#and yet it feels a bit. Chilly | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

chuluoyi · 6 months ago

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𝐍𝐎𝐂𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐍𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓

- zayne x reader

he is your husband and you are his wife. but of course you know the bitter truth—you will never be able to replace her.

genre/warnings: 18+ suggestive content—minors do not interact!—angst, hurt/comfort, unrequited love, drunken sex, mentions of injury, blood, hunter!reader (not l&ds mc -> l&ds mc is zayne's late ex-girlfriend here), spoilers! from zayne’s bond story nostalgic sweetness

note: wc. 8k ! i've been having these bits and pieces scenarios for zayne in mind and then i thought what if i combined it all into one angst joyride? :)) tagging per request: @kissxcore @rjreins @i2s2m @tom-pls-fuck-me @yueyoonie @sanriosatoru

07.15 p.m

Zayne would be getting off work soon. He had just finished an emergency surgery, and it had been exhausting. Now it was quite late.

“Dr. Zayne! Great job today!” Greyson exclaimed, suddenly strolling into his consultation room with a grin. “Want to grab dinner with us?”

Honestly, he was starving too. “Where?”

“Oh, you know, that new place that just opened nearby! They have the tastiest tiramisu, or so I’ve heard. C’mon, we’re inviting the nurses too!”

He knew he needed to head home soon, but fatigue and hunger blurred his thoughts at the mention of dessert.

“Alright.”

. . .

08.25 p.m

Getting together with the hospital staff was always nice. They were rowdy, but it was definitely a great way to unwind after a hard day.

The tiramisu was as great as Greyson said. Speaking of his assistant, he and Yvonne were having a blast. Other doctors were getting drunk. Zayne could only shake his head, and it suddenly dawned on him that he had been here quite a while.

It was only when he turned on his phone and saw the time that he realized, with sinking heart that—

He was supposed to meet you at six.

If you were asked how you felt about your life now, you’d be hard-pressed to say you were completely content.

You were a stellar fighter in the Hunter Association, more than content with your job, and you had a good husband. To some, you had what they would call the perfect life.

The wife of the Dr. Zayne. True, it was a flattering title, yet unbeknownst to everyone, also a humbling one.

And the notion struck you once again when your husband of almost two years stood you up on your dinner date without so much as a notice.

“Miss... we’re about to close now...” The waitress approached your table for at least the third time, and you nodded sheepishly, finally finishing your meal.

You paid for it and left the restaurant. The chilly night air hit your skin, giving you goosebumps as you walked home. It wasn’t the first time this had happened. Granted, Zayne had a packed schedule, and you figured he might've had an urgent matter to attend to that he forgot to let you know.

Still... it hurts. Knowing you were not a priority in your husband’s eyes wasn’t a fun feeling.

Your phone buzzed in your pocket the moment you arrived at your shared home. Your husband’s name flashed on your screen. The time now was 08.40 p.m.

“Hello, Zayne?”

“Y/N?” Your husband’s voice sounded frantic. “Are you still at the restaurant? I’m going—”

��Ah, no need to. I’m going home.”

“I’ll pick you up then. Stay there—”

“I’ve already arrived.”

An awkward silence settled between you, and you could clearly hear the noise on the other end. Greyson’s laughter was unmistakable.

You forced a laugh, still trying to sound cheerful for him even when realizing that he had completely forgotten about you. “It’s totally fine, Zayne! Are you heading back?”

“Yeah...”

“Take care then. See you at home.”

You ended the call with a sigh, trying to shake off the sting in your heart. As you made your way upstairs to your bedroom, you passed by a large portrait on the wall, and a bittersweet sensation washed over you.

Your wedding photo. Both of you were smiling on what was the most wonderful day of your life. Zayne’s smile was reserved, but yours was radiant.

It is the most wonderful thing that has happened to you... but is it the same for him?

At that time, despite everything, you were convinced a lifetime of happiness awaited you, yet now... it got harder to fool yourself into believing it.

Your marriage has always been lukewarm.

Zayne wasn’t an overly excited person, and you were his opposite—but try as you might, some things between you just didn’t work out. As a result, both of you tended to keep certain things to yourselves.

Most days, this didn't bother him. He valued his privacy, so the way things were suited him just fine. However, several days later, when Greyson approached him with a worried expression and a news, even Zayne had to draw the line.

“Dr. Zayne? Uh, how do I say this? I think I saw your wife being wheeled in earlier with the injured from the hunt zones raid…”

. . .

“Your husband is a doctor here. Why aren’t you calling him?”

Xavier, your fellow Deepspace Hunter who was partnered with you in this mission, questioned you with a hint of annoyance as he observed your pathetic state on the stretcher and crossed his arms. “Why do you have to bleed out in ER when you can get him?”

You winced, pressing the bloodied cloth against your stinging abdomen as you felt yourself growing faint. “He’s... a surgeon,” you panted. “He’s busy.”

Above all, you didn’t want Zayne to see you like this. You could already imagine his angry face, and that mental image alone made you recoil.

“What sort of husband is busy when his wife is injured?” Xavier raised an eyebrow. “Did you at least notify him?”

You shut your eyes, feeling a migraine coming.

“I will then.”

“No.”

“Y/N, you—”

“Shut up, Xavier—”

The curtain was suddenly pulled back, and you braced yourself for whoever had come to check on you next. To your surprise, the cloth in your hand was snatched away, and you felt your uniform being torn open with urgency.

When you opened your eyes, you barely made out your husband’s figure through your hazy vision. “…Zayne?”

His expression was stern, unforgiving even, as he started to disinfect your wound. Despite the tension, you couldn't deny the relief that washed over you. You knew you were in good hands, even if you had to face his fury later on.

Your consciousness slipped away not long after that.

. . .

The next time you woke up, you found yourself in a private room, with a nagging itch where you had been injured.

You groaned, your limbs stiff and heavy, and the room slowly came into focus—along with your husband's face.

"Zayne?" Your voice came out barely above a whisper. He stood pristine in his white coat and glasses, assessing you with a scrutinizing gaze.

"Your wound is, thankfully, shallow," he said flatly, his tone lacking any real concern. "You'll be discharged tonight. I'll take you home as soon as my shift is over."

"Ah..." You blinked several times to clear your head. "Good then. Sorry for showing up out of nowhere. Xavier and I were on a rescue mission, and I accidentally—"

He walked away before you could finish, the abruptness snapping you fully awake. He was furious, that much was clear.

"Ha ha..." You forced a laugh, fiddling with your fingers, trying to ease the awkward tension between you. "It doesn't hurt much, actually. You're right—I'm fine..."

Zayne shot you a sharp glance. "You passed out due to blood loss."

"This isn't the first time it has happened and nor will it be—"

"And it didn't even occur to you to inform me at all. I found out that my own wife was wounded because Greyson passed by the ER and saw you."

His words left you silent, caught red-handed, but your annoyance was reaching its limit. You had imagined how nice it would be if he panicked about you, showering you with care when he found out. But instead, Zayne chose to rebuke you the moment you woke up.

“I’m not a child,” you reasoned, keeping yourself calm. “I’m a hunter. This is nothing new, and you should understand that.”

“The least you could’ve done is to tell me—“

“Do you know why I didn’t? It’s because I know how you’ll react!”

“—and it would do you better to prioritize your safety and not rush headfirst into danger.”

“Believe me, I do but—!”

Suddenly, Zayne spun around to face you, his eyes blazing with fury as he raised his voice. “I’ve told you so many times already, you have to stay back, or you’ll end up—!”

He stopped abruptly, leaving his sentence hanging in the air, but right at that moment, you knew all too well who he meant, and what the implication was.

His, without a doubt, greatest love. His childhood friend, a hunter like yourself, someone he had vowed to save but succumbed to her illness before he could do so, died on arrival.

The irony was sharp. You had become everything she once was. You knew her well, too. When she passed, the entire Hunter Association mourned her loss. And more than that, on the night she died, you had been with him.

Looking back, you should have seen it coming. Still, it hit you like a splash of cold water. Your husband was still preoccupied with thoughts of his ex-girlfriend, and worse yet, he saw pieces of her in you.

And you suspected he had for a while—perhaps even, from the very beginning.

For a second there, not for the first time, you felt your heart shatter.

“I don’t have Protocore syndrome,” you stated, steeling yourself against the heartbreak. “My heart won't suddenly fail because I get injured. I’m not that weak.”

You turned away as Zayne refused to respond, missing his look of disdain as he stormed out of the room.

That was when your first tear fell.

Right from the start, you knew you had to brace yourself for this. You knew that eventually, this tragedy would overshadow your marriage. Because while Zayne might be your husband by law, deep down, his heart still belonged to someone else.

To her.

You two are too much alike.

It wasn’t the first time he had noticed it. And it wouldn’t be the last.

On bad mornings, when his eyes were bleary and he hadn't had a good sleep, he would see her instead of you in your shared bed. And with that mistaken sight came a fleeting sense of relief... until his vision cleared and he remembered she was truly gone and it was you.

Zayne knew how wrong this was on so many levels. It was terribly unfair to you.

Still, his concern for you was genuine. Seeing you lying still on the stretcher brought back that very same nightmare, and really, he truly never wanted you to be hurt.

After his outburst and your clipped response, the two of you barely exchanged any words for the rest of the week. To make matters worse, he was sent on a business trip the following week, and all in all, you went two weeks hardly speaking to each other.

And before he knew it, her death anniversary was only a couple of days away.

. . .

"How much is this?"

"Ah, the bow is 50,000 Gold, sir!"

Inside the airport's souvenir shop, Zayne examined the intricate light blue and white bow clip. Made of tweed and adorned with small pearls, it looked nice.

He thought it'd suit you well.

"I'll get this then."

"Right away!"

As the clerk went to wrap the trinket, Zayne reflected on these past two weeks. A nagging feeling twisted in his gut as he thought about how curt he had been with you in text messages and how often you had left him on read.

Husband and wife shouldn't be this way. He wanted the unbearable air between you to end. Determined to resolve things, he planned to talk to you when he returned. He was on his way to the airport taxi when—

"Zayne!" He stopped in his tracks, recognizing the familiar voice, and turned around.

There you were, waiting by his car with a smile.

It was never in you to stay angry for long. It was a blessing and a curse, really, because while you no longer wished to give your husband silent treatment, a part of you still felt conflicted.

"How was your trip?" you asked as you started the engine, pushing the events of the past two weeks to the back of your mind.

Zayne didn't immediately answer, and you felt his gaze on you as you drove the car. "It was okay."

You hummed in acknowledgement, and he followed up with, "How is your wound? Do you dress it daily?"

"Mm-hm. It's getting better."

"I'll have a look at it later."

"Sure."

Silence. Usually you would ramble to distract him, but now, even you weren’t sure if you should.

Then, he said, "You really didn’t have to pick me up. I could have made my way home on my own."

To that, you pasted on a smile. “You always pick me up whenever I have to go on business trips. It’s only fair I do the same for you, husband.”

Ah. Was it the wrong move? The word had slipped out so easily that you didn’t realize it until after you said it.

But to your surprise, Zayne let out a chuckle and played along. "Well, thank you then, wife. It certainly felt quite off without a certain someone the past week."

So, he actually likes having you around...? The thought made you almost giddy. Despite his usual taciturn and sarcastic demeanor, you knew he was genuine in his own way.

"Bet you missed me," you teased, grinning.

He raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Are you sure it's not the other way around?"

"Nope. But I did miss getting new snowmen."

"...why do you like them so much? I've made plenty for you already."

"No particular reason. Snowman just kinda reminds me of you somehow."

The tension between you had melted away, and you felt a sense of relief. Beside you, even Zayne couldn’t hide his smile. For the rest of the drive home, you chatted like you used to.

When you arrived back at your shared home, he suddenly stopped and presented you with a little box. "I got you something."

"Huh?" you paused, bewildered, as he took your hand and placed the box in it.

"Open it."

With curiosity, you lifted the lid, and were surprised at the sight of a pretty bow clip inside. "Whoa, how cute..."

Zayne eyed you expectantly. "Do you like it?"

Your eyes lit up with delight, and a smile spread across your lips.

"Yes!" you beamed at him with zero hesitation, and in that moment, something struck a chord within him. Zayne had always thought you were easy on the eyes—

—but when you smiled like that, you were truly charming.

"It's healing nicely."

You felt somewhat self-conscious as your husband examined your bare abdomen, where your injury was, as you lied on your bed. His hands, cool and practiced, tenderly removed your stitches.

It wasn't as if Zayne had never touched you. You two had been married for almost two years, and of course you had been intimate several times, but it wasn't as if you were a passionate couple to begin with—so you often found yourself flustered.

"Mm." Despite yourself, you squirmed. Noticing this, he looked up at you, his unfazed eyes meeting yours with a frown.

"Does it still hurt?"

"No, not really... It just feels as if you're tickling me."

He was positively unamused. "I'm not trying to tickle you."

"I know!"

Zayne wrapped your midsection securely with the bandage. When he was done, he let out a sigh and you felt like you had to show him your gratitude somehow.

“Thank you, Zayne…” you mumbled, avoiding eye contact. But in the next second, your heart skipped a beat as his hand rested gently on your head.

"You can thank me by being more careful next time." Your husband looked at you with the smallest of smile. "Your safety comes first, always remember that."

Without either of you realizing it, you both had tried to bury that argument from two weeks ago, yet it was still gnawing at you all the same. The thought that he too was bothered with it made you warm.

"Noted," you cheekily grinned. "If I'm not safe and sound, a certain iceman will get angry at me."

Zayne shot you an unimpressed look. “If you come to me injured again, I’ll start charging you fees.”

You let out a dramatic gasp. "How stingy! I'm your wife, not just some stranger!"

"A very uncooperative wife, you are."

You huffed, and he chuckled. You really thought all was well between you two now, until Zayne suddenly stood up and grabbed the car keys. “Well then, rest. I have to go.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to stop by the florist—”

And it hit you. In two days. The day everything ended three years ago.

Zayne seemed to realize it too, but you quickly masked your falling smile with a faux one. "O-oh, right..."

No matter how, it's still going to be an important day to him. You had nothing against it, really. Your husband's late girlfriend had once been your colleague too, and you mourned her just like everyone else did.

Still, even with that understanding, in your heart of hearts, it remains just as bitter.

You didn't want to, but you needed to find closure. You hoped that by doing this, it would finally put an end to all your insecurities.

"Let's go together, Zayne. I want to pay her a visit too."

Two days later, you and Zayne, a bouquet of flowers in hand, stood before the grave bearing many colorful flowers and postcards.

You supposed you knew already, but seeing it firsthand, you realized just how deeply she was loved still. The outpouring of respect from the Hunter Association was evident in the tribute left behind.

"It's been a while," Zayne, dressed in his most formal black suit, said solemnly, his gaze fixed on the name etched into the pristine stone.

You watched as he knelt to place his flowers and then brought his hands together in prayer. You followed his lead, placing your own bouquet beside his.

What should you even say to her? Your mind raced with countless thoughts, but none felt right to voice before the woman who had so deeply captured your husband's heart.

In the end, when you sensed that Zayne had finished with his prayer, you decided to remain silent and rose with him.

. . .

“Does it get easier?” you asked out of curiosity afterwards. “Three years has passed already.”

Although Zayne wasn’t one for drinking, even the need won today. He didn’t meet your eyes as he sipped his wine, humming thoughtfully. “Somewhat. As they say, time heals.”

You two stopped by a fine restaurant after visiting the grave. The cemetery had been a two-hour drive from Linkon City, and now it was already evening.

“She loved jasmines,” you remarked, recalling the pot of them you once saw on her desk and the flowers overflowing at the grave earlier.

“She did.” The alcohol seemed to loosen his tongue as he continued, “She loved old popsicles and macarons too.”

“And you like them as well.”

“To be honest, I started liking them back when we were kids…” Zayne had this pained, faraway look in his eyes as he had another sip. “She cried over her melted popsicle and it got me to wonder if it was really that tasty...”

The idea that you had to compete with a dead woman for your husband’s affection left a bitter taste in your mouth. You felt like you had failed thoroughly as a wife.

Despite hating yourself for asking, you needed to know. “Do I help you… in any way at all?”

Zayne was clearly taken aback by the question. His sharp, gray eyes locked onto you, mind whirred as he tried to grasp your meaning.

“Y/N, you...”

It was foolish, you knew. But you waited with bated breath for his response, even when one wrong word could shatter your heart beyond repair. You were ready for any sort of unfavorable answer, but then—

“I... am glad it is you.”

His words made you look up, and you found yourself caught in his gaze. Zayne’s ashen eyes were steady, piercing into you.

“You were there on the hardest days. And ever since, you’ve always stayed by my side.” He held your gaze firmly, voice was thick with emotion you couldn’t quite name. “I’m grateful for that.”

And then, with a sincerity that pierced through every uncertainty, he added, “What I want to say is... I’m glad I married you, Y/N.”

You have loved him for so long. Since the days when you know he isn’t yours to love, until now.

Your heart swelled with so much warmth that tears brimmed in your eyes. His acknowledgment of your presence filled you with a profound sense of belonging you never knew you needed before.

Was it the alcohol?

You suspected it might be, because in nearly two years of marriage, Zayne had never lost his control like this. As soon as the bedroom door was shut, he pushed you against the wall and devoured your lips hungrily.

“Mmph!” His hands gripped your arms while his lips and tongue pried yours open. The kiss was searing, almost forceful, with the faint bitterness of wine still lingering.

“Zay…ne…” you gasped between his kisses—teary, breathless, your voice trembling.

But your breathy grunts only seemed to spur him on. His dark eyes, clouded with lust, fixed on you as his hands slipped beneath your blouse, deftly unclasping your bra with a flick.

He is hot. Your husband was everything a woman desired in a man. Cool, handsome, blessed with hands that could do wonders—

In no time, he had you naked and wet before him, and with alarming speed, he too discarded his own suit and pants, throwing them away in flurry. And you could hardly believe what you were seeing next.

He spitted on his hand, ran it along his member—stroking himself with a practiced ease, never breaking eye contact with you. The next thing you knew, he yanked you into another burning kiss and made you topple on top of him—

“Ah!” his hands guided your hips with precision, positioning you and entering you. The instant he did, you whimpered at the sudden, sharp sting of pain.

“Does it hurt?” he asked almost in a growl when you clung to his shoulder with uneven breaths.

It was too sudden, and you hoped the discomfort would pass, so you timidly shook your head.

“If you don’t want this, tell me to stop.” Zayne tangled his fingers in your hair, turning your face to his. “Understand?”

There was always a distinct, almost commanding aura about him whenever the two of you were in your marital bed. Perhaps the way his voice sound lower, but it just hit different.

And you are a willing prey... whenever he becomes that beast.

He inched inside you slowly, making you moan with each instance. He was thick, warm, and taking him in was a challenge in itself. And when he finally sheathed himself fully, your nails had made its first scratch on his skin.

You felt full, and the way your womanhood stretched and clenched around him with each breathe you took made you dizzy. Panting, you finally met his gaze. Zayne’s gray-hazel eyes were still clouded with desire as he placed his hands firmly on your hips. Unable to resist, you reached out to caress his face.

"Hmm..." he subconsciously leaned into your touch, pressing his eyes shut together. "You smell nice," he huskily muttered.

Right this moment, all negative thoughts eluded you. It felt gratifying that your husband sought your touch like this as you towered over him.

And yet, despite that...

“Do you... finally see me now?” you asked, trailing your other hand down his toned chest and starting to grind against him. Zayne drew in a sharp breath and groaned, his fingers gripping your bum tighter.

Depending on his response, you would either find peace or face another heartbreak. You had placed your happiness on this pedestal more times than you could count, and it was a cross you had to bear.

But you never received your answer.

Your husband merely gazed up at you with a dangerous gleam. And oh, you could've sworn, this sight of Zayne eyeing you as if he were about to ruin you right then and there, would live-free in your mind for many days to come.

He then buried his face in your bosom, sucking on you with such fervor that your hands instinctively reached for his head to massage his scalp. The room was soon filled with your erotic groans and the squelching sounds from where your flesh were joined together— as he thrusted inside you over and over.

Right in this moment, you felt truly desired and wanted.

You are so happy. Incomparably so.

At the crack of dawn, Zayne woke with a start.

The first thing he noticed was how spent he felt, his limbs stiff and a throbbing headache pulsing at the back of his head.

Then he turned to his side, and the sight that met him twisted his gut in such a way that snapped him fully awake—

You were beside him, barely dressed and still deeply asleep. Your hair was a mess, and love bites were scattered across your skin, some on your chest looking almost like bruises.

It dawned on him that he, too, wasn’t decent. A sudden coldness gripped him, though it wasn’t just the morning air.

Him and you... last night...

Yesterday marked the third year. He meant everything he said to you, but the fact that he did this, with you, on the day of her death...

There was... nothing wrong with what he had done. You were his wife, no one could condone him for what he instigated. Yet, it still made him shiver.

And to make it worse, his thoughts from last night echoed back with vengeance, and—

He suddenly feels so immensely guilty.

. . .

It was the best sleep you’d had all week.

When you woke, sunlight had seeped through the window, and you discovered yourself already in pajamas, tucked snugly under a blanket. Still groggy with a dull ache in your lower belly, you relished the lingering afterglow, sighing in pure contentment, until you noticed Zayne wasn’t beside you.

Where did he go? You wondered amidst your haze. Sluggish, you stumbled out of the bed, flinching when your foot met the cold floor.

You eventually found him downstairs, sipping coffee at the dining table still with messy hair. "Zayne?"

He glanced up at you and nodded. There was something different about him, a subtle shift you couldn’t quite place. As you took a seat across from him, you hesitated, unsure of what to say.

Before you could find the right words though, he spoke first.

"I'm... sorry," he said, his tone laced with regret, causing a sharp pang of unease inside you.

"What?" you stared at him, feeling small and unsettled. "What are you sorry for?" you questioned as you gripped the hem of your shirt.

And then came the killing blow—

"Last night," Zayne muttered, avoiding your gaze. "I wasn’t in the right frame of mind. It was a mistake."

Mistake. The word echoed in your mind, but it was still hard to grasp its full weight.

"How was that—" you faltered, trembling, as the realization hit you like a truck and you gasped in disbelief. "Oh..."

Her. Again, and again, and again! Even when he was married to you, even when you were the one next to him each and everyday— even so!

Your husband considers that a night spent with you—his wife—a mistake!

The last of your patience snapped, as you broke down in sobs before him. "You're the worst!" you screamed at him amidst your mournful tears.

Zayne seemed taken aback at your outburst, his eyes wide. "Y/N, wait, you don't—"

"Screw you!" But you were beyond explanations at this point. You fled back to your bedroom. Zayne followed you suit, but you slammed the door in his face and locked it. As you collapsed onto the floor, the realization hit you with full force.

No matter what you did, you would always come second—or not at all.

The fracture in your marriage was undeniable.

Things had changed. Your home felt colder, and the tension was so stifling that you sometimes spent the night at the Hunter Association’s dorm just to escape it.

Zayne initially tried to reach out, but you were unwilling to listen, and eventually, he gave up. Before long, nearly a month had passed with this strain in the air.

You threw yourself into more rescue operations, using work as a distraction from the turmoil that lingered in your mind. Despite your best efforts to distract yourself, the unresolved thoughts and feelings clung to you.

"Xavier, am I lacking as a woman?"

Your frequent partner these days cracked open an eye despite his attempt to nap before today’s rescue mission. "What...?"

"No, forget it."

Things couldn't go like this forever. It was obvious by now—as long as he couldn’t let go of his past and you couldn’t accept him as he was, this marriage couldn't be saved.

Just as you headed towards the printer in the room, Xavier responded. "You talk a lot, eat a lot, and always bothering me when I'm about to sleep..."

You shot him an irked glance, disbelief evident on your face. "Hey!"

"But—" his clear voice cut through the air as he turned to you with half-lidded eyes. "You're exceptionally kind. If anyone can't appreciate that, then it's their loss."

At that moment, the ice inside your chest melted. To know that your own co-worker thought that kindly of you gave you a little boost of confidence.

But then Xavier added, "Sometimes you're stupid too. It's funny to watch."

"—?! You're so mean!"

A subtle smile curved on his lips as he turned to his side, ready to resume his nap. "Anyway, what are you printing?"

You feigned a huff as you gathered the papers and brought them to your desk. "Just something I need to submit when necessary."

A part of you wasn’t fully committed to it, of course—it was just that your emotions had no proper outlet even until now. As you pushed the drawer shut, a wave of bitterness washed over you as you reread the title on the blank form:

Petition for Divorce.

Zayne genuinely wanted to treat you well.

You were a nice girl. Too nice even. From the moment he laid his eyes on you some years ago, as a friend of a friend, he knew you were nothing but kind and cheery.

He still remembered that morning vividly: the hurt on your face, the tears welling up in your eyes, and then you breaking into inconsolable sobs. That sight inflicted something in him—it felt as though his own heart had been split in two.

Believe it or not, he cherished you too.

That night, even though he didn’t show it, he was still mourning her. When alcohol took over his mind and he saw you, you seemed like a perfect escape. He thought that even if he forced himself on you, there would be no consequences.

He hated that he had thought that way. He hated that how, in the end, you had become a means of relief for him.

Now you couldn't even look him in the eye, and Zayne didn't want to risk trying to coax you further. You were angry with him and rightly so, but when you ignored him and went home late more often, he was worried.

It was what drove him to volunteer for the rescue mission. When he saw your name on the hunter list, he felt compelled to make sure you were okay.

. . .

It was strange to see you on duty.

With your hunter uniform and your hair tied up, you were the picture of a very capable hunter. Zayne found himself unexpectedly following your movements as you came and went.

"Dr. Zayne, are you checking your wife out?" the EMT next to him teased with a grin. "Well, when you have a pretty wife such as Y/N, of course..."

He cleared his throat and the EMT giggled as he sauntered away.

So, you were also considered attractive here. Of course you were. Zayne knew it, but he just didn't expect that anyone here would blurt it out so openly.

But that wasn't the most surprising of all—

"Xavier, shush!" you playfully punched the blonde man next to you in the chest, your broad smile lighting up the moment. The two of you whispered closely, and Zayne found himself feeling uncomfortable, like being prickled by several needles.

He has never made you laugh so openly like that. The nagging feeling inside him grew stronger as he watched you—even if it was just in a platonic sense—with another man. It stirred something within him, making him want to pull that blonde aside, give him a word or two, and overthrow him altogether.

Amidst the growing storm inside him, you suddenly turned sideways and caught his eye, and Zayne could've sworn... he felt time stopped at that moment.

It was so candid that it took his breath away. The way your earnest, unclouded eyes met his. How natural you were while loading your gun...

Ah, they were right. His wife was exceptionally pretty.

But before he could fully appreciate it, you broke the eye contact and turned away, pretending as if you hadn’t seen him at all.

Zayne wondered then, why did he feel so hurt all of a sudden?

Battlefields were always a place of chaos, and Zayne was no stranger to it.

He was on standby at the makeshift hospital as patients surged in, continuously aiding first-aid. Some were hunters on duty, and his heart was in his throat the entire time, anxiously hoping you wouldn’t be among them.

"Doc... it still hurts," a little girl sniffled right after Zayne wrapped her injured arm with the gauze. Despite the anxiety, seeing this tearful girl softened his frown.

"It's just going to take a while, hmm?" he patted the kid in the head. "It's going to be better soon enough."

"My mom is still inside..." she said, her eyes welling up with tears. "Doc, will they get her out?"

Zayne hesitated, his thoughts briefly drifting to you. He managed a reassuring smile. "Don’t worry, they’ll—"

Crash! —all of a sudden, a loud explosion shook the hospital, the sound echoing through the chaos. The little girl clung to his coat in fear.

"Call for retreat!" someone suddenly shouted from outside. "Alert all personnel immediately!"

Retreat. The thought that you might be safe soon brought him a sense of relief. He turned to the girl, trying to keep his composure.

"Look, the hunters are retreating, it means most are already evacuated." Zayne managed a reassuring smile. "Stay here. I'll help you find her later, okay?"

He went to the survivors' camp outside, attending to the wounded and keeping a vigilant eye on each returning hunter. Even until 30 minutes later, he still hadn't seen you. Thinking to contact you, he reached out for his phone.

"Who hasn't gotten out?" Jenna, your team leader, demanded the receiver with a stern voice, standing tall several feet away from the camp, and Zayne overheard the snippets of her conversation.

A frantic voice responded, "Xavier is still inside! Y/N too!"

"Those two! They are always—!"

What?

Zayne almost dropped his phone when he heard your name. Terror gripped him instantly, and then suddenly, again, it was his greatest nightmare realized.

You are still inside. You could be hurt. It was possible you had no means to get out of there.

He didn’t register letting go of his coat or crossing the police line—all that mattered was getting to you. He sprinted away, ignoring the shouts of those trying to stop him.

No. Not again!

Debris flew everywhere, and the roars of Wanderers grew louder as he neared the building wreckage. As a splinter was about to hit him, ice shot through his palms, creating a barrier that shattered it.

"Y/N!" he shouted your name, his voice cracking with panic. "Where are you?!"

All he could think about was the memory of you bleeding out in the ER. Zayne never wanted to see that again. Should anything happen to you now...

He didn't want you to be hurt. He hated seeing you cry. For the past weeks, it had torn him apart to see you so unhappy. He wanted to be the one who made you smile, the one you looked at with love.

The realization washed over him like a tidal wave. Yet it wasn’t an epiphany but a simple truth he had always known but never fully grasped until now.

If he lost you now, it'd destroy him.

He continued screaming your name over and over. And then, after turning several turns, he finally saw you, standing alone in the middle of the wreckage—

You turned to him in surprise when you heard your name in his shout, and were rooted to the spot, in disbelief that your husband was right before you.

Zayne felt a wave of relief wash over him, until a hollow croak from above caught his attention. He squinted—

A glass panel had crumbled and was falling directly towards you.

A sense of dread so great overwhelmed him, a lump formed in his throat, and the smoke made it hard to breathe. He sprinted forward, and with everything he had, he pushed you out the way.

The next thing he knew, everything went pitch black.

"Zayne? Zayne!"

A memory flashed in his mind's eye. The one memory he wished he didn't have to relive ever again.

Sitting on the deserted hospital bench, his eyes were vacant. Utter hollowness choked him, leaving him motionless. It was over. There was no blood on his hands, yet it felt as if there were.

Your grip on his shoulder was tight, shaking him. "Zayne, snap out of it!" and only then he brought himself to meet your eyes.

"She died." That was the only thing he could mutter, pain woven in each word. "She really died."

Your eyes widened in horror, an inaudible gasp left your lips. "Oh..."

He didn't really know what happened next, but he remembered the warmth from when you pulled him to your arms, when sobs wracked his body as he thought the world was ending.

Since then, you have always been there.

And subconsciously, he may have regarded you as his lifeline.

. . .

Another memory.

"Are you awake...?"

His mind was hazy, but he recognized your voice. He blearily opened his eyes to find you placing a cool compress on his forehead.

"Who would have thought the great Dr. Zayne can get a fever?" you said with a soft laugh, patting his hair. "Don’t worry about me. Go back to sleep."

You came to see him. He remembered telling you not to. But you still did, and the fact thawed the ice in his heart.

Just as you were about to leave, his hand reached out and pulled you closer. "Don’t go."

"Are you trying to make me catch your cold too?" you teased with a soft laugh.

"Hmph. Who told you to come here...?"

"Ah, so you're whiny when you're not feeling well," you observed with a smile. "Okay, I'll stay! But only if you agree to nurse me if I catch your cold!"

You were noisy, but endearingly so.

. . .

"Don't pay her any mind," you fidgeted on your seat, a frown on your face. "My mom always does that."

There was never any talk about the nature your relationship between the two of you, but it was clear to everyone nevertheless. You were always around him, and he seemed to enjoy your company just as much.

And not for the first time, your mother pushed him towards marriage with you.

"People are always getting the wrong idea," you grumbled. "Sorry, Zayne..." you lowered your head, seemingly in regret.

He was puzzled, because to him, it wasn't necessarily false. All things you did together lead to this.

"What if it isn't a wrong idea at all?"

You looked at him with slight surprise. "Huh...?"

Your presence was a gift. That tragedy was devastating, but having you constantly by his side made it bearable. He was fond of you, and the thought that if it's you, then surely...

In this memory, he was more sure than ever. What he said then, it came from the truest place in his heart.

"What if I told you... as of right now, I can't imagine being with anyone but you?"

The side of his head was throbbing with pain. Everything hurt, the hard asphalt was bruising his face as the headache set in. He could smell the scent of blood and sweat, but more than that—

"Zayne! Ah, hah— Please, please! No!"

Your voice, choked with tears, blared in his ears as you desperately shook him. You sounded so heartbroken, so utterly panicked, and your voice gradually pulled him back to consciousness.

Opening his eyes took tremendous effort. At first, everything was a blur, but then it came into focus—the sight of you disheveled, smeared with soot, with tears streaming down your face. But still you— the woman he had married two years ago.

Yet his heart lurched. You're crying again... why is it that whenever with me, you're always crying?

"Are you... alright?" he rasped, lifting his hand to touch your face.

"Why did you—" You were startled by his question, your gaze fixed on the blood pooling on the side of his face. "Your head is bleeding!"

Ah, so you're fine. The sheer knowledge brought him relief, a faint smile forming at his lips. "I'm glad..."

"I'll help you get back! Hold onto me—" you said after brushing away your tears, lifting him up and draping his arm around your shoulder. "Can you walk?"

"I'm... fine..."

"You're not!" you refuted harshly, voice trembling. "You have to go back!"

You made him lean on you as you made your way back to the makeshift hospital, each step accompanied by your sniffles as you supported his waist.

Zayne glanced at you, feeling a warmth in his chest despite the migraine. "D-Don't cry... I'll be fine."

"You're an idiot!" you choked out, struggling to hold back your tears. "Why did you even come out here?"

"I... have to find you. They said you haven't returned."

"There are still civilians inside! I'll return eventually!"

"I can’t wait for that. I... have to know you're safe."

His response only fueled your frustration. "You don't have to—!"

"You are my wife—" he snapped, turning to you sharply, his eyes flashing with anger. "How can I not worry— for you?"

The forceful tone in his voice went straight to the most tender part of your heart. It really struck you at that moment that he had come out here for you, that his concern for you was that profound.

And that after all these weeks, he still keeps you in his thoughts.

He had pushed you out of the way, even at the cost of himself, barely missing the fallen billboard in that violent crash. If he was in the wrong position, he could've lost his life.

You stared at him, tears glossing your eyes.

"That's enough... Don't cry again." Zayne reached out to wipe your cheeks. His hands, however, were smeared with his own blood, leaving streaks on your face. "Ah... I got blood on you..."

But in that moment, you couldn’t care less. There was this indescribable sting of grief, but also paired with a sense of relief so great in your chest the very second you realize that now, he sees you.

You threw yourself into his arms, hugging him tightly as you sobbed, calling out to him in broken voice. “Z-Zayne...!”

“Why are you crying again...?” he let out a resigned sigh, but still embraced you regardless. “What a crybaby...”

You buried your face deeper into him, shaking uncontrollably. “You... saved me...” you managed to say amidst torrent of tears. “Y-You... got hurt...”

“I’ll be fine,” he retorted in your ear albeit in a hoarse voice, holding you close, even as blood trickled down the side of his face. “And I’d do it again. I refuse to see you hurt.”

You cried harder, and he pulled you tighter, his chest aching at the sight of you so inconsolable. And in that moment, he made the decision right then and there.

He will protect you so long as time will allow him to.

It was as if the invisible wall between you had crumbled to dust after that incident. You stayed by Zayne's side night and day, monitoring his condition.

And one night, several days later...

"Here, don't move..."

You carefully dressed the wound on Zayne's temple, sitting close beside him. He quietly observed your worried eyes and trembling fingers without a word.

"You even need stitches..." you lamented, biting your lip as you wrapped the bandage around his head. Tears pricked your eyes, overwhelmed by the concern you were pouring into the task.

"I'm telling you, I'm fine," he gruffly insisted in an attempt to erase your mournful expression. He felt the delicate, almost hesitant touch of your fingers on his face. "It'll heal with time."

Even as he said that, a part of you was still troubled at the sight of the wound on his head and cheekbone. No matter what he said, you couldn’t shake the feeling that it was somehow your fault.

"I'm done. Now go rest," you said softly, your voice tinged with bitterness after tying the gauze. You rose to put the kit away, but even after you finished, Zayne remained upright on the bed, so you leveled a frown at him.

"What, why aren't you— Ah!"

Before you knew it, he pulled you by the arm, and you tumbled into his chest in surprise. "What are you doing?!" you yelled at him, clinging to his shoulder and looking up at him with ire. "You could've hit your head!"

He looked down at you with a flat expression, or is that a hint of amusement glinting in his eyes? “Can't a husband cuddle his wife?”

You blinked dumbly, caught off-guard. “Yes, you can, but...”

His arms then enveloped you, fitting you on his chest and he sighed against your hair. “Then there’s nothing wrong with it. Let’s just stay like this for now.”

And so, that was how he decided to sleep throughout the night—with you on top of him, held close. You felt self-conscious as Zayne had never initiated this closeness with you since that night.

"Are you sure you want to sleep this way?" you wriggled a bit in his grasp.

He draped an arm around your waist, pressing his eyes shut. "Mm-hm."

"You..." A part of you recoiled at the vulnerability but decided to ask anyway. "Won't this be… a mistake...?"

That caught his attention, as Zayne's eyes fluttered open. He looked down at you, who avoided his gaze with a pout and a torn expression, making yourself small in his embrace.

It dawned on him then that this persisting issue in your marriage was thoroughly his fault. His past was something he could never—and would never—trade for anything, but right now, you were that sense of peace that grounded him.

At one point, he has to let it go. These feelings inside him… they drive him to.

He softened, his gaze full of understanding as he gently brushed your hair back. "No," he said quietly, his voice tender. "We’ve come too far for it to be one."

Your clear, innocent eyes reluctantly met his, and at that moment something akin to clarity resonated within him.

He once thought nothing could ever mend the hollowness in his heart. And once, he indeed hoped that being with you would provide some form of relief or replace what he had lost.

But right now, feeling how vulnerable you were in his arms like this, he understood that you were not, and could never be, a replacement for anything else. Even before he realized it himself, what he felt for you was something entirely different— something dear that had grown and evolved into a genuine affection different from what he had felt for anyone else before.

Those times spent with you, wanting to protect you... Now that he reflected on it, it was never about filling a void, after all.

“I... want to treasure you better.”

Oh. Your heart thumped loudly as those words left his lips, warmth spreading through your entire being. Overwhelmed by the sincerity in his voice, you clung to his chest, feeling a surge of love and a profound sense of being freed from the chains of insecurity that had taken you hostage all these years.

Most precious. Zayne smiled at you, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head.

“This time for sure... I will.”

And at last... he could say it without any lingering guilt.

5K notes · View notes

nottswitch · 2 months ago

Text

— if you’ve been naughty, you get…

──────────────── 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐮𝐩. ──

summary: quidditch is a sport that demands strength and stamina, resulting in physical exertion. exertion equals releasing disproportionate amounts of warmth, which, as it turns out, feels better shared.

pairing: mattheo riddle x reader

cw: 18+ smut, enemies to lovers, rough p in v, unprotected sex, creampie, semi-public sex, spanking, choking, degrading, hair grabbing, cursing

wc: 3.1k

a/n: the first fic of the naughty side of the list, so buckle up for the filth!! hope you enjoy <3

⟡ navigation ; m.lists ; mattheo m.list ; kinkmas 2024

────────────────────────

The entirety of the Quidditch stadium roared as Harry Potter hovered proudly in the air, the Golden Snitch snug between his fingers. The ultimate rivalry between the houses never ceased to exist, be it on the school grounds or on the pitch, the students from other houses having chosen a side long ago and now discreetly passing galleons to each other in the stands. You craned your neck a bit, your loosely tied scarf sliding off as you watched the players descend onto the ground, the green and silver side clearly trying to get off the pitch as hastily as possible.

Mattheo was, for all intents and purposes, pissed. His nostrils were flared, his breath coming out short and ragged, the exertion from the long-winded game straining his aching muscles. His bat was clutched tightly in his hand, his knuckles almost translucent as he fought the urge to swing it at the annoyingly smug Gryffindors who seemed to be very purposeful with the loudness of their celebrations. A smirk tugged at the corner of your mouth – the opportunity was too golden, no pun intended, to have a go at the guy, even though you knew that now, of all times, he wouldn’t dream of holding back. It was a constant push and pull between the two of you, a burning need to kick the other while they were down, and a loss of a very important game was a chance presenting itself on a silver platter.

"Hey, Riddle!"

The sound of your voice made Mattheo grit his teeth, the vibration echoing in his already ringing ears. His eyes briefly darted to you descending the stairs from the top of the stands, the look in them as close to murderous as it can possibly get.

"Don’t," he muttered, continuing to stride across the field, towards the tunnel, where the other players from the Slytherin team had already disappeared.

"Don’t what?"

Your voice was clearly taunting as you approached him, your arms crossing on your chest as you fixed him with a smirk. Unconsciously, your gaze slid down his body, taking in the sight of his Quidditch jersey clinging to him, damp with sweat and accentuating the ridges of his toned abs. You licked your lips, the action coming out of your subconsciousness that craved to feel those abs underneath your palms, although you had yet to admit it.

"Don’t fucking try me right now," Mattheo retorted without sparing you a glance. He was already more than a little aggravated, and the last thing he needed was your teasing and endless quips, combined with the effortless allure you always held despite being an insufferable little cunt. His uniform suddenly felt too tight, which prompted him to take off the green jersey, harshly tugging it over his head with one hand.

Your lips parted ever so slightly as you watched his torso opening up to you in all its firm, built glory. But the muscles weren’t the first thing that you noticed – as much as the view was enticing, it was also not completely new. No, the thing that made your breath hitch was the fact that he was literally steaming, as if he had just left a sauna. Translucent whirls were emanating from his heated body, his skin breaking out in goosebumps in the chilly December air. Mattheo didn’t even shiver, throwing the piece of clothing over his shoulder and flicking the bat from one hand to the other. His pace was firm and purposeful, leaving no doubts about his intentions to leave the Quidditch pitch as quickly as possible.

You had entirely different plans for him, though.

Without thinking much, you followed him into the tunnel leading out of the stadium, barely able to match his long steps.

“Or what?” you called out defiantly, finally reaching him at the price of your breath getting shallow and your heart beating faster than normal. You weren’t one hundred percent sure it was just the effect of walking quickly.

Mattheo stopped in his tracks, nearly making you stumble into his broad back. His eyes closed shut for a moment, his chest heaving as he took a deep breath, feeling his already nonexistent control slipping away with every single sound of yours he heard behind him.

“You will regret it,” he muttered through gritted teeth, not making a move to turn around to look at you – he knew that if he did, he could say goodbye to any traces of restraint still left in him.

“Oh, really?”

You knew you were walking a dangerous line by taunting him like that, but at this point, you couldn’t stop. Was it a sudden surge of bravery, was it recklessness or something else, deeper and yet uncharted, you couldn’t tell. You just knew that if you stopped right now – that was what you’d regret for a long, long time, possibly for the rest of your life. You stepped closer, your chest almost pressing against his back, feeling his muscles tense as your proximity registered in his mind and sent signals through his whole body.

That step was all it took for him to finally snap. In a split second, his hand was wrapped around your throat, pressing you against the wall of the tunnel. A strangled gasp escaped your parted lips, your pulse fluttering wildly as his fingers pressed right on the point, curling around your neck as if he was ready to snap it in half. He probably could, if he wanted to.

“Say another word and find out,” Mattheo hissed, the warm air of his breath brushing against your flushed face. His already dark chocolate eyes darkened further – you swore you could see his pupils dilating in real time, the dimness inside the tunnel failing to hide the mixture of anger and lust swirling in their depths.

“I’m not scared of you,” you whispered, your voice quiet but filled with a strange type of determination. Whatever was happening was something completely new in your dynamic, yet it felt like it had been building up the whole time you spent bickering and trying to get to each other using the power of biting words.

Mattheo’s hold grew tighter around your throat, almost cutting off the stream of much needed air flowing into your lungs.

“You should be.”

A loud thud echoed through the tunnel as his bat hit the floor, thrown away and immediately forgotten about. His newly freed hand gripped your waist, pressing you harder into the wall, the coldness of the surface seeping through the fabric of your winter robes. Mattheo’s body was flush against your front, creating a sharp contrast between the chill of the air surrounding you and his fired up skin, dampening your shirt with small rivulets of sweat dripping off him.

You swallowed thickly, unable to tear your gaze off his face, his dangerously handsome features tense and barely moving. You had no idea what to do with your hands, so they ended up on his bare chest without any real input from your mind, which, you could tell, was slowly turning off anyway. A hiss coming from him once your skin touched his was a surprise, but you couldn’t lie and say you didn’t enjoy his reaction. For some reason, you found yourself bold enough to try exploring this newfound knowledge, sliding your hand down his chest, along the firm planes and ridges. Two things happened at the same time: Mattheo’s fingers dug deeper into the sides of your throat, causing a strangled sound to escape your lips, while his other hand left your waist to grab your traveling wrist.

“You have no fucking idea what you’re doing right now,” Mattheo muttered, and you swore you could hear his teeth grinding against each other. “I’ll show you, though. I’ll fucking show you.”

Next thing you knew, you were lifted off the ground, stuck in the iron bars of his embrace. The instinct in you that still tried to persuade you that this whole thing was wrong made your dangling feet try to hit Mattheo’s knee. This weak attempt at defiance was quickly stopped by his arm moving down and tightly locking around your thighs, stopping your legs from moving altogether.

“Asshole.” You did hear the treacherous breathlessness of your voice, but also didn’t have it in you to care. The heat between your legs was rapidly intensifying, the friction created by your pressed up thighs only making you more desperate for something real, something substantial to quench your undeniable thirst.

A dark smirk appeared on Mattheo’s face, the one that did nothing to soften his expression – it only made him look more like the devil he appeared to be. A second later, his foot was pushing a door you didn’t even know was there, doing the same from the other side once he walked into a dark room that smelled like wood and broom polish. You didn’t have time to think or formulate a snarky response to his actions before you were getting turned around and bent over, Mattheo’s hand pressing insistently on the back of your neck. You barely had time to stabilize yourself against the cold wooden bench that stood at the wall, your scarf sliding off completely and falling to the floor.

“What the fuck?!” you exclaimed, although it was more of a formality, since you made no actual attempt to get up from the new position. Mattheo, of course, took notice of that, his smirk widening a bit.

“This the only thing you can think of?” His voice was cold and mocking at the same time, not failing to send a shiver down your spine – it was huskier than usual, an undertone of desire obvious even to untrained ears. Mattheo effortlessly lifted up the hem of your robes, the rumpled fabric of your skirt splayed across your ass in a way he found sinful. “Where’s the smartass attitude, hm?”

A sharp smack landed on your ass, stinging even through several layers of clothing. Your body jolted forward, a yelp breaking out of your throat both at the unexpectedness of it and a wave of pleasure the smack sent straight between your legs. Mattheo found himself enjoying your reaction, his hand coming up to rest on your hip, fingers curling and pressing into the flesh.

“Fuck y-,” you started to mutter, glancing at him over your shoulder, but another smack shut you up pretty quickly. You could feel the sting, only intensified when his strong hand grabbed a handful of your ass, roughly kneading and squeezing.

“Much better from this angle,” Mattheo murmured, rolling his tongue against the inside of his cheek as his eyes shamelessly roamed your body up and down. His free hand slid up your back, pushing you to lean further down against the bench until he reached your hair. His fingers threaded through your locks in an almost tender gesture, one so uncharacteristic of Mattheo Riddle, before he yanked your head back, making you hiss from the harshness of the pull.

The warmth of his body enveloped you whole as Mattheo bent over, his flaming chest covering the entirety of your back. A fleeting thought flickered in your mind, that even the warmest robes couldn’t hold a candle to the human heater that was Mattheo after a Quidditch game. As his mouth neared your ear, his hand never stilled on your ass, lifting your skirt up to bunch up at your waist and running over the fabric of your tights.

“Really?” he asked, mockingly, making you want to strangle him and kiss the hell out of him at the same time. Your lips parted when you felt his sneaky fingers pressing between your legs, causing your thighs to clench. “D’you know I can feel you getting wet?” he cooed, brushing his lips against your ear, you were sure, very deliberately. You closed your eyes, unwanted embarrassment making its way to your cheeks, and you just knew the bastard was smirking again. You couldn’t control your body’s reaction to him, though, and your wetness seeping through your tights fully gave you away.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. I thought your smartass mouth could handle better than that.”

Mattheo gave your hair another tug before his hand slipped down, curling around your throat again. His grip was tight, not allowing even a single millimeter of movement, a strangled gasp escaping you once you felt his hips pressing to your ass from the back. His hard-on was firmly planted between your cheeks, straining against his Quidditch trousers, as if he was trying to break through the layers of your clothing.

“But when I’m next to you,” Mattheo continued murmuring into your ear, a malicious smirk giving his words a dangerous hint, “you’re just a bitch in heat.”

“Fuck. You.”

You somehow managed to find words, the ones you couldn’t bring yourself to say before. Mattheo chuckled darkly, feeling your pulse fluttering wildly beneath his thumb – you really weren’t the best in hiding your deepest emotions, though your face still tried to keep its defiant stance.

“That’s the plan,” he answered, as his fingers moved against your covered pussy, the sound of it, though muffled, still embarrassingly wet. Once his torturous movements stopped, you nearly whined, biting your bottom lip in order to save yourself from further humiliation. Your teeth sunken into your lip didn’t go unnoticed – Mattheo licked his own, his hand on your throat lifting you up just a bit, his body heat a fire burning your back.

“Didn’t know having you speechless would be so…” Another smack on your ass interrupted his words, a squeal caused by the mixture of pain and pleasure sounding through the dark room. “…so fucking hot.”

You gained the courage to push your hips back, a satisfied hum rolling out of your mouth as you felt his cock twitch at the friction.

“So damn impatient,” Mattheo whispered into your ear. His own hips bucked forward, forcefully, enough to make your body jerk again. “But you’re lucky, because…”

He suddenly straightened up, roughly pulling down your tights and baring your skin to the chilly air. It was already stinging from the previous slaps, the sensation now stronger as the frost of early winter bit at the sensitive flesh.

“…me too.”

You didn’t notice the moment Mattheo’s trousers pooled at his feet, but they definitely did, along with his boxers. You couldn’t stop your eyes from rolling to the back of your head when his warm, slicked up cock slid through your folds, making you feel every inch of him, providing the friction you desperately craved. Your entrance clenched, as if trying to suck him in but failing. His tip prodded at your hole, your whole body backing against him in an attempt to finally let him inside.

You didn’t have to wait – a single deep thrust, and he was splitting you open in the best, most mind blowing way possible. Your high-pitched moan was so loud it could be easily heard outside, but you didn’t care – you couldn’t care. Mattheo’s groan matched up in volume, his hands gripping your hips with brushing strength.

“If I knew you’d be so fucking tight…”

He pulled out only to thrust right back in, making you moan so loudly you could feel the air shake around you.

“…I’d shut you up like that every. Single. Time.”

Each word was accompanied by another thrust, each one deeper than the last, even though it was physically impossible – at least you felt like he discovered new depths within you every time. The squelching sounds of your pussy roughly meeting his dick echoed through the narrow space you were squished into, the slapping of your bodies surely making its way into the tunnel behind the door. It was something you’d never felt before – the passion, the lust filling your very essence, consuming and turning your brain into mush.

Mattheo’s palm connected with your asscheek again, making it bounce and ripple. Immediately after, he squeezed the round mound, and you hissed, another sting shooting through your body. His pace was unforgiving, but you didn’t want to be forgiven – if that was punishment, you’d rather be guilty for life. The stretch of your walls around his cock felt like it was tearing you apart and gathering you back in one piece right after, and at that moment you were sure that no one else could fuck you like that.

His hand ended up in your hair again as he tugged you up, making your back press against his chest again. Somehow, it was still just as hot as before, causing you to break out in sweat from the exertion and his body heat seeping through your skin and bones. If the room had windows, they would certainly be fogged up. However, the only foggy thing was your mind, getting more and more dazed as your peak approached.

“You wanna cum, huh?” Mattheo growled, his laboured breath prickling at the sensitive skin of your neck. “Wanna cum on my cock, like the slut you are?”

As much as you hated yourself for admitting that, cumming around him was the only thing swirling in your head. You tried to nod, but his grip on your hair didn’t allow it.

“Words,” he muttered, his teeth clenching as he tried to hold his own orgasm back, determined to make you fall apart first. “The only time I want you to use your fucking words.”

“I wanna– Fuck! Wanna cum on your cock,” you managed to mumble, your cheeks heating up at the fact that you had just given in, had given him control over the pleasure you yearned for.

“Do it, then.”

With another rough slap on your ass, you came, wave after wave making your body tremble and shake. Mattheo was quick to finish right after, his growl bordering on animalistic as he spilled deep inside of you. The warmth of his cum felt like it was etched into your very soul, hot and sticky, your clenching hole squeezing some out to trickle down your thighs. Mattheo could get hard all over again just from the sight alone, but he resisted, pulling your skirt down to cover the delicious view.

For a few moments, you could only try catching your breath, leaning on the bench still somehow holding up in front of you.

“Next time you lose, you know where to find me.” Your voice was shaking, yet already filled with the cockiness of knowing that you, in some way, made Mattheo Riddle lose control.

“Next time I win, you won’t be able to walk for days,” he retorted, his tone bearing something akin to a threat. Or a promise.

#— witch’s works ☾#— naughty & nice ☾#mattheo riddle #mattheo riddle x reader #mattheo riddle x fem!reader #mattheo riddle x you #mattheo riddle x y/n #mattheo riddle smut #mattheo riddle imagine #mattheo riddle fanfiction #mattheo riddle fanfic #mattheo riddle fic #slytherin boys #slytherin boys smut #slytherin boys imagine #slytherin boys fanfiction #slytherin boys fic #1k notes

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screampied · 8 months ago

Text

‘GHOSTIN' ?! ★

ᡴꪫ sum. it's midnight and you're bored. bored and horny. everyone knows ghosts aren't real, or are they? you end up summoning a ghost and he's not leaving anytime soon, in fact, he wants to give you a taste of your own medicine for disrupting his slumber. you get a taste, alright.

wc. 5.0k

warnings. fem! reader, ghost! toji, unprotected, switch toji, praise, dirty talk, oral (m! receiving), manhandling, spit, impact play, brēeding, biting, size kink, mentions of tummy bulge, nipple play.

an. don't summon ghosts unless their name is toji fushiguro idk

don’t summon ghosts they said—you’ll regret it in the end they said,

but who cares? not you. besides, it’s not like ghosts even exist. you’ve never been one to believe in paranormal activity anyway, although all of that starts to change on a specific night. this night, the clock just struck twelve and you’re bored out of your skull. it was an ordinary sunday night and it was just you and your dead quiet apartment walls. as you’re scrolling on your phone, glancing at your feed a certain link catches your eye. wanna summon a ghost? click here to find out how.

to keep it brief, your curiosity eventually gets the best of you. with a snort, very much not believing the lengthy follow up article that warns you of the possible dangers to come of the spirit, you go into your bathroom, following the steps before your lights flicker. at first nothing happens, oh, see you knew ghosts weren’t real. annoyed a bit that you wasted fifteen minutes of your time—you prepare to leave the restroom when you feel a cold hand on creep on your shoulder.

“tch. the nerve,” a rough voice murmurs behind you. you tense up, craning your neck to indeed see the ghost that was displayed on the picture. yet, he looks more human-like if anything. toji, the name that was said to be his. toji eyes you up and down before a scoff leaves from his reddened slick lips. “why’d you summon me..”

you’re taken aback immediately. with a staggering height of almost six feet, you meet the soulless eyes of a mere attractive spirit. “i— uh,” you sheepishly peer down at your feet, not in a million years thinking it’d actually work. “you’re a real ghost?”

“uh obviously,” he murmurs, mocking your expense. trodding his bare feet across your carpet floor as if he knows the layout, he scratches his chest. “eh, what a mess. you live here?”

ouch, so he was hot and rude. figures,

you take a moment to gawk at the ghost’s attire. nothing really too appealing—just a simple white t-shirt with sweats. it almost could be mistaken as an eerie nightgown if you squint. again, he looks more human than an actual spirit. it was just the paleness of his skin that gave away his non-human features. his clothes weren’t the only thing you were staring at though.

his bulge,

its hard to not notice it, especially with a size like toji’s. you spot the invading print poke through his sweats, the roundness of it, basking in all its dirty glory. you had to restrain yourself from making a fool of yourself — licking your lips and almost allowing your lewd, obscene thoughts to take over. you couldn’t help it though, it was quite literally all in your face. you’re so entrapped in your little phantasm that you don’t even feel the ghost flicking his chilly cold fingers against your forehead.

“girl are you even listening?” he rasps.

“h-huh?” you look up, snapping out of whatever trance had you on such a leash.

toji deadpans, a groan sliding past his lips before he eyes you up and down. his gaze alone makes you nervous. “don’t huh me, i saw what you were looking at,” and he peels up his shirt with a single hand, exposing his curled up washboard abs. god, even as a ghost he was so ripped. your eyes ogle down towards the sable-black boxers he wore, the hem of it peeking from over his pants before he hums, amused. “wanna feel?”

“can i…?” your voice trails off, and it’s so pathetic and soft. you could hardly recognize your own softened tone but you didn’t care.

“knock y’erself out.” he hoarsely shrugs, and you barely give him a chance to finish before your fingers twang against his skin.

immediately, you feel how cold his body was, a shivering temperature that ghosts against your digits as you feel against his body. jade pupils of his burn into you as he watches intently. the hardness of his abs — you feel everywhere, the texture of it was rock hard. his muscles, the way he carried himself, the flexing of his abs. it was all just so attractive. despite how the lower half of his body was freezing, you continued to let your fingers wander on every part of his abdomen.

“you’re cute,” he murmurs, and you don’t realize he’s been staring at you the entire time. toji had to admit, for a human, you were quite easy on the eyes. maybe even his type, if he was a human himself. “are ya always this handsy towards people you first meet or…?”

“not really,” you huff, and your hand trails deeper until it stops near a certain area.

his happy trail,

it was so pretty, jumbles of blackened curly hairs run down near the under part of his v-line. he’s so perfectly sculptured. it was easy to compare his ghostly anatomy to a mere greek god. so perfect, the more your fingers explore down his muscular frame, the colder your fingertips get. “wow, are you sure you’re not a human?”

“wanna find out?”

his words struck right into you like a knife strikes its enemy — you pause, leering up at him with glossy eyes and a slight head tilt. in a coy tone, you rub the back of your neck. “y- yes.”

“c’mere then, girl.”

inching towards him, the ghost then pulls you into a longing kiss. its passionate at first then shifts to sloppy. you moan, feeling him try to pry open your lips with his tongue to allow him access. you do, savoring his freshly minty taste and even his tongue was just as cold. toji tasted like hypothermia—chillingly cold, yet your lips stuck against his like ice. speaking of, his lips stuck against yours like velcro, like glue. your breathing continues to grow heavier by the second before he snakes a hand around your neck, giving it a delicate squeeze. already, you were weak for his touch. toji’s thumb skids against the middle opening of your throat, physically feeling the vibrated sensations pour out from your sweet little esophagus.

a gasp wretches from your throat once you feel the front of his knee go right between your legs. it’s sneaky, the friction you feel from that muscle alone earns a soft noise from you. you whine in his mouth as tongues dance and tangle together in harmony.

where there’s harmony, there’s sync,

he loved the way your tongue curls into his mouth, tasting and savoring his minty flavor. you only wanted more by each dreadfully long second that passes. wobbly arms of yours sling around his neck and the static from his rubbing knee only grows. “f-fuck.” you’d whimper between hot, sultry kisses. suddenly, the air felt thick and heavy. you’re panting, lungs already feeling like they were about to collapse as he gingerly starts to suck on your neck. while he does, you succinctly open your eyes to see him already staring at you. darkened raven eyes, long untrimmed bangs that almost shield his eerie pupils alone, his eyes told a thousand stories.

his eyes told a thousand stories and maybe you wanted to know more about this ghoulish visitor.

after a while, the steamy kiss ends up departing and you gasp for air. “knees, pretty. get down for me.”

with how compliant you were, it was almost amusing to see. you get down on your knees, being face first with his bulge yet again. you just wanted to run your tongue everywhere. so full and well rounded, you already started to feel the saliva trickle into your mouth. mouthwatering. toji’s eyes rove towards the pullover hoodie you wore. with an impish expression, he claws a hand over your head delicately. a free finger of his crooks near your chosen attire.

“this. take it off, wanna see more of your body.” he utters in a low tone.

“for a ghost, you’re pretty pervy.” you tease, hauling the piece of clothing over your head.

“girl please. says the mortal staring at my crotch,” and as your hoodie is suddenly removed, he takes a good peek at your bra. he simpers. “mhm,” he inhales for a second, taking in your frame for a few solid moments. toji’s eyes then glance towards your chest. “bra, take that off too.”

you unclasp the back strap of your bra with one hand and he grunts once he sees your breasts spring free. “fuck, y’er pretty. ‘m gonna ‘hafta take my time with you.”

and he does,

toji’s got you on all fours, cutely struggling to take him fully into your mouth. his ruby-colored tip greets you and you can’t help but skitter your tongue against the frenulum. he groans, raking a hand in your scalp. as he’s standing, he moves a few strands of hair away from your face. “yeah, open that jaw. get it wet, spit on it if you have to, doll.”

“mmf,” a muffled moan comes from you as your knees dig into the ground. his taste was flavorless and still you wanted to savor it. sweet like candy, toji’s scent alone clogs up your nostrils and his darkened pubic hair tickle against the rim of your nose. he’s just so big though, so fucking big . .

as you’re taking him down inch by inch, it’s hard to try not to gag as he continues to gradually shove himself into your throat. toji’s abs clench and tighten as he sees your jaw hang open, giving you a single thrust and you pull away to gasp. already, you’re starting to drool for him. with your mouth left open ajar, it had easy access to the saliva dribble down the sides of your lips and onto your chin.

“heh, ‘s too big for you? that’s my bad.” he purrs.

“shut up,” you grumble, your tongue licking alongside his dick. a throbbing vein of his that runs down his side pulses against your tongue and you hear him hiss. toji’s still got a hand combing into your hair, pulling your head up concisely just so he can see that pretty face one more time. “so f-fuckin’ big.”

“this is just y’er mouth, wait ‘till ya feel me from the inside.”

you roll your eyes at his cockiness, preparing to take him inside of your mouth again. your spit covered lips open up and he coos once he sees that you’re slobbering. you let a few amounts of your sheeny saliva pour onto his shaft, wetting it in the process. “play with y’er tits, use ‘em.”

you grab ahold of your plump mounds, brushing a thumb against your perked nipples before your head starts to bob. as he’s sinking his dick into your tight little throat, he groans.

toji could get used to the warmth of your mouth, your plush lips suffocating all around him — he was addicted, and so were you.

with your head resuming to jolt up and down, bobbing repeatedly from the decent pace, your tongue continues to flick against his leaky tip, relishing in the bitterly sweet pre-cum that resides against the very top. another muffled moan slips past your lips as you’re still playing with your breasts, feeling them bounce against each other in crude tandem.

“such a pretty mouth… ugh,” he tightens his grip against your hair, thrusting his hips into you a bit. you break your hands away from your tits to latch onto his thighs. immensely, your fingers dig into the cottony fabric of his sweatpants. toji starts to pant laboriously. heave after heave, you’ve got him sweating already. peeping down, his dick twitches at the sight of your spit dribbling down the corners of your pretty purses lips.

as it travels — it cascades like a waterfall, landing between the curvature of your chest. “mhm, jus’ like that. good girl. haah, ‘s good.”

as his hands rummage in your hair, it’s still maintaining its strengthening grip—you inhale through your nose as your head bounces in consistency. his fingers were still crispy cold, you’re feeling frosty all the way from the waist down.

not only were you feeling frosty though, you were throbbing..

it was no mistake. the sudden adds of multiplying throbs that pang against your pussy makes you start to whine as a hand of yours reaches between your thighs. your panties protect your slick arousal and a pout contorts against your lips as you’re still having your mouth stuffed full of ghostly cock.

“f-fuuuck, y’er fuckin’ nasty. play with y’erself while ya suck me off, do it.” he groans, it was as if he read right through your mind. toji’s breathing starts to pick up as he’s keeping strict eye contact with you. doe-eyed and all, your lashes suddenly shut close for a few seconds. toji meanly pistons his hips, and you moan as you drag your fingers against your sheathed pussy. peeling your laced panties to the side—you strum two digits against your slick entrance, starting to rut back and forth. toji snickers, ruffling the top of your head. “gonna fill this throat up with so much cum, you want that, sweets?”

abruptly, you pry your mouth away from his fattened dick before breathing in a gasp of fresh air. slyly, you hum, a hand wrapping around his hefty base. “don’t you mean with ectoplasm?”

“y’er mouth’s getting smart,” he sneers, grabbing ahold of your head before making you go back down.

toji started to get addicted to your frisky tongue. the way it’s so sloppy, slurping up every part of his fervor, he only wanted more.

he’s a ghost and well, it’s been a while..

as his dick perfectly tucks inside of your mouth, you take him even further. a clammy hand of yours starts to fondle with his balls and he groans. with his jaw tightening, he starts to feel his thigh pounce. “fuuuuck me,” he heaves lowly, knowing his finish was about to approach rather sooner than later. he was just so thick in your throat, tap-tapping away at your little uvula. toji stares at your pretty slobbering lips, your hands still crammed all up inside of your cunt before he presents a more thorough thrust into your mouth.

a familiar primal heat pools into the very depths of your tummy before you hear toji suck his teeth.

it’s a long, deep and sexy groan.

it bellows throughout the thin walls of your small apartment — his face turns sour and you start to feel a surprised guest get introduced on your tongue.

his cum tastes more sweet which was peculiar. usually it’s tastelessly bitter, bland and purely insipid.

but with him, it was sugary sweet. as he pours such volumes of satiny ropes into your mouth, your hands continue to cling onto his pants. it’s a lot, with the way the ghost’s cock erupts into your mouth it’s like a volcano. spitting out such gooey sums of seed. its warmth has you wanting more, as it fills the very inside of your mouth, your tongue swirls all around the savory uncanny mixture.

toji yokes your head back, taking his heavyset dick out of your mouth and you gawk at how red it was now. from the very top, a smile stretches against your lips knowing you did that. swollen, fat balls of his were all in your face, neglected and just desperate to be played with a bit more.

“shit,” he sighs, taking a moment to breathe. toji looks down at your dumb expression, more smug than anything. a hand of his cups underneath your chin before he bends down, pulling you into a deep kiss. again, you return the favor, glissading your tongue against his. it tickles and tangos together, enjoying each other’s wet company. he grunts, reveling in the sweetened taste of his own cum that’s just residing inside your mouth. no shame, no shame at all. the kiss was much sloppier this time—toji pulls away to lick near the corner of your lips, capturing a few remnants of his own seed that tries to stream down from your mouth and below toward your chin. breaking away, he grabs your neck softly, giving you an intimating stare. “you,” the ghost murmurs, his eyes flickering towards your bed. “i wanna break you.”

“you’ll have to pay for that you kn-”

“don’t make me drag you, human.”

you let off a soft playful ‘oof’ once you’re faintly tossed on your own bed. his strength was out of this world— quite literally though,

you look at toji and he inches himself closer towards you. as he leans in for another warm kiss, his body presses up against yours. he starts to grind against you, the friction leaves a wave of fuzz in your ears that never seems to go away. cold glacial lips squashing against your own as you flick your tongue against his, moaning for more. as he’s claiming your mouth in such a rough way, you start to paw at his pants. you feel a simper tug against his lips as he makes out with you, feeling the weight of the bed collapse and shriek a bit in ponderous discomfort.

“taste so good,” he grouses, withdrawing his lips to nip chaste kisses near your neck. you moan, feeling him prop between your thighs. he then licks all against the hidden crevices of your collarbone. “ever fucked a ghost before?”

“usually i’m more into humans,” you pant, and he gives you a subtle eye roll. if you knew a ghost such as toji would look this good — perhaps you’d summon him a long time ago on that stupid link.

“really, oh,” he plays along, prying your legs open a bit to take a quick peek at what he was about to destroy. with low hooded eyes, toji grunts as he sees your soaked pussy all open and on display for him. a padded thumb of his runs down your puffy slit and your legs twitch slightly as a greeting response. “mhm, such a pretty cunt. tell me though,” he huffs, enveloping all five digits around his cock to give it two single pumps. he prods his leaky cockhead against your entrance, watching you writhe underneath him. “before you summoned me, were ya playin’ with her?”

her as in between your legs, your pussy,

for some reason, toji addressing your cunt as her made you throb profusely. you felt it. an annoying ring screams through your ears as you slump back against your bed, your ankles making an attempt to lock around him. “n- no.”

“y- yea,” he mimicks your little stutter. your mouth drops as you feel yourself starting to gape open for him the moment he starts delve his dick into your pussy. he was so big, you feel the curve of the head and it’s just voluntarily crooking inside of you. toji gives you a side eye with misty peripherals, watching as you make an attempt to hide your face within the crack of your elbow. “nah, girl. don’t hide that pretty face from me. i wanna see you while i stretch you out.”

you moan, feeling his frigid fingers peel your arm away and he’s got a full face view of you.

already, your toes started to center with feelings of pure numbness. his thick cock splits inside of you so good that it’s already got you whimpering out elongated syllables. your voice was a euphony, “oh my g-goddd,” you whimper out, grabbing ahold of his shoulders. toji falls into your chest, still easing his way into your accepting walls. it’s relatively hot inside, smoldering gummy walls of yours entrap him, holding him hostage. he sibilates out a single hiss as you’re still trying to adjust to his massive size. his sack hangs from the base down and you let off a lusty giggle, already cockdrunk. “s-so the rumor’s true that ghosts have big dicks, f-fuck you’re gonna split me open.”

“heh, oh? that’s a fact, not a rumor,” he playfully flicks your forehead. a hand of his then clasps around your thigh. he spreads it apart, sinking into you further. he’s so deep, halfway in that your stomach’s already seizing. it was his tip that made you feel everything at once. the girth he has, he makes sure you feel every inch, every part. toji’s filling every area of your orifice with his spectral shaft. “ugh, clampin’ around me so good,” and he presses a palm against your tummy. “feel me here, yeah?”

and you do, as his hand gingerly brushes against the outer skirts of your stomach, your lips part into an ‘o’ shape of surprise. “y- yesss, fuck. ‘s deep, toji.”

“fuck,” he groans, and you let off a cute astounded, ‘oh’ once you feel him fully plug you all the way in. it’s a popping noise that you’ll never forget. heavy balls of his creates a single thrust and you jolt all the way back. clawing at the backsides of his skin, you whimper out a sweet melodic hum. “pussy’s gonna get me addicted, girl.”

your legs lock and ensnare around toji’s slim waist as he starts up a pace—he’s slow and steady at first. slow and steady wins the race, but with a dick as big as his, you’re already losing. not so much physically, at least not yet.

just a few fathomless thrusts from the ghost and you were whipped, starving for more. hungry even.

perhaps if this was some sort of dream, you didn’t wanna wake up. it all felt to real to just be your imagination anyway,

his hits against you were just so good that it was brutal. toji’s got you laid against your back so he can stare right into your eyes. he’s panting, gawking openly as he feels you bare down on him. your dense walls squeeze around him before he’s starting up a more salacious tempo. you could barely even keep up. you whine, craning your neck to the left a bit — to the right, then to the left for the umpteenth time. your legs were already shuddering, your cunt feels so stuffed of his shaft that you’re already flumped against the mattress. not even before long, it’s stares to bounce and judder from the clumps of weight on top of it. you dig your teeth into toji’s shoulder, whimpering at how he repeatedly thwacks his tip against that forbidden g-spot. “t- toji, tojiiii,” you hiccup, cross eyed and doe-eyed.

he could listen to your voice all day, a tune he could forever hum.

for the nth time within seven seconds, your pussy squelches from the parching sensations of pleasure. you’re so wet, sopping so much that you put faucets to shame. toji feels your slick trying to snail its way all the way down to his base. “that’s it, mhm. fuck against me, girl. c’mon, yeah,” he shushes up against your ear, licking against your lobe. you shiver, his voice all deep with a slight hint of rasp in it. a raw moan grabs itself from the back of your throat and you feel a hand of his snakes its way towards your jouncing tits. toji groans—leaning in to suck against your neglected nipples, feverish breath ghosting against your sweet skin before you whine. “god, you taste so mmf, good.”

as he’s still jerking his sharp hips into you at full might, his tongue swirls around your pretty nubs, savoring it. another ear splitting ‘pop’ leaves his lips each time he breaks away from your mounds. “could eat you up.”

“f- fuck, ‘s good, toji. harder p-pleaseee,” you mewl out, his weight that hovers over you sends you shivers all throughout your spine and body. strained deep inhales escape from your heavy lungs as you feel his calloused fingertips dance against your skin. a big hand of toji’s caresses alongside the curvilinear juncture of your body, your pretty physique—taking in your humanly beauty. oh, a sight for sore eyes.

toji was almost positive he was addicted to you, he’s fucking you so deep that he makes it so easy for you to jerk away from from your attentions. he even has a scent to him. despite his phantom being, his aurora alone was just enticing. its strong. the musk infiltrates the insides of your flared up nostrils and you whine again. your whine was more of a choke, clinging onto his back, scraping your nails down his tense back muscles.

“f-fuck, squeezin’ around me so good, baby,” he groans, leafy eyes staring into yours the entire time. toji leans in to nip kisses everywhere on your face, near your neck, and right back to your chest again. your body, he could get used to this,

to you.

maybe humans weren’t all that bad,

toji’s hips were rude, the perfect way to describe it. it really knew no bounds, he knew no bounds.

your glossy eyes glance up at him and he’s got nothing but a sly smirk plastered on his face. you study his features as he’s plowing you deeply into your own bed—the bed creeks and creeks that it sounds like it’s hanging onto his final hinges.

as you’re gazing into his features, the first thing you notice was that scar.

he’s got a slanting, slashing scar that runs down near the right side of his mouth. surprisingly, it makes him ten times more attractive than he already was. as you’re trapped in your own thoughts again, he moves his face closer to you to kiss an alluring slope down the side of your neck. just a few minutes with you and he was already memorizing each particular spot of yours.

an adorable lewd expression marinated against your features as your pussy continues to slosh and squeak against his thickened cock. he’s so big inside of you, your tummy ends up extending a bit from his angles he’s hitting. toji never misses a spot though, he’s a precise man, a precise ghost,

you’re left stupid with your tongue visibly lolling out. he can’t help but chuckle.

“look at that tongue, mhm,” and he takes the opportunity to suck against the limp muscle. you whine, hugging his beefy body tightly as you suddenly feel agitated with the pure feeling of your arousal. pretty soon, you were getting close.

he was too—he could feel it, warm bodies against each other, he was gonna lose it.

toji’s mouth goes against your neck, exposing his pearly whites and he bares a single fang. he buries it into the crook of your neck again, adam’s apple bobbing out from each guttural moan that detaches from him.

“f-fuck fuck,” you sob out, your ankles securely locking around his hips as he’s making more haste. you let off a tiny whine, his teeth gently nibbling against your flavorsome flesh. you tasted so sweet, he craved you. crimson lips of his twitch before he pulls you into another kiss. this time, it’s more passionate. as his tongue explores the very depths of your mouth, his tempo was now relentless. flimsy arms of yours continue to flop due to your weak grip against his wide shoulders before he gently bites your bottom lip. “inside,” you huff, licking the edge of his scar. a faint purr comes from toji once you do that and it’s a bit cute. “wanna feel you from the inside.”

“careful,” he groans into your neck, pressing a palm onto your tummy again. “you might get possessed after this.”

you pause, giving him a furrowed eyebrow look and he only sneers at you.

“joking, ghost cum ‘s harmless, baby. i think..”

he was nothing but a mere tease, you roll your eyes before you babble over and over in his ear for him to shoot inside of you. with ease, he’s emitting out all kinds of moans from you. you’re so loud, he’s got sensitive ears so it makes his ears twitch. your voice though, he’s so drawn in to hearing every little whine that departures from the backs of your precious throat.

welts of pleasure surge through your body as your chest recoils against his. gnawing down on your lip, you spasm once it finally approaches.

it’s a wave, pouring into you all at once. the crash was unexpected. expect the unexpected, they say.

your legs felt zealously numb, your eyes dramatically roll back as your high finally comes. it’s so much, you could still feel your cunt gaping. a whiney grunt cuts out of your throat before a squeal shortly follows. waves and waves of pleasure make way for you, pupils twinkling with stars, you were experiencing pure ecstasy.

shortly afterward, toji’s comes and when he cums, it’s a lot. he spurts into you in volumes, it dumps into you so good that you’re left twitching. suddenly, you grow quiet from the way his palm swats over your mouth. “listen to it with me. saved so much for you.”

and his words were slow, his breaths were slow, everything was ploddingly slow.

you don’t think you’ve ever felt more full in your life, your cunt constricts one more time around his length before you let off a dry whimper. “mmm,” you inhale a candied breath, he’s still buried balls deep. his hilt thrashes against your sodden entrance gently before he pulls out, staring at the mess. such goopy amounts of cum pour out of your slit, he brings two fingers to peel back against your sloppy folds. you’re covering him with your slick, viridescent eyes of his peer down to see the head of his cock still oozing out with gluey white masses of seed. “toji..”

“atta girl,” he whispers, hearing the little falter in your voice.

so cute,

he’s filled you up to the brim and that was only just the beginning. “i know. i kn—” and he pauses, being cut off as he feels you bedaub his sensitive tip against your greedy cunt. you move it against your opening slit, watching as it tries to swallow it hole before you pull it back outs you’re still oozing and his eyes flicker to white for a second. “fuuuck, ‘m still sensitive girl.” and he’s the one to let off a whine this time. toji’s weight still hangs against you before you drag him into a kiss while hearing his deprived whimpers feed into your mouth. jet black strands of his tickle against your forehead as he grinds his hips against you, already weak for you. the epitome of pussy drunk. whatever spell you had, he wanted to know what it was. perhaps your pussy was a curse he wasn’t aware of.

your taste was just too tasteful. with the way you linger on his tongue like a treat, he only wanted more. toji pulls away after a while, shaft still halfway into you—idle, not moving a single inch. he’s buried but remains still. a shimmery concoction of spit leaves each lips and toji pants as your lips stray away from his. toji’s lungs feel like they were on fire, each breath he takes feels like it’s being snatched away.

“you,” he exhales, a thumb curling underneath your chin. with a needy look, the ghost’s confidence throws itself out the window and his bottom lip quavers a bit. he pants, making you switch positions and he pats his lap, pouting. “you, on top of me. i- i want more of you. please.”

5K notes · View notes

rafey-baby · 6 months ago

Text

sweet treat 2

construction worker!rafe who spends his days ‘lifting heavy stuff and building shit’ and driving shy!reader home, shows up on her doorstep in the middle of the night...

c/w: fluff, smut: slight somnophilia, dry humping, p-in-v, 18+ mdni!

wc: 2.7k

so this story was supposed to be just a small drabble consisting of a few silly sentences but then i got a bit carried away..

series masterlist

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

It’s past midnight when her doorbell rings, making her brows furrow. She throws the fluffy covers away, immediately yearning for the warmth of them as she pads her bare feet along the chilly hardwood floors of her apartment.

No one has ever been at her door this late, which makes her hesitate. Maybe it’s just her neighbor asking for sugar, she tries to reason, as if the retired elderly lady living next door would even be up this late. For all she knows, it could be a criminal who’s escaped prison, holding a bloody knife at her.

Curiosity ends up getting the best of her (as always) when she gingerly opens the door, mentally preparing to face a serial killer.

However, all her worries wash away like pollen under rain when she realizes it’s Rafe standing tall before her.

“Oh, hi. What are you— what are you doing here?” a surprised look paints over her countenance.

“You forgot this in my car, thought you might want it back,” he smiles, holding out a phone to her, the pale yellow case making her realize it’s her phone. She almost doesn’t recognize it, since it appears so tiny in his massive paw, almost like a miniature version of the device she’s grown accustomed to.

“Oh my god, I was looking everywhere for it, thought I was gonna have to buy a new one,” she takes it from him, a grateful smile etching her features.

“Yeah, couldn’t exactly call,” he shakes his head at his terrible attempt at a joke.

A delighted giggle escapes her throat, nonetheless, eyes crinkling and teeth poking out; forcing the corners of his mouth to lift up as well as he finally takes in her appearance; a worn-out t-shirt a few sizes too big and…well, that’s it.

She’s not wearing anything else and he’s trying his hardest not to stare at her plush thighs, or the way the hem of the shirt slightly climbs up, revealing even more skin as she rakes a hand through a messy head of hair.

She swallows nervously under his attention.

Unfortunately for the both of them, he never ended up doing anything when she came over to his place last week and had him cook for her. He just felt so bad about initiating something like that when she kept yawning through forkfuls of pasta, eyes barely staying open as she complained about her limbs aching and how she was so exhausted she could sleep for an entire week after the particularly long shift she’d had.

Which is why he simply drove her home after their late-night dinner and wished her a good night with a heavy hand on her shoulder before letting her get some much needed rest, telling himself he could be patient.

However, she’s not making it very easy for him when there’s only one piece of clothing covering her at the moment— she looks so sleepy and pretty he has half the mind to pick her up in his arms right now and slump down on her bed, crawl under crisp sheets and feel her lungs expand against his chest.

“Uh, sorry, did I wake you?” he asks, suddenly worried he’s disturbed her serene slumber.

“No, no. I mean, I was in bed but couldn’t really sleep so…” she trails off, desperately trying to come up with something to make him stay a bit longer; finding immense comfort in his assured presence.

“Um, do you— do you want to come in? I could make you some tea or something?” she clumsily offers, not wanting him to go just yet.

His brows raise in surprise because she’s being uncharacteristically bold, making his mouth twist in amusement.

“Actually, forget I said anything, you’re probably really tired and jus’ wanna go home, sorry, don’t know why I even—” she scrambles to correct herself, and now that sounds more like the girl Rafe’s grown accustomed to.

“Nah, of course I’ll come in,” he cuts her off, stepping past the threshold before taking a look around her cozy home; picturesque paintings fixed on the cream-colored walls and leafy plants adding greenery to the small space. It’s cute, he thinks.

She sets a steaming mug in front of him when he takes a seat around the kitchen table. And when she sits down on a chair next to him, he can’t help but stare at the way the bottom of her shirt rides up, revealing the tops of her thighs and allowing for the flimsy material of her panties to peek out.

He clears his throat.

“You, uh, you have trouble sleeping a lot?” he tries to focus on something else, anything else while taking a quick sip of the searing liquid; nearly burning his tongue in the process.

“Yeah…sometimes it’s jus’ kinda hard to shut my brain off after spending all day at the cafe. Like I try to close my eyes, but then the loud voices of customers and the clinking of plates keep replaying in my head and suddenly m’wide awake, you know?”

“Is there anything that helps?” he prods.

“Um, I don’t know, I guess jus’ trying to think of something else or talking with someone else,” she mumbles out.

“Oh yeah? So, what you’re sayin’ is that you’re just usin’ me right now in order to fall asleep?” he teases, grinning when he manages to drag out another giggle from her.

“Guess I am,” her eyes glimmer like little stars when she blinks up at him.

“Should I feel offended right now?” he jokingly huffs.

“No, you should feel flattered, I don’t invite just anyone into my home at almost 1 am, just so you know.”

He thinks he likes this side of her, all playful and sleepy; a lot less reserved than her usual fully rested and overly conscious self, more carefree. Maybe that’s the reason he lets the next words escape his tongue.

“You, uh, you into cuddling?” he asks, noticing how her eyes round out in surprise.

“Uh— I mean, probably if I had someone to cuddle with, but I don’t so…” she drifts off, not sure how to respond.

“Wanna cuddle with me?” he says it so nonchalantly, and she doesn’t understand how he’s so indifferent about this whole situation when she feels almost dizzy; dazed mind reeling and her vivid heart tingling in her ribcage.

“You, um…you want to? But wouldn’t it be weird?”

“Why the fuck would it be weird? I mean, we’re friends, right?” his brows crease.

“Yes, of course we are, I just—”

“Look, all m’sayin’ is that it might help you sleep, yeah? Having somethin’ else to focus on ‘n shit,” he reasons, making her realize she’s totally overthinking this when he’s simply trying to help.

“You’re right, yeah, we should do that then,” she agrees before swiftly getting up on wobbly feet—nearly falling face first on the ground, if not for his strong grip on her waist steadying her, drawing a faint gasp from the back of her throat at the sudden proximity.

“Easy there, sweetheart,” he chuckles, finding her eagerness to get into bed with him rather amusing.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, a raspberry hue dusting over her cheeks.

And that’s how they end up tangled in each other under her soft sheets, his beefy arms wrapped tightly around her middle— caging her in with mindless fingers toying with the hem of her shirt. His sturdy chest rises and falls against her back in tandem with his steady breaths, pacifying her; coaxing her heavy lids to flutter shut.

“You good?” he murmurs into her hair.

“Mhm,” she blissfully hums, letting out a content exhale because he’s so warm and big— making her feel so secure and safe she thinks she wouldn’t mind doing this again.

Soon, her mind begins to topple over the edge of reality, plummeting into oblivion; a far away dreamland where everything is upside down and the ether is evermore the shade of fluffy cotton candy.

‘Sweet dreams’ is the last thing her misty awareness grasps onto before she’s in the tender embrace of a place where the sand consists of stardust and ecstasy.

- - - - - - - - - - -

She’s lethargic in her movements when she stirs from the abstruse blankness she seems to have lost herself in with Rafe’s heavy arm is draped over her waist, trapping her body into his.

The lines of her cerebrum are blurred and she’s not sure what woke her up because it’s still murky in her unlit bedroom— the pale moonlight gleaming through the slots of her curtains the only beacon illuminating the space.

Then, she feels it; something poking her from behind, pressing against her ass.

There’s a crinkle in her brow until her eyes widen in realization. He’s hard.

Rafe is hard and she can practically feel the culprit of his excitement since he’s only wearing a pair of boxers, having complained about getting all too hot during the night to wear anything more.

She swallows.

What is she supposed to do?

She shifts against him, trying to untangle her limbs from his. However, her attempt is proved fruitless when instead of unchaining her, he lets out a low rumble— his grip only tightening around her smaller form.

“Rafe?” she calls out.

No response.

“Rafe? Wake up.”

Still nothing.

She can feel his heavy breathing against her neck—bigger hands pawing at her hips every now and then and trying to pull her closer, as if they’re not already effectively glued together, leaving her no space to move.

She’s already beginning to grow sticky between her thighs when he drags her against his cock again; seemingly stuck in some sort of a stupor.

She can’t help but let out a faint mewl when her clit throbs, pestering for more friction since the soft fabric of her underwear is not even close to enough, more or less torturing her with the its cottony graze.

And that’s when Rafe finally stirs, the weight of his arm loosening like a tight knot unfurling, finally allowing for her lungs to greedily suck in the air of the quiet room.

“Shit— sorry, my bad,” his tone is gravelly, and she could swear some sort of birds begin flapping their wings in her tummy, jabbing at her insides in response.

However, he doesn’t pull away like she half expects.

“It’s…uh— it’s okay. I mean…no worries, it happens,” she rambles with heated cheeks because what the fuck is she supposed to say to that?

“Nah, s’fully my fault, jus’ had this, uh, nice dream,” he admits, voice coarse.

“Oh. What was it about?” she inquires with a yawn, perhaps slightly too curious for her own good.

“You wanna know?” his brows raise.

She manages a hum.

“Well, there was this, uh, real pretty girl…‘n she had me in her mouth ‘n was lettin’ me do whatever I wanted,” he murmurs, a heady tone overlaying his response.

“Oh.” She tries to appear indifferent, even if there’s a pitiful sprout of jealousy threatening to blossom in the pit of her stomach.

He lets out a breathy chuckle. “You’re silly sometimes, you know?”

He was practically dry-humping her just now, was he not? Why would he be dreaming about another girl when he’s got her right here?

“So, what else happened?”

“What else? Okay, then she, uh, let me do this,” he confesses at the same time as he grabs at her hips again before pushing against her, earning a whimper when she can feel how big he is through the thin material of her underwear.

“Rafe…what’re you doing?” she asks through a whine— his blunt nails denting the exposed skin of her thighs.

“Got no idea what you’re doin’ to me, do you?”

“I— what are you…what’re you talking about?” her brain is foggy, unable to think straight when he’s so close. However, he doesn’t respond, merely continues the retelling of his dream.

“Then I grabbed her like this,” he lifts her on top of him in one smooth motion, as if she weighs nothing more than a piece of paper— shuffling her around until she’s straddling him, properly sitting on top of his cock.

Somewhere along the way, her inhale gets stuck in her throat, mindlessly moving her achy cunt over him and causing him to let out a heartfelt grunt.

“Needy little thing likes this, huh?” he helps her find some relief by grappling at her hips and dragging her over his cock— filthy groans escaping his mouth when he feels her wetness saturating the two layers of cotton between them.

“Rafe, can you…”

“Can I what, hm? Play with you a little?” he says while already slipping a hand in her panties; petting at her puffy clit, earning a surprised moan from her before she lifts up the hem of her shirt for a better view.

“Didn’t know you were such a dirty girl. Gettin’ real fuckin’ wet from me just bein’ close to you, huh?” his thumb rubs lazy circles over her sensitive button, making her cry out as she presses down harder against his cock.

“Shit, gonna come in my fuckin’ pants if you keep doin’ that…you wanna know what else was in m’dream?”

She nods, frantic.

“Pushed this little piece of fabric here to the side,” he says as he plucks at her underwear, doing just that. “And then, did this,” he mumbles out as he takes himself out, causing her eyes to round out when she looks down at it in his palm, mesmerized. He thuds the head on her clit— one, two, three times, and then he’s smearing it over her sticky folds, painting it up and down her soaked cunt.

“Rafe…” she whines, desperate to feel him inside her. Unfortunately for her, he’s feeling a little mean; pressing just the tip inside her tight hole, slowly pushing in and out and turning her into a whimpering mess.

The hydrangea blue of his eyes is locked to where they connect, fascinated. “Fuck, sweetheart, does that feel nice?” he asks, thumbing over her swollen bud, tucking his cock in a little deeper and forcing a loud noise to leave her throat.

“Feels so good, Rafe, think m’gonna…” she trails off, lids heavy as she stretches around him.

“You gonna come already?” he chuckles, amusement coating his features while he keeps nudging his dick about halfway in and then out, never fully plunging it inside.

“You feel so…can’t— can’t hold it,” watery droplets gather in the corners of her eyes, catching to her lashes as her teary eyes look into larimar and she keeps rolling her hips against him, chasing after a release.

“Go on then, let me feel you soak my cock, yeah?” he encourages, and she doesn’t need to be told twice before she’s crying out and throbbing around him, hips stuttering as her cunt pulses and she’s unspooling on top of him.

“There you go, fuckin’ give it to me,” he grunts, and all of a sudden, he feels his own orgasm approaching—rolling down a hill like a landslide. She’s squeezing around him so tight, he can’t help but thrust his hips into her, a guttural moan leaving him when he finally stuffs his cock inside her, to the hilt.

Then, he’s stilling inside her and groaning out when his cum gushes out from his drippy tip, coating her gummy walls in white, filling her to the brim— making her feel so full.

There’s so much of it, to the point where the sticky substance begins to seep out from where they’re connected as they both pant, trying to even out their breathing.

She turns into something mellow in his arms, slumping down against him and burying her face in his neck as he draws sluggish circles on her back, calming her down with tender words spoken in gentle murmurs.

She thinks she could die happy right now.

“Did so good for me, shit, should do this more often, yeah?” he says with a sleepy tinge.

And she’s completely out of it; head as empty as ever and merely managing a hum of agreement before she’s tumbling down a slippery slide right back into a nebulous slumber.

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prythiansprincess · 4 months ago

Text

brother's bsf! mattheo who you've had a crush on for years.

but he's only ever seen you as theo's little sister (or so he says).

it doesn't matter that you and theo are only a year apart. your older brother is extremely protective of you and so are the rest of his friends — especially mattheo.

you grew up around the boys, which was a blessing and a curse in and of itself. on one hand, you grew super close to mattheo, but on the other hand, he's seen you through your awkward braces and pigtails phase.

lately though, brother's bsf! mattheo starts to notice you. really notice you.

suddenly, you didn't seem so little to him anymore.

but over the years, your infatuation with your brother's best friend calmed to attraction instead. you've come to accept that while mattheo would always be your first crush, that's all it would really ever amount to. a harmless little childhood crush.

thanks to theo, you hadn't gotten much of a chance to date when you were younger, but now that you were starting uni with the rest of the boys, you were determined to push those silly little feelings for mattheo away and start putting yourself out there.

granted, you had a lot to learn given your sheltered upbringing.

boys had taken a liking to you. why wouldn't they? you're pretty, you're smart, and you're the perfect combination of sweet and sassy, but you were also extremely naïve.

brother's bsf! mattheo had to protect you.

it was his responsibility.

theo trusted him to keep an eye on you. so he did.

・❥・ brother's bsf! mattheo glares at any boy that dares to look at you.

・❥・ brother's bsf! mattheo revs his motorcycle and comes in hot when he sees anyone talking to you, handing you the pink helmet he keeps on him at all times without a single word.

・❥・ brother's bsf! mattheo gives you rides to your dorm and takes you out for ice cream after a particularly hard exam.

it's clear that mattheo has a soft spot for you. no matter how vehemently he denies it.

until the night that everything changed.

it was a chilly friday evening when you happily skipped out of your dorm building, eager to attend your first frat party.

the cute boy in your history class asked you to come with him and you immediately said yes despite not knowing what to expect. it seemed fun and exciting and a little bit dangerous.

as luck would have it, you ran into none other than mattheo on your way out. his sleek black motorcycle was parked on the curb, smoke wafting from his lips as he took a lazy drag of his cigarette. leaning against his bike, mattheo raised a brow as you strutted onto the sidewalk.

"where do you think you're going, nott?"

"to a party, matty."

"with who?"

"a friend."

mattheo narrows his eyes at you. "I know all your friends and they're busy tonight. so which friend is it?"

you sigh in frustration. "just a friend from class. god, you sound like theo right now."

"you're not going anywhere wearing that."

"what's wrong with my dress?"

you smoothed down the front of your red minidress self-consciously, shying away from mattheo's intense gaze. his chocolate brown eyes scanned your body, the heat of his stare dragging along your skin.

"for starters, that dress barely covers anything and knowing you, you'll be cold within the first few minutes."

"I'll be fine, mattheo. I'm a big girl, I can take care of myself."

mattheo crosses his arms, huffing at your statement. "so you told theo where you're headed off to tonight?"

you shrugged. "what my brother doesn't know won't hurt him."

"yes, but he might hurt anyone stupid enough to ogle you in that dress. as will I. maybe I should tell him what his baby sister is up to. better yet, maybe I should come with you to this party, hm?"

"no please," you pleaded. "I just want one night where I'm not being treated like a little kid. can you give me that, matty? please?"

you flashed your best puppy dog eyes at him, knowing that he couldn't possibly resist when you asked so nicely.

mattheo considers it for a moment before sighing in defeat. "fine, princess. but text me when you get there and call me when you're home. don't even think about turning your location off or else I'll send a brigade after you."

"yes sir."

"good girl."

before brother's bsf! mattheo could think better of it, you kiss his cheek and promise to call him later that night.

brother's bsf! mattheo watches you strut away in your tight little dress with a soft smile on his face, fully knowing that you had him wrapped around your finger.

by the time you arrive at the party, it's in full swing. music is blaring, drinks are flowing, and the frat house is packed to the brim with people.

you send a quick text to mattheo to let him know you've arrived before spotting aiden.

clearly, your date was already a few drinks in. he greets you with a lingering hug before handing you a red cup. "cheers, y/n."

"cheers," you respond, clinking your cup against his and taking a generous swig. the liquor burns your throat and aiden chuckles as you try to hide your wincing.

still, it does the job.

you loosen up after a few sips. aiden introduces you to his friends and you smile politely, trying not to squirm out of his hold as he pulls you in by the waist.

it's fine, he's just keeping you close in such a packed crowd. he doesn't mean any harm by it.

at least that's what you told yourself.

until aiden tries to make a move on you in the middle of the dance floor. you already told him that you didn't want to dance, but he insisted.

you could smell the liquor on his breath as he grabbed your hips, moving them along to the rhythm of the song. you tried to put some distance between you, but aiden didn't seem deterred by it. in fact, his wandering hands slide down to your lower back until they're planted firmly on your ass. you attempted to pry them away, but he slurred "relax" into your ear before giving your ass a squeeze.

that was the tipping point for you.

with all your strength, you shoved aiden off while he cursed after you. the lights were blinding as you made your way through the crowd, fleeing to the bathroom.

you had brother's bsf! mattheo's number dialed before you even closed the door.

surprisingly, he picks up on the first ring.

"hi matty, are you — are you busy right now?"

"I'm with the boys. how'd the party go, princess?"

"um, I'm still here and I just really want to go home."

you hear shuffling on the other end. presumably mattheo finding somewhere more private to speak with you. "I thought your friend was your ride home?"

"well, aiden's drunk and he's been getting a little handsy the whole night so I don't really feel safe going home with him."

"what?" mattheo hisses. "you didn't tell me you were with a guy. I never would've let you go off alone with some random prick."

"please don't be mad, matty. I just wanted to have fun without worring about my brother hovering over my shoulder. don't tell theo, please. I'll — I'll figure it out. I'll find another ride."

"like hell you are! drop your location. the boys and I are coming."

"no, please. I don't want this to be a whole thing. if theo finds out, he'll never let me out of his sight again."

you could feel mattheo grappling with the situation. part of him wanted to tell his best mate, but all he truly cared about was getting to you as quickly as he could. after a few moments, he sighs. "fine, I won't tell your brother, but I'm still coming to get you. stay where you are, princess and don't hang up the phone. I'm on my way, okay?"

"you really don't have to —"

the argument dies in your throat when you hear the sound of mattheo's motorcycle starting up. he wasn't going to let you talk him out of this. mattheo was coming, whether you wanted him to or not.

"too late. be a good girl and stay on the line with me, sweetheart. I'm coming for you."

brother's bsf! mattheo pays no mind to the boys as they joke about him meeting up with a booty call.

the only thing that matters to him is getting to you.

brother's bsf! mattheo weaves through campus, revving and racing his motorcycle as fast as it can possibly go.

it's too noisy to talk while he rides, but he stays on the line anyways, listening through one earphone as you quietly hum to help calm yourself. mattheo smiles to himself. it's one of his favorite quirk of yours. half of the time, you don't even notice you're doing it. but he does. he notices everything about you.

mere minutes have passed since you first called him, but it feels like an eternity to mattheo when he finally pulls up to the decrepit frat house at the edge of campus.

mattheo parks his motorcycle on the curb, glaring at the prying eyes trained on him. it's not every day that the mattheo riddle, resident bad boy pulls up to a party looking like he's absolutely ready to kill someone with his bare hands.

he has half a mind to burst into the bloody house and pummel that stupid prick for daring to touch you, but the sight of you approaching stops him cold.

you look flustered and fearful, lower lip trembling as you spill out into the sidewalk. mattheo instantly sees red. he vows to make that motherfucker pay for this.

"where is he?"

"mattheo —"

"where. the. fuck. is. he?"

"probably somewhere inside drunk off his arse. I don't know and I don't care. can we please just go?"

despite his anger, you don't balk from him. in fact, you've got both hands pressed firmly against his chest to hold him back.

brother's bsf! mattheo grips your hips, your noses pressing together as he carefully inspects you. making sure you were alright is the only thing keeping him from committing violence.

"tell me where he is."

though mattheo's words are tinged with fury, his tone remains soft and sweet. his voice is nothing but a whisper because even at his angriest, mattheo would never raise his voice at you.

“give me a name, sweetheart. just give me his name."

"it's fine, matty. he's not worth the trouble."

“he left you alone, at a party where you don’t know anyone, got too drunk even though he knows he’s your ride home and got handsy with you even though you weren’t into it. give me one good reason why I shouldn’t fuck him up right now?”

“I can handle him later. can we please just go home? I'm tired and I just want to be in bed now.”

the cold air makes you shiver as you mentally curse yourself for picking such a skimpy outfit when hours ago you felt foolishly confident in your dress.

brother's bsf! mattheo softens when he sees you trembling. without a word, he takes off his jacket and drapes it over your shoulders. the scent of amber and cinnamon envelopes you all at once, lulling you into a calmer state.

"okay, princess. let me take you home."

once mattheo secures the baby pink helmet over your head, he tells you to hang on tight before taking off.

you hug his midsection, resting your chin on his shoulder as mattheo drives slow through the sprawling campus. the streets are empty, but he drags out the ride, wanting to spend as much time with you as possible.

at the strike of midnight, the two of you finally reach your dorm.

although you insist that you're fine, brother's bsf! mattheo walks you all the way up to your door.

the fluorescent lights flicker overhead as you shift your weight form one foot to the other, suddenly feeling shy.

"thanks for picking me up, matty."

"of course, y/n. you know I'd do anything if you're the one asking."

you smile, trying your hardest to hide the blush on your cheeks. "I hope I didn't ruin your night."

mattheo shrugs. "not at all. before you called, I was watching berkshire stuff marshmallows down his throat while the boys cheered him on. trust me, you weren't interrupting anything important."

"still. I appreciate you coming to my rescue and not ratting me out to my brother."

mattheo smiles. "it's our little secret, princess."

the double meaning of the words causes tension between you and the pull that you've always felt towards mattheo feels stronger than ever, tugging you closer.

maybe tonight is the night that you finally feel brave enough to fall.

"goodnight, matty."

brother's bsf! mattheo watches as you get on your tiptoes to kiss his cheek like you always do. except this time, you lean in for a proper kiss.

as soon as mattheo's lips touch yours, you feel your entire body erupt like fireworks. it's everything you imagined it to be and more. his lips are soft against yours, supple and inviting. the kiss takes him by surprise, but once he realizes what's happening, he groans into your mouth, the sound of it filled with need.

dazed and confused, you look up as mattheo pulls away, his big brown eyes scanning your face. "we shouldn't do this, princess."

despite his words, mattheo's hand rests itself on your hip, his thumb brushing gentle circles against your exposed skin. you gulp as he stares at you, your lips brushing, your bodies gravitating towards each other no matter how hard you try to fight the pull.

"is it because of my brother?"

"no," mattheo growls. "we shouldn't do this because I don't know if I'll be able to stop once we start."

"I don't want you to stop, mattheo."

as soon as the words leave your lips, mattheo is kissing you again, and this time, he isn't holding back. you cling onto his shirt as he kisses you hard, the force of it hitting you all at once. his fingers dig into your hips as you bend at the waist, desperately kissing back.

his head is reeling and his heart is pounding. mattheo is drowning in your taste, your touch, your smell. you're every drug rolled into one; seductive and sinful. he's addicted and he can't get enough.

brother's bsf! mattheo doesn't want to pull away. he wants to stay here and live in this moment forever, but he knows that if he does, he'll end up taking everything.

foreheads pressed together, mattheo leans in for one last kiss. this one is sweet and gentle, enough to satiate him for the moment.

"sleep tight, princess. I'll see you in the morning."

"see you in the morning, matty."

brother's bsf! mattheo can't help but take one last look at you, a soft smile on his face when he sees your flushed cheeks and kiss bitten lips.

in that moment, he knows he's fucked. you're his best mate's little sister. he shouldn't have kissed you. he shouldn't feel this way for you. he should've stopped before it was too late, but you were both way past that now.

now that he's had you, he won't want anything else. it's you he'll always crave. it's you he'll always long for. and he doesn't give a fuck what it takes to get you.

brother's bsf! mattheo won't stop until you're his and his alone. *✧･ﾟ:*

#mattheo on a motorcycle might actually put me in a coma #mattheo riddle #mattheo riddle smut #mattheo riddle x reader #mattheo riddle x you #mattheo riddle fluff #mattheo riddle imagine

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earthtooz · 1 year ago

Note

Wrio the slay calling reading clingy so reader sleeps on couch …😊 thx

x : DISTANCE :*+ﾟ

in which: you overhear wriothesley calling your affection too much, so you respect his wishes and give him some space. yet, why does he not seem like it?

warnings: 5.6k words (why did it get so long), hurt/comfort, gn!reader and wriothesley are married, pet names, no spoilers but set in canon, misunderstandings and miscommunication af, slowburn??, you might tug your hair out at some parts lol sorry, fluff with angst but happy ending, it gets emotional.

a/n: okay this was definitely not my favourite piece, i was experimenting with writing styles and writing in an omnipresent pov... so sorry if it feels clunky at some bits. overall, i'm pretty happy! also sorry for not sticking to the original prompt

Perhaps today was a bad time, you think as you leave the Fortress of Meropide, anxiety churning in your stomach and doubt weighing on your mind. Despite Fontaine’s sunrays shining brightly upon you, you feel anything but warm.

What started as a visit to your husband with kind, wholesome intentions of delivering some lunch to him on your day off ended with a visit that left you riddled with questions. Coming at a time when he was in a meeting nearing its end, you didn’t even get the chance to speak to him, yet his words rattled around your head, replaying like a broken disc.

“How are you and your spouse?” A rich voice echoes from his office, door slightly ajar signifying that whatever discussion was happening within was coming to an end.

“Y/n and I? We’re amazing, thank you,” Wriothesley answers. “I’m always happiest whenever I’m with Y/n.”

The company, who you have realised is Monsieur Neuvillette, responds. “That’s good to hear.”

“Although, Y/n has been quite… affectionate recently, to the point that it’s borderlining too much-”

The conversation is drowned out by a ring of an alarm on Wriothesley’s desk and the atmosphere from his office suddenly grows in tension. The voice of the two men turn from relaxed to alarmed in a matter of seconds, and that is when you decide it is probably time to take your leave, lest you intrude on whatever emergency has happened.

Dropping the lunch you brought for Wriothesley at reception, even the receptionist was confused by how quick your visit was since they typically lasted for an hour- even longer since Wriothesley likes to push the amount of time he gets with you. They don’t question it, though, merely nodding in understanding when you tell them to drop it off for him on your behalf.

Has Wriothesley always thought of your affection as too much? If it was overwhelming him, why didn’t he tell you? And why Neuvillette, the Chief Justice of Fontaine, of all people? You understood the nature of their relationship- how they both tend to confine in each other with whatever they are troubled by, but why couldn’t your husband come to you about this directly? You made an oath on your wedding day to be fully honest with each other and to never hide anything. Where did that promise go?

Arriving home with a heavy heart, you immediately flop onto the couch, arm covering your eyes as tears sting the corners of your eyes. Perhaps it’s time you lessen your displays of physical affection before you drive the love of your life away.

Wriothesley, looking down at the contents of your boxed lunch, feels his heart warm in his chest at your display of care. How fortunate he is to have someone like you, he thinks before eating, satisfying his hungry stomach that has been aching for food since half an hour ago. He wonders why you didn’t see him personally and dropped it off instead, he would have liked to eat with you beside him.

Whatever the reason, he’ll make sure to drop by your favourite bakery to purchase some conch madeleines as a thank you.

When he returns home later in the evening, you’re asleep on the couch, curled up with only a book on your chest to protect you from the chilly air seeping into the house. Wriothesley quickly lays his coat over you, bookmarking the page you were at before retreating to change into more relaxing clothes. You still have not roused when he returns and as much as it pains him to disturb you, he doesn’t want you napping too late lest it disturbs your sleep schedule.

“Y/n?” He gently shakes you. Slowly, you come to wakefulness, eyes fluttering open as you gaze up at your husband.

“Wriothesley? You’re home?” You murmur, rubbing your eyes whilst slowly sitting up. “What time is it?”

“Nearing six in the evening.”

“Oh my! I didn’t mean to sleep that long! I’ll go get dinner ready, you should rest, you must have had a long day-”

Silencing you with a warm kiss to your forehead, you don’t melt into it like you usually would, his words from earlier slamming back into you like a brick. He doesn’t notice the way you tense, merely brushing your hair away from your forehead.

“Don’t worry about dinner, I’ll cook,” Wriothesley offers, grabbing something he left on the table behind him. “Have some madeleines I bought for you whilst you wait.”

He places a bag of the baked goods in your hands and you smile at him, lips chapped and eyes still drowsy, yet Wriothesley thinks you’re the most beautiful being to ever exist.

“Thank you,” you murmur.

“I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.” The dark-haired leaves you with another kiss to your temple before turning around to go into the kitchen. However, you stop him with a tug on his wrist which you drop almost immediately when he turns around, acting as if his skin was an open flame that licked you.

“Darling, you have a sticker on your arm.” You reach up to grab the piece of adhesive, ripping it off him in one smooth motion.

“Those melusines,” he murmurs, rolling his eyes with a hint of a smile tugging at his lips. For how much Wriothesley scolds them, he cannot bring himself to actually get mad at them, letting the little creatures play pranks instead of reprimanding them.

“I’m surprised they keep getting by you. Maybe you need to sharpen your instincts.”

“Quiet, you,” there’s no bite to his words.

“They put a little crab on you,” you giggle. “Must be going through an ocean-themed sticker book. You had a little shell on you yesterday.”

“I did? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I find it funny.”

He sits down beside you, dinner momentarily forgotten. “Do you now?” The dark-haired murmurs. “Turns out my own spouse is against me also.”

“If it brings me amusement, why not let the melusines play their pranks a little longer?”

“You are an awful influence,” Wriothesley winds his arms around your torso, pushing you down into the pillows of the couch. There, you almost sink into him, lured by the warmth of his embrace, but the memory of what you overheard sinks into your gut like an icicle, and your smile fades.

You pat his shoulders in surrender. “Shouldn’t you be working on dinner, dear? It’s already quite late.” You pray he doesn’t notice the way you have suddenly altered the mood, drying the playful atmosphere.

If he does notice, he doesn’t comment on it, getting up with a groan before retreating into the kitchen.

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

There’s a whistle from the doorway to your bedroom, low and appreciative, and the culprit is no one other than Wriothesley. He walks towards you, draping himself over your figure sat in front of the mirror. “Where are you going tonight?”

“Clorinde and I are going to dinner together,” you tell him nonchalantly, as if all of his weight wasn’t on your shoulders right now.

He pouts. “When will you be home?”

“Not too late, that’s for sure. We’re meeting at the other side of the Court of Fontaine, though.”

“An evening without my love, whatever shall I do?”

“You’ll live,” you smile before raising a necklace up to him. “Help me put this on?”

With a huff, he raises himself off your back and gently takes the jewellery from your hands, careful with the jewels that adorn it. His cold touch grazes against your exposed skin, sending shivers down your spine as he successfully clasps it together. When you meet his gaze in the mirror, it’s full of adoration and admiration, and you have to busy yourself with your hair lest it flusters you too much.

Standing up, you swiftly walk out of the bedroom and towards the front door. Wriothesley trails behind you without much thought. “I’ll get going now before I’m too late.”

“Do you need me to accompany you there?”

“It’s alright, thank you for offering.” Disappointment floods him like an ocean as he watches you put on your shoes. With one final fidget of your clothes, you deem yourself presentable and turn to him. “See you tonight, darling-”

“-Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What?” Your eyes widen in alarm as you begin frantically patting yourself down. “I brought my wallet, keys? They’re here, what am I forgetting?”

Wriothesley pretends like your cluelessness doesn’t hurt more than it actually does. He taps his cheek. “A kiss.”

“Oh, of course. How could I be so careless?” you laugh, the corners of your eyes scrunching with delight. Wriothesley has a remark resting on the tip of his tongue but it quickly dies when you step forward, anchoring your hand on his chin before you press a kiss to his cheek; to both cheeks for good measure.

“Love you,” you murmur when parting.

The desire to keep you home is a burning one, and pleads of ‘stay’ threaten to spill from his mouth. There is nothing more he wants than to be in your arms, to cling to you until the weekend is over in the blink of an eye, but you are your own person, and no matter how needy he is, Wriothesley should not stand in the way of your fun.

“I love you more,” he sighs, holding open the front door for you. “Be back soon.”

“I’ll try. Bye dear!” You blow him a kiss before walking out of your garden.

He watches you leave with a heart heavy with longing, closing the front door once you’re out of sight and tries to sigh the feeling of emptiness away.

Later that night, Wriothesley greets you the second he hears the front door being unlocked, urgent strides allowing him to turn the corner just as you open the door, looking as pristine as you did when you left. There’s a small, tired smile on your face, but you look happy, blissful expression brightening when you see him.

“Hello, love,” you say, slipping your shoes off.

“Welcome back,” he says, embracing you with one, muscular arm whilst pulling you in for a kiss. Your hands unusually fly up to hold his shoulders and Wriothesley thinks he’s imagining the way you push him slightly, as if trying to get him out of your personal space. Yet your grasp on him was so tight, creating temporary divots in his skin that he doesn’t really know what you’re trying to do.

Why are you trying to push him away in the first place? The thought of you not wanting him near is upsetting enough to make him unknowingly tighten his grip around you, causing you to stumble into him from the momentum.

You look up at him, shocked whilst he gazes down at you with a storm of terror gathering in his eyes. For the first time since the two of you got married all those years ago, a rift forms.

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Whatever occurred that night isn’t a topic of conversation, ever. The two of you retreated to bed after a quick conversation of how your evenings were before devolving into other topics, like what the week ahead had in store, restaurants you two should visit sometime, new boutiques and bakeries you’ve been hoping to explore- little chats that hold more meaning as the days roll by.

During it all, there was an undeniable heaviness to the conversation that made it slightly uncomfortable. Wriothesley cannot remove the memory of how you tried to push him away and you cannot forget the shocked look in his eyes. The more you picture it, the guiltier you feel, heart sinking in your chest.

You thought that it was what Wriothesley wanted: more space from you, an opportunity to breathe without you overwhelming his space.

So why do you feel so bad about respecting his wishes?

“What a lovely view!” You exclaim excitedly, running toward a patch on the grass that sits a few metres away from a nearby beach, the sound of waves meeting shore a soothing lullaby and a testament to how calm the day is. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and you’re out on a picnic with the love of your life.

“Here’s a nice spot to set up, what do you think, Wriothesley?” You ask.

“Sounds amazing, darling,” he responds, setting down the picnic basket when you’ve laid out the blanket. You sit down with an unglamorous huff, leaning back onto your hands to let the morning sun soak into your features.

Morning picnics were one of yours and Wriothesley’s favourite date ideas. The best time to be together was before the sun would rise to its highest peak, bearing hot sunrays that make everything uncomfortable for everyone. Fontaine’s sun is never merciful either, which is why the nation is perfect for diving and all other water-related activities, but when you are simply walking around, it becomes rather suffocating.

The Fortress of Meropide’s administrator takes a seat beside you and you indulge by resting your head on his shoulder, hoping that he isn’t uncomfortable under your touch. The dark-haired hasn’t shaken you off yet, so you keep resting against him.

“How did you discover this place?” You ask.

“Siora told me of it, said that a passenger on the aquabus was talking to her about it. She thought that it sounded like a delightful place to take you to,” he answers and you can’t help but smile, fiddling with your fingers.

Melusines and their wholesome ways. You’ll find a way to thank Siora later. “How kind of her and how fortunate for us.”

“I take it you like it here then?”

“I love it,” you tuck your legs closer to your chest and Wriothesley leans back on his arms as well, letting your hands rest beside each other as the sea continues to crash on the shore before you. There are seals resting nearby too, ships pass by here and there, and seagulls stop near the two of you before flying away, but the only thing that matters to Wriothesley is you leaning on his shoulder.

Sharing with him the breakfast sandwiches you packed, no words are exchanged, merely the sound of waves crashing against the shore occupy the tranquil silence. It’s not until a few minutes later that Wriothesley speaks.

“Will you be visiting me at the office today?” He asks.

You tear your gaze away from the horizon. “Perhaps. Do you want me to?”

“Would I really be asking if I didn’t?”

“Please, forego the sass, your grace,” you snort and he rolls his eyes, an affectionate smile pulling on his lips.

“Seriously though, I would like you to. You know how dreary and boring weekends at the prison get, would be much better having you there.”

“Are you trying to butter me up?”

“Is it working?”

“Maybe,” you mutter, grinning. “Would you like me to bring lunch with me or shall we go find a place to eat?”

“How about takeout? Hey wait, now that I think about it, why didn’t you stay the other day when you brought lunch for me? I would have much rather seen your pretty face than the receptionist’s.”

You ignore the butterflies blooming in your stomach because of his compliment. “An emergency happened just as I reached there. I didn’t want to be caught in the middle of it, so I left.”

Confusion shines in his eyes, his expression giving away the cogwork ticking in his brain as he tries to pinpoint what emergency you could be referring to. When the pieces click, his eyes widen a little. “I see. You did the right thing, my love,” he presses a kiss to your cheek.

“I’ll visit you today,” you whisper, toying with the hem of your clothes as you wait for his response.

“Amazing. I’m looking forward to it, then”

You stay true to your word, walking down the path you recognise like the back of your hand. The guards need not think twice about welcoming you in, guiding you straight in the direction of Wriothesley’s office.

Since being with him, you’ve grown less and less afraid of how daunting the Fortress can feel, adapting to the chill knowing that there is someone in there who will set himself ablaze to keep you warm. Yet, today you walk in with apprehension clasped around your ankles, threatening to pull you under with each step.

It’s ridiculous, you know Wriothesley would never turn you away or shun you, but the mind is the worst enemy and yours can’t stop replaying the conversation you overheard weeks ago. You know Wriothesley could open those heavy doors of his and greet you with something more grim than loving and cast you aside, and you have to hold your breath when the guards knock on your behalf.

Your heart skips a beat when they push open the doors, revealing your husband crouched over his desk, hands mussed in his hair to keep them out of his eyes. He looks up at you and the way a smile manifests on his features is akin to that of fire melting ice, fatigue dissipating as you step inside his office.

“Hello, dear,” you greet, tone soft and controlled, unlike the thrashing of your gut.

“Hi,” he stands up and takes great strides towards you. Naturally, you open your arms for him; unnaturally, you merely hug him instead of greeting him with a kiss. Wriothesley keeps you locked in his arms as he digs his nose into your neck and you feel the way his eyes flutter close against your skin.

“Long day?”

“Draining too,” he murmurs.

“Oh dear, we cannot have your grace tired, whatever shall we do!” You gasp overdramatically, clearly poking fun at him because you are perhaps one of the only people who could do so in this entire building.

The dark-haired accepts it and doesn’t bother to correct your use of formalities. Instead, he retracts his head out of your neck to look at you with hopeful eyes instead. “You could give me a kiss.”

“Did you do anything today to earn it?”

“I need to earn my kisses now?”

“You should shut up sometimes,” you murmur before placing your hands along his jaw, pulling him in for a gentle kiss. He smiles against you, biting back a quip when his hand comes to the base of your neck, holding you against him. You can tell he needed the proximity, judging by his little exhale and the way his shoulders slouch, so you let him take his time and ignore the nagging in your heart.

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Wriothesley is losing his mind. He has been since you left the Fortress of Meropide, and was left to freeze in the ache of your lack of affection. A goodbye kiss is customary between you two and when you didn’t give him one before leaving, it felt like a slap to the face. He would have much rather you just slapped him, actually, so what gives?

You’re not rejecting his advances, but you’re not explicitly initiating anything either. Does that mean he should back off, too? Did he do something to upset you, and if so, when? All this thinking and speculating is making him feel like a pathetic headless chicken who can’t even talk to his spouse-

“-Wait!” You exclaim, just as he was about to grab the knob to the front entrance and step out. Instead, Wriothesley turns around to be greeted by the sigh of you frantically scrambling to him, and his heart can’t help but come alive, silencing his thoughts.

Stopping to a slide before him, he can’t hold back a soft grin. Despite just wrangling out of the claws of sleep, you’re so breathtaking, delicate in the mornings when no one else is around but him. The dark-haired is grateful that only he is able to witness you like this, that you trust him with this vulnerable side of you.

You don’t meet his gaze, eyes pinned to his chest instead. “Your tie is crooked,” you murmur hands reaching out before he even gets a chance to look down. “Let me help you.”

How can he deny such a kind request of yours? You’re gentle with him, undoing his knot and weaving it together until it looks proper, but Wriothesley couldn’t care what his tie looks like. You could be making a total fool of him and he wouldn’t care, too entranced by your glow to tear his eyes away from you. There’s a little scrunch in your forehead as you concentrate, mouth slightly parted and you’re not oblivious to his gaze either, too familiar with the intensity of it to get shy.

Finally satisfied with your work, you let go, patting his shoulders and smoothing out any wrinkles in his garment. “There. All done.”

“Thank you, dear,” he murmurs.

Wriothesley is expecting a kiss from you, waits for the moment that you’ll rise onto your toes and place a peck on his lips to fill him with some energy for the day. He waits for the familiar feeling of your lips pressing against his, and waits for the rush of adrenaline that your touch always manages to ignite.

Except it never comes, and it hurts most to confess that some part of him preempted this. You step away from him without another word, or kiss, and his heart burns at your retraction, unease fluttering the lining of his stomach when you turn around to retreat into the living room. Wriothesley moves without thinking, a hand coming up to your waist to stop your steps as he forcefully pulls you back to him, capturing your lips in a searing kiss, one far more intense than the ones you usually give this early in the morning.

You notice the desperation that bleeds from him; a certain fervour uncharacteristic in situations of morning domesticity.

There’s a bright glimmer of surprise in your eyes when he pulls away, as if he had kissed away all your fatigue and shocked wakefulness into you.

“Have a good day at work,” you murmur, barely able to choke the words out.

“I will,” he replies, opening the door. You stay and watch him go, still trying to recover your breath over his passionate display of affection.

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

The day his racing thoughts get to him is the eighth day of this strange treatment of yours. At this point, he’s become insatiable, barely able to hold it together as you remain in the centre of his world. He wants your affection again, he wants your displays of love, he wants you near him so badly that it’s driving him up the walls of the Fortress.

It’s irrational for him, a grown man, to skirt around his problems as if he was a teenager. For some reason, Wriothesley has no issue locking up and containing some of Fontaine’s most dangerous criminals, yet when it comes to you, he becomes a lovesick fool who craves everything his partner can give.

You still are not initiating any displays of affection, keeping to yourself unless it is him acting first.

But after being locked in his own study for hours, unable to distract himself from you when he was really meant to be reading some new court documents from Neuvillette, he snaps. Pushing his chair out with more force than necessary, he searches for you in the living room, where you are curled up in the corner, reading.

“Is everything alright?” Wriothesley’s interruption shocks you, and you jolt your head up to meet his gaze.

You are met with the sight of him leaned against the wall, muscular arms crossed over his chest. “Why wouldn’t they be?” You ask, not letting your gaze linger for too long on his arms before sitting up just a little straighter.

“Dunno. Just double checking.”

“Okay,” you hum softly, nodding. “Are you alright?”

“Me?” How could you switch this up on him so quickly?

“Yeah.”

“Fine, amazing, just dandy.”

You raise an eyebrow at your husband, not truly believing him but you decide it’s best not to press on. “Alright… but if anything is wrong, don’t be afraid to tell me.” You go back to your book and your hair falls perfectly in front of your face to hide it from him.

Wriothesley shifts his weight from one leg to the other, trying to find the words to speak up and ask why you were acting so weird. It’d been two hours and twenty-four minutes (and counting) since you last saw him when he disappeared into his study, were you not concerned for him in the slightest? Sure you dropped off a plate of fruit and refilled his teapot with hot water, but normally your check-ins would be a little more frequent, and a little more encouraging than just a morale boost through food.

Where was the cheek kiss you always gave him before you left?

Deciding not to press on any further, your husband sighs before leaving, his arms and heart feeling emptier than usual. You are only in the next room, but why do you feel like you’re on the other side of Teyvat?

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

The day Wriothesley snaps is the day Sigewinne asks him to be nicer to the guards of the Fortress because his foul mood is darkening the already glum prison. His subordinates must have sent her knowing that he couldn’t possibly lash out at her, and they were right, but she really didn’t need to comment on the way his veins have been more prominent recently, or how creases are forming on his forehead from how hard he’s been scowling. To top it off, she said that he should delay the appearance of wrinkles for as long as necessary, because there’s a good chance they’ll come earlier than he wants.

He’s not even a day over thirty, and yet, he is being reprimanded for ‘ageing’. But he knows the problem, and he’ll be damned if he lets it drag out for another day.

“Welcome home, baby-” your greeting is cut off unceremoniously by your husband, who practically drags you into his embrace, closing you in with no space for you to breathe or move. Your cries of alarm are muffled against his chest, and he easily picks you up before striding the path to your shared bedroom. There, he all but throws you onto the bed, your neck resting on the pillows as he climbs on after you. “Wriothesley?”

He shushes you.

“What-”

“-I need this,” he wraps around you like a vine and breathes you in with the fervour of a man starved.

When you try to shuffle away from under him, or at the very least sit up, Wriothesley groans, borderlining a growl as he tightens his arms around your middle. You don’t question or disobey his wants, merely sinking your head into the pillows in understanding that he must have had a particularly rough day.

So instead of repelling his touch, you give in and let a hand snake up to his hair, playing with it as you let Wriothesley lay atop you. Slowly, the tension in his shoulders melts away, and the way you’re scratching his scalp is enticing him to rest, except there is a barrier keeping him from reaching a haven of dreams and he won’t rest peacefully until he’s broken through it.

“Why have you been so distant lately?” He garbles, voice a lot shakier from the usual stoic Wriothesley that you are used to.

You heard him loud and clear, but a pathetic ‘pardon?’ slips past your lips.

“I said, why have you been so distant lately?” This time, he’s firm, determination seeping into his tone as a hand of his sneaks out from underneath you to search for your hand. After patting around, he finds it and holds it gently, raising it to press a long kiss to your knuckles.

It’s silent. You don’t have anything to say in response and it’s past the grace period where you can give an excuse and make it sound like the truth, and Wriothesley looks up at you with expectant eyes. There’s hurt in them but as much as you’d like to mend the heartbroken expression of his, admitting the truth is difficult, because it has eaten you alive, gnawing at your heart for days on end.

“I…I don’t have it in me to tell you,” you murmur quietly, looking away and slipping your hand out of his, but Wriothesley is tired of this dance of yours and chases after your touch, this time roughly grasping your wrists. Not enough to hurt, but enough to keep you rooted.

“I didn’t do anything, did I?” He asks, raising your hand to his cheek.

Your voice is quiet when you confess. “If I said you didn’t, I’d be lying.”

The dark-haired stiffens. “What?”

“Nothing,” you cough.

“No, Y/n, be honest with me here.”

“You’re going to laugh at me, or find me ridiculous.” Wriothesley’s heart clenches at your admittance, frowning at the fractures of insecurity piercing you like glass, but most of all, he hates that he can’t stop you from feeling this way. “I thought what I did was what you wanted.”

“Which was?”

“Some distance, just- not me crowding your personal space all the time.”

“Why would I ever want that?”

“I can get overbearing sometimes, and I don’t know, just assumed that would annoy you.”

“You’re not telling me everything, I can tell something happened to make you feel this way. Please, darling, just tell me the truth. I promise you I won’t judge or think differently of you.”

You sigh. “I… I overheard you and Monsieur Neuvillette the other day- when I dropped off lunch. You said that my affection was sometimes too much, and that I was making you uncomfortable, so I thought that you wouldn’t want me to be around you anymore. I didn’t want to drive you away so I, y’know…”

Confusion fills him stomach like water and it takes a few moments before it hits him, the memory coming back to him. You heard his conversation out of context- he wasn’t complaining about you, no, quite the opposite, but it just seems that you weren’t there for the parts that mattered most, and now you can’t even bear to look him in the eye.

“Honey, please look at me,” his voice thins into a vulnerable whisper that pleads for you to glance his way so you can see how he is head over heels in love with you.

When your gaze finally meets his, he almost cracks under the weight of your sadness, and it dawns upon him that you can’t feel the adoration he holds for you, dripping from his heart into your hands. You can’t see the mountains he’d overcome just to end the day resting in your arms. You don’t know the extent he would go just to win your love.

It’s a fact that kicks at his knees, shuns him down and bruises his heart. If the Fortress of Meropide has taught him anything, it’s that there is no point holding your feelings back from living fully. There is no point to contain the human heart that has every desire to live with others, he has seen the sorrow of prisoners saying goodbye to loved ones, and how they dwell over words they should have said. Even his own time as a prisoner taught him so, because everytime he sat behind those bars, the faces of people he should have been more open to kept him awake at night.

Wriothesley would rather drown in primordial water than see you, the most important person in his life, hurting over his own negligence. You have been feeling half-loved because of him and he doesn’t know how he can make it up to you.

“You misunderstand. I wasn’t talking about you negatively, I was talking to Neuvillette about how loved you made me feel that way, and how grateful I am to have someone like you as my partner,” he confesses earnestly, eyes pleading for you to believe him.

You blink at him, comprehending his words carefully. “Really?” You ask.

“I would never think otherwise,” he whispers.

As if a weight was lifted from your shoulders, a smile pulls at your lips and suddenly, a laugh spills from them, causing your expression to scrunch up with joy, looking the most lively Wriothesley has seen you in a while. He laughs with you too, just a little.

“I’m sorry,” you confess through dying fits of laughter. “I shouldn’t have assumed like that, how stupid.”

He shakes his head, “you have nothing to apologise for, you’re not at fault. But I beg you, never hide things like this from me again and tell me whenever something bothers you.”

You nod, “I will.”

“Promise.”

“I promise.”

“Never ever think that I want to be away from you,” Wriothesley grumbles, hiding himself in the crook of your neck. “That was the worst week of my life.”

“Sorry for putting you through all that.”

“Stop apologising.” He demands. “Just, no more secrets.”

“I love you, Wriothesley.”

He sighs shakily, relief tangible in his tone. “I love you more.”

A damp patch forms on your collar bone right where his tears would fall, and you place a kiss on his forehead for each drop you feel on your skin. There is still much to discuss, much to mend between the two of you, but his hands run along your skin like he’s trying to memorise and mark you, so you never doubt his devotion again.

*sighs and puts hands on hips* i don't really like that ending either so don't judge lol

#genshin x reader #wriothesley x reader #wriothesley fluff #wriothesley x reader fluff #wriothesley x gn!reader #genshin fluff #genshin x reader fluff

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silentscrying · 17 days ago

Text

🐾 snowprints

vet student!megumi x dog owner!reader

summary: when you find yourself in need of an emergency trip to the local vet clinic, it's late and the sign on the door is flipped to closed. luckily for you, animal science student megumi fushiguro is still around, and he's willing to help you and your dog out—and maybe get a little more than he bargained for in the process. but he's not used to letting people in, and you've never been particularly patient. when winter rolls around, will you be spending the holidays alone?

content/warnings: 20.7k words. complete. sfw. f!reader, you have a dog, megumi has his dogs, they are unbearably cute, megumi doesn't know how to communicate for shit, language, no use of y/n, christmas yay!!, aged up characters, including riko, she's in college, and she's a menace, (light) angst with a happy ending, mentions of deceased parents (typical fushiguro canon), soft, fluff, you know when your sister psychoanalyzes you at the kitchen table, car crash, alcohol, reader studies environmental science but can't keep plants alive for SHIT, so much unnecessary pining, gratuitous overuse of italics and em-dashes

note: this takes place in the same universe as out of my mind, but you don't have to read that to know what's going on here! though it may help with some context. happy hella late birthday megumi fushiguro you will always be famous

PART I // BATMAN & ROBIN

IT’S TEN O’CLOCK and dark when Batman decides to cause problems.

Batman, of course, being your three-year-old German shepherd mix, the one currently whining and staring up at you with big, dark puppy eyes while he holds one paw up limply.

“Oh, little buddy,” you sigh as you squat down in front of him, despite the fact that he hasn’t been little in a very long time. He’s been restless all night, so you caved and took him on a late night walk, and it’s so dark you can’t tell what’s wrong with his paw even in the glow of the phone flashlight.

God, fuck. Where’s the closest vet? The one in the city is definitely closed. You’re fairly certain there’s a smaller one somewhere on the outskirts of the JU campus, though, one that the pre-vet students use for clinicals.

“C’mon, champ,” you murmur, tugging gently on Batman’s leash. “Let’s go get you checked out, huh?”

The early September air is chilly, a little bit of a bite to it. You’re glad the temperatures haven’t yet dropped below freezing, so you don’t need to let your car defrost before going. “Up,” you say, patting the passenger seat with the door held open for Batman.

You punch the clinic into maps and pull out of your suburban street into the busier roads. It’s not far, thankfully, and you make a beeline for the door with Batman on your heels, not noticing until you’re right in front of it that the massive sign hanging on the door is flipped to CLOSED.

“No,” you groan, leaning forward and pressing your forehead to the cool glass of the closed door. You close your eyes, wondering what the fuck you’re gonna do, and then—thump.

You nearly jump out of your skin, eyes flying open and gaze raising to meet the amused eyes of a guy on the other side of the door, who’s trying and failing to suppress a smile that feels a little teasing. Oops.

You step back and wave sheepishly, and the boy unlocks the door and swings it open, taking in the sight of you and your limping dog.

“I’m sorry,” you blurt. “I know you’re closed and it’s some ungodly hour on a Tuesday, I just didn’t know what else to do—”

“It's fine,” he says, waving it off. “I’m just cleaning up, it’s not a hassle. Come on.” Batman has no qualms about following the guy through the open door, so you follow, glancing around the small clinic. It’s pretty sparse, save for the bulletin board overflowing with pet photos on one wall.

“Fushiguro,” the guy says in introduction, glancing back over his shoulder at you. He’s got deep blue eyes that match his dark scrubs, and his hair sticks out every which way in a manner that feels intentional. He must be around your age. It takes you a beat to remember yourself and give him your own name, stuttered out as you pass into the back exam room.

There’s a white coat tossed haphazardly over a spinning chair, and the guy—Fushiguro—picks Batman up like he weighs nothing and situates him on the metal table.

“Hey, bud. What’s your name?” he asks, scratching behind Batman’s ears. Your dog is usually weary of vets, but today his tail pounds on the metal of the table as he raises his head to sniff at Fushiguro’s face.

“Batman.”

Fushiguro’s gaze snaps to you and he blinks, evidently thinking you’re joking. “No.”

“Yes.” You hold your index fingers up above your head to imitate your dog’s pointy ears. “Batman.”

“Oh. My god,” he says. “And what, you’re Robin?”

“I am not the sidekick in this situation.”

“Batman dragged you out here at eleven on a school night. You absolutely are the sidekick.”

You scoff, moving up to the table and stroking Batman’s fur. “Am I just a sidekick to you, little guy?” you coo. “You wanna be a hero so bad?” He noses happily at your palm.

Fushiguro side-eyes you, half-grimacing as he grabs Batman’s paw to look at it. He doesn’t seem to mind, which is honestly a shock. He hates people touching his paws, even you. “You baby talk your dog?”

“You judge your patients?”

“Course not,” Fushiguro says, smirking as he looks back at you. “Just their owners.”

You roll your eyes but can’t help the huff of laughter, and his dark eyes reflect the fluorescent overhead light as he turns away. He’s undeniably attractive—you don’t remember seeing him around campus.

“You go to JU?” you ask, and he nods.

“Sophomore. Pre-vet. D’you?”

“Nah, Kaisen.” Your school is a lot smaller than the neighboring Jujutsu University. They’ve got something of an athletic rivalry with Kaisen College, but you really don’t care. “Environmental science.”

“You know everything there is to know about trees, or what?” His tone is teasing, and you know he doesn’t mean anything by it. The fact is you do know more about trees than normal college students probably should. Doesn’t mean you can keep plants alive for shit, though.

You’d guess there’s actually a fair bit of crossover between your course of study and a pre-vet student’s bio track, but you say, “I specialize in rare long grasses, actually.” It comes out so deadpan that he glances at you, brows knit together, trying to gauge if you’re being serious. You only last a second before you crack under his scrutiny, and he shakes his head and huffs as he turns back to Batman, who is now trying to lick Fushiguro’s nose.

“Excuse me,” he says. This only seems to encourage the dog kisses, but Fushiguro decides to just ignore them. He hums, grabbing a pair of tweezers and squinting as he moves to pull something out of Batman’s paw. “Just a splinter. The pad of a dog’s paw is one of the most sensitive parts of their body, so it’s not surprising he was so worked up about it.” You watch as he pulls out a thin sliver of wood, probably from stepping on some splintering twig, and drops it into a tray on the table.

You watch as your dog drops his paw back to the table and stands up, tail wagging at lightning speed, like nothing was ever wrong. He jumps off the table before Fushiguro can grab him and bounds over to you, rubbing himself along the outside of your leg like a giant cat.

“How much do I owe you?” you ask, pulling out your card, but he waves you off.

“It was literally a splinter.”

“But—”

“Honestly, it’d be more work to boot up the payment system again anyway. Don’t worry about it.” He holds your gaze, and you can’t tell if he’s lying about the payment system or not, but you slide your card back into your wallet without complaint.

Something passes between you, some weird spark of recognition—not that you’ve met before. You know you haven’t. But you don’t typically have this kind of easy banter with strangers. Something about this guy intrigues you, and you don’t particularly want to stop talking to him.

But you’ve already kept him past close, and you need to get home.

The moment breaks when Fushiguro clears his throat, leaning over to grab something off the counter. “Right. Well, give me a call if he starts limping again, but he should be alright.” He holds out a hand and you realize he’s offering you a business card, weirdly professional for a student.

M. FUSHIGURO Veterinary Technician Trainee, JU

His number and email are printed beneath it in small sans serif lettering.

“Oh, you’re fancy.” You raise a brow at him, tucking the card into your jacket pocket. “Thank you. Seriously.”

“Well, who am I to refuse Batman?” he says wryly. He walks you to the door, and you try not to think too much of it—he just needs to lock up behind you, probably.

Before you slip out, he leans down and pats Batman on the head, earning a happy little tail-wag in response.

“Drive safe, Robin,” he calls, and you groan at the nickname as you unlock your car.

At home, you key his number into your phone and save the contact as fushiguro (cute vet). You sit there for way too long debating over whether you should text him—Batman’s fine, and it’s late, and he gave you a business card. Not exactly an invitation to flirt, tempting as that might be.

But you really want to.

“Should I text him?” you ask your dog, who’s decided to curl up right beside your bed and look up at you, waiting for an invitation. Your twin bed is not big enough for this and he knows it, but he always seems to think he’s a smaller dog than he really is.

Batman, unhelpfully, tilts his head at you, his perky ears flapping with the motion.

Maybe it’s because it’s past eleven and it’s dark out and you’re exhausted and you don’t have the best sense of judgment right now. Maybe it’s because Fushiguro’s just really cute.

“You’re right,” you say, nudging Batman with a socked foot. “No use waiting. Say cheese.”

you: [1 Image Attachment] you: gotham city’s savior says thank you

It’s kind of embarrassing how you sit and stare at the screen for two minutes, waiting for him to answer. Batman snorts, like he’s making fun of you, and you lock your phone and toss it on the bedside table. “Oh, don’t start.”

Your roommate and best friend, Setsuko Sasaki, is studying abroad in Japan for the semester. It’s been lonely, strange without her occupying the second bedroom of your little rented townhouse. You’d like to say this is why you’ve resorted to talking to your dog, but that would very much be a lie, because you’ve always done this. Sometimes, when she’s home, Suko adopts a gruff, low voice and answers for him.

You jump when your phone buzzes and make yourself count to three before checking the screen.

fushiguro (cute vet): don’t mention it. always had a soft spot for batman, anyway. fushiguro (cute vet): his sidekick’s alright too.

“Oh, he likes you,” you tell Batman. “Wingman. Thanks, little buddy.”

you: well, send a bat signal if you’re ever in mortal peril and i might show up

After that, you try to push Fushiguro to the back of your mind. He doesn’t go to Kaisen, so it’s not like you can stalk him in the university directory. You have no reason to run into him around town. As the semester ramps up and you fall back into your routine of classes and exams and friends, you don’t think too much about the cute vet tech who happened to be around that one night.

Or, you don’t for a grand total of six days.

You’re on a jog with Batman, afternoon sun making up for the fall chill in the air that’s hung around since it stormed last night. You don’t intend to stop, but Batman abruptly sticks his nose in the dirt about halfway through your run and refuses to move.

“Dude.” You backtrack and see that he’s discovered a couple pairs of dog prints, pressed faintly into the damp earth. “Oh, you smell friends, huh?” He tugs you forward, following the scent of these other dogs. “Hey!”

The thing about having a massive German shepherd mix, even one as docile as Batman, is that he is inarguably a lot stronger than you. So you don’t really have much of a choice but to stumble along after him as he bounds across the grass and comes out on the other side of the path—you don’t normally come this way, because there’s a dog park over here and he gets way too excited.

But today he’s on a mission, and you only see two other dogs in the fenced-in park—two huge balls of fluff, one white and one black. “Fine,” you say begrudgingly, undoing the gate and letting Batman off his leash. “Go play. But we aren’t staying long.”

He bounds off toward the other dogs while you latch the gate behind you, and then a familiar voice has you spinning around with your eyes wide. “Bat signal wasn’t me,” Fushiguro says, raising both hands in a gesture of innocence. “They did it.” He points at the other dogs, who are now engaged in a butt-sniffing circle with yours.

“Fushiguro!” You grin, making your way over to him. Once the other two dogs have deemed Batman a worthy playmate, they move on to you, sniffing at your palms and circling around you until the black one jumps up and nearly knocks you over with the force of it. “Oh, hello!”

“Kuro,” Fushiguro chides, rushing forward to tug at his collar. “Hey. Down.”

“It’s okay,” you promise through a fit of giggles as Kuro tries to basically hug you. “Oh, you’re cute, aren’t you? Hi, Kuro.”

Fushiguro huffs out a breath of relief when Kuro finally gets down. “That’s Shiro,” he says, gesturing to the white dog, who is now chasing Batman around the park. “Think she’s found a friend.”

“He dragged me all the way here,” you tell Fushiguro. “Guess he missed you or something.”

“Just him?”

You grin. “What, you think I was out here pining after you?” He only smirks in response. “I don’t even know your name, M. Fushiguro. What good is a business card without your first name on it?”

He hums, shoving his hands into his pockets, considering. “Guess.”

“Guess,” you echo. “Okay. Um. Michael.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Max.”

“Nope.”

“Um, Maverick.”

“What the hell?” He looks at you with furrowed brows. “Who in their right mind would name their kid—”

“Okay, hey,” you interrupt, holding up your hands. “I just watched Top Gun, okay? What do you want from me?”

“M—”

“Nope, out of tries for today. Three strikes, you’re out.” He shrugs, wholly unaffected, like this is just how the world works and he’s got no say it in whatsoever.

You gape at him, planting your hands on your hips in affront. “I hope you know I will be insufferable every single day until I’m right.”

Batman trots back over, prancing between you and Fushiguro until he crouches down to pet him. “You come here a lot?” you ask, glancing around the empty park. “I’ve never seen you here. Or your dogs. I think I’d remember giant balls of fluff like that.”

“Yeah, not often,” Fushiguro says, pushing back to his feet. “But Kuro’s been so restless all day. Had to let him run his energy down somehow.” The dog in question is chasing his own tail in circles while Shiro looks at him, unimpressed. “You live over here?”

“Few blocks out, yeah.” Your place is between the two campuses, an easy walk to both places because Suko takes Japanese classes at JU. Apparently Fushiguro doesn’t live too far away, either, just on the other side of the skate park where you know your friend Hajime hangs out all the time.

By “hangs out,” you mean he probably (definitely) buys weed there, but that’s not your business. Maybe he and Fushiguro know each other—they both go to JU. But Hajime’s a senior, so probably not.

You don’t get the chance to ask because Fushiguro’s phone rings, and he sighs and answers it with a glance at you that might be apologetic or might be mildly irritated. Hard to tell with him.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” he says gruffly. “Okay. See you.” He hangs up and tucks his phone back into his pocket, then whistles for the dogs. “Time to go.”

“Good to see you,” you blurt before he can turn away. He seems a little taken aback, but you don’t break eye contact, and you think he might be on the brink of a smile.

“You too, sidekick.”

—

After that, the two of you start texting more often, gradually moving from photos of your dogs to real conversation. And you keep your promise to be insufferable about finding out his name. You send him new M-names every day, never seeming to get any closer to the truth. For his part, he refuses to call you anything but Robin, cementing your existence as a superhero sidekick and nothing more.

you: new theory you: the M stands for mr you: monsieur you: m’lord

He dislikes the messages in response, and you send him a teary-eyed emoji and hope the guilt is enough to get him to tell you.

It is not.

You and Fushiguro are in some sort of convoluted orbit around one another, sometimes colliding, sometimes drifting away. There’s really no reason you should keep stumbling across him, considering you go to different schools, live in different places, study different things.

But after that first day at the dog park, you might take Batman there a little bit more often.

Every time you talk, Fushiguro starts to take up more and more headspace. You find yourself searching for his flash of ink-dark hair, spiky and disheveled, in every crowd. Every set of fading prints in the grass or mud might be his, might be Shiro’s or Kuro’s. It’s stupid, how much you’re thinking about this boy.

At some point you start dragging your friends out to the coffee shops between your two campuses to do work, rather than the one in the student center. You justify it to yourself with the half-assed excuse that if you run into your friends less, you’ll get more work done, but really you’re just hoping he’ll be there. And your friends are happy to oblige, especially Riko, if it means she’ll get a glimpse of this mystery vet man you don’t shut up about.

Riko’s a year below you at Kaisen, but you know her from back home. She’s a frenetic ball of energy and indignation, and she’s fully prepared to go to every coffee shop in a ten-mile radius for the purposes of what she calls “the mission.”

But the coffee at the second place you try is actually god-tier, and you wind up there regularly after that, hunkering down to grind out your assignments in your spare time. It’s there that he finds you, sliding into the seat right across from yours so abruptly that you nearly fall out of your chair—your noise-canceling headphones really block out the entire world. He smirks as you sheepishly tug them down around your neck, glaring.

“Warn a girl, Jesus!”

“I did,” he drawls, taking a sip of his coffee. “Twice.”

“Boo.” You kind of forgot about your own drink because you were so into your work, and you pick it back up now, mostly for something to do with your hands. “Well, hi. What’re you up to?”

“Same as you, I think.” He nods at your laptop. “Mind if I hang out here?”

“You certainly can, but you’ve just stolen someone’s seat and you might have to fight for your life when she gets back from the bathroom.” His eyes widen almost imperceptibly, and as if on cue, Riko is beelining toward the table from across the room.

“Well hello, Mr. Seat Thief. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Fushiguro seems to be gauging Riko, and you realize this is kind of the first look he’s gotten into your private life outside of your dog, and you’re irrationally nervous about it. But he scoots over and grabs a chair from the next table over, giving Riko a mocking bow in response.

“Better?”

Riko nods, and then grabs his coffee and takes a long drag out of it. He doesn’t object, and that should have been your warning—you can see when the bitterness of it hits her all at once, her face twisting in some combination of shock and despair and mild outrage.

“Oh my god,” you say as Riko grabs her water bottle and chugs to get the taste out of her mouth, aggressively shoving Fushiguro's coffee back toward him. “Of course you drink coffee black, you fucking loser.”

“What, you dump six cups of sugar in yours? That’s not coffee.” You flip him off instead of justifying this with a real response.

“I was gonna use that as payment for your crimes,” Riko gasps dramatically, leaning over the table, “but I was instead punished. You’re in my debt now.” She glares at him fiercely, turning up her nose, before abruptly abandoning the bit and grinning at him. “I’m Riko, by the way.”

He snorts, but a very small hint of a smile appears in a corner of his mouth. “Fushiguro.”

Riko nods and glances from him to you, as if to say really? This guy? You can already hear the analysis she’ll be giving you on the way home. Easy on the eyes, I get it, but does he like, have a personality?

“I did research,” you tell Fushiguro, nudging Riko’s shin under the table in warning. “On you.”

“You stalked me online, is what you’re saying.” You’re learning that he’s not a very expressive person. He treats laughs and smiles like rare currency, and everything you need to know about what he’s thinking is in the tiniest shifts—a downturned brow, a blink, a tilt of the head. You’re still learning, but you like to think you’ve got it down enough to know that this doesn’t actually bother him, despite the resting angry face.

“Yes,” you say, shameless. “Except when I typed in Fushiguro and your school, I got all these results for the editor of your campus paper. You have a sister?”

If he’s surprised, he doesn’t show it. “Tsumiki, yeah.”

He doesn’t offer more, so you push. “Older?” You already know the answer, but best let him believe the depth of your internet stalking is shallower than it really was.

“Two years. She’s a senior.”

“Cool. I don’t know a ton of siblings that go to the same school.”

“You’d be surprised,” he sighs. “My cousin and her twin sister both go there, too. And one my roommates’ half-brothers.”

“Convenient, I guess,” you concede. “Sibling discount or something?”

“Nah, but it was easier this way,” he says, pulling a textbook out of his bag. “Go—uh, our legal guardian works around here anyway.”

Riko raises a brow but doesn’t ask, which is a remarkable show of restraint for her.

Legal guardian. Parents aren’t in the picture, then. You want to ask but you don’t, not yet.

The three of you buckle down and get some work done, casually exchanging conversation over the next few hours, and eventually Fushiguro has to head out. “Rehearsal,” he says.

“Rehearsal?” Riko asks, glancing at you as if you know what he’s talking about. You don’t, but you have some absolutely ridiculous mental image of Fushiguro in choir and you almost laugh out loud.

But he just says, as if it’s nothing at all, “Oh, yeah, I’m in a band.”

“What?” you nearly shout, jumping out of your chair so fast it pushes across the floor with a scrrcck. “You’re in a band? You didn’t think to tell me this before? What’s it called? Can I listen—”

“Nope.”

“But—”

“Nice to meet you, Riko,” he says loudly, cutting you off as he slings his bag over one shoulder. He mock-salutes you, two fingers to his brow as he turns to go. “Robin.”

You sink back into your seat and watch him leave, only turning back to Riko when the door swings closed. She opens her mouth and you hold out a hand. “Don’t start.”

—

At some point you start calling, letting yourself fill the silence of your little townhouse with idle chatter as he listens. He’s not one for small talk, you learn, and he’s a good listener. And he pays attention. He remembers the stupid little details you give him, the names of classmates and professors you can’t stand.

“Katie from Ohio?” he asks when you’re ranting one day about the partner you’ve been assigned in enviro. “We don’t like her, correct?” We.

“We do not.” Katie from Ohio does not pull her weight in group projects, and it’s driving you up the wall.

“You tell your prof about it? Isn’t this your favorite one?”

“Yeah, he is,” you groan. Haibara teaches your conservation bio class, and he also taught ecology your freshman year, and he’s the best teacher you’ve ever had. “But no. I don’t want to bother him about it. It’s whatever.”

He hums, unimpressed. “Is it?”

You groan, feeling like you’re getting lectured by your parents. You hate when other people are right. “You want me to talk to him.”

“I’m just saying, if you get a shit grade and it’s Katie’s fault, don’t come crying to me.”

“I will, though,” you say, putting your phone on speaker and setting it on the counter while you pour dog food into Batman’s bowl. “It’ll be super dramatic. I’ll sob in your arms and everything.”

He snorts. “Talk to your prof, Robin.” You stick your tongue out like he can see you.

But you do talk to your prof, and Haibara is your favorite for a reason. Katie gets a shit grade. You do not. Fushiguro does, in fact, say “I told you so.”

By mid-September, you still have no idea what Fushiguro’s first name is. You’re at the end of your rope.

you: GOOD MORNING MASON fushiguro (cute vet): no. you: MORT fushiguro (cute vet): no. you: why don’t you want me to know. is it crazy you: melvin fushiguro (cute vet): NO. you: marie you: meghan fushiguro (cute vet): … you: well, that’s it you: i’m calling you maleficent until you tell me you: i’m gonna do it in public too you: so loud

INCOMING CALL: FUSHIGURO (CUTE VET)

You don’t greet each other when you pick up—you never have. Instead, Fushiguro just says, “You could’ve picked like, ten other Disney characters and you went with Maleficent?”

“Don’t hate. You’d rather be Mufasa? Boy’s dead.”

“Oh my god.” Everything Fushiguro says sounds long-suffering. You wonder what it sounds like when he laughs, really laughs, if those walls ever break down and he lets himself actually outwardly express his emotions.

“I can call you Mickey Mouse if you really want—” Batman starts barking from his spot at the window, and you groan, waving your hand at him pointlessly as you try to get him to stop. “Hey! No! There is nothing outside, what are you on about?”

“He probably just thinks you’re barking with him,” Fushiguro says unhelpfully.

“Oh, and yours don’t bark out of turn?”

“Not really.”

Now that you think about it, you actually aren’t sure you’ve ever heard Shiro and Kuro bark aside from excited greetings at the dog park. “What the fuck, dude? Do they teach you the secrets of the trade in vet school?”

“Nah, I’m just a natural.” He says it so deadpan you aren’t sure if he’s joking or actually being cocky.

“Come over and help, then,” you say, before you can think it through. It’s a Saturday night, and clearly neither of you have anything better to do.

You aren’t sure what exactly you’re expecting him to say, but for some reason you’re surprised when he just responds, “Okay.”

“Bring the dogs.” You text him your address, and half an hour later he shows up with the dogs in tow. Meeting him at the door, you see his car parked along the curb. It’s small, black, as unreadable and practical as everything else about him.

“That,” he says, pointing to the long-deceased cactus in the pot on your front stoop, “is dead.” Probably because it’s been there since August and you forgot it was there after one week.

“Yes, thank you, very astute.”

“Isn’t keeping plants alive your whole thing? What are they teaching you?”

“Okay.” You start to close the door, but Shiro bounces forward and noses between it excitedly, and you laugh, opening it to let her and Kuro in. “Be nice,” you warn Fushiguro, letting him step inside. He rolls his eyes as he passes, and Batman nearly knocks him over with how excitedly he leaps up to greet him.

He’s also barking, and you raise a brow at Fushiguro expectantly. “Okay, Dog Whisperer. Do your thing.” You close the door behind him, and in the two seconds that you’re turned away, Batman fucking stops barking.

You whirl around, planting your hands on your hips, and find Fushiguro kneeling in front of your very silent, very happy dog.

“What the fuck.”

He looks up at you with the most smug expression on his face, and you throw up your hands in exasperation.

“Hey, don’t pout about it,” he teases, standing and following you into the living room. “That’s what you wanted.”

“I wanted you to teach me how to make him stop, but apparently you just slipped him treats behind my back.”

“Insult to my talents,” he says, hesitating when Kuro leaps onto your couch. “Are they allowed—”

“Ah, yeah, it’s fine.” Batman follows suit. “Got enough dog hair on that couch to make another couch, probably.”

You suddenly find you don’t really know what to say. Because Fushiguro is here, in your house, on a Saturday, your dog is not barking, and you’re alone. Alone with a guy you are very much attracted to. Suddenly you just don’t know any of the words in the English language.

But Fushiguro seems entirely at ease. He always does, really. There’s a quiet sort of confidence about him, and you aren’t sure if it’s fabricated or not. He just looks like he belongs wherever he is, nonchalant about everything.

“Done any more stalking?” he asks, sitting next to Shiro on the floor. You flush a little, feeling weirdly caught out when you aren’t the one bringing it up.

“No, but I might if you don’t tell me more about this band of yours.”

He shakes his head, absently playing with Shiro’s fur. “Just a crazy idea my housemates had. We just practice in the basement. Probably not very good.”

You opt to sit on Shiro’s other side on the ground, and Batman uses the opportunity to lick you directly in the face, since he’s on the couch and you’re now eye-level. “Thank you,” you tell him dryly, shoving his snout away.

“Don’t get humble now,” you tell Fushiguro. “What do you play? Or do you sing?” You really can’t imagine him singing. Everything about this guy screams quiet bass player.

Apparently you’re right. He won’t tell you the name of his band, and allegedly he doesn’t have any gigs this month, so you let it drop—but only for now. “Cagey,” you accuse him, but you’re smiling.

You talk about your courseloads for the semester—his is pretty bio and anatomy-heavy this semester where yours is mostly ecology and conservation-focused, but there’s a bit of overlap in your curriculum, and you find that it’s easy to make conversation about your respective career paths, even though he won’t stop bringing up the fact that you managed to kill a cactus.

“They’re notoriously hard to kill,” he drawls. “Did you try to?”

“No!” You cross your arms over your chest indignantly. “Mean.”

“Honest and mean aren’t the same thing.”

You don’t really notice the sun going down until the living room is swathed in shadow and you have to flip on the floor lamp. It’s been hours by now, but it’s felt like minutes. Every thing you learn about Fushiguro opens up ten new lines of questioning, and you want to know so much more about him. But he shrouds himself in this mystery you can’t seem to get around.

Eventually you stand up to grab snacks from the kitchen, and when you return you find Batman practically on top of Fushiguro, licking his face while Fushiguro just takes it. Cute, you think uselessly.

Batman. But also Fushiguro. And also just the sight of Fushiguro playing with your dog and looking entirely at home on your shaggy living room floor. Fuck, he’s really cute.

“Have you always had dogs?”

He shakes his head as he sits up and nudges Batman off of him, gaze going just a little distant. “Not ‘til I was a teenager.” There’s more there.

“Your idea? Tsumiki’s?”

He shrugs it off, picking at loose threads on his sleeve that don’t exist, some nervous tic he’s developed that seems to only show up when you try to talk about him. Hence, shroud of mystery.

Like you gathered at the coffee shop, his parents aren’t in the picture—dead or absent, though, you’re not sure. He does tell you a little bit about his legal guardian. His name’s Gojo, and according to Fushiguro he is certifiably insane. He says this enough that you know he means it fondly—if he didn’t, he just wouldn’t bring Gojo up at all.

It shouldn’t be possible to talk so much and learn so little, but the hours keep slipping by and finally neither of you can hide the yawns punctuating your conversation. “I should go,” he says, and you reluctantly lead him to the door, crouching to say bye to Shiro and Kuro before you open the door.

“Drive safe, Fushiguro.”

You don’t expect him to respond, but he pauses halfway down your drive, turning to look at you over his shoulder. The moon is out now, and it casts him and his dark clothes in silver. You suddenly find you can’t look away.

Not that you really want to.

“Megumi,” he says.

“What?”

“My name.” He swallows, looking away quickly before looking back. “You can call me Megumi. If you want.”

Chill. Be chill, you tell yourself, trying to school your features into that same neutral expression Fushiguro—Megumi—always has, but you know it’s not working. You can’t help but smile. You feel, weirdly, like you’ve earned something.

“Okay,” you say, leaning on the doorjamb. “Megumi.”

Megumi.

You do one last little bit of internet stalking that night, because you just want to know.

His name means blessing.

—

Everything about Megumi’s house speaks to the collision of three wildly different college-aged boys tempered by the saving grace of one girl.

Remotes for a range of gaming consoles are sprawled across the floor, there are way too many half-empty bags of Doritos, and you’re pretty sure there’s just a single half of a drumstick stuck between two of the couch cushions. But there are also nice, dark tapestries pinned to the walls, string lights bordering the room, a couple plants that are better-kept than any of yours have been.

You know very little about Megumi’s three housemates except that one is a golden retriever in human form, one is a skater boy, and one is a senior named Kirara who somehow keeps them all in check.

“Sorry for the mess,” he says, gesturing at the controllers and chip bags that honestly don’t constitute a mess in your book. Not after all the boys’ dorms you’ve seen, including Hajime’s.

“I like it,” you say honestly. “Also, it smells good in here. I’m proud. Kirara?”

“Kirara.” He nods and leads you to the couch, where you confirm that yes, that’s a broken drumstick.

“I don’t even—Jesus,” Megumi says, pulling it out of the gap between the cushions and tossing it onto the low coffee table. “He breaks more of these than I think is normal.”

“He being skater boy or golden retriever?” you ask as you tug your legs onto the couch to sit cross-legged, facing him. You dragged Batman with you—Megumi said his dogs would appreciate the company—and he’s taken it upon himself to sniff every corner of the house before deeming it suitable for playtime.

“Golden retriever. His name’s Yuji. Skater boy is Ino.” None of his housemates are here—it’s a random Thursday afternoon and the two of you happened to not have classes after two thirty.

“How’d you meet them?”

“Kirara went to my high school, so I knew her before coming here. I knew Ino too, actually. Yuji—I don’t know that anyone really meets him so much as gets forcibly adopted by him?” He somehow manages to make his scoff sound affectionate. “Him and our friend Kugisaki. They’re crazy, but we were all in the same orientation group freshman year.”

“Your friends sound fun.” You like the idea of two outgoing freshmen just deciding Megumi had to be their friend. “How’d you know Ino?”

He tugs at the sleeve of his black henley, picking at a nonexistent string. There’s a bit of a pause before he says, “His—I don’t know, his mentor? Nanami, he knows Gojo. So he was around sometimes.”

You don’t really know what to ask, simply because there’s so much to ask. It doesn’t take a detective to know there’s a lot to unpack in Megumi’s past. “How long have you been…” What’s the proper term for this? “Has Gojo been around, like… since you were a kid, or...?”

Despite your attempt to catch his gaze, Megumi’s eyes are trained on the far wall. “Kind of. Yeah.”

When he doesn’t elaborate, you fight to keep your lips sealed, to not push. You don’t have a right to his past. He can tell you if he wants to. But you’ve always been impatient.

And it’s starting to become a pattern, this strange caginess about his own life. His family, his friends. Every so often he lets something slip, and then it’s like you can see the doors in his mind slam shut—six deadbolts holding you out.

You know a little bit about Gojo, but that’s where the information stops. You drop hints that you want to meet Tsumiki, and whether he’s protective or just too oblivious to pick up on them, you can’t tell.

Maybe, then, the issue is that you haven’t given him much either. He’s met your dog and Riko, but maybe you need to offer him more of yourself before he’s comfortable reciprocating.

So you do. You tell him about your family, sitting on his couch with Shiro at his feet and Batman between you, Kuro unable to sit still. He listens while you talk, unsettlingly attentive eyes intent on you. You live about a half-hour drive away from your parents' place, you tell him, though you don’t go home often.

“It’s not that I don’t like my family,” you sigh, leaning back into the couch cushions and stroking Batman’s fur. “It’s more just that they’re never there, always on business, wrapped up in their own shit. So there’s just… no reason for me to stick around, except a couple times a year on holidays.” You shrug. “At least here it’s not an empty house. Or it’s not usually. When my roommate’s not in fucking Japan.”

“At least Japan’s cool,” he says, shrugging.

You sit up, leaning toward him. “You’ve been?”

He shrugs. “Yeah, once. Gojo said Tsumiki and I weren’t allowed to hit sixteen without having been on a stupid-long flight somewhere. Which sounds insane, but that’s pretty standard Gojo logic for you, I guess.”

“That’s so cool,” you sigh, part of you wishing you could be on a stupid-long flight right now. On the way to somewhere warm, preferably. Fall is starting to give way to an early winter, and you’re not looking forward to running Batman in the cold.

Travel, at least, seems to be a safe topic, and the two of you trade stories about road trips and flights and different cities. You challenge Megumi to Mario Kart at some point and immediately regret it, because why is he so good?

After he thoroughly kicks your ass, you sink back into conversation, walk the dogs, and eventually part ways so you can get some work done.

megumi (cute vet): you know when somebody says they’ll text you when they get home megumi (cute vet): and they don’t? you: SHIT SORRY megumi (cute vet): you’re not dead. you: NOPE you: sorry i got back and then batman knocked over a lamp megumi (cute vet): you don’t have to cover for his vigilantism, sidekick. i already know.

You do feel bad for forgetting to text him, but part of you is a little warmed by the fact that he was worried. Not that he’d ever admit to being worried about anyone, except maybe a dog.

you: okay fine he was stopping a robbery you: happy? megumi (cute vet): depends on what they were trying to steal

The work on your desk says you should stop texting and buckle down on your assignments, but he starts teasing, and you start feeding into it, and then you’re on the phone again, and by the time you finally hang up it’s too late to reasonably get anything done.

You can’t say you’re particularly upset about it.

—

The semester ramps up quickly, and you’re drowning in work. That’s your excuse when your basil plant by the kitchen sink dies a week after you bring it home—you’re just busy.

Megumi notices, and the next time he’s over a rosemary plant mysteriously appears in its place. He denies any involvement.

When you aren’t with Riko or Hajime, on the phone with Suko, or hanging out with friends from class, you’re with Megumi. His place, your place, the dog park, the coffee shop. It hasn’t reached a point where your friends comment on how much time you spend together (except Riko, who has a loud opinion on everything and does not care if other people don’t want to hear it), but you like the hours you steal during the week just walking around or drinking coffee or trading idle conversation.

You even visit him at work one Sunday when the clinic is slow, watching him handle the few dogs and single cat that come through. He’s easygoing with the clients and has that same calming effect on every animal—like he speaks some secret language, understands them in a way other people don’t. You love watching him like this.

You like this guy. It’s not rocket science—you put him in your contacts as “cute vet” the day you met him. The hard part is that Megumi is too difficult to read. If he has feelings for you, you have no idea. You don’t think he’d go out of his way to spend time with someone he didn’t genuinely like, but whether it’s platonic or not is so fucking over your head.

Until you finally meet one of his friends.

It’s Riko’s doing, really. The two of you are at the coffee shop when she strikes up a conversation with a redhead in line, and it doesn’t take long for her to make the connection, probably because they’re both talking ten miles a minute and not holding anything back.

“Oh my god!” Riko screeches, turning to you after you place your order. “Hey! This is Nobara. She’s friends with Fushiguro.”

She beams at you. “How do you guys know Fushiguro?”

Riko answers for you. “The vet. She has a dog, the clinic was closed, he was there. It was probably super romantic.” You groan.

Nobara’s mouth forms a small O and then she says, “Ah, you must be the sidekick.”

You can’t stifle your laugh. “He even calls me that when he’s talking to other people?”

She laughs, shaking her head. “No, he doesn’t tell anyone anything. Ever. But that’s what you’re in his phone as, and I saw his screen before he could hide it.” She leans in conspiratorially. “He won’t tell us who you are, which means he’s into you, y’know that, right?”

“Um. Is he? I don’t really—”

“Girl,” Nobara says flatly. “He doesn’t talk to people. Yuji and I have to force that guy out of the house half the time. If he’s hanging out with you, it’s because he likes you. Not that he knows that, probably. He’s horrible at feelings. I offered to give him a free therapy session and he said he’d rather become a monk.”

Riko mutters something about how that wouldn’t be too far off from whatever aesthetic he has going on right now, but you’re hung up on something else—Yuji and I.

“Oh my god,” you say, realizing something. “You’re Kugisaki.”

Her entire face lights up and she bounces on the balls of her feet. “He told you about me?” she squeals. “Ooh, he does love me! I’m gonna give him so much shit! What did he say? Was it good?”

The three of you end up talking for half an hour, after you all get your coffee and find an empty table. Nobara talks a mile a minute, but you can’t help hanging on to every word she says—she has a lot to say about Fushiguro, and you feel like you might be learning more about him this way than from the numerous conversations you’ve had with him.

She lives down the street from his place. She knows Gojo, who is apparently exactly the way Megumi described him—loud and eccentric and kind of stupid, but a guy who obviously loves his kids. She and Yuji, true to Megumi’s recollection, basically forced their friendship upon him on the first day of school, and they’ve been a trio ever since.

“He doesn’t tell anyone shit,” Nobara says, echoing her own words from earlier. “I feel like I probably know more about him from Gojo than anything. Or reading his notifications over his shoulder.” She smirks. “But he’s a good guy. I wouldn’t put up with his shit if I didn’t mean that.”

“About—what you said earlier, about him… maybe having feelings for me,” you start.

“Definitely having feelings for you,” she corrects. “Whether he knows or not? Undetermined.”

“Right. Uh.” You don’t get the idea that Nobara is a person you ever want to argue with. “Could you not… mention anything about that? To him?”

She sighs. “Course I won’t. Y’know, the guys always say I can’t keep my nose out of things, but two of my roommates have been in love for years and haven’t done anything and I haven’t said a word. Even though it sucks out part of my soul every time they’re in a room together and they just stare longingly when the other one isn’t looking. They’re so stupid.”

“You and Fushiguro are also stupid,” Riko says helpfully. You glare at her, and she throws her hands up in exasperation. “What? You like him, right? You can’t look me in the eyes and say you don’t like him.”

“He is a good friend,” you say, feeling the burn in your cheeks give you away even before Riko starts cackling.

“I like you,” Nobara tells her, sizing her up. “I might regret saying this, but I think I need you to meet one of my housemates. You could be chaos goblins together. I feel it in my bones.”

Riko rubs her hands together like she’s plotting something, and you think you should probably keep her as far away from said housemate as possible.

Eventually, Nobara pushes to her feet, draining the rest of her coffee and slinging her bag over her shoulder. “I gotta go, but I’m so glad I ran into you. I feel like a spy, knowing Fushiguro’s secret girlfriend.” She wiggles her brows at you, and you don’t bother denying it, just burying your head in your hands instead. “You guys should give me your numbers. I can give you Fushiguro intel.”

Riko immediately accepts Nobara’s phone. You wonder how Fushiguro will feel about all this—fond exasperation seems like the default emotion when it comes to his friends. But you give her your number, waving goodbye as she skips out the door, and lean back, thinking as Riko immediately starts to tease you about your boyfriend-not-boyfriend and how at least he has cool friends, even if he doesn’t have a personality.

You just keep looking out the window, trading snarky comments with Riko as it gets dark—earlier now, at the end of September.

“Are you ever gonna tell him?” Riko presses. “I don’t wanna watch you pine for the next six months.”

“We haven’t even known each other that long,” you insist, tracing patterns aimlessly on the tabletop. “And I don’t… I don’t know. I kind of want him to be the one to say something. Because if Nobara’s wrong and he isn’t actually into me, I could fuck everything up—”

“Isn’t actually into you?” Riko exclaims. “Oh. My god.” She waves a hand in front of your eyes. “Can you see? Do you need to get your vision checked? Do you—”

“Okay!” you laugh, swatting her hands away. “Message received, Jesus. Chaos goblin was right.”

“I wear that as a badge of honor,” Riko says solemnly.

Yeah. She can never meet Nobara’s housemate.

—

It’s a Wednesday, and you and Megumi are walking back to your place from the dog park. His car’s at your house, and the dogs have just had a very high-energy playdate that hopefully knocks them out for the night. The air is chilly and the sky dimming, and everything about it feels immaculately fall.

That’s where your conversation has ended up—the upcoming fall break, which is really just a Friday where neither of your campuses have classes. A three-day weekend really shouldn’t be called a break, you think. It’s misleading.

“You’re not going home?” he asks, and you sigh, shaking your head.

“Parents won’t be home. Not really much of a point.”

“We could—” He clears his throat. “We can hang out that weekend if you want. If you need the company.”

“You’re not going home either?” You glance over at him, a little puzzled. “Like—to Gojo’s?” His lips become a thin, tight line, and you wonder if you’ve somehow crossed some invisible boundary. You’re about to tell him he doesn’t have to talk about it if he doesn’t want to, despite being on the brink of insanity because he doesn’t tell you anything, ever.

But then he says, “He’s a bartender. Not around weekends, usually.”

“Ah.” Nobara mentioned that.

You did tell Megumi about running into Nobara in the coffee shop, and he immediately looked like you told him that you hung out with Gojo and saw all his baby pictures.

“She’s nice!” you insisted, and he sighed, raking a hand through his hair.

“She has no filter.”

“She’s fun.”

“She’s Kugisaki.” He shrugged. “Learn anything interesting?”

You told him about your conversation, minus the whole feelings thing, and he agreed that Riko and Toge Inumaki should never, ever meet. “For the good of the entire world,” he said solemnly. “People would die, Robin.”

Now, as the two of you turn onto your street, he glances at you like he’s trying to find something. And maybe it’s how tired you are, maybe it’s the way his eyes look so bright even though they’re so dark, maybe it’s that weird streetlight-night aura that makes everything feel a little bit not real, but you find yourself studying him right back, meeting his gaze without shame.

You want to know him, to be a part of his life in the way he’s become a fixture in yours. You want to meet his housemates. You want to meet his sister, his family. You want him to open the door and stop acting like you’re going to rob him or something the second you get inside. He knows you better than that, right?

He blinks, and you smirk. “I win.”

“Wh—that was not a staring contest.”

“It’s okay,” you tell him sympathetically. “You can’t be good at everything.”

His laugh—his real laugh—isn’t anything like you thought it’d be, but somehow it’s even better. It transforms his whole face, some blink-of-an-eye shift that lights up his eyes and makes everything about him brighter, louder.

You want to make him laugh like that again. As often as you can, really. Always.

“What?” he asks, staring at you, the light lingering in his eyes, some sort of afterimage of his joy.

“I just—I like your laugh.”

He stops, and you realize you’ve reached the end of your driveway. You drop Batman’s leash and let him run around the yard, and Megumi’s dogs follow suit, knowing better than to go far.

“I like your laugh, too,” he says, a crooked smile spreading across his face. And somehow that feels more like a confession than anything he’s ever said to you.

You’re very close.

He’s leaning in and you’re almost subconsciously reaching up to meet him, heels leaving the ground, and he’s still got the slightest curve of a smile lingering on his lips, and—

“Oh!” Shiro jumps on you from the side, tail wagging excitedly.

When you look back up at Megumi, laughter on your lips, his smile is gone, and he’s looking away, hands shoved in his pockets.

“Megumi—”

“That’s my cue,” he says, a forced-sounding chuckle punctuating the sentence. “I should, um. Get back.”

“Oh. Um, right. Yeah. Totally.” You’re kicking yourself now, feeling stupid, foolish. Did you just mess this whole thing up? Was it too soon? Did you read it wrong?

Megumi opens the back door of the car and lets the dogs hop in before circling around to the driver’s seat. “Robin…”

You look at him, trying to squash the hope adamant in your chest. And he looks like he doesn’t know what to say, for a moment, his lips parting and then closing and his eyes darting around before they finally land on you again. “Night,” he says quietly.

“Night, Megumi.” You lift a hand in a half-wave. “See you.”

Batman stares at the street long after the car has disappeared around the corner, and so do you.

“Fuck,” you murmur, and then again, louder, “fuck.”

—

Megumi’s texts over the next week are less frequent and more distant—at least, you think so. Maybe you’re getting too in your own head about it.

From then on, he’s pretty quiet. You wonder if you fucked up. You haven’t talked about it, the kiss. Almost-kiss. Your texts start getting fewer and far between, and in the chaos leading up to midterms you almost don’t notice. Almost.

Lots of almosts, lately.

you: still on for break?

Part of you expects him to go back on his word, say something came up. Especially when he takes a half hour to respond. He’s just busy, you tell yourself. Stop being dramatic.

megumi (cute vet): your place at 5, right?

“Oh,” you say aloud to nobody but Batman, smiling a little. Well, that’s good. You can ask him what’s been on his mind lately. He just seems… preoccupied.

When break rolls around, you spend Friday out with friends and Saturday catching up on schoolwork until Megumi comes over. You’ve hung out so often—you don’t know why you’re nervous.

And it seems contagious. He still shows up at your door and immediately picks up a conversation you left off on the last time you texted him, but he just seems slightly out of reach, somehow. You let it slide for about twenty minutes before you sit him down on the couch and ask.

“Okay. What’s going on with you?”

“What?” You don’t know if he’s playing dumb or just actually doesn’t realize he’s been acting strange.

“You’ve been… look. You’re acting weird. And I feel like we need to talk about whatever happened last week.”

The ensuing silence makes you want to take it back, or say something else, or do anything to create sound in the little bubble of waiting that's formed around the both of you. But you make yourself wait. Give him the space to find words.

“I guess… there is something I wanted to talk to you about,” he says suddenly, flatly, without looking at you. Your mouth slams shut and you find yourself drawing back a little, the remoteness of his voice almost physically distancing.

“Uh,” you say, like the eloquent person you are. “Okay?”

He swallows once, hard, and he looks at you with so much reluctance you almost wish he’d just look away. Your heart is twisting itself into knots.

“I think we should… take a step back.”

“What?” you whisper. “What do you mean?”

He sighs, raking a hand through his hair. “I mean—this is going… do you want a relationship?”

The question feels so abrupt you’re momentarily shocked into silence. But you know where he’s going.

He doesn’t want this. Doesn’t want—you. And it hurts more than you thought it would. It’s not so much a sharp stabbing sensation as a thousand needles worming their way into the crevices of your heart, slow and numerous and deadly.

Because you do want this. You want him.

“Yes,” you admit, quiet.

And he says, “I don’t.”

In general, you want to ask, or with me? But the words stall in your mouth, all blocked up and sticky, and you don’t say anything at all.

“You shouldn’t,” he murmurs, looking down. “Want that. With me, I mean. It’s…”

“It’s what?” you ask, hesitant. Another long, horrible silence.

“It’s never going to work,” he says, detached. Almost cold. “Us. This.” He’s still not looking at you.

“Let me ask you something, then,” you say, hating the unsteadiness of your voice. “Do you want it to?” Do you have feelings for me? You want to know if this is something he’s denying himself or if he really just doesn’t like you.

You know your own intelligence, though. You haven’t made up whatever this feeling is between you.

He doesn’t answer your question. Just murmurs, “You don’t know me.” And somehow it sounds like an accusation.

“You won’t let me!” you burst out, your voice louder than you intended. But all this caginess, this dancing around everything real, it’s got you at the end of your fuse. Shiro looks up and whines, Kuro leaping off the couch to stand in front of the both of you, curious. “I told you everything! I told you about my family and my friends and my classes and my hometown and my car problems and fucking Katie from Ohio, and you don’t say anything, Megumi, you won’t talk about your family, you won’t introduce me to your roommates. You won’t tell me about your band or your childhood, you took weeks just to give me your first name! What—are you just embarrassed of me? Do you think I’ll judge you? Do you not trust me? Is that it?”

“No,” he practically growls. “God, it’s just—you don’t understand—”

“You’re right, I don’t!” you exclaim, throwing your hands up. Batman paws at your leg, wondering why you’re shouting. “So help me understand. I know I’m not patient, but if you have shit you’re not ready to talk about, that’s fine. But just say that. Tell me to wait and I’ll wait. Just—give me something.”

He looks at you and he’s utterly unreadable, doors slammed shut.

“If you don’t want me in your life, just fucking say so,” you spit, but your voice is wavering now, uncomposed and only loud so it doesn’t shatter. If he really said it, said I don’t want you, you don’t know what you would do. It would be too sharp, too painful, too much.

“You don’t want this,” he says instead, averting his gaze. His tone is measured and even and emotionless.

“Don’t tell me what I want,” you seethe, but your words come out quiet. “If you really think I don’t want this, it’s because you won’t let me.” You’re whispering now, worried that if your voice raises any more, it’ll crack the paper-thin walls holding back your tears. “Megumi…”

“S’better this way.” He rubs the heel of his hand over his eyes, a messy movement that seems so at odds with the evenness of his tone. “I… I have to go, Robin.”

And the strange, unstable feelings of betrayal and confusion and hurt morph abruptly back into something hotter, something angrier. Because how dare he come here, spend fall break at your house, listen to you spill your heart onto the carpeted floor? How dare he run away, say he doesn’t want this, and then still call you that stupid, endearing fucking nickname?

“Yeah,” you say icily, glancing away with your arms crossed over your chest. “You do.”

You count to five, silently, before he moves, and you don’t look when he does. You blink tears out of your eyes when Kuro hesitates, nosing at your hip before following Megumi out the door.

It slams, hard, and Batman stays perched at the entry, tracking him as he walks out of your house, your life.

You don’t move for a very long time.

INTERMISSION // A REAL GOOD START

MEGUMI FUSHIGURO IS in deep, deep shit.

That is to say, he’s lost control of the situation, which is the one thing he does not allow to happen. Ever.

He can’t stop thinking about you.

Sleep is hard to come by in the days after he fucks everything up. He keeps thinking about how it could have gone if he’d just—if he’d done anything else. If he hadn’t run off after he almost kissed you, traitorous heart thumping in his chest even while his brain screamed danger!

You became part of his life so fast and so naturally he didn’t know it was too late until the damage had already been done. If he let himself kiss you, he would drown.

But he didn’t. He shut you down instead, on a Saturday night that could have been different.

He makes excuses when Gojo invites him over Sunday afternoon, going into work early just to avoid him. Even if Megumi’s perfected his poker face, nothing gets past Gojo. It’s like he has some sixth sense for when his pseudo-kids are in emotional turmoil. He’ll force Megumi into a talk therapy session (run by the most unqualified bartender of all time) and he’ll die of embarrassment on the couch.

So instead of talking to someone, anyone, he throws himself into his work, into rehearsals, into school. He goes to the clinic early and leaves late. His fingers are sore from plucking the same lines out on his bass until his housemates go to sleep. His eyes are dry from staring at his laptop until three in the morning. But it doesn’t matter what he does. He can’t. Stop. Thinking. About. You.

The thing about being in a band with all of his housemates is that there’s really no world in which they don’t notice something’s off. They’re spending even more time together lately than usual with the Battle of the Bands going on, and his only relief is that none of them say anything—at least not aloud. There are a number of raised brows and the occasional questioning shoulder nudge, but it seems Yuji, Ino, and Kirara know him well enough by now not to push. That, at least, he’s grateful for.

Nobara Kugisaki is a different story.

It’s a Monday when she storms into his living room—she didn’t even bother knocking on the front door. Shiro and Kuro run happily around her legs, and normally she’d be fawning over them, but today she looks furious. He can almost see smoke coming right out of her ears, eyes narrowed to dark slits as she stares him down.

“Fushiguro.”

“You,” he points out, “do not live here.”

“And you,” she seethes, “have one minute to explain to me what the fuck you did.” Before he can say anything, she waves her phone around in the air and says, “Hi, Nobara, I was just wondering if Fushiguro seems okay to you? Things kind of fell off and I would feel weird reaching out but I’m just a little worried.”

She’s quoting you.

Texts from you.

Shit.

Megumi knows that you and Kugisaki have met, but for some reason it just did not cross his mind that you might have exchanged contact information.

Control the situation.

He clears his throat, refusing to break eye contact. “Well, she said it,” he huffs, his usual toneless expression. “Things fell off.”

You still wanted to check on him. He treated you like that and you still…

“You broke up with her.”

“We weren’t together—”

“You broke up with her. Are you a fucking moron? This girl—” She jabs her finger into her phone screen so hard he’s surprised it doesn’t hurt— “is so fucking cool. And she puts up with you. And you like her. And now you’re acting all weird. So what, you go over there and tell her you can’t be together? What the fuck, dude? Why?”

What a loaded question that is.

“Because,” he grits out. “It wouldn’t have worked.”

“It wouldn’t have worked,” Kugisaki repeats flatly, walking over to the couch and making herself at home way too close to him, staring him down. He turns his head away. God, she is so persistent. She is so annoying.

“Yeah, congrats, your hearing works. Can you leave me alone?”

“Tell me you don’t have feelings for her and I will.”

“I—”

“Look at me and say it,” she snaps.

Megumi looks at her. “I don’t,” he mutters.

Kugisaki rolls her eyes so hard Megumi can’t believe they stay in her skull. “Okay, sure,” she says skeptically. He doesn’t like this tone, where it’s going. “So if I set her up with Toge, you wouldn’t mind?”

“I—” He clamps his mouth shut, hands curled into fists. “Kugisaki, that’s not—”

“That’s what I thought.” Normally she’d look smug, victorious after pulling one over on him, but this is worse. She just looks… concerned. He hates it.

“Look,” she sighs. “You’re not going to talk to me, so I’m not going to waste my time. But when you figure this out—and you will figure it out, or I might kill somebody, and it will be you—I’ll be all ears.” Her gaze might as well be pinning him to the wall with how fierce it is. Sometimes he lets himself forget how much of a force Kugisaki can be, and right now, she’s got that glint in her eyes that he hates, the one that makes him feel like she knows something he doesn’t. “Understood?”

“If I say understood, will you get out of my house?” he grumbles. She says nothing, just looking at him, and he thinks maybe she could win a staring contest with a fish. For a long, tense minute, he doesn’t say anything, and neither does she.

Whatever. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She’ll forget about it eventually.

He sighs, tipping his head back against the wall.

“Understood.”

—

Things seem to happen around Megumi, to him, not because of him. The last conscious decision he made was to end things with you, and now he’s just a passive witness to his own life. Ino has something going on with Nobara’s housemate, Yuji’s scrambling to pass his midterms, Kirara bounces between their house and Hakari’s place faster than he can keep track of, and Megumi… he just exists in the periphery, goes through the motions.

He keeps finding his thumb hovering over your contact name. A dog with a silly name comes into the clinic and he wants to text you about it. He hears a song that reminds him of you (every song reminds him of you) and he wants to play it for you.

He wonders if Riko has him on a hit list yet.

A voice in the back of his head that sounds an awful lot like Kugisaki keeps repeating, Why?

Why did he end things? Why did he bite the bullet so fucking hard?

Because you deserve better than him, honestly.

You don’t know me, he told you. What he didn’t say, though—because you wouldn’t want me if you did.

Part of him knows that’s probably unfair to you—your words keep playing back in his mind and not even his music can drown them out. You won’t let me! But there are things he can’t imagine saying out loud. Explaining the way his dad disappeared, not even showing his face again when his mom died—eighteen-year-old Gojo from across the street on their doorstep, promising he and Tsumiki wouldn’t go into foster care. Bloody knuckles from fighting middle school bullies. Gojo and Geto trying to raise a bunch of kids when they were still kids themselves.

Gojo didn’t leave, but he should have. Megumi knows he threw away so much of his life for him, for Tsumiki. He could have done so much more. He could have done anything he wanted. But Megumi held him back.

Maybe he’s holding him back even now. He knows Gojo would deny it.

The point is, Megumi has shit to figure out for himself, and you shouldn’t have to sit by and watch him deal with it. That’s not fair to you. Yeah, he went about it wrong, but—but this is for the best. You can find someone who actually gives you everything you deserve, and he can… whatever.

Megumi’s band, Shibuya Incident, doesn’t perform this Friday at The Fix—Shoko and Geto’s bar. They’ve already made finals. Tonight will just decide who their opponents are. But even if he’s not up there playing, the Battle of the Bands is a welcome distraction. Even if Ino’s just making lovesick puppy eyes at the stage the whole time and Yuji won’t shut up about wanting Taco Bell. Megumi lets himself get a little lost in the music, and Kugisaki’s band is good, really. He votes for them as soon as the digital form opens and then vows to never tell her.

They should win, but Black Flash takes it again. Kasumi Miwa and Maki’s sister and their friends. They won the whole thing last year. Great, Megumi thinks.

The night comes and goes, and he dodges Gojo on his way out of the bar despite knowing he’ll get a text about it later. And then they’re all piled into Yuji’s car on the way to get his beloved Taco Bell, and he’s just about convinced he’s done with feeling anything at all when Kirara screams.

For a second, there’s nothing at all.

And then the world comes back to life around him in a shock of colors and sounds and a lot of cuss words, mostly coming out of his own mouth.

“Holy shit!” Yuji shouts, yanking the wheel hard to the right, and Megumi can barely process the sight of the white car barreling toward them before there’s crunching metal and shattering glass, and it’s like he feels the collision as an aftershock, shaking all his bones back into place. The airbags go off and he’s blind, wind knocked clean from his lungs, and then he’s moving—no, he moves. No more passivity. This is real.

“Everybody out,” he demands, wrenching the passenger door open and taking in the sight of the crash. Smoke is billowing from the hood of Yuji’s car, the vacant passenger side of the other one entirely smashed in. “Everyone okay?”

Yuji circles around the back of the car and Megumi clocks immediately that he’s holding his wrist weird, wrong. “Yuji—”

“Ino, come on—hey. Hey. Ino.”

Kirara’s got one knee on the edge of the backseat and one hand braced on the roof of the car, and Ino is not making any move to get out.

Sirens. Who called the cops?

“Kirara?” Yuji asks, moving to help her, but she holds up a hand and looks back over her shoulder.

“Don’t. I got it. We’re fine. Just—bad memories, I think.”

Megumi knows Ino hates driving. He doesn’t know why, but he can guess. So he doesn’t push it. Kirara’s the psych major, after all. And probably the one with the most emotional intelligence and any semblance of tact. She’s got him.

He’s about to turn to Yuji when somebody stumbles out of the other car. The car that had been driving in the wrong lane,directly toward them. If Yuji hadn’t reacted so quickly, they’d all be dead.

“What the fuck,” he hisses.

It’s his cousin.

“What,” he says, louder, “the fuck? Naoya!” He storms over and grabs Naoya by the front of his shirt—his breath reeks of alcohol, and he’s laughing, like he didn’t just almost commit vehicular manslaughter. “What the hell, man? What’s wrong with you? Are you—”

He hears… screaming?

But not from here. Not in person. It’s…

Megumi looks at the cracked phone on the ground, having been flung straight through Naoya's shattered windshield. He looks at his shitbag cousin, who’s half tipping-over, legs like jelly under him.

“Naoya,” he growls. “Who. Is. That?”

“Hah,” he slurs. “Mm. My ex! My ex. She is… she is.”

He’s not making sense, but Megumi might get back into Yuji’s car and drive it into his cousin on purpose. Naoya was dating this girl—Megumi knows her. She's friends with Yuji. Some brand of art major, he’s pretty sure, and she's nice, way too good for him. And then what, she finally gets away and he still torments her? By drunk calling her from the car, letting her listen as he crashes? The blood in Megumi’s veins might as well be venom.

He shoves Naoya back with a scoff, letting him stumble over himself, and grabs the broken phone off the ground. “Hey,” he says, and she’s still screaming, this poor fucking girl— “Hey! Hey. Calm down. It’s—hello?”

“Naoya? What the fuck, Naoya—”

She’s definitely talking through tears, maybe angry, maybe scared.

“Not Naoya,” Megumi sighs. “Uh, this is Fushiguro.” She’s quieting a little on the other end, and he hears a guy’s voice trying to talk her down. “Listen. Naoya’s fine. Just… drunk. And an asshole. Are you okay?”

After that, the entire night is a blur.

He talks down Naoya’s traumatized ex-girlfriend on the phone, Ino’s girlfriend shows up and calms him down, and then Gojo and Nanami and Shoko are there and Hakari shows up and Gojo’s dragging Megumi to the ER with Yuji to get his wrist checked out and it’s sprained and Tsumiki is running into the waiting room and hugging the life out of him and Maki calls and Naoya’s got a DUI and then finally, finally they’re home. Megumi can barely keep his eyes open. He doesn't know what time it is.

He sleeps harder than he has in months.

—

Megumi is so fucking exhausted that when his phone starts buzzing the next morning at the kitchen table, he doesn’t actually think it’s real for a second.

INCOMING CALL: SIDEKICK

He’s hallucinating. Sleep deprivation, or something. Or maybe he actually got a concussion in that car crash and now he’s seeing things that aren’t real. That’s the only explanation.

That or you butt-dialed.

He doesn’t bother explaining himself to the others as he stands up and retreats to the hallway, almost letting the phone ring out before steeling himself and swiping to accept the call.

“Hey?”

He’s never greeted you like that before. It sounds so fake. He usually picks up the phone and just starts talking about whatever you texted him, or whatever weird thing he saw that he has to tell you about. Not hey. Hey is for people he doesn’t know. Doesn’t care about.

“Um. Hey.” It is stupid, what just the sound of your voice over the phone does to him. “I just saw this article about a car crash? Are you—”

“I’m fine,” he says, too fast, too sharp. Stop it. “Sorry. I’m—yeah. We’re all fine.”

You clear your throat on the other end of the phone. “Okay. That’s—that’s good. I just… wanted to make sure.”

He pushed you out, and you texted Kugisaki to ask if he was alright.

He pushed you out, and you’re calling to make sure he’s okay.

I’m not, he wants to say. I fucked up. I fucked this up.

I miss you.

“Thank you,” he murmurs. “I… appreciate that.”

Maybe he can still salvage this. Still be friends with you, at least. But that’s a slippery slope, isn’t it? He’ll just hurt you again. But…

“It was my cousin,” he offers, not really knowing why he’s saying it. Maybe as a peace offering. He didn’t tell you things before, important things. Maybe he can start now. “Drunk. On the phone with his ex.”

“Oh,” you say. You sound surprised, but Megumi isn’t sure if you’re more shocked about his words or the fact that he gave them to you. “That’s… awful.”

“Yeah,” Megumi breathes. “Um. Yeah, he’s taken care of now.”

“Good. That’s good.” A dog starts barking, and Megumi feels his lips twitch up into an almost-smile.

“There he goes,” he murmurs. You laugh, and he’s actually smiling, now.

“There he goes,” you say fondly. “I should… go calm him down. I’ll…”

“Yeah, yeah, go,” he says, not sure how to end this. “Um, good… luck.” Stupid. That was so fucking stupid.

“Thanks. Bye, Fushiguro.”

“Bye, Robin,” he says, but the line’s already gone dead.

—

Megumi sees you three times in the month of November, and every time he feels ten times closer to a train wreck.

It snows in November, because it’s stupid and cold and winter comes early here, and there are prints leading toward the dog park. Imprints of dog paws and boots, side by side, and he’s a vet student. He knows what size dog those prints mean. He knows exactly who it is.

He lets Shiro and Kuro tug him all the way to the dog park, and he doesn’t even remember letting himself through the gate. He just knows that you see him right after Kuro starts panting excitedly, and you freeze.

He half-waves in the most pathetic, lame response ever known to mankind.

“Robin,” he says, the nickname falling off his tongue like nothing ever changed.

“Fushiguro.” You smile, hesitant, and he wishes it didn’t feel like a needle that you used his last name. He walks over to you—just following the dogs, he tells himself, that’s natural. Batman almost knocks him over in his excitement.

Megumi can’t not smile at a dog. That would just make him a bad vet, wouldn’t it?

“Hey, bud,” he says, crouching down to pet him. “Yeah, I missed you too.” When he looks back up, your gaze is a little distant, and he closes his eyes for a second, collecting himself. He pushes back to his feet and turns to you.

“Did you know I’d be…” You don’t finish the sentence, but he knows what you mean.

“I… snowprints,” he says, shrugging. It seems to be enough of an answer for you.

“Snowprints,” you echo. “We found you with tracks too, the first time. Didn’t we, Batman?” Like he understands, Batman slaps his tail against the ground and flicks his ears forward and back. Yep. Sure did.

He scrambles for something to say in the silence—small talk is the bane of his existence, but is it ever small talk when it’s you?

Small talk doesn’t matter.

Everything you say matters.

“So. They teach you how to keep plants alive yet?” he asks, and has to fight not to physically cringe after he says it. God, it’s like he never learned how to talk. But you laugh, which he counts as a win.

“No, but someone is significantly less barky, so thank you for that.”

He has you for five minutes before your phone rings, and you chuckle, showing him the screen.

“Ah,” he says. Riko. He doesn’t object when you go, slipping out through the gate with your phone pressed to your ear, because he doesn’t have the right.

But you text first, later.

sidekick: it was good to see you sidekick: and the dogs. obviously

“Look at that,” he mutters to Kuro, whose nose is nearly touching his phone screen. “You’re my good luck charm.”

megumi: you too, sidekick. megumi: and batman. obviously.

The second time, you’re crossing paths in the coffee shop, both of you on your way to other places. It’s brief and stilted and still leaves him feeling like a mess.

“Black?” you ask, nodding at his coffee. You’ve got a hat tugged haphazardly over your head to ward off the persistent snowflakes outside, and it’s—you’re cute. Fuck.

He huffs a laugh, looking down at the sleet-stained floor just to avoid staring at you and your cold-flushed cheeks. “What else?”

“Vanilla latte,” he says, glancing at your cup, because he wants you to know he remembers. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but he thinks you look pleasantly surprised.

The third time, you don’t see him.

He knew you had friends at JU, but he’s never seen you around campus before. You’re with the guy with the blue hair, always pulled up into two knots on the top of his head—Hajime, maybe?

You throw your head back and laugh at something he says, and it’s like—fuck. Laughter shouldn’t sound that poetic.

And he knows he can’t lie to himself anymore.

It’s time to talk.

Kirara would probably kick his ass the second he told her anything. Ino’s busy with his new girlfriend, Yuji’s an idiot, Kugisaki is… well, she’s Kugisaki, and he can’t handle that lecture right now. And he sure as hell isn’t gonna talk to Gojo.

Which means he only has one option.

When he knocks on the door of Tsumiki’s apartment, she takes one look at him and sighs, long-suffering.

“You finally ready to talk?”

This was probably a grave miscalculation. If Kirara would kick his ass for the way he treated you, Tsumiki might actually hang him from his ankles out the window and leave him to die. But not before he apologizes to you. So at least he’s got time.

He walks in without responding and ignores her invitation to sit, pacing the kitchen instead in an uncharacteristic show of nerves. “I fucked up.”

“Yeah, I gathered,” Tsumiki says dryly, but she hops up onto the counter and looks at him, patient as ever. Tell me, she doesn’t say, but Megumi hears it anyway.

“I think I might be in love.”

—

To her credit, Tsumiki is dead silent for the entirety of Megumi’s rambling explanation. He’s a little hoarse by the end of it—honestly, he never talks like this. He feels like he just dumped his heart onto his sister’s kitchen floor and is awaiting some sort of judgement.

“Also, I think she hates me,” he finishes, finally sinking into a chair at the kitchen table. He tilts his head back and stares at the popcorn ceiling. “And I deserve it.”

For a beat, Tsumiki is silent. And then she says, “You wrote a song about her.”

He snaps his gaze to her so aggressively it hurts his neck. “What?”

She rolls her eyes and pulls something up on her phone, sliding up the volume and pressing play. She scrolls to some random point in the song, and Ino’s voice sings, “She’s got me up late starin’ at my phone, waitin’ for a text, feelin’ all alone.”

“Tsumiki—”

She turns it up, and Megumi looks anywhere but at his sister. There are plants everywhere, warm light filtering in through the windows onto herbs on the kitchen windowsill and succulents in the living room and god, everything reminds him of you.

“And she don’t even know what she’s doin’ to me, all my hopes are high-strung and she’s just gonna leave, no!”

“Okay! Okay, stop, I get it,” he huffs, dragging the heel of his palm down his face and trying to ignore her smug smile. “How did you even know?” he mumbles. “I’m not on the credits.”

“I know you,” she says dryly. “I also know Ino, and his lyrics are not that… I don’t know, poetically nihilistic.”

“I really can’t tell if you’re trying to insult or compliment me right now,” he says, sighing.

“Also,” Tsumiki says pointedly, “because this is what you do, Gumi.” He gives her a quizzical look in lieu of a response. “When people get close to you, you lash out and then you run away.” She hops off the counter and crosses the room to the table, pulling out a chair across from Megumi.

“No, I don’t,” he grumbles, tilting his chair away on its back legs and inadvertently proving her point.

She just looks at him until he relents, burying his face in his hands.

“I don’t think it’s unprecedented,” Tsumiki says gently, “considering the way we grew up. But you can’t keep shutting down good things, Gumi. You wouldn’t even be friends with Itadori and Kugisaki if they hadn’t forced their way past your bullshit. And you love them, right? They’re great. You know they’re not gonna hurt you.”

“Nobody knows that,” he huffs. “College will end and we’ll all go our separate ways and I’ll never hear from—”

“Nope,” Tsumiki says loudly, cutting him off. “Okay. My turn to talk. Shut up.” She glares at him, planting her elbows on the table. He feels stripped raw. “The whole pushing-people-away-before-I-get-hurt thing? You need to stop. You cannot look me in the eyes right now and tell me you don’t have people who would die for you, Gumi.”

He opens his mouth to object, but she swipes a hand through the air, silencing him. “I’m not done.” Megumi has only seen his sister like this a few times in his life, and he is fairly certain that if he tries to interrupt her again he might not leave this apartment alive.

“You have me. You have Gojo. You have Geto and Shoko and Nanami. You have all of your housemates, and Kugisaki, and probably all of her housemates too,” she says. “And none of us are going anywhere, okay? No walking out on the kids, no betrayal, no kicking you to the curb. So you need to get your head out of your ass, Megumi.”

Well.

“Look. It’s a defense mechanism. I get that,” she says, a little gentler now. “But you are not doing yourself any favors. And this girl? You’re in love with her, Gumi. That means she’s pretty special, okay? Because I don’t think I’ve ever even seen you look twice at a girl in your whole life. And I know she doesn’t deserve this, just as much as you know. So you have two choices.”

Megumi doesn’t think he’s going to like either of the two choices.

Tsumiki leans back in her chair, shrugging. “You can let her move on without you and keep screwing yourself over, or you can go tell her you fucked up and ask her to forgive you.”

He’s never liked asking for things. Tries to avoid it, actually. But he’s finding there are a lot of rules he’s willing to break when it comes to you.

“But if you’re going to ask this girl to step back into your life, you need to make sure you’re ready for it,” his sister says firmly. “You need to have your shit together. You need to know how you feel.” She pauses, catching his gaze, and once she has it she might as well be holding his face in her hands. He can’t look away, not when she’s looking at him this intently, like she’s waiting for an answer she already knows. “So. How do you feel?”

When he doesn’t answer right away, Tsumiki knocks on the table, like a dismissal. “Okay. You think about that, and when you know—you know.” She looks at him for a long moment after he stands up, those eternal curled locks of hair falling into her face, and he’s suddenly hit with a wave of affection, of gratitude, so strong he can barely stand it. Yeah, so he doesn’t have a mom. And fuck his dad. But Tsumiki—thank god he has his sister.

“Miki,” he says, before he can stop himself. “Uh—thank you. I…” He swallows once, hard. “Love you.”

Her smile is slow but wide, the kind that makes her eyes narrow just a little. “I love you too,” she says softly, and then she winks. “Hey, those words? That’s a real good start.”

—

When Megumi sees you next, he’s going to be ready. Just like Tsumiki said. He needs to know how he feels. So he thinks, and he thinks, and he thinks.

There’s a notebook in the bottom drawer of his desk, scrawled song lyrics he’ll never let anyone see. He fills page after page after page trying to figure out what’s going on in his head, in his heart, how he can make it make sense. Fit together like two hands, two sets of prints in the snow. He tries to imagine what he’ll say to you, how you’ll react, but every word he thinks of falls short, everything just sounds stupid in the face of how much you deserve and how little he can give.

He keeps thinking.

It’s December 19, Kugisaki’s Christmas party before everyone parts ways for break.

Megumi won’t admit it, but he’s having a good time. He brought the dogs, and he and Yuji have been bouncing around talking to their friends. Tsumiki’s here too, and when he loses track of Yuji he makes his way over to her, leaning silently against the wall.

“They’re cute,” she says fondly, and he follows her gaze to the hall—Ino is standing there with his girlfriend, Skipper, and there’s mistletoe hanging right above them. No doubt Kugisaki’s doing. Skipper laughs and pecks Ino on the lips before he says something and drags her down the hall, and then Maki and Yuta glance up at the mistletoe, look at each other in mutual horror, and pointedly do not walk beneath it. They’re finally together, but they wouldn’t be caught dead kissing in front of other people.

And he wonders what you’d do, if you were here standing under it with him.

He doesn’t have to say anything. Tsumiki reads him like a book.

It’s like this:

Megumi is very well-acquainted with loss. But he’s not sure he can handle this one.

He let his own insecurities ruin a good thing, a bright thing. He shut it down before it could start. He struck first and he fucking regrets it.

That’s it, then. Pity party over. Delusions down the drain. It’s time to get over himself, to get real.

Because the truth of it is that he doesn’t give a shit about his birthday, about Christmas, about the trees and the lights and the stupid fucking carols, if you’re not there with him.

Oh, he thinks. His sister has the audacity to smirk.

He stays, because this is Kugisaki’s party and despite everything, he does love her. He’s getting better about that, about acknowledging it—he has people who care about him, and he has people he cares about.

But when he heads out just a little bit early, after whispering your name in Kugisaki’s ear, she nearly slaps him for not going sooner.

“Shiro, Kuro,” he calls, heading for the door. “C’mon. We’ve got somewhere to be.”

PART II // TO TRYING

FOR A WEEK after Megumi walks out your front door, you drown in self-pity like the flower you killed in September with too much water.

And then you open your computer and type his name into the search engine with jujutsu university and band. It’s not hard to find—one of the first results is some Instagram advertisement about a Battle of the Bands at JU, from a couple of weeks ago. One of them’s got to be his. You could just ask Nobara, but—it feels weird, somehow. Wrong. Like you’re encroaching on part of his life that he so clearly doesn’t want you to be a part of.

You can’t helping asking her to check on him, though. You just—it’s probably stupid, but you want him to be okay. Not that you think him pseudo-dumping you would tear him up or anything. But there’s a not insignificant part of you that doesn’t believe what he said that day. Part of you that knows a defense mechanism when you see one.

The thing is, you could’ve asked your friends about him. Hajime goes to JU. He might know Megumi, and if not he could’ve found out. But you wanted this for yourself, this mystery of earning his first name and his history and his heart, except you thought you’d gotten two of the three and it turns out he’ll only ever give you one.

You start typing in the bands one by one, figuring eventually one of them has to be his. A search for Black Flash turns up an artist image of a group of people surrounding a grinning girl with bright blue hair. No Megumi, though.

Shibuya Incident, then. You key it into Spotify and rub your eyes when the artist profile comes up, like you’re maybe seeing it wrong. No. It’s him.

There’s a dark-haired girl who must be Kirara leaning on a familiar-looking guy with pink hair, face split open in a smile. Front and center is a brown-eyed boy with a beanie tugged lopsided over his hair. And in the back, standing, looking characteristically bored, is Megumi Fushiguro.

Why are you doing this? You shouldn’t be doing this.

But you’re scrolling before you know it. Most popular songs. They have an EP called Over Duress. And they have a single—released recently, it looks like.

Strike First.

You only allow yourself one second of hesitation before you press play.

“Catch feels real quick,” a voice sings—Ino, must be. “And they go real deep.” You can’t help paying attention the bassline. It’s steady, constant, holding the rest of the band together as Ino sings. The lyrics almost sink into the background until the chorus snags your attention, and you have to go back and replay it.

“I can hear the heartbreak saying, ooh, I’m on my way. So you strike first, strike first ‘cause she’s not gonna stay.”

Oh.

You understand, then, even if his name isn’t listed in the writing credits, even if you have no proof. Megumi wrote this song. You can hear him in the unfamiliar voice of the lead singer. You can feel him in the pattern of the words. It’s his.

He didn’t want you to leave, so he left first. Is that it?

You understand, but it’s not enough. Abruptly, you’re just—you’re angry. What a stupid reason to let something fall apart. You don’t owe him patience. If he’s not ready to commit, that’s not your problem, it’s his. He needs to figure himself out, learn to let people in, and you can’t just sit here and wait for him to do it. It’s not your responsibility.

It’s not.

There’s some sort of grim satisfaction in knowing that there’s nothing else you could have done.

“Forget that,” you mutter, closing out of Spotify and intending to just toss your laptop on the bed. Case closed. Moving on.

But something in your search results catches your eye first.

JU senior issued DUI after crash on 34th and Olson Blvd Friday night

Okay. So. Nothing to do with Megumi, right? Except it’s showing up in your search of his name. You click on the article, heart suddenly pounding.

Jujutsu University Campus Police responded to an emergency call at 11:41 last night after an automobile collision on 34th Street and Olson Boulevard, four blocks from the popular campus live music bar, The Fix.

“No,” you breathe. “What the fuck?” You keep skimming, everything in you loosening up when it says nobody was seriously hurt, but it just—whose car is that, Yuji’s? It’s bright red. Not Megumi’s.

You’re not really thinking when you make the call. It rings for so long, and right as you’re about to give up, he’s there on the other end of the line, and you realize you have no idea what you’re supposed to say.

“Hey?”

“Um. Hey.” You sound more breathless than you should, just sitting here on your bed with your laptop open to a student news publication. You don’t wait for him to ask why the hell you’re calling, barreling on before you lose your nerve. “I just saw this article about a car crash? Are you o—”

“I’m fine,” he says quickly. Defensively. Oh.

Right. This is overstepping, probably. He doesn’t need you checking up on him. You should’ve just texted Nobara. You should’ve just not read the article, actually, shouldn’t have typed his name into your search engine. He probably thinks you’re a creep who put Google alerts on for his name or something. You don’t have any real excuse for how you stumbled across this fucking article.

But then he says, “Sorry. I’m—yeah. We’re all fine.”

Thank god, you think. But you just clear your throat a little and say, “Okay. That’s—that’s good. I just… wanted to make sure.”

The silence is so long you think for a moment that he’s hung up on you. But then, very quietly, he says, “Thank you. I… appreciate that.”

You don’t really know where to go from here. He’s fine. Of course he’s fine. Why the hell did you call him in the first place? It’s not like he’s going to offer you any information. Because he doesn’t tell you anything, which was the whole problem in the first place—

“It was my cousin.”

You blink.

“Drunk. On the phone with his ex.”

“Oh,” you say, more of a surprised noise slipping out before you can bite it down. It’s less shock at the actual words than the fact that he’s giving you something, that he’s offering you this. You scroll down in the article. Naoya Zenin. The senior in the headline who got a DUI. “That’s… awful.”

“Yeah,” Megumi breathes. “Um. Yeah, he’s taken care of now.”

“Good. That’s good.”

Batman chooses this moment to start barking at absolutely nothing out the window. He actually has been a lot better about that recently, but it’s like it’s his mission today to embarrass you on the phone with the guy who dumped-not-dumped you.

“There he goes,” Megumi says lightly, and you laugh a little, because he sounds almost fond when he says it.

“There he goes,” you echo. “I should… go calm him down. I’ll…” What? You’ll what? See you around? No you won’t. Talk to you later? Unlikely.

“Yeah, yeah, go,” he says. “Um, good… luck.” With what? Batman? Life?

“Thanks. Bye, Fushiguro.”

You slam your finger down on the red button before he can reply.

You don’t want to know what he says. Your name, or sidekick, or Robin, or nothing at all.

—

You try to forget about him, but it’s hard.

Every time your phone buzzes with a message from your friends, classmates, family, your heart jumps, foolishly thinking it might be him. You follow Batman to the dog park without making the conscious decision to, and berate yourself when you realize, lead him off in another direction. Your rosemary plant dies and you hear him in your head, teasing you—isn’t the environment your whole career? Better shape up, sidekick.

Riko prepares a half-hour long PowerPoint presentation about all the reasons he didn’t deserve you in the first place. She must’ve told your roommate, too, because Suko calls you in the middle of the night, Japan time, just to check in.

A week into November, it’s dulled a little bit, the hurt. You’re still startled when he shows up at the dog park, but… not unpleasantly so.

“Snowprints,” he says when you ask if he knew you were here. One word, but it means more to you. Snowprints means he knew what he was walking into, and he came anyway. Snowprints means he saw a chance and followed it to you on purpose.

That’s progress, isn’t it?

You see him at the coffee shop and he remembers your order. It shouldn’t mean anything, but it does. Snowprints and a vanilla latte.

He said he didn’t want this, but you just… don’t believe him.

But you’re not waiting for him. If the cute guy from ecology asked you out tomorrow, you’d say yes. This boy isn’t dictating your life while he figures himself out.

You hope he does figure himself out. But you won’t hold on to scraps.

And you do start to forget, a little. The cute guy in your ecology class does not ask you out, but your friends and your studies and your needy dog are enough of a distraction that Megumi isn’t in the front of your mind all the time. The semester is flying by, and you make an effort to keep in touch with Nobara despite everything—she really is fun.

It’s approaching break before you know it, and you’re going home for the holidays soon, though you’ll probably be back before the new year because Setsuko needs a ride. Man, you’re excited to have a roommate again.

Your suitcase is half-packed, poorly folded clothes covering the whole of your bedspread in some futile attempt at organization. Christmas is in six days—well, five, you think idly, glancing at the clock. Half past midnight. You should go to sleep, but your bed is covered in clothes and you need to finish packing for your drive home in two days.

“Hey, no,” you lecture as Batman sniffs at a shirtsleeve dangling over the side of the bed. You can tell he’s considering making the leap and taking a nap on top of all your freshly laundered clothes. “No. Stay down.”

You push to your feet, yawning, and then Batman freezes in place, his ears perking up and forward like he hears something.

“What’s up?” you mutter, and then his head snaps toward the door. “Dude, what? It’s past midnight—”

The doorbell rings.

“The shit,” you mutter, trudging to the front door. Irrationally you wonder if your roommate’s home early, but that’s stupid—she’d have needed a ride from the airport, and she has a key.

You don’t know what you expect when you nudge Batman aside and open the door into the cold night, barely holding him back from the cracked door with your leg.

Oh.

You’re face to face with Megumi Fushiguro, and your heart does a diving, spinning leap into the bottom of your stomach.

His lips are slightly parted like he stopped speaking mid-word, eyes wild with urgency, and you suddenly wonder if he’s in trouble, if something’s really wrong. Snow peppers his dark hair, the porch light bouncing off the white specks and making him look like he’s sparkling.

You can’t find any words. None at all, nothing that can actually articulate the shock and confusion and barely-squashed hope. What is happening?

“Robin,” he says. And then he says your name, your real name, and—it’s like a dam breaks.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so fucking sorry. I—I’ve had some time to think and I really, really messed up and I don’t know how I’m ever going to make it up to you but I have to try to explain, I—it’s me, it was all me, all my fault, you’re amazing and I’m insecure and I let that get in the way of something really fucking good and that was stupid, so stupid, and I like being with you and I like knowing you and I want you to meet my friends and my weird messed-up family and I want you to know me, I want to let you know me, and I’m sorry I didn’t just because I got too in my own head about it, about you. You take up so much headspace it’s insane and I haven’t stopped thinking about you since—since, I don’t know, since I fucking met you, and I—”

The multi-colored Christmas lights strung between the pillars of your front step cast colors and shadows over him as he rambles, his cheeks red from the cold and maybe something else, and you can’t take it, watching him like this, desperate.

“Fushiguro.”

But he’s on a roll now, the words spilling from him like they’ve been building up in the hollow space of his throat for years, and he’s not stopping now. You’re not sure he even hears you over the rapid, panicked lilting of his own confession.

“You should turn around right now, slam the door in my face, I get it, I deserve that, and I don’t have any excuse that matters, but I realized how important you’d become and that scared me more than anything I’d ever felt because that meant I could lose you, you could leave—”

“Fushiguro.”

“And it’s—I fell in love with you months ago,” he breathes. “I’m sorry, and I love you, I’m so in love with you, and I—”

“Megumi.”

He finally stops, panting, every part of him frenzied and undone. His lips are still parted around a word he hasn’t said, freeze frame, the remote in your hands. “Will you just come inside?”

The silent second feels like ages, years, maybe, and you can see the disbelief in his irises, like he’s afraid to trust this, afraid to hope.

“No,” he breathes suddenly, and something comes dangerously close to cracking in your heart. Did he come here, say all this, only to leave you again?

“I—”

“No, because I brought the dogs and they’re sitting in the back of my car right now,” he explains, sheepish. An unbelieving, slightly hysterical laughter bubbles up out of you, warm and surprising and not at all unpleasant.

You grab Megumi by the dark fabric of his coat and yank him toward you, pressing your lips to his cold ones, hand slipping up to tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck. It’s like your warmth leeches into him limb by limb, slowly unfreezing him both from the cold and the frantic fear that you’d turn him away again, and it’s below freezing but he’s melting beneath your touch, and you missed him so, so much.

You pull back, your breath fogging in the air like an echo. “You idiot,” you tell him. “Go get them, I want to see them.” You cross your arms over your chest, leaning on the doorjamb and finally processing how cold it is out here. It’s like it’s sinking right into your bones. “And then get your ass inside.”

He smiles breathlessly, standing still for a moment, and then it’s like he just snaps into action, like he’s afraid you’ll change your mind if he waits another second. The dogs run up the path before he does, and you let them barrel into you and then have their little reunion with Batman while Megumi catches up.

“Come sit down,” you tell him, shutting the door and closing out the cold air. “And tell me more.”

It’s almost like nothing ever changed.

You talk for hours in the lamp-lit living room, surrounded by three tired dogs and a record spinning in the corner. But this time, Megumi talks more than you’ve ever heard him talk. He tells you everything.

How he pushed you away and justified it to himself by saying you deserved better, when really you deserved the truth. How his dad left and his mom died young and Gojo was barely legal when he took him in. How he had a lot of issues with his self-worth growing up, and even now, and how it took him a very long time to accept that people care about him. How it was Tsumiki's idea to get the dogs, because after their mom died he couldn't stop having nightmares. How he wanted to call you every day and then he finally cracked and he went to Tsumiki and she psychoanalyzed him at the kitchen table and he sorted out all his shit so he could show up here like an absolute nuisance and beg you to give him another chance.

“That’s all I wanted, you know,” you tell him, the both of you on the floor, leaning against Shiro and Kuro as they sleep. Batman’s made himself comfortable on the couch, occasionally using his vantage point to lick you right in the face. “You, being honest. You didn’t have to tell me about your parents, y’know, if you didn’t want to. But just…”

“I know that now,” he murmurs sheepishly. “I’m sorry. Really. But I’m trying to get over the whole self-sabotage thing. Trying to… try. In general. With people.”

And he means it. Because the only time Megumi has ever lied to you was the day he told you he didn’t want this, and you knew even then that it wasn’t true. He might try to be all stoic and poker-faced, but he’s not a very good liar. You smile. “That’s a good start.”

You’re facing each other, knees touching, and you reach out, hand palm-up between you. He glances at you before he makes any move, like he’s asking—are you sure? But then he laces his fingers through yours. His hands are way bigger than yours, fingers folding over your own, warm and encompassing. Something about it feels very right.

“So I was wondering,” he starts, and this new side of him that is so hesitant but also hopeful is maybe the most endearing thing you’ve ever seen. You squeeze his hand a little, and that seems to embolden him enough to ask whatever it is waiting on the tip of his tongue. “Uh, would you… want to meet my housemates?”

—

“They’re crazy,” Megumi says, standing outside his house with you the next day. “I mean it. I don’t know how to prepare you for—”

“Megumi,” you cut him off, laughing. “No disclaimers. I’m friends with Riko, remember?” This actually seems to be an effective argument, because he smiles a little, putting his hand on the door.

“Yeah, okay. That’s fair.”

You are tackled the second you cross the threshold.

“Hi!” someone practically shouts in your ear, full-on bear-hugging you as you stumble back, laughing.

“Oh my god,” Megumi groans. “Itadori—”

“Sorry!” he yelps, pulling back and awkwardly offering a hand like he didn’t just squeeze the living daylights out of you. “I’m Yuji. Kugisaki’s told me all about you and Fushiguro said—”

“Itadori,” he says again. You immediately understand what Megumi meant. This boy is legitimately no different than the two dogs who have come to crowd around your legs. Actually, Shiro and Kuro have greeted you significantly more calmly than Yuji has. It’d be difficult not to like him, you think.

“No, you’re fine,” you laugh him off, using the handshake to pull him back in. “You’re fun. I like you.” Yuji grins victoriously at Megumi and lets you go, and you finally move out of the entryway and into the familiar living space.

“Ino,” you say, pointing at the boy in a beanie, and then shift to the girl crouched in front of the TV, rummaging through a bunch of games. “Kirara.”

The conspiratorial smirk Kirara gives you—along with the way the Wii games are scattered all around her like a personal hurricane—makes you think she might not actually be the long-suffering order in a house full of chaos. More likely, she and Ino and Yuji are only kept in check by Megumi’s neat freak tendencies and blunt nature.

“Hey.” Ino grins. “Okay, I gotta ask, is your dog actually named Batman? Because that’s awesome.”

“She’s been here for two seconds,” Megumi chides, but you nod happily. You are very proud of your dog’s stupid name.

“Well, I approve,” Ino shrugs, patting the space next to him on the couch.

And it feels natural, the way you fall into place with the rest of them. For all Megumi pretends they drive him insane, it’s obvious he loves his friends, and he seems relaxed around them even as you waste away the afternoon chatting and arguing and getting your ass kicked in Mario Kart (specifically by Kirara, whose undefeated record pisses off all the boys but makes you even fonder of her).

By the time night falls, you feel like you’ve been friends with all of them for years. You learn all about the band—Megumi didn’t tell you that they won the Battle of the Bands, which you plan to give him shit for later. They ask you about your school and friends and seem to actually, genuinely want to meet them.

You go home for Christmas, getting your annual few rare days of quality family time, but Megumi sends you photos from Gojo’s with Tsumiki and the dogs. You respond with a picture of Batman in a Santa hat.

megumi: they really want to meet you when you get back. if you want.

A smile splits across your face before you can stop it. Because this is exactly what you wanted—for Megumi to want you to meet his family, to know that part of his life.

“What are you smiling about?” your dad asks from the couch, and your blush must be answer enough, because he turns to your mom with a raised brow and mouths boy. You shove your phone in your pocket. You weren’t prepared for the interrogation, but it’s too late now.

The thing is, if your family had asked you if you were seeing anyone even last week, you’d have nothing to say. And maybe you shouldn’t dump all this information on them when it’s still so fresh, so new.

But something tells you this is going to last. He wants you to meet Tsumiki, to meet Gojo. You won’t keep him from your family if he doesn’t keep you from his. Plus, your parents leave on another trip in two days. You’re not sure when else you’ll get the chance to tell them this in person.

“So,” you say, before they can start grilling you. “His name is Megumi.”

—

There are prints in the snow.

It feels uncannily familiar, walking your usual path with Batman and seeing the two sets of paw prints and accompanying boots. You place your own footsteps in their wake, laughing at how they dwarf your own shoe size.

You aren’t supposed to see Megumi until he picks you up to go to Gojo’s tonight, but it seems fate—or Batman—has other ideas.

You let him drag you all the way to a big, snowy clearing, where you see your boyfriend and Kuro standing in the snow. It takes you a whole five seconds longer to make out Shiro, who basically blends right into the landscape.

The dogs, per usual, see you first, and Megumi turns at their excited noises to see you. He wastes no time setting off across the field toward you, and you grin, meeting him in the middle.

“So is this a coincidence, or is someone following me?” he asks, meeting you at eye-level as you crouch to greet the dogs. Batman basically shoves his nose in Megumi’s face in response.

“Snowprints,” you say, gesturing to the trail behind you. “Seems to be a theme.” Behind the wall of Kuro’s dark fur, you plant your hands in the snow, letting a mischievous smile grow on your lips. “Anyway, I’m glad I ran into you, because—”

You throw a massive snowball right at Megumi’s face.

“Oh,” he says, swiping a gloved hand across his eyes but leaving flakes of white stuck in his brows, on his lashes. “You’ve done it now.”

“Protect me,” you whisper to Kuro, and then you run.

All-out war. The dogs are thrilled at every snowball that misses its mark, all of them leaping to catch the wayward projectiles in the air, and you and Megumi chase each other and trip over the snow and wind up in a big, snow-covered mess on the ground, staring up at a shockingly bright afternoon sky.

You can barely breathe, you’re laughing so hard. “You’re crazy,” you pant, pushing yourself up onto your elbows, then your palms. An absolute mess of snowprints—his, yours, Shiro’s, Kuro’s, Batman’s—cross over each other in the snow, revealing patches of browning grass here and there, showing the signs of your battle. “Aw, hey. It looks like a giant heart.”

“Sap,” Megumi snorts.

“Buzzkill.”

“Instigator.”

“Oh, yeah?” You grab a fistful of snow and put it right on his head, letting it melt into his tousled, snow-streaked hair. “Well, I’ll instigate, then.”

He laughs, shaking his hair out like a dog, and tackles you back into the snow. “Then I’ll instigate something else.”

You’re so cold you can barely feel half your face, but it doesn’t matter. Not when he kisses you like this.

—

The first thing you think when Satoru Gojo opens the door is damn, he’s tall.

The second is holy shit, those are the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

“Gumi!” he shouts, enveloping him in a very one-sided hug.

The third thing? Yeah, you like him.

“Gojo,” Megumi grumbles, half-heartedly pushing him away, but the fondness of the interaction doesn’t escape you.

“And I’ve heard all about you,” Gojo grins, pulling you into a hug as well—you don’t hesitate to hug him back, because now you know exactly what this man has done for Megumi and Tsumiki. And he’s important to Megumi, so he’s important to you.

Megumi telling you about his childhood and Gojo was one thing, but him actually wanting you to meet his family is another. You feel warm all over as Gojo ushers you into the apartment, where Tsumiki is already busy making dinner. She nearly drops the pan in her hands at the sight of you. “Hi!”

“You all hug so much,” Megumi says flatly when she hugs you too, and she just grins and forces him into an embrace as well.

“Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”

“Shut up.”

“Love you too.”

“So,” Tsumiki says, turning back to the stove and insisting you sit down and make yourself at home when you offer to help. “Tell me about you.” Instead, she enlists Megumi to be her kitchen assistant, and you aren’t sure why it’s so surprising that he knows how to cook, but it is.

The four of you talk about school and the dogs (who are at home with Suko, now that she’s finally back from Japan) and your families and friends, and you can see Megumi growing more comfortable as the night goes on, once he’s sure that Gojo isn’t about to whip out a bunch of embarrassing pictures of him as a kid or tell you all his darkest secrets. Tsumiki is sweet and you take a liking to her immediately, talking all about her job running the campus paper. Gojo tells you about the bar he works at, about his college friends who founded it.

“Do you have to work tomorrow, then?” you ask between bites of the best meatballs you’ve ever had.

Gojo shrugs. “Yeah. But if I wasn’t, I’d be hanging out with all the same people I work with, anyway. Not so bad, huh?”

“We’re actually probably going to swing by the bar tomorrow,” Megumi says, avoiding Gojo’s gaze in favor of looking at you. Gojo lights up. It’s endearing, how excited he is at the prospect of seeing all of Megumi’s friends. “You coming?” Megumi asks Tsumiki.

“To the bar or the house party?”

“Both,” Megumi shrugs.

“Only if you are,” she says not to Megumi but to you, teasingly.

“Yeah, I gotta meet the rest of his friends. All of Nobara’s housemates.”

“Oh, I love them!” Tsumiki says. “Mm, you’ll get along with Yuta. I mean, everyone does. Oh god, and Toge. And S—yeah, okay, all of them, actually. Have you met our cousin Maki?”

“No, but they all sound great,” you say honestly.

“They are!” Gojo says loudly. “They can give you so much dirt on Megumi.” Megumi glares at him with a complete lack of heat.

“You and my friend Riko would get along,” you say, but as soon as you say it you’re not sure it’s true. Either they would immediately gang up on Megumi and make his life a living hell, or Riko would have the same dynamic with Gojo and they would argue until somebody threw a punch.

Megumi stares at you incredulously. “They can never meet. Ever.”

Except they do, because you bring Riko to the bar the following night. You feel like this might have been a dire miscalculation, because not only does this mean she’s meeting Gojo, but it means she’s meeting Nobara’s housemate who, in her words, is a kindred “chaos goblin.” This means that they’re both comm majors with too much time on their hands and they make it everyone else’s problem.

Toge Inumaki is the very possibly the only person you’ve ever met who can match Riko in terms of sheer chaos. It is terrifying. They’ve known each other for a grand total of five minutes before they’re planning a full-on bracketed Just Dance tournament with Rasputin as the final battle.

“You’re insane,” you tell Riko fondly, and she grins at you.

“I think we’re brushing over the fact that you think Rasputin is the hardest one on there,” Gojo says, leaning over the bar incredulously.

“What, you think your old man knees can handle it?” Riko asks shamelessly, and you excuse yourself as they launch into bickering worthy of siblings.

But nothing explodes, and you meet Shoko and Geto and Utahime and Nanami, and all of Nobara’s housemates, including Megumi’s cousin. She’s very no-nonsense in a way that you appreciate, and after you shit-talk Naoya with her, you feel like you’re probably going to be very good friends.

It’s well past eleven by the time you all get back to Megumi’s place, leaving Gojo to ring in the new year with his own friends. Someone puts the ball drop on the TV in the living room and you all scatter across the space, a swell of conversation and laughter as midnight inches closer.

It’s like this:

A living room full of your friends and his, laughing and smiling and teasing and playing Just Dance really aggressively (but that’s just Toge and Riko, really). Megumi’s knee pressed against yours as Tsumiki forces him to smile for a picture with you. Nobara throwing her arms around you, insisting you settle a debate between her and Yuta about the superior shape of pasta noodle. Sneaking off to Megumi’s room while Yuji is distracted, stealing kisses in the dark. Listening to his whispered commentary in your ear as the drinks and sleep deprivation start hitting Toge and Yuta and they get existential on the floor. Suko telling everyone all about Japan and the occult club she started at her university there. Yuji being way too into the idea of starting one between JU and Kaisen, launching animatedly into a discussion of all his favorite conspiracy theories.

Five minutes to midnight, Kirara pops open a bottle of champagne and passes you a glass, and you wave it in front of Megumi teasingly.

“What, you wanna toast to something?” he teases, leaning in toward you. “You gonna say to us? That’s pretty Hallmark movie of you.”

You hum, swirling the glass, lifting your gaze to meet his. “To trying,” you say. “And also vigilantism?”

And there’s his laugh, better than the ball drop, the streamers, the disco ball that came from god knows where in the corner. “I can get behind that,” he says, clinking his glass against yours. “To your superhero dog,” he says, leaning in closer. “And his pretty cool sidekick.” He kisses you as the countdown hits one, and you’re laughing against his lips, savoring the warmth of his hand on the back of your neck.

When he pulls away, it’s only by centimeters, just enough for him to lock eyes with you. “And,” he breathes against your lips, “to trying.”

directory // my masterlist | out of my mind !

jjk taglist open: just send me a message!

@shutuppeter @mikikkoo @reactwithjan @theclassbookworm @lilactaro @bisforbuse @risararelywrites @idkidk32 @gojodickbig @stargazing-with-choso @anonymity-222 @honeyyhuggs

a/n: sorry this took like twenty years and it's SO LONG. heh. i'm incapable of short-form content. it was fun to write though. let me know what you thought, and be sure to pop over to out of my mind (and, if you're curious about naoya's ex, greta's sukuna spinoff, if you are NOT a minor)! thanks loves :)

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chuulyssa · 2 months ago

Text

──── the third of december, me in your sweater

synopsis ⸺ the winter is chilly, and you curse yourself for not thinking twice before leaving your jacket at home.

pairing ⸺ gojo, geto, toji, sukuna, nanami, megumi, yuji, yuta x reader

cw ⸺ fluff

gojo satoru

he notices you shivering immediately. his gaze drops to his own sweater, which is a bit too warm and a bit too lonely for him. so when you least expect it, he steps forward to block your way and somehow, in a way that is both dramatic and casual, he shakes it off his own shoulders and places it over yours.

“cold, huh? guess you’re in luck, baby — your favorite guy is here to save the day.”

he then steps back to admire you in his clothing, and when you open your mouth to thank him, he holds a hand up to stop you.

“don’t thank me yet. i’m charging interest — your smile counts as the payment.”

he teases you about how “lucky” you are to get a guy like him, you know, someone who is ready to sacrifice everything, that is, his sweater, for you. he leans in close just to fluster you and plants a little kiss on your cold nose.

as he walks beside you, he pretends to shiver without it as if to make you feel guilty, even though you know he isn’t cold at all. pausing his act every now and then, he steals glances at you, and his annoying smile seems to soften into something genuine every time he does so. definitely stops you at every aesthetic-looking location to take pics of you, he is your personal photographer after all, and you in his clothing just peaks his interest even more!

“woah. I thought I looked good in it, but you might’ve just one-upped me, pretty. i’m now officially upset and can only be fixed with kisses.”

geto suguru

he notices you huddling into yourself before even you realize how cold you are. he is a very observant person. the little lingering of your fingers as they dig into your arms, the subtle rubbing of your palms, he notices it all.

so wordlessly, he pulls off his sweater, shakes it out and drapes it over your shoulders carefully. he takes your hands in his and intertwines his fingers with yours. he adjusts the sleeves of the sweater with the other hand and stays close to you to warm you up. you smile at him gratefully, and he presses a kiss at your knuckles.

“you shouldn’t have to thank me. i’d rather freeze to death than see you shiver.”

he looks at you as if impressed. his lips twitch into a small, soft smile when he sees your body relax at his touch.

“you wear it better than i ever could.”

when you question him about when you should give the item back, he chuckles and shakes his head, wrapping an arm around your waist to pull you even closer.

“no, don’t give it back. it suits you. and besides, it’s nice seeing you in my clothes.”

toji fushiguro

he is not the most observant person around, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. i mean, sure, you have to complain a bit about the weather and how chilly the december morning is, maybe even sniffle and cough a bit to get the problem through his thick skull, but you do succeed eventually.

“you’re too soft for this weather. here.”

he throws his sweater at your head with a grumble, watching you try to catch it and grinning at you as you try not to drop it. he crosses his arms, watching as you pathetically try to get used to the large size of his clothing. he also 100% calls you a “flailing fish”, and no, you’re never gonna live the insult down. but no matter how “dorky” he says you look in the sweater, his gaze still softens whenever he is looking at you.

he eventually rolls his eyes when he sees that you are not able to put the sweater on correctly, and leans in closer to you to tug the collar forward to fix it. then he ruffles your hair and leans back to check you out get a good look at you.

“there. problem solved. don’t get used to it though, it’s mine.”

ryomen sukuna

of course, he does notice, though he pretends not to. you know that very well. well enough, apparently, that you don’t even bother to ask him, and just straight up steal it from his big ahh closet, knowing he won’t miss it anyway. i mean, who would’ve thought the king of curses needed a sweater anyway? he roams around shirtless half the time, so you figured he won’t notice it.

but notice, he does.

“stealing my stuff now? bold of you.”

and god, ryomen sukuna, the man you are. because if he knew you were into his clothes earlier, he wouldn’t have ripped as many shirts off himself as he usually does on a daily basis. because even though you think he would be mad, he just pauses you and his eyes glide over your entire body and he leans back and crosses his arms.

“you look ridiculous,” he says after a moment of silence, though the way his gaze lingers on you tells you that he might not be entirely telling the truth.

soon after though, he makes a show of demanding it back. grabbing you by the waist and throwing you over his shoulder to “punish you for your thievery”, though you can feel uraume snickering at the way he tries to hide the look of absolute glee on his face to have you close to him.

kento nanami

he notices, he does, but he doesn’t act on it for quite some time. why? because giving you his clothing, or anything close to that for that matter, feels too intimate for the fragile bond that had been created between the two of you. he doesn’t understand why, but it feels like one wrong step could shatter what the two of you have.

eventually though, when it becomes unbearable for him to watch you rub your palms together to create little friction, he takes off his jacket carefully and drapes it over your shoulders neatly. he helps you put your arms into the sleeves of the jacket and makes sure it’s positioned perfectly tidy.

when you try to argue that the weather is cold enough for him to be wearing something to protect him too, he waves a hand politely to refuse.

“it’s only practical. you need it more than i do right now.”

he is only staring at you for the rest of your walk though, and something in his gaze makes you feel like looking at you helps him forget just how freezing the breezes are. when you reach your house, you wave him goodbye, silently praying he won’t ask for his jacket back. he only smiles at you.

“you can give it back later… or not.”

megumi fushiguro

like his father, he won’t do anything until you directly complain on his face about the chilly weather. not because he’s an airhead but because he’d rather you use your own words to tell him what you want instead of setting expectations from him.

he grimaces and grumbles but pulls off his sweater anyway. he hands it over to you and mutters begrudgingly to you. “here. just don’t stretch it out, okay?”

of course he’s flustered, but he’s also a bitch (/lh) so he likes to pretend to not notice how well his clothing fits you. he secretly notes the size and makes sure to buy the same from now on so it could fit both of you.

he asks you to show him how you look from the back, you know, just to see if you’re wearing it correctly of course, nothing more than that. when you twirl around to show him just that, the divine dogs he’s been holding on a leash jump up and down excitedly, and he tries to ignore the fact that his shikigami are supposed to be a replica of what he feels at the moment.

so when you ask him how you look, he'll only look away, hide his face in a hand and mumble, “you look fine, i guess. now stop complaining.”

itadori yuji

he notices. he thinks. he offers. that’s my king.

immediately insists, literally begs for you to wear his sweater with zero hesitation, even if you attempt to refuse.

“no way am i letting you freeze! take it! please! :3”

he watches you put it on slowly over your arms and then your head. all the while he has this a big, goofy grin on his face as if he has just conquered the world. he starts murmuring to himself about how pretty you look in his clothes, and how he should lend them to you more often.

when you question what he just said, his cheeks turn red and he stumbles upon his words before quickly diverting the topic and babbling about some human earthworm 4.

when you ask him when you have to return it, he awkwardly scratches the back of his neck and suggests, “never...? i mean, your choice, obviously, but, i thought— i don’t know what i thought actually. i kinda just short-circuited a few moments ago.”

okkotsu yuta

he notices, but he’s worried he’ll seem too forward or creepy if he asks you to wear his sweater. he knacks his brain to recall any romantic advice panda might’ve shared with him about this matter. did girls like it when you gave them your stuff? how would you even give your stuff anyway? do you just... give it? or do you—?

“it’s cold, isn’t it?” you interrupt him, looking at him expectantly.

“wha? oh yeah, yeah. um, here! you can wear this!” he excitedly but gingerly takes his sweater off and adjusts it carefully around you. his fingers brush against your shoulder and he looks away immediately as if scared at the contact he just made with you. you ask how you look, and he stutters a bit.

“i— i think it looks good on you. like… really good. i mean, you always look good, of course.”

you smile at him to thank him and he flushes. he mutters about how you can keep it for today, or as long as you liked, or maybe even forever if you wanted, because he had too many of them anyway, and he’d rather share it with the one person he likes the most in the whole world. obviously, he doesn’t say all that aloud; okkotsu yuta would faint if he tried.

666 notes · View notes

areislol · 21 days ago

Note

hsr!men with a reader who 'stresses' them out to see if they actually like reader that much or not >< HSUDHNS like testing them! kind of. during a post-confession stage where they both kind of know but haven't put any labels on it yet........

AHCK IM SORRY IF THIS IS ODDLY SPECIFIC LOL

pairings. jing yuan, dan heng, blade, welt, sampo, gepard, luocha, caelus, dr ratio, aventurine, boothill, gallagher, moze, jiaoqiu, sunday x gn! reader

warnings. just fluff

a/n. i love this idea sm omg!! this is so cute and adorable, thank you so much for popping in!

wc. 10.6k

synopsis. testing the hsr men to see if they really like you or not...

recommend listening to: blue - yung kai

caelus

✧ caelus is feeling a mix of patience and confusion. mostly confusion.

✧ you’d stress them out by acting overly distant or cryptic with your words. of course, this would be a bit too mean but.... you needed to know whether or not he truly liked you or not!!!

✧ now caelus always has this quiet confidence about him, a grounded presence that somehow keeps you both intrigued and comforted. you’ve been walking the line between friendship and something more for weeks now—soft smiles, lingering touches, and late-night conversations that stretch into the early morning. but neither of you has made the leap to define it, and the uncertainty starts to gnaw at you.

✧ so, you decide to test him. not out of malice, but out of curiosity—does he care as much as you think he does? or are you misreading everything?

✧ it starts small. you "accidentally" forget your jacket during a particularly chilly day on the xianzhou luofu. "it's fine," you say, feigning nonchalance as you rub your arms. "i’ll survive."

✧ caelus, who notices everything, doesn’t hesitate. without a word, he shrugs off his coat and drapes it over your shoulders. it’s warm and smells faintly like him—clean and earthy.

✧ "you’ll catch a cold," he says simply, his expression unreadable. but the way his fingers linger at your shoulder for a moment longer than necessary sends a shiver down your spine.

✧ okay, you think. that’s a point for him.

✧ but you don’t stop there. later, as the two of you work together to sort some scattered archives, you sigh dramatically. "i’m so bad at this," you say, even though you’ve already figured out the system. "caelus, can you help me? i think i’m doing it all wrong."

✧ he glances at you, eyebrows raised slightly. he knows you’re capable—you’ve proven it plenty of times.

✧ "really?" he asks, his tone soft but teasing. "you seem like you’ve got it handled."

✧ but he still moves to your side, explaining the process again with patience and care. you can’t help but notice how close he stands, the way his arm brushes against yours.

✧ another point, you mentally tally, biting back a smile.

✧ the final "test" happens that evening. the two of you are sitting on a bench overlooking the bustling streets below. you lean your head back, sighing loudly.

✧ "caelus," you start, your tone heavy with faux melancholy, "do you ever think... maybe we’re wasting our time? like, maybe this—whatever this is—isn’t worth it?"

✧ his head snaps toward you so fast you almost laugh. his usual calm demeanor falters for a moment, and there’s a flicker of something raw in his amber eyes.

✧ "what are you trying to say?" he asks, his voice lower than usual.

✧ suddenly, the air feels heavier. you weren’t expecting such a serious reaction, and it makes your chest tighten.

✧ "i mean..." you hesitate, suddenly feeling a little guilty for pushing him. "i don’t know. it just feels like maybe we’re stuck in this limbo, you know?"

✧ he stares at you for a moment, his gaze searching. then, he exhales softly, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. "if you think this isn’t worth it," he says, his voice steady but quiet, "then tell me. but don’t assume i feel the same."

✧ your heart stutters at his words.

✧ "you don’t?" you ask, your voice barely above a whisper. he turns to look at you again, his expression soft but serious.

✧ "no," he says firmly. "you mean a lot to me. more than you realize. i’m just... waiting for you to figure out how much you mean to me too."

✧ and just like that, the test is over. you realize you didn’t need to test him at all—he’s always been steady, always been sure. it was you who needed the reassurance, and he gave it to you without hesitation.

✧ as the silence stretches between you, you feel the weight of his coat still draped over your shoulders. you finally let yourself smile, leaning closer to him.

✧ "okay," you murmur. "i get it now."

✧ he doesn’t say anything, but the small, satisfied smile that tugs at his lips says enough.

gepard

✧ poor gepard takes your “test” far too seriously.

✧ (his face falls immediately, and he starts overthinking everything he’s ever done. he’d even try to change his habits, stumbling through awkward attempts to “loosen up.” “i—i can be fun! watch this!” (proceeds to try something clumsy.))

✧ testing gepard’s feelings feels almost unfair. he’s so earnest, so genuine, that you almost feel bad for trying to push his limits. but a little part of you—it’s that gnawing insecurity, that need for reassurance—wants to see how much he’s willing to handle for you.

✧ it starts during a routine patrol around belobog. you walk beside him, pretending to be engrossed in your surroundings, but you’re really watching him out of the corner of your eye. his posture is as perfect as always, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, eyes scanning for any sign of trouble.

✧ "gepard," you say suddenly, interrupting the calm. he turns to you immediately, his expression softening. "yes?"

✧ you fake a dramatic sigh. "do you ever think you work too hard? like... maybe you’re so busy being a model captain that you don’t have time for other things?"

✧ his brows furrow slightly, clearly not expecting this question. "what do you mean?"

✧ "i mean, what if someone in your life needed more of your attention? would you even notice?"

✧ he stops walking, turning to face you fully. there’s a flash of concern in his blue eyes, and you almost feel guilty for how well this is working.

✧ "if someone needed me," he says, his voice steady but laced with worry, "i’d do everything in my power to be there for them. are you... trying to tell me something?"

✧ you wave your hand dismissively, laughing lightly. "oh, no, just a hypothetical. don’t worry about it." he doesn’t look convinced, but he nods and resumes walking, though you notice he stays closer to your side after that.

✧ later, you decide to push a little harder. when the two of you are back at the overworld base, you feign exhaustion, slumping dramatically onto a nearby bench.

✧ "i’m so tired," you complain, rubbing your temples. "today was so stressful. i don’t think i can even move."

✧ before you can say anything else, gepard is already at your side. he crouches slightly, his hands hovering awkwardly as if he’s not sure whether he should offer to help you up or just sit beside you.

✧ "you should have said something earlier," he says, his voice full of concern. "if you’re overworked, you need to take a break. here, let me—"

✧ you cut him off with a teasing smile. "what are you going to do, carry me around belobog like some kind of knight in shining armor?" he freezes for a moment, his cheeks flushing pink. "i mean... if you needed me to, i would."

✧ you weren’t expecting such a sincere answer, and it throws you off balance. your heart flutters, but you’re determined to keep the act going.

✧ "you’re too sweet, gepard," you say with a grin. "but don’t worry, i’m fine. just testing you a little." his blush deepens, and he shifts nervously. "testing me?"

✧ "yeah," you admit, leaning back against the bench. "just wanted to see how far you’d go for me."

✧ he frowns, clearly conflicted. "you don’t need to test me," he says quietly. "if something’s bothering you, you can just tell me. i’d rather you be honest than try to figure things out on your own."

✧ his words hit you harder than you expected, and you suddenly feel a little guilty.

✧ "you’re right," you mumble, looking down at your hands. "sorry, i didn’t mean to make you worry."

✧ he sighs softly, then sits beside you, his shoulder brushing yours. "it’s okay," he says after a moment. "i just... care about you. a lot. and i want you to know that you never have to doubt it."

✧ you glance at him, his expression as open and honest as ever, and your heart aches in the best way.

✧ "thanks, gepard," you say softly.

✧ he smiles, and it’s so warm and genuine that you know you didn’t need to test him in the first place. he’s always been exactly who he says he is—steadfast, caring, and utterly devoted.

✧ “please, don’t do that again. my heart can’t take it. but... i do care about you more than anything.”

dr. ratio

✧ dr. ratio sees through your “stress test” almost immediately, being as perceptive as he is.

✧ testing dr. ratio feels like trying to rattle an unshakable pillar—he’s sharp, meticulous, and composed to the point where you’re almost certain he’ll see through you immediately. but your curiosity gets the better of you. you want to see if the normally calm and collected doctor could ever crack, even slightly, under your antics.

✧ you decide to start small, choosing to "stress" him out during one of his intense research sessions.

✧ "dr. ratio," you call out from across the lab, your tone light and teasing.

✧ he doesn’t look up from his holopad. "yes?"

✧ "can you explain this to me again? i swear i just don’t get it."

✧ you hold up a tablet displaying a simple analysis you’re perfectly capable of interpreting. it’s the third time you’ve asked him about something today, and you’re sure he’s starting to notice.

✧ he sighs, finally lifting his gaze to meet yours. "are you sure you’re not just overthinking it?"

✧ "maybe," you say, shrugging. "or maybe you’re just bad at explaining things."

✧ that earns you a sharp look, and for a split second, you think you’ve actually pushed too far. but then his lips twitch, a flicker of amusement breaking through his usual stoicism.

✧ "bad at explaining things?" he repeats, setting his holopad down. "are you testing my patience, or are you testing my intelligence?"

✧ "both," you reply with a cheeky grin. he chuckles softly, shaking his head. "if you wanted my attention, you could’ve just asked."

✧ despite his calm exterior, you notice the subtle way he shifts closer to you, his focus entirely on you now. you can’t help but feel a small thrill of triumph, though you know you’re playing with fire.

✧ later, you decide to up the stakes. while he’s meticulously organizing data, you lean against the desk, deliberately placing your hand over one of his charts.

✧ "do you ever think about taking a break?" you ask, tilting your head at him. "you work so much, it’s like you’re married to your lab."

✧ he arches an eyebrow, his gaze flicking to your hand covering his work. "and if i am? does that bother you?"

✧ "a little," you admit, your tone teasing. "what if you end up ignoring more important things?"

✧ he leans back in his chair, crossing his arms as he studies you. "and what would those ‘important things’ be?"

✧ his voice is calm, but there’s a glint in his eyes that makes you feel like you’ve walked right into his trap. "me, obviously," you say, trying to maintain your confidence.

✧ he hums thoughtfully, as if considering your words. then, without warning, he reaches out and gently flicks your forehead.

✧ "you’re not very subtle," he says, a faint smirk tugging at his lips.

✧ "ouch," you say, rubbing your forehead with a pout. "was that necessary?"

✧ "completely," he replies smoothly. "if you’re going to test me, at least make it challenging."

✧ his words leave you flustered, and you quickly retreat from his desk, muttering something about needing fresh air. but later, when he finds you in the lounge, he sets a cup of tea in front of you without a word.

✧ "what’s this for?" you ask, looking up at him.

✧ "you seemed tense earlier," he says simply. "and since you’re so concerned about me ignoring important things, I thought I’d remind you that you’re one of them."

✧ your heart skips a beat at his casual declaration, and for once, you’re at a loss for words. he smirks at your reaction, clearly pleased with himself, before walking away, leaving you to process his unexpected yet reassuring gesture.

✧ turns out, dr. ratio isn’t so easy to test—but he makes it clear that he’s always paying attention.

✧ however, he sits you down for a serious talk afterward. “you don’t need to test me. i like you—that much should be obvious by now.”

aventurine

✧ aventurine takes your antics in stride but is clearly not one to tolerate nonsense for long.

✧ but in all seriousness it feels like you're trying to move a mountain. his steadfastness and confidence make it seem impossible to throw him off balance, but you’re determined to see how deep his patience and affection run. you tell yourself it’s just curiosity, but deep down, you crave the reassurance that this larger-than-life man truly feels the same way you do.

✧ it begins subtly, during one of his routine mineral inspections. he’s meticulously cataloging a haul of rare crystals when you decide to “help.”

✧ “aventurine, what’s this one called?” you ask, holding up a dazzling gem you already know the name of.

✧ he barely glances up, his deep voice calm and measured. “that’s a starshard geode. its structure is—”

✧ “wait, wait,” you interrupt, turning it over in your hands. “are you sure? it kinda looks like... a moonstone?”

✧ his head finally lifts, and he looks at you with a mixture of amusement and mild disbelief. “a moonstone? not even close. are you trying to challenge my expertise?”

✧ “maybe,” you tease, placing the gem back in the wrong compartment.

✧ he sighs, but there’s no frustration in his expression, only a patient shake of his head as he moves the gem back to its proper place. “you’re impossible,” he mutters, though there’s a small smile tugging at his lips.

✧ later, you decide to turn up the heat. as he’s polishing a massive chunk of raw celestium, you sit nearby, swinging your legs off the edge of the table.

✧ “aventurine,” you say sweetly.

✧ “mm?” he responds without looking up.

✧ “do you ever get tired of being around me?”

✧ that gets his attention. he pauses mid-polish, his golden eyes narrowing slightly as he turns to face you fully. “what kind of question is that?”

✧ you shrug, feigning nonchalance. “i mean, i can be annoying sometimes. don’t you ever just... wish for some peace and quiet?”

✧ he sets the celestium down with deliberate care and crosses his arms, his imposing figure suddenly feeling even larger.

✧ “you’re trying to get a reaction out of me,” he says plainly, his voice as steady as the ground beneath your feet.

✧ “what? me? no way,” you reply, trying to sound innocent.

✧ he steps closer, leaning down so his face is level with yours. his expression is serious, but there’s a flicker of amusement in his gaze.

✧ “if i wanted peace and quiet, i wouldn’t be here,” he says firmly. “do you really think i’d waste my time with someone i don’t care about?”

✧ his straightforwardness leaves you momentarily stunned, and he chuckles softly at your silence. “you don’t need to test me, you know,” he adds, his tone softening. “if you have doubts, just ask. i don’t like games, but i’ll always give you the truth.”

✧ you feel a pang of guilt for pushing him, but his reassurance warms your heart. “sorry,” you mumble, looking down. “i just wanted to be sure...”

✧ he reaches out, gently lifting your chin so you’re forced to meet his gaze.

✧ “then let me make it clear,” he says, his golden eyes unwavering. “you matter to me. and that’s not going to change, no matter how many gems you mislabel.”

✧ you laugh softly, the tension melting away as his words sink in. it was clear that his affection for you is as solid and enduring as the earth itself.

boothill

✧ boothill is rough around the edges but has a soft spot for you, so your little test catches him off guard.

✧ boothill's unmovable, stone-faced, and never shows signs of cracking, no matter what you throw his way. but that’s exactly why you’re so curious. you’ve seen his stoic side, his professionalism, and his dedication, but does that mean there’s any space for you in that heart of his? you decide to try and test the waters.

✧ it begins in a quiet moment, after a long mission. you’re both back at the base, sitting side by side on a bench. boothill is cleaning his weapon, his focus so intense that it feels like nothing in the world could distract him. you watch him for a moment, then decide to start.

✧ “boothill,” you call out softly.

✧ he doesn’t look up, but you see his fingers pause for a fraction of a second before he resumes cleaning his weapon.

✧ “yeah?”

✧ “do you ever wonder if you’re too... distant? i mean, you’re always so focused, so serious. don’t you ever need to relax a bit?”

✧ he glances at you now, his piercing gaze meeting yours for just a second. but he doesn’t answer right away, instead just continuing with his task.

✧ “relaxing isn’t exactly something i prioritize,” he replies with his usual calm. “there’s work to be done.”

✧ you scoff lightly, pushing your luck a little. “work, work, work. what about you, huh? when’s it your turn to... i don’t know, enjoy life? have some fun?”

✧ he looks at you then, and there’s something almost unreadable in his expression. his eyes soften just a fraction, and he lets out a small sigh.

✧ “if you think i don’t enjoy life, you’re wrong,” he says, voice low but surprisingly tender. “i just don’t need distractions.”

✧ you press a little more, feeling a mischievous spark inside you. “so, you’re saying you don’t need me to distract you?”

✧ boothill stops what he’s doing for a moment, and this time, he stares at you, really staring. for a split second, you think you’ve gone too far. but then he leans back, folding his arms across his chest, a slight smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

✧ “testing me, huh?” he says, his voice laced with dry amusement. “you’re a little more persistent than i expected.”

✧ you shrug nonchalantly, hoping your nonchalance hides the fact that your heart is pounding. “i just want to know if you care, boothill. i mean, you’re so... detached sometimes. how do i know it’s not all just professional to you?”

✧ his gaze softens, and for a brief moment, there’s a vulnerability in his eyes that catches you off guard. then, without warning, he reaches out and gently grabs your hand, pulling it into his lap.

✧ “care?” he murmurs, his thumb stroking the back of your hand in slow, deliberate movements. “i care more than you know.”

✧ your breath catches in your throat, and you feel the weight of his words settle over you like a blanket. the walls he’s built around himself are still there, but now, you realize that inside, there’s room for you.

✧ “you don’t need to test me for that,” he adds, his voice low and reassuring. “just... don’t expect me to show it the same way as everyone else.”

✧ you can feel the sincerity in his touch, in his gaze, and something inside you finally clicks. boothill’s love is subtle, understated, and a little rough around the edges, but it’s real.

✧ “i get it,” you whisper, squeezing his hand gently. “sorry for making you doubt me.”

✧ he chuckles quietly, a rare sound that makes your heart flutter. “you’re relentless. but that’s why i like you.”

✧ and there it is—he may not always wear his heart on his sleeve, but boothill’s love for you is unwavering, and that’s something you can rely on, even if it’s not always obvious.

gallagher

✧ gallagher is as easygoing as they come, but even he has limits.

✧ it starts innocently enough—just a playful attempt to poke at his carefully maintained composure. he’s in the middle of preparing a meal, the scent of fresh herbs and sizzling meat filling the air as he moves about the kitchen with his usual precision. you, however, are seated at the table, tapping your fingers lightly against the wood, watching him with a raised eyebrow.

✧ “gallagher,” you start, your voice casual but laced with curiosity.

✧ “hm?” he replies, glancing at you briefly before returning to his task.

✧ “how do you always manage to keep your cool? i mean, don’t you ever get tired of being so... well, perfect?”

✧ he doesn’t look up this time, but there’s a subtle shift in the air, like he’s sensing you’re trying to test him. his movements are smooth and measured, and he doesn’t skip a beat as he finishes plating the food.

✧ “there’s no point in losing composure over things that don’t matter,” he says matter-of-factly, as if it’s the simplest thing in the world. “chaos doesn’t make for a good meal.”

✧ you bite your lip, leaning back in your chair. “so, you’re saying everything has to be ‘in its place’ with you? even with people?”

✧ his hands freeze for just a moment, and you catch a flicker of something in his expression—maybe amusement, maybe something else. but it’s gone as quickly as it came. he finishes plating the meal with a soft sigh, setting the plate in front of you.

✧ “i’m not a machine, if that’s what you’re implying,” he says, finally meeting your gaze. “i’m not perfect. i just prefer things to be organized—helps with focus.”

✧ you raise an eyebrow, pushing a bit more. “oh? and does that mean you like it when people don’t mess with your focus? or is that just a ‘you’ thing?”

✧ gallagher pauses, studying you carefully. for a moment, the air is thick with tension, but then he smirks slightly, a glimmer of teasing in his eyes.

✧ “messing with my focus?” he repeats, his voice playful now. “is that what you’re doing? because, if i’m being honest, it’s working. you’ve got my attention now.”

✧ you blink, taken aback by his response. you expected him to brush it off, but instead, he steps closer, his presence a little more imposing now.

✧ “you know,” he continues, his tone lower, “you’re not as subtle as you think you are. but i’ll give you points for persistence.”

✧ you try to recover, but there’s something about the way he looks at you that leaves you speechless for a moment.

✧ “persistence?” you murmur, a little breathless.

✧ he nods, his smile softening just enough to show you that it’s genuine. “you’ve got a lot of questions, but i don’t need to play games with you. if you want answers, just ask. you don’t have to test me to find out if i’m interested.”

✧ his words hit you harder than you expected, and you realize that gallagher isn’t someone to hide his feelings. it’s not that he’s cold—he’s just direct. he’ll never say it in the way you might expect, but his actions speak louder than anything else.

✧ “i guess i’m just used to waiting for things to fall into place,” you admit, trying to play it cool.

✧ he leans in slightly, the faintest hint of humor in his eyes. “you don’t have to wait with me. i’m already here.”

✧ his tone is simple, but it carries a weight of meaning that makes your heart skip a beat. gallagher doesn’t do drama, but when he gives you his attention, it’s clear that he’s all in, no matter how much he might downplay it.

moze

✧ moze is a man of few words, and your antics genuinely confuse him. 😰😰

✧ he's calm, composed, and always so serious, which makes you determined to break through that cold, unreadable exterior. you’ve decided to test his limits, just to see if you can get a real reaction out of him.

✧ it starts on a typical day after a mission. you’re sitting across from him in the common room, watching as he pores over some data logs. your usual routine involves making things just a little more interesting for him, because let’s face it—moze needs to lighten up.

✧ “moze,” you say, a grin tugging at your lips.

✧ he doesn’t look up, but you can see the slight twitch of his eyebrow. “what is it?”

✧ you make a show of examining the ceiling, tapping your chin dramatically. “have you ever wondered if the world is actually upside down? like, maybe gravity's all wrong, and we’re just... stuck to the floor by pure luck?”

✧ moze pauses for a split second, probably wondering how you can turn a perfectly normal moment into this. then, without missing a beat, he glances at you, deadpan.

✧ “if the world was upside down, i assume you'd be the one stuck on the ceiling by pure luck,” he says flatly, already returning to his work.

✧ you burst into laughter, but moze doesn’t even flinch, just continues typing, his expression still as composed as ever. he’s like a stone statue, and it’s honestly a little impressive.

✧ “okay, okay,” you say, wiping a tear from your eye. “let’s try something different.” you lean forward, eyes sparkling with mischief. “do you ever get bored? you know, just sitting there all serious, pretending like you’re too busy to talk?”

✧ this time, he doesn’t even look up from his work. “bored? No. Are you trying to see how far you can push me before i snap?”

✧ you nod, trying not to smile too widely. “yep! How’s it going so far?”

✧ moze lets out a soft sigh, clearly unamused but still managing to hold his ground. “i’m doing great. You, on the other hand... are a handful.”

✧ “a handful? me?” you gasp dramatically, clutching your chest. “I’m hurt, moze. I’m just trying to keep things interesting around here!”

✧ his lips twitch ever so slightly, but it’s almost imperceptible. “you’re making it interesting... in the same way that throwing a tantrum in a library is interesting.”

✧ you tilt your head, pretending to consider this for a moment. “so, you’re saying you don’t like chaos?”

✧ “i like order,” he says, never looking away from the screen. “but if you’re asking if you can test my patience, then yes, you’re doing a very good job of that.”

✧ you giggle, thoroughly entertained by the way he’s handling you. "oh, come on, just admit it. you love the chaos! You secretly think it's hilarious when I mess with you."

✧ moze looks up at you for the first time in a while, his expression still all business but with the tiniest glimmer of amusement in his eyes. “if by hilarious, you mean mildly irritating, then yes.”

✧ “mildly?!” you gasp in faux offense. “I’m doing my best here, moze! how could you rate my efforts so low?”

✧ he leans back slightly in his chair, finally breaking his stoic routine. “honestly, i’m impressed you’re still going. most people would’ve given up by now.”

✧ “well, i'm not ‘most people,’ am I?” you reply with a cheeky smile.

✧ he smirks ever so slightly, though it’s mostly to himself. “no. clearly.”

✧ you can’t help but giggle, because while moze definitely isn’t as easily rattled as others, it’s clear he’s starting to find the humor in your antics.

✧ “admit it, moze,” you tease. “i’m the most fun you’ve had all week.”

✧ he raises an eyebrow, finally closing the data pad and turning his full attention to you. “if by ‘fun’ you mean ‘annoying distraction,’ then yes.”

✧ you stick your tongue out at him playfully. “you love me, admit it.”

✧ moze chuckles dryly, though it’s far from his usual serious tone. “you’re impossible. But for some reason, i don’t mind.”

✧ “there it is!” you exclaim, pointing dramatically. “the confession! finally!”

✧ he sighs, but there’s a hint of fondness in his eyes now. “don’t push your luck. i’m still not letting you off the hook for the chaos you’ve caused.”

✧ you grin, leaning back in your seat, satisfied. “you can’t get rid of me that easily, moze. get used to it.”

✧ “i’m already used to it,” he mutters under his breath, pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head.

jiaoqiu

✧ jiaoqiu is calm and composed, but your “test” slowly chips away at his patience.

✧ his idea of "testing" his patience feels almost like trying to mess with a finely tuned recipe—you know that if you push too far, something could spoil, but you can't resist seeing how he’ll react. the thing about jiaoqiu is that he’s blind, but that doesn’t stop him from being as sharp as a knife when it comes to his senses. especially when it comes to cooking—his true passion.

✧ you’ve noticed something about him, though. the more you “stress” him, the more attentive he gets, in his own way. it’s kind of like the game’s in his favor, and you’re slowly realizing he might be playing right along with you.

✧ one evening, you’re hanging out in the kitchen with jiaoqiu, and you’ve already decided to take your "testing" to the next level. as he prepares some of his signature dishes—no surprise, they're the most complex meals imaginable, even though he can't see a thing—you're doing your best to throw him off.

✧ “jiaoqiu, are you sure you don’t want me to help with that? it looks... dangerous,” you tease, noticing the steam rising from the pot in front of him.

✧ “dangerous?” he repeats, clearly amused but not thrown off. he moves deftly around the kitchen, the sound of his chopping board in the background. “my dear, cooking isn’t dangerous unless you’re trying to make something impossible.”

✧ you laugh softly, leaning against the counter. “so, you’re saying if I started pulling the wrong spices out, you wouldn’t even notice?”

✧ he pauses, then lets out a small chuckle of his own. “i might not see it, but i can certainly smell it. and don’t think i don’t know when you’re reaching for something you shouldn’t be.”

✧ you feign shock, dramatically holding your hands up as if caught in the act. “i would never! i have complete respect for your culinary expertise!”

✧ jiaoqiu hums, as if pondering your words, but then he continues his cooking with that quiet confidence he always carries. “you’d be more convincing if you didn’t have that mischievous glint in your eye.”

✧ your grin widens. it’s clear he’s onto you now, but you still try to push. “well, how would you know? You can't see, after all.”

✧ “true,” he replies calmly, “but i know the sounds of the kitchen well enough. if you were to drop something, or mess with the ingredients... i’d hear it. the rhythm of it all gives me a good idea of what’s happening.”

✧ you blink, stunned. you had been testing him, but jiaoqiu seems to always be one step ahead. how does he know? how can he be so confident?

✧ “and,” he adds, his voice still soft but with a hint of playfulness, “i know you, [your name].”

✧ you laugh, finally admitting defeat. “okay, okay! you got me. but seriously, how do you do it? how do you know where everything is?”

✧ he pauses his cooking and turns toward you, his voice warm yet full of humor. “let’s say i’ve had a lot of practice. and when you love something as much as i love cooking, you learn to rely on all your senses, not just sight. even when you can’t see, your other senses fill in the gaps.”

✧ you watch him work for a moment, and despite his lack of eyesight, he’s a master in the kitchen. it’s clear that his expertise comes from much more than just the act of cooking; it’s a connection to the ingredients, the textures, the sounds of each step.

✧ “okay, but what if i really messed something up? what if i did something totally wrong, just to mess with you?”

✧ he raises an eyebrow—something that’s only visible through his voice, but you get the feeling he’s smirking. “well, if you did that, i’d probably just end up fixing it before you even noticed. and then i’d make you do the dishes.”

✧ you groan, defeated but also thoroughly entertained. “you’re way too good at this.”

✧ “you’re the one testing me, not the other way around,” jiaoqiu reminds you, returning his focus to his cooking. but this time, you can hear the faint warmth in his tone, a reassurance that’s just for you. “but don’t worry, i’m not going to let you ruin dinner. even if you try to be a little mischievous.”

✧ there’s something comforting in the way he handles it all—the teasing, the games you play, even the mess-ups you deliberately throw his way. he may not be able to see you, but you know he can feel your presence, your energy, and you can’t help but feel safe in it. despite his teasing, despite the quiet confidence, jiaoqiu has a way of making everything feel just... right.

✧ “next time,” you say, grinning, “i’m going to really throw you off.”

✧ jiaoqiu just laughs softly, shaking his head as he finishes up his dish. “i’ll be waiting, [your name]. i’ll be waiting.”

✧ “but uh, next time, just ask me. there’s no need for this kind of... drama.”

sunday

✧ sunday is all sunshine and joy, but even he can get flustered when you start testing him.

✧ sunday is a halovian, with those distinct small fluffy wings nestled around his neck—adorably soft and always twitching with his every mood. you’ve learned that while he might seem all chill and sunny on the surface, he’s got his own quirks, and if you push him far enough, he’s more likely to play along than snap at you.

✧ one day, you’re lounging in the living area, and sunday’s sitting across from you, lazily flipping through a book. you can’t resist; it’s time for some mischief.

✧ “hey, sunday,” you call, trying to hide your grin.

✧ “yeah?” he replies, looking off guard. "have you ever been nervous before? like, nervous nervous?"

✧ “nervous? me? c’mon, i’m practically impossible to ruffle.” he gives you a lighthearted shrug, but you can see the playful challenge in his eyes. he’s used to keeping things breezy, but you’ve caught his attention now.

✧ you press on, deciding to have a little more fun with this. “oh really? well, let’s see... I’ve got a whole list of ways I could mess with you.”

✧ sunday doesn’t seem fazed at first, but you notice the way his fluffy wings twitch a little more with each word you say. it’s like a radar for his mood—you know he’s still calm, but there’s something in the way his feathers ruffle when he’s listening to you.

✧ “well, you’ll have to be a lot sneakier than that if you want to get under my skin,” he says, flashing you that signature grin of his, but now you can see a little spark of competitiveness in his eyes.

✧ you, of course, aren’t backing down. “let’s see if i can. hey, sunday, do you ever get tired of being all... perfect?” you ask, making air quotes around "perfect" with your hands.

✧ sunday’s wings flutter again, and this time, you catch the faintest shift in his posture. “perfect?” he asks, trying to play it off, but there’s a subtle twitch in the fluff near his neck. “you’re really gonna call me perfect? what’s wrong with that?”

✧ oh, he’s biting now. perfect. you lean in, voice teasing. “well, it just seems a little... too easy, don’t you think? i mean, you’re always so relaxed, always in control. how do you even do it?”

✧ you can see sunday’s lips twitch in amusement, and his wings give an exaggerated little flutter, like they’re bristling. he’s definitely aware now, but the best part is how he's trying to play it cool, still acting like he’s the one in control.

✧ “you really think i’ve got it all under control, huh?” he responds, a bit of a challenge creeping into his tone. “well, i guess i am pretty awesome. i mean, who could resist all this charm?” he gestures to himself dramatically, his wings fluffing out like he’s proud of the effect they have.

✧ you laugh, but don’t let up. “oh, i’m sure the charm works, but... do you ever get tired of being this smooth?” you tease, pretending to think it over. “i mean, surely you get a little flustered once in a while, right? just a little bit?”

✧ that’s when you see it—a small, barely perceptible shift. sunday’s wings twitch against his neck, brushing lightly as he tries to keep his expression neutral, but you catch it. there’s a softening in his demeanor, a slight heat creeping into his tone.

✧ “huh. so now i’m too smooth?” he teases, but it’s a little less confident now. “maybe you’re just getting good at finding my weak spots.”

✧ you smile, leaning back triumphantly. “maybe. or maybe you’re just too easy to read, sunday.”

✧ he narrows his eyes playfully, but you catch the small, almost imperceptible shift in his posture as his wings flutter just a little more. it's like they’re signaling his internal shift—he’s starting to realize you’re not just playing around.

✧ “okay, okay,” sunday says with a dramatic sigh, his wings now fully unfurled behind him like a soft, fluffy halo. he rubs the back of his neck and gives you a teasing look. “you wanna stress me out, huh? well, guess i’ll have to turn the tables a little.”

✧ with that, sunday leans closer, grinning mischievously. his wings brush against his neck again, this time on purpose, causing a soft, tickling sensation that makes you jump a little.

✧ “how’s this?” he asks, and now, you realize—he’s playing his own game. “i think we’re gonna see how you handle me.”

✧ sunday’s easygoing nature mixed with his unexpected turn in this little game makes it all the more fun. as he continues to toy with you, you can’t help but laugh at how well he’s handled your antics.

✧ “alright, alright,” you admit, finally letting the game end, “you win. i’ll stop testing your patience... for now.”

✧ his wings flutter triumphantly behind him as he gives you a mock salute, his grin still wide and playful. “you’re welcome to try again any time, [name]. but you should know—I don’t get flustered that easily. unless...” he pauses, giving you a teasing look, “...you do something even crazier next time.”

✧ you can’t help but smile back. sunday’s laid-back nature might be hard to crack, but it’s clear—he does enjoy the game, and in the end, he’s always up for a little bit of fun at your expense.

jing yuan

✧ jing yuan usually keeps his composure, but when you start “testing” his patience, he begins to crack ever so slightly.

✧ jing yuan is the epitome of calm, controlled elegance. he carries himself like a well-balanced scale, measured in his actions and words, always composed, always unfazed. but when you start testing him that balance teeters, just a little, though he’s careful to maintain his outward serenity.

✧ you know he's a man of patience, but every person has their breaking point—and you're curious to see how far you can push his.

✧ it all starts innocently enough, a bit of teasing and mild mischief on your part. you might "accidentally" misplace his paperwork, or maybe ask him endless trivial questions when you know he’s buried in his work. you’re not being cruel, of course—just playful, testing the waters to see if he’ll falter.

✧ he humors you at first, a chuckle escaping his lips when you ask something particularly silly. “what is it, my dear?” he asks, a gentle smile tugging at his lips, his golden eyes never leaving his work. “another question for me?”

✧ but as the questions come one after another, you start to notice a shift. his pen slows, and for a moment, his fingers still. he leans back in his chair, gaze lifting to meet yours.

“you’re playing a dangerous game, my dear,” he says, his voice low, but laced with amusement. “are you testing me to see if i’ll lose interest? because i can assure you, i won’t.”

✧ there’s a sharpness to his tone now, the calm facade slipping just slightly. it's subtle, but you catch it—a flicker of something deeper behind his eyes. his gaze darkens with an unreadable emotion, and for the first time, you wonder if you've pushed him too far.

✧ but you’re not one to back down easily, so you keep going, shifting the game into a new gear. you become a little more persistent, trying to get under his skin without being too obvious. you ask more ridiculous questions, throw in more distractions, all in the name of seeing how he reacts. surely, a man like jing yuan, so steady and composed, would get annoyed eventually, right?

✧ you watch him for a long moment, his gaze steady and unwavering. His fingers tap lightly on the edge of the desk, his lips curling into a knowing smile.

✧ "is that what you're after?" he asks, his voice softer, but with a certain challenge in it. "you wish to see how far i'll bend? to see if i can be swayed by such... antics?"

✧ your breath catches in your throat, and you wonder if you’ve finally crossed the line. but instead of growing irritated, jing yuan does something entirely unexpected. he sets his pen down with a deliberate motion and stands up, walking around to your side of the desk. his presence looms over you in the most comforting, yet commanding way.

✧ before you can even react, he reaches for your hand, his touch warm and steady. “i can’t help but wonder…” he begins, his voice dipping into something more intimate, more affectionate than you were prepared for. “did you think you could test me without consequences?”

✧ you blink up at him, the playful tension suddenly replaced by a sense of vulnerability. there’s something in his eyes now, a deep knowing.

✧ without waiting for an answer, he leans down, his lips brushing lightly against your ear. “you’re not the only one who can play games, [name],” he murmurs, his warm breath sending a shiver down your spine.

✧ you’re thrown off balance. the tables have turned, and now it’s you who’s feeling slightly flustered. where you were once testing him, now he’s testing you. he’s suddenly more attentive, more affectionate, drawing you in with every word, every touch.

✧ he chuckles softly when he sees your reaction, his golden eyes glinting with amusement. “you didn’t think i’d let you have all the fun, did you?” he teases. “i must admit, i’m rather enjoying this.”

✧ you open your mouth to respond, but all you manage is a soft laugh, caught between trying to keep your composure and wanting to give in to the sudden wave of warmth he’s throwing your way.

✧ “alright, jing yuan,” you say, trying to maintain your cool, but failing miserably. “i’ll admit defeat... for now.”

✧ his smile widens, a gentle but confident grin. “defeat? no, my dear. this isn’t about defeat. this is about knowing where we stand. and now that i’ve shown you, i expect no more games.”

✧ his words hang in the air like a promise, and you realize he’s not just testing you—he’s reassuring you, in his own way. with him, you never had to worry about being lost in his affection, because it’s clear: he’s always there, steady as ever.

✧ and just like that, the game you started has ended—only now, it’s more than you ever expected.

dan heng

✧ dan heng is the embodiment of calm and collected. his reserved nature and stoic expression almost never crack, even under the most trying of circumstances. it takes a lot to throw him off balance, which is why you’ve made it your mission to see if you can break that calm demeanor of his—just a little.

✧ at first, you start small. maybe you ask him to help you with something you’re perfectly capable of doing yourself, like reaching for a book you’re clearly just a bit too lazy to grab. you catch him off guard, but as expected, he’s kind enough to help without comment.

✧ “thank you, dan heng,” you say with an exaggerated sigh of relief.

✧ he gives you a short, quiet nod, his expression unchanged. “it’s no trouble,” he mutters, though there’s a faint suspicion in his voice.

✧ you smile innocently, but it’s not lost on you how quickly he’s growing aware of your game. so, you keep at it, asking for more and more “help” with things you’re fully capable of doing on your own. every time he obliges, you see his eyes narrow ever so slightly, and you can almost feel the gears turning in his head as he processes what's going on.

✧ “dan heng,” you ask one day, leaning into the playful tension between you two, “could you pass me the salt?” the shaker’s right in front of you, of course.

✧ there’s a long pause. his gaze flicks over to the salt shaker, then back to you, his brow furrowing just the tiniest bit. “you’re not really that helpless, are you?” he asks, his voice quiet but sharp.

✧ you feign surprise. “i’m not? you sure?”

✧ he doesn’t respond right away, his fingers tapping lightly on the surface of the table. you can practically see the wheels turning behind his eyes.

✧ “i know you’re not,” he says finally, voice even but tinged with a little irritation now. “so, what are you trying to prove?”

✧ you chuckle softly, realizing you’ve definitely gotten under his skin now. but it’s more out of curiosity than malice—you want to see how far you can go before he snaps, how long he’ll let you test him before he turns the tables.

✧ “oh, nothing,” you say innocently. “just wanted to see if you’d do it without asking questions.”

✧ dan heng’s eyes narrow, and for the first time in this little game, he seems to truly study you, as if trying to gauge your intentions.

✧ “you’re not as subtle as you think,” he finally says, his tone firm but not unkind. “you’re trying to get a reaction out of me, aren’t you?”

✧ you grin, leaning back with a satisfied look. “maybe... what’s the harm?”

✧ dan heng stands up from his seat, a deep sigh escaping his lips as he slowly gathers his things. you know you’ve pushed him a little, but you’re unsure if he’s genuinely upset or just playing along.

✧ “fine,” he mutters. “you want a reaction? here it is.”

✧ you blink as he steps closer, his usual reserved demeanor slipping as he looks down at you with a slight, almost imperceptible frown. “if i didn’t care about you, i wouldn’t even be here, helping you with these ridiculous requests. so, stop trying to push my patience.”

✧ you freeze for a moment, surprised at how direct and blunt he’s being. there’s no anger in his words—just a quiet frustration, the kind that comes from realizing how much you’ve been testing him.

✧ he lets out a short laugh, shaking his head as if he can’t quite believe what he’s dealing with. “honestly, i’m not sure if you’re trying to get me to lose my patience or just see how far you can push me.”

✧ you smile sheepishly, knowing you’ve been a little relentless with your “tests.” “i guess a bit of both,” you admit, but there’s a softness in your voice now. “i just wanted to see if you’d care enough to call me out on it.”

✧ dan heng sighs deeply, but now there’s a warmth to his expression that wasn’t there before. he steps closer and places a hand gently on your shoulder, the touch more tender than you expected. “i care enough to call you out, even if it means putting up with your nonsense.”

✧ it’s quiet for a moment, but you can feel the sincerity in his words. you’ve definitely ruffled his calm, but in a way that shows just how much he’s paying attention, how much he truly cares for you.

✧ you laugh lightly, not expecting him to be so honest about it, but secretly glad to know you’ve gotten through to him. “i’ll try not to test you so much, okay?”

✧ dan heng shakes his head, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “i’ll believe it when i see it.”

welt yang

✧ welt, being the mature and experienced gentleman he is, notices your little “test” immediately.

✧ the man is used to dealing with delicate matters, whether in his long history of research, his time as a historian, or the countless responsibilities that come with leading in times of crisis. so, when you start testing his patience, you know it’s going to take a lot more than a small inconvenience to shake him. that being said, you enjoy challenging him, just a little, to see how far you can push him.

✧ you start off small, of course. asking him the most trivial questions when he’s in the middle of reading one of his ancient books. “hey, welt,” you say sweetly, “do you think this book is boring?” the book’s not even in your hands, and he knows that you’re probably more interested in him than in the actual content of the text.

✧ at first, he doesn’t mind. he chuckles softly and lowers the book, humoring you with a small smile. “if i’m being honest, i would say it depends on your taste in reading. but you do know i can’t really afford distractions right now, right?”

✧ you smile, but this isn’t nearly enough to throw him off. you push again, dropping little hints like the fact that he’s been at his desk for hours on end and could probably use a break. you make a comment about how he’s always so serious, so focused, and maybe you should help him lighten up.

✧ “you know,” you tease, “you work too hard. you should take a break. come on, just for a minute?”

✧ welt sets the book down and looks at you, raising an eyebrow. “i’m not sure if i would call it ‘work’ if i’m doing something i enjoy, but i do appreciate the concern. perhaps you have something else in mind to keep me occupied?”

✧ his tone is light, playful even, but there’s something in his eyes that suggests he’s well aware of your intentions. he’s not the type to get easily upset, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t picked up on your little game.

✧ “you really know how to throw me off track, don’t you?” he says with a smile, clearly amused by your antics. “is this your way of seeing how far i’ll go before i lose my cool?”

✧ you grin, not backing down. “maybe. you seem so calm all the time. i wanted to know if i could make you flinch, just a little.”

✧ welt lets out a soft laugh, leaning back in his chair. “you’re testing me now, aren’t you? i suppose i should’ve expected as much from you.”

✧ you notice his hands move to the side of his glasses, adjusting them ever so slightly, and that’s when you realize: he’s fully aware of what’s going on.

✧ “you know, it’s cute that you think i’m impervious to distractions,” he continues, clearly enjoying your playful attempts. “but perhaps you underestimate how well i’ve learned to focus in the midst of chaos.”

✧ you can’t help but laugh at that, realizing that no matter how hard you try, you’re not going to make him flinch. he’s too smooth, too used to handling these kinds of things.

✧ “maybe i should stop testing you,” you say, a bit sheepishly. “you’re just too good at staying calm.”

✧ welt smiles knowingly. “i’ve had plenty of practice, but if you really want to test me further, i’m sure there are other ways to do so.” he leans forward, raising an eyebrow, his voice turning just a bit teasing. “but i’m not so easily caught off guard, dear. if you want to see me lose my composure, you’ll have to be a little more creative.”

✧ you blink in surprise at how easily he flipped the situation on its head, and then it dawns on you: you’ve just been outplayed.

✧ he notices the realization in your expression and gives you an amused glance. “now, if you’re really interested, i can give you some advice on how to keep your distractions less obvious in the future. but don’t expect me to fall for it again so easily.”

✧ you can’t help but laugh. “alright, alright, you win this round.”

✧ welt chuckles softly, picking up his book again. “it’s not about winning or losing, but about knowing how to handle what comes your way. and if you ever need a distraction, you know where to find me.”

✧ “but do you know, if you want reassurance, you only need to ask. i don’t play games when it comes to my feelings for you.” my man does NOT play when it comes to you!! 🙅‍♀️ 🙅‍♀️

blade

✧ he is stoic, so basically this feels like poking a sleeping tiger. you’d try to stress him out by being overly affectionate in public or daringly teasing him in front of the stellaron hunters.

✧ blade is a man of few words, and even fewer smiles. so when you start poking at him, trying to get a rise out of him, you know you’re walking a fine line. but that’s exactly what you want, isn’t it? to see just how much you can push before he cracks.

✧ it starts with small, playful jabs. teasing him about his stoic nature, of course. you know he’s not the type to express himself easily, but that doesn’t stop you from trying to bring out something more from him.

✧ “blade, do you ever smile? i think i’d faint if i saw it.”

✧ you say it with a mischievous grin, watching for any sign of a reaction. his first response is the usual – a glare that could melt steel. but there’s something else in his eyes, a flicker of something that tells you he’s holding back a smirk. deep down, you know he secretly enjoys your antics.

✧ “you’re really trying to get me to laugh, aren’t you?” he says, his voice low and steady, though it has a hint of something playful beneath it.

✧ you push further, though, not willing to let up so easily. “come on, blade. you can’t possibly be that serious all the time. it’s like you’re stuck in permanent brooding mode.”

✧ and that’s when the situation takes a turn. before you can even process it, he grabs your wrist with surprising speed, pulling you close, his voice dropping even lower, sending a shiver down your spine.

✧ “you think i’d waste my time with someone i didn’t care about? don’t test me.”

✧ his words come with an intensity that you didn’t expect, his presence so overpowering that it almost takes the air out of your lungs. you blink, momentarily taken aback, but you don’t back down. the playful teasing lingers in the air, even though you can tell that you’ve crossed the line.

✧ but blade, in his own way, seems to realize that. after a moment, he releases his grip on your wrist, letting out a quiet sigh. the edge of his tone softens, just slightly.

✧ “you’re important to me,” he mutters, his voice low but genuine. “stop doubting that.”

✧ there’s no grand declaration, no flowery words. just the blunt honesty of a man who’s difficult to read, yet in his own way, he’s showing you something far deeper than what words could ever convey.

✧ you watch him for a moment, realizing that, despite all his coldness, there’s a warmth buried deep beneath the surface – one that he’s not so quick to reveal, but it’s there, unmistakable in its own quiet way.

✧ “i guess i’ll just have to take your word for it, huh?” you say with a smirk, trying to lighten the mood once more.

✧ blade doesn’t respond with a smile, but the slightest hint of amusement flickers in his eyes. and maybe, just maybe, that’s his version of a win.

sampo koski

✧ sampo loves games, so he immediately plays along with your little “test.”

✧ sampo has always been the life of the party, the one with a smile on his face and a witty comeback ready for anything. so when you start throwing him off with your uncharacteristic seriousness, it’s like throwing a wrench in his well-oiled machine of flirtations.

✧ you don’t laugh at his jokes, you don’t play along with his flirtations, and you certainly don’t give him the usual banter he’s used to. instead, you respond with an almost eerie level of calm.

✧ “oh? no witty comeback today? you’re scaring me, sweetheart,” he teases, leaning back, watching you with an exaggerated frown as though he’s genuinely concerned. you can see the twinkle in his eyes, but he’s trying to hold it together.

✧ at first, you don’t budge. you just stare at him, deadpan, giving nothing away.

✧ he blinks a few times, clearly thrown off. then, he lets out a dramatic sigh. “oh no, what’s happening? is this… a breakup? did i mess up somehow? what did i do wrong? i can change! i swear, i’ll stop with the flirtations—i’ll even stop trying to steal your snacks!" he says, eyes widening as though he's on the verge of a crisis.

✧ the way he overacts is so ridiculous that it’s hard to keep a straight face. but you’re committed, your expression still unreadable as you let him stew in the nonsense he’s coming up with.

✧ when you finally can’t hold it in anymore and let out a soft laugh, his entire demeanor shifts. in an instant, his playful grin is back, and he pulls you into a sudden hug.

✧ “sweetheart, if i didn’t like you, i wouldn’t stick around this long. but nice try!” he says between chuckles, his voice playful and warm.

✧ you can’t help but smile at his antics. he may act like he’s been genuinely stressed out, but deep down, you know he’s been enjoying every minute of your teasing.

✧ he pulls back just enough to look at you, eyes sparkling mischievously. “you really had me going there for a second. but hey, now i know you care enough to test me. i’ll take it as a compliment.”

✧ you shake your head, still amused by his dramatic performance. “don’t ever change, sampo.”

✧ he winks at you, his usual grin returning in full force. “don’t worry, sweetheart, i’m never going to change… unless it’s to make you laugh more.”

luocha

✧ luocha is patient and gentle, but even he has his limits. you’d try to test him by asking endless hypothetical questions about relationships or intentionally making vague statements about your feelings.

✧ when you start throwing questions his way, testing his patience with doubts about his feelings, you know he’ll handle it with the same serenity he always exudes. but the longer it goes on, the more you start to wonder if you’re pushing him too far.

✧ “what if someone better came along?” you ask casually, watching his expression for a hint of reaction. it’s a harmless question in your mind, but you can tell he takes it seriously.

✧ he pauses, his hand resting gently on his chin, thinking it through before answering with his usual calmness. “if someone better came along, then you’d deserve to find happiness with them, just as I would wish for your happiness no matter the circumstances.”

✧ his response isn’t what you expected. it’s thoughtful, selfless, and it makes you question your own intentions. but you can’t help yourself – you press on, seeking reassurance in the form of his steady words.

✧ “but what if you don’t feel the same as you did before? what if you find someone who catches your eye more than me?”

✧ luocha’s gaze softens as he listens to your words. there’s no anger in his eyes, no irritation. only concern, as if he’s trying to understand why you would even think such a thing. his voice remains calm, but now there’s a slight edge to it, as if the question weighs on him more than you realize.

✧ “are you trying to test me?” he asks, tilting his head slightly, his brow furrowing just enough to show he’s genuinely curious. “i hope you know i mean every word i’ve said to you. my feelings are not something i take lightly.”

✧ you’re taken aback, your mind racing as you realize just how much this is affecting him. you weren’t trying to hurt him; you just wanted to see if he truly cared. but now, the weight of your questions hangs heavy in the air.

✧ seeing the uncertainty in your eyes, he lets out a small, almost imperceptible sigh. he reaches out, taking your hand in his, offering you a reassuring smile that radiates warmth.

✧ “there’s no need for doubt,” he says softly, his voice gentle yet firm. “my feelings for you are genuine, and they won’t change based on fleeting insecurities. you are the only one i see, the only one i care for.”

✧ his words carry a weight that resonates deep within you, his sincerity undeniable. you feel a warmth spread through your chest, a sense of relief washing over you.

✧ “i’m sorry,” you say, a little embarrassed by how far you’ve pushed him. “i didn’t mean to make you doubt how much i care.”

✧ luocha chuckles softly, his thumb brushing gently over the back of your hand. “it’s alright,” he says, his voice filled with understanding. “i know you’re just seeking reassurance. but i hope this is enough to put your mind at ease.”

✧ you nod, grateful for his patience and the depth of his affection. his unwavering calmness and the way he handles your doubts only make you feel even more certain that, with him, you never need to worry about someone else coming along.

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