held your the side of your face as you began to straddle on-top of his lap.

but suddenly, you stopped. “wait chris..i’m not sure if..we should be doing this.” you said as you catched your breath, realizing what had just taken place seconds ago.

“baby it’s fine, i’ve been wanting this, wanting you, for as long as i could remember. you’re fine, i promise.” chris replies.

something about the way he said that..his words. its like you could feel them in your heart. you replied a shy “okay” and smiled as you started to kiss him again. this time the kissed last longer, and began to get steamier and steamier.

chris quickly dominated the kiss, interlocking his tongue with yours. it was messy but you loved it. and it definitely made you wet. chris on the other hand was going insane. more blood instantly began flowing to his dick, making his already erect cock even harder. struggling to hide it, he knew he had to do something. he broke the kiss, making you whine in disappointment.

you got used to the feeling of his pillow soft lips. “i know baby, i know.” chris said as he instantly understood how you were feeling. he began to kiss the side of your lip, then your jawline, moving down to your neck. he started to kiss and suck the soft skin and went harsher and harsher as he went lower and lower.

“can i take this off baby?” he said, motioning to your shirt. “mhm.” you replied, making him frustrated. “i need your words mama.” “yes chris, you can take this off!” you said chuckling a bit. chris’s eyes began to wander and they immediately went to your nipples. them being hard as it was cold in his room. “such a fucking slut not wearing a bra around your bestfriend hm?”

as if you weren’t wet enough, his words immediately had your panties even more soaked. chris dipped his head down as he started to swirl his tongue around your nipples and suck. he began to leave dark purple marks all over your skin, letting you know you were his. a thought began to linger in your mind. were you too young for this? i mean, you guys were only seventeen.

but all thoughts were swept away as chris added stimulation to your clit, using one hand and using the other to massage your right breast. you’ve had only two sexual experiences in your life so far, the first one being a girl and the second a guy, neither being able to satisfy you right. but chris, chris was different. “take your pants off for me ma, panties too.” you immediately obeyed his directions and looked back up at him eager to see what was next “so perfect for me baby, all just for me.” your heart melted.

“lay down f’ me.” you laid down on the bed as you patiently waited for his next move. chris began to take his shirt off and started to kiss all over your body again. starting from your neck down to your stomach, and making the kisses slow and sensual, making sure you were blessed with the right amount of satisfaction. you began to let out whines and moans signaling you wanted more than that, the feeling already being beyond immaculate. chris started to kiss lower and lower and pried open your legs.

he stared for what felt like hours, but was probably only seconds. “oh my fucking gosh ma, you’ve been hiding all this from me?” chris said as he began to lick and suck on your thighs, devouring all the remnants of your arousal. you began to whine even more. that’s when chris ducked his head even lower and began to lick at your entrance. “mmmmm” he groaned at the taste, tasting sweet and saltiness.

he began to flatten his tongue against your clit, making you moan as loud as ever. before you could even get a word out he began to fuck you with his tongue. “h-holy fuck chris!” he started to slurp and suck repeated on your weeping pussy. you looked down at him seeing a mess of your arousal and his spit forming on his face. “yes yes yes! oh myyy, oh my fuck baby” you moaned loudly. “hmmm you like that ma?” chris groaned into your pussy, the vibrations immediately going straight to your core, making you wrap your thighs around his head.

chris instantly put his head up and stared into you. “keep your hips down or i’ll stop. understand?” chris said demandingly. you’ve never seen that side of him, but oh did it turn you on even more. “ ‘m sorry baby just please, please keep going..” your wish was his command as he immediately went back to eating you like he hadn’t eaten in weeks. like a starved lion. the dirtiest slurping, slushing, and gushing sounds could be heard from chris’s room. “ohhh my godddd” you moaned, feeling your orgasm start to build up. chris started to suck faster and faster, it was inhumane at this point. he groaned repeatedly knowing it would go straight to your core. “fuck chris i can’t- i can’t take it!” as soon as the words left your mouth and whipped out his fingers, stuck his head up and said “spit.” in the most devilish tone.

you spat into his hand. “good fucking girl.” chris said, as he stuck two of his fingers into your hole that was practically begging to be fucked with his fingers. maybe even his cock. his began to thrust into you slowly letting you get used to the pain, and then started to go faster, as if there was no tomorrow. you squealed and moaned out of intense pleasure not knowing how much longer you could take it for.

not even being able to think straight, chris added a third finger. he stared at your convulsing body and groaned “take it. take my fucking fingers in that tight fucking pussy of yours like the whore you are.” and that was it. those were the last words you heard before you saw flashing of your squirt exiting your body and your vision going white.

chris enjoyed seeing this, knowing that the pleasure he gave you was so intense that you couldn’t even signify him of when you were about to cum. letting you ride out your high, he slide out his fingers and sucked them, moaning a bit. you looked up at him with the most fucked out look in your eyes. “that was. the hottest. thing. i’ve ever seen.”

“i don’t know how i’m still alive after that. that was amazing chris.” you replied in awe. “you’re amazing.” chris said as he began to lean in and kiss you. “you like the way you taste huh?”

you moaned into the kiss signifying your answer. he broke the kiss saying “you did such a good job for me baby. so so good.” you looked at him and smiled. letting out a small “thank you.” “so..where does that leave us now?” chris says.

he didn’t get to finish yet.

- rosa speaks

hi guys this is my very first fic anddd smut. it is loosely based off of the song ‘softcore’ by my favorite artists of all time the neighbourhood!! this is for @annamcdonalds67 writing comp so when i saw this song up there i was so fucking happy. pls lmk what u think of this n if u want a pt. 2 i’ll happily make one.

- also sorry to all the ppl i tagged that don’t like 2 be tagged if they aren’t notified beforehand, i finished this way later than i was supposed to and i was supposed to dm ppl n ask if they wanted to be tagged but i don’t have time. sorry again but i hope u guys like it! ALSOOO COMMENT A PINK HEART IF U WANNA STAY ON MY TAGLIST FOR THE FUTURE 🩷🩷🩷

@musegyra @recklesssturniolo @stunza @sturnphilia @sturnsdoll @pinksturniolo @suyqa @thesturniolos @hoesformatt @mattscoquette @sturnrockwell @sturn777 @slut4chriss @thenickgirl @m9ttsverse @medilovesmatt @stars4chratt @slutz4sturniolos @mattbf

[thr0wnawayy]

Midoriya's Delusion

This is post that builds upon my previous one, I've copied many of the points I made there to here. Albiet with some corrections and tweaks.

To summarize, I have a bit of a crack theory that chapter 430 isn't as real as we've been led to believe. (As for when this actually takes place, that's up to you but I like to imagine the start of his third year marks the beginning of his mental decline.)

(As an update, I find it dubious whether 8 years have actually passed or if that's also a part of the fantasy. I can see Midoriya becoming so attached to the lie that his reference of time begins to warp)

This theory mostly comes from some inconsistencies in regards to the hero rankings and some other things I've found.

Corrections:

It's left ambiguous whether Best Jeanist and Endeavor are still active. However the fact that people view these two in a postive light (especially after Dabi and the war) still seems absurd.

2. Midoriya wasn't outright abandoned, rather their busy schedules make it hard for their days off to coincide. This falls apart when you look at this panel

"The rate of new villains keep decreasing and the number of heroes have stabilized"

Besides Ochaco who's funding a quirk counseling project, the rest of the class should be able to make time. Again it's stated that they aren't actually fighting.

There's no real threat to face. Besides PR and Community Service there's bot a whole lot else (besides the occasional natural disaster)

One could argue it's because the scope of what heroes do is increasing, thus keeping them busy. But again, we see heroes doing exactly what they did before, PR, Advertising and (implied) Showboating.

This leads me to believe that the lack of contact is based in reality, to some extent.

Whether it was by choice or forced by their (1A's) respective PR teams to preserve their images (can't be seen around the "freaks" for too long, now can we?).

The lie comes in the form of busy schedules.

Now whether that's what Midoriya tells himself or what he's been told, I cannot say for certain.

Disturbia:

For those of you who didn't read my last post, you may be wondering, so what's going on?.

Simply put:

Midoriya's having a breakdown fantasy to cope with the fact that he won't be becoming a hero due to the loss of his quirk.

Im aware it sounds crazy but consider the following:

1. Midoriya subconsciously knows the way he's been treated was wrong.

This manifests within the escapists fantasy in Bakugo's drop in the rankings + the attitude surrounding him (as well as his damaged hand never fully healing)

He meets a kid who just so happens to be in a near exact same position as he once* was (and still is to an extent). One could take this as his mind's way of trying to cope and heal itself, by having Midoriya do what he does best and help others, henceforth working though his trauma by using the kid as a stand in.

*Even the kid's "bully" seems to be a warped version of Bakugo (perhaps this is how Midoriya tries to fool himself into believing how it was)

2. We see Kota.

I believe that here, Kota serves as what Midoriya thinks he could have been had he not failed. Kota is the idealized version of Midoriya here, the unobtainable.

3. A lesson ignored

Apparently people forgot the connection between Endeavor and Shoto. You'd think this would be a good thing as Shoto would be able to become his own person.

This falls flat when you remember that also includes people forgetting the reason and happenings behind Shoto's existence, it feels like Midoriya is trying to have his cake and eat it too

To elaborate, this is a major copout, it allows Shouto to be unaffected by his family's past bith career wise and emotionally. While also feeding into Midoriya's rather toxic belief that forgiveness is required to be a good person.

(The fact that killing Tomura violated this only adds to my theory that this whole thing is an escapist coping mechanism.)

(You can also add the idea that Tomura didn't forgive society for what they did to him and his friends. That likely broke all the "rules" that Midoriya knew.)

4. The Mech Suit is a massive cope, it's the dying whimper of Midoriya's childish hope that All Might will save the day.

This time there's no magic quirk, no garrish mech suit, no plot twist.

No. There's only Midoriya and the consequences of his, his classmates and hero societies actions. It doesn't matter how shiny and seamless the illusion, how sweet the lie.

You can't hide the blood.

Concerning Aspects:

That was mostly the revised stuff, let me introduce you to some new points

1. A Frozen Lake

Something I noticed was certain characters seem to be almost frozen in time, as if someone tried to continue a story using scraps of the original text.

The curious case of Rei Himura:

This scene seems almost stagnant, what was most noticeable was Enji's bandages still being on and Rei still being there.

It's as if Midoriya hasn't seen them in years (or perhaps doesn't want to acknowledge what happened). So his mind uses what he last saw/heard of them, creating a sterile, static scenario. Little better than props.

Those surrounding her (with the exception of Hawks) also seem to be stuck in the past.

It's definitely strange.

2. See No Evil, Hear no Evil, Speak No Evil

Shigaraki is a representation of Midoriya's repressed guilt and his fears. I believe deep down Midoriya knows that, inevitably the cycle will repeat, so long as the system is allowed fester and wallow in it's complancy.

I find the fact that he's behind Midoriya to be ironic, as if to say: don't look back, don't think about what you've done.

A Symbol of Stagnation:

I should warn you that it does get lengthy from here, however I think it's important to get the full picture. Even if I tend to ramble here.

It's implied here that Lemillion's the top hero. This is awful for a variety of reasons. Mirio is a horrible symbol.

All Might was flawed for a variety of reasons, but a majority of these were byproducts rather than directly being his own doing.

Mirio on the other hand, has such a cancerous philosophy that it actively harms all who interact with it.

Mirio is a follower, he follows orders first and asks questions never.

Eri is the best example of this. Even after Nighteye's death, Mirio never truly reflects on the damage his actions could have caused ( only saved by the narrative, seriously it's a miracle Eri trusts anyone besides Midoriya after being abandoned like that)

You see, the difference between Toshinori and Mirio lies in their actions and principles.

Mirio left Eri to die, all for the sake of the "mission".

For all the heroes knew, Eri could have been a trafficking victim and either have been killed or relocated. But no, appearances and "gotta catch em all" take priority even after knowing Eri is in the Yakuza's clutches.

Lemillion made the worst decisions possible. He followed a known murder into a secluded, restricted area (with a hostage mind you) bringing his pupil with him.

Willingly ignored blatant signs of abuse (just look at the girl) and played hooky with thre leader of a criminal organization, who is known for his short fuse and willingness to kill.

He did all of that, when he could have easily detained Overhaul at any point (his quirk being a direct counter)

Toroshinori would fight tooth and nail in that situation. Consequences be damned if it meant saving Eri.

Part of the reason Toroshinori was so effective as a hero was 1. His sense of justice and 2. His compassion.

Mirio is a symbol that can be controlled, a weapon if you will.

The fact that Mirio is at the top shows that things haven't changed and are even beginning to decline. So this brings me to my next point

You may be asking, if Midoriya's losing it in his own mind, what's the outside world look really like?.

Allow me to set the stage.

4. Speculation

Within Midoriya's muddled mind, Lemillion represents both his toxic optimism and a subconscious understanding that nothing has changed. It represents denial and acceptance, a dysfunctional middle ground that's easy enough for Midoriya to stomach.

The truth of the matter is, delusion or not, the reality is soon to sink in.

Something that I don't see discussed is the lack of reactions from other nations or really any insight into how they were affected by everything that happend.

Here's the idea: Most likely they are foaming at the mouth.

Particularly it's the countries who suffered under Imperial Japan in the past (Korea, China, Singapore etc), however this also applies to every nation Nedzu brow beat into aiding with the rebuilding efforts, albiet their reaction would be latent.

Not not only is the attitude painfully reminiscent of how Japan handles it's past atrocities, Japan has had them clean up their messes. seen below:

(you cannot tell me Big Red Dot over here is having a good time)

From an outside pov. The Commission never told anyone about AFO, rather they suppressed any information, locked him up in Tartarus and then sat on the whole situation until it blew up in their (read: everyones) faces.

He then proceeded to: kill over 8000 people (+ those killed during the Blackout period), kill the top hero of one of the world's most powerful nations and incite mass panic. Destroyed massive amounts of infrastructure and transport nationwide, broke thousands of criminals out of prison, destroying those prisons in the process.

Meanwhile the heroes:

Abandoned civilians in mass by quitting in the middle of a war.

Left the public in the dark for months and allowing crime and paranoia to grow rampant, even (forcibly) bringing someone they knew was being targeted by AFO and his forces to the one place they could find shelter.

Mutilated a seven year old girl. Who has a history of being mutilated for the gain of others and patted themselves on the back. (Also having no holdup on how that may effect her physically via her quirk or mentally via her trauma)

Mic: tried to kill a docile prisoner who could be considered in comatose, based off of his emotional attachment to a dead man + viewing it as justified if it meant Spinner couldn't get to him.

Used hospital staff and patients as meatshields (Central Hospital) during a riot.

Most had no qualms supporting a child beating eugenicist and implied marital rapist, even with his one of his victims exposed him and citing it as his main reason for turning to villainy.

Held an illegal questioning* with said abuser while ignoring his main victim (Rei, who is probably the most reliable source of information there)

(*which effectively is like conducting an investigation on yourself and declaring you are not guilty)

And so much more! (But this post is getting too long)

My point is by the time everything was said and done, it seemed everyone but Japan was paying for it.

It's outright stated that the US president risked national security by sending every hero they had to help Japan. (Impeachment worthy if you ask me)

Endeavor's little plan to kill himself and Dabi in a blaze of death ended up disrupting the weather. Very likely it'll end up resembling an El Niño phenomenon, only vastly off schedule and even more destructive than normal.

For Reference [https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/ninonina.html]

Very likely it'll lead to an agricultural drought in the northern America's and mass flooding in southern America's, likely starting at the west coast and bleeding inland. Leading to a domino effect where cost of living surges due to the sudden displacement of people and the rapid loss of products.

Worse still, because the US had no heroes (likely for months on end), crime has likely surged in the America's, which will further impact the rest of the world.

The rebuilding efforts likely emptied the wallets of most participating countries, leaving them unable to help anyone, including themselves.

Also keep in mind that Japan incriminated themselves with the Business Course footage. I don't think the general public (outside of Japan) is going to take too kindly to a known murder and abuse apologist being in charge of a system already known for it's corruption.

The end result is likely be a world that detests Japan, either from a moral perspective (Rei's treatment + the treatment of those society abandoned), a financial perspective (we can't afford shit and you contributed to that) or historical perspective (you do this everytime and ignore the consequences).

A world divided by struggle and united by an immense loathing for the Commission's Japan and the culture surrounding it.

Oh, don't forget there's no finding left for quirk research. Meaning that it's very likely no one will be prepared for quirk singularity to start manifesting in the upcoming generations (Thanks Nedzu).

_______________________________________

Update: Can I just say that Aizawa's lack of ownership infuriates me even though this is likely a fantasy and not grounded in reality.

Like what the fuck do you mean "with the way he talks, it was pointless" Fantasy Aizawa.

Because "Hey Asshole", You deliberately ignored his attitude and offenses!. And what? Now your just gonna shrug it off like it wasn't your fault. To hell with that you had two years, most teacher are said to only get one. As you so graciously mentioned at the start of this shit show of an epilouge.

Heres the moment I'm referring to btw:

While we're at it. Are you telling me it was too hard to get Momo some proper attire all three fucking years she was at UA for.

Not to mention Toru is still naked, how the fuck hasn't she died yet, she is literally exposed to the elements (and lord help her of she gets a cut)

Kirishima's costume is still his biggest liability considering it exposes his chest and back (also seeing as even when hardened he can't repell bullets)

Does Denki still fry himself with his quirk?

Before we move on Aizawa. How's that daughter you neglected, her horn still broken?.

Speaking of which let's look at the rescue team:

What the hell is this!?

Let's see, we got a guy who can only do damage (and his sweat detonates on contact, destroying whatever it touches.)

A brainwasher who only got into the hero course via nepotism and who can only brainwash people who directly respond to him!. A person trapped underneath rubble either frantic or groaning in pain isn't going to be able to respond or even just give consent.

(On a side note what are the laws regarding mind control quirks, does some sort of waiver have to be signed, can a person sue for being controlled against their consent?)

Oh, but wait there's more.

Midoriya running headlong with experimental tech that has, very likely never seen the light of day. Let alone preform in an actual high stakes situation before.

You're trying to carry someone and oops! Something malfunctioned or was miscalculated, now there's an even bigger mess (hooray!)

Who could forget Mezo "they'll come for your kids" Soji. Who climbed the ladder and pulled it all the way up.

Yeah forget that Heteromorph's were getting hate crimed long before the war, ignore the fact that you yourself were maimed by an angry mob after doing one of the most heroic things a person can do. Dismiss Spinner's comment about being sprayed with Pesticide for walking in public.

Nah screw it, let's all sing Kumbaya while the Creation Rejection Clan runs wild outside the reach of the cities, then ignore that the discrimination still is prevalent in the countryside and it's only a matter of time before somone gets fed up and takes matters into their own hands. (talons, claws, you get the picture)

But your a hero now Soji, you got your's. So fuck the rest of 'em

And don't even get me started on Hawks. Congratulations you ignorant bastard, way to kill time and by that I mean for everyone but the heroes.

"Yeah life is great!, everyone hates us, we're rapidly falling into debt from all that rebuilding 8 years back."

"Speaking of which some of those buildings are staring to fall apart due to being rushed to meet deadlines set within the month they were started."

"Social darwinism is on the rise and people are becoming more complacent that ever before due to heroes applying bandaid solutions on decade long, deeply ingrained problems."

"All so the average person doesn't have to think about what's festering beneath society's floorboards, so thank you Safety Commission. Here's your star of positivity ⭐️." - Some random anti-hero civilian

So much for greatest heroes, huh.

_______________________________________

UPDATE 2:

A dark thought I just had, is that the main reason Izuku killed Tomura was because Tomura broke the rule of "Forgiving Your Abusers makes you Good".

When Tomura refused to relinquish his hatred, when he stood his ground, that is when Midoriya decided he had to die. If not to "stop" him, then to preserve Midoriya's perception of the world .

Shigaraki + The LOV by their very ideals went against everything Midoriya has had beat into him by Bakugo and Aldera over the years.

Makes me wonder how'd he react to a person refusing to forgive their abuser. If he interacted with Natsuo or Rei, I could see that delving into a complete mess.

Now that I think about it, The Midoriya we know now, he would have never tried to hold onto Eri back when they first met.

Ironically, he became what he named himself after, a Deku. A puppet attached to thorns of liquid gold, glistening and burning hot.

A slave to his own biases and belief system, now trapped in a stage of his minds own making.

First bound by his past, then by legacy and finally, now by his own hand.

木偶.

[aayakashii]

routine

Pairing: Kagami Subaru x MC/reader

Tags: SFW. Character analysis, a bit of angst, hurt x comfort (I think), fluff and romance between you and Subaru, over 6k words

Author's note: this is probably the biggest fic I've written lol and I'm kinda proud of how it came out, since it also took me some days to fully flesh it out. I'd appreciate comments if you liked the fic! Comments literally keep every writers alive. Anyways, hope you enjoy!

Kabuki Glossary:

Biwa: Japanese short-necked wooden flute traditionally used in narrative storytelling

Geza: the music that plays during kabuki, performed live

Hanamichi: flower path; a long, raised platform, running left or center to the stage through the audience, connecting to the main stage, used to make dramatic entrances and exits

Mie pose: a powerful and emotional pose struck by an actor

Onnagata: actor who acts the role of a young woman 

Sewamono:  a genre of contemporary setting plays in Japanese traditional theatre

Shamisen: three-stringed traditional Japanese musical instrument

Tachiyaku: young adult male roles, the actors who play those roles; most commonly these are hero roles, though not all of them

Takemoto: a specific type of song, it is also the narration device used during a kabuki play. It consists of a chanter/narrator (tayu) and the shamisen players

Subaru had become used to it.

You would come to visit him right after your classes, if you weren’t assigned a mission, and Subaru would welcome you with tea and some obscure sweet he managed to get, just to let you try it. You two would talk, and you would share stories about your friends in the Academy, how your life was before you became cursed, and he would tell his own stories, even if he thought they weren’t nearly as interesting as yours.

It gave him a sense of belonging.

Subaru hadn't had much experience with friendships or any interpersonal relationship at all.

His life was merely the background for his career as an actor. His bare skin was merely the foundational bricks for the red and white makeup that would adorn him once he was out on the stage.

When he was under the spotlight, his monotone voice resounded loudly – louder than the drums, louder than the shamisen, louder than the biwa. Subaru became gigantic under his costume. His movements were sharp and hypnotic, the flow of his kimono as he walked down the hanamichi and the pierce of his gaze turned all heads towards him. He was a genius, a talent like no other, the future of the kabuki theater.

And he did not see himself in any of it.

Here lies the true tragedy of a burned out genius child: to go under insurmountable levels of pressure, only to find that the dreams of your parents were never your own.

Subaru did not want to be under the spotlight, no matter how much the spotlight wanted him and no matter how much others wanted him to be under it.

As he was forced to keep walking the flower path, his chances of living life as a normal kid were gone: he had no friends, no acquaintances, nothing that helped him find out who he was for himself.

So, he had no experience.

But he knew that he could pick out the feeling of belonging somewhere after spending time with you.

Eagerly, he waited for the clock to reach 5PM everyday, knowing that you would come through his door to spend time with him.

Routine was always something he appreciated, anxious as he was. He didn't like surprises, he wanted things to be predictable, to give him even the slightest sense of control over his new life as a student.

Therefore, to know that you would come to visit everyday, at the exact same time, was his comfort – even if the thought of you made his heart skip a beat, although he didn't quite understand why.

Not even standing behind the greatest stages made his heart drum loudly after a while. As the green, red and brown curtains of the stage were pulled, his body went on automatic. The takemoto went through his ears, unnoticed, and the geza became white noise. He moved gracefully, although his mind flew into other planes. As the audience clapped enthusiastically as he stood in his mie pose, Subaru wished he was somewhere else. He felt extremely guilty for not being able to appreciate the hard work of the musicians and the actors, but after he figured out that the passion he thought he had was merely a reflection of his parents’ passion, everything became black, white and gray.

Yet, planning fancy snacks for you made his hands clammy and his heart restless – and it wasn't the most comfortable feeling, however, he didn't hate it. He knew you'd come through with the routine and wash his anxieties away.

However, much to his dismay, his comfort had been ripped off of him for the past three days. His precious routine had been broken and Subaru would be lying if he said he wasn't counting the hours, the minutes and the seconds until it was restored, somehow.

He just had no idea how to fix it.

You had been fiercely avoiding him for three days, ever since the last meeting was cut short, and he blamed himself for hurting you in the worst way he could have ever done it.

Subaru has always had awful self-esteem.

No matter the compliments about his genius, none of them stuck to him. When you despise what you do, being good at it just brings forth more bitterness towards oneself.

Subaru was a rarity in the kabuki world – someone who could represent a captivating tachiyaku or the most elegant onnagata. He could be the hero or the princess, something that most actors could not do. To don the costumes of two genders was the cause of endless praise and awe from the audience and members of his acting house alike – none of which he accepted.

To him, his talent came as second nature. There was no need to hone his skills – they were already there, much like an additional organ he was born with – and he loathed that fact. He loathed how this pushed him towards a world in which he didn't want to participate. 

He truly valued the hard work he was now putting into his studies, something he was creating with his own hands. He could see his own growth and pat himself on the back for it – even if he still had a hard time accepting compliments (he knew the only reason he was the captain of Hotarubi was due to his status, after all. He was just a figurehead).

Subaru’s stigma was an even bigger burden towards his path of bettering himself. 

If he hated being an actor, he hated himself even more for his powers. Much like his talent, he did not ask to be bestowed with such a repugnant stigma. It was the reason why his parents would never touch him, never hold him. He was a walking breach of privacy, a dangerous little thing that could easily become a weapon, if the truth of his stigma was found out. He was untouchable in every way, figuratively and literally.

He truly couldn't understand how Lyca, Zenji, Haku and you were so quick to accept his ugliness. 

“You aren’t disgusting, something like this could never be your fault”, you had said, when he wallowed in self-pity after revealing his secret. But to step out of his cycle of self-hatred was a tough task.

Your visits helped, however. For the first time in his young life, someone saw him as himself and stayed. 

Haku and Zenji were his true friends, but they still saw him through the lens of that one genius kabuki actor. And Lyca… he was alone and desperate.

You, however, had the ghouls of Darkwick Academy wrapped in your little finger and, still, you chose him. Despite his social awkwardness, his anxieties, his anger, his stigma. You chose him whenever it was time to get lunch, when you could be resting, when you could have anyone else. The thought of it made his heart skip a beat again. He was sensing a slight pattern.

Yet, it had been three days, and you were gone. No messages, no visits, no news.

He understood your avoidance despite it all. He had committed the worst sin he could have done to his dearest friend.

He had touched you.

You had come to Hotarubi at your usual time, 5PM, sharp. Your hair was disheveled and a few droplets of water stained the tatami of the tea room as they fell from your face and hands, while you hurriedly took off your shoes.

“I’m so sorry for making a mess, Subaru! I had to run here to arrive on time and ended up forgetting my umbrella… I had to walk under every cover I could find, but I still ended up being sprayed by the rain.” you said, as you stood at the entrance, shaking your body as if you were trying to get rid of the excess water.

Subaru shot up from his spot, his face contorted in worry.

“Oh no, please don’t do that!” he said, as he ran to quickly rummage through the drawers of the room for towels “You always have to use an umbrella when you come to Hotarubi, what if you get a cold?”

You grabbed the towel he gave you, smiling awkwardly.

“I know, I know. I just didn’t want to arrive late. I didn’t want you to get anxious.”

Subaru blinked, face blank, as he was caught off guard by your answer.

“You… you don’t need to worry about me. I’m not that anxious.” 

You laughed, and he felt his breath hitch on his throat.

“Suuure, and I don’t breathe oxygen…” you said jokingly, hanging the towel on a nearby hanger after you finished patting your face and arms dry, giggling as you noticed the way he was pouting slightly. “I’m just playing with you! I’m sorry.”

“No no, I’m sorry about worrying you to the point of you having to hurry…”

You rolled your eyes and raised your hands to put them on his shoulder, quickly stopping yourself before you could actually touch him, resting them on your hips instead.

“Subaru. You don’t have to apologize for something like that. I am doing this because I care about your well-being. You're my friend and I want you to be okay. It’s not something to feel apologetic for. Instead, you can just thank me for being a great friend.” you winked and he immediately looked away from your face, that was too bright for him to stare at.

“O… okay… Thank you.” Subaru murmured, forcing himself to look at you again, from under his lashes, a small smile adorning his features.

“You’re very welcome.” you nodded “Now let’s drink some tea please, I do need something hot to warm myself!”

“That’s true, let’s get you warm so you won’t get a cold, please.”

Soon, time slowed down as you two sat and chatted about everything and nothing at all. You talked about how weird Darkwick's shopkeeper is, how awfully crowded the dining hall is (Subaru avoided it like the plague), how scary Professor Hyde can be sometimes, how loud Kaito and Luca are, how cute are the little cats running around all day…

How funny it is that you two always met for lunch in a place where only romantic couples hung out, you mentioned in passing, almost mumbling to yourself like you didn’t want to be heard.

“Does it make you uncomfortable?” Subaru asked, already looking apologetic, hearing you despite your low voice.

“No, no” you were quick to dismiss his concern “It’s, um, I don’t know... Doesn’t it make you a little nervous?” you said, laughing sheepishly, a foreign blush warming the tips of your ears, which went unnoticed by him.

“You get nervous when we’re there? We can eat somewhere else, you don't have to stay in a place you dislike just to appease me…” Subaru muttered, frowning “I’m so sorry I didn’t notice that it was making you uncomfortable…”

“No, no, no” you shook your head vigorously “That’s not what I meant at all! I… I don’t think I can explain it to you just yet. I don’t think I’m… ready, or… whatever, I don’t know…” you trailed off, incoherently.

“Ready? I’m sorry, I don't understand.”

“It’s okay” you flashed him a smile and grabbed one of the kimono catalogs that were littering his table, fidgeting with it, mindlessly “Don’t worry about it. Let’s just keep eating there, okay? Promise we’ll keep eating there?”

“But I want to understand what you mean- oh!” Subaru cut himself off as he saw a thick sheet of paper cut your thumb while you flipped it anxiously “Your thumb…”

You looked at the small cut that was letting out a single droplet of blood and shrugged.

“Oh, I didn’t even notice… it’s okay, I’ll put a bandaid over it later. Wait, Subaru? Wait… wait, no!”

The boy didn’t quite register his own movements, as his hand went to grab your bleeding one, gently grasping your pulse with his soft fingers, running his own thumb over your cut, as if his touch could heal you faster. 

His hands were bare.

You inhaled sharply and, instantly, it all flashed into his mind in quick succession. Like a large wave overwhelming an inexperienced swimmer, he was pushed down into the deep waters of those memories, causing him to gasp, breathless.

Subaru was swarmed by visions of himself in every possible situation. He saw how your gaze followed him when you spotted him from a distance in the campus; how you searched for him in the crowd of students during lunch time, on the tranquil balcony in which you two have shared your food together plenty of times before; and how you turned your head around whenever you heard someone mention his name in passing.

He had glimpses of the way his hands moved while making tea; his profile as he smiled gently when he tried explaining your homework to you; and his own eyes softening as he talked about Lyca. In your eyes, he looked magical. Ethereal, even. Someone who deserved to be admired, loved, praised and he knew these were your own emotions being whispered so subtly to him.

Subaru saw himself in a way the mirror had never reflected back to him. He discovered parts of his being that he wasn't able to find out for himself, because they would only come to the surface when he was with you.

In his mind's eye, right then, Subaru laughed, loud and breathless, as he clutched his stomach – all the restraint he built through his lifetime, gone through the window, after you had merely told him some silly joke. The way he brightened with your words, making your heart beat in a terrifying, yet delightful way, made your breath catch on your throat.

And much like a dying man seeing his whole life flash through his eyes, he arrived back to the present and saw himself, staring wide-eyed at his own hand tightly gripping yours.

He blinked, and his consciousness came back to him.

Subaru, like usual, felt incredibly weak after using his stigma, yet he still quickly turned his gaze towards you, eyes wide and mouth opening and closing like a fish, unable to say a word.

Your face was beet red and your eyes were blankly staring at your own lap, lips pursed into a thin line and eyebrows furrowed. Your free hand was clenched into a fist, knuckles pale with the force in which you dug your own nails into your palm.

“I…” Subaru murmured, trying his best to weave a coherent thought.

You got up quickly, breaking the hold Subaru had onto your arm, and grabbed your things in a hurry.

“I think- I think I should go.” your voice cracked and you cleared your throat harshly “Thank you so much for the snacks and tea, they were delicious like always” you blurted out, quickly making your way to his door.

“Wait, no, I- I'm sorry, I-” Subaru held his hand out, as if he tried to reach you but you were too far away, oceans of distance between you two.

“There's nothing to apologize for!” You said, way too cheerfully for him to believe you “I just gotta go now. I have… I gotta go. Yeah. See you soon, Subaru.” you stepped out into the rain and soon disappeared into the mist that surrounded Hotarubi, not waiting for whatever he tried to say.

Subaru stared at his own hands. The little droplet of your blood stained his fingertip, and he took a deep, shaky breath.

He had betrayed you. He had seen your innermost memories without your consent and now you were mad at him. He had to apologize. He had to beg for your forgiveness, until you took pity on him and allowed him to be your friend once again. 

Falling into a deeper pit of self-hatred was hard, but he tried to keep it together, for you. He needed to be lucid in order to beg for your pardon once you came back to visit him. He just hoped it would be soon.

But you did not see him soon at all.

“I don't think they're mad at you for seeing their memories, it’s not really like them. But maybe they're embarrassed?” Haku pondered, taking a bite of the mochi Subaru had set out for you out of pure habit.

“No” he shook his head, adamant “They wouldn't simply disappear if it was just that. I don’t believe that. I have done something that made them angry at me. I saw something I definitely shouldn't have seen.”

It was the fifth day of you avoiding Subaru and he was hanging on by the thinnest thread. He was so close to snapping that it was becoming clear to the other Hotarubi students. And so, Haku and Zenji came to intervene.

“Well... I can't really give you my proper opinion if I don't know what you saw.” Haku said bluntly, making Subaru flinch.

“I can't tell you. I would be breaching their trust again. That’s the last thing I need to do right now.”

“You are absolutely correct, my dear friend!” Zenji remarked “However, we can’t possibly figure out the true essence of your situation if you can't tell us the whole entire story! How can we write an ending without knowing the beginning and the middle of the plot?”

“I don’t know…” Subaru murmured, looking more miserable with each second.

Haku sighed loudly, shifting his legs on the seat.

“Subaru. We don't want to gossip. We just want to know the situation better. We are their friends as well, you know?” he smirked “We can help you figure out their emotions. If anything, you might feel better after venting. How’s that phrase? A burden shared…”

“Is a burden halved!” Zenji finished, boisterously.

A pang resounded in Subaru's heart at how his friends were doing their best to help him.

“O…okay. I'll tell you”

After finishing recounting the last day he saw you, Subaru sighed loudly.

“Well?”

After a moment of silence, Zenji exclaimed loudly, startling the other two.

“Oh!! The spring begins!!” he yelled, one hand on his chest as the other went up in the air “How lovely it is to see young buds bloom into perfect flowers!!”

Haku slowly nodded at Zenji’s words and chuckled, rubbing his own face in disbelief while he noticed how absolutely perplexed and confused Subaru still was.

“I see now…”

“What?” the brown-haired boy fidgeted, almost desperate to grab Haku and Zenji and shake them by their shoulders “What's going on?”

The other boys looked at each other, before turning back to him. 

“Subaru, I don’t want to beat around the bush so I’m just gonna say it straight away. They're like… very much in love with you.”

He blinked slowly, as if the words were entering his brain at a snail’s pace.

“What?” was all he managed to utter.

“Yes, my friend! Our lovely flower seems to be completely smitten by you!”

“No” Subaru shook his head “That can't be. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Man, if there’s one thing that makes sense in the world, is what we’re telling you right now” Haku said, while laughing “Specially after everything you said you saw. You just… saw their feelings when they weren't ready to tell you yet, so I bet it feels embarrassing. It's probably eating them alive right now. That’s why they’re not visiting.”

Subaru stared at his own lap, his mind not properly processing the depth of the situation – the word “Love” bouncing in his brain like a lost temari.

“Then…” he whispered, throat hoarse “What should I do now?”

“What do you feel for our little flower, my friend? Do you correspond to their feelings? Do you love them back?” Zenji worded gently, as if he was talking to a scared wild animal.

“Do I love them back…” 

Haku nudged Zenji, motioning for both of them to get up and leave Subaru for the moment.

“Figure that out first. If you do, go after them and tell them you correspond to their feelings. If not, just let them deal with it on their own. Also, if you don’t like them back, don’t ask for them to come visit you again like nothing ever happened. You’d just be rubbing salt on their wounds.”

“How do I figure that out though?” Subaru looked up at the two men as they leisurely walked outside of his room, eyes already brimming with tears.

“You're a smart guy. You'll figure that out by yourself.” Haku winked at him and both him and Zenji slipped away, leaving Subaru at a loss.

Subaru did his due diligence the only way he knew how: by studying. He started reading romance mangas and watching romance movies. It was the type of media his family would never approve of, as they deemed it unworthy of someone refined like him.

Still, despite him thinking that that “forbidden knowledge” would give him all the answers, it still led him nowhere.

He wasn’t like any male lead from these works. He could never run after someone in an airport and yell their name, begging them to stay and forgo all of their life plans. Subaru wasn’t like that. He couldn't run, couldn't yell and could never see himself as more important than anything.

His self-esteem wasn’t nearly as good as what was necessary for him to feel even the slightest kinship towards the strong, bold male leads, who always had something impressive to show – something that made them who they are, even if they had failures in their personalities.

Subaru could say he had his career as a Kabuki actor as something impressive, but again, it wasn’t him. Kabuki was a part of him, yes, but he wanted to shed it like a cocoon.

Despite that, he thought, then, of all the romantic plays he had performed.

He remembered the pain of most love stories, the tragic end of most sewamono plays he performed and he felt the thorns of grief strangle his chest, tightly.

He remembered the star crossed lovers who could never be together, the man who was promised to someone else and couldn’t be with his beloved, and the woman who had her life binded to a place that would never let her be with the one she desired the most.

All of them, lovers who could never be together, so they chose to erase their own light, because being without one another was more painful than dying together.

Subaru thought about not having you in his life for a moment and he figured: maybe not having you was its own type of death. A life without his most beloved friend felt like an empty one. A loveless one.

He paused.

Love. He thought of this word so candidly, it came to his mind without conscious thought – like it was second nature, like it was the obvious conclusion. And so, he decided to allow his thoughts to flow naturally, without pressure or expectations for once.

He thought of the way he searched for your gaze whenever you two were in public, seeking your comfort and approval. 

His heart skipped a beat whenever he glanced at you and you found his eyes, smiling silently at him, as if you two had a secret inside joke. 

His chest swelled with pride whenever you agreed with him (it didn’t matter the subject) and he almost felt like he could burst with it whenever you thanked him for his help studying, or when you praised him, or when you giggled at something he said.

Subaru cared for your tastes and opinions, always asking for your favorite foods, flowers, scents and colors. He made sure to smother you in your favorite things, in order to keep you more comfortable – in order to keep you with him just a little longer everyday.

His thoughts wandered over to you at any given moment and he didn't even notice. He'd question himself whether you'd like something, which sweets he could order for you, which teas he could brew.

Without noticing, he based his life around you and it felt absolutely right when he did that. It felt like belonging somewhere.

Subaru inhaled sharply.

The place in which he belongs is wherever you are, he figured.

Subaru hastily got up and bolted out of his room, out of Hotarubi and into Darkwick's campus, where the rain was pouring heavily, accumulating around the lamp posts and pitter-pattering loudly on the asphalt. His clothes were drenched in mere seconds.

He had forgotten his umbrella.

Subaru banged as loud as he could on the door of the rundown cathedral, trying to blink away the raindrops that stuck to his eyelashes and blurred his vision. He could barely see through the heavy rain anyway, so he missed the lights on the windows flickering on and your shadow hurriedly descending the stairs to walk towards the tall doors.

“Subaru?!” you yelled through the sounds of the storm, his hands still raised in fists, ready to keep on banging at the door. “Oh my goodness, Subaru, you’re drenched!”

You pulled him by his uniform’s sleeve, doing your best to avoid touching him without his consent. ‘Always so thoughtful’ he thought to himself, feeling a little floaty after finally seeing you after a whole week.

With his realization, the dam that was keeping his feelings for you safely contained inside a hidden part of himself was no more.

Subaru acknowledged that he was madly in love with you and he immediately began feeling foolish. His fingers itched to touch you despite his fears and he could look at you for hours on end, drinking every detail and every mannerism.

It was like admitting his love was also letting go of his self control. He felt like something inside him nudged him to be as close to you as possible and it flustered him.

No wonder the movies and mangas said that being in love made people a bit sillier, a bit dumber. But the extent of it was almost ridiculous.

He followed you like a lost puppy when you motioned for him to come with you, and soon you two found yourselves in the kitchen.

“Okay” you let out a loud exhale “This is the warmest place in this dorm. You’re lucky I was already making myself some tea. Also, I’m gonna bring some towels and a change of clothes for you, although I might not have something that’s your size. Geez, Subaru, what were you thinking, walking all the way here in this storm? And this late? Without an umbrella!” you rambled on and on, pouring boiling water into a mug for him to drink and dipping a tea bag inside, carelessly.

Subaru grabbed the warm mug and looked at you, with saddened eyes that felt like an arrow through your heart.

“I missed you.”

You took a long breath as you heard the words coming out of his lips, and stared at him, dumbfounded, like he had suddenly grown a second head. You were about to reply, when Subaru shivered intensely despite the warmth of the kitchen, and you came back to your senses, walking briskly towards your room, in order to fetch the towels, leaving his words unanswered.

Subaru sipped on the tea, suddenly every insecurity bubbling up to the surface while he waited for you to return. What if he totally misunderstood your memories? What if you just loved him as a friend and nothing else, what if Haku and Zenji were totally wrong, what if what if what if-

The sound of your hurried footsteps interrupted the avalanche of thoughts that were most definitely about to bury him under a panic attack. He focused on your silhouette approaching him with a handful of towels and what appeared to be a big nightgown.

“Okay, let's get you near the stove.” You said, beckoning him to sit where you were standing.

As soon as he sat down again, you covered his head with a towel and began drying him up as best as you could. Subaru focused on the feeling of the soft fabric rubbing against his head, and then his neck and his arms.

“I'm gonna turn around and close my eyes. Meanwhile, please try to dry yourself properly and then put on this nightgown I found, okay?” you said, quickly turning around on your feet, not waiting for his input.

Subaru stared at your back for a moment, and began doing as he was told – the thoughts that were plaguing him calming down and silencing on your presence, as if you were a protective charm. His protective charm.

“I'm done” he muttered, hair still dripping, but mostly dry when it came to his whole body.

You sighed, looking at his wet mop of hair and began drying him again, in silence.

“I’m sorry for touching you” Subaru was the one who first broke the comfortable stillness between you two. 

“You know I’m not mad at you because of that, right?” you replied.

“You disappeared” he stares at you, the hurt in his eyes clear as spring water.

“I know, and I'm…” a beat passes by, longer than it actually was “I apologize. I know running away isn't the best approach, but that was all I came up with.”

Subaru stayed silent, as if he was waiting for you to complete your answer.

“It's just… I can imagine what you saw and I wasn't ready to discuss it yet.” you finished, shoulders slumping after you finish drying his hair.

Subaru moved a few strands of his brown hair away from his eyes.

“What do you think I saw?”

You glared at him, cocking an eyebrow at the question that sounded way too much like a tease.

“I don't think you’re in a position to ask questions like that, are you?” you replied, unintentionally snappy.

“Oh, I'm sorry… it truly wasn't my intention”

But it was Subaru that was standing before you, not anyone else. Truthfully, you knew he would never in a million lifetimes think of teasing you on purpose. It was one of the reasons why you ended up so lost in your feelings for him.

You sighed, more in frustration with yourself than anything else.

“I know, I’m just… Look, Subaru… I'm sorry too.”

It was his turn to raise his eyebrows, but in confusion.

“For what?”

You chewed on your bottom lip, avoiding his eyes even though you were standing so close to his sitting form that his whole presence overwhelmed you. 

“For putting this burden on you. I know you saw my… like…”

He waited yet again for you to finish.

“I know you saw my feelings for you.”

Subaru could immediately feel a warmth spread through his chest, cheeks and ears at your words. So he wasn't mistaken? So you liked him back? Truly?

“But I didn't want to burden you with them.”

The smile that was tugging at the corner of his lips suddenly dissolved into nothing.

“B-burden me?”

You pursed your lips, transferring your weight between your legs, back and forth, back and forth, anxiety clear on your face as you thought of how you could tell him what was on your mind.

“I didn't want to ruin what we have, I think? But there's no point in hiding now, right?” You chuckled nervously “I mean, you already know, but I really like you, Subaru. If I ruined our friendship because I got too greedy, I think I wouldn't be able to handle it.”

You looked at him, eyes swirling with emotion and, for a second, Subaru thought this could all be a dream – the only thing that confirmed otherwise being the uncomfortable chill of his body, a sign of a fever approaching.

“Everything you do… every interaction we have, I just get more and more in love” you cringed at how emotional your own words sounded “But I am so scared of your rejection. I think in part I was hoping you'd forget about that incident during my time away from you. I didn’t imagine you’d come after me.”

Subaru's heart beat drummed loudly and fast inside his chest, although he tried to keep it hidden (his face betrayed him, however).

“Did you think of me while you were away?” He managed to mutter.

“Are you kidding me?” you laughed, breathlessly “You were all I thought about this whole week.”

His ears burned red.

“I… thought about you all the time too.” he mumbled, gaze fixed on his own hands.

“What?”

He took a sharp breath and steadied himself, training his eyes on you as he spoke his next words.

“I'm so… I'm so sorry I'm not good with emotions and I'm sorry that it took me a whole week to understand things when I could have relieved you of this earlier but… I figured it out. I finally did.”

“Figured out what?” you tilted your head to the side and his chest warmed once again at the effortlessly cute gesture, giving him even more certainty to keep saying what he had to say.

“I like… no… I love you too.” he watched the way your eyes widened and darted all over his face, as if to search for a sign of truth behind his words.

“I am so blind and afraid of other people that it took me that long” he proceeded “But I know now. I.. I really do love you and I don't want to be away from you any longer. You don't have to stay away anymore. So please.” He got up from his seat and took a small step towards you “Please don't leave me behind like that anymore.”

You shook your head, tears welling up on your eyes, his intensity squeezing your lungs until you thought you could die, breathless, his eyes stealing every ounce of air from you.

“Subaru… Please… please don't tell me you're doing this to appease me.”

He paused.

The thought of you not believing in his words tugged a little at his heartstrings, but he also couldn't blame you. Not when he was so unsure of all of his feelings on a daily basis, towards everyone and everything, and you were the main witness of the way he clumsily stumbled his way into understanding himself.

He was absolutely sure of this, though.

“I'm not.” he said, voice steady as he looked at you.

“Because if you're saying this just because you want to keep me close, I would never be able to forgive you.” You looked away from him, pain over this imaginary scenario clouding your face. It was the time for him to extinguish your anxieties and insecurities for once.

“I'm not.” He took a step closer towards you.

“Please… don’t try to please me if you don't truly feel the same way.” You shut your eyes tightly, throat clenching as you felt the tears threaten to fall.

“Look at me.” He pleaded, and you hesitantly complied, breath hitching on your throat when you noticed how close he was standing to you “I promise you. I'm not.”

Subaru leaned forward, capturing your lips into a quick, chaste kiss, a fire burning on his cheeks at his own boldness.

He was still afraid of his stigma and how it would work with the other parts of his body besides his hands, but once he noticed he was still grounded in reality and not locked in another memory of yours, he got a bit bolder once again, and kissed you for just a little longer, lips melding together just a little more. The softness of your kiss made him sigh and his heartbeat deafened his ears. 

He tentatively rested his forehead on yours once the innocent kiss was broken.

The first thing he noticed was the warmth you radiated while he stood near you. Both of you had beet red faces and your minds were hazy, as if they were made of clouds.

You were the first to come back to reality and giggle at how overwhelmed both of you were with just a little kiss.

Slowly, hesitantly, your hand came up to cup his cheek, and he leaned into your touch like a cat.

“The stigma?” you whispered

“Not activated”

“Good.”

Your other hand came up to run your fingers through his hair, on his nose, on his chin. 

“Do you believe me now?” Subaru asked, wholeheartedly.

“Maybe, I think I'm going to need a few more kisses to fully believe you.” you smiled, teasing him a little bit.

“Really?” He leaned away to look at your eyes, still a bit worried he hadn’t convinced you yet.

“No” you snorted “I'm just joking.”

“Oh I see… sorry I didn't get it right away” he furrowed his brows, apologetically.

“I don't mind getting more kisses though!” you squeezed his shoulders, reassuring.

Subaru chuckled, still a bit flustered at your proximity. Suddenly, however, he scrunched his nose and stepped backwards.

“Subaru?”

“Oh. Oh, I think I'm gonna–” Subaru quickly turned around and sneezed into the towel that still hung on his shoulders “Oh-oh. I think I'm getting a bit sick.” he said, nasally, nose dripping a little bit as he sniffed loudly, back still turned towards you.

You fretted, hovering all around him as you scolded the poor boy.

“See! What did I tell you!” You quickly placed your hand on his forehead and gasped “Let's get you to bed right now, Subaru. You're already feverish!”

You pulled him quickly towards your room, hearing his wheezes as both of you climbed the stairs that led to your quarters.

“But I don't regret what I did” he stifled another sneeze “I needed to talk to you.”

You blushed, opening the door to your room, and glared at him.

“And now you're sick…”

You two climbed the stairs to your lofted bed and you pulled the covers, motioning for him to lay down.

He sat on your bed and looked at you, puppy eyes blinking his allergy tears away.

“But… it kinda looked like a movie thing, didn't it…?” he said, sheepishly.

You pushed him towards your pillows and covered him thoroughly, pouting a bit.

“I think it did…” you stared at the giddy smile that tugged on his lips and sighed, shaking your head.

“I'm going to be down there” you pointed to the bottom of your room “So if you need anything, I'll be here. I'll just grab you some water and medicine and come back quickly, okay?”

You got up, but as you began to leave, Subaru held your hand. His eyes were already droopy, the events of the day getting to him, along with the cold that was quickly racking his body.

“Are you going to start visiting me again?” he asked quietly.

You felt your heart skip a beat as you looked at his sleepy face, the question making you fall even deeper in love with the adorable boy in front of you, if that could be even possible.

You nodded.

“Everyday, for as long as you want me near you.” you said quietly as well.

He shifted on the bed, snuggling closer to the blankets, and closed his eyes, letting sleep wash over him.

“Forever, then.” he mumbled, and, soon afterwards, began snoring softly.

[rr311]

katsuki bakugo & izuku midoriya

↳ a.n ; i’m feeling a bit angsty tonight :3. also it’s like 11, I wrote this half awake so i’ll edit this when I can but enjoy. 🫦

katsuki | katsuki didn’t handle your death lightly. his whole attitude had took a heavy turn since your death. he’s gotten a lot more aggressive, more meaner, cold..he barley talked to kirishima or denki or anyone at most either ignoring them or giving them short answers. his temper has also gotten much shorter, he would snap even at the smallest things. the class knew katsuki was grieving over your death— everyone else was too but he wasn’t handling it very good. they knew where he was coming from, you both grew up with one another. you guys got into u.a together, you did everything together. you two had such an unbreakable bond, you were the fire that kept him going most of the times..but when that fire went out? so did he.

every night he had dreams about that day. you’re all bloody, laying in his arms with fatal wounds, as you took your final breaths. your last words..those last moments kept repeating constantly in his head, “I..I love you…ka—suki..” you kept that same smile on your face weven when death was consuming you. your hand resting weakly on his cheek as he shook his head shouting for you to keep your eyes open, his voice started to fade slowly away as you reached your time. the last thing he saw on your face was your perfect smile. what ate him up the most was the fact he never got to tell you he loved you back. that’s what’s eating him alive every-night. opening his eyes wide and big, panting heavily with tears coming down his face.

his hands in search for you but when he felt your cold side..it reminded him. you’re gone. you weren’t coming back. he couldn’t sleep half nights, going into classes with bags under his eyes.. more quieter than usual. no matter how much he thought about you, your smile, your pretty face..you weren’t coming back. sleepless nights he would try to hold back his tears to stay strong but he couldn’t. he missed you so fucking back..your dumb jokes, your annoying kisses, your pretty laugh?. all he had left of you was one part of your costume that wasn’t ripped to shreds, it was your scarf. as he held it in his hand he held it tight letting his muffle cry’s sink through the cold night.

Izuku | he didn’t handle it well. he stopped talking to everyone. ever since your funeral he hasn’t been the same, seeing you lay lifeless in front of his eyes deepened his heart into a dark place. he would barley eat, he would barley socialize, everyone was worried about Izuku but he would always say. “I’m fine!.” with a big smile on his face but they knew he wasn’t fine. he was grieving. heavily. throughout trainings he would push himself, overwork himself as he remembered your final moment where you died in his arms. costume torn, blood everywhere, seeping out of you as he tried to stop it. he tears hitting your face as you smiled weakly putting a hand on his cheek as he placed his on top of yours, “I-Izu—ku..” you said weakly, a choked gasp, “I’m here! I’m here..don’t go..please!.” he begged and begged, you could only smile so brightly at him, taking big breaths as your mind became fuzzy, “I-I will always..b..e with you..” his heart dropped more and more as his grip on you tightened shaking his head, putting more pressure on your wound. “don’t say that!you’ll be ok..y-you’ll be ok..” you gave an airy chuckle, “I..lo..ve you..Izu..ku..” those were your final words to him. his mind was clouded with that moment, still visualizing seeing your blooded body laying with him.

he was lost into his thoughts, he couldn’t hear what bakugo was trying to say to him, he just kept throwing an attack after an attack. his memory was fuzzing up with that exact moment, he couldn’t get it out of his head!. it was chewing him alive, he was angry, he was sad—. what seemed like forever to get ahold of Izuku he was snapped out of his thoughts by one of the welders speaking to him. when he realized what happened, he seen a shocked bakugo who didn’t say much but just look at him, he then looked at all might who looked worried. he slowly floated down, landing on the ground mumbling a small sorry, before rushing away from the training ground ignoring all mights call. he wasn’t his normal happy self, he went deep in a dark hole suffocating with this burden attached to him.

the burden of not being there to protect you from getting killed. his fist’s clenches against the piece of fabric that was left from your suit. it was still dirty and bloody from the battle, memories kept going through his head as he tried to not think about it but he couldn’t. the moment the first welder told him, “it’s ok to cry when you lose someone that you care for deeply. it’s ok to let go, izuku.” the tears he tried keeping locked away fell down his face, the fabric he held in his hand tightened as he broke down. you both practically grew up with each other, did everything together, when you died..he felt like a piece of him was gone. you were gone. no matter how many times he’s shouted for you to open your eyes…you weren’t coming back.

[hypewinter]

Bruce sighed. He was in over his head. Wayyyy over his head. Honestly he only had himself to blame. Really what was he thinking? He'd taken in one child and suddenly thought he was an expert in traumatized youths? He'd been overconfident and rash and now Danny was suffering for it and would probably hate him forever now and-

"I can hear you fidgeting through the door!" Came a voice that broke Bruce out of his spiral. There was a shuffle before the heavy wooden door swung open. A boy with floppy black hair and ice blue eyes stared up at him.

"You could've just knocked ya know?" Danny said.

Bruce fidgeted a little more, embarrassed that he'd been caught. "Bu- I thought you were-"

"Still mad at you?" Danny interrupted. "Yeah, I can tell by your face. You didn't even bother to wipe off your eyeshadow."

It was true. Bruce had rushed through patrol and gotten back home as quickly as possible. He'd barely shed his armor as he practically tripped over himself trying to get up to Danny's room. He had come up with and memorized the perfect apology to smooth things over between the two of them and had been dying to get it out before he messed anything else up. But now all the words he'd rehearsed left him.

"Wait. You're not angry?"

Danny leveled him with a blank stare as he leaned on the door frame. "Oh I'm always angry. Just not at you. At least not right now."

Upon seeing Bruce struggle to form words, Danny continued. "You were right," he said. "I shouldn't have beat up Dylan and his little minions. I knew they were intentionally trying to goad me into hitting them and I did it anyway. I-I'm sorry."

For the first time since their conversation began, Danny looked away. His look of mild annoyance was now replaced with one of shame.

"I just- they were making fun of my family. Saying stuff like 'they were small town trash and no one would miss them'. And that comment just set me off." Tears were now springing to Danny's eyes as anger took over his features.

Danny's hands balled into fists as he continued. "I couldn't just let that go. Especially not when they're the ones that are trash. They're so bothered by a 'commoner' wearing the same uniform as them that they feel the need to persistently bully me even when I have nothing to do with them. We don't share any classes, I eat lunch alone, I'm not in any clubs or extracurriculars and if I had a choice I wouldn't even be going to that damn school to begin with!"

Tears were freely streaming down Danny's cheeks as he stopped to catch his breath. His whole body was shuddering with fury. Bruce carefully put a hand on the boy's shoulder, ready to back off if Danny pulled away but he leaned in instead. Given the go ahead, Bruce carefully pulled Danny into a hug, slowly patting his back.

It took a while before either of them spoke. "I know what they said was out of line," Bruce started. "And trust me, they'll definitely receive punishment. But-"

"I know, I know," Danny murmured, turning his face to the side while still clutching onto Bruce's shirt. "Sending 5 boys to the hospital with my training is still bad."

After staying like that for a while, Danny finally looked up at Bruce. "Am I gonna be expelled?" he asked.

Bruce gave a soft smile. "Don't worry. You'll be fine. I promise."

Danny finally pulled away, rubbing at his face with his sleeve and returned Bruce's smile with a toothy one of his own. "You're gonna bribe them or something aren't you? There's gonna be a conveniently placed donation or something. You're just like those rich pricks," he teased.

"Heyyyy! How come Danny gets to cuss?" came a small voice from beyond the shadows of Danny's room. Soon enough, Dick made himself seen, Zitka cradled in his arms as he sleepily stolled forth.

"He's not," Bruce answered quickly. They had just convinced Dick to use more "colorful" insults as opposed to outright cursing and Bruce for one was not willing to face Alfred's wrath if he reverted back. A side glance at Danny told him the exact same thought was running through the boy's mind too. Leave it to Alfred to put the fear of God into two vigilantes who beat up criminals every night.

Dick yawned as he reached out for Bruce. "Then why'd he just say-"

"Don't tell Alfred and you'll have my dessert for a week," Danny interrupted in a panic.

Dick grinned. "Deal," he said as Bruce picked him up. The little boy blinked his eyes a few times before falling back asleep in Bruce's embrace.

Danny halfheartedly glared at the sleeping child. "I swear that kid is gonna grow up to be a politician the way he manipulates like that."

All Bruce could do was sigh. After all Danny was probably onto something. Dick knew very well the influence he had on others and never shied away from using it. It was very likely that he would be holding this particular little incident over their heads for at least the next two weeks.

Bruce looked at Danny, a thought suddenly dawning on him. "Why was Dick sleeping in your room? Did he have a nightmare again?" he asked, shifting the conversation.

Danny shook his head. "Nah. He just insisted that we both make up. He wouldn't leave until I agreed. That kid really doesn't know the meaning of 'no'."

Bruce felt his heart melt as he looked down at the boy in his arms. Why was Dick such a sweet child?

Danny grinned as he started heading downstairs. "Don't get all sappy yet. He was also walking me through his plan of how he got back at Dylan and his gang for my suspension."

The smile dropped from Bruce's face. "Wh... what do you mean revenge? Danny? Danny!?"

I told y'all I'd do it myself if I had to.

[soapssuds]

hihihi hruuu

Could you pretty please write something where megumi accidentally makes reader cry and then immediately feels bad abt it because I love megumi and I also love hurt/comfort

It's been awhile since I wrote anything for Fushiguro, so I hope I don't disappoint <3

Fushiguro x Reader, Hurt/Comfort

“No, I would never date them. They’re too annoying. Always so loud and clingy too. I would be exhausted just dealing with them.”

“Hey! Isn’t that a bit harsh? Even for you.”

Fushiguro merely rolled his eyes. What started as a meaningless conversation at a sleepover in your room quickly turned into gossiping. And, like any sleepover, love was in the air as Kugisaki and Itadori couldn’t help but to bring up the topic when you left to get more popcorn for the group.

“So, you’re telling me that you feel absolutely nothing for them?”

“Yeah, aren’t you two childhood friends?”

“They merely clung to me throughout school. Nothing more, nothing less.”

As for you? You were waiting behind the door, listening to everything. You didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but it was your room after all. How were you supposed to know that your childhood best friend, the exact same person you had a long-time crush on, was telling your other friends how annoying you are and that a relationship between you two will be nonexistent from now and long into the future.

You stood behind the door, frozen in shock, as Fushiguro's words hit you like a ton of bricks. The popcorn in your hands suddenly felt heavy, and your heart sank as you realized that your feelings for him were not reciprocated. Tears welled up in your eyes, but you quickly wiped them away, not wanting your friends to see you upset.

Taking a deep breath, you composed yourself and walked back into the room, trying to act as if you hadn't heard anything. But the atmosphere had changed, and Fushiguro's words lingered in the air, casting a shadow over the rest of the night.

As the evening wore on, you tried to act normal, laughing at jokes and joining in the conversations. But inside, you were hurting, trying to come to terms with the fact that Fushiguro saw you only as a clingy childhood friend, nothing more.

Eventually, the sleepover came to an end, and your friends left, leaving you alone in your room. You sat on your bed, staring at the ceiling, feeling a mix of sadness and anger. How could Fushiguro say those things about you? Didn't he know how much you cared about him?

But deep down, you knew that you couldn't force someone to feel a certain way about you. You had to accept that Fushiguro didn't see you in the same light that you saw him. It was a painful realization, but one that you knew you had to come to terms with.

As you lay in bed, thoughts swirling in your head, you made a decision. You wouldn't let Fushiguro's words define you. You would continue to be the kind, caring person that you were, regardless of how he saw you. And maybe, just maybe, someday he would see you in a different light. But until then, you would focus on loving yourself and moving forward, even if it meant letting go of your feelings for him.

Though, you did worry about what tomorrow would bring…

The next day weighed heavily on your mind as you tried to push away thoughts of Fushiguro's words. You couldn't shake the feeling of hurt and betrayal, even though you knew deep down that he had the right to his own feelings.

As you went about your day, you couldn't help but notice the looks from your friends. They seemed to sense that something was off, but you brushed off their concerns with a forced smile. You didn't want to burden them with your feelings, especially when it seemed like they were already tiptoeing around you.

During classes, you found it hard to concentrate, your mind wandering back to the sleepover and the conversation you overheard. (You were also surprised that no one seemed to bother you, not even Gojo-sensei.) You wondered if Fushiguro regretted his words or if he even realized how much they had hurt you. But you pushed those thoughts away, knowing that dwelling on them would only make you feel worse.

After school and a short mission, you decided to take a walk to clear your head. The cool breeze and the sound of birds chirping provided some solace, and you found yourself reflecting on your friendship with Fushiguro. Despite everything, you knew that your bond was strong, and you hoped that it would endure this rough patch.

As you walked, you made a decision. You would confront Fushiguro and tell him how his words had made you feel. You didn't expect him to reciprocate your feelings, but you wanted him to know the impact of his words. You needed closure, even if it meant facing more pain.

When you arrived at your room, you found Fushiguro waiting for you outside your door, a solemn expression on his face. He looked like he had been waiting for this moment, and you knew that it was time to have a difficult conversation.

You had been distant and out of it all day, and Fushiguro noticed. As you approached your dorm room, he called out to you, his voice tinged with concern. As you had got closer you found that you didn’t have the courage to face him yet despite hiding how you felt really well so far.

"Can we talk?"

You ultimately decided to face him, and the concern in his eyes softened your resolve to run away. You nodded, silently inviting him to speak. But you didn't dare open you door. You didn't want to let him in there again. Not yet at least. Whatever he had to say can be done in the hallway (you just hoped Kugisaki wouldn't walk by...).

"You've been acting strange all day. Is everything okay?"

At his words, you finally felt your resolve break as the tears immediately started falling. One second you were fine, but the next moment your eyes felt wet, and seeing you break out into tears caused his eyes to widen, “What-“

"I overheard what you said last night, Fushiguro. About me being annoying and clingy. It really hurt,” your voice sounded shaky as you tried to speak.

“I-“

“I know I can be a bit much sometimes, but I really thought you were my friend, and to think that I- I actually loved you too.”

Fushiguro's expression fell, realizing the impact of his words.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

“Then why did you say it.”

“I don’t like those two getting in my personal business, and, well, you already know what it’s like trying to get me to open up,” he smiled slightly, trying to make a joke as he nudged his foot with yours.

“Yeah, you’re an absolute ass sometimes.”

“Only sometimes.”

You frowned, but the tension between you had already started to dissipate, “you’re right, I meant all the time.”

Fushiguro squeezed your hand gently. "I'll try to be better. I value our friendship more than anything. Can you forgive me?"

You looked into his eyes, seeing the sincerity and regret there. Despite the hurt, you knew that Fushiguro was truly sorry. With a sigh, you nodded.

"I'll forgive you, Fushiguro. But please, don't ever say something like that again. It really hurt."

"I won't," Fushiguro promised. "I'll do whatever it takes to make it right."

As you stood there, holding hands with Fushiguro, you felt a weight lift off your shoulders. You knew that healing would take time, but you also knew that your friendship with Fushiguro was strong enough to withstand this rough patch.

Not to mention that you knew that your feelings for Fushiguro were still there and that even though he didn’t quite acknowledge the fact that you said that you loved him, you were thankful. You didn’t want to be rejected after you just made up with him after all.

And who knows…maybe Fushiguro feels the same.

[ofoceansandtombsanew]

the summer moon was born from the waves to be loved (gojo x reader)

or, you got pregnant and the ghost of university days past finds out five years later.

tags: afab!reader (she/her), mentions of pregnancy, sometimes self-care is writing a fic with a messy premise, unbeta’d i’ll go back and fix things i just want this out of my drafts

AO3 || pt 2

o. ghost

This felt like something out of a bad movie.

One of those “yeah, that’s me. The one looking like she just shit herself because the ghost of Christmas past just showed up” kinds of movies. The ghost of Christmas past whom you haven’t seen in the last five years.

The ghost of Christmas past that your daughter looks at curiously, wondering who put you in such a stupor as she asks sweetly, “who’s he, Mommy?”

The ghost of Christmas past whose face is unreadable as he looks at Itsuki before he settles his gaze on you. “Yeah, [First],” the ghost asks. “Who am I?”

Where did I go wrong?

A rhetorical question. 

A lot in life has to go wrong for a man you thought you left in your memories to show up at your doorstep but you can pinpoint the exact moment in time in which you screwed up. It’s all because you sat next to Ieiri Shoko in your mandatory calculus class. If it weren’t for that, none of this would be happening.

No, that isn’t it. Your gaze turns to Itsuki, who looks back at you with familiar light blue eyes and white hair. She may have gotten the Gojou Satoru eye and hair colors, but her hair texture and skin tone both pointed to you. If I sat anywhere else she wouldn’t be here. And even if you knew that sitting next to Shoko meant meeting the world’s most aggravating man you could have fallen for, you feel like you would have taken that path once again.

No, sitting next to Shoko wasn’t where you messed up all those years agoー it was telling her you were pregnant in the first place.

i. spring tide

When you met Gojou Satoru, you considered it a godsend.

Not because his eyes were a rare shade of blue that most would kill to have. Not because he was drop dead gorgeous and the last person you were expecting to see when your classmate Shoko invited you to eat lunch with her and a couple friends.

The reason was a lot more simple thatー he was the first person you’d met in years that had watched and liked Digimon more than Pokemon. I am so glad I sat next to that Shoko girl, you thought in gleeful disbelief as he told you his personal favorites before flipping the question onto you. “I’m basic,” you told him with a laugh. “I’ve been riding the wave of Gatomon love since I was 7.”

Getou Suguru, Satoru’s childhood best friend from what you’d gathered, groaned, “please don’t make him continue with your excitement.”

“Ignore him,” Satoru pushed Suguru’s face away with all the nonchalance in the world. “He thinks Digimon is stupid.”

“It’s a Pokemon bootleg!” Suguru shot back with a sly smile.

In unison, you and Satoru gasped in disbelief and offense. “Boy bye! You can talk all the shit you want about Digimon, I can rest every night at ease knowing if my house were on fire Agumon would be able to say ‘[First], your house is on fire’,” you sneered in jest at the man, Satoru clapping in agreement all the while at your defense. “You don’t get that kind of insurance with Pikachu! ‘Pika pika’ could mean so many things!”

“Where have you been all my life?” Satoru snickered, holding his hand out for a high five you reciprocated with complete enthusiasm.

“Watching Digimon by myself,” you laughed, whipping out your phone. You needed this man’s number stat. “The next time I have a Digimon rewatch, I’m inviting you over. Like, you don’t have the option to refuse, you’ve doomed yourself.”

Satoru’s eyes were gleaming from his lowered shades, “funny, I was about to say the exact same thing to you,” he glanced over at Suguru with a teasing look. “Friendship ended with Suguru, [First] is my new best friend,” the white-haired student declared as he typed his number into your phone.

He labeled himself Digidestined Satoru, sending a text to himself: This is coming from the phone of Digidestined [First]. Your cheeks hurt from how widely you were grinning as you looked at the message. “That better be what you put me in your phone.”

“Definitely, new best friend,” Satoru promised, whipping his own phone around to show your new contact in it. Digidestined [First] it was.

Despite the apparent disownership, Suguru looked amused and unbothered, “okay but see if your ex-best friend takes notes for you if you ever take off from class.” Suddenly your new brother-in-Digimon was singing a different tune, waxing poetic about how Digimon and Pokemon were brothers from different mothers. You rolled your eyes but you’re unmistakably giddy as you watched him talk with his hands.

“There doesn’t need to bad blood between the two,” Satoru ended with a grand bow. “As such, I declare that I can have more than one best friend.”

“How did we even get on the topic of Digimon,” Shoko asked with an amused look on her face, cracking open another beer. “That was so random.”

You grabbed your own beer with a light giggle, you felt rather light compared to how you started this day. “His sunglasses had a Metal Greymon-like pattern and I had to say something about it,” you say after a few sips. “Glad I did because now I have a new brother-in-Digimon.”

Blue eyes held your gaze for a moment and you clacked your cans together in celebration.

That was how your friendship started. Clothed in beer and Digimon. It took about a week before he swept over to your place, seeking out the promise to watch Digimon together. If you can really call what you did watching, you spent more than half of the time talking over the episodes about miscellaneous topics than actually watching Tai and the gang try to get back to the physical world.

He’d known Suguru since he was 5.

(“We got into a fight on the playground. I wanted the swing and he wouldn’t get off. So I kicked him and he threw sand at my face, we’ve been buddies ever since.”

“I have a lot of questions about how y’all went from trying to kill each other to being best friends.”

“Look, don’t question our methods.”)

He was a December Sagittarius, born December 7th.

(”Yeah, I can tell!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”)

He apparently started eating sweets to stimulate his brain but ended up with a sweet tooth.

(“That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, did you get that shit from Death Note?!”

“.... no.”

“Oh my god, you did!”

“You literally got a tattoo of a butterfly because of a crush you had on Jolyne from Part 6, shut up!”

“Satoru, don’t play these games with me.”)

He sounded eerily similar to Bruno Bucciarati from part 5 of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.

(”Arrivederci!”

“Oh my god that’s insane! You do! Say something else!”

“STICKY FINGERS!!!”

“PFFT-”

“See? I could totally get away with saying I voiced him and no one would bat an eyelash.”

“Who else do you sound like?”

“I’ve been told I make a great impression of Kuroo from Haikyuu!!”

He did, by the way.)

And he was currently enrolled as a business major. 

(“My old man wouldn’t get off my back about it. You?”

“Marine biology.”

“We have that program here?”)

He had a natural charisma that just drew people in, yourself included. That’s why you think it was so easy being with him, he made it feel like you’d been friends all your life even if reality said otherwise. He made everyone feel like that, that’s why he’d always be surrounded by people.

Still, he’d find a way to make you feel special when his eyes would light up in recognition when he saw you wave across the room at parties.

How he’d jig across the room with those lanky limbs of his to grab you in a hug. “[First], you finally made it! Thanks for coming out of the bat cave you call a room to grace us with your presence!”

It made you feel special that you were friends with the person adored by everyone else. That’s why you could playfully push him off of you and say, “you mean the bat cave you crawl to when you lock yourself out of your room and Suguru isn’t in either?”

“I’m hurt, why are you being mean to me?” Satoru pouted batting his white eyelashes like a distressed damsel. “Don’t you know who you’re being mean to when you’re being an ass? This, this is who you’re being mean to,” he gestured to himself.

"Last week you ate my fries after I specifically said not to touch them because I counted how many I had left, I know exactly who I’m being mean to.”

“How was I supposed to know you’d count them again whenever you decided to eat them?” Your irritation from last week had long since passed though, that was why you could laugh it off with a shake of your head. Satoru was Satoru, it was what you liked most about him even if he could be a pain in the ass.

Suguru’s brown eyes twinkled as you joined the small fray of him, Shoko and Utahime in a corner of the room, “I’m just glad I’m not the only one dealing with him anymore.” Satoru suck his tongue out with a ‘rude’.

“Someone has to do the dirty work,” Shoko replied as she raised a cigarette to her lips. “it might as well be us.”

Utahime smacked the tobacco stick out of her girlfriend’s hands as she said, “I’d rather not be included in the list of people of doing the dirty work.”

“Et tu, [First], et tu?” Satoru asked when you made no effort to come to his defense.

You raised your hands in mock defense, “I have to be a little mean to you sometimes, Satoru,” you told him with a snicker. “It keeps you from getting too big an ego.”

Whether or not that was working was debatable.

The night went on smoothly until your favorite brand of beer had been noticeably picked off from the coolers.

That’s my cue to leave.

“Sorry gang, but my lips don’t touch anything but Don Equis and Asahi,” you said with an air of regality not suited for a party of college students. “Maybe Corona if there’s nothing else. I’m not drinking... whatever this is. So I’m gonna head out, there’s a 24 hour liquor store around here somewhere.”

A chorus of farewells came from your friends minus one. “You coming back?” Satoru looked over at you in earnest.

But you shook your head, “nah, I think I’m done for the night,” you told him truthfully. Your social battery was gone for the rest of the evening and home was the only place you wanted to be. “I’ll catch you guys later though,” you stood up with a stretch.

Satoru stood up with you, “I’ll walk you back to your place then.”

Which was how you ended up sipping beers at the park, laying on soft grass. It wasn’t truly quiet, not with the passing of cars and the occasional passersby but it was quiet enough compared to the welcomed ruckus of the party. “Satoru,” Satoru hummed wordlessly in acknowledgement. “Where do you see yourself in 10 years?”

“Dunno,” Satoru shrugged back pressed against the earth snuggly. “I never really got to think about it.”

He was an only child and as such the only one his parents’ turned their gaze to with pressure of taking over the family business. He confided in you ages ago how he hated it when you started seeing more sides of Satoru than the mischief-loving comedian he presented himself as.

You scooted closer to him to lean over his head, “well I think whatever you end up doing, even if it ends up really pissing off your dad, you’ll be great at it. You’re Satoru, that’s how I know you’ll be fine,” your voice held the tone of a promise. I promise you’ll be fine and you’ll be happy.

Thanks, [First]. You liked to think that was what that look on Satoru’s face meant. “I think you’ll make a great part-time aquarist, full-time whale researcher,” Satoru replied instead.

“You’re damn right I will,” you smiled warmly at him, moving a stray strand of his hair off his forehead. “Be careful I don’t disappear for months, spirited away by the sea folk on my Children of the Sea shit.” You took his sunglasses off, you had no clue how he was able to wear them 24/7. Even stranger was how he was still able to walk so easily at night despite having them on. Apparently the Gojou eye genes were built different; the colors of his eyes certainly were. “I’ll come back to shore occasionally, mysterious as the sea itself.” The sea you got to see every time you looked at his eyes, even if now they were barely visible even with the street lights.

Satoru looked back at you with a small smirk, “even if you got spirited away, I’d just go and bring you right back. Suguru’ll kill me if I try and make him watch Digimon Tamers with me again. You said it first, remember?��� His voice was low as he recalled your exact words from your first meeting. “You’ve doomed yourself. There’s no ditching me now, not even at sea.”

“I did say something like that, didn’t I,” you smiled wryly. 

He didn’t say anything back, but you could guess that he was likely thinking something along the lines ‘yep, that you did. No take backsies.’ A comfortable silence fell between the two of you, his eyes staring up at yours. It’s then you swore you saw him glance at your lips from where he laid and just when you considered the idea of kissing himー the sprinklers turned on.

Even worse, in your surprise his head clashed into yours as he tried getting up with a start.

Then there was a dash of bullshit on the side when your beers spilled over into the grass.

Great, you thought as Satoru tossed your emptied cans into a nearby trash can after you got out of the line of fire. You shook your arms, droplets of water flying off your soaked sleeves.

You should have taken that as a major sign from the universe that you would be making a mistake of gargantuan proportions if you kissed that man.

Instead, the two of you looked at each other and laughed. “God I hate this park, why do we even come here? Nothing good ever happens when we do,” Satoru said with a shake of his damp hair.

“This is the first time we’ve ever even come here,” you snickered.

“And see what a great start we’re already having with it?”

“Come on,” you tugged him by the wrist. “Let’s just change at my place, you have some clothes somewhere over there.”

A smarter person would have left it at that once you got home and showered, placing your clothes in the wash. It could have been a pleasant end to the evening, the two of you crashing on the couch while watching some dumb movie you never heard of on Netflix.

But the same atmosphere from the park came back with you when he came out of the bathroom at the same time you planned to knock on it to ask if he wanted something warm to drink. “Oh, sorry-” you say when your fist lightly landed on his chest instead of the door. “I was just gonna ask if you wanted tea or something. I bought your favorite brand of honey.”

“Sure, I’d like that,” he answered but you made no move to go to the kitchen and he made no move to ask when you would.

Who kissed who first, you weren’t sure. It didn’t really hit you that you were kissing until Satoru tore his lips from yours with a pant, “hey how drunk are you because I really just wanna make sure-”

“I’m not,” you pulled his lips back onto yours and Satoru hadn’t wasted time in hoisting you up by the legs.

ii. neap tide

When does one stop sleeping with their friend? You suppose it is probably when you realize you have feelings for them.

You didn’t do that.

If it had been anyone else doing this to themselves, you would have told them to cut the cord while the feelings were still manageable.

Or maybe you at least tell the other party how they felt.

You didn’t do that either.

Maybe that was why it was all catching up to you one day when you woke up feeling like crap. The physical manifestation of your stress coming back to bite you in the ass. Right before the trip you were planning on taking with your friends, you started feeling like crap only exacerbated when Satoru was in your presence.

But you still went despite your physically manifested stress because you’re a pushover. Or more specifically, if it involved Satoru, you folded faster than Sunday morning laundry. You had to when he looked at you in concerned disbelief you were trying to drop out of your plans last minute.

“Satoru, it isn’t the end of the world if I stay home. It’s just a week long break.”

“A week long break from your friends? From me? Your best friend?”

You struggled not to laugh, “last week you said I was kicked from that position because I watched one episode of Love is Blind without you.”

Satoru scowled at the memory, “because that’s our show, we started that together, there’s no watching ahead,” he reprimanded you. “And clearly I’ve forgiven you since you’re back in that position because I can’t believe you’re trying to leave me to survive with a couple and Suguru for a week!”

You puckered your lips and shrugged, “if it’s any consolation, Suguru is your boyfriend like 95% of the time.”

“Well right now Suguru is that asshole Kenjaku’s boyfriend and Kenjaku is supposed to be coming and I do not want to fourth wheel that by myself.”

You flicked his nose softly, “so you want me to third party fourth wheel with you so you don’t have to be alone with two couples?”

Satoru grinned and you stopped yourself from rolling your eyes. “Third party fourth wheel with benefits, yes.”

You stared at him for one, two, three seconds before you relented. “Look, I’m only going because I want the sex, not because I’m happily agreeing to fourth wheel with you.”

Satoru whooped regardless in his victory, “works for me!” He chortled as he went back to scrolling on his phone.

Silence fell over you as fiddled with your pointer finger and thumb.

“Hey,” Satoru spared a glance from whatever he was staring at on twitter. “What are we supposed to be?” Blue eyes grew to the size of saucers and you continued, “Classic no strings attached? Or is this supposed to be going somewhere?”

That made him set down his phone, “why,” he licked his lips before grinning, but it looked forced even to your eyes. “Why are you asking me that so randomly?”

You deserved an Oscar for how smoothly you delivered what came from your mouth. “Well what if the receptionist there is hot? I don’t need to make things between us awkward because it turned out we aren’t on the same page,” you thumbed behind you in the direction of the hotel. “‘What the hell, [First]’,” you deepened your voice, puckering your bottom lip as you whined. “‘I thought we had something special and you fucked the receptionist? What if they end up fucking with our reservation now?!’”

“First of all, that is not what I sound like,” Satoru stuck his tongue out at you but his shoulders were relaxed and subtle he tried to be, you could feel the relief rolling off of him in waves. “Second, fucking the receptionist does sound like a terrible idea because what if they do fuck our reservation because things go south? Just find someone at a club like the rest of us. But fucking someone else is a non-issue, get all the ass you want.”

“Well glad to know I have the Gojou Satoru thumb of approval,” you smiled and Satoru grinned in return, giving you a nudge with his elbow and you nudged him back. Underneath the calm, you were a storm of turbulent emotions. You weren’t surprised, your feelings had been confirmed. This wasn’t a Disney movie. You weren’t Tiana and he wasn’t Naveenー you weren’t going to turn this commitment-phobe into something he wasn’t. Yet the pain of the confirmation echoed in your chest. “Well, not when it comes to the receptionist.”

“Because no one fucks someone with the power of their reservation at their fingertips, that’s like,” Satoru searched his mind for the perfect example. “Handing over the poison to a chef and that chef was the person you were planning on poisoning.” So is continuing to sleep with someone who didn’t want the same things as you.

You couldn’t help laughing at your idiocy, relieved that Satoru took it as a humorous dig at his less than perfect metaphor. “I’m still fucking the receptionist if they’re hot.”

“I hope they’re married and old, how about that?”

“I’ve always liked them with a little salt and pepper. I fucked your prematurely whitening headass, didn’t I?”

“First of all, this is all natural-”

You’ve doomed yourself.

iii. red tide

Denial.

Anger.

Bargaining.

Depression.

Acceptance.

Those are the five stages of grief. It was certainly the steps that you experienced when the fact your period was late hit you while you were floating when Utahime gasped about the sea turning red.

Red tide, it was the first you’d ever seen it. But that excitement or concern about the possibility of what that meant completely subsided as you stared at the reddening shoreline when you realized a noticeable absence of red that week.

There was no way you were late for any particular reason. This was one of those flukes, your period always had a tendency to be finicky. It would be early or late at its convenience, never mind you being the one suffering. That’s why it was absolutely ludicrous that you left the beach to buy a pregnancy test.

And if you were the word you refused to think, it was your own damn fault for playing with karma the one time you decide to trust Satoru’s pullout game. Both of you were stupid, very very turned on and stupid and you should have just waited to get a condom.

But in the chance you weren’t pregnant, you swore you were going to remain celibate the rest of your university experience. You’d focus on other things, like journaling consistently like you said you would when you were writing your New Year’s revolutions.

Bargaining means nothing to biology, however, that was what you took as the universe’s answers when you were forced to look at the positive result staring back at you.

A lot of thoughts would run through a person’s head at an unplanned pregnancy resulting from a very ill-advised friends with benefits relationship.

Were you still in depression? Or had you reached acceptance yet? You weren’t entirely sure as you stared out the sparkling sea. Your sight blurring the stars above and the stars below did little reassure you as the possibilities ran through your mind.

What would you tell Satoru?

How would he react?

Would he think this was why you asked him about where your relationship was supposed to be heading?

Would assume the worst of you and accuse you of trying to trap him into a relationship when it was clearly supposed to be no strings attached from the beginning?

You didn’t know which unknown would hurt you more.

I should really decide on whether or not I’ll keep it to begin with before I start with all the scenarios, you inhaled deeply with shudder but you didn’t bother to wipe your tears. The blurriness was your own punishment. If I don’t, I never have to tell him anything. We can just cut this off and he’ll be none the wiser.

It was the most optimal scenario when you were still in college. You were barely handling the fees you currently had to pay for school, a child definitely wouldn’t help with that.

Was it too late to find something unhealthy to use as a coping mechanism?

“Yo,” you could have laughed bitterly. Of course, this is when Satoru shows up now. Right after you’ve isolated yourself away from everyone else on the more populated part of the beach. He was grinning, you could hear it in his voice. “[Fir]- hey are you alright?”

Great.

“Yeah, it’s just, you ever see something so beautiful you want to cry? It’s one of those things,” when he looked unsure, you grinned widely and wiped your tears. You didn’t need him to suspect a damn thing. “Seriously, dude, this was the reason I wanted to go into marine biology as a kid. I saw a picture of it once and decided, I wanna see that too. It’s just a surreal moment for me.”

At your reassurance, Satoru sighed, “geez, don’t freak me out like that.” You snorted as he settled next to you and you couldn’t think of anything humorous to say.

“Pretty cool, right?” The blue of the bioluminescence was reminiscent of his eyes, the thought crossed your mind now that he was in front of you.

Satoru whistled, impressed, “yeah but what is it?” He slapped a foot down on the ground, whistling again at the additional sparkling at the stimulus. “You’re the marine biologist, explain the science to me.”

“Sea sparkle,” you told him with a snort, heart drumming all the while. “I never thought I’d see something like this in my life. Red tides are signs of algal blooms are going to happen. They can be harmful but sometimes, completely harmless. This is the completely harmless kind,” a sparkling wave rolled across your feet as if to prove your point. “Well, technically harmless, there’s some conflicting evidence on whether or not it’s okay to swim in. We shouldn’t touch or swim in it to be safe. It’s just been a childhood dream of mine to do this, so don’t tell my friends in the not-dumb-scientist community. And wash your skin really really well tonight before going to bed.”

A grin blossomed on his face in his usual expression of mischief, “I ain’t no snitch.”

“Good because if you do I’m telling Shoko it was you that ate her leftovers,” you stuck your tongue out petulantly and Satoru kicked a splash at your thigh.

“Anyways,” Satoru drawled, observing the glow of his footsteps in the sand. “How long will it last?”

“It depends, sometimes a week. Sometimes a month,” definitely longer than the two of you and the situationship you’ve maintained thus far. “Once the food source runs out, they’re out. But hopefully they’ll be here the rest of our vacation, it’s pretty cool, right?”

“Yep, pretty damn cool,” he repeated like you hadn’t already asked that question earlier.

Satoru wasn’t yours, nothing was going to change that.

iv. ebb

If I’m not going to tell him, I need to leave.

That was the conclusion you came to after ultimately deciding to keep your child. Gojou Satoru wasn’t yours to keep, that was more than apparent. You wouldn’t force him to stay by means of a pregnancy.

You weren’t the first single mother in existence, you doubted you’d be the last. You’d do everything, without his help. Everything would be figured out in due time, it didn’t matter the run around you would have to take.

It took a week after the trip for you to come to that conclusion, packing your bags so you could head home. You’d transfer to a different school, there was no way you’d be able to keep a pregnancy underwraps on campus. Especially not from your friends.

You tried to distance yourself from your friends slowly, but even an inch was noticeable.

You alright?

What kind of sadists are your professors if you’re this busy?

Just let me know if you need me to come over some kind of distraction. Sorry for coming over earlier unannounced, I shouldn’t have assumed. Just wanted to make sure you were okay.

Those were the texts Satoru sent you the most. If any your friends doubted you, it seemed Satoru doubted you the most despite your reassurance that once you got your workload more manageable you’d be more available. You told him things were fine, maybe he just doubted you because you never told him he couldn’t come over whenever he felt like it. That was how things had been since you became friends.

Your place was his place, his place was yours.

That’s why Shoko had to be at your apartment, arms crossed and looking thoroughly tired.

“What’s been up with you anyway?” Shoko barged into your apartment before you could stop her. “Satoru’s been driving me insane asking me to check on you.” So she said, but you saw the worry on her face even if she tried to hide it. “So what’s going on? He says he’s pretty sure something is going on and you don’t want to tell him. Are you failing a class or something?”

“Nothing,” you told her a little too quickly and the brunette gave you a look that said ‘girl, please’. If your attempt to look as composed as possible wasn’t doing you favors, neither was how messy your room was. “Seriously, Shoko, I’m fine. Satoru’s just being overdramatic. It’s Satoru, you should know this. He went to your clinic once for almost breaking a nail.”

Shoko rolled her eyes at the memory, “yeah but now he’s pestering me to see if you’re actually fine or if you’re just trying to shut him out,” she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose before the concern peeps out of her face. “He said once in high school Suguru pushed him away and stuff went bad between them for a while. He felt like it was his fault for not trying hard enough to see what was bothering him. The rest of us are being chill about everything but we are worried too, you know. Just considerably less dramatically than others.”

That made your heart twist in both in the best and worst ways.

“It’s...” you took a step back and held yourself. “It’s fine. Tell Satoru he’s just being dramatic.”

“Then why is your suitcase out?” [Color] stared into brown as Shoko’s look told you that she wouldn’t drop it until you came clean to her. “Is it that serious? I won’t force you to talk about it, but I at least want to know how okay you are and it’s something you can manage on your own. That’s all, I promise I won’t say anything to Satoru if you really don’t want him knowing,” she’s the most gentle you’ve ever seen her. Only Utahime is privy to the softest of Shoko’s expressions but you can’t help but appreciate the look of worry she has. But I don’t want you to just up and disappear on us either.”

You opened your mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “I,” you licked your lips and sat down on your couch. “I’m thinking of transferring to another school.”

Shoko peers into your face, “and you’re worried about how we’ll take it?”

You shook your head. “I am worried about that but, I’m more worried about the why I need to leave. My parents will probably freak out too, but I’m going to promise them this isn’t going to stop me from pursuing my education.” Wide as her eyes already were, Shoko’s eyes were practically the size of dinner plates. You cut her off before she could say anything else. “I’m pregnant. I found out on the trip we took.”

...

“It’s Satoru’s,” it wasn’t a question.

Your silence was enough of an answer.

“You’re plan was to transfer schools because you don’t want to tell him you’re pregnant?” Shoko’s eyes were wide and you looked away from her. “[First], you can’t expect me to not tell him about-”

Your eyes snapped back to look at her, “you can’t tell him about this.”

Shoko shook her head, “this isn’t just your kid-”

“I’m the one who’s pregnant, I’m the one who decides what to do with it! It’s none of his business!”

Shoko probably would have slapped you if you weren’t expecting, “it’s his kid too, of course it’s his business!”

“Fine,” you muttered coldly, fixing your friend with a cold stare. “I’ll tell him if you can tell me you genuinely think it’s going to go well. That you can really Gojou Satoru dropping everything to become a father for a kid he never planned on having with someone he never planned on being with. Satoru who can’t commit to a relationship at best or won’t commit at worst,” you remember his genuine fear and subsequent genuine relief. “Hell, that he won’t think I tried babytrapping him because I asked him recently if he saw what we had going anywhere and he clearly didn’t want that.”

Shoko couldn’t say anything.

You shook your head with a humorless huff, “yeah, that’s what I thought too.” You paused to close your eyes and inhale deeply before looking at your friend once more. “I’m not telling him anything. I don’t need his help to raise this baby, I can do this myself.”

Shoko eyes are dark and you knew she was second guessing everything. “[First]-”

“You can’t tell him anything. Not even Suguru, especially not Suguru. He’d tell him right away.” Suguru was your friend, he was a great friend even. But you knew where his loyalties lied. He’d tell Satoru in a heartbeat. “Please,” you pleaded. “I’m asking you as your friend.”

Shoko reached for the pack of cigarettes sticking out of her pocket before dropping her hand to the side. Right, your pregnancy. 

You looked at her in desperation, biting your lip. “Please, I’d never ask you this if it wasn’t important. Satoru doesn’t want me,” your eyes stung at the admission even if you accepted that truth ages ago. “Not the way I want him.”

“I,” Shoko released a shaky breath. “I won’t say anything. I promise.”

You dropped out of school without a word to your friends before the month ended.

v. moon

五条・五月。

Gojou Itsuki; you considered writing that on her birth certificate when she was born. Instead, it was your last name Itsuki received.

五, that was the only part of Satoru you would give her, the ‘five’ in Gojou. You promised that little girl you would love her five times as much for his absence.

vi. flow

That all brought you back to now in the present, Gojou Satoru sitting beside you on a park bench while you daughter looked nervously between you both. “Go on then,” you sweep your hand in the direction of the swings. “I’ll be sitting right here, okay? Have some fun with the other kids.”

Yet like moth to a flame, the man with snowy white hair is all your daughter can focus on. “But who is he?”

Satoru opens parts his lips and you beat him to the introductions, “he’s just an old friend of Mama’s, that’s all. Like Aunt Shoko. We haven’t seen each other in a while and we just want to catch up, that’s all. Right?” You shoot Satoru a pleading look.

“That’s right,” Satoru beams. “Maybe I can push you on the swings later.” That makes Itsuki grin back widely. She looks so much like him that there is no denying who she is to him. You know it and so does he.

The smile drops the moment Itsuki is out of an earshot. “You really never planned to tell me about her,” his eyes that normally remind you of crystal clear seas look more akin to frigid chips of ice as he looks at you. “You stop talking to me, you block me on everything out of nowhere and when you dropped out of school, I had no idea where you were-”

“Satoru, you have to understand,” you start, it sounds weak even to you.

Satoru looks at you with a look of pure offense. You can read his mind clearly, “What is there to understand?”

“This was the best outcome for everyone involved. You, me and Itsuki.”

“That isn’t the kind of thing you decide on your own, it takes two to make a child, [First]!”

“We’re not arguing in front of my daughter, Gojou Satoru.”

“No,” the smile that spreads across Satoru’s face is feral. You’ve seen that smile before, one he had whenever he was on the brink of swinging and starting a fight. Never before had that smile been directed at you. “She’s our daughter. My daughter. And I had to find out from Shoko five years after she’s been born that she ever existed in the first place!”

“Like you wanted to be a father anyway,” you hiss, glancing at the growing concern on Itsuki’s face.

“You didn’t even bother asking me what I wanted,” Satoru snaps back. “I would have helped. I want to help.”

“I didn’t want or need your help then and I sure as hell don’t need it now,” you stand up, swinging your wrist away from the large hand that tries to stop you. “You aren’t even her birth certificate,” Satoru flinches like you shot him. “Not your name, not your birthday, not anything. Itsuki’s never even asked about her father,” a lie. It isn’t nearly so frequent as to be considered a problem, but Itsuki did ask about the whereabouts of her father every so often. “It’s just us, Itsuki, I keep telling you that.”

“Do I have another mommy then?”

“No, it’s just us.”

Still, she asks. But Gojou Satoru didn’t need to know about that. “Just go the hell away and leave us alone. I’m not asking for your help, I’ve been doing this alone so far and I plan to keep it that way.”

You take Itsuki home, telling her not to mind the sad-looking man you left on the bench.

“Before you say anything," Shoko starts when she answers the phone. “I know you’re pissed off.”

“No shit,” you all but seethe at your closest friend. Itsuki is asleep and it takes all of your willpower to not turn a firm but loud whisper into shrieks of hysteria. “Shoko, what the-”

“[First], I had to tell him,” Shoko sighs and you can practically smell the nicotine through. “I get it, you were scared back then but Satoru deserved to know he is a father. Itsuki deserves a chance to get to know her father!”

“You don’t get to decide what my kid needs,” you retort immediately. “We have been doing just fine without him in our lives and that’s how I wanted to keep it. Now she keeps asking about the man with the white hair and why he looked so sad and-”

“This isn’t one of those situations where you had a surrogate and did this all on your own, [First]. And he isn’t some random stranger you met some campus party years ago, this is a friend! Why on earth would you tell him that you never put him on the birth certificate.”

“Was. He was a friend,” you correct her. You push back the memories of late night study sessions gone awry by Satoru shoving his phone in your face to show you some video in his recommended list. You ignore the creeping reminders of sharing shit-eating grins, waiting for the moment Suguru learned that you changed his autocorrect for chocolate into something stupid. “We haven’t been friends in years, we’re just old school acquaintances at this point. You know why I never told him about her. And I said it so he would have an out; he doesn’t need to stick around to be her father.”

“And what if she gets tired of you skirting around her questions about him?” Shoko shoots back without giving you a moment to reply that you would handle it if it ever got to the point that it became a problem. “You might be able to skirt around it now but when she gets older she is going to ask and ask and askー and she is going to keep on asking before she does research of her own! There was no way you’d be able to keep this a secret for the rest of her life, what were you planning to do then?!”

“... I was going to figure that out by then.”

“Right and that was going to go by so smoothly and Itsuki wouldn’t feel hurt or betrayed you took away the choice for her to get to know her dad. That could ruin your entire relationship with her.”

“You couldn’t have at least asked?!”

“You never let me! I’m sorry, I’m sorry I betrayed your trust and said things behind your back. I told him to at least let me call and tell you that he knew, but he wanted to meet Itsuki.”

“I just...” your back hit the wall and you slid to the floor, resting your head on your knees. “I don’t know what to do. I didn’t think I would ever see him again.”

There’s silence when Shoko hesitates to reply to your tired voice, “look, I get it. As much as I can try to get it, anyway.” There is only so much that your child-free doctor of a friend can relate to when it comes to your situation. Things worked out perfectly for her when she fucked a friend, Utahime and Shoko’s names were written in the stars. You only admit your envy on lonely nights when thoughts of university days past make a reappearance.

“Satoru is a lot of things. He’s a clown, he’s insufferable and he’s Gojou Satoru that’s enough trouble as it is,” much to your chagrin, you can’t help snorting at her comment. “But he should have a chance to get to know his daughter. You’re a great mom, you’ve been doing great without him. I’ve seen you handle everything, you even went back to school to get your degree. You’ve got the job, everything. I’m not trying to say you need his help, I just want you to be open to the idea of letting him get to know her.”

You think of Itsuki and her questions and the look of hurt that graced Satoru’s face earlier that afternoon. “I don’t want Itsuki to get attached to him only for him to take off,” but a bitter taste fills your mouth at your words. I’m only using Itsuki as an excuse, you can only admit to yourself. The one who doesn’t want to see her father is me.

Fearful you may have been, it was no excuse to keep her away from her father.

“If he does that, I’ll kill him myself. But he wants to be there,” Shoko promises, her voice the softest its been the entire conversation. “He wants to get to know her. She looks just like him.”

She does.

You grab a baby wipe, rolling your eyes in amusement, “Itsuki, you’re getting syrup all over your face, hold still,” gently, you wipe away the sugary mess on her face before it dries and becomes even stickier. Itsuki always leaves the table looking like she’s been off to war. “You definitely don’t get your messy eating habits from me. Let me clean your hands and the fork too.”

Itsuki’s eyes sparkle curiously, “is Daddy a messy eater?”

You look at your daughter, her white hair pulled into pigtails by pastel knockerballs and her blue eyes that sparkle with hope that you’ll have some sort of answer as to the mystery of her secret parent she doesn’t realize she’s already met. “Yeah,” you whisper softly, the ghost of smile on your lips. “He got pretty messy whenever we ate.”

“Really?”

“Yep, and he would always steal the chips out of my bag whenever he thought I wasn’t looking,” you smile knowingly. He isn’t the only one guilty of such a crime. “Kinda like how someone always takes extra bites out of my pudding cups when she thinks I’m not looking.” Itsuki erupts into giggles as you pinch her cheeks now free of syrup. “You really want to meet your papa, don’t you,” you ask almost weakly, resting your hand on the table.

With a nod of excitement, Itsuki answers your question with an unmistakable yes.

“What if Mommy brings Daddy to pick you up from daycare soon? Would you like that?”

Itsuki gasps in disbelief, “Really?!”

Your nerves don’t show as you grin in return, “really.”

The first few rings you wait for Satoru to pick up the phone later in the day are painful.

I should have just asked Shoko to do this, you pace anxiously in the employee parking lot of your job. A childish part of you wishes you had asked your friend seeing as she had already spilled the beans to you. But you remember the more than subtle tone in her voice when she mentioned the other day that Satoru’s number hadn’t changed in all the years you spent out of his life. He’s the father of your child, [First], you scold yourself. Get a grip.

A second later when he picks up the line, you almost hang up in a panic.

“... Hey, [First],” he sounds like he’s grinning but it lacks his usual bravado. “You didn’t change your number.”

“Neither did you,” you reply nervously, fiddling with the fabric of your uniform as the expected awkward silence filled the air. Five years ago, Satoru was one of the easiest people in the world to talk to. Annoying and arrogant at times, most of the times even, but still easy. He spoke his mind clearly; it’s hard reconciling that person with the silence on the other side of the phone. “I shouldn’t have kept Itsuki from you,” you finally begin. “And I shouldn’t have said what I did yesterday, you have a right to be mad at what I did. I’m sorry.”

Satoru’s sigh is slow, “why didn’t you tell me in all these years? If Shoko never said anything, were you really not going to tell me about her at all?”

“Can we not-”

“No, I get to know why you didn’t want to let me know I had a daughter,” Satoru’s voice hardens and you know that running away isn’t an option. Old habits seem to die hard. “You didn’t even tell me you were pregnant.”

“I was scared, okay?” Scared and pathetically in love with someone who didn’t want you back. “I didn’t know how you were going to react... and I didn’t know if you would want to be part of the baby’s life if I decided to keep it. We weren’t even a couple. I freaked out and thought this was best course of action.”

“I would have helped, I would have been there. We were friends, [First],” you can’t tell if he sounds more angry or sad with your younger self’s line of reasoning. “You really thought I would have let you done everything on your own? I would have had your back from day one.”

“.... I’m sorry, I can’t take it back but I’m sorry,” you rest your back against the side of your car. The breeze on your skin doesn’t calm you as much as you’d like.

Satoru sighs again and he’s quiet, contemplative and your heart races wondering what is going through his mind. Would he curse you? Maybe he would take you to court for his parental rights. Instead, Satoru peacefully asks, “what’s she like?”

“Adorable,” your lips quirk slightly at the thought of your child. “I’m pretty sure Shoko’s probably shown you some pictures, so you probably know that already.” Painfully adorable and the entire world knew it, it’s a blessing she isn’t nearly as much of a troublemaker as her father. If she were, you don’t doubt Itsuki would get away with most of her ‘crimes’. “She’s a sweet girl, if she sees a caterpillar on the neighbor’s strawberries, she’ll pick it up and ask if we can take it to the park so it can eat there instead.”

You both share a laugh at that. “She’s smart too, she just sucks things up like a sponge. And she’s popular at daycare, you know,” she gets it from her father, that is easy to admit. Satoru definitely surpasses everyone you know, yourself included, when it comes to attracting people to him. Even when he’s annoying you can’t help but be drawn in. “She’s good at making friends, always looks out for the ones there who have a harder time connecting with people.”

“It’s nice to know she got all her charm and good looks from me,” Satoru chuckles smugly. “It’s a no-brainer the people love her, I expect nothing less from my kid.”

“Oh shut up,” yet you can’t deny his claim. She is Gojou Satoru’s daughter through and through. “She’s a lovable kid; Itsuki was born for it.”

“Was Itsuki the only name in the running?”

“It’s a pretty name, isn’t it? There were others in the running though,” you count down on your fingers the various options you ultimately decided against. “Itsuki stuck out the best.”

“What characters did you use to write her name?”

“The characters for ‘Five’ and ‘Moon’,” you answer softly, remembering the various combinations you could have gone with. Ultimately, there was only one that you could have gone with. “I got the idea from your last name, I... I wanted her to have a part of you with her even if she didn’t know you.”

There’s a pause then a shaky breath. “Gojou Itsuki,” Satoru says finally, sounding a million miles away despite being just on the other line.

“She has my name,” you tell him gently.

“I know,” Satoru replies softly yet there’s a tinge of emotion you can’t quite place. Melancholy? Acceptance? Perhaps a little bit of both. “I just wanted to try it out.”

Silence falls over you both again and you hug yourself despite the sweltering heat of the afternoon. Shoko is right, your secret wasn’t one that was sustainable. “Do you,” your lips suddenly feel too dry and you lick your lips. “Do you want to pick her up from daycare with me today? She wants to meet you, she always has. She even asked about you this morning.”

He does. It shouldn’t surprise you that he does and it doesn’t. Still, your heart pounds when you see him show up at the daycare your daughter spends a large portion of her time at. “Hi,” you greet him nervously.

“Hey,” even though he’s grinning, his smile is a bit off kilter. A sugary pink bag hangs from one his arms. “I uh, didn’t know exactly what sort of things she like but I got her a present. You said she’s really into whale sharks, right? So I got her a plush.”

You don’t have the heart to tell him Itsuki already has five. She’d love his gift anyway. Maybe the one he got her would become her favorite.

“She might adore that more than you,” you joke but you give him a nod a beat later. “But don’t worry about what happened last time. She’ll be happy to see you in a better mood, she was worried about you when we left the park.” Maybe that was the father-daughter bond at work, or maybe it was your child’s empathetic nature.

Maybe both.

You already discussed things with him after he agreed to come meet her properly. He could get to know Itsuki, could even meet the daycare attendants. It would just be a while before you’d be able to trust him with being an emergency contact.

“Hey, Choso,” you wave at the man with pigtails. Intimidating as he looks, his daycare is surprisingly popular due to the low rates. He wanted a place where his youngest brother could grow up happily with his friends. “This,” you start before Choso can question you, gesturing to Satoru. “... This is Itsuki’s father. You’ll uh, probably see him coming around a lot more when I pick her up from now.”

There’s a lengthy pause.

“Nice to meet you,” Choso’s tone says otherwise. If it were possible, Choso’s face would be place right under the definition of judgement. He is definitely deeming Satoru a deadbeat that was finally crawling out from the woodworks.

Satoru ignores it with the air of confidence he didn’t have a few minutes ago outside, “thanks for looking after my kid while [First] was busy. I haven’t been around but I’m hoping to make up for all the lost time.”

You doubt that was meant to be a dig, you still take it as one. “Itsuki’s playing with Yuuji and the rest of their friends right now. You’ll see her at the playground,” he gestures at the infant in his hands. “I have a diaper to change.”

“Don’t worry, I got it,” you wave. “And tell Kechizu that he needs to stop cooking better than me. The other day Itsuki said she liked his lunches more than mine.” That manages to get a snicker out of the man. 

“Itsuki!” You call out once you’re on the playground and you see her eyes light up with recognition and a ‘Mommy!’ Even funnier is her little excited jig before she runs over to hug you although she stops as she recognizes the man beside you.

She glances between the two of you and you smile reassuringly. “Why are you getting so shy? Don’t you remember what I promised at breakfast?”

Itsuki’s eyes widen and her jaw drops wordlessly. You suppose she might not have truly been expecting you’d make good on your promise. At least, definitely not so soon.

“Itsuki, this is Satoru, your father,” you tell her gently, smile small. “Although I suppose, you already met him yesterday. It just didn’t go at all the way it was supposed to.” But what was done was done; Itsuki deserved to know her father. You wouldn’t take away that choice because of your own fears anymore.

“Daddy?” Itsuki asks Satoru, voice just above a whisper.

Satoru nods, settling down on one knee to look her in those familiar blue eyes. “That’s right, kiddo,”

“Daddy?!” Itsuki hops in disbelief, looking between the two of you before her eyes settle on yours again. “It’s really Daddy?!” You aren’t sure if Itsuki knows whether she wants to cry or run away in disbelief that this moment is finally happening.

You knelt beside your old friend, “say hi to your father, Itsuki.”

The tears suddenly well in her eyes but despite Satoru’s panicked voice, you can tell they aren’t sad ones as Itsuki throws her arms over Satoru’s shoulders. And if your eyes are warmer than they were a few moments ago, you don’t mind it as you watch you’re daughter hug her father for the first time.

Itsuki adores Satoru, that’s what you learn in the span of a single afternoon. And yes, she does love the whale shark plush he got her more than the other five you already purchased. She cried even harder when he hugged her back, softly promising he wasn’t going anywhere. That he’d always be there and he would come see her as much as she wanted.

She adores how he took her out for ice cream before dinner and how even after dinner, he purchased even more dessert. 

He was weak to her with no immunity built up over the past five years.

This was why he couldn’t say no when she pleaded he stayed over to at least watch a movie with her before bedtime. Not that you had any room to talk considering how easily you agreed.

“So she had to get Merlin’d?” Satoru asks incredulously as the credits roll across the screen.

“That is not what was supposed to happen, the beautiful girl is subjective to the one who got cursed!” You tell him, flabbergasted that that was the conclusion he came to. Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarves is far more than a comedy. It’s social commentary! “Not to mention the body positive message it sends with the fact that shoes represent societal standards of beauty along with the objectification and idolization Snow experiences while wearing them which further supported the fact that had she had gone to the F7 as herself they wouldn’t have he-”

“Nope, too late. I like my idea better,” you could strangle this man.

“You’re going to ruin Itsuki’s perception of love,” you shoot Satoru a look of amusement and annoyance. At the very least, you know he enjoyed it.

“Good, I don’t need some snot-nosed brat trying to win over my kid that’s obviously aroace,” Satoru says firmly as he picks up your very much fell-asleep-before-the-movie-ended daughter. It’s almost uncanny how natural it looks to you, like he had been around from the start. He probably should have been. You were the one who took that choice from him and made him an unintentional deadbeat.

“Satoru, she’s five and doesn’t even know what that means yet,” you say instead, Satoru oblivious to the thoughts running around your head. One day you’d tell Itsuki the truth, once she was a little older.

“What? She told me she was aroace when I asked earlier today,” Satoru tells you petulantly, moving away when you try to hold her. 

“Only because you told her you’d give her ice cream if she agreed to be,” ice cream she wasn’t even supposed to eat because it would spoil her appetite for dinner in a moment you weren’t supposed to see. “It means you’ll love Daddy forever and think everyone else is gross,” Satoru happily exclaimed, holding a cup of Itsuki’s favorite salted cookie dough ice cream. The five year old happily obliged to his whims.

Maybe Satoru will be right in his hopeful predictions that romance will be the last thing on your daughter’s mind in the future thought. On the other hand, maybe he’d be dead wrong and forced to tolerate whoever she brings home in the future.

“They’re just like you, Dad, but they’re brilliant!” She’ll say, hearts in her eyes.

You almost wanted to manifest the opposite of his wishes, only to see the face Satoru would make. It is far too early to be thinking about such things however.

“I don’t want my kid to date anyone, sue me. So I’m manifesting early,” Satoru pouts as he starts takes her to her room to lay her across her bed.

“You’re so stupid,” you roll your eyes and shake your head in exasperation, but a look of fondness is apparent in your expression.

Maybe you were born to see this moment, the moment you could see that Gojou Satoru is absolutely smitten with his daughter. You can see it in how he presses a kiss to the temple of her forehead as he takes her to his room.

Itsuki was born to be loved, she makes it too easy just by being herself. Suddenly your fears from before felt unfounded. You knew underneath the rejection of Satoru in your life that he would have been there and he would have been more than happy to shoulder the burdens of parenthood even in a platonic way. You stop yourself from wondering what that path might have looked like. You made your choice and this is path you’re on now, there is no other way but forward.

“I’ll have you know,” Satoru points a finger gun at you smugly when he returns, child-free, “my kid thinks I’m the smartest man in the world. So one of you is lying and I know it’s not her.”

“Your kid is biased and spoiled from snacks and gifts,” you retort softly with a grin.

“I don’t hear the voices of the naysayers praying for my downfall, sorry,” you both release a chuckle at your exchange and a comfortable silence falls between you both. “I should probably get going I guess.”

You smile at him politely, “we should do this again sometime, I wanna see what else in our movie collection Itsuki will have you watch next.”

Satoru grins, “it better be the Digimon reboot DVD set I saw in the corner,” he pauses before asking you seriously, “our kid does like Digimon, right?”

“You’ll be happy to know that her favorites are Palmon, Kokomon and Wormmon in that order,” you tell him smugly. How could he think otherwise? Did he forget who you were? “The plushies are just in the toy chest she has at the foot of her bed.”

Your child had to be a fan of Digimon, she had no other choice.

Pt 2 Here

translation:

五月 five moons

五 five (same character in Gojou 五条)

月 moon

[angels-fantasy]

I was thinking what if Dad!Bakugous child was quirkless, and essentially was bullied the same way Midoriya had been, I feel like Bakugou would blame himself thinking that this was simply karma for the crap he did in Middle School no? Angst to Comfort pls

What Goes Around, Comes Around (Request)

Katsuki Bakugou x Fem!Reader

Details/Warnings: established relationship, reader is referred to as mom, CW: Children

Word Count: 995

hello thank you for your request! this was a little hard to write because i'm not very good at angst 🥲 so i hope you like it!

When Katsuki got with you, he knew you were quirkless. He knew that if he had a child with you they could potentially end up quirkless but he's grown up a lot over the years, so he didn't care.

But one thing he didn't know, was that his child would be bullied the same way he used to bully Izuku Midoriya.

When his son was declared quirkless, it was hard on the boy because he had a pro hero as a father, so there was so much pressure on him to be as great as Katsuki. But you and Katsuki made sure to tell him it was okay to be quirkless and he could still grow up to do great things and be successful. He had learned to accept that he didn't have a quirk, and that was okay.

Though now your son was in his first year of junior high, and you both could tell he was struggling with something, but you couldn't tell what it was exactly.

"Should we ask him what's wrong?" You asked Katsuki while you two were lying in bed together. It was night time, so your little family was getting ready to go to sleep.

Katsuki thought for a moment, "I don't know. I know it's good to let them talk to you when they're ready but he's been all quiet for fuckin' ever."

You frowned, "I think I'm gonna ask if he's feeling okay, and just make sure he knows he can talk to us."

He nodded and sat up, "I'll come with you."

The two of you got out of bed and walked to your son's bedroom, knocking on the door and waiting for him to give you the okay to go in, which he did.

"Hey baby." You said walking in. You and Katsuki sat next to each other at the foot of your son's bed that he was lying in.

"Hey." He said, now focusing on you guys instead of the TV.

You took a deep breath, "Are you feeling okay honey? We noticed you've been a little down, and we just want you to know you can always talk about how you're feeling."

Your son looked at you and sat up in bed, fiddling with his fingers. "I'm fine guys. I'm just tired-"

"Don't start with that, you know it's not true." Katsuki cut in, making you hit him lightly on the shoulder.

You crawled further onto the bed and hugged your son, waving Katsuki over to do the same.

Your son was quiet as you both hugged him, and then he spoke up. "Mom, were you ever bullied for being quirkless?"

You turned to face him quickly, eyebrows furrowed in worry. "Baby, are people bullying you at school?"

He looked away, "It's not a big deal-"

Katsuki cut in again, "Like hell it isn't a big deal. Who's fucking with you at school?"

You both listened as your son told you everything that another student in his class did to torment him, and it all sounded too familiar. Katsuki's face was pale, and he got up and walked away.

You stayed in your son's room and said, "Your dad just needs some space right now. You know he's a hothead, so he's gonna go calm down okay?" You felt bad lying to your son, because you knew the exact reason why Katsuki walked away.

The boy nodded, and he leaned into you as you held him. "Baby don't you ever think you're less than others just because you're quirkless. You're loved, and that's what matters, okay?" You said, to which he nodded.

"And I know sometimes it's hard for you, especially because of who your dad is. But you know he doesn't care about you becoming a pro hero. He just wants you to do what makes you happy, and so do I. So we're gonna talk to those teachers at school and maybe even that little shit's parents." You said, making him laugh.

"Thanks mom." He said.

"No problem baby. I want you to always tell us what's wrong, okay? Even Dad."

Your son nodded, and you kissed his forehead and wished him goodnight.

Walking into your bedroom, you saw Katsuki sitting at the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. You closed the door behind you and went to sit next to him.

"I fucked up." He said, his voice hoarse. "This is my fault because I treated Deku like shit when we were kids, and now I'm getting my karma."

You frowned and hugged him, "Katsuki stop it. None of this is your fault. This is society's fault, that's it. People are always going to have a stigma about quirkless people."

He shook his head and cursed, "You don't understand. I told Deku to jump off a building, just because he was fuckin' quirkless! And now my kid is getting told the same shit!" He cried.

You didn't know what to say, so you continued hugging him and whispering comforting things to him. Reminding him that nothing that was happening now is his fault.

You held his face in your hands, "Hey, you know what, we should be glad he told us. Because you know Izuku didn't tell his mom, and because of that he suffered a lot more. But we just need to be there for our baby as much as we can right now, and tell that shithead kid to leave ours alone."

Katsuki nodded, "I know. I just can't help but feel like shit, because I was that bully once."

"Was." You emphasized, "You used to be, but not anymore. You've grown a lot since then, and you're a changed man now. So just remember that, okay?"

"Okay." He whispered.

You smiled and kissed his cheek, "I love you and our kid. Tomorrow, we'll let him stay home and have a family day."

He smiled lightly and nodded, "Yeah, okay. I love you too."

authors note

hope u liked it! love ya!

tag list for bakugou fics: @doumadono

[probably-writing-x]

When The Ball Drops

Conrad x Y/n

Summary: You and Conrad had become fast friends, and you were convincing yourself it was nothing more. But new years always brought new beginnings, right?

There were a lot of things that Conrad disliked. Pineapple on pizza, films with stupid plot twists, wearing suits when the shirt felt too tight around his neck, when his brother would get into those moods and just whinge about everything. And New Years. He hated New Years.

He’d never been the biggest fan, but it had felt a hundred times worse since his Mom had passed. The year turning to the next just felt like the continuous reminder that he was going into another chapter of his life without her in it. And as much as the firsts were coming and going - the first summer without her, the first thanksgiving, the first christmas - there was still more to come. And every new year would now be another new year where Conrad didn’t have his Mom. And that made him HATE new years.

He wanted to forget it was happening this year. He’d go to sleep at 11:50, wake up the following morning and forget that anything had changed. He’d miss the fireworks, he’d avoid the celebrations, forget the new years kisses, and simply wake up for another new day.

“Conrad Beck Fisher are you even listening to me?”

It’s your voice that breaks him from his thoughts.

He glances up from where his eyes had been focused on a single spot on the kitchen floor, turning his attention across to where you were stood on the opposite side of the kitchen island. You were spreading a thin layer of mayonnaise over the sandwich you were making for him.

“I-“ He clears his throat, “What were you saying?”

You shake your head at him and let out a soft chuckle - Conrad’s sure in that moment he’d pause and playback that exact sound just so he could hear it again.

“I was saying…”

You and him had met this past summer. Cleveland had got Conrad a job on a yacht to keep him busy over the summer to ‘take his mind off things’. You happened to have a job on that same boat working as a server. At first, Conrad had been nothing short of cold to you. He was blunt, he was rude, he practically ignored you and everyone else for that matter. It was a couple of weeks later when you wore him down a little bit more. He started to say hello to you at the start of a shift, he offered to help you carry the crates of drinks on board, he stood with you whilst you cleaned the glasses and he had nothing to do until the guests came on board. Eventually, he started taking on more shifts so that he was always on the same days as you were. And that then turned into him driving you to and from your shifts most days - on the days when he didn’t, it would be you offering to drive him instead. He lived further away than you did and he practically had to pass your house to get to work anyway but that didn’t matter, you felt guilty if you never offered to pick him up. It was on those drives that he first started opening up to you. He told you about everything his family had been through. He told you about his Mom, his brother Jere, his relationship with his father, and the Conklin family whom you’d quickly learnt meant the world to him and Jeremiah. He told you about college and his dreams of working in medicine. He asked you about your family, found out about your own plans with college and your career. Despite the initial coldness, Conrad quickly became one of your closest friends.

When summer ended, you both went your separate ways. But he started to text you more then. He’d send you videos that he thought were funny, and he’d send you photos of the assignments he had for class that week. Those texts turned into calls when you both needed to revise some nights. Those calls turned into midnight deep confessions, him telling you he was scared of losing Jeremiah, confessing that he felt insanely out of his depth at college. You listened. And Conrad became more certain than ever over those few months that you were the best friend he’d ever had. He never told anyone as much as he told you.

“Okay you’re not listening and you’re not getting your sandwich now,” You wipe your hands on the kitchen towel, the sandwich now cut in two triangle halves and presented on the plate in front of you.

“No, no, I am listening,” Conrad ensures you, “You were saying about…”

You walk around to the other side of the counter until you’re stood in front of him, taking one half of the sandwich from the plate and nodding your head towards him, “About?” You take a bite of the food.

“About…” He clears his throat again, “Jake from work and how my brother asked you… something.”

You chuckle at him again, holding the sandwich out for him to take it from you, “Your brother has invited people for tomorrow night, and he asked me to invite people from work. So I texted Jake, Allie and Peter, and they can all make it.”

Conrad groans, “I told Jere I didn’t want to do anything, I’m not doing a party.”

“Conrad,” You raise your eyebrows at him as if you’re waiting for the reasonable half of him to return.

He instead bites the sandwich and stares into your eyes as if he can see your soul behind them.

“I think it’ll be fun. And Jere’s been planning it all week,” You point out.

Conrad shrugs his shoulders, “I don’t know what we have to celebrate.”

“Con,” You try to speak softly, not wanting to overstep a line you weren’t sure existed, “I think it’ll be good for Jere. He could probably do with the distraction. Plus, you guys haven’t seen Belly and Steven in ages and I haven’t even met them yet so that’s reason in itself to have a party.”

Conrad rolls his eyes, “I’ll stay until midnight and then I’m done.”

“Wow, to what do we owe the pleasure?”

He blinks at you as if waiting for you to retract your sarcastic remark.

“Oh, and Jere asked us to go shopping for supplies so I’m gonna go pee and then we’ll leave yeah?”

“What?” Conrad half chokes on the food in his mouth, “I didn’t agree to shopping.”

You’ve disappeared out of the room before he gets a response from you.

———

Conrad drives to the store which means he also gets to pick the music, though he opts for your playlist anyway. It’s colder in Cousins now and it doesn’t quite feel the same without the windows down and the air ripping through the car, both of you hot and bothered after a shift at work. But there was something comforting about being back with Conrad again. You’d missed him for the few months you’d been apart.

“Okay so what do we actually need?” He asks you as both of you step out of the car, making your way across the empty parking lot.

“Well, party supplies,” You shrug, “All the usual stuff.”

“And this needs two people? Why couldn’t Jere do it?” He grumbles, pulling out a cart from the waiting line.

“Conrad do you ever stop complaining?” You scoff, trying to wiggle the next cart free as the wheel gets stuck in your attempts.

“Here,” Conrad leans over behind you, his arms either side of you as his hands settle over yours on the handle of the cart, tugging sharply to free it for you.

You pause there for just a moment and so does he, until both of you seem to snap back to reality and his hands part from yours almost as quickly as they’d arrived.

“Alright come on, let’s get in and out before you complain any more,” You encourage, “We’ll both fill up on supplies and you can just be there to silently hate your life and store things in your cart. We need cups, plates, food, decorations, everything okay?”

His shoulders drop as if in defeat but he agrees with you nonetheless, letting you go in ahead of him so that he can watch as you disappear down the aisles, already reaching for things to put into the cart in front of you.

—

The two of you browse each one of the aisles and you switch between throwing things into yours and his carts, slowly filling them with each aisle you went down.

“What even is that?” He frowns, examining the last thing you’d picked up.

“Photo booth decorations,” You grin, “It’s not a party if there’s not good opportunity for photos.”

Conrad stares at you as if the words had made him hate you the tiniest bit for the tiniest amount of time.

“You know, I really think you need cheering up Conrad,” You point out, eyeing up the shelves until you find what you wanted.

You reach for the rainbow boa and lift it over the back of his neck, smoothing your hands down the bright feathers that fell down either side of his chest. Conrad suppresses a sigh and it bobs into his Adam’s apple instead, his jaw clenching as he looks at you. There’s a hint of a smile on his lips however, the faint evidence that he couldn’t not love to see you happy.

“You look ready to celebrate now,” You grin.

“Are you sure about that (Y/l/n)?” He raises his brows, turning around to pick something up from the shelf behind him, “Because I think this is much better.”

A pair of flower shaped golden yellow glasses now covered his eyes, his lips curling into a reluctant smile. You laugh the kind of laugh that throws your head back, clasping your hands together.

Conrad knew he looked like an idiot. He knew this was probably the most colour he’d ever worn. He knew the feathers were itching his neck and the glasses were tight on the top of his nose. But it didn’t matter. You were laughing and he was sure that was a sound he’d do anything to hear.

“I think they need to go in the basket,” You encourage, taking the glasses slowly from his face.

Your fingertips brush the temples of his head, grazing across his skin with such minimal intensity and yet he still feels his cheeks burn a fiery red at the contact.

“Come on Fisher, we just need mixer and then we’re done.”

You disappear around the corner of the next aisle before he has a chance to think about it any longer.

———

The following day you spend the majority of your time helping Jeremiah set up for the party. Whilst you were here for the couple of weeks over winter break, you’d been staying in the spare room so you’d started to get used to this house.

You helped him hang up streamers in the lounge and balloons from every inch of space in every room you could find. There were helium balloons that read ‘happy new year’ across one of the sets of cupboards in the kitchen and the paper plates and cups had already been set up on the countertop.

Conrad had disappeared earlier this morning to go to surf and you hadn’t seen him all day since. You couldn’t blame him. He didn’t want the party, let alone for it to consume his entire day.

“So do you think my brother’s going to make it to midnight?” Jeremiah asks, stretching a deflated balloon between the fingertips of both of his hands.

“Id be surprised if he came at all,” You joke, dangling your feet over the edge of the kitchen island where you were sat.

Jeremiah scoffs, “You’re going to be there, he wouldn’t not come.”

“Wh-“ You let out a laugh, “We’re friends. He wants to see me just like he wants to see everyone.”

“Come on,” Jeremiah rolls his eyes, “You can’t be serious.”

You frown just a little and he must notice the expression on your face, interjecting quickly before your concern can increase.

“I just think he cares about you, is all,” Jere encourages, “And it takes a lot for Conrad to be as open with someone as he is with you. You’re good for him, that’s all I mean.”

You nod and offer him a small smile, “Well then I’ll make sure he stays until midnight, at least just to see the ball drop.”

Jeremiah grins, “You have a deal.”

He glances at the time on his phone and his eyes widen at the screen, which he turns around to you quickly.

“Bells and Steven are almost here.”

You were yet to meet the pair that the Fisher brothers spoke to highly of. But you’d heard enough about them to feel like you knew them already. And you also knew that you were about 95% sure that Jere had a thing for Belly. You’d decide that for yourself once you saw them together.

You’re just about to hop down from the countertop when you hear the back door open and turn to see Conrad walking in. His hair is damp and there’s a towel slung over his shoulders.

“There you are!” You smile, “I was starting to think you’d froze out there.”

He laughs and walks around the counter and over to you, standing just close enough to you that his thighs bump against your calves still dangling over the edge.

“It was pretty cold,” His voice is soft as if it’s been drained by the freezing temperatures of the water, his lips ever so slightly blue.

You run your hands down his arms, the cold of his skin.

“You must be freezing,” You frown, squeezing at the skin as if you wanted to inject some warmth into him.

He hums in agreement, his eyes on you as yours seemingly scan him, full of worry, “I’ll warm up.”

His voice is soft, softer than usual as if he doesn’t want to disturb the moment by talking.

“You haven’t told me that the decorations look nice,” You point out, furrowing your brows at him.

Conrad tears his eyes away from you to glance around at the room, eyes scanning all of it before returning back to you, “It’s definitely something.”

“Something,” You narrow your eyes, “You’re such a party pooper.”

“They’re here!” Jere yells out, shortly followed by the sound of the front door opening.

“They’re here!” You repeat to Conrad, your hands moving to his shoulders to steady you as you hop down from the counter, “Time for me to make a good first impression.”

He mumbles so quietly under his breath that youre too far away to hear as he says “It would be impossible for you to give a bad one.”

—

Belly Steven and Taylor climb out of the car and hurry straight over to Jere, engulfing him in a hug of reunion amongst a chorus of overlapping conversation.

Conrad walks out with you and steps forward to greet the three of them, ruffling his hand over Belly’s hair.

“There’s someone you guys need to meet,” He mentions, glancing back at you with a smile warming his face, “This is (Y/n)… my friend.”

“Yeah, hey, it’s so nice to finally meet you guys! I’ve heard a lot about you,” You step forward and smile, “Like a lot about you.”

Steven laughs, “Yeah the boys are obsessed with us, that makes sense.”

“Oh my god I love your hair how do you get it like that?” Taylor steps forward and starts conversation with you.

“Oh um thanks, yeah-“ You glance up and see Conrad looking at you, that same warm smile on his face as if he was relieved you’d finally met this part of his life.

“I’ll take your bags inside,” You hear Conrad mention, soon feeling the soft touch of his hand on your back as he leans down to pick up Taylor’s bag from next to her feet.

His touch lingers for a moment longer, the faintest pressure on your skin. You’re certain the contact is electric, only recognising it in his absence.

———

“Hey Bells I told (Y/n) she could get ready with us in here,” Taylor encourages as she pushes open the door to the bedroom they were sharing.

Belly looks up from where she was sat in front of the vanity mirror fixing her hair, “Oh, yeah sure.”

“Sorry, I’m pretty sure I’ve been stealing Steven’s room whilst I’ve been here so I’ll try not to be in the way,” You smile.

“No don’t be silly you’re not in the way, right Belly?”

“Yeah, right.”

You take a seat on the floor in front of the window and make use of the disappearing natural light whilst it was still here.

“Okay so tell us everything (Y/n), what’s going on with you and Conrad?” Taylor asks, perching on the floor in front of the full length mirror.

“I-“ You laugh a little, “I met him at work, we both worked on this yacht over the summer. And I think if you spend any time with someone in that place you either hate them or become inseparable. And apparently me and Conrad were the second option.”

“Inseparable huh?” Taylor grins.

“Oh no no I just mean he’s like the only person in Cousins I spend any time with nowadays,” You laugh, “He’s just a good friend.”

“Really? Because the way he looked at you earlier didn’t look like friends, right Belly?”

Belly glances up from the mirror and you notice her pause momentarily, swallowing a lump in her throat, “I don’t- I mean I guess I didn’t notice.”

You offer her a smile and there are the faintest hints of her returning the gesture but they disappear quickly.

Conrad had mentioned to you that things had changed with him and the Conklins ever since his Mom had passed. He mentioned that the start of the summer was shitty but that things had worked out afterwards, when you and him became friends. But he never mentioned it in too much detail. He preferred to tell you of the years before and every memory of summers he had with them.

“You’re not looking for a new years kiss then (Y/n)?” Taylor asks you.

“No, no, not me,” You shake your head, “I don’t even know who I could see myself with.”

You set your makeup bag out onto the floor and Taylor plays music through her phone and the conversation dies down into the three of you singing along to the music instead. Belly’s quiet though, you can tell. It might be the day you’d met her but anyone could read that something was off.

———

You’ve smoothed your hands over your dress a million times and it still doesn’t seem to sit right. But you ignore it when you hear the door open again and more guests pour inside. You grab your phone from the bed and run a hand through your hair before hurrying outside and towards the stairs.

The party is already spilling through the entire house, oddly busy for how quiet Cousins felt during the winter. Jeremiah must’ve invited everyone they knew and told them all to bring friends.

You shuffle past a bunch of people you don’t recognise, spotting the familiar curls of Jere across the crowd to give you enough of a focus of where you were heading. The music was loud and you needed a drink.

“There you are!” Taylor grins when she sees you, “I was just about to come and find you.”

“Sorry, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to change again,” You smile, glancing down at your dress again.

“Well it’s good you didn’t, you look killer,” She encourages, “Right Belly?”

“Yeah you look really pretty (Y/n),” Belly smiles a little bashfully in your direction as if she’s silently trying to apologise for something. Maybe she knew how it came across earlier, because you were already at least 70% sure that this girl didn’t like you, and you weren’t even sure what you’d done.

“Oh come on we have to dance to this one,” Steven grins, reaching over for Taylor’s hand and dragging her with him into the mass of people that were seemingly forming some sort of dance floor.

Belly steps around the kitchen counter so she’s stood closer to you as Jeremiah is busy chatting to a boy you didn’t recognise. You hadn’t seen Conrad yet.

“So how come you’re here for the new year?” Belly asks you, taking a quick sip from the red solo cup in her hand.

“Oh, yeah, well I told Conrad I didn’t have plans over the winter break and he told me to come and stay with them since they’d be here alone,” You nod, “And I didn’t have anything better to do.”

She nods, “So you two are pretty close then?”

“Well,” You shake your head, “We’re just fast friends, I don’t think it’s much more than that.”

“Conrad never makes fast friends,” Belly shakes her head, “And this is like the happiest I’ve seen him since… everything.”

You swallow the lump in your throat. Before today, you’d never thought too much about things between you and Conrad. You liked being friends with him so much that you were scared of ruining it - and thinking of him as more than a friend would definitely ruin that. You thought you knew Conrad’s type and you weren’t that. He saw you as a friend, the way a guy is different with the girls he doesn’t see something with. You’d convinced yourself of that early on and it was only today where your thoughts of that had started to change a little. Maybe he could see you as more than a…

No. He was your friend.

“Speak of the devil…” Belly’s voice trails off as she finishes off the rest of her drink.

“Okay who are these people?” Conrad comes up behind you, the crowd behind him pushing against him so much so that he reaches out a hand to your waist to stabilise him a little.

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” You return, glancing up at him as he comes to stand beside you, his arm bumping your shoulder.

“Jake and Peter say hi but they’re in a beer pong tournament apparently that’s too important to leave,” Conrad explains, grabbing a beer bottle from the open box and cracking it open.

“I’ll try to catch up with them in a bit,” You nod, glancing back over your shoulder as if you’d catch them in the crowd.

“I’m going to-“ Belly clears her throat, “I’m going to find Taylor.”

You feel the heat rise in your cheeks, like you’d just been caught in the act or something. You’d never thought there was tension between you and Conrad when the two of you were together but it felt that way now and you couldn’t explain it.

“It’s weird seeing you in a dress,” Conrad comments softly, leaning down so that you can hear him a little better.

“Weird?” You practically grimace at the word, frowning a little up at him.

“A- a good weird,” He stumbles slightly into the words, “A good weird.”

“Learn how to compliment a girl Fisher,” You narrow your eyes at him, “Better than that.”

He rolls his eyes at you and grabs a red cup from the stack of unused ones, “What are you drinking (Y/l/n)?”

———

You’ve just about managed to settle into the party, and you’ve now been roped into the beer pong tournament that has absolutely strayed from being a tournament anymore. It’s just games of beer pong that don’t end. You’re on a team with Conrad and you’re playing Steven and Taylor, who are losing by two cups.

“Okay aim for that back one Taylor, any of that back line,” Steven encourages, his hands clasped together as if he’s praying,

“Steven you’re not even good at this stop coaching me,” She rolls her eyes, tossing the ball and watching as it bounces away from the table.

Steven suppresses whatever comment he was going to say and instead just wraps an arm around her shoulders, pulling him into him, “We’ll get them next time.”

“You’re up (Y/l/n),” Conrad nods, leaning back against the wall behind the two of you, arms crossed as he watches you.

You throw the ball and it bounces once, landing in their front cup with a splash.

“That’s my girl,” Conrad beams, looping an arm around your shoulders to pull you into his chest.

“My girl?” Steven laughs, “Can you two just shut up and get married already?”

You hear Steven laugh, and so does Taylor, and Jeremiah, even Belly. And Peter, Jake and Allie were only a few metres away, they probably overheard it too. Were all of them thinking it?

You can’t explain it after that. You pull yourself abruptly away from Conrad’s chest, probably a little harshly. He looks down at you with a frown that quickly turns into utter concern when he sees your face, your frantic eyes.

“Wh- (Y/n) are you okay?”

“I’m sorry I-“ You drag a hand through your hair but no more words come to mind on time.

Instead, you turn and push as frantically as you can through the crowd until you reach the door to the garden, hurrying down the steps before anyone can catch up with you too soon.

———

The beach was eerie and peaceful at this time, at winter too. For as far as you could see, it was just you. You were stood on the sand a few feet away from the crashing waves. Your arms were wrapped around your torso to keep in some of the heat and you were already starting to shiver. It was nearly midnight in the middle of winter; of course you were freezing.

“(Y/n)!” It’s Conrad’s voice coming from behind you, but it sounds deeper when he’s worried, more like a bellow.

You don’t turn around.

“(Y/n) you had me worried sick, I didn’t know where you’d gone,” He breathes out a sigh of relief, “You must be freezing out here I-“

“Why do they all think something is going on with us Conrad? And why is Belly acting so weird with me? And why can’t they just accept that they’re friends? And what have you said to them about me?”

You turn around to face him and it’s as if everything rises to the surface in that exact moment.

He looks at you with worry on his face but it quickly dissipates into something more level headed as soon as your questions land.

“Okay,” He raises his hands as if in surrender, “I know they’re being assholes about us two together, but that’s just what they’re like, Steven’s an idiot and Taylor always wants to know people’s business, I promise they don’t mean any harm.”

You don’t respond.

“Belly’s weird with you because…” He takes in a deep breath, “This time last year, when my Mom was sick, I was dating Belly. It ended before my Mom died and we’ve figured out a way to be friends since but I think it’s just weird for her to see me with someone- someone that I’m close to.”

You feel your heart skip a beat, just for a second.

“I’ve told them a lot about you, I talk about you to them probably as much as I speak about them to you. You’re important to me (Y/n), and I want my family to like you.”

“But we’re just fri-“ Your voice shakes in the cold, “I mean you don’t see me like that-“

“Earlier,” He cuts you off, “When I first saw you tonight, I should’ve said you looked beautiful. That I think even with a thousand people at that party I don’t think I could find anything that would make me want to take my eyes off you. That even with a hundred voices and a million songs I don’t think anyone will ever say something that interests me as much as every word that you speak. That for the past few months I’ve felt exactly like that. That I wait for you to call and I’m sure I would talk to you every moment of the day if I could. That you look beautiful in that dress and you look beautiful every other day too, even more so when you don’t even think you do. I should’ve said that tonight and I should’ve said that long before tonight too.”

You swallow the lump in your throat, feel the blood pounding in your ears, and yet all you can focus on is him.

“The truth is I’ve been lying to you, (Y/n),” He shrugs his shoulders, “I told you that you were the best friend I’d had. And that part’s true. But where I lied is that I don’t think I could ever convince myself to be just friends with you. I’d spend too long trying to make you laugh, focus too much on every detail so that I could remember it for next time, swap my shifts to shittier days just to see your face. So I’m sorry I lied to you, but-“

You see it then. It’s Conrad. Is it Conrad? Is it really the boy you’d been spending so long convincing yourself was just a friend?

“Kiss me.”

He pauses, swallowing the lump of nerves in his throat, “I-“

“Kiss me,” You repeat, more certain of yourself.

Conrad steps forward, closing the space between you. One of his hands falls to your waist almost instinctively, the other cupping your cheek softly. His eyes flick between yours, dropping to your lips before coming back to meet your gaze. And then his lips are on yours. Soft and hesitant at first, quickly met by the pressure of his certainty. His lips move against yours like the two were made for each other, his hands holding you like they were carved for you. You feel yourself moan against his touch as his hand draws to the small of your spine to pull you closer into him, craving more of your touch.

He only pulls away when the two of you are gasping for air, his forehead coming to rest against yours. His chest rises and falls in rhythm with your own.

“That was-“ You breathe out but all of the other words disappear as you’re interrupted by the echoing chorus of a countdown from the house.

Conrad’s eyes are on you and his lips curl into a smile, “I think our new years kiss was a little early.”

You laugh as their countdown gets closer and closer to zero.

“Kiss me,” Conrad is an echo of your own words from before, more certain of himself now that his veins are flooded with adrenaline.

Three… two… one.

Your lips are on his. Soft, longing, neither of you wanting to break away.

“Happy New Year, (Y/n),” Conrad whispers the words like he doesn’t want the breeze to take them away from you, his hands on your waist holding you like he would never let go.

“Happy New Year Conrad,” You return, your cold hands cupping either side of his flushed face.

He wraps his arms around you, radiating every ounce of heat his body had left as your head rests on his chest, watching the sparkle of fireworks across the other side of the coast as they ignite into the sky. And you’re sure then that Conrad would never let those same fireworks die out. And you could stay like this forever.

[jaesqueso]

Baby don’t stop (m)

pairing: gym buddy!jaehyun x female!reader

summary: you don’t want to deal with feelings, but you don’t want him to stop

word count: 5,089

warnings: fluff, unprotected and protected sex, oral, fingering, semi-public sex

a/n: ever since I saw these gifs of Jaehyun I knew I had to write this, it just took a bit longer than I thought 😅 I hope ya’ll enjoy it ❤ not proof read yet

☽ ・・・・・ ☾

For most people going to the gym is a burden. The strength it takes to get out of the house and going to a place where you’re sweating and in pain sometimes loosing to the will to stay in the comfort of the couch. Those people definitely don’t work out with Jung Jaehyun.

You’ve seen him around town before. Well, who hasn’t? The man exudes seduction wherever he goes. Man and woman gagging at his handsome features and his sweet personality. So when you were looking for a new gym, since the one you used to go reallocated to another city, you made your decision when you saw him sitting on a bench, legs parted but back straight, his face showing the pain of those shoulder presses he was doing. In the first weeks you noticed your schedules seemed to match and running into him went from a polite greeting to actually working out together as you got to know each other.

“I thought I’d run into you here.” Seeing his smile walk through the door almost makes you crumble out of your plank position but you manage to hold it until your timer goes off.

Sometimes you like to go into one of the rooms of the gym, when there’s no classes going on, to have more space and privacy and since you’re a regular the staff had no problem with it. So when Jaehyun didn’t see you on the shared space he know exactly where to find you.

“I thought you’d given up training.” You get up, wiping your sweat with a towel as he walks up to you in his plain black t-shirt and grey sport shorts.

“Oh, come on, I’m only like ten minutes late.” Rolling his eyes he grabs a mattress and places it next to yours.

“Ten minutes? More like half an hour.” You chuckle as he glares at you.

Over time you became close enough to bicker and tease each other like this all the time. There was no denying you felt incredibly attracted to him but you couldn’t tell if he felt the same or was just being nice like he was to everybody else.

“Did you miss me that much? Don’t worry, I wouldn’t ghost you like that.” He winks as he does his stretching, making you shake your head with a grin. “So, what are we doing today?”

“Core.” You wiggle your brows.

“Oh great.” He pretends to be excited before letting his body fall into the mattress.

“Don’t be a pussy. You gotta work on those abs!” Playfully you slap his stomach but instantly regret feeling how rock solid he already his through his shirt.

“Oh no, you injured me! Guess I can’t do it no more!” He fake groans on the floor. “I need some mouth resuscitation, quick!”

“You wish!” You laugh to mask how much you’d love to do exactly that. “Come on, time to start a new set.”

“Ugh, ok lets go.”

This is a familiar set you two already know by heart. Starting off with sit ups, then some flutter kicks, followed by mountain climbers, traditional hip thrusts and some crunches, ending with a minute plank. As usual, you go through 5 sets, even if you had already done one, hyping up each other while your bodies grow sore and glistening with sweat, the temperature of the room rising.

As much as you’re used to working out with Jaehyun, you don’t think you’ll ever stop sneaking glances at the way his muscles tense up and how he bites his bottom lip to focus on controlling them. You’re pretty sure your body heat is not only from the exercises but the burning desire of feeling his warm skin against yours. It doesn’t help that the core set is just so… Sensual.

What you didn’t know is that he did the exact same thing. From the corner of his eye he observes every inch of your body, how you manage to be all sweaty and still remain so sexy. How he wish he could feel those hips thrusts against his-

“Jaehyun!” You pull him out of his transe. “Plank!”

“Oh, right!” He quickly switches positions to keep up.

“Come on, this is the last set.” You try to encourage both of you on finishing it.

“Why does a minute in plank feel like three hours?” Groaning he tries hard to hold his position.

“3, 2, 1… Done!” The timer goes off and you two let your bodies fall to each mattress, panting.

“Finally!” Jaehyun cheers turning his body around and you do the same.

Smiling as you stare at the ceiling, you take long breathes to bring your heart rate down. When you look the side you see him turning his face to you too. For a few seconds you lay there looking at each other, chest heaving up and down. There has always been some sexual tension between you two, even if none admitted it, but today it just felt particularly strong. That’s why in no time your lips were pressing against each other as your bodies entangled into one.

His hands roam on your sides as you pull his shirt over his head, throwing it somewhere around the room. The kiss is desperate and intense letting you know how much he’s been thinking about this too. With him on top of you on the thin mattress, your shirt comes off as well, but your sports bra is too tight and sticky so he gives up and leaves it on.

When his hand cups your core, the fabric sticks to it but you know it’s not sweat, it’s your burning desire to feel more. Your tights leggings struggle to slide down your legs, but this time he’s not giving up that easily, taking your shoes with them. His lips then travel down your neck, tasting your salty hot skin. Wet kisses are left between your breasts, on your stomach, down to your still covered pussy.

By now you’re both too needy to get any more naked so he simply slides your panties to the side to slide his fingers between your folds, making you moan as your hand makes its way inside his underwear to stroke his hard dick. His long slender fingers slide so easily inside you, the nasty noises as he pumps them in and out driving you insane.

“Fuck me, Jaehyun.” You groan against his lips.

“You don’t have to ask me twice.”

With a smirk he removes your hand from his member, pushing his shorts and briefs down his hips and letting out the beast. You yelp when your legs are pushed apart and he positions himself between them.

“Shit, I don’t have a condom…” He sighs right before he was about to align himself with your entrance.

“That’s ok, I’m on the pill. And you can pull out.” You desperately suggest, there’s no way you’re losing this opportunity.

“You sure?” He confirms.

“Please, Jaehyun…” You beg pulling his hips down on yours.

Without wasting any more time, he pumps up his dick a few times and rubs it between your slick folds before finally sliding it inside you. You bite your lips at the satisfying stretch, digging your nails into his shoulder. After adjusting, his hips start moving against yours, quickly increasing the speed of his thrusts in despair.

Your legs instantly wrap around his waist, pulling him as closer as you can so he can hit as deep as he can. You’ve dreamt about this moment for so long, but your fantasies can’t come close to how it really feels to have all of him in you, as his mouth leaves beautiful marks all over your neck.

After a while he turns you around with his strong arms, lifting your hips so you’re resting on your knees as your face is pushed down. When he enters you again, the angle making it hit differently, has you grasping on the mattress.

With a tight grip on your hips, he moves just at the right pace to start building that sweet feeling deep inside of you. You’re not one to cum easily but damn, you’ve been waiting for this moment for what feel like a life time and damn, he’s doing such a great job.

Lifting your head you’re graced with a beautiful vision: the huge mirror on the wall in front of you showcasing his shirtless sculptured figure right behind your sinful position. You notice the way he bites his lip just like he does when lifting weights, and it drives you crazy. Soon his eyes find the reflexion of yours making the corner of his lip curl up in a devilish smut.

Suddenly your upper body his lifted against his, leaving you on full display in the mirror, his movements in and out of you never stopping. One of his hands travels down your stomach before his index and middle fingers start circling your clit increasing your pleasure. His coordination is unbelievable, much like his self control, because you could sweat he was holding his orgasm in just to make this moment last a little longer.

“Cum with me.” He whispers against your ear as you both watch your bodies moving in sync.

With one last groan you do as you’re told, like a good girl, almost crumbling down if his grip around your waist wasn’t that tight. Watching you fall apart in front of him triggers his own high but he manages to pull out, like a good boy, white strings of cum flying into the mattress.

For a few seconds you stay just like that, kneeling in each others arms as you regain your breath and let your heart rate get back to normal.

“Guess we don’t need cardio today.” Jaehyun jokes as you two start to get dressed.

“Don’t think the staff will love our alternative for the treadmill though.” Chuckling, you grab your towel to clean up what you can from the mess on the mattress.

“Oh shit, do you think somebody heard us?” He looks around, thanking all heavens that the small room doesn’t have any windows or cameras, at least that he can spot.

“We weren’t interrupted, were we?” You shrug with a grin. “Besides, it’s not like our noises were much different from someone exercising really hard.”

You both laugh but then he walks to you, hand gentling resting against your cheek before he leans for a kiss. This time his lips move slower, he doesn’t rush as you already got the lust out of the way. It should feel good, and it does, but you can’t help but freeze on the spot, panicking inside.

“I gotta go.” You grab your things and rush to the door right after he steps back.

“Wait! Did I do something wrong?” He calls but you’re already out of the room.

Quickly he grabs his stuff and tries to chase you but you’re nowhere to be found. He tries calling but you don’t pick up. He texts but there’s no reply. Jaehyun’s confused, he thought you wanted this, he thought you liked him. But if you did, why did you run away?

It was hard not answering his calls or texts but it just got too real too fast. Yes, there was physical attraction between you two and he is a fun guy to be around. But that last kiss just felt like too much, like there were feelings behind it and that’s something you just can’t deal with.

You decide not to go to the gym the rest of the week to avoid him. Childish behaviour? Yes. But it beats having to deal with possible feelings.

Friday night arrives and you decide to go out, have some fun and forget about all this mess. You meet up with some friends but once you get to the club everybody casually spreads out, some looking to pull, some just finding a spot on the dance floor. As for you, the bar is your first destination, greeting the bartender and ordering your usual drink.

“Guess faith is stronger than your will to avoid me.”

Looking to the side you see Jaehyun. Up until now you’d only seen him in his gym clothes, but you gotta admit the red dress shirt and black pants suit him like a glove. But you push the lust to the side and grab your drink about to disappear into the crowd.

“Wait.” He grabs your arm making you look back. “We need to talk.”

“About what?” You step back, taking his hand off of you.

“I think you know.” You sigh, realising there’s no point running away. “We were hitting it off so well, why did you run away?”

“Look,” you stop his hand from reaching your arm again, this time to caress it, “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about us.”

“And what idea is that?” He raises a brow.

“I don’t do relationships, Jaehyun. Yes, I had a good time with you but that’s it. If you’re looking for more than that, I’m not your girl.” You turn back around about to go your way again.

“Who said anything about a relationship?” His words stop you. “I had a good time too. And I think it would be a waste to just throw away all this chemistry.”

You remain in place, thinking about what he said, se he walks over to you.

“We can just keep it casual, you know?” His breath against your ear as his hands make their way to your hips, brings a smile to your face. “Just physical, not feelings.”

“You can buy me another drink first.” You push him away and turn around. “Then we’ll see.”

It doesn’t take a psychic to guess how the night ended. Bodies entangled, rolling around on his sheets. Luckily he had a drawer full of condoms so you didn’t have to play the dangerous pull out game again.

The next morning, Jaehyun wakes up alone as you sneaked out when he instantly feel asleep after your new work out plan. For a second he thinks you might’ve have regret the agreement but your texts are back making him chuckle as he goes in the bathroom to take a shower.

You didn’t take any more chances at the gym, saving the place to actually work out, but you start meeting casually when needing to blow off some steam, or if you were just in the mood. You never discussed being with other people in the mean time, but if you got what you needed from him, why would you go through the process of picking up someone new?

You just had one rule: no sleeping over. Wether he went to your place, or you went to his, nobody sleeps the night at the other’s bed. That’s your one requirement to avoid feelings. And so far it seemed to be working. Months have passed and your friends with benefits agreement feels like one of the best decisions you’ve ever made.

Until one day he decides to say the forbidden words.

“Why don’t you stay?” You ignore his words and pick up your clothes to get re-dressed, but he insists. “C’mon, it’s late and I know I wore you out tonight.”

“Jaehyun stop.” You don’t have to look back to know the proud look on his face from his performance tonight.

“I don’t get why you insist on leaving right after we have sex.” He sits on the bed, back against the headboard, not even bothering to cover his still naked body. “You make me feel so used.”

“Oh, poor thing.” You go along with his joke at first but then decide to clear up the boundaries. “I told you why.”

“‘Sleeping together leads to waking up together which leads to feelings, blah, blah, blah’, I know, I know.” He mocks your voice and groans, “I just can’t understand why you’re so scared to catch feelings.”

“I’m not scared,” you roll your eyes, “I’m just-”

“‘Not that type of girl’, right…” He sprawls across the bed, getting annoyed with the conversation.

“If you know all of that, why are we discussing it?” You check yourself in the mirror, adjusting your hair.

“Because I feel like you’re softening up.” He casually replies.

“What?” You turn around with furrowed brows.

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed.” His tone is cocky, “The texts we exchange, the way you kiss me and touch me lately… I know you’re getting smitten.”

“Goodnight, Jaehyun.” You grab your jacket and purse and get out the door.

When you get home you can’t stop thinking about what he said. You grab your phone and open your conversation with him. You cringe a little bit at how… Cute you started talking over all the usual teasing. Could you really be getting smitten?

Locking your phone, you lay on your back as you stare into the celling. Maybe you have been a little more kissy and touchy lately. Ugh, did you catch feelings and didn’t even realize? Your mind is a mess and your heart is beating like crazy. Is this what having feelings feel like? I do people live like this?

The next time you meet up at your place, no one talks about the conversation that has been on repeat inside your head, not that there’s much talking at all. But when he’s getting ready to go, you can’t stop yourself.

“You’ve been thinking about what you said.” You pull the sheets over your tired bare body.

“About what?” He continues getting dressed.

“About me being scared of my feelings and all that…” He stops with his t-shirt half way through his arm and turns to you with a surprised expression. “Maybe… Just maybe! I could give it a try…”

“Wait.” He walks to the bed and sits on the edge. “Do you mean, give us a try?”

“I guess…” You try to hold in your smile as his grows big. “But you should know I have no idea how to do this.”

“Oh, don’t worry, we’ll make It work.” Crawling over the bed, he heads straight to your lips before you stop him with a hand on his chest.

“Not so fast, I wanna do this properly.” You got him groaning at your barrier.

“What do you mean?” He leans back again.

“I believe we should go on a date first.” You propose.

“A date? Aren’t we a little pass that?” He chuckles taking a peek inside the sheets and earning himself a slap on his hand.

“Jaehyun, I never did this before so I wanna do it right.” You insist.

“OK, ok, you win.” Getting up, he continues getting dressed. “Where should we go then?”

“Don’t worry about it.” You wink making him shake his head with a smile. “How does Saturday at 7pm sounds?”

“Sounds like it’s gonna be fun!” He excitedly replies as he heads out.

“Goodnight, Jaehyun.”

When the front door closes you roll around the bed, giggling like a teenager. This feelings thing is so weird, but you gotta admit it feels kind of nice.

Saturday comes and he’s finishing getting ready when the doorbell rings. You had texted him you’d pick him up so a smile grows on his face. The first thing he sees is a huge bouquet making his eyes go wide.

“Hi.” Your head pops up from behind it with a grin.

“What is this?” He chuckles taking the flowers.

“Well, I read online it’s usual to bring flowers on date.” You shrug.

“I’m pretty sure it’s usually the guy doing this part…” He raises an eyebrow. “But I’ll take it. Let me put these in some water and we can go.”

You awkwardly wait by the door but he is quick to come back. The date is a classic one: dinner and a movie, simple but effective. You didn’t want to go overboard with it in case it went wrong, but of course it doesn’t, you already know each other so well and have so much chemistry that it had everything to go right. The conversation flows, you laugh and get to know each other even more. At the end of the day it was a very successful date.

When you drop him back at his place, you walk him to the door, laughing about a funny scene in the movie you watched.

“Here you are, safe and sound.” You smile, pleased with the outcome.

“I am.” He chuckles. ”I had a really great time.”

“Not bad for a first date, huh?” You nudge his arm.

“Not bad at all.” With that he starts to lean forward expecting a kiss but you stop him.

“You’re supposed to wait til the third date to kiss.” You whisper against his lips that are so close from yours.

“Says who?” He whispers back, not moving an inch.

“The internet.” There’s a pause and then you two start laughing. “I told you I want to do this right, I don’t want you to think I’m easy.”

“Ok, we’ll do it your way.” He finally steps back with a sigh and plays along. “Will you call me then?”

“I will.” You nod. “Goodnight, Jaehyun.”

The rest of the weekend he stays by the phone but no call, not even a text. Why are you so confusing and give him mixed feelings? He thought everything went well but now you just go silent. On Monday afternoon he sees you entering the gym and catches you right before you get into the locker room.

“Oh hey, I didn’t see you!” Your smile looks so genuine that makes his head a mess.

“Don’t tell me you’re avoiding me again.” He puts on the cutest pout.

“What?” You tilt your head. “Why would I be avoiding you?”

“Right?” You grow more confused. “You said you’d call. And then you didn’t…”

“Oh that?” You chuckle. “I read you’re supposed to wait two days to call back. I was gonna do it tonight.”

“Are you serious?” He lets out a relieved breath. “Does everything really have to be under these ‘rules’?”

“I told you I don’t know how to do it, so yes.” You explain, giving no room for him to refute any further. “Now let me go get ready, otherwise I won’t get any exercise done today.”

Jaehyun stands there looking dumbfounded as you go change. You’re so unique and peculiar, but that just makes him like you even more. One thing he doesn’t really like is that because you finally decided to accept your feelings and go on all these dates, he’s getting none so he’s growing horny and needy.

You keep going on dates and, as promised, at the end of the third one, before you say your goodbyes, you pull him in for a kiss. He takes as much as he can from the moment, not ever wanting to let go, but you eventually push him back and leave.

By the end of the fifth date you accept to come inside his apartment for one last drink before you go. You get comfortable on his couch as he prepares some light drinks and then joins you. The conversation continues like an extension of the date, with him scooting closer and closer until his mouth joins yours.

The glasses are placed on the coffee table as the kiss intensifies and you find yourself moving to his lap. His hands grip on your hips, slightly moving them back and forward to create some friction. But as you start feeling something growing under you, you quickly get up and adjust your clothes.

“Maybe we should call it a night now.” You clear your throat.

“Why?” Frustrated, he runs a hand through his hair before rolling his eyes. “Is these because of those ‘rules’?”

“Well, I read guys like to do it on the fifth date but girls prefer to wait until around date nine, so maybe we should go on a few more…” You bite your lip realising how silly these dating rules sound.

“Oh yeah?” Suddenly he gets up and takes off his shirt. “You really want to date four more dates?”

Gulping, you watch his toned torso that you know so well and miss so much. You also notice the bulge in his pants making your insides burn. In your head you start debating if you still want to do this ‘right’ or give into the pleasure.

“So?” He steps closer, voice dropping low.

“Fuck it.”

Closing the distance you instantly jump on him, legs wrapping around his waist as your arms support you on his shoulders. Good thing he works out hard and catches you like it’s nothing, resuming the kiss he wished you’d never stopped.

He carries you into the bedroom and lays you in bed. Your clothes slowly come off, the naked spots getting covered with Jaehyun’s gentle kisses. When you’re fully bare, he takes a spot between your legs, face inches away from your pussy as he blows some hair on it.

Biting your lip, you squirm on the mattress, desperate for more, but his strong hands hold your tights apart before his tongue travels between your juices folds to focus on the center of your nerves, drawing the most intricate designs and driving you crazy.

Soon his fingers join the party, slowly entering you and curling just the right way to massage that special spot. By now you’re not able to hold it in anymore and let the moans escape your lips. All those dates were fun but damn you missed how he makes you feel in bed.

You try to tell him to just fuck you already, even if it gets lost in your sinful sounds, but he seems to be focused in getting an orgasm out of you before making your wish come true. When your body shakes in pleasure he makes sure to lick all your juice before his lips make their way up so you too can taste yourself.

Then he leans back on his knees, taking his time to unbutton his pants, but now you’re impatient so you replace his hands removing the remaining clothes off his body. His jaw drops in a silent moan when you wrap your fingers around his cock, pumping it up and down.

Letting a drop of saliva fall into the tip, you smear it on the head before you start sucking on it with your hand still moving on the length. Gradually you move your mouth lower until you have all of him inside. You start bobbing your head at a nice pace, feeling him grow more if that’s even possible.

Jaehyun messily grabs your hair out of your way, biting his lip as he attentively watches his dick disappear between your lips. His precum mixes with your own taste in your mouth giving you a nasty yet delicious flavour.

You wanted to go all the way and have him explode in your mouth but he’s the one needy and desperate right now. Gently he pushes you back in in the mattress and reaches for a condom on his night stand. He rolls the rubber down his length before aligning himself in your entrance and slowly pushing in.

Pressing your tights to your torso, his hips start moving as your nails dig onto his back for support. His pace and stamina is like no other, but today it feel different. He’s still hitting all the right spots inside you but this time it feels more passionate and caring, even if he’s fucking your brains out.

After a messy kiss, he leans back, lifting one of your feet to rest on his shoulder, slightly changing the angle and making you moan louder. He joins the melody of pleasure in the room, moving faster and deeper as his orgasm builds up. You look up through half lidded eyes and smile spleeplish at that signature expression you adore, the one he makes when lifting weights as he to control his muscles.

He knows he won’t last must longer, and neither will you for your second high of the night, so he moves your leg to join the other one, positioning you on your side, and lays behind you. He wants to feel close to you when he cums so he wraps his arm around your waist, gluing his rock hard torso to your back.

To make sure you get your orgasm before him, he slips your upper leg over his hip, allowing him to hit deeper inside you as his hand moves to your clit. The circular movements of his digits along with the pace of his dick sliding in and out of you are enough to push you over the edge and you coat him in your juices.

Soon, he too is filling up the condom, his moans so close to your ear, almost making you cum again. You stay there for a few minutes, in each others arms, his cock getting soft inside you, until it starts to feel a bit nasty, in a bad way and you separate to clean up.

Back in bed, for the first time you cuddle. It’s such a simple thing but so emotionally powerful that makes you think you’ve done the right thing in letting him in. Letting your feelings in. Your head feels so right laying on his chest, it annoys you much you enjoy listening to his heartbeat as his chest heaves with his steady breathing.

“Alright, time to go.” He taps your shoulder.

“Go where?” You look at him confused.

“Home, silly.” He bops the end of your nose.

You feel like a rock was dropped to your stomach. He wants you to go home. Like you did all those other times. You thought that with dating and accepting your feeling things would be different and it would be good to spend the night, but maybe he thinks differently.

“We already had sex so there’s no point you staying right?” He continues with the most natural smile in his face.

“R-Right…” Still confused, you slowly get up but then get yanked back into his arms.

“I can’t believe you fell for that.” He laughs. “I was just kidding.”

“You idiot!” You hit his chest annoyed at how you realise this is probably what he felt all those times before.

“Shut up, you love me.” As Jaehyun cages you in his embrace you have no choice but to give in.

“Maybe I do.”

☽ ・・・・・ ☾

taglist: @yokshi-unbeliebubble​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @nc-teen​​ ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @yutahoes​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @dimplehyunn​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @iknowyuno​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @bebskyy​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @ne0cultur3technology​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @nurenciye​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @luvjeongjaehyun​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @nohyuckieduckie​​​​​ @booyouwhore17​​​​ @jenoxygen​​​​

unable to tag: @chenleyang @doahflix @criminalmindsz @jaehyunsprincess

[3liza]

thank you for speaking rational thought AS AN ARTIST into the ai debate. i get so tired of people over simplifying, generalizing, and parroting how they’ve been told ai works lmao. you’re an icon

some of the worst AI art alarmists are professional artists as well but theyre in very specific fields with very specific work cultures and it would take a long and boring post to explain all the nuance there but i went to the same extremely tiny, hypefocused classic atelier school in San Francisco as Karla Ortiz and am actually acquainted with her irl so i have a different perspective on this particular issue and the people involved than the average fan artist on tumblr. the latter person is also perfectly valid and so is their work, all im saying is that we have different life experiences and my particular one has accidentally placed me in a weird and relevant position to observe what the AI art panic is actually about.

first thing i did when the pearl-clutching about AI art started is go on the Midjourney discord, which is completely public and free, and spent a few burner accounts using free credits to play with the toolset. everyone who has any kind of opinion about AI art should do the same because otherwise you just wont know what youre talking about. my BIGGEST takeaway is that it is currently and likely always will be (because of factors that are sort of hard to explain) extremely difficult to make an AI like Midjourney spit out precisely wht you want UNLESS what you want is the exact kind of hyperreal, hyperpretty Artstation Front Page 4k HDR etc etc style pictures that, coincidentally, artists like Karla Ortiz have devoted their careers to. Midjourney could not, when asked, make a decent Problem Glyph. or even anything approaching one. and probably never will, because there isn't any profit incentive for it to do so and probably not enough images to train a dataset anyway.

the labor issues with AI are real, but they are the result of the managerial class using AI's existence as an excuse to reduce compensation for labor. this happens at every single technological sea change and is unstoppable, and the technology itself is always blamed because that is beneficial to the capitalists who are actually causing the labor crisis each time. if you talk to the artists who are ACTUALLY already being affected, they will tell you what's happening is managers are telling them to insert AI into workflows in ways that make no sense, and that management have fully started an industry-wide to "pivot" to AI production in ways that aren't going to work but WILL result in mass loss of jobs and productivty and introduce a lot of problems which people will then be hired to try to fix, but at greatly-reduced salaries. every script written and every picture generated by an AI, without human intervention/editing/cleanup, is mostly unusable for anything except a few very specific use cases that are very tolerant of generality. i'm seeing it being used for shovelware banner ads, for example, as well as for game assets like "i need some spooky paintings for the wall of a house environment" or "i need some nonspecific movie posters for a character's room" that indie game devs are making really good use of, people who can neither afford to hire an artist to make those assets and cant do them themselves, and if the ai art assets weren't available then that person would just not have those assets in the game at all. i've seen AI art in that context that works great for that purpose and isn't committing any labor crimes.

it is also being used for book covers by large publishing houses already, and it looks bad and resulted directly in the loss of a human job. it is both things. you can also pay your contractor for half as many man hours because he has a nailgun instead of just hammers. you can pay a huge pile of money to someone for an oil portrait or you can take a selfie with your phone. there arent that many oil painters around anymore.

but this is being ignored by people like the guy who just replied and yelled at me for the post they imagined that i wrote defending the impending robot war, who is just feeling very hysterical about existential threat and isn't going to read any posts or actually do any research about it. which is understandable but supremely unhelpful, primarily to themselves but also to me and every other fellow artist who has to pay rent.

one aspect of this that is both unequivocally True AND very mean to point out is that the madder an artist is about AI art, the more their work will resemble the pretty, heavily commercialized stuff the AIs are focused on imitating. the aforementioned Artstation frontpage. this is self-feeding loop of popular work is replicated by human artists because it sells and gets clicks, audience is sensitized to those precise aesthetics by constant exposure and demands more, AI trains on those pictures more than any others because there are more of those pictures and more URLs pointing back to those pictures and the AI learns to expect those shapes and colors and forms more often, mathematically, in its prediction models. i feel bad for these people having their style ganked by robots and they will not be the only victims but it is also true, and has always been true, that the ONLY way to avoid increasing competition in a creative field is to make yourself so difficult to imitate that no one can actually do it. you make a deal with the devil when you focus exclusively on market pleasing skills instead of taking the massive pay cut that comes with being more of a weirdo. theres no right answer to this, nor is either kind of artist better, more ideologically pure, or more talented. my parents wanted me to make safe, marketable, hotel lobby art and never go hungry, but im an idiot. no one could have predicted that my distaste for "hyperreal 4k f cup orc warrior waifu concept art depth of field bokeh national geographic award winning hd beautiful colorful" pictures would suddenly put me in a less precarious position than people who actually work for AAA studios filling beautiful concept art books with the same. i just went to a concept art school full of those people and interned at a AAA studio and spent years in AAA game journalism and decided i would rather rip ass so hard i exploded than try to compete in such an industry.

which brings me to what art AIs are actually "doing"--i'm going to be simple in a way that makes computer experts annoyed here, but to be descriptive about it, they are not "remixing" existing art or "copying" it or carrying around databases of your work and collaging it--they are using mathematical formulae to determine what is most likely to show up in pictures described by certain prompts and then manifesting that visually, based on what they have already seen. they work with the exact same very basic actions as a human observing a bunch of drawings and then trying out their own. this is why they have so much trouble with fingers, it's for the same reason children's drawings also often have more than 5 fingers: because once you start drawing fingers its hard to stop. this is because all fingers are mathematically likely to have another finger next to them. in fact most fingers have another finger on each side. Pinkies Georg, who lives on the end of your limb and only has one neighbor, is an outlier and Midjourney thinks he should not have been counted.

in fact a lot of the current failings by AI models in both visual art and writing are comparable to the behavior of human children in ways i find amusing. human children will also make up stories when asked questions, just to please the adult who asked. a robot is not a child and it does not have actual intentions, feelings or "thoughts" and im not saying they do. its just funny that an AI will make up a story to "Get out of trouble" the same way a 4 year old tends to. its funny that their anatomical errors are the same as the ones in a kindergarten classroom gallery wall. they are not people and should not be personified or thought of as sapient or having agency or intent, they do not.

anyway. TLDR when photography was invented it became MUCH cheaper and MUCH faster to get someone to take your portrait, and this resulted in various things happening that would appear foolish to be mad about in this year of our lord 2023 AD. and yet here we are. if it were me and it was about 1830 and i had spent 30 years learning to paint, i would probably start figuring out how to make wet plate process daguerreotypes too. because i live on earth in a technological capitalist society and there's nothing i can do about it and i like eating food indoors and if i im smart enough to learn how to oil paint i can certainly point a camera at someone for 5 minutes and then bathe the resulting exposure in mercury vapor. i know how to do multiple things at once. but thats me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[slytherheign]

FEARLESS | tasm!peter parker

PAIRING: high school senior!tasm!peter parker x high school senior!fem!reader

WORD COUNT: 4.5k

SUMMARY: loving peter in secret for far too long becomes exhausting for you when you think he will never love you back. in order to distract yourself from your growing feelings, you start to follow a friend’s suggestion—not knowing that it will only cause you harm.

WARNINGS: cursing/swearing, manipulation, fire, unhealthy obsession/toxic ex, and canon-typical violence. let me know if i missed any warnings. [⚠︎︎RATING: 16+]

AUTHOR’S NOTE: inspired by taylor swift’s song with the same title + i mixed it with a plot from this request sent by @willowhaired (thanks for requesting! hope it’s okay that i didn’t follow some things in your request. i changed some parts in order to match with taylor’s song). btw, this is angst with happy ending. enjoy reading!

DESTINATION: Sweet Street | GO BACK TO THE STATION. CLICK HERE FOR ALL THINGS FEARLESS (reviews, commentary, etc. about this fic).

“Class dismissed!” you heard your teacher announce. The rain that was pouring down outside was heavy and your eyes widened when you realized that you forgot to bring an umbrella. Your seatmate, Peter Parker, who just happened to be your neighbor and your biggest crush, turned to look at you. He seemed to notice the slight panic in your eyes. “Come with me,” he offered.

“Really?” you asked.

“Well, I have an umbrella and a car. You don’t…” he paused. “Unless you want to walk in the rain by yourself. It’s your choice,” he teased. 

“Oh no–please,” you laughed. “I’ll go with you.”

“Come on then,” he said, putting your notebooks in your bag and then picking it up before he stood up. There he was again, being the gentleman that he was, doing the exact same things that made you fall in love with him. 

You and Peter weren’t best friends, but you two were close. Being neighbors since you were children played a huge part in that. You would never tell him, but he was actually your first crush. The first boy who made your heart jump since then and until now. When you were 6 years old, you told him you loved him while you two were playing, you were too young to know the deep meaning of the word “love” back then. In response, he told you that he loved you too because you were like a little sister he never had.

You remembered that response as you grew up, always reminding yourself that he would never love you back in the same way you loved him. And because you were too scared to risk and lose the relationship you two had, you were fine with being his little sister as long as it meant getting to be close to him.

It hurt you. Being close to him but never close enough to touch him in the ways you wanted to. You have seen him get in and out of relationships, let him cry on your shoulders when someone broke his heart. You have always been there through ups and downs, offering advice to him for his relationships to work. Little did he know, your heart shattered each and every time.

You had a couple of ex-boyfriends, both of them breaking up with you before the relationship could even last a year. One of those men was Harry Osborn, who just happened to be Peter’s best friend. You were sad, of course, but it was probably better because you knew that you couldn’t give your all to those relationships. You tried to find Peter in those men you dated, and it was probably why those relationships didn’t work out. 

Peter opened the umbrella in one hand while his other carried your bag; his bag was on his back. He made a gesture for you to come closer and you did. The rain was harsh but you paid it no mind, there was a glow off the pavement as he walked you to the car. He opened the door for you when he reached the car, and you went in immediately.

The close distance between the two of you and the confined space of the car made the smell of him strongly enter your senses. The sensation of his presence made the hair on your skin stand up unsolicitedly. As you drove down the road, you wondered if he knew just how you were trying so hard not to get caught up with your feelings and just kiss him. He was just so cool, he didn’t even realize how he absentmindedly made you want him when he ran his hands through his hair. God, how could a man be this beautiful?

It could get better than this, you knew that. It could get better than you longing for him behind the curtains. But you were terrified. You were deeply in love with him, but you could never imagine him loving you back. 

After that rainy day, Peter offered to drive you home from school daily. You were hesitant, scared that the more time you’d spend with him, the more you’d hurt your heart. But before you could say no, your mouth muttered the opposite of what you wanted to say. You agreed.

You wished for more than the road trips, but for now, you would settle for the slow drives from the school to your home, capturing and remembering every moment you were in his passenger seat.

You knew you could always tell him what you truly felt, but it was always a matter of fear.

If there was one thing Peter knew about his enemies, it was that they always come for the ones he loved the most. That was why he didn’t tell anyone yet that he was in love with you. The only person who knew except himself was his best friend, Harry. He liked to believe that no secrets existed between the two of them. They were inseparable since the first year of high school when they first met each other. Right now, they were seniors and everything remained the same.

He could not be any more wrong. See, Harry was madly in love with you. When you dated him, he felt like the happiest man in the world but he always noticed that you loved another man. And when he saw the way you looked at Peter, he knew. He made plans in secret to hurt the two of you. If he couldn’t have you, then Peter couldn’t have you either.

For a while, he was skeptical of his plan. He didn’t want to do it anymore. He loved you and Peter was his best friend, he didn’t want to continue his plan any longer. Besides, the only thing he knew was that you were in love with Peter, his best friend probably didn’t feel the same towards you…

But then Peter decided to tell him that he was in love with you, and… well, that made him angry. 

He decided his plan would continue.

You remained friends with Harry even after breaking up with him. The breakup was mutual and there were no hard feelings. Just yesterday, he made a joke that you have been single for a long time and that you should download a dating app. You disagreed immediately, telling him that you were never a fan of dating apps. But then he said something that changed your mind.

“You should at least try. Surely, you can’t wait for that person forever?” 

He definitely knew you were in love with his best friend. And with the tone in his voice when he said that suggestion, it made you think that Peter didn’t feel the same. If there was someone who would know if Peter was in love with someone, it would be Harry. You knew they never kept secrets from each other. 

So you did what he suggested. You downloaded a dating app, and in an instant, you were already matched with someone named Nick. You talked to him for months, pretending to be interested in every conversation he tried to start. Nick was nice, you shared a few hobbies and interests but he wasn’t Peter. It was hard to find someone when the only one your heart wanted was Peter. 

And then Nick asked to meet up with you. You didn’t want to. You told Harry about it and he said to give it a go. “If you never try, you never know, right? Just wear your best dress and imagine it was Peter,” he advised. You smiled in return, before texting Nick to accept his offer.

A week prior to your meetup, you found yourself constantly texting Nick, just talking about each other’s lives casually.

Can’t wait to see you next week 😉

You chuckled a little bit as you entered Peter’s car. Another school day has ended. Peter entered the car next. You put your phone in your lap as you adjusted your seatbelt.

Just wear your best dress, and I’ll take care of the rest ❤️

Unbeknownst to you, Peter got a glimpse of your text messages. He felt his mood change in an instant, but he tried not to show it to you. However, it was very obvious because he did not talk to you for the whole ride home. He would glance at you every once and a while but you were too busy exchanging messages with Nick on your phone to notice. 

“We’re here,” he said with no enthusiasm in his voice. He got out of the car before making his way to your side and opening the door for you. You quickly shut your phone off and got out of the car. “Thank you,” you smiled at him but he just nodded. He didn’t even look into your eyes. Maybe he was just having a bad day, you thought.

You knew something was off when he didn’t walk you up to your door. “Pete, is everything okay?” you asked.

“Huh? uh–yeah. Just having a bad day. Don’t wanna talk about it,” he answered simply.

“Oh okay…” you proceeded to go into your house. Something inside you wanted to go back to him but you stopped yourself before you could even run to where he was standing and hug him right there. He didn’t want to talk about it, he probably wanted to be alone at the moment.

“Thank you!” you yelled, smiling as you waved him goodbye from the door of your house. Peter met your eyes for the first time that day, he smiled a little before waving in return. He left as soon as you closed the door.

“How’s your day?” your mom asked you the moment you closed the door. “All fine,” you smiled, walking towards her before hugging her. “That was Peter again, right? What’s going on between you two?” she teased. You didn’t answer, and instead ran up the stairs and went straight to your room. Your mother laughed at your reaction.

You locked your room and changed into a more comfortable outfit. You repeated your mother’s question in your head as you sat on your bed. What really was going on between you and Peter? To be honest, you didn’t know. You still loved him. Your heart still called his name. Nick was just a distraction—a distraction you hoped would be enough to stop your growing feelings towards Peter.

Suddenly, a notification popped on your phone. A new message from Nick and Harry. You first opened Nick’s message, it was just the location for your meetup next week. The next one you opened was Harry’s.

Did Nick send you an address yet for next week? Can you update me?

You quickly typed a reply.

What a coincidence. He actually just sent me the address but it’s unfamiliar to me. Why do you want to know?

You saw the three dots on your phone that told you he was typing. It stopped for a long while, it was almost like he was contemplating what he was going to send. The dots showed up again after some time until he sent a message.

I think I know where that address is. Should I take you there?

He didn’t answer your question. Nonetheless, you were glad for his offer.

Really, you would do that? Thank you! ❤️

A WEEK LATER.

Peter was doing what he always did, sitting on a rooftop ledge as Spider-Man, looking at the city as he waited for someone who needed his help. Everything was peaceful for a while, it was just him, the wind, and the buzzing noises from cars and people. His eyes caught something familiar. A car heading into a part of New York where not many people went. It didn’t take him a long time to realize that it was Harry’s car. He swung quietly through buildings, settling on one where he could see the car more properly. 

There you were, sitting in the passenger seat of a car heading into an almost abandoned part of the town. His senses immediately alerted him of danger. He watched as the car stopped in front of an abandoned house. He saw Harry guiding you into the house and he sneakily entered it from one of the windows. He settled behind a table, a place where he could observe you without you noticing.

You were wearing a black dress that highlighted the shape of your body. You already were beautiful for him, but seeing you in that dress made him aware that you were the most beautiful girl in the world. He could spend his day just staring lovingly at you if it wasn’t for the current situation. 

He saw the confusion on your face as you looked around the empty building. It was then the moment Peter realized that today was the day you were meeting up with Nick. The only problem was Nick wasn’t here and it was just an empty building, and he could tell by the look of your face that you were close to panicking. 

Just as Peter started to stand up and walk towards you, Harry entered the building with a wide smirk plastered on his face. Peter quickly returned to his hiding position.

You pulled out your phone from your purse and called the number Nick gave you. At the exact same time, you heard someone’s phone ringing in the building. You turned to where the sound was. It came from Harry, he was laughing. And then he showed you a phone in his hand with your name on it as the caller. You ended the phone call, and the ringing on Harry’s phone also stopped.

“Harry, what’s going on?” you started to take a few steps back. “Where’s Nick?”

“There’s no Nick,” he admitted, a sly smile showing on his face. “I made it all up.”

“But–why?” you were starting to tear up. This place was not familiar to you. The more you looked around, the more you realized that escaping was not an option. There was one open window but it was far from your position. There was also a huge fallen table blocking it.

Peter stood up from his position and silently moved closer to where you were. He took advantage of the shadows and his spider-like abilities to move without having any of you notice it. Suddenly, he felt his foot touch a liquid substance. It was gasoline, it came from a hose that was close to his hiding spot. His eyes tried to trace where the hose came from but his spot gave him a limited view. He knew it was from outside the house but he didn’t know exactly where.   

In just seconds, the house smelled like gasoline, and the floor was flooded with it. Apparently, the hose that Peter discovered wasn’t the only one. There were a lot scattered around the house and they released the liquid substance at the same time.

“Do you smell that?” Harry snickered. “I know you do. It’s pretty cool, isn’t it? I planned this all by myself. I even installed the hoses.”

“Harry, what the fuck are you doing?” you questioned.

“Taking back what’s mine,” he replied. “I love you, Y/N. I never stopped.”

He stepped closer. “Take me back. Be with me again,” he demanded.

“You’re fucking insane. Get away from me.”

“And if I don’t want to?” he mockingly asked.

“Harry–stop. Please. We’re still friends, right? W-we can still be f-friends,” you shakingly tried to reason out. He only shook his head. 

“Say you love me and you can still leave this house breathing,” he warned.

“Harry–”

“Say it.”

You shook your head, frustrated tears were coming out of your eyes.

“Say. It.”

“No–” you whispered.

“No?” he asked.

“No,” you answered sternly. You would rather die than spend your life stuck with him.

“Then you leave me with no choice but to–” he pulled out a lighter from his jacket. Your eyes widened. 

Someone from the shadows shot out a web to Harry’s hand, preventing him to move his hand and light the object he held. Spider-Man soon stepped out of the shadows. “Get out, Y/N,” you heard Spider-Man demand you and you instantly ran straight to the door. You didn’t even dare to question how he knew your name.

The door was locked as expected. While Spider-Man and Harry fought, you tried to look around for something that would help you destroy the handle. Your eyes caught a crowbar covered in gasoline laying on the floor close to a wall. You made your way to it cautiously, careful not to let yourself get caught up with Harry and Spider-Man. For a moment, you saw the lighter escape Harry’s hand as Spider-Man punched his face but your focus was on the crowbar so you just let them deal with themselves.

You did your best to hit the door forcefully with the tool when you returned, but it was hard to break since the crowbar was covered in gasoline which made it slip from your hand almost every time. All of a sudden, Harry was able to retrieve the lighter and flicked it. As soon as the fire showed itself, he threw it on the floor.

The next thing you knew, the house was on fire and smoke filled the air. It was getting hard to breathe, even Harry was coughing weakly. You tried to shift your attention to the door again. This time, trying even harder to open it. You kicked, threw your body weight on it, and hit it with the crowbar again, but it only managed to do little to the door. 

When the smoke increasingly spread in the house, Spider-Man felt that his mask was suffocating him. To be able to breathe more properly, Peter decided to remove the mask from his face. He wasn’t worried about showing his face, Harry was already passed out, and you were busy breaking down the door. Besides, he was already planning on telling you he was Spider-Man some of these days, he might as well do it now.

After a more few tries, you eventually managed to break the door handle and kick the door open. You were about to call Spider-Man to alert him but the words got stuck in your throat upon seeing his face.

Peter looked up as he felt you staring at him. “Get out of here, Y/N!” he yelled.

It seemed that your feet were stuck on the floor and your mind stopped making rational decisions because you stayed there in shock. “Peter?” you spoke.

“Y/N, GET OUT! LEAVE!” he yelled again. His voice made you jump and you instantly followed his demand. You left the house still thinking of him. You were already starting to walk to your house when your heart ached out of being worried for Peter. “Fuck it,” you whispered under your breath. You turned back, making your way back to the burning house. You called the authorities on the way.

Peter was still inside when you returned. You squinted your eyes, hoping to see more of him through the fire. He was carrying Harry, trying to get him out of the house but he was struggling because of the fire that surrounded him. 

This was the part where the brain fought with the heart. Your mind was pleading for you to go home, save yourself, and get a good night’s sleep. But your heart insisted on staying, helping Peter, and putting yourself in danger.

Your heart only needed to softly whisper Peter’s name, and you were already all in.  

And so, you entered the house fearlessly.

You used your arms to cover your head from the falling debris as you made your way to Peter. His eyes did a double take as soon as he saw you. “What the fuck are you doing here? Didn’t I tell you to leave?!” he questioned, worry and stress showing through his voice.

You ignored his questions and instead insisted on helping him carry Harry out of the house. You were both silent even after the job was done. For a while, it was just you, Peter, a passed-out Harry, the house that was on fire, and the sky that decided to rain.

After a few minutes, you heard the sirens that alerted you that the authorities were arriving at the scene. Peter looked at you as if to ask if you called them, and you nodded in response. He put on his mask again.

You watched as the firemen dealt with the burning house. Peter, now back to being Spider-Man, talked with the authorities about Harry and what happened. Harry was still passed out and being carried to an ambulance that would direct him to the hospital to get treated before he would face the consequences of his actions. As for you, you sat in the ambulance getting checked by the medics. You didn’t have any major injuries, just minor ones. When they offered to get you to the hospital just to be sure, you politely declined them and insisted on staying with Spider-Man.

It was as if the universe decided to help with the burning house because the rain decided to turn into a storm. You found a bench close to the house for you to sit on. The storm was getting harsher, but you refused to leave the place without Peter. You just crossed your arms to cope with the growing cold the wind delivered.

After waiting for a few more moments, the house wasn’t on fire anymore and the authorities left the scene for the day. As soon as they left, Peter removed the mask and walked towards the bench you were silently sitting on. “I would offer you a coat, but I don’t have one,” he stopped in front of you. 

You looked up at him, standing up so you could look at him properly. “You okay?” you asked, noticing a few bruises on his face. “Yeah,” he nodded. “Are you?” he asked softly.

“I’m fine… still kind of shocked though. Didn’t expect my day to turn out like this,” you told him.

“Why were you using a dating app in the first place?” he asked jokingly.

You knew he was only teasing, but his question struck a nerve in you. To forget you, you wanted to say. Sorry for the mess, I only wanted to fucking forget you. Sorry for trying to move on. Sorry because I fucking love you.        

Instead, you answered with another question. “Why didn’t you fucking tell me you’re Spider-Man?” your voice raised unintentionally.

His eyebrows furrowed with the tone of your voice. He tried to get closer to you but you stepped back, rolling your eyes. “Why is your ex fucking insane?!” he matched your attitude.

You scoffed. “Why is your best friend fucking insane?!”

“I–stop. Y/N,” he said softly. He realized from the way you were shaking that you were probably stressed and traumatized because of what happened. His suspicions were confirmed when you suddenly broke down crying. He instantly covered your fragile body with his frame. He hugged you tightly, letting you sob all the stress and frustration away. It was still storming, but none of you cared. 

“Shhh,” Peter cooed. When your crying stopped, he held your face with his hands. “Why did you go back?” he asked, looking into your eyes.

“Because I wanted to help you,” you answered.

“And? I know that’s not the only reason you did it.”

You debated on whether to tell him the truth or lie your way out of the conversation. But after the stunt you pulled earlier, you knew Peter wasn’t stupid and would realize the truth sooner.

“Because I care for you. In ways I cannot describe,” you answered truthfully.

“Why do you care for me?” he asked.

“Peter…”

“I need you to say it,” he whispered close to your face. Your nose was close to touching his.

“I won’t because I know you don’t feel the same,” you closed your eyes.

“Open your eyes.”

You opened your eyes.

“Look at me.”

You did what he said.

“Say it.”

It was time to tell him, without fear.

“I love you.”

Peter smiled, before pulling your face closer to him and kissing you hard. Your eyes widened, not expecting him to kiss you. All along, you thought your love was one-sided, but the kiss you were sharing right now proved otherwise. It was your first kiss with him and it was flawless. You closed your eyes and deepened the kiss, you only pulled away when you needed to catch your breath.

“How are you feeling right now?” he smirked. “Did I kiss all your worries away?” he teased.

“I don’t think there’s a word that could do justice to what I’m feeling right now,” you chuckled. “I’m so happy–I feel like my heart is dancing. I could dance right now.”

“Really?” he asked, a clever smile showing up on his face. Suddenly, he offered a hand in front of you. “May I ask you for a dance?”

You accepted his offer. The only music was the storm as it loudly poured on the pavement, but none of you minded it. You swayed with him, giggling as you stared fondly at each other. 

You were wearing your best dress, dancing with Peter in a harsh cruel storm, taking each other’s hands as you both drag yourselves head first into your lives and hearts. To be honest, you didn’t how it would get better than this.  

“Can I tell you something, Y/N?” he asked, gracefully turning you.

“Of course,” you smiled.

“My heart races for you so fast that I just need to let this out–I love you. I love you so much. I want to spend every day with you. When you’re sad, I want to be the one you run to. When you’re happy, I want to be the reason why. When you’re sick, I want to be the one who takes care of you. When you’re in trouble, I want to be the one who saves you.”

You stroked his cheek lovingly. “I love you too, Peter. I’ve admired you ever since we were children and up until now. When I think of my future and who I want to spend it with–it’s you. It’s always been you. I’m afraid of rejection, that was why I didn’t tell you the moment I knew I have feelings for you. I was always scared that you would turn me down. That’s why all these years I chose to love you behind your back. But now… now that all’s been said and done, I’m not afraid anymore. If what you’re asking me is to enter your life as your partner, then I’ll do it fearlessly.”

He turned you one last time, before putting a hand on your back and on the back of your thigh, gently bending you backwards so he could kiss you deeply once again. Each time he pulled you in his arms, you got a little more brave. As it turned out, all it took for your heart to not be fearful was Peter.

Love really was fearless.

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