#and to torment the dash hah

[lettrespromises]

> LettresPromises informs you : You have one notification.

> Letter object : The cry of the heart.

Zoro Roronoa sent you a letter, would you like to read it?

@me11orine​ sent a letter :  ❝hiii! i hope your currently feeling well and staying safe! may i pls request an angst but a happy ending with zoro? its not really specific so you could do whatever you’d like! pls take your time!❞

author’s letter :  ❝dear reader, i’m so, so, so, so, sorry for being so late regarding this request! i hope you’ll be able to forgive me. i really had a lot of fun writing this request and showing my undying love for zoro love my birthday twin, i missed writing for one piece so thank you for sending me this and thank you for trusting me with your request!! love you and take care.

sealed with a kiss,  nikki.❞

Warnings : Cursing, blood, injury. Genre : Kinda angsty, kinda fluff. Word count : 1.6K.

The weather was hot in Dressrosa, perhaps too ideal for a kingdom ruled by the living and breathing personification of evil, or maybe was it just another trick played upon the Straw Hat crew : how could this kingdom possess the weather of heaven and, paradoxically enough, be ruled by the new face of evil?

Although the sunny weather complimented the thoughts of relaxation, enjoying the sinful pleasures of life and whatnot, the reality drew a sharp contrast with these ideals— it was a hunt led on the scale of an island, a literal hunt, where the horn would only be blown once all of the targets will be taken down. It was a race against time, a permanent sword of Damocles was dangerously hanging over each member of the Straw Hat crew as a reminder that every action taken had a consequence— some reduced drastically the distance between the tip of the sword and their head, and others helped to deliver the last blow to their opponent.

Sword of Damocles or not, Zoro Roronoa could handle any situation with the help of his very own swords, that is… Almost all of them. His expertise regarding the art of fighting his opponents with both his most cherished and lethal weapons seemed like poetry in motion to the common eye— he was the living testimony of empiricism, each of his experience added yet another step-stone on the ramp to become the best swordsman alive.

Nonetheless, the legendary prowesses of his swords could not fix the deep wounds caused by the poisonous mix of emotional numbness and physical pain. His sole valid eye was entirely focused on your small form (or at least, from his point of view, it did seem smaller given the fact you were bending under the echoes of pain) caught in a whirlwind of distress. He should have trusted his guts, after all, trusting his instinct came as a second nature to him, and not let you face one of Doflamingo’s pawns on your own. Yes, the victory was yours, but was squirming in pain really worth having the bragging rights of a success?

Isolated in an alley, away from the preying eye of the Donquixote family, but certainly not isolated from the sounds of agony echoing from certain areas of the kingdom, you were left bruised and out of breath on the ground. Your palm was delicately covering the wound in your arm, while being careful enough to not apply to much unwanted pressure on it, your mouth was set agape, a position needed to allow several unsteady breaths to fall free from your lips in cascade. And although Dressrosa was moving under the rhythm of the cries of pain, the alley you and Zoro was stuck in was eerily silent, a form of silence imposed against your will, but perhaps was it because none of you knew what to say.

The wound was deep and blood was flowing a bit too freely out of the cut— you considered is a medal, Zoro saw it as a mark of inattention. His facial expression reflected almost too perfectly the vivid emotions rushing through his mind : a dash of sadness, a pang of guilt and a generous dose of anger. His brows were furrowed, teeth clenched, his eye never left your figure, he was hoping his stare alone could make you feel his rush of emotions.

« What the hell were you thinking? What’s wrong with you? You could have died if I hadn’t shown up at the right time! » Zoro barked, anger lacing his every word, you winced at the harsh tone of his voice.

« What the fuck was I supposed to do? Let you do all the dirty work and stand back in silence? Hell no! » You responded, with the same amount of volume and acerbity coating your voice.

« You knew damn well you couldn’t have beaten him on your own, why the hell do you have to be so reckless? » It was a rhetorical question coming from him, there was no answer, just the will to sting you where it hurt the most.

« Because I’m sick of you seeing me as some kind of person in distress, because I’m not! I had him right where I wanted and you let your savior complex get the best of you. I could have handled it on my own, I didn’t need you! » Now, now, talk about letting your emotions dictate your speech.

His eye widened in surprise, mostly because he was not expecting that such rage could have ever possibly takeover your wording, but he regained his composure almost immediately. His jaw felt tight as your haunting words kept repeating themselves over and over again in his head like a broken record.

« You don’t need me, hah? Fine by me, next time I’ll let you suffer on your own, and remember that you asked for it. »

Maybe you were right, maybe you didn’t need him. For the first time, he laid his eye elsewhere, he couldn’t muster the strength to look at you, nor stay close to you. And with that, Zoro had already made the decision to leave you in this alley.

Willing to mimic his actions and indirectly compete in this silent war of prides, you tried to get on your feet to go back to the Sunny. Your plan, however, did not match with the reality— as soon as you stood up, a cry of pain left your lips without warning, your knees gave up under the pressure and eventually you found your original position : sat on the floor. Zoro stopped abruptly in his tracks once this sound of torment connected to his eardrums. His pride yelled at him to continue on his way out, to leave you alone because you ‘didn’t need him’, but he was only a mere man to try resisting his pride.

« Don’t move, you can’t help being so damn reckless all the time, can you? » the anger lacing his words had faded away and instead, a hint of comfort replaced the former vivid emotion.

Zoro was back kneeling in front of you, his stare was once more focusing on you and you only, as it always has been. You, on the other one hand, couldn’t seem to gather enough strength to look elsewhere but on your wound, and oddly enough, the more you looked at it, the more it hurt. Why did it hurt? You ignored the real answer to the question, nonetheless, pearls of tears running down your cheeks, a sweet mixture of salt and guilty.

« Oi, oi, oi, what are you crying for? » You knew he didn’t mean to sound this harsh, but ‘Zoro’ and ‘delicate’ were oxymorons.

Your thumb was still brushing invisible forms near your wound, in a desperate attempt to ease the pain and distract yourself from Zoro’s acerbic words which had finally sunk in, it was similar to being caught in a whirlwind of pain without any escape. You couldn’t help these tears from falling free on your face, it was the aftermath of said whirlwind, and the consequences of regretting your poor choice of wording.

Zoro’s calloused fingers came right beneath your chin, forcing you to look elsewhere but on one of the many causes of your suffering, and instead, engage a new discussion. His attempt to earning an answer felt short against the deafening silence on your end, a silence, however, often broke by the sounds of your whimpers.

« I-… I shouldn’t have said that earlier. What I said about not needing you, I didn’t mean any of it. » You released a sigh you ignored you were holding, a manifestation that you felt a burden come off of your shoulders.

« Save your saliva and your breath, I got it. And even if you didn’t want my help, you’re not in a position to refuse my help right now.» A hint of a smirk was plastered upon his face as a sign of a silent victory against you.

Zoro was right, you had no choice but to give in to his help. His arms snaked around your knees and shoulders (while making sure not to enter in contact with your injured arm and let the wound free from any touch) and cradled your head against his chest in a modified version of a bridal carry. Perhaps, just perhaps, you should have accepted his offer to help you earlier on.

« Zoro? » You asked, your breath coming to crash against the skin of his torso.

« Mhm? »

« You’ve always been the person I needed, I was just afraid that you would get injured too. » A confession emanating from your heart, after all, you deemed this moment as the most adequate given the circumstances.

Said confession only comforted Zoro in the nature of the feelings he was holding in your regard, and also demonstrated that the nature of your anger was actually coming from a place of care and attention for him.

« I told you not to mention it. Besides, I’m never letting someone lay a finger on you ever again. » A victorious grin still plastered upon his facial features, this time, it wasn’t because he had won the argument against you, it was because he realized everything he had always wanted, everything he had always needed, was here in his arms.

[milfisolde]

under read more bc i put too much effort into my ocs and there is A Lot. tw for violent stuff

this will be updated every time i think of something for him!

deviantart link

Rollick

“The Ravenous” ? idk I suck at titles

no accessories

Size reference

why does he have anime hair if hes a fish? because he’s my oc and i say so

I MADE ICONS FOR THE LOCATIONS AND CLASS AND OTHER CHAMPIONS’ ABILITIES AND TUMBLR WONT’T LET ME ADD THEM WITHOUT FUCKING THE WHOLE POST UP

Short crappy bio

A young shark-like Vastaya. Born in Ionia, west of the island Sudaro. He was captured as a child by  Bilgewater pirates after straying too close to the surface and being found. Was then put to work on the Slaughter Docks, and trained to hunt in the traditional Serpent Isles manner: “launching themselves at their targets to secure tow-hooks with their bare hands, and beginning to butcher the creatures while they yet lived.”.

I need to update myself on League lore, but I would like him 2 be acquaintances with Nami and Fizz. Also, Rollick would have heard stories about Pyke and would find him really cool. Ideally, he would have Johnny Yong Bosch as his voice actor because I love how he voiced Kung Jin in Mortal Kombat X, but I don’t know how he’d do with a pirate accent lmao.

Kit

Would be classed as a Fighter with the sub-class Diver. At least I think he would.  

His kit is basically just a mash-up of multiple champions with extra ingredients. Riot do it themselves, so I'm allowed to, too. Pirate lingo used for most of his abilities and voice lines b/c I'm not creative for naming things.

 Passive "Blow the Man Down." : A mash-up of Rengar and Darius' but more complicated. Auto-attacking 3 times in a row, or using abilities, gives his unused abilities 3 different tiers of empowerment. (Like, if you auto-attack 3 times, use W, then Q, his E will have tier 3 empowerment.). Tiers 2 and 3 gives the target bleed when hit by abilities, applying "Blood in the Water."  Applying the bleed multiple times makes it stack, tier 2 stacks like two stacks of tier 1 bleed, tier 3 stacks like two stacks of tier 2 bleed. How many times can it stack? Idk. 5? 7? 10?? ok probably not 10 that would be stupid.

2nd passive "Clipper." : Rollick moves faster in the river; this move speed scales with his normal move speed.

Q "Feed the Fish." : Tier 1 is a swipe in an AOE cone with his claws. Tier 2 is a small lunge in a targeted direction with two swipes, one with each hand. Tier 3 is a longer distance lunge with a bite. If tier 3 lands on a moving target (examples: scuttlecrab when it dashes, Ezreal using his E), it will follow the target like Warwick Q/Evelynn E. The bite will also heal him for a small amount.

W "Hook, Line, Sinker." : is like Rengar's Bola Strike with a wider but shorter range for tiers 1 and 2, but he leaps in the targeted direction at tier 3 and if he hits something, covers it with his net and stays on top of them for a short amount of time. Tier 2 spins the target around from they way Rollick throws his net and will turn the opposite direction of the way the target was originally standing. If you're facing Rollick and the tier 2 net hits you, your back is now turned to Rollick.

E "Chase." : Warwick Blood Hunt but either less or more annoying. Cooldown is shorter in duration, but so is its active. The passive part of it only shows paths to champions affected with a bleed, burn or poison DOT effect. (Includes: Rollick's "Blood in the Water", Darius'  "Hemorrhage", Brand's  "Blaze", Gangplank's  "Trial by Fire", Lillia's  "Dream Dust", Cassiopeia's  "Noxious Poison" and  "Debilitating Poison", Twitch's "Deadly Venom", Teemo's  "Toxic Shot" and  "Noxious Trap", Singed's  "Poison Trail", the  "Scorch" rune,  "Ignite" summoner spell,  "Challenging Smite" summoner spell, "Azakana Gaze" from  Demonic Embrace, and "Torment" from  Liandry's Anguish.

R "Cleave 'Em to the Brisket!" : Similar to Skarner's "Impale". Rollick takes the hooked blade he has on his belt and lunges at the target, stabbing into the enemy champion's chest with his chest to their back, and drags them away. "Cleave 'Em to the Brisket!" can only be used on a champion that has their back turned towards Rollick. It applies a tier 3 "Blood in the Water." upon use. It can yank champions out of  Displacement Immunity, but doesn't suppress the target champion entirely, they are still able to use dash and blink abilities, use Thresh's  "Dark Passage", recast  "Death Sentence" , and use most movement summoner spells ( Flash, Hexflash, Mark/Dash), but if they do, half of their current HP is taken away from the hooked knife being dragged/yanked out of them. If you are 30% HP and you use one of the movement abilities mentioned, you will leave with 15% HP and two stacks of tier 3 bleed. For 5 seconds after using his ult, Rollick uses his knife to attack, gaining increased auto-attack range and his autos apply a tier 1 bleed stack per hit. The enhanced auto-attacks drag his targets towards him because of the hook part in his knife getting caught on them.

Animation ideas

(I used google to find every gif/picture, save for the “dance” one. they have tumblr links bc when writing this tumblr shit itself when i wanted to save it as a draft and i kept it open in a different tab and copy/pasted everything. im sorry some of the gifs are weird aslkfjdjf)

Walking animation is him using his arms and tail to "crawl". imagine the gif has a tail instead of legs

Running animation is the same concept, just with much more effort put into making himself move faster. Moving in the river looks more like he’s swimming rather than crawling. Slowed animation is him dragging himself slowly with his head facing the ground, putting weight on his elbows instead of using his arms completely. Like an army crawl but in pain.

Idle animation is him crossing his arms and resting on his elbows, then looking around and inspecting his claws.

If left in idle animation for more than 15 seconds, he drops down completely and puts his head in his arms and dozes off. Moving after the sleep idle will have him shake his head awake when starting to move.

Death animation is him trying to crawl, being unable to, then collapsing on his side and flopping onto his back.

Taunt animation is him straightening himself then lashing out with his hands and baring his teeth before "biting" the air in the direction he’s standing, voice lines coming out before the bite part.

Joke animation is him chasing his own tail? Maybe he gets tangled in his net after doing it for a second and just struggles there until the animation is interrupted.

Dance is uh. He straightens up and does knife tricks. He doesn’t have legs, doesn’t have a staff like Nami, and just wouldn’t dance like Cassiopeia.

I made the gif using footage from here.

His laugh animation would be him laughing and flopping onto his back, then turning back onto his stomach. All but one of his laughs would be loud and hearty, the one that isn’t would sound like Kung Jin’s laugh.

Voice line ideas

First encounters:

Bilgewater/Bilgewater themed champion:

"Ahoy!" "Ahoy, bucko!" "Ahoy, scallywag."

Multiple champions simultaneously/champions who have a visible partner/partners with them (examples: Kindred, Sejuani, Lulu with Pix, Elise with her Spiderlings, Azir with his Sand Soldiers):

"Ahoy, me hearties."

Pyke:

"Pyke?! I’ve heard stories of you! Though… You’re smaller than I had imagined..." "Hey there, old salt! " "Ahoy, seadog! "

Nami:

"Good to see a friendly face! Shame it’s on the wrong side." "Oh! Little lass! Have you found your stone yet? "

Fizz:

"Little trickster! Where’s your big friend? "

Illaoi:

“Test? Gonna get myself an A-plus-plus! …That’s the good grade, right?

Taunts:

Any champion:

"Scurvy dog! " "AAARRRRGGGGHHHH! "

Bird/bird themed/winged champion:

"Polly want a cracker? "

Tahm Kench:

“The only creature with an appetite bigger than mine” “You put me to shame with that maw of yours! You could fit me in it!”

Abilities/eliminations:

Tier 3 "Feed the Fish.":

(after used on champion wearing armour/with tough skin)

"Ouch… I think I broke a tooth. Good thing I got more. "

(after used on champion with fur/feathers/long hair)

" (violent spitting-out-fluff noises) Blegh! "

Tier 1 and 2 "Hook, Line, Sinker. ":

"Catch! " "Avast, ye! "

Tier 2 "Hook, Line, Sinker. " after turning someone around:

"Bring a spring upon ‘er! " "Broadside! "

Using "Chase. " with a DOT’d champion in range:

"Chum in the water…" " (deep inhale, then a rumbling growl) "

Using "Chase. " with affected champion visible:

"Lookin’ a bit squiffy there…" " (laughter) Yesss… "

Eliminate champion:

"Take a caulk. "

Eliminate champion while using "Cleave ‘Em to the Brisket!" or the enhanced auto-attacks after:

"Hah, keelhauled! " “Taste me steel n’ may the devil take ye!”

“PENTAKILL!”:

"Dead men tell no tales…"

Respawn:

"What a flogging…" "Alright, I’ve fed the fish… Now it’s their turn. "

Pings:

(Danger!):

"Heave to! " "Avast ye! "

(Assist me!):

"All hand hoy! " "All hands on deck! "

(Assist me!) followed up by (On my way!), or vice versa:

"Weigh anchor and hoist the mizzen! "

(Area is warded.):

"They’ve got a lookout. "

(Target champion):

"Thar she blows! " "Sail, ho! " "Savvy? " "Hang ‘em from the Yardarm! "

Miscellaneous:

Allied champion drinks potion or gets healed by another ally when Rollick has missing HP:

"Splice the mainbrace! Please?"

Alone with low HP, no potions or actives available, or sells all items:

"Looks like I’m marooned…"

Healed by ally:

"Feeling shipshape!" "Much obliged." "I’m in your debt." "Thank you!" "Thanks!"

Receives shutdown gold:

"Ha-ha! Plundered! " “Bounty taken.”

Flashing away from enemy:

"Blimey! " "Gah!” "Sink me! " " (girly shriek) "

[bb-bitto]

The Wise Reaper

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a wizard. He was very wise, and people came to him for advice. No one knew how, but he always knew who was a sinner and who wasn’t. He lived in a big castle, inhabited by strange creatures. The creatures looked like fairies, but the wizard always called them “Fey”. 

One day, a strange man ran into the wizard’s castle: “Oh wise Wizard! I am in need of your guidance!” The wizard looked at him, and saw an “x” on his chest:

“Come, young man, tell me, what sins have you committed?” 

The man looked very surprised, and then replied:

“Wise Wizard, my name is Ernesto, and my daughter Xenia has been abducted! Please, Wise Wizard, you must help me!” 

The Wise Wizard looked annoyed, he clearly didn’t want to help the man, for he’s a sinner: 

“Ernesto, was it? Why would an old Wizard like me, help out a young sinner like yourself?” 

Ernesto started to panic even more, and took out a knife from underneath his cloak, pointing it at the Wizard: 

“Wizard, if you don’t help me, I shall have to slay you right here! Azriel sent me here to bring you to him, but it seems his scheme is failing me! Your time is up, Exius, the Wise Reaper!” 

The Wizard looked surprised, this was an unexpected turn of events. He threw his robes open, making a huge scythe appear out of thin air:

“How bold of Azriel to send a measly human to my castle. It seems his schemes have gotten weaker over the years. Tell me, Ernesto, what makes someone a sinner?” 

Ernesto’s face turned pale, he was terrified beyond compare. “Well, dear Exius, a sinner, is someone like yourself, who defies the judgment of the Angels.” 

Exius replied: “Of course, a mere believer like yourself would say such a stupid thing. A sinner, is someone who committed a crime, which is in no way decided by the Angels. The Angels are mere fakes, power-hungry, winged people. Sins are judged in Hell, by none other than the Devil himself. I’ll see you there.”, he said, right before he sliced off the head of Ernesto. 

The next moment, Ernesto was somewhere completely different: 

“W-where am I? What is this p-p-place?” “This, dear Ernesto, is Hell. And you, are a sinner. You’ve committed the crime of homicide several times, ‘in the name of Archangel Azriel!’. Humans are such insolent creatures. You are to be sent to the second Circle of Hell, where you shall hang for eternity, while birds will continuously eat your flesh, wait for it to regenerate, only to eat it all over again. That is your judgment.”, said Satan to Ernesto. 

Ernesto looked behind him, and saw Exius standing there: 

“YOU! You did this to me! If it weren’t for you, I would’ve lived in heaven for eternity! You ruined everything!” Exius looked at Ernesto, and said: 

“A sin is a sin, nothing more, nothing less. No matter for what reason you may sin, your sins will always follow you for eternity. All the way to judgment here in Hell.” 

Exius then disappeared without a trace, leaving Ernesto to his eternal punishment. He made his way to Azriel, for he knew Azriel would be near the Cathedral. Once he arrived, he saw a girl, chained up with heavenly chains, by none other than Azriel himself. 

“Help me, Wizard! Azriel betrayed me! I entrusted myself to him, but he tied me up with these heavenly chains! I can’t get out!”, says the girl in a panicking tone of voice. 

“Yes indeed, you are very tied up, and I’m not letting you go! You are a sacrifice needed to let our Lord and Savior, God himself, descend onto this wretched land!”, says Azriel with a smug look on his face. 

Exius takes his magical scythe, and throws it straight at Azriel. Azriel deflects the scythe, making it fly off into the distance, 

“Hah! You actually thought such a rash attack would be enough to even scratch me? I expected more from you, Wise Reaper, but it seems you’re nothing more than a weakling!”, shouts Azriel. 

Suddenly, the scythe changes its direction, flying right in Azriel’s direction. Azriel doesn’t notice the scythe, resulting in the scythe slicing off one of Azriel’s wings:

“How dare you! My heavenly wings! God himself granted me these! You’ll pay dearly for this!”, Azriel said, while creating white spears of light out of thin air. 

He hurls the spears right at Exius, to which Exius finally starts to move, and dodges every spear without any trouble. The spears however, stop in their tracks, and turn around to follow him. Exius flies forward with what seems to be wings created by magic, and gets his scythe ready. 

“Your time has come, Azriel. You will no longer mistreat these foolish humans, and you will no longer torment this Earth. It’s time for you to finally be judged for your sins. Sins follow you, even beyond death itself.”, says Exius with a straight, serious face. 

He shoots forward, straight towards Azriel, with the spears still following him. 

“Hah! It seems your stupidity will be your demise after all! You should know to never face an Archangel head on!”, Azriel says while taking out his holy blade. 

Exius moves in closer and closer towards Azriel, but right before coming within range for Azriel’s blade, he dashes upward, higher into the sky. Azriel’s spears can’t adjust that quickly, and they fly straight into Azriel himself, impaling his only remaining wing, his legs, and at last his heart: 

“How, how could this happen to me? I’m supposed to be the strongest, even invincible! I can’t be slain by a filthy servant of Satan! We Archangels commit no sins! We are law itself!”, says Azriel in his dying breath, before falling on the ground, and bleeding to death. Exius makes his scythe disappear, and descends back to the ground: 

“No one escapes fate. You shall always be judged for the sins thee bring upon this world, no matter what reasons ye may have. I am but a servant, bringing sinners to the Underworld for judgment.”, he says while standing next to Azriel’s dead body. 

Exius then rushes off to the girl: “Hey! Are you okay? You’re safe now, Azriel is gone.” 

Then, Exius takes his scythe out again, and releases the girl from the heavenly chains: 

“Oh thank you! My name is Willow! Azriel was going to sacrifice me because I’m not human! I’m actually a Fey!”, says the girl, hugging Exius very tight to thank him for saving her. Exius takes Willow to his castle, where she’s safe for eternity, and they lived happily ever after…

[marshmallowprotection]

Antirrhinum

AO3

Pairing: Saeran Choi/Lila Lancelot (OC) 

Description: Saeran and Lila thought that they could escape from Paradise and leave everything behind that had brought them together in the first place. The Savior refused to allow this to happen. She would twist up their love for one another and put it to better use for the greater good and for the sake of paradise. All they had to do was submit. 

Based on Saeran's 3rd Bad Ending. 

"Saeran... or Ray... please... come back...!" Lila whimpered. 

Her arms curled tightly around her torso as she sat in the corner of her room. It was dark and all she had known were these four walls ever sine Saeran had left her behind. 

It had been so long since he promised that he would save them. Was he going to come back? Had he been lying when he said that he would help? When he said that he was going to protect her and Ray? When trembled underneath her fingers as she held his face in her hands and cried.

She thought it would only be the last time she saw him for a few days.

Not weeks, or months.

No matter how much she cried and screamed for help, nobody would come. She was trapped in this room with no way out. Her messenger was useless and she could speak to nobody at all apart from Rika and... she didn't want to do that. She really didn't want that. Yet, these four walls were all she had and when the door opened for the first time in weeks, she found herself staring at the woman with golden curls.

She looked sympathetic for once and clicked her tongue as she took in how disheveled Lila had become. Rika sank down to her knees in front of the girl and rested a hand against her shoulders for a second as Lila trembled. As scared as she was, she had not been around another person in such a long time. It had been exactly as Rika had planned and to see her in such a place almost made her smile broadly.

It had been a child’s play, to say the least, like taking candy from a baby. Nothing more, and nothing less than that. All it took was a little yank of an arm behind one's head until they begged for mercy and lamented, pushing their limit for pain until they eventually cracked and had no choice but to submit and accept their fate. Sure, there was always a hint of trepidation and hesitancy from those who didn’t know what was good for them at first, but she was quick to break them of these awful habits.

It only took a bit of this, a dash a that, a sprinkle of such the right amount of applied pain, and when you wrapped it all up in a delicate bow, it was just right again. Saeran had been falling on a fool’s errand. Why would he ever think that he was made for the outside world? Certainly not, she knew him better than that.

He had not survived and flourished there, no, no.

He had spent his childhood miserable and lost until she had found him and taken him to the safety of the walls.

It had been the doing of that girl.

Whenever something seemingly started to go wrong in her divine plans the issue always led back to Lila. She had gotten in the way and caused far too much trouble to warrant any good feelings. A part of Rika wanted to throw her away and try again, but the kindness in her heart was too big for her to do such a thing like that.

Why ever should she throw any somebody who had the power to sway Saeran AND Ray?

That would be a waste of something that could provide far too much good in her quest to redeem him in the holy light that could only exist here in Magenta.

Self-reflection was important and Rika was glad she stopped for a moment to think about what would be best done to fix this mess.

She was surprised that the idea didn’t occur to her sooner. She could use her just as she used Saeran, just as she had used Ray.

Once Rika decided that her devil had given her the best path to follow, she went through with it. Ray had thought that he was going to be leaving for good, but, as a matter of fact, he would be sleeping for quite some time. Just as long as it would take to break the spirit of that pathetic princess.

It took time, of course.

It always took a bit of time and effort to figure out the best way to make someone crack. Lila had already been pushed to her limits by Saeran as he had spent weeks toying with her feelings and emotions for the sake of a thrill, and that left her in quite the vulnerable state.

She had thought that Saeran had finally abandoned her once and for all when he never came to find her after so wholeheartedly telling her in the dead of night that they would escape.

Oh, she feared that it had all been a cruel trick played on her expense. That he dangled her freedom and the freedom that she had wanted for him and Ray out on a string only to leave her gasping for air like fish out of water on the way to market… just to see how she would break.

Her heart was heavy and her tears were close to drying out after so long of being scared and alone.

The pitiful fact was—

Lila would not give up on that boy easily.

It was her fatal flaw, her hamartia, the one thing that left her vulnerable.

Even when the rest of the world had given up on her and she should have given up on belief and faith, she never let herself give up on the boy that had shown her so many feelings and experiences.  From the fondness that Ray had given her to the delicate hesitation that came from the nervous Saeran.

Rika could see it in those eyes of hers. The childish devotion that was tied to like an anchor sinking into the deep sea. She almost pitied Lila. She had seen that look in her own eyes at one time when she was a different person.

The fact that she had been broken and thrown about like a ragdoll was her fault, she should have known better than to love somebody. What did that feeling earn her? Nothing but torment and yelling and screaming and suffocating in a room to learn her lesson.

Love… hah…!

It’s such a shame that when you think you have that and the person judges you and casts you aside when you reveal your truest self. Love is powerful and it can ruin a person in a matter of seconds if matters get to that extent.

It’s daunting when someone looks upon you for the first time with such faith that you do not know what to do with yourself. Giving yourself to someone who does not know what that power and faith could give to them. This was something that Savior knew very well and she understood the devil in her Saeran.

That was why Saeran couldn’t bear to look at that poor thing in the eyes because her blind devotion terrified him to the brim. Something believing in him for once in his miserable life? In a way that his Savior did not? Oh, he could have never been ready for such a thing, not even Ray could handle a thing directed at himself.

Blind devotion can be such a beautiful thing. He was not ready to feel on the receiving end of those feelings, nor was he ready to do what needed to be done to use that power to the fullest level that he could. That was why he was led astray. It was why he had failed. It was why neither he nor Ray could do what she planned for them.

They misunderstood what true power was.

Rika realized that when she spoke to the broken doll for the first time, and she could see it reflected her eyes. She saw something that she could have never seen in the awful traitorous man that cast her aside like garbage when she revealed her true nature to him one fateful afternoon. Something that her devil relished and found sheer satisfaction from, deliciously so.

Devotion without any fears.

True… blind… devotion.

Lila may have been tired, and her body may have been very weak… but she refused to give up on Saeran or Ray. It put a wrench in the plans of paradise in the past but that did not mean that it couldn’t be useful. This level of belief was something that could be perfect. This should be used for better means, Rika knew.

Rika e could work with this, she could twist this narrative so wonderfully, she could benefit from this, most of all, paradise could benefit from this. The cogs and gears were turning in the back of her head as her devil whispered such beautiful darkness into her ears. Yes, yes, this was something that she could use to take them all down.

She could see why her dear, useless, pathetic, childish Saeran had fallen for Lila. She could also see why this nervous, terrified, shivering porcelain doll had sought out comfort from him.

“You miss him, don’t you? Poor thing, abandoned because he didn’t know what was good for him, right?” She cradles the poor girl’s face in her hands. Lila is listening to her every word because there was nothing else left for her to do. “It’s okay. You can be honest with me. I of all people know what it feels like to love someone who forsakes them.”

She had been locked tightly in this room for such a long time. Rika had made sure of that. After she had taken Saeran back into her bosom, she knew that he needed time to pray and repent for his clear misdeeds against paradise. His punishment would be to sit in a dark corner and take his elixir until his lungs burned and pleaded for the end. Lila, on the other hand, would be used as Rika saw fit and neither Saeran nor Ray would have a say in what happened to their pitiful toy. It was quite lovely to see the way the light left this girl’s eyes day by day by day. Saeran had promised that he would come back and that they would escape together, did he not?

When Lila had first pleaded with her after she hadn’t heard from Saeran that first day, begging to know if Saeran had been taken or not. Rika did not tell her the truth. Saeran is gone, no one can find him, I am afraid he must have run off and left you behind . It was for her own good. She had to learn that she could not take something that belonged to someone else.

How far was she willing to go for her belief in them?

“He just said he would come back. I believed him. No, I believe him, but he’s still not back and it's been so very long,” Her voice is quiet, so very quiet and tired.  “If he… if he left without me… that’s okay… right? As long as… as long as he’s safe, I don’t... It shouldn’t matter what happens to me, right? I just want Saeran to be safe.”

Lila started to shake her head at that notion that sprang into her head. Her dry eyes found the will to let a few tears go free despite how dehydrated she was. She choked back a heavy sob and held herself as tightly as she could.

It isn’t much comfort and she’s on the brink of losing it , and her feet are so close to the ledge that she’s mere seconds from falling.

That’s just what Rika wanted.

Rika nodded her head as if he understood those feelings and where she was coming from, her sharp eyes were softened on her form. “That’s alright. I get it. We both wanted the same thing for him, you know? I wanted Saeran to be safe, as well. But, he left me behind too.  Sure, our intentions were a little different but we both care about that poor boy, right?”

“Yeah,” Lila mumbled. “Let’s say that.”

She watched, and she waited. Rika could find no sign of attitude or ill-meaning in those words. Long ago, the girl would have fought with her for saying such a thing and pushed her away with such heated vigor. But it appeared as though that her will had been so thoroughly broken down that she didn’t or couldn’t fight anymore.

Good.

If they agreed, that made matters much easier to contend with.

Rika smiled, and tucked a stray hair from Lila’s face, “You must be wondering why I came to see you today after all this time. Well, it wasn’t that I didn’t mean to. There is much business to take care of and I can’t relegate everything out without Saeran here. I come to you with my proposition, my dear. Don’t look so down, princess. I won’t let you rot away here.”

Lila lifted her gaze from the ground and looked dead into Rika’s eyes. She was scared and hopeful but as much as she was craving safety, she was also nervous about listening to anything that Rika may have had. She was looking for a hidden meaning under those words but she would not find what she was looking for tonight.

The pitiful princess had no energy to fight back. She knew that she was a sitting duck and it would be better to submit then it would be to fight back. She didn’t reply to which Rika expected. It mattered not. What mattered now was that she said what needed to be said.

“What would you say if I told you that I had a way for you to be with Saeran?” She asked. “Would you be interested?”

Silence.

“Isn’t he gone ?”

“He’s never really gone,” Rika replied. “You must know that, my dear. As much as he wants to rebel against me, he knows that he can’t survive out there without me, or without you .”

“What does it matter? He clearly doesn’t want anything to do with me,” Lila muttered. Her voice was bitter, and it was lovely to hear such a sound for the first time. “It doesn’t seem to matter what I want. If he’s okay without me, then that’s okay. I won’t… let it bother me. He deserves to be happy. If he’s far away from this place, good. I'm as good as dead anyway. No matter what I do, he's not going to come back for me.”

Rika paid no mind to that fact, she only continues to speak her mind and let the words flow out one by one. “I assure you he isn’t happy at all, Lila. How could he be happy knowing he left behind his precious princess? I've been thinking... You just wanted to be able to be with him without anyone separating you. Isn’t that what you want?”

Lila looked down. She wasn’t saying but it was very obvious what she wanted. It had always been so clear and predictable to read her expressions. Like an open book that could tell no pathetic lies at all to anyone. She wanted him. She wanted to be with him.

“I realize… I may have acted hastily in my past decisions, and I regretfully may have made a few mistakes in my actions. I know you might be quite hesitant to trust me, but I’ve realized that to fix things I need to start with those that I have… well, hurt the most recently.”

“Sounds funny coming from, well, you,” Lila mumbled. Her bitter voice was exhausted and tired of fighting all the time. “All you’ve ever done to Ray and Saeran is hurt them. I don’t see why you would just… change.”

Rika chuckled. It was a soft, delicate sound. “I’ve changed, I promise you that. When Saeran… and I spoke before he left, I realized what I had been doing was rather extreme, and how badly I had hurt the two of you. He put it into perspective for me.”

“I love that boy like he’s my own… and I messed up. I only wanted to protect him,” She continued as she let go of Lila. ”I overreacted. I was scared of losing him. I didn’t know what else to do. I’m only human. We make mistakes. This place is supposed to be a paradise for those who have suffered, not a place where suffering occurs to people.”

Lila was quiet. Her eyes set on the ground.

Rika only watched as Lila fiddled with her hands on her lap and tried to think of a way to avoid this. She would find nothing, the Savior knew, and this was the right time to finally enact everything that she wanted. ”I should have been protecting both of you, and those precious feelings you shared from the start. I wanted to help, but my help wasn’t the right kind of help. So, I want to fix this. I want you to and my dear Saeran to be happy here. This could really be a place where those who have been hurt can come to seek comfort. But, I can’t do it alone. I need both of you. You both have shown me something I forgot long ago in the past. Will you give me the chance to fix it? I promise I will make things better if you do.

Rika's touch on Lila lingered, and her green eyes fluttered underneath thick eyelashes. "If not for me, for Saeran. I can’t stand that he may be sad or hurting. Doesn’t he deserve to be happy… don’t you deserve to be happy? Give me one chance to prove to you and Saeran that I can make amends."  

She could ignore Rika and shut her eyes. Yet, her will was so very tired. She was desperate, as much as she wanted to push back, there was no point in hiding things anymore. Saeran was seemingly gone from her reach and she would gain nothing out of biting back. She didn’t have anything to do. There was nothing but this and if she didn’t give Rika a chance, then she could be sitting here in this toy box until she took her final breath. At the very least, if she agreed to this, then she could see the outside world again. That was what Rika counted on and that was what she wanted from the start.

Saeran… Ray… she missed them.

She wondered how they were doing, and if they had gotten away from Magenta. Or if they were hiding out somewhere from this place. By what Rika was saying, it sounded like they could have been nearby or still in contact with this place. She needed to know. She needed to talk with him. She needed answers. She wanted to see him again, to see them again. She would do anything to feel his arms around her body again. Her heart ached without him.

Lila was just… tired.

She was tired of fighting and she was tired of seeing these four walls and nothing more around her at all hours. There was a window but that window was mocking her every time she looked at it with tired eyes. She was starting to lose her mind piece by piece. All she wanted was to be able to go back to the start. Saeran had been right when he said that this toy box was going to be the worst ever punishment that she could face. Now he was gone.

She wanted Saeran back. She wanted Ray back. But, they were gone and she could do nothing but cry and crawl at her arms. It hurt, it hurt a lot, and although that quiet voice in her head was telling her to run and to keep fighting back...she just submitted herself.

Lila submitted.

Her hesitation slowly wore away like a rope about to snap, then she nodded her head. “Okay. I’ll… trust you,” she finally cracked. "I'm so tired. I can't do this anymore... I just want the pain to stop... I don't want to be alone anymore... please... as long as he's okay... I want him to be okay..."

Rika clasped her hands together and smiled so broadly. Her hand brushed against the top of Lila’s head as she sat there like a very good girl. So quiet, so obedient. Even as Lila started to sob and cry like a pitiful child, she held the poor dear close as she planned the future for this precious thing. “I’m so happy to hear you say that. I promise you won’t regret this. You and Ray… you’ll be so happy together very soon. You'll never be alone again. I'll fix everything for you, Lila. You know that I'm always good at helping others find their perfect place. Don’t worry, I will show you the way to embrace your beautiful future ahead.”

It would hurt a little... but it was for their own good.

“Oh, dear, it looks like you need a bit of sprucing up before the prayer starts. Let’s just fix this up for you, Ray,” she patted down his hair and made sure to carefully tame those messy locks underneath her fingers. She then removed the few wrinkles from his garment. “There, now you’re looking like a real Savior.”

He was quiet. What was he supposed to say here? There was no point in opening his mouth and saying anything against his Savior. He was wearing his own variation of her ceremonial robes. She had made it for him, and he was… happy… to wear it.

She had insisted that he needed to make things official and although there was hesitance in his heart, he obeyed every word and order that she gave to him. He let her fiddle with him as if she were trying to ready a child for their first school photo the morning of. He was used to her doing that and fawning over him. He slowly nodded his head in response once it clicked for him that she was speaking to him.

“...Thank you, my Savior,” he said. He had no choice, otherwise. There had been no hope of escaping from Magenta, no matter what he did or how hard he tried to fight back against all he had ever known. Losing was inevitable.

Why had he thought that he would be able to do that? Neither he nor Saeran had expected to be captured when they tried to escape. Wait… was he even Ray? That name didn’t feel quite right but the other name didn’t feel right either. He wasn’t sure who he was anymore as she would call him whatever she saw fit. Was he Ray? Was he Saeran? Was he neither or was he both of them? He was becoming something new due to his Savior’s dedicated hands.

It mattered not who he was, or what name that everyone wanted to use to call him. He would respond to everything and anything as long as it meant that he was doing the right thing. The universe wanted him here, and everything always brought him back to her. If this was to be his existence, then he had to accept it from now on.

He didn’t dare think of those thoughts now.

Escape… fighting back … it all made him feel sick.

The only reason that he found the will to keep his body standing was that somebody was holding his hand. It was clammy and it was cold, but it was the touch of her hand that gave him the strength not to die on the spot. She had stayed locked up so tightly in that room waiting for someone to rescue her and she never gave up.

He could not die and leave her behind to suffer in this place. She was dedicated to him with every fiber of her soul, and he was dedicated to her being and her safety. Lila was holding onto his hand so tightly that it felt as though she would disappear if she didn’t hold onto him.

Times like this, his clarity would swim back to the forefront of his brain and he could recall what had happened to them. How he had spent weeks chained up in the dungeon with nothing but darkness and elixir to keep him company until he repeated the words that the true Savior wanted him to breathe into life.

How he refused to do it over and over again for the sake of the woman that believed in him so strongly that she would withstand his verbal lashing as the struggle over what was truly strength rang heavy in the back of his head.  

Paradise…

Paradise existed .

It was in this place. He forced himself to believe it even though his numb body cried at him for allowing this to happen. Why else wouldn’t he be able to leave? Why else wouldn’t Lila be able to leave? Clearly, they were meant to be here. This was the only way that he and Lila could ever be together.

It was their only real option.

It was this, or endless days of solitude until they died. For her, he would do anything, and for him, she would do the same. Days… weeks… months… who knows how much time passed them by since they had tried to escape. The elixir and the training tended to blur the memory of those who were too far deep into it.

He had no idea how long it had been, or what exactly had been going on outside of what they were going through. Did it even matter? Nobody was going to save them and they couldn’t save themselves, so submitting to the numb and foggy haze of the elixir was the only thing that they had the option to choose.

He was numb all the time, now.

She was numb, too. Gone from her eyes was the light that had once glimmered and sparkled, the same eyes that had both fired him up and made him feel alive. The eyes that had made Ray fall into a state of hopeless infatuation and the eyes that made Saeran angry that they could stay so kind to a monster in front of her body.

There was a whisper of the old person inside of them but it would always be extinguished before she could crawl out of the darkness. Her light, fading in and out as her faith became warped into a twisted variation of itself. He would see it when she squeezed his hand in her own and prayed for salvation at his side.

“My Savior,” she sank to her knees in front of him. Those brown eyes were not like the ones that he had seen in her bedroom late in the night as they whispered their final goodbyes. No, in these eyes were a kind of devotion you would revere a God with. “I am gracious to be allowed in your presence once again. I know I led you astray, but she has shown me the error of my ways. I hope to be worthy enough to be near you in the future.”

Saeran could only look down at the girl in front of him with petrified eyes. What had happened? Lila was never like this. She was not supposed to be like this. Her face reminded him of Ray. How he longed to please others but he feared punishment. How he looked upon Lila as if she were a Goddess incarnate when she gave him her hand.

His breath began to quicken, and his head snapped up to look in the direction of Rika who had her hands placed delicately in front of herself as if she were innocent.

“What did you do?” he tried to demand, but his voice cracked and held no trace of the anger that had once fueled him. He sounded like a scared child again. He wanted to recoil from Lila’s touch but he had missed her so much that he couldn’t shake her hands from his body. “What did you do to her?!”

“I fixed her for you,” Rika told him with a smile. “You see, it finally occurred to me that paradise could really prosper with someone in charge that has a loyal follower that looks so sweet, so easily swayed are the masses when there is a pretty girl that believes so strongly in her faith. She won’t fight you ever again, and she’ll do any little thing you ask. She’s always been devoted to you.”

She took a few steps forward but not too close to break the illusion that the young girl had upon him. She gestured to Lila, “I realized my mistake when we spoke last, my dear Ray. It was wrong of me to let you play with the girl first. I’ve corrected all of her ugly light. She’ll never fight you or the whim of paradise ever again. Isn’t that what you wanted?

Saeran’s pulse began to accelerate as he looked back at Lila. It was true. She had been dressed up extra special by the Savior for him. Like a believer, but the colors were reversed. White, she was bathed in white like the angel that she had always been but this… this wasn’t right. This looked exactly as Ray had always envisioned.

Her clutching at him with blind devotion in her eyes, smiling, not putting up a fight, and staying as close to him as she could ever be. How they could spend every day in paradise like this, forever happy and safe from the pain of the world outside. Was this really what he wanted? Was this really what he wanted to do to Lila from the start?

It brought no happiness to his eyes.

Only fear and misery.

“My Savior,” Lila’s quiet voice spoke again. His vision snapped back onto her own and he was left looking at Lila with nowhere to go. She quivered, and tears began to flood her vision. “Aren’t you happy that we’re together again? I… I understand if you’re disappointed in me. I did so much wrong. I tried to ruin our paradise. Please, forgive me… I’ll do anything.”

It felt like he was living a nightmare and this nightmare was wrapping its hands around his throat minute by minute.

“I promise… I promise I’ll never fight you again. Whatever you want, ask for it from me and I will do it for you. I am here for your happiness… our happiness…. I understand now what you wanted for us and I promise I’ll never go against the will of paradise,” her voice was desperate. “Please, my Savior, stay with me. Let’s stop fighting against this. I want to make you happy... please... I understand if you wish to not see me after my actions. I know I was stupid... foolish. But, I'm better now. She helped me become the person you always wanted me to be. Aren't you happy? Please, don't look so sad... I thought you would be happy to see me. I don't— I don't understand."

Her voice was panicked, and the tears that coveted the corner of her vision was far too much for him. "I'm perfect now. We can be get together forever... like we always wanted if that's what you want from me. I'll do whatever you want. Please. Just say it... say something. If you don't wish to see me, tell me... I need to know... I need to know... please... please..."

“Yes, Ray,” his Savior echoed her words. “Stop fighting the truth. Aren’t you tired? Lila was so very tired of fighting it. So, she accepted paradise into her heart as you always craved. You wouldn’t want your precious follower to cry any more tears for you, do you? She’s already spilled so many. You’re hurting her by denying her dream of being with you. Isn't this what you always wanted? You wanted a pretty little follower that loved you blindly.”

The only thing that remained of this memory was the sounds of his own anguished screams.

If he suffered, she suffered.

At the very least… they had each other in this misery to hold onto. Saeran clutched her hand just as tightly when Lila held onto him. He could not bring himself to look at him because he knew if he saw her eyes, he would see the ghost of his mistakes. She would be looking at him as if he were her everything and desperate for his praise. What this truly what he had wanted? It mattered not now... this was what he had, and this is what he would live with until he died.

No escape from paradise.

The only choice was to accept it and embrace the devil. A part of him did not believe what he was being told but the smarter part of him knew that he could never fight against it, so he did what he knew best, submission to the absolute darkness.

Rika smiled at him. “You’ve done so well lately, my children. Both of you have finally found your true potential, and today is the day we share that glory with everyone. I can’t believe things have finally come together the way that they were always meant to. It took a while for this to come to fruition, but the fruit of your labors will benefit all the believers from here on out.”

Her vision slid to the side where the other important person for this paradise was. She reached out and brushed her fingers against Lila’s chin. “I’m just glad you could finally see our side of things, dear, after all that fighting and nonsense you spouted. You truly have become something lovely. Your loyalty is something to admire, isn’t it?”

“Yes, of course,” Lila whispered, a quiet voice trembling as she did. Saeran couldn't stop himself from looking at her as she gazed at Rika, like a frightened kitten. “I am happy in paradise. I have never been happier than I am when I am with my Savior. I wish others could see how happy we are and join us.”

If only he had been strong enough to protect her from the start.

But, he would be what she needed now as he had failed to do it in the past. No matter how much it hurts or stings... what she wanted, he would become it. Her Savior, her protector, her light, her soul, her everything. Saeran would not fail her again. If they were together, that was what mattered. They had this. This was the only option left for them to take. If they refused to comply, they would be separated and surely left to die in the dungeons alone.

He would not leave his Believer to suffer and rot alone.

Not again.

Never again.

“Your unwavering faith will help inspire those who resist the darkness onto the true path to salvation, once and for all. Paradise awaits so many under this new rule, I can’t wait to see how many we can save from misery,” Rika spoke with glee in her voice. She couldn’t wait to see how things would play out from now on, delightfully so. "The believers will see it, they will see with their own eyes just how strong paradise can be. It can bring together the darkest of hearts and show them their true potential."

Lila nodded and then looked back down to her feet, quiet and submissive once again. The only reason he knew that she was still with him was thanks to her fingers interlocked with his own. The numb feeling remained but the Savior and his Believer were ready.

It was only a matter of time now. Rika had taken a step back from her role as the Savior and quietly slid into the shadows behind her two precious children. She was using them for their own good. They understood that. The two of them would become the face of paradise and if anything were to go south, they would take the blame in her stead as she left to rebuild paradise all over again. The Savior, and his most loyal believer… a match made in paradise and no one could deny it.

This was a paradise that Rika could stand behind. She would show the world what true darkness was and how real love was. This would show that traitor and his leeches. This would prove to that horrible man that all of her whims were for good.

V would regret the day that he fought against Rika’s darkness.

She was going to show them all through these two and their idyllic love.

Her hands rested against their shoulders briefly, “Now, it’s time for you to grant them the witness of your presence.”

“Oh, he’s here!” Rika watched as Saeran took his seat on the poppet in front of everyone and all the believers watched with fascination.

The murmurs began to quiet down as he raised his hand to silence them, and Lila took her place at his side. Her hands politely poised in front of herself as she smiled at the crowd. Her eyes did not meet that smile  but it mattered not. All that mattered was that the world could see how much she believed in that boy, and she would not abandon him.

Saeran began to speak, and those words captivated the crowd with ease. He had always been such a good boy. He had learned very well in the past. “Poor souls who seek salvation, the eternal paradise awaits you here at Magenta. The outside world is a pit of defilement. We must cleanse the corrupted world, and that is why our pasts are scourged with darkness. Darkness and light will always be with us. We will all soon become the light of salvation.”

“Liar, you’re not the real Savior!” a believer spoke up from the back of the room as he rose from his seat and pointed at him, ”We want the real Savior! Why isn’t anybody saying anything about this? Are you just acting like she doesn’t exist? Where did the Savior go?!”

Lila’s eyes trained on the sound of the voice. She shook her head at him as if sighing at a small child who was throwing a tantrum, “There is no Savior but the one that you see before you,” her voice was gentle and her tone was direct. All those who saw her knew that she lived and breathed those words.

“That isn’t the Savior!” the man lashed back at the two in front of the room, both Lila and Saeran as they stood amongst the sea of people. “He’s just the errand boy of the real Savior! A crybaby that does not know what to do! He’s done nothing for me! This man is not the woman who saved me and I refuse to accept this! Why aren’t any of you talking about this?!”

“He wishes to save all those who suffer in the cruel outside world. He saved me when no one else would.  I would be out there lost, hurting, suffering, miserable if he had not found me and shown me the light,” Lila stood her ground as she spoke. ”He only wants to save all of us, and I have witnessed it myself time and time again. My Savior is a just man who has always been here for the lonely and weak. Why would you ever insinuate that there has ever been anyone but my Savior?”

Rika pursed her lips from her spot in the shadows as she watched her children enact their paradise upon them all. She knew that there may be trouble from those who didn’t know any better. But, they could be taken care of with ease, no worries at all.

Nobody would fight the law of paradise.

Those that did would be rightly punished and born anew in the blazing fire of Mint Eye. “Security? Take away that traitor,” she said, quietly.

“Because that man is not my Savior!” the believer spat. He started to march forward to prove once and for all that Saeran was not the real Savior. However, before he could even get close to reach the poppet, he was held back by the guards. That unruly believer was removed from the room in the blink of an eye. It had to be done.

Saeran showed that he felt bad for that poor believer, but he continued with his word.

As he should do, the calmness in the center of the storm was the sign and mark of a very strong leader in the middle of a wildfire. He nodded, and looked back among the faces of the believers,  “I do not fear change. I do not fear blame. We only seek to look ahead and build a paradise for all. I only wish to deliver the words of salvation to all.”

Rika could see as a glimmer of the old Saeran peeked through but disappeared just as soon as it had arisen when Lila pressed her hand against his shoulder to steady him. “The authorities, the everyday society, culture, and media, they all seek us out. That means they agree we’re right. The Mint Eye has never been more powerful, and we will be even more powerful tomorrow. We will bring salvation to every corner of the world.”

“You have seen it yourselves, come to us and we will protect you from any more pain, that is the paradise we create for ourselves. Have faith in my Savior, our Savior, for tomorrow, our power grows its hold,” Lila said. Her voice was stronger than it had been moments prior and it couldn’t have been better than this. “For eternal paradise.”

“For eternal paradise,” Saeran echoed. His weary expression gave nothing to the sea of people in front of them but Rika knew that he had finally submitted, once and for all, to his fate as the Savior and his fate with Lila at his side as he had always wanted.

The crowd erupted into a lovely chorus of cheers and cries of hopeful folks who could and would be saved. The rest of the world was next, and Rika could not wait to see it happen.

[johobi]

When You Least Expect It | 11

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader x Taehyung

Word count: 18k

Warnings: major angst, panic attack description, unprotected, penetrative sex, creampies, own cum consumption, fingering, oral sex, overstimulation, squirting

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16732419/navigate

A/N: Thank you, sincerely, for your patience. I really hope you enjoy. Writing this one took everything of me, haha. There is a Read More attached!

Next: 12 || WYLEI Masterlist

You’re in love with your childhood friend, Taehyung. The problem is, you treasure your friendship with him far too much to ever risk losing it. Oh, and he’s quite the Casanova. At your wits’ end with feelings you can no longer hide as diligently as you once did, you ask him to set you up with someone, anyone, in a last-ditch attempt to avoid a heartbreaking conversation.

“Noona!”

You conquered the corner quickly. Ahead was the elevator, the interdimensional portal that had first ejected you into this hellscape.

Its flames licked at your heels.

“FUCK! Stop—listen—just listen, please! ____!”

And the abominable being that pursued you without heart, you could feel his breath upon your neck as he closed in, all devious pleas and feigned devastation. Jungkook's weight was a scorching burden upon your back, dismantling your bones in their efforts to propel you toward salvation. He was a respectable two or three meters behind, of course, and hadn't yet outstretched a hand toward you. But you felt him, nevertheless, in your startled muscles and overtaxed lungs, the acid of his repugnant deception rendering every step an agony.

It was then that you acknowledged reality. That while you would reach the elevator before Jungkook, there wasn't a chance the bastard thing would exclude him from its descent. He was just too close. You'd known that from your first, futile step, of course, but flight was how you were sympathetically wired. Your body believed it was a concord, but in truth you were some pathetic, puttering contraption nosediving to its doom.

But how about fight?

"Noona, please! Don't leave me like this—"

Oh, the poor, snivelling brute. How dare he get snotty-nosed and scarlet-eyed at his own doing. How dare he demand the time of someone he'd stolen it from.

Fuck Jungkook.

And there was your fight. That diminutive surge of bile, of acrid hatred, that unsettled the contents of your stomach. But it was gone again in another two, exerted stomps of your feet and a bereaved yowl that demanded most of your exhausted oxygen supply.

God, you loved him so much.

You hated him so much.

Fuck Jungkook.

You couldn't fight someone that had already bested you. Couldn't defend against someone that had long ago infiltrated your sanguineous recesses and distributed his toxin.

And so you flew, without flight nor hope, toward nothing.

And then, toward green.

The fire exit sign was a viridescent lifeline gesturing to an alternative too stupid to consider. But what else was anyone when they were distraught and desperate, and one look back could be their last? What else was anyone but deathly dense when trailed by a fucking Gorgon?

Because Jungkook might as well have been. Exhaustion would slow you. Desolation would stop you. And just the one look into Jungkook's vast, overflowing eyes would petrify you.

So, yes. You opted for the hazard of descending eighteen flights of stairs, tear-blind and jelly-legged, because breaking every of your bones was preferable to the unfathomed torment awaiting you in that stranger's face.

You veered from the elevator with an impetus that took Jungkook off-guard, if his gag of surprise was anything to go by.

Good. Each beleaguered stride was a flicker of advantage.

Panic seized his every breath. "The stairs?! Noona—please, don't, you're going to hurt yourself!"

It was with a grisly determination that you barrelled your way through the stairwell door, elbows first, finding the prospect of injury on its many, solid steps preferable to the havoc that fucker wreaked on your mind and soul. Vertigo disturbed your vision for the second you spared to look down the bottomless drop at the staircase's core. It was better to watch your feet on loop as they scuffed past the lip of each step, one stray lace away from a broken neck. The magnitude of the building's verticality could be heard through the echo of your dogged stomping, each, angular turn pulling squeaks from your rubber soles.

Curiously, the noise of Jungkook's unrelenting footfall could no longer be heard.

Instead, his dismay ricocheted from above you. "____! God, stop running! You can't run down all these stairs!" was his attempt at reasoning.

But reason was turning the corner and not seeing your beloved in the arms of their secret betrothed.

This was not the time for reason. "Fuck you, Jungkook!" you rasped from lungs that were aflame, and though the air would've been more favourably facilitated to support your eighteen-floor descent, ejecting some wrath emboldened your escape. Three floors beneath him and low on breath, despair fled and left only a torrid hatred in its wake. Its heat cauterised your immediate pain and stoked the fire in your muscles, unlocking their untouched potential. "Fuck you!"

"I'm not going to chase you!" the adulterer hollered down the shaft. Funny. He'd pursued you every day for weeks, never allowing you the dignity of your initial disinterest. No, he'd hunted, and eventually, humiliated you. And why? "I'm not going to chase you," Jungkook's voice came again, not as an eerie reverberation, this time, but from him. You paused mid-step, quaking, rivulets of sweat drenching the sides of your face and oiling your roots. "I'm not going to chase you," he vowed again, quieter. Away from the din of your squealing Converse his own, laboured breathing was apparent.

One look.

You just wanted that one, last look. The one that had been taken by tears.

Like you were peering into the midday sun, your narrowed, tear-sore eyes turned upward.

God, it was a mistake.

It wasn't the sun looking back but the moon, mournful and gentle, and with enough tears of his own to replenish your weary store. "Noona—"

"Don't call me that!" you snapped, more sorrow than savagery. Your mouth pulled down and open, agape with woe. Fuck, you must have looked disgusting. Every secretion that could possibly ooze from your face, painted it. "Don't fucking call me that."

"Okay, I won't. ____," Jungkook's palms were up again to appease you. Like you were the preposterous one. Even your own name had been tainted beyond reclamation. It was better to be a nameless thing than to ever associate it with your despoiled time. "I just need to talk to you—"

"Fuck this!"

The exclamation punctuated your sudden, violent entry to the fifteenth floor as you snatched the door from its hinges and staggered over its meticulously varnished surface. The elevator to your immediate left was idle and ready to abet your getaway. And though there was nothing but an uncanny silence behind you where there should have been resounding, heavy-booted stamping, you jabbed at the button with the violence of a prison shanking.

Rescue came with a whimsical ding and leisurely opening of doors. You slunk inside and prodded repeatedly at the button that most resembled some depiction of the blasted thing closing. It was then, finger levitating above the Braille for the ground floor, that the ease of your departure rang suspicious. Shit, your finger carved agitated circles into the air. He's probably riding the elevator down, too. He's gonna cut me off.

In divining this, you punched the one above. Red illuminated the button for the first floor instead. It would’ve been fascinating, had it not been for your overcome state, just how clearly you were thinking right now. Lucidity had recalculated your compromised escape route. Your ability to outfox him came out of nowhere. In your everyday life, you could never hope to be so canny.

The ride was long, and, though you engaged none of your muscles, arduous. Exhaustion and a myriad of dark emotion brushed the boundaries of your frazzled mind. Its looming threat was such that it manifested as shadow in your peripheral vision, endangering your dash for the exit. But if you blacked out now, Jungkook would find you. Talk about respawning in enemy territory.

No.

The darkness couldn’t have you yet.

It was with a foreigner's eyes you regarded yourself in the mirror opposite, noting, in the mundane fragment of mind that dwelled quietly at the back, that their redness was alarming. That the bags beneath weighed more than ever.

And that they were voids. Frigid, empty, and devoid of stars.

Your reflection scoffed despite herself. Tacked with tears and wild-haired, the sardonic twitch of your lips only exaggerated the mania of your appearance. No wonder Jungkook dipped his dick elsewhere.

Look at you.

The cue for you to alight came with another, soft ding. It was the sound that drew you from your morose musings and back to the horrific cat and mouse you were entangled in. Your chest swelled with anticipatory breath as the doors parted, fully expecting the burly figure of your pursuer to be filling out its frame.

It was empty, however.

Your drive to survive had orchestrated an actual, effectual plan. Spared you further humiliation.

Hah.

Until you had to weather the solemn embraces, the pitying coos of your friends as you divulged to them the most embarrassing of your romantic failures, at least.

It was with the scorch of that impending indignity that you sprang with renewed vigour toward the last flight of stairs, taking the steps two, three, and a leap at a time. The ever-present fatigue plying your leg muscles into surrender was no longer a hindrance but an anaesthetic that allowed you to push your body past feeling. The only thing that burned now, as you stumbled, giddy on adrenalin, down the final case of stairs, were your lungs. But that felt good, in a way. The burn was punishment for being an enamoured fool. It was anger made physical. It animated your limbs with the fire to flee from betrayal.

Your hands were out and depressing the bar for the fire exit as soon as your clammy palms could grease themselves around it. Blood and breathing were at such a cacophany in your ears that you barely even acknowledged what must have been the tinnitus-inducing blare of the fire alarm triggering. It rang hollow and incessant in the background of your body's impassioned efforts.

But you were outside. God, outside, finally. Like an inmate fleeing from some plush penitentiary of pain, you scrambled for the opening in your enclosure. Brisk, evening air took the razor edge off of breathing and cooled your cheeks, invigorating you enough for a sprint. So set was your path that it was only when your face was slippery with moisture unattributed to tears that you realised it was raining. It seemed appropriate that even nature itself would spit on you in this moment.

And as though it were another step in God's garbled plan, your brazen disregard for emergency protocol had disabled the electronic lock of the front gate. It flapped back and forth, impotent, beckoning you to abscond.

You were halfway across the parking lot when you heard one too many feet slapping wet blacktop. Whoever it was - however many it was - it was none of your concern, now. No-one in that building needed re-enter your periphery. And nothing, either - no matter how painful and precious the memory - could stutter your step.

The hurried scuffling slowed. By your ears, several individuals had gathered outside the lobby.

"Is she okay?" a male voice, faint and fainter.

A different man. Almost inaudible. "Looks upset. I don't know—sir!"

"NOONA!"

A man you knew all too well.

In acute contrast to the other people gathered, Jungkook's voice bellowed ragged and raw. And though you were almost to the gate, you heard his shortness of breath with alarming clarity. He was practically dry-heaving. And he must've sensed that you were slipping, rain and tear-soddened, from his adulterous clutches. Because he finally spewed something other than repetitive, bullshit pleas. "I won't give up!" his vow pelted your ears as jarringly as the racket of rain. "I won't give up," he reiterated, solemn and stubborn, as you hauled open the gate.

However, when you pounded pavement from the complex, ankles beset with puddle water, Jungkook didn't come with. The knowledge he wasn't tailing you flooded your weary muscles with something opiate. Or perhaps it was the relentless physical strain you were putting yourself under? Whatever the cause, your feet were barely touching ground now. Analgesia embraced you until you were floating through pain. Until fuzz plugged your ears. Everything was strangely soft and considerately muffled. Even the whetted judgment of puzzled passersby hit you with no more than a mute thud.

Rain no longer seemed to bombard you but baptise you anew. It soaked you through, right to the centre, revivifying your spirit. It was only when you threw back your head to the opening heavens, closed-eyed and possessed of a weird, smiling lunacy, that rationale whispered of your light-headedness and imminent unconsciousness. Certain enough, as soon as you tripped to an unsteady stop, the nearest wall was the only thing keeping you upright. Somehow, along the way, your skeleton had diverged from your madcap route.

One hand on brick and the other encircling your traumatised torso, you coughed and hacked like the oxygen in your lungs had ignited. Your entire thoracic cavity cringed to escape existence, but, alas, it now had to triage your over-exertions. "Fuck," the wheeze was unhelpfully spent on the obscenity and earned you only the concerned muttering of a passing couple. Whatever their summation of your situation, apparently it didn't warrant an enquiry after your wellbeing, nor the cover of one of their absurdly overpriced umbrellas. They swept by but continued to peer back, right into a seething glower that set them to rights. You turned back to the wall.

Fuck rich people.

God, you were suffocating. It wasn't even your lack of physical fitness. It was just this place. This neighbourhood. Its people. Their airs and graces and penchant for horrific secrets. They wrapped everything in gold leaf but rotted beneath. The couple that gossiped rather than offered aid; had they a person each on the side? Smiled through one another’s deceit because it was propriety?

Had you been nothing but an escape from that for Jungkook? His pauper's fantasy?  

Fuck Jungkook.

There was an overwhelming urge to extricate yourself from this place and yet, now at a standstill, your limbs were in a coup. All you could do was drag yourself along the building supporting your struggles - the chafe losing you a couple of your coat's buttons - and dip into the adjoining alleyway. Away from prying, fault-finding eyes, you surrendered to gravity and slid down the brick, grazing your outerwear with limestone.

A ball was all you could become now, huddled and swamped with moisture. Your hands weren't your own, quaking as they did in front of your face. It was with a detached enchantment you observed their tremors, tremors that arrested the length of you.

And all because of a man.

You used to have all the power. Men chased you for better reasons, back in the day. Now they pursued you out of mortification.

And all because of love.

Fuck love.

Love buzzed in your pocket. Too loud and too insistent. Why you took your phone from said pocket was anyone's guess, but the device sat in your palm nevertheless, illuminated by an angelic face that had fallen from grace. Jungkook's thin lips stretched gleefully over his two, jutted teeth. His eyes, too, projected boundless happiness. It looked real. It must have been real.

So why?

You let him ring and ring, distantly evaluating his expression for fraudulence. There wasn't any. There wasn't any. Or perhaps you were just that much of a fool. And that was why tears imposed themselves once more, hot and smarting. They were unpleasantly thawing. And that was also why you swiped to accept his call. Because you could only run for as long as you were unfeeling.

The battery was warm against your ear. You said nothing.

"____? Is that you?"

A shuddering breath trickled past your lips. Apparently, Jungkook heard that.

"Noona! Oh my God, thank you for picking up," he rushed, toppling over each, excited syllable. "Thank you. I was so worried about you—"

The snort that comprised your response came involuntarily. He heard that, too.

"I was—I know what this all looks like. And I know," Jungkook breathed into the receiver like a feverish bull. "That sounds like a bullshit cliché. Trust me, I know. Please, just talk to me. Let me talk to you."

"I don't want to see you," you found your voice, however remote it sounded. "I don't want to see or hear you ever again. This is me, saying goodbye."

Although you weren't in the process of disconnecting your call, a noise of pure panic emerged from the device. He must have discerned the finality of your words. "No, wait! Oh, God, please don't," Jungkook was sobbing again, and you just couldn't fucking understand why. It enraged you. It curdled your fucking insides. He did this! "I love you, ____. I love you, I swear I do. Please, let me explain."

Your jaw clenched painfully. To hinder the question: "Is she your fiancée?"

There was a heartbeat of silence too long.

"Fuck you, Jungkook—"

"No, wait, just—"

"Answer the fucking question!"

The soul-purging sigh that came from the other end was implicit. But you waited for his response nevertheless. "Yes, but—"

"Goodbye, Jungkook."

"WAIT—"

"I don't want to see you again—"

"Just let me exp—"

"Don't call me. Don't text me—"

"JUST LET ME EXPLAIN!" he roared without inhibition, berserk in his wretchedness. You would've given him kudos for this rare show of assertiveness had he not been, at this point in time, the most reprehensible being in existence. Topping even your parents, which was a feat in itself. A gross one.

As it was, his boldness only rankled you. "I don't want to fucking hear your bullshit explanation. I've heard all I need to. Goodbye, Jungkook."

Your thumb battered the red button until his noisome profile picture vanished into black. And for a deceptive moment it felt like you had the upper hand. Of course, sitting swamp-assed and soaked down a trash-strewn alley hardly rang of victory. Being the equivalent of that trash in your ex-boyfriend's - ugh, it hurt - life was hardly a win. Not when he'd been eating that bitch's foie gras this entire time.

No.

She deserved none of your ire. Not as far as you could determine in those infernal seconds you'd glimpsed her face. She'd worn surprise, as you did. Confusion. The whole diabolical cocktail of heartbreak.

So fuck Jungkook.

The rain had stopped, but your face sprang another leak. It was too hot on your cheeks; unbearably molten. Your heart catapulted from broken to overtaxed in too short a time, and the walls of your scummy surroundings suddenly became animate. They pulsed like atrial chambers as they closed in, warm and claustrophobic. Oh God, even your inner voice was beset by hysteria. Please, not now. I can't do a panic attack. Not now.

Three breaths in. Hold.

You scrolled, full-cheeked, through a contact list stuffed with insignificant names, seeking only those whose letters elicited comfort.

Hoseok. Yoongi. The screen was ablur with your indecision as you flicked the considerable distance between them, thumb twitchy.

Three breaths out. Hold.

Your lungs and face deflated both, and on exhalation invited some thready, fragile calm to you. Weird how the body was so easy to trick. He’d certainly succeeded in doing so, too. However unassuming, Jungkook had been a master manipulator of mind and loins.

Garbled identities continued to flit, indistinct, past your eyes. I can't call them. They're still out. I don't want to ruin their evening.

Even knowing both would’ve been on you in a second and berating your hesitation, this was a palatable enough excuse, in your mind, to dodge this particularly painful phone call. It wasn't just your reluctance to disturb their evening's cavorting, though.

And, fuck, it pained you to admit it.

You were embarrassed. Humiliated. Fucking six-foot under the shame. Because it'd only been an hour or so ago you'd been smugly singing Jungkook's praises to your friends, detailing every instance of his demonstrative chivalry, consideration, and - because Hoseok had practically wrested it from you – feats of sexiness.

And now you were his discarded sidepiece, collecting waste on your clothes.

So you instead looked to the name stored between theirs, knowing well he was the worst possible option of the three.

Taehyung.

The worst, because humiliation bit all the more acutely. He'd been your introduction to Jungkook, after all. And, somehow, you'd fucked it up in the most implausible way possible. What a fucking anecdote you were, now. God, he was going to be channelling secondhand embarrassment like a particularly gifted psychic. And he, too, was out this evening, blissfully unawares. With that red-headed idiot. Sure, you didn't give a shit about Jimin, but he hardly deserved to have his night cut short, either.

Actually, he did deserve to. Because he was a fuckboy and that brand of man hardly endeared themselves to you in your current circumstances.

With every, tinny ring, your heart fluttered like a stir-crazy budgie. This was mortifying, uncharted territory. He wouldn’t cast judgment; of course not. But of all your carefully collected memories of Taehyung, his reaction to your profound heartbreak wasn't among them. Your lovable, labradorous best friend could be volatile. Perhaps even violently so, if sufficiently incited.

Maybe you were hoping for that.

No. That was bad.

Retribution couldn’t heal. It would only abrade that which was sore.

"Pick up, Tae," you willed him aloud, no care for him picking up into your maddened pleading. "Pick up. I need you."

As you breathed in, the ringing stopped. And so, too, did your heart.

"Hey, this is Taehyung," his mellifluous tones dripped smoothly from the receiver. Just the impersonal greeting of his voicemail was like being swaddled by contentment. "Leave a message."

The beep came far too fast for the requested, unformulated message. "Uh," you started, and didn't continue for the most excruciating time. "It's ____," and on your own fucking name your voice cracked and bled, thick with woe. "I—I—fuck! I'm sorry, I can't get a fucking w-word out, I'm—" the sobs took too much lungspace; cheated your lips of the ability to form a reasoned sentence. They quivered horrifically, demanding the release of guttural distress before they would allow you to regain control. "God, I-I'm sorry for this message. L-Look, it's not as bad as it sounds, I-I know I'm b-bawling like a baby. D-Don't panic, I'm okay, but I—I just—" you weren't okay. "F-Fuck. I need you, Tae. I-I'm so sad. S-So upset. I don't know what to do with myself. I-I know I'm b-bothering you but I—" the slick sounds of your snot-wiping was something Future Taehyung would find himself treated to. "I don't know what else to do. I j-just miss the old days, y-you know? L-Like, when we were kids. B-Being generally happy, you know? When things w-were simple. W-Wait," your fingernails gouged the bridge of your nose. "This sounds really depressing. I'm okay. I-It's just—s-something h-horrible—fuck!" even wording your way ambiguously around the events of the evening was proving too much for your extinguished ego. A deep breath coaxed it out. "S-Something bad happened tonight. I'm just r-really upset. I know you're out, a-and this message is way too long. Can you come ‘round and talk w-when you can? D-Don't worry if you can't," and yet you couldn't imagine how you'd survive the next few hours if he didn't walk his warm, willowy mass to your door. His hug would fix everything. "S-Sorry for bothering you."

It cited its low battery, but when your phone powered off abruptly, you suspected it was the long-suffering gizmo rolling its eyes into oblivion. This latest misfortune, rather than deepen your sorrow, shook your shoulders with mute laughter. It wasn't a reach to say you were near hysterical when you hauled yourself to your feet, Converse squelching and jeans five shades darker blue.

But if Taehyung were to receive and act on your message, you'd be a poor hostess to prompt him to an empty home. So, with this mission in mind, you staggered from the alley, no longer breathless from overexertion but light-headed in recompense. Despite perching on the brink of unending misery, this task of getting home was just the prosaic goal your exhausted mind welcomed. You advanced, as steadily as you were able, to the bus stop you'd bookmarked on your many car journeys back and forth to this neighbourhood. Its location had stuck in your mind for its abnormal placement; a few times you'd caught yourself scoffing over the notion that any of this neighbourhood's inhabitants would be seen dead draping D&G over dubiously stained, dubiously patterned bus seats.

The rain, at least, had seen fit to lessen your sentence. Your clothes clung cold to your form as you eyed the bus schedule, arms crossing your chest against the chill. Mercifully, you needed only air dry for a few minutes more before the bus pulled in with a grumble, its doors sticky in its hesitance to admit you. Knowing well that the driver was assessing your disturbed appearance, you adopted the chipper facade you often resorted to to stave off potentially awkward questions. "I look a state, don't I? Got caught in the rain way too long. Probably got a cold incoming, now," you chirped past a convincing smile, never quite committing to eye contact.

It seemed to placate him though. "Don't worry, sweetheart. We'll get you home. A single?"

"Single?" you echoed, offended by imagined insinuation. The driver's brows rose up his kindly face. "Oh, my ticket? Yes, a single. Thank you. Sorry, I'm not all here today."

Your skittishness must have disconcerted him. His only verbal response was a nervous chuckle as he printed your ticket and handed it to you with a subtle aversion. And although this encounter would have cowed you on any average day, today you had more to rue than a stranger's unfavourable first impression. So you took one of the many empty seats with a soggy huff and gave yourself to the purr of the engine beneath, finding its spluttered rhythm mollifying.

It was a short, oblivious trip, spent entirely in an exhausted voidspace. Only the driver's gentle wakening alerted you to your reached destination. "We're here, sweetheart. Time to go," he urged but barely, sympathy pulling at the corners of his mouth.

"Oh, already? Thanks for waking me up. Had a long day," was your unsolicited explanation. As you dropped a foot down the steps: "What time is it?"

"Just gone seven. Got here a little early."

"Wow, still so light out. Doesn't feel that late. Anyway," you fixed him over your shoulder. "Thanks."

He inclined his head and cap with a twinkle of his eye. "No worries. Take care, you hear?"

Sheepishness had you looking everywhere but at him. But then you did, and with the smallest of smiles. "Yeah. I'll try," you promised sincerely. The stranger's concern was a much-needed emollient for your parched spirit.

"Good girl," he was already unfolding a crumpled tabloid, feet on the dash and pitted nose between its pages.

Re-entering open air was akin to stepping foot into an industrial chiller. Hugging your miserably damp trenchcoat closer was counterproductive, and yet your chattering teeth demanded the rest of your body strive to warm itself somehow. And that's when you saw him again, mid-step and roughing your forearms for body heat.

Jungkook, three storeys above and pacing the balcony of your apartment complex like an impounded stray, as wet and bedraggled as you.

"Fuck!" the curse was soft in volume but hot with anger. While you were hardly an authority on clear and concise communication, there hadn't been anything nuanced about your parting words to him. Jungkook hadn't misinterpreted your instructions, but simply defied them.

God. You were over and above fury. But, standing there, and watching the cherub-cheeked culprit behind your anguish, it was quite easily doused. All you wanted lay in the two arms that swung agitatedly at his sides. The winsome lips he chewed into chapping.

And, oh, fuck. It hurt. Watching him candidly, unnoticed and out of reach, it hurt. He was no longer yours to touch, hold and merge with. There may as well have been a sheet of glass between your persons, now, because he was one, prohibited exhibit. All you could do was admire from afar.

He would see you soon if you didn't move. You; a drenched rodent, frozen in the road, begging to be roadkill. All he had to do was glance over. Just one look.

Perhaps because you were certain it wouldn't work, you willed him to.

And perhaps because you hoped it would, you willed him to.

Jungkook didn't.

He did, however, unpocket his phone and press it to his ear, never once missing a step in his rigid retreading. Was he trying you again? The defunct device lay frigid in your pocket, and though it was easy to fantasise that he was leaving his umpteenth voicemail for you, cynicism whispered that it was her he was gasping apologies to.

And that made it easier to turn on your heel. To the only place you had left.

The bus driver didn't seem especially surprised by your reappearance. His ochre eyes beamed benevolently over the top of his newspaper. "Where we going to now, sweetheart?"

Cash was already interweaving your fingers. "Does this bus go to the suburbs?"

"It can do," and a niggling feeling told you it probably didn't venture out so far. "I don't pick up many people on this route, this day, and this late. I'm sure the grannies we gather along the way won't mind a scenic detour."

"I really appreciate it," gratitude was certainly behind the smile stretching across your face. "Here."

"It's on me this time," he asserted with a sorcerous swipe of a card across the payment podium. Burying his lanyard back beneath his jacket, he tossed you a fatherly wink. "Just relax and enjoy the ride."

It was an extensive traipse from the bus stop to the two houses that sat together before you. The terrace was touched by time, but only superficially. There lived on countless memories; a residual trace of two kids digging for worms and comparing Hallowe'en hauls. Your house and Taehyung's house, sewn by brick; joined by the hip. As you had been. But he wasn't here, and nothing else of value remained. Your parents had long vacated the property that adjoined Taehyung's, leaving only the sad, sole occupant of his mother behind. She was as much a remnant of the past as the brick and mortar surrounding her. But that might be where she preferred to dwell. In a time where her husband lived and her children didn't simmer with resentment. Even if your parents had still inhabited the walls of your childhood home, however, it would still not have been the reason for your coming here. They were, after all, easily likened to tyrants in your eyes, and the last of all people you would run to in need. No, you weren't here for them. You were here for something forgotten. By others, at least, but never you. And it hardly mattered if time had been cruel. As you made your trek into the woodland aback of the terrace, you were fully expecting to find your juvenile retreat dilapidated and in danger of collapse. The birdwatching hut had been a ramshackle eyesore from day one of its discovery, but that had been of little consequence then. The prospect of possessing your own property, regardless of its dereliction, had been irresistible. Both you and Taehyung had thrilled at its earthy dank and rotting slats of wood, and furnished it fit for the pirate king and queen you declared yourselves as being. Longer legs made the trip shorter than your memory had gauged. Longer legs also diminished the structure somewhat in size, but to your immense, bleary-eyed delight, it had maintained steady foundations and a relatively proofed roof. And when you dipped your head underneath the overgrowth swathing its entrance, your elation only intensified upon observing everything in its long-established place. It was untouched by everything but nature itself, and though the aroma of forest was at its most stifling inside, the touches of green and brown were a pleasant addition to an already organic arrangement. You paid its only furniture - two odd, mould-eaten chairs - an affectionate, nostalgia-ridden touch as you passed, a decade of warm recollection transferring to your fingertips. One was yours, one was his. Being the spitfire you had been back then, you had, of course, insisted on possessing the most grandiose of the two chairs. Grandiose being the one devoid of the wobbly leg. Taehyung had rediscovered his voice around then; perhaps in solution to your bullish rule-making. The day he'd emerged from his grief-induced silence and appealed to you for said, eminent chair had been one of your happiest. It was easier to plunge into reminiscence than confront the present. Encompassed by nostalgia's warmth, you sunk to the floor by the back wall, at peace and in remedial silence. Dead leaves, once verdant, chafed at your palms, welcoming your return. Cicadas squawked their same, age-old tune, and that was all it took to travel back in time.

Time was a flighty creature. Years passed behind your closed eyelids, when it could only have been a few seconds. But, no: Those moments of black had actually been an hour at the least, if the dim illumination of dusk, washing out the floorboards, was anything to go by. It hurt to open your eyes upon this darker scene. Your eyes, likely blood-shot and dog-tired, adjusted with some difficulty.

And that was when you heard the crunch that had disturbed your befogged slumber to begin with.

Again. Crunch; shod foliage, crumbling under confident and unhurried bootsteps.

Closer and closer they fell, unmistakably on course for your hideout. On track to discover a dishevelled mess of raw emotion. Somehow, it hardly mattered. Yes, a stranger of unknown intent was stalking toward your very location, omniscient of your presence there. Yes, they could very well possess the last pair of eyes you would ever look into as they mutilated you alive.

Somehow, even that didn't perturb you.

So when the figure loomed long and dark in the doorway, impeding your only escape route, your gaze rose to engage them in a direct acknowledgement of your grim fate. Whoever it was, however, denied you that by banishing the only, weak light source.

"Here you are," a voice announced. Its familiarity punched you solid in the heart with elation. "Thought you might be here."

"T-Tae?" you croaked like a long-wounded animal, curled in its place of resignation. "Is that you?"

The laugh confirmed that it was. And then he stepped past the threshold, allowing rays of feeble sunset to illuminate his gentle, round face. His sandy head was an inch from the ceiling's incline, collecting cobwebs as he neared. "Yeah. Are you okay?" he put the question to you firmly, not as a gentle probe. Concern distinctly warped his features, and yet he made no aggressive, physical move to console you. Likely as an overt demonstration of his respect for your personal space. Considering the last time...

This was the first instance, in the last four or so weeks, that you shared a space alone.

But neither doubt, nor discomfort, were anywhere to be found.

Your fingers pinched and twisted amongst themselves in your lap. "I guess it would be asshole-ish of me to say yeah, considering my phone call," you found humour in that, at least, and snorted it out. "I'm so used to just saying that. But, no, I'm not. I'm calmer than I was when I called you, but I'm not okay, Tae. I'm sorry for dragging you into all this."

Taehyung wasn't done playing urgent care. "Are you hurt anywhere? Do I need to take you somewhere?"

"I'm physically fine," other than cramping legs, attacks of dizziness and a cosmic heartrate. "I would have called 911, otherwise. I'm not totally ridiculous. Just partially. Look, I know I—"

"I'm glad you called me," and there was no implication of the opposite in his tone. Only earnestness. "Really glad. You know I'm here for you, whatever it is you've got going on."

"I'm sorry to cut short your evening," you remembered. Guilt nibbled at what scraps there were of you left. "I know you were out with Jimin. Where is he?" though there was no sign of a smaller silhouette peeking over Taehyung's shoulder, you eyed the doorway beyond warily. The last thing you needed was Jimin's callous ribbing.

"He went back to my place. I said he could stay there if he wanted to, because I wasn't sure when I'd be back," Taehyung held up a sole, deterrent finger when you drew breath to blurt apologies. "Don't. It's okay. Jimin can amuse himself. So, what's going on, noona?" he sidled up in small, leisurely steps until he was a tower above your shrunken hunch. "Jesus, you're soaked. You're gonna get ill."

And he was right. Debilitation was creeping up on you. The beginnings of weakness and ache. A sigh of acknowledgement. "I know. But I'll be fine, a cold isn't really ranking high on my scale of problems right now, honestly," something occurred to you, then: "How did you know I was here?"

Taehyung's dense brows met. He skewered you under careful scrutiny. "Well, I went to your apartment first. Met someone there."

Mechanically, your head jerked away from the mere insinuation of that person. "Oh."

"I knew it," your long-limbed companion barked above you. "Did he do something?" Taehyung's voice reverberated with an undercurrent growl. "He was acting shifty when I talked to him."

You side-stepped his question with another. "What did he say?"

"Well, for one, I asked him, as a joke, why he was pacing about like a tweaker, soaked to the bone," his lips stretched sardonically over model teeth. "Uh, he didn't find that amusing, apparently. Guess I judged the mood wrong. He looked miserable. I thought he'd lost his key to your apartment, or something."

"I never gave him one," you informed him, like it was important he know you'd been shrewd in some things. Truth was, you'd been considering getting a key cut for Jungkook the next week. "Not yet. So, what did he say?"

Taehyung had the biggest, most beauteous eyes. Almost uncannily so. How he narrowed them, then, until there was barely a flash of pupil peeping between, was some feat. Feeling their sharp edge, you squirmed. "What's going on? Why are you here, and he, there?"

"I'll tell you in a sec. Just tell me if he said anything," was your pathetic bargain. You'd scarcely blame Taehyung for shaking each word from you, like a disobliging pepper pot. "I wanna know."

"And you couldn't call him to ask?" he did, at least, release a jaded sigh. Considering your babbled pleas to see him and your difficulty with being forthcoming, it was generous. "I just wanna know if I've gotta kick his ass or not, noona. I asked if you'd called him, too; if you were in trouble. He said he didn’t think you were in trouble. That, yeah, you’d called him. But he was shady as hell about it."

"Probably because he knew you would kick his ass if he told you the truth," a sigh of your own hit the tops of your tucked knees. "You didn't tell him I'd be here, did you?"

Taehyung picked inattentively at the decaying walls. "Of course not. I got the feeling he was being weird, and maybe you didn't want to see him. Especially if he was waiting like that. So I said I was going home, but to call me if you showed up. And then I drove here."

"I still don't get how you knew I'd be here, though," it was your turn to eye him, though he, for the first time, was diverted elsewhere. You tracked his gaze to the two, lissom fingers pinching holes into the rotting structure.

"You mentioned the good ol' days in your call," Taehyung shrugged without any of the indifference the motion called for. It was a little too vigorous. "I thought, maybe," another shrug, this one more self-conscious. "You'd come here. So many good memories here, y'know. I dunno," he continued, unprompted and meandering. "The days we spent here were some of the best."

A smile, your most endangered expression, broke through all the grimacing. "They were. I agree. I mean, when I called you, I was expecting to just go home, and meet you there. But Jungkook was there, so I came here. I didn't even think about it. I just caught the bus here. This was more like a second home than my childhood home. Funny."

"Not funny," he corrected, pulling up one of the structurally suspect chairs and plopping himself, with a squish and a cringe, onto its saturated cushion. "Understandable. Your parents were - are - shit. I mean, my mom tried, but," his arms flopped flaccid over the armrests. "Well, you know how she was. Helicopter mom to the extreme. She's a lot better these days, I guess, but, yeah. We did a lot of damage to each other. Especially after Yoongi moved out. Sorry," a tsk. "I didn't mean to make this about me. Or mom. Anyway, tell me what's going on, ____. It's getting late, and I'm getting worried about you catching pneumonia."

"Don't apologise," your bottom lip was a traitor and already wobbling. "I'm happy to talk about anything. Anything else."

"____," your name was a nudge, a reassurance, and a hug all in one. Dread slowed you as you raised your eyes to him, sprawled lax in his chair but fiercely attentive. And patient, as always. "Tell me."

The longer you stared, unsaying, the more it stung. It wasn't long before your eyes teemed saltwater again. "H-He cheated on me," God, you had to gasp between each, shameful word. "Jungkook. He has a fiancée he never told me about."

A jarring clatter snapped at your nerves when Taehyung shot from sitting, upending his treasured, childhood throne. "What?" his Doc Martins crunched leaves to powder as he surged forward. "What the fuck? He fucking cheated? He has a fiancée?!"

Taehyung didn't wear emotions. Emotions wore him. You sat, shrunken and sobbing as you watched a showcase of fervid responses morph his handsome features. Yours, you were sure, were unflatteringly scrunched and damp with upset. Which was all you were capable of conveying, when your voicebox was preoccupied with summoning the shrillest of caterwauls.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he invoked, fingers linked upon his head and between strands of disarrayed hair. Not once did his gaping at you waver. Things were happening behind those potent eyes of his. "Jesus. I'm going to fucking kill him. I'm actually gonna kill the bastard," and he was off, a hurricane on the spot as he spun, stirring dust and decomposition with him. "Just fucking wait!"

"No!" your legs were a launchpad into a belligerent tackle. You snagged him from the back, right around the waist, leveraging every pound of your waterlogged weight against him. "Please don't go," you begged softly between his shoulders blades, darkening the cotton of his coat with your various secretions. "I need you here, with me. Please."

"I'm not letting that fucking asshole get away with this. He didn't just treat you like shit, he fucking fed you it. I can't," his musculature strained up his back and along his arms, and it was then you clocked the two, balled fists by his sides. Taehyung shivered, not with cold, but with blistering anger. "I can't not do anything."

"Tae," you called, soft and shuddering. His tautened figure softened considerably. "What you can do is be here for me. Comfort me. Don't leave me alone. Please."

Though you could see no more than the back of his satin, sandy head and two endearingly prominent ears, it was clear cogs were grinding. Grinding, because you knew how difficult it was for Taehyung to disengage. He was a being of pure passion.

Finally, another sigh. One that released fingers from fists, and rigidity from his back. He sunk into you without further opposition. "Okay. Only because you're more important than anything. But he'll be getting a visit from me in the near future, don't worry."

A nuzzle became a shake of your head. "Don't. Don't hurt him, Tae. I don't want that. I told him I never want to see him again, and that's the end of it."

Taehyung tested your grip with a hefty, abdomen-expanding snort. "I'm not gonna hurt him, noona. I just want to have a talk," he vowed stiffly. You were not convinced.

"Not now, Tae. Stay with m-me," you broke again, wretched and wheezy, both frustrated and embarrassed by your unrelenting lamentations. "I-I don't know what t-to do with myself."

But he did.

Taehyung pivoted in your weakening embrace, hauling you near clear from the ground in vehement consolation, his two arms completing your enclosure. He plunged you into the heat of his body and headiness of his skin-and-cologne, glamouring you immediately into pacification. Like a bawling infant returned to arms of the one it loves most, you quietened, whimpered and sniffled, co-opting his collar for your personal handkerchief. And quite as temperamental as a baby, the gentle side-to-side rocking Taehyung exerted brought you from 100 to 0 mortifyingly quick. Exhaustion dunked on you again and, within your only reprieve since The Event, sleep felt gloriously within consideration.

It was okay to let go now.

Here, with him, you were safe. Safe, valued, and loved.

Things that required time and a begrudging vulnerability to build. Jungkook had wheedled it from you far too quick, and, as it happened, far too prematurely.

He’d vanquished you.

Vanquished someone he regarded as no more than a challenging diversion, and now the game was over. A game you'd stumbled – obliviously - to the end of, only to reveal its sordid conclusion. And now you would somehow have to amputate yourself of him.

God. How?

The hands around you helped. Squeezed comfort and hope back into your chilled cadaver. "I'm sorry, noona. I'm sorry for introducing you in the first place. This is my fault," Taehyung whispered hot into your hair, and it curdled your blood to hear him self-blame.

"No, it's not," your voice was husky from snivelling. "Don't say that. You were only trying to help me. I asked, after all. Your intentions were good."

"Let's get you out of here and into something dry," he deflected, because Taehyung was nothing if not a flagellant. He truly felt responsible for this. His decency demanded it of him. "Come on," crisp, late-evening air intruded as he broke the hug. When your body compelled a patent shiver, the kind-eyed man cocked a brow. "Don't fight me on this. Get on, I can see you're tired," he offered with a pat to his back, turning into an awkward-looking squat. "Climb aboard, princess. Your royal steed is here."

A snort-scoff - that was dangerously close to ejecting the stuff building in your nasal cavities - burst forth. "Last time I did this, it didn't go so well," you ribbed, because it was easy to, now. That whole calamitous evening felt an era away and so, so unimportant. The two of you could conquer anything, hiccup or mountain. True friendship endured. You hopped onto Taehyung's saddle and linked your ankles around his middle. "Hey, you didn't fall over."

"Yeah, well," your long-legged friend huffed, hiking you higher with a couple bounces of adjustment. "This time you don't have that freakin' slanket. I've banned those from my apartment, by the way."

Taehyung's hair flittered under your breath. "Nooo! I want to live in the slanket forever, Tae. Don't take away my precious."

His chest rumbled with amusement. "Well, seeing as you asked so nicely, Smeagol."

Your index and thumb formed pincers and tweezed his ear.

"Ah! Don't make me drop you!"

"Bitch, you wouldn't dare."

"Yeah? I'll dump you on your ass, right here. Pinch me again."

The murky, twilight forest listened in on your exchanged jabs and escape from melancholia. It was weird just how easily Taehyung could efface misery. Temporarily, maybe, but now you'd slipped from its clutches, you were fleeing, a jubilant insurgent, and you weren't going to look back. A bad idea, definitely, but who the fuck cared.

You fucking deserved to be happy.

Even if it was by comparmentalising everything you couldn't contend with.

When it inevitably bit you in the ass, it'd just take a heartier chomp than normal. 

That was fine.

Because for now, you were fine.

With him.

Taehyung withdrew his hands from your knee-pits and left you to slide, comedically slow, down the length of his back. "Sweet, we timed that right. Wouldn't have been fun navigating the woods in the pitch black."

As he stretched away his body's complaints, you poked your head around him and gawked at your stopping place. "Your house? No offence, Tae, but I'm not really in the mood to talk to your mom right now."

Although preoccupied with kneading the small of his poor, overburdened back, he found it in himself to shoot you A Look. "You really think I'd bring you back here if she was at home? She's not here. She's gone on a cruise with friends I forced her to make. That's what people her age should be doing, not babying her adult sons."

"Wow, good going. I thought we were just going to go back to your place."

"Nah, Jimin's there, and I don't think you want to see him, either," his front teeth hooked his bottom lip into a shit-eating grin. "We'll stay here tonight and go back tomorrow. Cool?"

"Sure," your shoulders shrugged in accord as you led him along the familiar picket fence. "Definitely don't wanna be within grasping range if he's been drinking."

"We didn't even get to that, actually," Taehyung piped up from behind you, inexplicably happy. "So Jimin is probably bored out of his brains and watching something shitty on TV right now, stone sober."

Ah.

You stood aside so he could fumble blindly with his keys. "Geez. I thought you were supposed to be making me feel better."

"That was supposed to make you feel better," his eyes flicked mischievously from the lock. "I know how much he irritates you. He'll survive one night without booze and chicks. I mean, I hope," for a second, Taehyung played up his uncertainty. "Maybe he'll die without them. I don't know, man, I don't think he has gone a day without them. Ah—got it."

Jesus, even his house smelt the same. It invaded your nostrils as soon as you stepped a foot inside; pure, unadultered past. Memory in sensory form, enchanting the air you breathed. It was peonies and teenaged boys. "Your mom still using that fabric softener?"

"Hah, you smell that?" Taehyung's nose twitched in an attempt to pick up the scent. "I don't even notice it anymore."

"It's nice, reminds me of coming here before."

He smiled slight with one side of his mouth. "Go up to my room, I'll find you something to change into. I'll take the sofabed."

"Okay," slipping off your Converse was like shelling snails. Your whole face pinched. “Gross.”

Taehyung pointed at the molluscs that had once been your socks. “Give me those now, you definitely don’t want wet things on your feet. I heard it’s the best way to a cold.”

“Sounds like bullshit to me,” mirth sounded from your nose. You handed him the ruined things nevertheless, apology puckering your mouth. “Sorry I’m so disgusting.”

“This is hardly the most disgusting thing you’ve done,” and yet he held your socks at a full arms’ length, like they were at risk of tripping a Geiger counter. “Remember when you had food poisoning, and no-one was home at your house? So you—”

“Oh wow, there’s new art on the walls!” there wasn’t. Taehyung accosted you with one of his most disrespectful grins. “I’ll be upstairs,” you sung, feeling his blitheness on your back. “Don’t be long, peasant.”

Each step up the staircase was a step back in time. It was spooky how palpably you could hear the ghost of music trickling from Yoongi's old room. His indecisive muttering as he replayed samples into monotony, honing his myriad of projects. But as you passed, there was nothing but the silence of his absence, and through the sliver of open door not a lot remained of his ever being there.

Why was it so...

Sad?

Yoongi was alive and well, thriving professionally, and seemed at peace with himself in his first, loving relationship. Things couldn't be better for him, really.

It was you. You, selfishly yearning for simpler times. You, taking steps back when others leapt forward.

It was while entertaining this pestilent thought that you let yourself into Taehyung's room. Once fleeting, it now latched on to feed. And it was while observing the perfectly preserved contents of his teenaged upbringing that profound melancholy chewed at you in big, greedy bites.

It had been so long since you'd been free of doubt and devil-may-care. Turns out, the devil did care. Enough to torture you, that is. Though it was satisfying to blame your misfortunes on the debatable existence of some chaotic deity, it was far less to do with luck and far more to do with sabotaging every adult decision you'd made thus far.

Yeah, being a kid had been simpler. Happier. But those times were gone. The people had gone, and grown, and so must you. The past was always your respite from hurt. But it shouldn't be. It should be the future, and yet it was so difficult to look directly into.

Now that he was gone.

In its murk, your body acted autonomous of your brain. It found its way, somehow, to Taehyung's esteemed comic collection. While thumbing through, without a conscious thought for the art blurring between your fingers, you prodded at an internal sore so excruciating it wasn't long before that same, bilious anger began to bubble.

Jungkook had stolen that future from you. He swept you from the past and swore that the time ahead could be as hopeful and happy. Something you came to believe with the whole of your heart. Because if he was to be a part of your ensuing life, it couldn't have been anything but that.

Instead, he'd dumped you in the present, hopeless and miserable. With no foreseeable way forward. Yes, time healed, but it could also fester.

What would you become?

Within the span of five hours, you'd lost all understanding of yourself. Who was this person, standing here, and what was she supposed to do next? The heartbreak was cataclysmic; on par with nothing else you'd ever experienced. Jungkook had not only dispossessed you of the future you'd jointly envisioned, but, it felt, of your own identity.

God.

You were so fucking angry. Angry and alarmingly off-kilter. How could any one man exert so much power?

People went through break-ups all the time. You, however, were not equipped for the unthinkable circumstances surrounding yours, nor the severity of the pain that had followed.

Fuck Jungkook.

Yes, anger was the easiest emotion to indulge. It couldn't hurt if it only filled you with vengeful power.

You dropped the comic with a derisive snort, as though the blameless book itself were your ex.

"What the hell? I thought you liked Ranma ½," you hadn't heard Taehyung enter the room. "It's got tiddies! 14-year old me loved that."

It was a mercy he hadn’t glimpsed the wrath that had brutalised your features. The last thing you wanted was an inquisition, however well-meant.  Before turning around, you affixed something more inconspicuous. "I'm sure you still do," you snarked, crossing your arms. "I preferred Inuyasha, anyway."

"I know, you and your wolf dudes," Taehyung thrust a pile of plaid pyjamas towards you. "Here, this is all I could find. They’re mine. A bit musty, sorry."

"He was a dog, not a wolf," you corrected with a playful indignance, accepting the moth-eaten nightwear reluctantly. "Man, they stink."

"I apologise if the facilities of Chateau Kim are not to the lady's taste. It's that or nothing, noona," your bright-eyed friend chirped, ridding himself of his coat and hanging it on the back of the door. It was peculiar to find yourself admiring the flex of his lats so brazenly, but nothing within chided you for ogling. Suddenly, your usual, tiresome concerns seemed miniscule in comparison to today. 

You really didn't give a fuck. How incredibly refreshing.

Maybe you should be thanking Jungkook for minimising your other problems.

It was peculiar, but empowering. Today—no, in these mere, last few minutes—the anxiety that had hounded you for most of your adult life, shrivelled in the face of this new, sanguine you. The anxiety asked: What now? How will you cope? Will you ever get over this? 

Perhaps it was your lack of mental and physical energy that had facilitated the answer:

I don't care.

And so it was gone.

And you didn’t worry for its return.

"Nothing?"

Nor did you worry for the future.

"Uh, yeah. That's all I've got, sorry, noona."

Consequences?

"So you want me to sleep in my underwear?"

 What are those?

Taehyung halted his noisy assembly of the sofa bed, staring at its cushions as though the mattress itself had uttered the words. "What? No," frozen, his irises darted to your face and back multiple, dizzying times. "I didn't mean nothing as in nothing. I mean, you can wear something of my mom's, if you want. I just thought you wouldn't want to." 

You waited for his gaze to settle before you continued. Seeing him so circumspect was exciting for this new, impetuous you. "It's okay. I want to sleep in my underwear. It's a warm evening."

He rose from bending to the full length of his legs, wary and dithering. "Uh, okay. Sure. Whatever makes you comfortable."

"Thank you, Tae," the buckle of your trenchcoat clinked under its unfastening. "Be nice to get out of these wet clothes."

A forbidden scenario unfolded in your mind's eye, and rather than stifle that which you would usually consider an abhorrent thought-crime, you spurred yourself to enact it. Deliberation and diffidence had no place in your current thoughtscape. Only opportunity and primitive compulsion. A need to be wanted, and to want freely.

He’d wanted you once.

Taehyung's fear-freeze shattered with a courtesy cough when you went to grab the hem of your shirt. The shedding of the coat was fine; anything beyond that must've been tripping a klaxon in his brain. "R-Right. I'll let you get changed. Shout me when you're under the covers."

A single foot was all he was capable of shifting before you caught him again, an invisible snare around his ankle. "You don't have to leave," the assurance came calm and through the sodden fabric of your shirt as you liberated yourself of it. "You can stay, if you want."

For a moment he gawked, jaw loose and tongue idling in the bottom of his mouth. But it was only the scantest glimpses of weakness before he was dutifully diverting his attention to the ceiling. "I know I saw you naked as a kid, but this is hardly the same thing," Taehyung's bangs danced on an agitated breath. His eyes travelled the popcorn ceiling, likely in search of sense. "I don't wanna give you another reason to think I'm gross. I'm kinda designed to stare at that kind of thing," his hands shaped invisible breasts in the air. "Alright, that made it gross. Sorry. Point is, I don't wanna give you the wrong idea. So I'll step outside, and you get into bed, 'kay?"

"Nah."

Likely it was your dismissal that drew him back to your face again. "What? You're being really weird. Are you okay?" Taehyung's valiant attempt at affixing his eyes above neck-level pulled a smirk to your lips. "I want you to watch me undress." His boundless brown eyes flitted, momentarily, to your diabolically boosted cleavage. Again, he snatched them away. "I don't understand. Is this because of Jungkoo--" "No," you were firm. A touch disdainful. "Fuck him. This isn't about him.  This is about me." Taehyung remained unenlightened. His mouth puckered with unspoken questions, and, God, did you want it. Eventually, he found his voice. "H-How—" there was careful consideration of his wording. "How can I help?" An unobtrusive offer. Open to innocent interpretation, and yet something other twinkled in his eyes. He was testing you.

“Tell me if you like my lingerie. I wanna know if I made a good choice or not,” you tossed the order to him like it were no more significant than getting his impression of a new purse. Fingers on the button of your jeans, you popped them open with a purposeful catch of his eye.

You were rather revelling in revisiting your seductress persona. The one you hadn't fully unearthed since college. A time when you ate men for breakfast, lunch and dinner. One where you didn't downplay admiration of your own body.

Even if it were merely an illusion now, well.

Fake it 'til you make it.

And then Taehyung fractured it. "Noona, wait," his hands were on yours, but not to disrobe you. To prevent you from humiliating yourself further, apparently.

Fuck. Again?

Twice in one day?

Were you so undesirable?

"You can tell me the opposite, but I know you're upset. And as much as I find you attractive, I don't want to fuck things up. For real," you wouldn't look at him. And when he tried to tip your chin upwards, you withstood. "Noona. I meant it when I said I treasure you more than anyone. You're hurting. It wouldn't be right of me."

You continued your vacant examination of his shirt buttons. Six in total. Don't look up, or you'll break. "I've been hurting for a really long fucking time, actually," oh, God. This was just supposed to be an ill-conceived lay. Disengaged from emotion. Not this. Not now. "Because of you, Tae."

His hands were silken snakes, encircling your upper arms. Don't look up. "Noona, I thought we were okay about that evening now. I said I'm sorry, and I meant it."

Oh, this sweet, summer child. Yoongi was right. Taehyung was implausibly unobservant.

"I didn't mean to give you the impression that I wanted a quick fuck," he continued off on his own tangent. "It was a mistake. A drunken mistake. Your worth to me as a friend far outweighs a stupid snap judgment."

"I wasn't talking about th-that," his fingers were a sensuous mistake on your shoulders, rubbing comfort into your body but summoning only the hungriest of wants. You shrugged him free.

Don't look up.

A baritone, patient and even-tempered, whispered above your ears. "What is it, noona?"

Don't look at him.

Don't say it.

You looked at him, and you said it. "I love you," fuck. "I'm in love with you. And I have b-been," you unravelled faster than a spool of silk. Your tears sprung from an empty well. "For the longest time."

So this was the moment. A confession composed, tweaked and performed infinitely in the safety of your mind. And now it was out there, lingering in the air between you, executed with none of the finesse or sweetness you'd practiced. Taehyung, however, was not repelling you in the revulsion you so frequently foresaw. No, he remained inches from your face, pressing you to the earth with the intensity of his ambiguously-arranged features. The time that passed since your last, uttered syllable grew past uncomfortable. Mortification held you and your terror-struck expression in place, as did the contemplative smoulder that ensorcelled Taehyung's eyes. His pitch plunged to a bass that resonated with your soul. "You love me?" he turned the question over on his tongue, gently sampling its meaning. "You're in love with me?"

There was still time to salvage this mistimed, foolhardy admission. There were innumerous factors worthy of blaming your unbalanced mindstate. And yet, that cryptic something that stewed beneath Taehyung's surface encourged truth. "Yes. For years. I'm in love with you," God, it strengthened you to repeat it. Years of emotional prostration evaporated. Even if it was the wrong thing to do, it was right for you. You needed this. "I love you so much it hurts."

Light and air vanished. Taehyung surrounded you whole, his lavish lips heavy and fierce on yours, tongue out and ravenously prying apart your stunned-shut mouth. His fingers were so quickly, so deeply entrenched in your hair that your roots throbbed with a delicious ache. And then he was tugging you back, back, and back, easing open your jaw to fully immerse his undulating tongue in your saliva.

This time, this kiss, nothing suspended you in inertia. You snapped into reciprocation.

You, too, buried deep your fingers in his soft, flaxen hair, charting his scalp with a rake of your fingernails. Your tongue met him with ferocity, butting back against his boisterous exploration, washing the length of the slick muscle. It was this counterattack that drew Taehyung's first moan, sonorous and hearty in appetite. The violence of your entanglement spilled to the outside of your mouths, brushing your lips and chins with gloss. Your teeth clacked on clumsy occasion, a frustrating obstacle when all the two of you wanted was to assimilate each other completely. Only when your vision began to fizz either side did you lay your hands on his chest to urge him off, but, God, just having his widespread frame under the tips of your fingers nearly stole your last breath.

The two of you panted, hoarse and dizzied, like you were verging on diabetic coma. You needed the nectar of his saliva; the fragrance of his hair and skin that close, damp with rain. Each second without was painful. But if you had to oblige your body’s call for breath, you’d spend those seconds heaving, chest to chest, journeying to the depths of each other’s heavy, enamoured gazes.

Taehyung wouldn't wait. His long, sublime fingers cradled your chin with utter care and tipped your face away, enough to expose your jugular in all its thrumming excitement. Ample lips, daubed sticky with saliva, brushed the column of your throat to its foundations.

Heaven was this.

Heaven was his practised teeth and tongue, pinching and suckling your collarbones to an inhuman shade. Like an overzealous pet he branded you with feral desire, mouthing marks into stretches of unclaimed skin. This was what drew your first moan. "Oh, God," the soft, warm fuzz at his nape suffered a reactionary yank. "I've wanted this for so long, Tae. You don't know how long."

Home was this.

He was home. Vibrancy, warmth, and the safety of knowing. Colour saturated the space between his arms; the parting of his lips. Everything ghastly grey was banished from this place. And though he didn’t love you, all you wanted was to forget. To shirk your burdens and be light and liberated. Indulging in his flesh was a just reward for all the adversity.

"No, I didn't know," Taehyung climbed your neck and slathered your jaw with its fair share of open-mouthed kisses. "I had no idea. Why did you keep it to yourself all this time?" his serpentine tongue lapped around the shell of your ear. Almost as though he were inebriated, he spoke lower and slower, affected by arousal. "No. I understand why," all you could do was jellify in his warm confines, lids like lead and eyes turning heavenward. It was then you felt the heat of Taehyung's stiffening shaft, appealing for your touch. He applied it firmly to your abdomen, the rapidly swelling appendage instructing your cunt to weep. And it did. Gleefully. "I know why it was brave to admit it. You really are the strongest, most amazing woman I know."

The thread of conversation got away from you while squashed flush to his cock. That ultimate fantasy that materialised, now, as literal, rigid flesh. His hips rocked gentle to your stomach, nurturing himself to his full, pussy-wrenching potential. God saw fit to outfit Taehyung in slacks today; slacks so thin they were almost gossamer. It granted your unworthy, dripping cunt such riches. Like the tangible tug on his foreskin as he swayed back and forth, belying his dick’s solid centre. So solid he could scaffold you. All the expletives in the world couldn't express how fucking much you wanted it up, in and on you, in any and all capacities.

"Uh-huh," was all you could muster, lust-drunk as you were. He robbed you, then, of his fire-stoking firmness, when he stooped eye-level with your laced-up cleavage. There, cheeks pressing soft to your breasts, he laid an unexpectedly sweet kiss where it plunged.

A true tactician of seduction, Taehyung had you flanked from the back. The tips of his fingers.  were a feathered trail up your spine, conjuring tingles in their wake. He lingered on the clasp of your bra, nails burrowing crescents into the skin around.  "Okay?"

Your response was the emphatic drop of your loosened jeans. Well, they didn’t so much drop as gather stubbornly at your knees, adhesive while wet.  Taehyung's hands tumbled from your back as he staggered a step backwards, repelled like a charged magnet. His eyes and mouth were round, unreserved in broadcasting appreciation. "Oh, holy shit," his lips looked tucked to whistle, but nothing but excited breath streamed free. "You're—damn. Crotchless, huh? Well, I—approve. Wow."

Was it possible for someone to occupy both paradise and infernal abyss simultaneously? Because there was some absurd, polar conflict raging within you. And it was suggesting yes. But, right now, the pearly-gates beckoned you. Hell was eternal. It could wait.

"You like it?" a touch flirty; a touch hopeful. A touch too insecure. You directed his attention to the opening between your legs, freely exhibiting the extent you were already glistening for him. Your fingers played at the innermost of your thighs, inviting him to spectate a sensuous display. After gathering evidence, you presented your slick-tipped digits to him.

Taehyung snapped to you like virgin elastic, engulfing your wrist in a fist and taking your near whole hand into his mouth. He sucked your sticky fingers sterile, dark-eyed and dangerously on edge. Your hand left his lips slow and stringy. "Who the fuck wouldn't?" he purred, lapping the pads of your pristinely cleaned fingers like a kitten glut with milk but greedy for more.

Who the fuck wouldn't?

Your stomach dropped, unwelcome, onto the arousal stewing in your lower abdomen.

Someone wouldn't.

Jungkook wouldn't.

The bells and whistles had been for him, and he wouldn't like it.

Because no matter the provocative your gift-wrapping, it wasn't enough to keep him. Keep him, and keep him honest.

Your head, your seductive smile, dropped. And so, too, did your hand, back to your side. Taehyung was warmth around you again, two large, gentle hands securing your shoulders. "Noona?"

No, you needed this. Him. No matter how fleeting the moment.

Wet, cloying saltwater descended your cheeks for the umpteenth time. It didn't help to fight it. It came and left of its own accord.

"____?" a crack sounded in his voice. Your heart, too.

No, you wanted him.

So much.

So you shook yourself free of his hands and flung yourself within inches of his face, arms out and coiling inflexibly around his neck. Taehyung mirrored the desperation of your hold around your waist, hauling you too near to breathe. This close, gold speckled his soul-searching irises. You pressed your vulnerability, your ardour for him into his half-open mouth, closing your eyes to his torpid gaze. His tongue greeted yours, gentle and tranquil, waiting to receive your message. And you communicated it in soft, apprehensive strokes he swallowed in understanding.

Your mouths separated, barely. Your bodies remained affixed. "Don't hurt me, Tae," was everything said in that kiss. "Please, don't hurt me. I can't take anymore."

The tip of his nose dimpled your dampened cheek. His breath was a seraph's tickle. "I won't, noona. I won't," you felt his eyebrows animate against your forehead, crumpling and arching between expressions. "Because I—I love you, too."

What?

Though you hadn't interjected aloud, he repeated himself. "I love you too. I kissed you that evening because I love you," it was his familiar, musical timbre uttering the words, but they were exotic coming from his mouth. "I shouldn't have, but I was weak. Drunk, but mostly weak. I'm still sorry about that."

"Tae," everything about this clinch was more reverie than reality. Something akin to cotton filled your ears, dulling all but his steady heartbeat and breathing. He was here, against you, possessing every one of your senses, and nothing was real. This couldn't be real. "Y-You what?"

His cheek slid soft down your own until he was nose-to-nose, eye-to-eye with you. "I love you," it came from his vocal chords, but he spoke it from somewhere arcane. "I don't know how long. I don't think I even realised until recently, when I saw you with—with someone else. Saw you happy and fulfilled," his gaze wavered as he exposed his truth. "I realised that I wanted that. To do that for you. Maybe I did all along, I don't know. I wasn't expecting this," the tremulous sigh that kissed your chin told you that Taehyung was just as daunted verbalizing such long-veiled feelings. "This came out of nowhere. It was kinda scary, honestly. I don't catch feelings. I don't do stuff like this."

Your heart raced ahead of your brain, pumping you giddy with endorphins. It knew the meaning before you did. "You love me?"

"I do," Taehyung cupped your face to focus your ricocheting gaze. When it hit him, he wrapped your parted lips in an effusive kiss, eyes open, so you could sense his candour. "I do," your mouths drifted just enough for him to reiterate. And as you fisted the back of his shirt, giving yourself to trust, lust and love, he tasted you again, a hand at your back and one on your nape, bending you toward the bed at the backs of your knees. "I do," Taehyung rasped more than murmured, and you felt his restraint unravelling with every of his shirt buttons you flicked open.

"Y-You don't know how long I wanted to hear that," it was an odd clash of relief and arousal faltering your voice. "G-God, I need you, Tae," you clung to him as you undressed his torso, hissing as though his bare flesh had branded your wandering palms. He ran so hot.

Like a willow branch you snapped back onto the bed, his fiery encumbrance too much on you to remain vertical. And Taehyung crawled, shirtless and driven, over your awkwardly-splayed body, stapling you to the duvet beneath with his elbows and knees. A glimpse of his painfully contorted crotch both filled you with wanton ache and the validation you so desperately needed right now.

"You have me," three hot, breathy syllables mouthed into the groove of your breasts. "Jesus, you can have me," he declared once more, his lengthy, slender fingers delving far into your fleshy sides. At the mercy of his self-serving cock, he dug his clothed erection into your thigh for any scrap of friction. "You're driving me crazy, noona. You always have. I can't wait to finally fuck you. God, I know you have a sweet cunt."

"F-Fuck," Taehyung's snap to gruff indecency was as potent for your clit as those lips of his around it. You throbbed and leaked like an oversexed nymphet, like a virgin denied the touch of even her own hand. Arousal had never enthralled you so vividly as it did now. "F-Fuck me, quick. I'm so horny, oh my God. Get your fucking jeans off."

Taehyung, half your uncupped breast sunk deep into the humidity of his mouth, tore himself away, tacky-lipped and with his tongue trailing reluctantly after. It peeked through his teeth as he wrestled with his buttoned jeans, augmenting his concentration. Nearly free, he snagged his swollen, bottom lip beneath his front teeth, surveying your submissively spread body. "And you, lazy," he growled through grit teeth. "Unless you want them torn from you."

As much as that would likely send you into an untouched orgasm: "Alright, alright," the material was uncooperative in its soggy state, as much a sexual deterrence as a chastity belt as it griped its way down your legs. Once rid, you slung it unceremoniously from a foot and marvelled at the extravaganza that was Taehyung rolling his briefs to mid-thigh. All imaginings of his mythic cock faded into irrelevance when presented with its cunt-clinching palpability. You could already feel it cleaving you in two. And it was why you wouldn't even allow him the chance to strip himself completely. "Fuck, get in me. Tae, I'm not even kidding."

Two, languished moans emanated from your lip-lock when the wide, blunt tip of his cock knocked against your uncovered cunt. And then he squirmed, like the importunate boy he was, until your mouths came apart. "God, let me look first," his broad hands swept over your naked shape, greedy in scrutiny. When they set down on the softest part of your inner thighs, you sensed a veritable shudder churn through him. His thumbs slid slick toward your ripened cunt. "Is this what I do to you, noona? Shit, you're ridiculously wet," but all you could muster was a feeble mewl. "Fuck, all the times I've imagined you like this."

"Hurry up, Tae," urgency laboured your breath. "Please."

All he could acknowledge you with was the subtlest twitch of his head, as rapt as he was with your pussy, framed prettily by lace and slobbering over the embellishments. Crotchless had been an informed choice.

"Tae."

His cock was heaving pre-cum. It pooled tacky against your thigh, anointing you as his worthy, impending vessel. That you were affecting him so absolutely only further stirred your loins.

"Tae."

It seemed the most gargantuan of efforts to extract his focus from between your legs. But when he did, chin flicking up and scattering his sweat-matted locks of sandy hair, it silenced your whining. Taehyung was endowed with the darkest, sultry eyes. But now, fully-blown and predatorily fixated, God, did they ever subdue you. Like tar they bubbled, pulling you slow into their molten, syrupy depths. "Condom. Don't move," he commanded in bass, and though you were happy to comply with any of his godgiven instructions, you slapped a hasty hand around his bicep.

"Don't need one," your reply was just as simple; just as compromised by desire. "Just fuck me." 

Whatever you were relaying with your eyes, he accepted it with a silent, solemn nod.

Trust.

There was trust here. Elusive and precious.

And then he was clambering over you, aligning your bodies for joining, his mouth traipsing saliva across your cheek until you turned your lips to him. As his tongue unfurled, a red-carpet invitation to explore his drooling maw, his hands ringed your breasts, crushing them together and to him, like squeezing just wasn't enough. He milked your softness and pliability, tweaking the tips until they stood pert and could scrape his own, excited nipples. Because Taehyung was heavy on full-body contact, barely an inch of you was left wanting for his weighted warmth. The two of you shifted like one, sinuous being, the sweat of frustration greasing you to cohesion. And, fuck, you'd never felt more alive. Or vital. Or organic; you were nature's purpose; intertwined with your naked mate, beckoning forth his seed with your wet and ready cunt.

"F-Fuck m—ah—"

Taehyung did. Smooth and without reluctance he drove his cock into you, propelling past your folds like you were room-temperature butter. He wasn't gentle; and nor did you want him to be. Neither of you needed that right now. Both of you yearned for the resistance, the intrusion of one another's bodies. He suffered sweet in your clamping, constantly spasming cunt, and expressed as such into your mouth and across your breasts, groaning Gods and fucks whenever breath allowed him. And you gratefully endured his dive to the back of your pussy, inch by momentous inch, as he widened you where he could.

Never had you been so accommodating, nor fit for a function. Taehyung was perfect inside you.

Perhaps he was your purpose.

Perhaps you were his?

"You're so fucking tight!" Taehyung exclaimed with sudden violence, like the intensity of pleasure angered him. He hoisted himself from your chest and became a canopy, urging at your knees for open access.

It wasn’t enough for him.

Ensnarled in lust, he manoeuvred you without ceremony, pinioning your ankles either side his neck to draw your cunt closer. Taehyung roared and you gasped, when, curled compact as you were, he lowered himself back over you, folding you near in on yourself. Your clit throbbed relentlessly like this, the tension in your thighs funnelling pressure direct to your centre. Taehyung didn't so much as rock his hips but slammed them audibly to your airborne ass as his impatience to scour his cock won out. Immediately he was fucking you furiously, jarring your crumpled body with vehement, soul-shaking thrusts. And, God, you wept, with fuck knows’ what emotion anymore, joyously receiving his rock-solid punishment. Your pussy wept more, until the emphatic squishing Taehyung pumped from you dampened the wallop of flesh. "Fuck!!"

Never before had you climaxed from penetration alone. But the menacing lurch your cunt gave when his cock grazed the dip in your cervix proposed that, today, things might be different. Taehyung, too, lurched, stretching your pelvis as good as your pussy when he determinedly sought to lock lips. "Mmmmmph," he caught your mouth, hot and sloppy, before your inflexibility forced him back a few inches. "____," it was as softly spoken as something could be when breath was hard to come by. "I've come s-so many fucking times—ugh—," Taehyung began, hanging above you sodden with sweat. "While thinking about you like this."

His uncut confession seized another spasm of warning from you. "Oh, God. T-Tae, tell me. Tell me what you did."

"Agh—fuck, you're getting so tight. Noona, are you n-nearly there already?"

Bliss tickled at your fringes. There was nothing else in this world that you needed than this. Tortured agitation coloured your tone: "Y-Yes! Tell me!"

"I've thought about you before, but so much more lately—oh, fuck, yes—" he plunged to the core of you, heavy and fluid in motion, spreading you out with his girthy cock. "You on your back, smiling up at me with your dick-sucking lips. Filling your mouth with my cock, making you choke—a-ah—"

Your eyes weighed like ball bearings. They reeled into your head, in search of the thread to undo you. Delirium pressed close. "M-More."

"God, yeah. Get you on your knees," Taehyung appeared drunk on fantasy and reality colliding. "Pull your fucking hair while I fill you with cum—oh, shit. I think I'm gonna. I-I'm gonna. Fuck! I-I can't stop it."

Taehyung ejaculating his literal need for ejaculation was almost enough. The entire bottom half of you rushed with untapped euphoria. Another clench of culmination tugged at your navel, but the build-up wouldn’t relent. He’d have to soar solo. "Come, but don't forget about me, Tae, I'm desperate," and he must’ve felt that well enough when he forced himself through your tautening pussy. "Get me off too."

"Like I would forget that," he scoffed, rivulets of perspiration springing from his temples. "You're not gonna forget the orgasm I'm about to give you."

"I better n-not," your jest was undermined by the hungriest of moans. "Come in me. Fill me up, Tae. I wanna feel your hot and sticky mess."

That staggered his meticulously-paced penetration. He thrust with caution, withholding the fury you knew he could thrash you with. "A-Are you sure?"

"I'm on birth control. Go to town."

"Holy shit," his fingers scaled your thighs with fresh reverence and coasted to your hips, remaining there as he righted himself vertical. The soles of your feet kissed air, quite converse to their usual, earthbound deployment. "You want me in you, babe?" the pet name was alien in its attribution to you, but entirely welcome. The ache of it was far-reaching. Taehyung hastened his pistoning up to speed with your go ahead, his thumbs beyond an imprint on your pelvis. "You want my load? Want me to fill you up, noona?"

A respondent groan. "More than I've ever wanted anything. Fill me right up, Tae."

He raced towards that end, an unyielding grip on one thigh and the other of his hands ambling leisurely over your abdomen, stretching his palm its maximum span, like just the one handful wasn't enough. The airy caress was contrary to the brutality with which he enforced while pummeling your cunt; so battered was it he rendered it almost numb at its exterior. But all the while, you cried only for him to assail you faster with his sweet, solid cock, knowing well it was almost his time. It thickened tangibly within, as did the sac that swung heavily against your entrance, bloated with spunk. "Rrgh! G-Gonna come. Sh-shit, I'm coming, ____!"

And he came with a bark of breathless wonder, the sound of surprise mellowing into the softest of moans as you milked him of his seed; lashings of warm, sticky release that kissed your insides in pulses. "Oh, God, I feel it. I feel you. Fuck."

"Noona, you're—mmm. Jesus. You're taking it so good," Taehyung rocked, deep-seated, against you, pushing each, ample spurt from himself. Having him consummate like this felt entirely right. You were whole while he stuffed and spewed you full; pervaded every part of you, inside and out. His imprint was upon your soul and leaking from your thoroughly thrashed, unsatiated cunt. A matter you were about to bring to his attention when he addressed it himself—

By slipping his waning cock free of your fusion and falling to his knees, relieving himself of his half-shedded briefs on the way down. Your precariously airborne legs, levitating by nervous energy alone, were spread by greedy, expeditious hands.

"Come on my fucking tongue, noona," it took Taehyung a bare second to situate himself between you before he was ducking, face-first, into your messy cunt, extracting your most strained exclamation to date. Just watching him work his wicked, tongue-hungry ways made your orifices twitch. He kissed and sipped at your swollen labia until they tingled with his excess, smearing his mouth and all below until both his chin and eyes shimmered. "I wanna hear what it's like to make you come," he slurred between your puffy folds, daubing them prettier with saliva. "S-Stop teasing me, then," you hissed past your tooth-snared tongue. Taehyung was playing with his food. "God, I need to come, Tae. For real. Please. It's almost painful." He smiled slick up at you. "As you asked so nicely." Taehyung's idea of kindness was euthanising you outright, apparently. By immersing two of his marvellously long fingers immediately into your core. No delay, no insertion by increments, just the instant, exquisite strain of his digits separating and pulling your cunt wider. But as tantalising a taste the sensation was, it was gone quicker than you could voice your stark objection to its removal. What kept you mute, though, was the sight of his withdrawn hand, stringy with his own cum, icing the outside of your cunt wedding cake white. Taehyung dolloped it generously over your grievously sensitive clit, something fiendish about his dark eyes. "T-Tae." The two, cum-wrapped digits returned with aplomb, seeping past your giving hole until they were once more knuckle-deep and testing your softest spots. "Your pussy is a World-fucking-Wonder," he sighed like he were its most adoring fan. "Just listen to it," the tips of his fingers juiced the ghastliest of noises from your cunt. "That's me in there. Fuck, that's so hot." And then he added another finger without so much as a whispered warning.

And then they were expertly curling, grazing, rapping at the roof of you, precisely where he was most needed. "Come for me," it spilled from his lips a heartfelt plea; an unholy decree. To disobey was inconceivable. Your fingers and toes gouged his bedspread like demons dwelled within. They compelled your eyes latch shut, because what divine euphoria nagged at your cunt was too blinding to witness. But you had to. You had to see his beautiful, flawlessly-conceived face taking you there. Your eyelids peeled open with effort, though for a heart-deadening instant it wasn't Taehyung's resplendent features peering back. It was Jungkook, round-nosed and rounder-eyed, thin lips plumper for his cunt-eating endeavours. You blinked again. And back was Taehyung, regal and illegal, lips parted wide and submersing your stiff, agitated clit in the ambrosia that was his mouth's warmth. This Prince of Sin knocked without mercy at your g-spot, beckoning you follow his command to release. What decided your end was witnessing his sumptuous mouth sup up his still-warm ejaculate as he suckled your clit into an excruciating vacuum. Your entire lower half rattled uncontrollably in his grasp while he sucked and fucked you through several new dimensions, the length and breadth of you lacquered with sweat. If, in his belligerence, his grip slipped, he pinched and grabbed his way back, shackling you into surrender. "Come," Taehyung's teeth grazed your clitoral hood as he snarled the final instruction, his trio of fingers ransacking your cunt. "Oh, G-God! Y-Yeah, I'm coming, Tae. K-Keep fucking me. Harder, oh, fuck, harder!" And by request he did, practically punching himself into That Perfect Place, and almost ashen for lack of oxygen. When his tongue lashed without remorse or pause, the ruthless tactic was the last that you needed to push you into somewhere sightless and soundless. Some string of sounds must have exited you, however, because some part of you - every part of you - tautened and forced all cognisant control from you. The pleasure was unbending, rending you from top to toe. But that was just a timeless second, and soon you were seeing again, Taehyung's dappled ceiling and the glow-in-the-dark stars that bedecked it. It was far too powerful, and far too short. God, how you ached still. Your cunt mouthed for Taehyung, not for his laudable, digital substitutes. "Fuck. I need more," and though you had never felt more weak or incapable of further, rigorous copulation, the beat between your legs coerced it. "I'm still so fucking horny, Tae. I need more." "Lucky for you, there's plenty where that came from," standing, his drying dick was in his fist and burgeoning into hardness. "I'm not done either, not after watching that."

Like a submissive pup your legs fell open, sullied, weeping cunt barely recognisable as being one. "Oh, thank God," the terrifying threat of insatiability burned deep in your foundations. Some bestial fever had taken hold and galvanized your libido while sapping the strength from every of your other physical parts. So it was a relief when Taehyung handled your languorous limbs with mirrored interest but far more energy.

"Want it from behind?" he posed the question close to your ear, with weighted breath and anticipation beading at the head of his cock. You watched through the crevasse of your bodies how he primed his imminent reinsertion, glissading himself along your messy slit. "On top?"

Both options were two of your life's three wishes. But the monster inside you wanted it deep, dirty, and - this was a revelation - demeaning. "Fuck me from the back," you sucked on his lower lip like a segment of citrus. "Hurry."

"And here's me thinking you'd want to be in charge," snagged by your mouth, Taehyung’s tongue swept its roof, sinking himself into your open-mouthed half-kiss.

Simply, you were not someone to slink away from provocation. "Don't think I'm some shy little sub, Tae, because that will lead you down a painful path," your lips migrated to his thick, delectable neck, where heat and pulse were strongest. God, you needed more time with it. To scrape your own mark into him. But: "I just need it like this right now."

With one, waist-ringing arm he flipped you onto your front, the suddenness of it snatching your air. "Ass up, babe," he hollered gleefully, emphasising your new, baptismal name with a superhuman swat to your backside. By reflex, your limbs flailed back to provide protection to the vulnerable area, but the hot, horny weight on your thighs forbade it. "You're mine now. You had your chance to call the shots, and, well..."

"Asshole!"

"Indeed. Got a beautiful view of a it," he chuckled so low you knew his arousal was subduing his compulsion to one-up you. "Up," the mass withdrew from the back of your knees and you rose salaciously, slowly, to present your desperate situation to him. "God," it worked. "Being my own sloppy seconds is hot as fuck."

"I won't know what that's like until you hurry up and do i—oh, fuck!"

Again did he waylay your impatient raving. By dunking the entirety of his freshly-rigid cock until he touched bottom. And, Jesus. At this angle, did he touch bottom. The end of his dick was practically stirring your guts, so acutely entrenched was he. Somewhere behind you, a songful moan sounded. "Noona," Taehyung crooned, but didn't finish.

"God," you concurred, because his and His name were interchangeable.

Shivers vaulted up and down your skin's expanse when you found his long, splayed fingers rounding your ribcage and up. Taehyung fucked down, in, and as far as your body would plausibly allow him, with some latent, industrious power he must have tapped into. No longer was he withering from depletion but drilling you with renewed vigour, jabbing at parts that made you cringe. His expansive palms steadied the breakneck to and fro your breasts were subjected to, cupping them from harm while indulging his desire to toy with their elevated tips. "Does that feel good, noona?"

When he then put his thumbs to work, glancing over the nubs like he were flicking at the sticks of a game controller, a wretched yelp sprung from you. "F—yes, you bastard. Don't stop."

A span of sticky warmth descended on your back. Taehyung stooped over you, chest pressed close, like a lion breeding the prized of his pride, his teeth out and in the base of your neck, pitting your skin with his stamp. His tongue and lips directed his journey downwards, slathering wet and warmth down the centre of your back while he crammed himself repeatedly into the back of your centre. "You feel f-fucking amazing—" the last syllable was little more than a gasp. "You feel me fucking you with my own cum, noona? Fuck—" verbalising the debauched act only seemed to aggravate his arousal. And while you couldn't witness the excessively slickened show that he was able, you felt it well enough between your plastered legs. Heard it well enough when the base of his cock bruised your outer limits.

"Mmm-ugh!," avid agreement was ousted from you on the end of a markedly sharp thrust. That one you swore you felt in your ribcage. "C-Can't you do any better than that, though?"

"Oh, it's like that, huh?" his timbre was deeper, darker, than the second circle of hell. The consequences of running your mouth was to have it driven into the pillow. And when you twisted for breath, half your face still submersed in cotton, you met his devilish grin with a side-eye of impudence. "Face down, ass up. No," he snapped to you so hard your spine could shatter, "backtalking," gathered your hair like a horse's reins and tugged for your compliance. "Or I'll have you like this."

The curve of your body was near unnatural as you gave to the pull on your roots, arching to both stymy the strain and gravitate toward the stimulation at your scalp. As much as you were loath to admit it, the trajectory of both his fucking and dirty talk was sending you to the cosmos. "Ah-ahh," even the build of your second orgasm, while familiarly intense, felt alien in eventual destination. It gathered deep, fermenting your arousal into a belly-ache of longing. "Fuck, this feels so good. Whatever you're doing, d-don't stop." Your jockey grunted with the effort of riding you, occasionally delivering your ass a spank of encouragement. The finishing line must have been in sight for him, because the frequency of his expletive-laden murmuring began to escalate. As did the momentum with which he slung himself into you, the bottom of your cum-slick ass cheeks a thunderclap against his similarly soiled abdomen. "God, come here," unexpectedly, your hair fell loose from his grip and back to your shoulders. And an inch from faceplanting the pillow, both his arms wreathed your torso, criss-crossing your breasts. You reared from the bed until he had you against his chest and his lips around your earlobe. "I love you," he puffed into you, himself a stallion run ragged. "That's why this feels so good." Whether he spoke for himself or for you, it was ambiguous. But, God, it resonated. Thrummed, in the depths of your cum-defiled cunt. And swelled, as he did, on the brink of something tremendous. "T-Tae," his name faltered on your tongue, swallowed by physical and emotional pandemonium. Again, he suctioned himself to your neck and your jaw, drawing hues from your flesh that would scream, rather than suggest, your evening's activities. So many hickeys! And in the knowledge that others would see them! Nevertheless, your hand found itself ensnarled in Taehyung’s glossy locks - Jesus, you were fucking Taehyung - in express approval. "Call me daddy," he hummed into the juncture of your jaw and neck, snagging you between his tongue and top teeth. "I'd like that." "Oh my God," incredulity forced it from you first. But him striking that same, salaciously sore spot five thrusts in a row gave it an undertone. "How about no." "How about yes," Taehyung seethed sexual puissance. "How about if I make you squeal?" His audaciousness alone kneaded your insides. A cautionary spasm gripped his cock and he railed you harder in rebellion. "T-Tae!" "Daddy," he corrected with an adamance that, too, battered your buttons. It was then that you grasped how someone so outwardly nonchalant could control a classroom of unruly kids.

Taehyung had a power to him. 

"I-It's not gonna happen," blurted forth your weediest attempt at defiance. You squeezed him rhythmically, roughly, of your body's own accord, and it was with exhilarated disbelief that you realised you were heading toward your first ever, non-clitoral climax. Somehow, whether it be your insatiability, Taehyung's technique or his mere involvement, something about your liaison was tapping the untapped. "H-Harder, I'm so close, Tae," you were sobbing without tears, pure, aroused anguish. When his hand traversed your stomach to, you presumed, grant you mercy in the form of clitoral stimulation, you clasped his wrist like a woman imparting her raspy, dying words. "N-No. I wanna come like this. Untouched." You felt his lips curve against your cheek. Warm, musk-heavy breath caressed your nostrils. "I like it. I'll get that daddy out of you, though." And he did. Simply because, determined fuck that he was, he was prepared to jackhammer you into docility. How his thighs were able to sustain such a prolonged struggle you had no idea, but nonetheless they were the unfailing strength behind his savage, upward thrusts, spearing you silly until you jostled in his arms like you were strapped to a pneumatic drill. Taehyung ugh'd and huffed into the back of your head, heat pervading your scalp where he rested his grimacing mouth. Had you been conscious and not stricken rabid by the mount of molten pressure threatening to rupture you, perhaps you wouldn't have given in. But in your climb, where pleasure rendered you impervious to shame and enthralled by the shameless, it slipped out. "I'm so close, d-daddy!" A snarl, far too beastly for its human origin, deafened you on one side. Taehyung's victory spurred him into an animated dash for the finish, packing himself with unerring repetition into your quivering cunt until the whole of you was one, concurrent tremor, held fast to his heaving chest.   "Again." It came as you did. "F-Fuck, d-daddy, I'm—agh—coming!" From within you it crested, and for an appalling, horror-stricken second the urge to pee was overwhelming. But what gushed free didn't bring mundane relief but a climactic convulsion that stilled and swallowed Taehyung's cock whole. Urge pushed your ejaculate from you in intense, clenching waves, dousing him in a colourless liquid that surged from your pussy with force. "Jesus-fuck, are you s-squirting? Oh, shit!" Barely a breath after Taehyung's awed exclamation did you feel his second load of the night jet into the confines of your cunt, as explosively abrupt as your own projectile ejaculation. For a moment the absurd wetness of your joint orgasms was drowned out by cries of enraptured wonder, the man in throes behind you still stubbornly - perhaps automatically - grinding himself against your grain, determined to put in as much as you were putting out. Indeed, your pussy brimmed dangerously around the plug that was his pulsing cock, his lodged shaft the only thing preventing your entirely drenching the bed beneath. What squeezed at you could hardly be called a rush. It was protracted and fluctuating, like the beating of wings. All that kept you sky high was your orgasmic storm, because your body sure as hell had clocked out during. Once the two of you had emptied everything of yourselves, all that remained were your quaking, intertwined bodies and the harsh sounds of exhaustion, deafening in the lateness of the evening. "I-I'm dizzy," Taehyung's arms unfolded without resistance as you collapsed forward into the softer embrace of his cotton bedspread. "What the fuck was that," there was no question mark to be heard in your spent stupor.

"I don't know, but, wow," his intonation was that of bafflement. "Are you okay?" the mattress dimpled down in spots where he manoeuvred himself with care above, avoiding applying further stress to your body. An unpleasant, gaping coolness accompanied his cock's withdrawal, prompting a feeble mewl from you. Taehyung heard it. "Noona?"

"Ah, yeah, just—seriously done. Exhausted. Already miss your dick, though," his mild consternation was probably compounded by you lying entirely face-down and sacrificing air for rest. With shreds of energy you turned your face in the pillow to settle him with a smile. "Thank you. I'm good. I should probably go pee, but I can't move."

The gentle scrape of wood on wood and subsequent introduction of something downy between your legs told you that Taehyung had produced a towel. It was the simplest, most courteous of gestures, but his soft and careful attention folded your stomach. "And I'd offer to carry you, but I think we'd just end up a heap on the floor," his chuckle was soft and inflected with a cryptic affection. Cryptic only because your post-coital fog rendered his confession all the more befuddling.

He loved you?

That same, post-coital fog supplied analgesia to your sudden recollection of the day's events. It only pierced superficially when so wonderfully drugged. Still, the promise of pain lingered on the outskirts, biding its time. Waiting for the cloud to disperse and lay bare all your ill-judged, rash decision-making.

Right now, it was at bay.

And right now, that was all you wanted.

The towel hit the floor somewhere with a muted thump. "You not gonna pee, babe?"

"Nah," Taehyung's tall silhouette bore down on you. And then his hands were on you with soft intent, none of the carnality they grasped with before. Like he was adjusting a newborn in its crib, he slid you gently to the unsoiled side of the bed and pasted himself to your back, long and warm, more a ladle than a big spoon. Safety exuded from the presence encompassing you. Doting on you, with a palm running the length of your naked side.

"I'm gonna sleep so good," it was ever a marvel that his mouth was at your ear, whispering so buttery, and that what had happened, did. "You probably will, too. It's been a long day."

Your slowing heartrate agreed. "Yeah. Thank you for—I don't know. Turning it on its head. As you always do."

"Don't thank me," his lips nurtured the discolouration littering your shoulders. "It's just love. I wanted you to feel it."

"I still can't believe it, but—I did. I do."

Taehyung was gentle. "Is it so hard for you to believe that I would?"

"Welcome to my mind," you believed was sufficient explanation.

"Yeah, explains why you didn't even think to link the Valentine's card to me. Dude, I was so into you back then, it's not even funny," it was, though, fantastically so. A laugh burbled from your chest. "Hey," Taehyung's fingers accosted your ribs in light, teasing strokes; the last thing you needed in your condition. "I was disappointed as hell. You laughing at a teenage boy's heartbreak?"

"N-no," you stopped him with an embarrassingly weak swat. "It just makes me feel happy."

"Good. You need more of that."

Curiosity piqued in your heady happiness. "What about after that?"

"I got over it eventually, took quite a while though—"

"Sorry."

"Stop," Taehyung's face came into view, far too close. His eyelashes combed yours, and you laughed. "apologising."

"Alright, alright," would you ever, though? "And what after that?"

"After that, when we started losing touch, I started losing the feelings. Was over it for years. Then when you started dating—uh, that guy—and it started getting serious, I was like. Wait. These feelings," he discussed it so easily, so openly, that it spawned envy. Was that the key to offloading emotional baggage? Emptying it? "They're back. But worse. Well, not worse, you know what I mean. More intense. It wasn't a crush anymore. It wasn't just about me getting off to a mental image of your tits anymore—"

"Oh my God—"

"I mean, that came back, too, but—"

"Tae!"

"It was a whole lot deeper. I wanted to make you smile the way he did. Make you laugh. Make you giddy. Be more than the third person down in your Favourite Contacts. You get the idea," even now, having bared his truth, he was unflustered. He experienced and expressed his emotions without reservation nor smothering.

The music of his requited feelings was sweeter than any lullaby. Your eyelids dropped like ten-tonne weights and soft, inaudible murmuring escaped your lips.

Taehyung swept your face free of occlusive hair. "Hmm?"

"I love you. And I'm so tired.”

"Get to sleep then, you," something wet and warm met your forehead. "Sweet dreams."

Dreams were reality now, though. Reality was utterly bizarre. You lay, in the arms of your best friend-cum-lover, in his childhood twin bed. Twin. Wouldn't it be funny if he'd had a twin?

That was your last, stray thought before sleep took you.

And all you dreamt of was Jungkook.

-

Next: 12 || WYLEI Masterlist

[squiishiichaos]

Maybe a salty vanroku? They find they both are salty about a lot of stuff and bond

(Oof.  You mean just Vanroku in general?  Okay!  Let’s fuckin’ do this!)

____

People make mistakes–at least, that’s what the masters say–but Vanitas sometimes had to wonder if people themselves weren’t just mistakes by their very nature.  

Take this fuck-nugget for instance. 

Ever since being given a Replica body to live in, the Blonde dual-wielder had basically become a legend among the heroes of both Dark and Light.   Vanitas could still remember rolling his eyes a time or two when Xemnas would speak so highly of the Nobody who had single-handedly almost torn his entire organization asunder.  As far as the Unversed was concerned, that said far more about Xemnas’s leadership than it did about the kid who cheated his way through life.

What made Roxas special enough that the Organization would save him a fucking chair?  There was no guarantee he was even still alive, let alone that he would rejoin them, and even if he did, Vanitas didn’t see why they needed another half-pint to drag their team along.  Wasn’t he enough?  

Hah, he barked at his own mind.   Even he was aware how fucked that sentiment was.  He’d never be enough for Xehanort.  Never.   He could have single-handedly defeated every single last one of the Guardians of Light and still not have been enough.  

But no.  They had lost, and now, he had to pay the piper here, sitting across the way from his Other’s once empty Look-alike.  

Who the fuck decided he should be the one to guard me?  “What’s so great about you?”

“Excuse me?”   He hadn’t meant to say that, but now that the words were out there, Vanitas found no real reason to stop them.

“You don’t look that special to me,” he continued with a glare.  “So what if you can wield two keyblades?  That hardly matters if you’re just two-bit trash.”

“As if you’re one to talk.  You couldn’t even beat Ventus.”  

Vanitas snarled.  “He had help.”

“So, did you.  What’s your excuse?” This insufferable little–”if you can’t put your money where your mouth is, I don’t suggest opening it.”

“Give me back my keychain and I’ll gladly put your light-loving ass in its place.”

“Afraid I can’t.”

“Why the fuck not?  You afraid of what those third-rate Masters will do if they catch you fraternizing with the enemy?”  Further evidence this kid wasn’t Ventus rested in the twisted smirk that tilted his lips up on the left in something like amused disgust.   Almost like there was something about Vanitas that made him sick to his stomach.  

Good.  “I ain’t afraid of anyone–especially not you–but I’m also not stupid.  I give you back that keychain, you’re just gonna run right back to your Pops for cover.”  

Oh, yeah, this kid was definitely not Ventus.  “Why?  So he can tell me what a fucking failure I am?   I’d rather beat your ass any day…”

“Assuming you even could.”  Cerulean narrowed on him with a leer that was equal parts testy and amused.  

“I don’t see what you think makes you so strong.  You’re just another useless Nobody.  A shell without a heart, wasting away day by day.”

“I used to think that, too,” Roxas told him on a tone that was fretfully flat, “but I have one now.”

“How are you so sure the others didn’t just lie to you about that?”  How did they know what a heart was?  Not even Ansem the Wise had been able to pinpoint what made a heart a heart.  It was a mystery–just another question no one had been able to explain to him.  

“I’ve felt enough hurt to know it’s there.”

“Hurt,” Vanitas snarled, “that’s your answer?  A measly feeling?”

“Bet it’s more than you’ve ever felt.”

Vanitas couldn’t help his scoff.  “I wouldn’t be so sure, Doppelganger.”

“You’re one to fucking talk.”

“I didn’t choose this face.”

“And neither did I!  You think I wanted to be some sort of carbon copy pieced together by two lost hearts?”

“One of those hearts was supposed to be mine!”

Oh no.  

He’d said too much.  He could see it in the slight narrow of those blue eyes and the furrow of golden brows.  The scowl that fell heavy over his taut lips.  It was an expression that would’ve looked out of place on his Brighter half.  One that was touched by a hint of darkness so disastrously familiar it almost forced a ball of tangible bile up his throat.

He swallowed the flood back down before it could be born anew in the space between them.   Roxas swallowed back his own demons where he stood pale across the way.

Vanitas couldn’t help a low growl.  “Go ahead,” he goaded, “pity me just like the rest.”

“No,” the Blonde sighed, letting his weight fall back against the wall behind him with a dull thud before sliding down to the floor.  

“But I thought you had a heart.”

“I do, and it wants pity even less than you do.” Vanitas actually chuckled.

“I’m not sure that’s possible.”

“Try me.”   At that challenging tone, the Shadow couldn’t help sitting up a little bit straighter and meeting that blue-eyed glare head-on.  

“What?  You wanna compare scars now?”

Roxas shook his head with a frown.  “All that does is make the wounds deeper.   I’m trying to work on this thing where I don’t pick at my stitches until I bleed.”

That was a feeling Vanitas could understand well.  “It’s a difficult stride to maintain.  Sometimes, the pain is more grounding than anything.”

“Reminds you you’re alive,” Roxas agreed.   Looking at his hand, the Blonde turned it this way and that in the sparse light of the room.  “It’s like that first breathless rush of adrenaline at the start of a fight.  For that brief moment, you feel invincible–like you could do anything and not a soul could touch you.”

“But then it wears off,” Vanitas drawled, “and you realize that death is still an inevitability waiting for you somewhere down the line.”

“I used to push myself until I was too exhausted to continue,” the Blonde told him.  “At least with all my muscles sore and protesting I knew I wasn’t dead.”

“For a Nobody, that’s all you can feel without a heart.”

“For an Unversed, too, I bet.”  

Vanitas let out a snort that was more painful than humoring.  “On the contrary, I always felt too much.”

“Ah,” there was a tone there that sounded like he might have actually understand, even if he didn’t understand anything at all, “the beauty of emotions, right?  Keyblades are easy to control, but feelings?  Not so much.”

“Is that how you feel now that you have your own heart?  My–” he swallowed down the word that ached at his throat and instead averted his eyes away from knowing blue, “I always thought it would end when I was complete.  That the pain and hurt would disappear and it would all come to a balance.”

“It doesn’t,” Roxas told him.  “I thought the same thing when I merged with Sora–but it remained there, deeper than before, and there was nothing I could do to assuage it.”

“Yeah,” Vanitas sighed, “I know that now.”

“Then why were you so desperate to merge with Ventus at the Graveyard?”

“That…” He pursed his lips and looked up at Roxas.  Would he understand?  Would anyone?  “It wasn’t me…not this me.”

“Well, I’m glad this you knows better.  The last thing we need is Sora coming back from his journey and wondering why Ven and you aren’t individuals.”

Vanitas scoffed.  “Like he’d even care–”

“It’s Sora,” Roxas argued with a glare, “he cares about everyone.”  

“Well, he’s the only one.”  The Blonde let out an aggrieved sigh and sank deeper into his seat.

“That’s a lie, you know.   Ventus…cares…sometimes…”

“I think I’d rather he didn’t,” Vanitas admitted solemnly.  “It’s easier when no one cares.”

“You’re not wrong…”

For a single beat of silence, neither of them said a word.   In this empty chamber located deep in the halls of Radiant Garden, the discomfort of soundless torment hit him a little harder when there was actually someone willing to indulge him.   At least that was better than listening to the voices in his head…

A part of him that had been alone for far too long, yearned for a connection to something.

“So,” Vanitas diverted with a sidelong glare at the Doppelganger, “why are you still here?   You’ve defeated the enemy and earned your heart, your keyblades…seems pointless to remain here.”

“Where else am I gonna go?”

“Anywhere.  You’re complete and whole.  There must be something you’ve always wanted to do.”

“You first.”  Vanitas rolled his eyes.

“I always hoped to get an actual look at Scala.   My…he never allowed me aboard the Islands…”

“And I’ve always wanted to see the Ocean.”  With a slight smirk, Roxas leaned forward onto his knees and met his gaze with a light that was so Sora and yet so not.  “Let’s go–together!”

“Hah.  As if either of us would enjoy that…”

“I would,” Roxas told him with sincere confidence.  “Would definitely be better company than Riku, for sure.”

“Finally,” the Shadow grinned–all fangs and malice–”something we can agree on.”

“So, is that a go?”

“You’re serious…”

“Well, yeah,” Roxas shot back, “there’re rarely times I’m not serious.”

Thinking on it a moment, Vanitas sunk back against the wall with a deep sigh and a glare at the blonde.  He doubted this would be fun, but compared to the alternative…

“I doubt your friends will let me go freely, even in your…capable hands.”

“Leave that part to me,” Roxas wore an expression only someone who had done horrible things could enjoy, “I’ll make sure we can leave hassle-free.”

“And Void Gear?  As legendary as your dual-wielding is, I don’t need some half-pint protecting me from weak-ass Heartless.”

“What, you mean this?”  Holding up his keychain, Roxas sneered at the look that came over Vanitas’s expression.  “You’re not the only sneaky half-pint around, you know.  Now, c’mon, my Stopza will wear off in a couple of minutes and we’ll need the head start without corridors to dash through.”

Alright, Vanitas could admit as he caught his offered keyblade and cautiously followed the Doppelganger, I suppose this could be fun…

It was the first time he almost felt happy.   Almost.

[youllgocrystalcrazy]

   Skimming through his contacts list, it comes as no surprise to see N. Gin’s name revoked from the list now. It’s had been a while since he had heard, let alone seen the Igor-esque man, but now this damning confirmation on his screen assured him that the stout man was no longer in Spirale. “Of course...” He sighs, bitterly. Now the only contact that remained on his Phone’s Favorites list was... King Knight? Certainly HE never put him in his favorites list!! With a sort and roll of the eyes, Cortex sets down his phone. Augustus must have put that in there when the pair swapped their consciousness with one another. “...Augustus... Hmmm... So that’s that chaps name. Right...” How irritating. He knew more than he intended about King Knight than he’d hoped to, and surely the reverse was true. Massaging his temples in frustration, he groans. Great, everyone he’s swapped with knew a decent sum of his life. “Ohhhh, Don’t dwell on that, Cortex!! You’re developing a Memoryraser for this very situation!! You’ll have those embarrassing memories wiped from their minds in no time!! ...Rrrr...” At least he would if he had his ducks in a row.

   Pinching the bridge of his nose, he snorts once again. With N. Gin take from him, how was he to excel in his endeavors now?! In his Inventions?! His Plans!?! His plans for Facet five would have to be on hold for a bit, at least until he could find himself someone to pick up Gin’s slack, much to his chagrin. Fork picking at the food on his plate, Cortex uses his opposing arm to prop his head up on the table, eyes narrowing in deep thought. “It’s just one thing after another in this Abaddon. First, they strip me of my weaponry, then torment me, steal Nina away, now N. Gin-” Wait. Just what was he doing? Eyes wide, he springs up in his seat, looking around the apartment. The apartment he had grown so comfortable with. So accustomed with. Familiar was the tradition of waking up and just brewing coffee. The tradition of showering nightly. The tradition of leaving only when necessary and holing himself up to devise more plans to rule. But that was it, wasn’t it? He was stuck in this house like an average citizen. A COMMONER!! Truly, had he fallen to such a low point, he’d failed to notice he was beginning to treat everything like it was... the NORM?! NO!! Slamming the fork into the table, Cortex leaps out of his seat, filled with a feeling of rage he hasn’t felt in a while.

   “NO!! I WON’T STAND FOR THIS!! I’m the Infamous, Doctor Neo Cortex!! And I’m here being forced to live like the rest of the masses here?! I should be ruling everyone, bending everyone's minds to my very will!! Crushing enemies beneath my feet and setting my armies upon those who stand in my way!!! Not... Dining on Baked Mac ‘n Cheese on a monday night indoors!!” He storms around the kitchen, fuming. Spitting. Stomping. “Those powers-that-be are really out to make a mockery of everyone in this city!! ESPECIALLY ME!!” Then the most peculiar thing happens. The sound of the front door slamming echoes throughout the townhouse, leaving a very startled evil genius standing in the center of the kitchen frozen with fear. 

   All he can do is yelp at the instance of it, but his anger is quick to return. “WHO’S IN HERE?!” Cortex clamors, brandishing his Ray Gun within seconds. He’s not afraid to go toe-to-toe with some run-of-the-mill criminal. He’d fire a few plasma blasts their way without second thought! Aiming at the front door now, a wicked smile creases his lips, chest filling with the desire to toss out a witty quip or two before taking the shot. But he never does. Instead, Cortex notes he’s still alone. What’s more curious is the device that now gently floats in the center of the living room. It can’t be!! It’s-

   “MY HOVERCRAFT!!!” Hovercraft, he calls it. Dropping his ray gun, Cortex dashes towards his other prized possession. In one swoop, he scoops up the device in his arms, cuddling it as he would a neglected child. “Oh!! My Hoverboard. How I’ve missed you!! I can’t believe it!!! Is it really you?! Hmmm... Smmhmhmm... Yes. Seems to be intact... No evident tampering. All in once piece!! YES!!!” Doing a small spin, Cortex lifts the device in the air before holding it close once again, Giving it a few kisses this time. “Welcome home!! Daddy missed you too~! Not that Florence wasn’t any good company, but, Hah! The more the merrier!!” Florence? Did he name his ray gun-? “Alright, fine then!! I suppose the powers-that-be aren’t trying to make a TOTAL mockery of me... But I have no intention of having a sudden change of heart.” 

   Eyes cast up towards the ceiling, Cortex puffs out his chest, grinning devilishly. “You’ve taken important people from me, and yet you’ve granted me my belongings back. I would find myself more thankful t’were it not for the little factor of having them revoked from me in the first place... But now with my hoverboard and ray gun in tow once more, You’ve given me more reason to continue with my plans in overthrowing you and taking this wretched city for myself!! And no one, no authority, no Ofiuco will stand in my way!!” Fingers drum the grips of the board, his gaze refusing to waver from the spot he’s fixed his eyes on. “Once I take control of Spirale, I will be the one in control of who comes and goes. I can make this place my very own Paradiso. Hmhmhm~ Victor and Moritz proclaimed themselves to be the masters of infinite dimensions, but those absurd little avians hadn’t the foggiest idea of this place, have they? Once I reign, I will be the master of infinite dimensions. And I’ll see to it that there will be no bumbling Bandicoot or anyone else to stop me!! Hehehehahahahaha!!!!” 

   “So, I’ll play along just a little longer. Just a little. I’ll devise a little coalition of my own and slowly work my way into everything coming together~! The Cortex Vortex Redux and Nano Expedite Ocillatron’s blueprints are perfected now~ All I need to do is to engineer and piece them together now. Yes... Oh, I do so look forward to that coming day~” Finally done with his tangent, Neo looks to his precious devices and sighs. Nothing is going to dissuade him now. He’s set in his mind and is fully intent to dominate this Island. One day. “Oh my!! I got so engrossed in my spiel!! I need to test you out!! A little bonding time will do us both some good~” 

   If you look to the skies tonight, at about fifty feet above Spirale, you can see a flying yellow dot skiing across the sky. He looks somewhat perturbed that this is the highest he can go, but he’s not complaining. He’s just glad to look down from high once more...

Subgiant ⇢ Giant...

[crossed--fates]

//Shades 🍓 🍀 ❄?

Muse talks about the Mun || Accepting!

[under read more because RIP dash if I don’t]

🍓 What is something you and the mun disagree on?

“Oh, there’s A LOT. She thinks it’s fun to torment me, I don’t. She thinks programming is BORING and DIFFICULT and I completely disagree. She hates coffee while I love it, she hates Math, I love it. She thinks I should try be friends with CABANELA OF ALL PEOPLE and I’m not fond of that idea!!!!”

[C’mon Yommy, you know you should try forgiving him if you want to move on from your past, even your fiancée says that!]

“FIRST OFF, don’t call me Yommy, only SISSEL can call me that! Second, I’ll decide when I’m ready or not to do this, NOT YOU!”

[Well, technically you can’t. I’m the mun, I run your blog so I’ll decide that :v]

“ARGH!!! I HATE YOU!!!!!!”

🍀 What is your opinion on the layout of the blog the mun did for you?

“Already answered that here. I do like the layout she chose.”

❄ Did the mun ever forced you to do something you didn’t want to do?

“Oh yeah. She tries to make me be nicer towards Cabanelas, however, I fight back. She doesn’t understand I’m not ready to forgive this guy for everything he did to me and she wants me to be friends with him? Hah! As if! Forgiving is one thing, but actually be friends? She’s crazy!”

[But a friendship between you two would be hilarious! Think about all the sarcasm!]

“My friendship with Jowd is not enough for you? There’s plenty of sarcasm already.”

[Nah, it’s not the same. You and Jowd actually get along, I like the rival dynamic you could develop with Cabs as a friend/rival kinda thing!]

“I’ll pass, thanks.”

[One day, Shades.... Maybe one day... :v]

[gemcrown]

..

[consider-things-done]

The Beginning of the End Part 2

The ship fell under the colossal weight of the several millions of tons of water that came pressing unto its frame and snapped its frame like it were some kind of straw. Split not in half, but in many pieces that were tossed to the watery depths, many of those that had fallen under the water had been lost to the swirling tempest that came as the whirling waters thrashed and took the breath from lungs of the many and then dashed them onto the stones and rocks of the floor so violently with such a force that many of them had grown unconscious and drowned as they were mixed and mingled into the water and spun about as any breaths that were taken, were as quickly stolen away from the tumultuous torment of the sea. Those that had miraculously survived were tossed upon blood-crusted sands that were littered with bodies and remnants of bodies, destroyed weapons, ships and machines as well the foul stench of rot and decay that entered into the air and assaulted their senses like some form of gut-wrenching, sickening smelling salt that made them slip from their state of disorientation to a realization that their would-be saviors, were too, casualties of this war. In the distance, Horde troops barked orders as the sounds of grinding mechanisms and gears were heard as a column of Horde troopers came rumbling forth with their demolishers in tow. The cackling sniveling sound of those greed-hungry goblins were heard as a scavenger rummaged through the parts of a smoldering, ashen-colored siege engine that had its wheels broken, torn and tossed aside while a large armored Orc smeared with the blood of innocents grunted back to him in his primal language that was nothing but snorts, growls and grumbles. Silently a woman had awoken, turned and looked towards the troops and stood up, but then fell as she hit the sands that were tarnished blood red. Gasping with a cough, a hand went to her side to reveal that she had a splintered piece of wood torn through her rib cage and it protruded outside of her clothing on either side. The sound and noise of the woman alerted the brute and his companion as a sneer was given and the goblin continued to act in accordance to his initiative, retrieving necessary parts to repair another, less-broken and easily-maintained demolisher that was back at their camp. With his two-handed, large axe risen in his hand, the orc flared his nostrils, catching the scent of blood and gore, ash and destruction and chuckled arrogantly as he pressed his plated boots into the sand and shifted out to the human woman that had fallen back unto herself. Speaking in broken Common, the grunt sarcastically and tauntingly spoke, “Oh did little woman hope escape? Hah, no. Get only death.” Grinning wildly with his yellowed, gnashed and sharpened tusks rising in his maw, he hefted his axe around within his grasp, raised it and poised a strike to lop off the woman’s head, to remove her of her misery. With a rise, the human woman attempted to shriek out in horror but could not as her lungs filled with blood and thus promoted a gargling rasp as she looked to the orc. Yet then her eyes flickered behind his form as she saw a male figure bound in charred, soaked, gold and blue clothing, prevalent to an Alliance naval officer ran through the sand and flashed in a vibrant plume of black and purple and then reappeared above the orc as he came rising down with a broken weapon, sharpened to a point fell into the base of the orc’s spine, causing him to open his mouth to roar, but then slumped over to his knees and finally hit the floor and peered through his slowly darkening eyes at a collection of tattered humans, elves, worgen and children that were shambling out from behind a large piece of the wreck. Soon, the rage and humor subsided as he died from the impact of the broken, sharpened tip of a sword being thrust between his spinal column and twisted. The goblin figure started to call out from underneath the wreck of the war machine to the orc but received no answer. Grunting then, the sniveling green-skinned engineer pulled himself out from under the engine compartment of the demolisher, turned around and was met with a human figure, looking down to him with a gold and blue crest of an Alliance lion emblazoned on his chest. Blinking, then squealing, the goblin reached for his holstered sawed-off, one-handed blunderbuss but instantly felt a massive blow rise to his large nose and then once more to his eye socket as he had a hand wrestled around his arm. With brutality and efficiency, the raven-haired man grabbed the disoriented goblin by the throat and with the door to the engine compartment, began slamming the goblin’s head in between the frame, once, twice and finally thrice. With a grunt and gasp, the goblin’s eyes and throat swelled with pain as the door continued to close on his throat and finally, with a sickening pop and a crack, the door was slammed shut. Glancing then, the roguish fellow pursed his lips, reached for the goblin’s utility belt, retrieved a communicator and stuffed the earpiece into his ear while his hand went for the mouth piece that would fit his sleeve perfectly. Then, the hands went to the blunderbuss and sheathed dagger that was tied to his belt. Stripping the belt, the Captain turned his gaze to his band of survivors, many of whom were refugees and others that were his crewmen. Already, one had taken up the fallen orc grunt’s axe and hefted it in his hands. A cannoneer. Big, strong and boisterous, the axe while large and made for an orc, fit well in his equally large hands. Another, the Captain’s First Mate, took the pistol, the powder and the shot and the dagger and looked to the small belt with a rise of his brow as he tied it to his chest as a bandolier. They were only going to survive behind enemy lines if and only if they stayed to the mountains, forests and away and off from the roads and trails that ran throughout the sylvan glade that had once been magical, but now was a nightmare. There had to be pockets of troops still within the woods and forest of Darkshore and Ashenvale. He knew, intimately, that the violet-hued sons and daughters of the Moon would have holdouts, small burrows and hideouts. They were survivors, strong and persistent much like himself. While he had been behind enemy lines before and operated with a small team, he did not do so with civilians, but ultimately would have to deal with the situation and get the rest of them out, someway or somehow. But that was something that he would have to plan farther along. For now, they needed to get off the beachhead and he needed to provide care.

[splattales]

“So you’ve been taking back Zapfish from every zone here, like you used to in Octo Valley?”

“Yeah. They get stolen back again sometimes, but we try to replace them with a substitute… it’s not the same, and they’re weaker, but it’s better than nothing.”

Marina stares over the edge of Octo Canyon, barely processing what Finn is saying. She still wasn’t sure how to feel about his Agent work-- after all, it was her home he was fighting against. That said, there were alternatives to theft the underground should’ve been working on – Deepsea and Wetside, for example, took advantage of the water surrounding them and used it to generate electricity. The Canyon and the Valley could always try something inventive and they might have less of a power crisis…heck, they could even start making cutbacks on all the electricity guzzled by the machines down there. But Emperor Octavio…he’d just gone right back to taking the Great Zapfish, hadn’t he? Did he really and truly believe it was his by right?

“You’re fighting the Octoshower next?” she asks, changing the direction of the topic.

“Oh, uh, yep. I’m a little scared to be honest,” Finn sighs heavily, tossing breadcrumbs from a sandwich he was holding at a nearby gathering of sparrows.

“Hah! You should be, you’re gonna come back soaked to your boots in enemy ink,” Marina smiles, but then considers this a moment, “you know, not all the Octoweapons were supposed to be active. They’re war machines. More have been brought back online as ‘Zone Guardians’ but… doesn’t that seem suspicious to you?”

The Inkling shudders at this suggestion.

“Yes, very. Three years ago, that slimy old—er, I mean, that noble DJ told Molly and I that he was going to start another war to take back the surface. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was gonna use the Octoweapons for that purpose. But you told me he never mentioned that to Mrs. Salt or her council friends or anything?”

“Mmmnnnope. Well, if he did, it was quickly shut down. Most of us don’t like Inklings very much down there, but the Squid Sisters changed a lot of people’s perspectives about co-existence. A war is the last thing anyone wants—and if we lost again, there’s a heavy price to pay. It’s worrying, but those cries for war might just have been the ramblings of a crazy old man,” the Octoling pauses to take a bite out of her own sandwich, spending a few moments in silence. “Anyway, I don’t think that’ll be a problem anymore. Something about Octavio has changed, but since he’s closed himself off to the public, I’m not sure what it is. Maybe you’ll find out when you fight him again. If he really has squidnapped Callie for a concert, that’ll just further increase the popularity of you squids, you know? It doesn’t add up.”

“It doesn’t,” Finn agrees, letting out another sigh. He cautiously sneaks a glance at Marie to see how she’s dealing with the fact that he’d brought an Octarian friend to their watchsite, but she’s facing the other way. Obviously not worried about it at all, then…

Little did Finn know, Marie was busy confronting another cephalopod that’d slipped their way through the grate…

“Agent 3, I’m not blind. I saw you sneak behind the cabin.”

“Do me a favour and don’t tell the others…! I wasn’t…I wasn’t expecting Marina to be here, tch!”

Marie obscures the pink squid by standing in front of her, her open parasol blocking the other two’s line of sight should they decide to turn around.

“Did you come to apologise at last~? Finn told me you shoved him. That’s going to take at least thirty ‘sorrys’. Are you going to apologise to gramps too? He’s still waiting, you know. Told me he made you a cape.”

“Ugh! I didn’t realise I’d have to endure this kind of torment...” Molly shakes her head, “I guess I deserve it for being a jerk, though… I’m sorry.”

“Great! Now actually apologise to somebody you need to apologise to,” the idol smirks.

The Inkling seems to struggle with this concept—she still feels like there’s a heavy weight in her gut every time she even considers apologising. Not that she didn’t WANT to, it was the swallowing of pride, the admittance of being wrong; acknowledging she shouldn’t have acted the way she did... She knew there were better ways to talk out her problems with friends instead of shouting at them. Steadily, she nods at Marie, and begins to walk towards the unlikely duo…

…Marina turns to notice her before she even makes it halfway.

“It’s you…”

There’s a sneer behind those eyes, and it causes Molly’s anger to bubble up quickly. Not now, she has to focus, she came to say sorry to FINN…

“Molly? What’re you doing here??”

Naturally, he’s surprised to see her, but doesn’t seem as frightened after their run-in over splatfest.

“…a…apologise,” she manages to mumble, her shoulders hunched. Upon realising this sounds like a demand, she adds, “I came to do that.”

Marina raises an eyebrow knowingly, causing another needle of rage to shoot up Molly’s back. She barely holds it together as Finn furrows his brow in confusion. Staring at the ground, the small Inkling chokes out her apology.

“Finn, I’m sorry for shouting at you. I’m sorry for shoving you. I’m sorry for taking out my frustration on you and Cuttlefish. I’m sorry for being rude about your friend even though I still don’t like her,” she blurts, unable to continue.

“Molly—”

“Pfsh, that’s not much of an apology if you ask me,” Marina quips snappishly.

“Marina—"

Before anything further can be said, Molly dashes back the way she came, leaping through the grate to Inkopolis and hiding her face from view. Finn presses a hand against his forehead in frustration as Marina turns back to stare over the edge of the canyon’s abyss.

“I probably shouldn’t have said that, huh. …Sorry.”

“What am I going to do?! With either of you?!?”

[heartbxnd-blog]

Back in our days

This is a discord thread with @auraguardians

Part 1 | Part 2

Part 3/3

Description: Their fateful encounter, that soon evolved into a Summer romance. Morty is nothing more than another teen living in the streets of Johto’s cities. Meanwhile Riley, who tagged along his uncle’s business trip, finds himself in this new region to him - in an attempt to escape from his dreadded memories assosciated with the Summer.

Once they were both actually completely clean and dressed again - Riley in the shorts and button-up shirt he'd picked out, and Enoki in a pair of Riley's jeans and the shirt Riley had worn the previous day - Riley tossed his bedsheets and Enoki's (still soaked) clothes in the wash and had set about making some breakfast for two.

It was... a strangely nice taste of a domestic setting. Riley was beaming as he got the jam out, to spread on their toast.

"Hey - what's your favorite flavor?"

Yet again they find themselves acting- completely wrapped up in this fantasy. A comforting setting for these two.

Morty was feeding their pokemon- having set Riolu's bowl down while he held out his ghosts' snacks. Both Misdreavus and Haunter were cheerfully chirping and giggling while eating off their master's hand.

"Ah-! Y'know I'm not quite sure, it has been awhile since I've had any..."

His voice trailed off, as he keptfeeding the ghost types.

"Oh hold on! I just remembered it- Pinap berry jam! I ate it all the time when I was younger!"

Now that he is done tending to his pokemon, he could return to Riley- this shirt looked quite oversized on his small body. So much so that one of his shoulders was even completely exposed, Morty was smiling as he watched over the toast being prepared.

While waiting on Enoki's answer, Riley would take out the whole set of jams his uncle had stocked in the fridge, spreading his own favorite blend on the first piece of toast. Payapa Berry...

"Aha, here we go - we have it! You're lucky, Enoki - Riolu here loves spicy food. And my uncle, he... spoils his Pokemon rotten, really, but they're contest pokemon so - psh. Such divas."

He laughed as he spread the jam out and passed the toast to Enoki, a little content sigh leaving him.

"So - not to... make things weird. But - would there be a way to keep in touch? Like... letters?" As soon as it's out Riley feels a blush spreading on his cheeks. Letters - thanks for that suggestion, uncle Aaron.

"I mean - we can talk about that later. There's still two days. I just - want you to know..." I'm still interested. 

"Divas? Gee I can't imagine your uncle participating in contests..."

Morty chuckled lightly before he took the first bite out of his toast- that crunchiness, the taste...He wished he could wake up to this everyday.

His attention averted from the food- and went to Riley at his question, is this the part where he tells Riley to forget about him?

"Hah...Letters?...Yeah sure send them to me through the trash can..."

He tried to poke fun at it, but it wasn't quite working- now was it? Morty goes silent as he takes another bite and keep quietly chewing on the toast.

"...I'm heading to Kanto tonight, so..."

Morty sighed as he stopped eating- suddenly he couldn't bring himself to eat anymore of it.

"Riley-- maybe-"

The teen went silent as soon he heard a noise coming from the outside- was that the sound of a car?! It immediately prompted Morty to stand up straight, ready to dash out of there.

"Shit! Is that your--?"

Even Enoki's little comment didn't lighten the air at all - not with the blow Riley was sure was coming. Riley, maybe... we should just end it.

But even as he was steeling himself for that - Riley also heard the sound of the car pulling into the drive, and he didn't even need to tap into aura to know that sound.

"Ah - yeah, that's my uncle...! Quick, this way!"

Riley grabbed Enoki's hand to lead him through the house to one of the back windows, managing to give a soft laugh as he opened it all the way. "Here - go on."

He would tug Enoki up into a kiss, only hesitating briefly. "What time's the train? That is how you're leaving, right? Our ship leaves tomorrow night, so..." 

Morty was quickly and easily dragged by the arm, thankfully the Haunter had picked up his belongings- unfortunately he had completely forgotten about his clothes which were being washed up.

Regardless of it- the teen had climbed up the window, and flung his body- he was about to jump. That is- until Riley pulled him in for one more kiss.

"Mn- don't worry about the train...! I...I promise I will show up there...! You will take the ship in Olivine city right?..."

He asked in a raspy tone, as he tried to muster a grin at him. He swears he can hear the uncle calling for Riley.

"Mm... yeah - 6pm departure. I'll... I'll see you there, Enoki."

He pressed in one more quick peck before letting him go, with the Pokemon following. Ah, shit, no time to clean up the kitchen...

"Haha, welcome back, uncle!!"

___________________________________________________________

The next night, Riley would be waiting by the docks - in a carefully chosen visible location with only his little Riolu and a oddly shaped bundle.

This might be a dumb idea but Riley will only really feel dumb if Enoki doesn't show up at all.

Riolu, in tune with Riley, kept whining and nuzzling up next to him every time the boy got choked up. He'd never admit it, but he'd been crying on and off all day - ever since leaving the house in Goldenrod behind.

Even Aaron was suspiciously quiet - only offering a blanket-y sensation of you'll be ok, kid.

"Yeah, bud... I know he'll show up." 

The train was just some bullshit pulled out by Morty to try and get some time for himself.

See if he could get his mind straight, maybe return sooner to the streets. Admitedly, he didn't want to show up- he didn't want to create yet another painful memory that will only torment and fill him even further with guilt- of leaving Riley.

Many tears were shed, as the boy found himself at a loss- even his pokemon could feel it coming from him. If only he could be honest with Riley- speak exactly what he wanted all along.

Despite all the odds, he didn't break his promise- his way to the city was just painfully slow. His heart and chest ached, the moment he spotted Riley while still hidden in an alleyway- it hurt so badly. He just wanted to cower himself there, until his boyfriend was gone.

After about 5 minutes or so- he showed up, still wearing Riley's clothes- and still looking way too large for his body's size. He wasn't sure how to present himself to him, should he have a sad expression? A cheerful one? He decided to go with a neutral one- although his face did give signs that he had cried not too long ago.

"..."

The blond is at a loss for words, as such his gaze is quickly drawn into- whatever he has in his possession.

Riolu noticed Enoki first, and Riley would quickly wipe his face again before forcing himself to grin at the other boy. "H-Hey... You made it!"

He quickly took in everything - but most importantly, the fact that Enoki's eyes lingered on the little bundle Riley had with him. Of course. He cleared his throat and gave an anxious laugh.

"Uh - this... this is just some stuff... I've been meaning to give you, before I left. I just - I've been trying not to think about it, so. It's all here. Everything - um. Except your clothes, those... are probably packed up with my bed sheets. I forgot..."

Oh boy, not again.

Riley quickly wiped his eyes dry and laughed. "Sorry. You - you can keep mine, too. It's ok. They... look good on you, anyway." He teased, giving Enoki a little pat on his chest. 

No, no- what are you doing?

The thought ran through his mind, as he seemingly accepted the bundle- reaching out for it, and bringing it back to his chest. So far Morty hasn't said a thing, he has been avoiding to look straight into the other's eyes- to establish a visual contact with him.

There is- another urge to cry, as his hold on what he has in his hand- tightened itself.

Morty took a deep breath- as he finally looked up at Riley's face, still no words- instead he was pulled into a tight hug- his head rested on his shoulder and he couldn't hold them back anylonger.

"...Riley..."

"I'm...I'm so sorry..."

His voice comes out raspy- cracking up by the sobs and sulking, as he tries to cling onto Riley for as long as he can.

"...I love you..."

And I will be back to my loneliness- from where I shouldn't have ever left to begin with.

For a moment, Riley was sure Enoki was just going to panic and reject him, but instead... here they were, hugging tightly while Enoki sobbed.

I love you.

Those were words Riley had not steeled himself for, and as such they set off the waterworks all over again. He held tight to Enoki, his face ending up buried in his beautiful soft hair, little hiccup-y sobs the only noise he could make for a while.

"I... love you, too. Enoki..." He sniffled and pulled back enough to meet Enoki's eyes. "Thanks for... making this the best summer ever. Maybe - um. Well. Have a safe trip - mind the weather. Don't want to... find out you got sick or something. Hah..."

Clearly, Riley was still holding on to that tiny shred of hope he'd hear from Enoki at all. He wiped his eyes again and sighed as the ship's horn went off and he heard his uncle calling for him - and with that, Riley cupped Enoki's cheeks and pressed in one more quick, hot kiss.

"What I mean is... Stay dry, honey." 

He stayed back and watched his beloved Riley get on board of the ship, he stayed there hugging his gifts until the ship was gone- silently weeping.

Isn't this what you wanted? Needed all along? Back into being a nobody, a no one out in this world. Doomed to remember these better times.

With Riley gone- Morty was at a complete loss, he didn't know where to go next- or what to do. His mind was left in a numb state, as he wandered the streets and road- seemingly without any destination. Every inch of his body hurts- depite visibly giving signs of pain, tears shedding from his eyes- no one even batted an eye.

Back into being nothing- invisible.

He doesn't recall how he got to Goldenrod's train station- by now it is evident his body is moving in some kind of autopilot without any thoughts at all put into it. He just wanted to get out of here. Once on board of the train cart, he finds himself a corner within it to sit at- away from the very few lost souls in that place.

The trip would take the entire night, he had plenty of time to stare out at the night and the bundle- by his side. At some point- late into the night, all that the boy could really think of was Riley' face- his voice...Almost as if the bundle were beckoning him to open it. Finally he succumbed to it, and actually opened the thing up.

Right away he was greeted with a jar of Pinap berry jam - and the picture of that morning hit him. Next item- the teen desperately kept yanking the objects inside of it, each one bringing forth a memory. He only stopped when he found a letter.

By the end of reading it, tears no longer were being shed- because of how drained he felt. His fatigue had caught up to him- Morty had put everything back into the bundle, and he proceeded to put it on the floor next to his satchel- so he can spread his legs on the empty seat.

"...I'm not Enoki..."

The boy muttered to himself in a low tone, while drifting to sleep.

[carson-shiira-stuff-blog]

Emily’s Pendant

“Emily, wake up Emily” A voice woke her from her dream. “Mmmhhmm” she looked around her room. “What time is it” she thought to herself. It took a little while for her to realize, “oh my gosh, I’m gonna be late” she leaped out of the bed. “I need my leotard, my ballet slippers, my tights”. She whirled around the room like a tornado gathering everything she could and leaped out the door. “Eeek” she dashed back in “I’m naked” spotting a pair of clothes on her drawer she got dressed and with one quick look to make sure that she has everything, Emily went out the door.

As she ran through town all the store owners said hello to her. “Hello Emily” said the baker. “Hello” “late to ballet class again huh?” “I’m okay, as long as I keep running”. “Be careful” “I will” she got to the dance school just in time. “Whew, I made it with a little time to spare”. She quickly changed and went into the studio. It was already crowded with all the students warming up. She took a look around for a little bit. “Emily, over here” said a boy in a baby blue leotard. “Oh Kirito, hi” she glided over to her friend. “You were almost late today weren’t you”. “Yeah, I need to stop over sleeping, but my bed was so comfy that I couldn’t help myself”. Kirito laughed “All right class, take your places” said the teacher as a sign that class was about to begin.

It was recess time and everyone was at the courtyard hanging out. Emily and Kirito was chatting among themselves when suddenly a group of students were walking up. At the head of this gang was a boy with blonde spiky hair. “Hay queerito” he said in a loud booming voice. “Eeek, Bakugo” Kirito hid behind Emily, “what do you want Bakugo”. “I just want to say hi to my old friend, still deluding yourself to being a fairy princess, Queerito”.

All the other kids in his gang laughed. “Why don’t you pick on someone else, and leave my friend alone you jerkwad”. “Rah” Bakugo yelled and Kirito flinched behind her. “Heh, because it’s just too much fun”. All the other kids laughed as Bakugo laughed as he walked away.

“That Bakugo is one Grade A Jerkwad” said an angry Emily as she and Kirito was walking home. “I’m sorry” said Kirito. “For what?” “for dragging you into my trouble”. “Don’t think about it that way, we should tell a teacher about how mean Bakugo is”. “Do you think that he would listen to us”. “Of course after all he’s the one in charge”. Emily got a wicked smile on her face “maybe he would have Bakugo expelled and we would be rid of him”. “That’s awful, I wouldn’t wish that on him, even if he’s a bully”. Emily just smiled and lead Kirito to the headmaster.

“Sorry, but there’s nothing that I can do about Bakugo” said the headmaster. “What, why not” objected Emily. “Because Bakugo did not physically threaten him” “but”, “but nothing, now Kirito did you ever consider that your…. Presentation may be the root of your problem”. “Excuse me” Kirito said. “I mean, if you were to dress more… conventionally, then Bakugo may be nicer to you”. Emily had enough of this and she excused herself from the room.

Emily let out an exasperated sigh as she and Kirito was walking back home. “I can’t believe that the teacher wouldn’t help us with our Bakugo problem”. “But, maybe he’s right, maybe I’m being too pushy with me wearing leotards and tutu’s, or maybe...”. “Don’t you dare think that you’re the problem Kirito. You are a wonderful person, and I love everything about you”. Kirito gave Emily a small smile. “We’ll work this out” she said as she gave him a hug.

At dinner Emily was looking a bit depressed. “Aww what’s wrong honey” asked he mom. “Nothing, its nothing” Emily replied with a big sigh. Her parents exchanged looks. “How was your day honey”? Mom asked dad. “It went well I finished the marionettes for the performance on Sunday”. “You finished the puppets?” asked Emily. Dad smiled “I can show you if you want”. “yeah that would be great”. “Not until you finished your dinner”. Emily started eating quickly, “whoa, slow down there” said Dad.

After dinner Dad showed Emily the puppets “oh wow, they look so cool”. There were clowns, princesses, and knights. Dad laughed as he showed her the knight puppet. This is the brave and noble knight who would do anything to protect his friends”.

Emily became a little sad. “I wish I can protect my friends. Kirito is being bullied by Bakugo and no one wants to do anything about it”. Dad bent down and hugged Emily. “Do you know about this pendant?” “It was given to grandpa by a friend of his”. “Yes, it is said that the pendant has magical powers to turn dreams into reality”. “Really?” “yeah”. Emily got a smile on her face. “Maybe it will turn Bakugo into a toad”. “or maybe he will be nicer to Kirito”. “Nah, its more likely to turn him into a toad”. Dad laughed, “Emily, your bath is ready”. “Coming mom” she gave his dad a hug and ran to the bathroom.

That night Emily dreamed that she was a beautiful ballerina, who brought everyone joy and happiness to everyone that saw her dance. Suddenly a mean rat king came and terrorized all the villager. Everyone screamed and ran away from the mean rat king.  At first she was scare, but as she was watching all the panicked people, she got more and more emboldened. Until finally, she began to fight the king. It was hard and she was a little awkward at first, but as the fight wore on she got really, really good. With one last kick she defeated the Rat King and he transformed into a prince. The prince offered to dance with her, but she refused and had him banished from the kingdom. Emily awoke from the dream with a smile on her face.

Emily was in the ballet studio with Kirito. “You seem excited about something Kirito” said Emily. “My daddy bought me a new tutu” “a new tutu? How fun” “yeah and I can’t wait to show you”. Kirito ran out of the studio to get his tutu. Emily meanwhile, was dancing for fun in the studio. Suddenly, there was a loud scream from the hall. She stopped and ran out the door. To find Kirito on the ground “what’s wrong” “my tutu, someone stole my tutu”.

“Wha- who would steal your tutu”. “Is there something wrong” said a boy in black tights who came walking into the locker room. “Someone stole Kirito’s tutu” “the blue one”. “No, it was light pink”. “Not the pink fluffy one, I like that one. Well whoever stole it is a real jerkwad.” Suddenly, Emily got an idea, “jerkwad? It must be Bakugo”. “Bakugo? Then we gotta tell the teacher, maybe they can have him expelled this time”. Emily didn’t hear him, she was too lost in thought. She got up and immediately began marching to the back door. “Wait, Emily wait” said a concerned Kirito as he ran after her. “What are you gonna do?” “I’m going to get your tutu back from Bakugo”. “But you can’t, you’re not strong or skilled enough against him”. “I don’t care he has gone too far, and I just can’t let him keep tormenting you like that”. “But maybe the teachers can...” “they can’t help us right now, if we want to settle this then we would just have to do this by ourselves”. Kirito looked at Emily with a look of concern, but he was also  proud of her. So proud that he was about to cry.

This made Emily fall out of her determined state and placed an arm around her crying friend. “Don’t worry, one way or another Bakugo will leave you alone”. “Its not that, I’m just happy that you are my friend, and that you are so willing to risk your life to help me out”. Emily started to smile. “Of course I am, I’m so lucky to have a friend like you”. “I’m the lucky one. Just don’t get in over your head when you’re confronting that big jerk Bakugo okay?” “Okay I will” “promise?” Kirito extended his pinky finger, “I promise” Emily grabbed his with hers and they shook.

“Bwahahahah” yelled Bakugo’s gang, they were tossing the tutu and waving it around like it was a victory flag from a conquest. Everyone in the courtyard were looking at them with discontent, but no one wanted to go up and confront the rowdy boys. That is, until “HEY JERKWAD” a loud shout made everyone stop and turn. To see Emily walking up to them. “Oh look, the little shrimp has a backbone eh?” Emily was emboldened by the gang’s mean taunts. “I am only gonna tell you one more time, give Kirito his tutu back”. “Yeah, give Kirito his tutu back” said a boy in the crowd. Soon everyone else was rallying around Emily voicing their support for her.

This ticked off Bakugo even more. “Uh, Bakugo” said a girl, maybe we should back off for a while. “Like hell I am” In an act of defiance he grabbed Kirito’s tutu and held it high in the air. “you want your tutu!” “Here, you can have it” with one long rip he tore the tutu in half. “Nooo!!!!” Kirito yelled at the top of his lungs. Everyone booed and hissed at this despicable act. Everyone, except Emily who was just silent. “Emily?” asked Kirito.

Her pendant started glowing, as if all the anger and determination from her heart was fueling it. Suddenly a brilliant burst of light emitted from it enveloping her body. Everyone was too shocked to do anything, even Backgo. When the light finally dimmed it revealed a ballerina in a white tutu with pink trim.

Everyone was stunned to see such a beautiful and elegant creature appear before their eyes. Everyone, except Bakugo. “Pff ha hah ha” who started laughing. “And I thought that you couldn’t look anymore ridiculous”. The ballerina went from elegant to serious as she stepped forward to confront Bakugo. “’Bakugo” she said. “You have tormented Kirito long enough, stop this right now or….”. “Or you’ll what? Wave your arms and ask me to dance a girly dance with you?” She entered a fighting stance. “Oh look, the little sissy ballerina thinks that she can actually fight me”. Bakugo got a wicked smile on his face. A smile that would even make knights get second thoughts. “No, don’t fight her Bakugo” said a girl in the crowd. “Shaddup and watch me knock this idiot into next week”. Backugo leaped forward and attacked Emily.

She managed to chase out of the way which caught  Bakugo off guard. The crowd cheered “yeah, go ballerina girl”. “Wait” said a boy wearing glasses “maybe we should think up a name to call her instead” “yeah, but what should we call her” everyone was shouting different names out loud. “Princess Tutu” said Kirito. The name caught on as all the children were chanting “Princess Tutu, Princess Tutu, Princess Tutu”. Emily was feeling a little bit flattered with all the attention. She was a little cocky as she bowed and played to the crowd. Bakugo took advantage of her momentary lapse in judgment and kicked her in the shin causing her to trip.

There was a loud “BOOOO” from the crowd that was so loud that it rattled Bakugo’s bones. “Hey, that’s not manly manners Bakugo” said a boy with red spiky hair. “Hey, its a battle, and I see no referees here so anything go...” Tutu kicked him in the back making the barbarian bully fall flat on his face. “Hah, hah, hah, serves you right”. Bakugo laid there face first on the ground. Instead of feeling angry like he normally would, he was actually smiling.

Bakugo got up and dusted himself off and got ready for round two. This time, it was Princess Tutu who attacked Bakugo. He deflected her blow and the fight rages on. Tutu was getting the hang of fighting in such a short time. Which surprised her a lot. Her blows weren’t particularly powerful but she was fast and landing a lot of them in a short amount of time. Soon though she was getting tired, and this made her moves less elegant and more sloppy. In one move she missed and left her chest wide open for attack, but Bakugo just gently grazed her instead and they separated.

Tutu was doing her very best against Bakugo, but she was tiring out soon. “Oh no” she thought to herself. “I don’t know how long I could keep this up”. She was worried that If she slipped up for a little bit, then Bakugo would take that advantage and pulverize her. Bakugo was standing there looking stoic and strong while Princess Tutu was struggling to stand up. The crowd was still cheering her on, but their enthusiasm could only take her so far.

Bakugo stretched his neck “I’m done” Tutu stood there a little dumbfounded. “What?” “I’m done, this isn’t fun anymore I’m finished”. Tutu should be relieved, ecstatic even at the fact that she was done with the fight, but there was something inside that stirred. “You may be done, but I still wanna fight you”. The crowd gasped in surprise. “You, fight me? In your condition, I highly doubt it, why don’t you quit while you are ahead”. This for some reason rubbed her the wrong way. “I don’t need your pity Bakugo I wanna...”. “Emily” shouted Kirito. She looked at her friend and he had a slight smile on him signaling to her that it was okay. Emily transformed out of her Princess Tutu form. With everyone making a huge applause at her performance with Bakugo. “Good job Emily” said a girl in the crowd. Everyone else gave their praise and admiration for her heroically standing up for her friend and putting Bakugo in his place.

The next day the entire school was a buzzed about the fight between Bakugo and the Ballerina, who they now called Princess Tutu. “Wow you seemed to be getting really popular now” said Kirito. “What me oh, no no no its Princess Tutu that deserves the credit” Emily started to blush a little. “Although maybe I can a least take a little of the glory”. “Just don’t let it go to your head”.

Once Emily got into class all the other kids surrounded her asking questions. “Hey, give Emily some space” Kifito insisted and the entire class backed off. “Thanks for having by back” Emily said “no problem, anytime”. Emily had to admit, it was really nice to get back to normal, doing plies, tendus, and the like.

Floor was always Emily’s favorite and she was really good at it. As she was doing her chane’ turns across the studio a student came in with a note. She handed it to the teacher and she thanked her for the errand. The class did the reverence which was almost like a meditative state for Emily. With one last bow to the piano player the teacher dismissed the class. As Emily was talking to Kirito and a few other students on where to go for lunch. “Oh, Emily” said the teacher. She got a small chill from her spine from the utterance of her name. “Yes” “would you please go to the headmaster office as soon as possible” Emily’s heart sank to her stomach at the thought of having to go to see the headmaster. “Do I really have a choice” asked Emily. “No, not really, but I think you have very little to worry about”. Her confidence rose a little bit. Emily and her friends waved goodbye and they wished her good luck as she made the long way to the headmaster’s office.

She got to the office sooner than she expected, unfortunately, and the receptionist smiled at her. “The headmaster will see you now”. “Darn it” Emily said under her breath. She was hoping the headmaster had made a mistake. She opened the door hesitantly and looked inside to find Bakugo already sitting in one of the chairs across the headmaster. “Welcome Emily, please take a seat”. Emily did As he suggested, “so”, said the Headmaster “you two were in a fight in the courtyard earlier”. “Bakugo was tormenting Kirito” Emily blurted out. “Is this true Bakugo?” Emily was prepared for a long, drawn out argument, but to her surprise. “Yes” Bakugo said non nonchalantly “I was an ass against Kirito”. Emily’s jaw dropped she would’ve never expected that grade A jerk to be able to admit to any wrong doing. “And I’m truly sorry for causing the fight with you”. Is this the same Bakugo who would proclaim himself as a demi god a few days ago. “Emily” the headmaster said and this snapped her out of her thoughts. “Uh...um… yes?” “Do you accept Bakugo’s apology?” Emily had to think long and hard about this. A part of her wanted to not accept his apology, but there was a stronger voice telling her to not make this any more unpleasant than it already was. “Yeah, I do accept his apology”. Bakugo actually flashed her an honest to goodness smile at her. The two shook hands as a sign of agreement. “Well done, now normally I would have you two suspended for a month for fighting”. “A month but...” Emily started. “….That’s when Emily and Que… I mean Kirito have their ballet recital”. Bakugo just keep giving Emily one surprise after another today. The headmaster raised his hand as an order for calm. “However… since you two didn’t do too much damage and since you two patched things up, I will waive the whole matter”. “Thank you, thank you very much”. Emily burst forth and gave him a hug. “All right, all right, settle down” Emily jumped back with her cheeks all rosy red from embarrassment. “You two may go”.

“Hey, Emily” said one of her friends sitting at a table. “How did it go with the headmaster?” Emily sat down and told everyone about the ordeal. “Wow I never thought that Bakugo could act so nice”. “I know, but through fighting him as Princess Tutu” said Emily. “It felt like I connected with him some how, and… maybe he’s not so bad after all”. “I still won’t give him the time of day though” “me neither” said another girl. “I would give him a chance, if he’s nice that is” said Kirito. “You’re way too nice, for your own good”. “But, I like that about you” said Emily the other girls agreed.

A few days later Emily and her friends were having a big barbecue dinner at the beach. Naru’s uncle was there with a guitar and was playing a joyful tune while Kirito danced in his blue tutu. “Hey Emily” said Naru “why don’t you show everyone your Princess Tutu form”. “Princess Tutu form?” asked uncle “what’s that”. Emily smile and summoned her transformation. Uncle gave a long whistle “ain’t you a cutie” he said. Tutu smiled back “perhaps you can play some music for me”. Uncle smiled and played a slow melody. Although it wasn’t from any ballet she knew.

Tutu was able to follow along with the melody and came up with her own dance. Everyone was so happy at watching her dance. They didn’t even notice a blonde haired boy coming up to them. Tutu finished her dance with a deep bow with everyone laughing and cheering. “Heh, that was a pretty good dance you did there”. Tutu’s look went from sweet to sour as she noticed the barbaric Bakugo standing there. “What are you doing here” said Tutu as all her friends made a shield around Kirito. “Here” Bakugo held out a bag. “No thanks, I wouldn’t want any...” “Emily” scolded her mother give him the benefit of the doubt”. Tutu was a little hesitant but she grabbed the bag and took out a black tutu. “I bought it for que-Kirito after I ripped his apart”. Tutu gave the tutu to Kirito who gladly accepted it. “Thank you Bakugo”. “Its just bait for him to make fun of you Kirito” said Naru sternly. “No its not” Bakugo objected. “I just wanna do something nice for a change”. “Thanks Bakugo” Kirito said. Bakugo smiled back and was about to leave. “Wait, would you like to share our barbecue Bakugo?” “Emily are you sure?” said Naru. Tutu just smiled “got any teriyaki meat?” “Oh yeah, sure” said uncle. “C’mon and help yourself”. Bakugo smile and pulled up a seat at the table. Naru and Kirito joined him at the table. Tutu was about to join them but “Emily” said uncle “you shouldn’t eat a messy meal in such a pretty tutu”. Emily transformed back and sat next to Bakugo enjoying their barbecue dinner.