#arisu loving hours in this mf house

[keysmashingfantasies]

"go away before i punch you in the throat, chishiya", you said when you heard the door to the roof open, not bothering to turn around. as if you'd ever let chishiya see you cry. he'd find a way to use it against you. you were still mad at him for what he put arisu and usagi through.

"it's not chishiya", someone answered. you'd recognize that voice anywhere in this miserable world.

"ah, arisu, it's you. come here, sit with me", you said, patting the ground next to you with a shaky hand.

"will you punch me in the throat?", he asked, still getting closer slowly, making you chuckle, feeling the dried tear streaks on your cheeks tighten your skin.

"no, i won't", you mumbled, a small smile on your face.

"are you okay? after the game... you were...", he said, trying to piece out a sentence in the most thoughtful way possible. he didn't have to, though. it was just how it worked for you: you always understood what he meant and was glad that he put thought into not hurting you. no one had before.

"yeah, i was a bit shaken. not because of the game, though. that boy? with the green sweater?", you said, looking at arisu while he nodded, eager to have you open up to him. while the two of you were very good friends and, unbeknownst to the other, both had feelings for each other, having you open up to him was like seeing the planets perfectly align. arisu felt as if you knew all about him and he knew nothing about you. an annoying voice spoke on the back of his mind and a faint burning ugly feeling bloomed on his chest. did the green sweater boy knew all about you?

"he was my best friend when i was a child. my only friend when i was a child, actually", you said with a bitter laugh, not meeting arisu's eyes with yours anymore, suddenly very interested on the gravely floor. you missed the way arisu's eyes widened but you knew he had put two and two together. he quickly realized that every piece of insignificant information he knew about you was recent. high school then college and work. as if your childhood never happened at all.

"but... he... he didn't even recognize you", he said, recalling the way that you screamed the boy's name to make him turn around and avoid a trap on the last second. he then scanned the people around him. a middle aged woman, a boy with his p.e uniform, arisu and you. he didn't even bat an eye at your presence.

"yeah, i know", you sighed the sentence, looking up at the night sky. the sky was one of the perks at this new country, especially the night sky. "i made sure that no one would recognize me", you whispered and arisu did a double take. he was nervous now, what did you mean?

"huh?", was all that he managed to say after a few seconds of silence. your brows furrowed and something dark took over your features. although arisu fell in love with you and you two maintained a good friendship, he remembered what tatta told him when he came to the beach. "she's a good player, huh? i don't know why she's not a militant. i heard that she did all types of awful things to get through games. maybe aguni has a good reason not to recruit her. i know that i'd be scared to have her running around with a gun'.

"do you think i'm beautiful, arisu?", you turned to look at him, whispering. if he was blushing because of the question, it doubled down when you locked his eyes in yours, he couldn't look away to hide his burning cheeks and opened and closed his mouth over and over. you didn't change expression, didn't laugh at him, nothing. you asked him that as if you had asked him what his favourite color was.

"i- i... i mean... yes. i do. i do find you... beautiful...", he lost momentum as he continued to stutter but with how close you were sitting, you didn't need him to say it out loud, especially when you thought he was lying.

"i wasn't always", you said and arisu thought he must've looked as  confused as he really were because you added. "beautiful. i wasn't always beautiful", you sighed. arisu scoffed before he could stop himself. you and not beautiful were like magnets with the same polarity in his mind. absolutely incompatible.

"when i was a kid. i was ugly. really. and he was the only kid that was nice to me. at first i thought it was a dare of sorts, told him to go kick rocks or bother someone else but he didn't let up. until we became friends", you said, taking a deep breath and closing your eyes for a couple of seconds before continuing. "i couldn't understand why. i didn't know what he saw in me that made him want to be my friend. he always said that i was funny and smart and kind when i wanted to be. and i always said that it didn't mean a thing if i looked the way i did. i said it, everyone else said it. my mother said it", you said. arisu was laser focused now. "one day me and my family had to move. then there would be one more year of classes then highschool. and i decided to change. i changed the way i looked and as i did that, i kind of became someone else. i guess because of the hate that motivated me to do it. i became cynical, boring. quiet. who i am today. that's why he didn't recognize me", you said.

"you're not ugly. or cynical or boring or quiet", he said, swallowing the nervous lump on his throat before reaching out and grabbing your hand. you smiled. his hand was warm and clammy. it was sweet in an awkward way, just like he was. you looked up from your hands to stare him deep in the eyes.

"not with you, i'm not", you said and you spend a minute in silence.

"when i saw him there i felt like a little girl again", arisu's eyes were as big as saucers when he saw you getting choked up and shedding tears. "and i don't want to be that little girl. i hate that girl. i killed her", you said.

"you didn't. you didn't", arisu shook his head vigorously.

-

niragi was livid. he didn't listen much of the conversation but he listened enough. all he knew was that arisu was getting too close to you for his liking. there was a boy in a green sweater that meant a whole lot to you. and you and him were cut from the same cloth.

he barely was able to tell last boss to keep an eye on you and to not kill arisu as to not traumatize you, but to make sure to keep you both apart while he went to the city. he had someone to kill.

and then everything would fall into place. he'd get to number one on the beach. and you'd be his queen.

welcome to another segment of: this could've been a multichapter but ehhh it's so harrrddddd to wriiiiiteeee.

[keysmashingfantasies]

Before I Became Who I Am

ryohei arisu x gn!reader

A/N: i know, i know. some of you are still waiting on funny girl. i didn't abandoned it, im just having a hard time with it. it's just not coming to me and i didn't want to just write whatever to post because some of you enjoyed it so much. please don't give up on me, i'll try to be more consistent. this was going to be a niragi fic initially but i thought it would be more interesting w arisu. plus, my baby boy doesn't get enough love. enjoy, let me know what you think and feel free to request more!

@nessinborderland this is rlly bad can i go back to your askbox now? pls?

TW: there is a slight sliiiight mention of disordered eating behavior on this. it's not much but if you think it will affect you, don't risk it.

You met Arisu during a game. Everything that you had learned so far in the Borderlands, along with the cynical side of your brain that you worked so hard to strengthen were telling you to just leave him there. There wasn't much time left and you had to leave that pool as soon as possible. But you just couldn't leave that poor boy flailing around to die on the water. Not when he had been so kind to you in the first trial. You took him out of the water as quickly as possible, trying to give him CPR, mouth to mouth, anything.

There were very few moments in your life that you could remember as clear as day, and even fewer were good moments. But you could confidently say that seeing Arisu's warm brown eyes opening to look at you for the first time was one of them.

He told you about what happened to him, to his friends. You rubbed his back as he cried over the cup of tea you had made him. 'This isn't fair!', he would say breathlessly. Just thinking about him on that state made you want to cry too. He had friends. True friends. He was real, everything about him was. His wits, his emotions. He wore his heart on his sleeve.

You had a carefully built persona, after years of perfecting it. You were reserved, strong, you had walls. On the outside, you had carefully maintained appearances as well. 'They treat you how they see you', you remembered your mother telling you when you were a child, as she took a lollipop from your chubby hand and looking at you disapprovingly while she cleaned up your face and fixed your clothes.

As time went on, you only grew closer. You told him things about you. Not many things about you were true. But you shared with Arisu the real parts of you. Your favorite color, the laugh you were ashamed of until he told you it was cute, what you wanted to become when you grew up.

-

"You were amazing. Saved my life again", he said as you sat on the rooftop together after a trying game.

"Nah, you saved both of us. You are the brains of this whole operation", you said. "Isn't this crazy? How we keep almost dying here? Really makes you think, huh?". There were a few moments of silence between the two of you.

"Y/N", Arisu's soft whisper of your name broke you out of your thoughts and made you turn to look at his blushing face. "Have I... Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?"

"Hm... No, I don't think you have", you said with a forced laugh, trying to use humor to diffuse the moment. You wanted it so bad. You just weren't expecting for this moment to happen outside your daydreams.

"Well, you are", he held your hand gently.

"I wasn't always, y'know. I built myself around what people wanted from me. Ever since I can remember", you said softly as if you were telling a secret.

"I didn't want nothing from you", he assured you with a squeeze on your hand. You could see in his eyes just how honest he was being.

"I know. That's why you're the only one that ever saw the true parts of me", you said. You were so close now, your lips almost touching. When he spoke next, you could feel his chapped lips brush against yours.

"I want to see everything", he whispered before kissing you. And you showed it to him that night. Again and again.

-

A/N: pt. 2 ????????