#but I happen to love and adore those things

[wonderlandcrown]

𝑆𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑑𝑎𝑦 𝑀𝑦 𝑃𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑊𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑒

𝑉𝑖𝑙 𝑥 𝑌𝑢𝑢(𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑟)

a/n : book 5 spoilers, also Vil didn't know Jamil overbloted until book 6. reader is gn and referred to as "Yuu, the prefect, you, they/them pronouns"

genre : light angst, romance(pining)

༶•┈┈⛧┈♛💜♛┈⛧┈┈•༶

Someday my prince will come Someday I'll find my love And how thrilling that moment will be When the prince of my dreams comes to me He'll whisper, "I love you" And steal a kiss or two Though he's far away I'll find my love someday Someday when my dreams come true

Vil was reluctant to stay in Ramshackle during VDC, "A messy room equals a messy mind", is what he tells his dorm mates. Though he understood that the prefect didn't choose to stay there, Vil Schoenheit was never a fan of unclean spaces.

But Vil had bigger problems at the moment, Neige will undoubtedly show up for the competition, and his dream- no, his goal will be in jeopardy.

The headmage did say that the prefect was quite talented in bringing people together...

Fine then, if staying in a dingy dorm means having a chance at winning against Neige, he'll do it.

"How thrilling, " Vil thought, "will my moment of victory be."

Someday I'll find my love Someone to call my own And I'll know him the moment we meet For my heart will start skipping a beat Some day we'll say, "I do" Things we've been longing to Though he's far away I'll find my love someday Someday when my dreams come true

Vil noticed the scars around the prefects hands, undoubtedly the result of going through no less than 3 overblots, not to mention all of them happened under a year!

Vil scoffs, Crowley must be more incompetent than he thought if he allowed a poor defenseless student to get caught up in so much trouble; or is it Yuu who is careless?

He originally saw you akin to something like a pathetic wet cat : lost, clueless, naive.

Though he'll admit he was quite wrong, your occasional sharp jabs towards the trio of potatoes(Ace, Deuce and Grim) didn't go unnoticed by Vil. He thinks you're quite funny, you act so brazenly and sarcastic around your friends but around strangers you suddenly become quiet and well spoken, you remind him of the difference of his personalities on camera and off.

Though that's the only thing he and you have in common.

Vil remembers perfectly well the glare Yuu shot at him when he cursed the delicacies Trey gifted the younger spudlings. It was a necessary measure! You're smarter than your friends, you should understand that they would've tried to break away from the diet Vil gave them.

Vil doesn't understand, he doesn't understand those potatoes, didn't they agree to this? Don't they want to win? If they do they should listen to him, he knows what's best, he's been trained for countless competitions since he was young, these diets, these restrictions have been imposed onto him ever since then and they will be forevermore.

For them, it'll only be a moment before they're back to their normal lives, so why can't they understand? Vil understood ever since he was young, so why can't they?

He's been longing for the chance to stay on stage until the very last moment, so why can't Yuu just do what he says and help those idiots cooperate with him.

Vil pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs, he shouldn't dwell on unnecessary things for too long, lest he stray from his goal.

Somewhere waiting for me There is someone I'm longing to see Someone I simply can't help but adore Someone who'll thrill me forever

"Hey, uh, can we discuss something? "

It was already late afternoon, Epel had screamed at Vil and ran away from the dorm and one of your friends, Deuce, he remembers, ran after him. But they haven't been back.

He lets out a sigh, not bothering to hide his frustration.

"What is it?" Vil turns to face you, usually during the breaks between the VDC groups training, you pass around water bottles and some snacks(not cursed by Vil this time). Though this time you carry nothing, it's expected, the rest of the group only have a break because two of the members ran off to who knows where.

"I think you're being too harsh on them. " Vil scoffs, "Excuse me? They're the ones being too careless, they're not serious enough. " Vil glares at you, nose scrunched. You betray his expectations, really, he expected you to be more mature about this.

You only look at him in the eyes as a response, he notices your tense frame, you must've been planning to tell him this for a while now.

"..Epel ran away." Vil lifts an eyebrow, "And? Are you just here to state the obvious?" He hears you click your tongue, you're irritated with him? Why must you be so mean to him, prefect, all he wants is to win, is that so much to ask for?

"Look, I understand your efforts, what you do to achieve your dreams is commendable, really, "

Dreams? How dare you use such a childish word, the Vil Schoenheit doesn't dream, he has no time for that.

"but you need to realize that not everyone can handle, well, you. We want to win, obviously but uh, you're already so accustomed to this type of stuff but we're not.."

Hm? Oh, prefect, you're flattering him, so you're saying that he's so glamorous to the point that the normal spudlings can't even begin to compare?... Vil's kidding obviously, but the compliment has made him more inclined to listen to you.

"Dear prefect, I may see your point.. Though you must realize that diamonds are created under pressure, and the headmage has been far too lenient." You sigh, brows furrowed, "Tell me about it.. Again, you're not wrong, there are limits. Even the seemingly strong gems can crack if they have internal flaws."

My, isn't this new.. Prefect, it's been quite the long time since someone dared to question him, in such an interesting way no less.. Most people either agree with no objections or slander his views vehemently (Rook and Epel, Vil's looking at you) Congratulations are in order for managing to intrigue Vil of all people.

You're confused on why Vil's smiling, so.. fondly at you, did you do something wrong?

"Prefect, if you don't mind, how do you feel about joining my nightly routine tomorrow, I think you have many interesting topics to share with me."

Someday my prince will come Someday I will find the one Though he's far away he'll find my love someday Someday when my dreams come true Oh, please make my dreams come true

"The winner of VDC is.. ROYAL SWORD ACADEMY, LED BY THE ONE AND ONLY NEIGE LEBLANCHE!"

The crowd cheers endlessly, Vil feels his heart grow heavy with that same, twisting, horrendously ugly feeling of envy. His feet feel like they're on fire and Vil has to pretend the camera flashes are irritating him in order to blink back the tears.

It's ok, it's fine, the loser has to fall and Vil feels like he's been plummeting since then, now, and perhaps forevermore.(please don't let it be so)

It's even worse when Neige pulls him into an encore, his hand pressing on one of the bruises on his arm, a scar gained from his overblot. But Vil's heart only winces when he thinks of you, he thinks of your scars, you must have so many, you've been through so much..

Vil is so, so sorry, he wants to cry and beg for your forgiveness, for Rook's, for Epel's, for everyone's forgiveness. What he did was so stupidly immature, how could he just betray his own expectations, everyone expected Vil Schoenheit to be level headed, mature, and beautiful. So why? Why must he be everything except that?

Everything after his overblot was a blur, really. He thought his career would go up on smoke, everything he worked for would've been gone. Vil stared at his phone, waiting for a ping from his manager, informing him that his overblot, his weakest moment, was leaked for the whole world to see. Vil sits at the vanity, normally he would be staring into his reflection, but now he can't even bear the thought of looking at the mirror.

Suddenly he was met with a knock on his door.

"I'm not expecting visitors, if it's not urgent then go find Rook, or the prefect."

"Vil, I am the prefect."

Vil immediately sits up right, brushing away the few strands of stray hair, before inviting you in. "Come on in."

You quickly slip inside his room, closing the door behind you with a click, Vil tilts his head, usually he would never do this, unbefitting of the mature image of Vil Schoenheit, but since it's you, he finds himself at ease without putting on his performative mask. "I see you want privacy, is it personal?"

"Yeah, I.. wanted to see how you're doing. " Vil doesn't hold back the bittersweet smile, "You really are kind, don't worry about me, you should've ran away when you saw me overblot, why didn't you?"

Why didn't you? You should've ran away the moment you saw blot dripping from his lips and eyes, yet you stayed, you stayed during his overblot and all the others. Vil wants to know, how is one person so caring yet sarcastic, so plain yet so interesting, so normal yet.. Vil feels like he's never met someone like you before.

"Why didn't I? What kind of question is that, the better question is how could I leave a friend during his weakest moments?"

See? Caring yet sarcastic, Vil giggles at your response, "You should know when to stop helping people, dear. One day you'll get irreversibly wounded and there's nothing I could do to help you at that point." Vil's tone is light, though he feels an aching sensation when he imagines a fatally wounded Yuu.

You sigh, taking a step closer to Vil, "I'm not that weak, so don't think of stuff like that." The housewarden of Pomefiore only gives a tired smile, plain yet so interesting, he thinks. You're a magicless being somehow willed with such tenacity that befits the values of the Beautiful Queen, Vil might be inclined to take a few lessons from you.

It takes a while before Vil notices you're staring at him, you look at him as if you were looking at a poor, caged animal. "..Is there something else you want to tell me?" You don't respond, you only continue to look at him, at his clothes, at his hair, then you stare at him in the eye.

Vil feels a lump form in his throat, you're looking at him in such a humane way, not the lovesick expressions usually adorned on his fans, not the scowls of jealousy from the haters. You look at him as if you see something beyond the masks he wears.

Unlike what most people think, Vil Schoenheit actually has two masks, one he adorns when the camera rolls, which from there he has many others to choose from. The second he wears to retain the strict and regal image of Pomefiore, the one who rules this dorm with an iron fist, where he is both hated and loved.(not that much different from his career)

But you, you're looking at none of the two, he never saw anyone else other than his own father and Rook wear this expression. Someone who sees beyond what is presented to them.

"You're tired." Vil finally hears you say something, "I'll go draw you a bath." Your words were authoritative and left no room for arguement, it reminds Vil of himself. As the actor watches you walk into his bathroom he feels a warm sensation course through him, it's been quite the long time since he was the one on the receiving end of these affections.

No, affections is too intimate a word, but Vil can't think of any other way to describe it.

You can't see his expression now, prefect, but do know that you made Vil Schoenheit of all people cover his face to hide his blush and smile. So normal yet Vil's never met anyone else like you.

Vil hears the sound of water flowing coming from the bathroom, he hopes you finish your task soon, Vil has never felt what yearning for another's presence was like until now.

Vil already has his hunter and poison apple, so tell him what you'll be? What role will you take on to complete the Beautiful Queen's camaraderie? Will you be his raven, dutiful, working from the shadows; or his mirror : showing him what you see, beyond what Vil presents himself to be.

Vil shall wait for your answer, prefect.

♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬

a/n : someday my prefect will come - vil schoenheit. first fanfic tbh, there were pacing issues but I don't think it's that bad for a first timer. reblogs are appreciated

[ditzydoe444]

hi love, it’s me again!

i saw your post about older!jason and omg that is soooo up my alley. imagine older jason absolutely loving the power play between you guys! how he is so much more experienced and big and mature, and you’re just so little and dumb and innocent. he’d have the biggest corruption kink! knowing that he is the one doing all those things to you, teaching you how to be dirty for him and him only!

loving how he turned this innocent sweet girl, who he might have seen growing up if were feeling extra dirty, into his dirty little slut. the sweetheart to the public eye that he turns into a whore on his bed. but can you blame him? when a sweet young thing like her looked at an older and rugged man like him he didn’t even had a choice but to make her his.

- 🎸(sorry i got a bit carried away, my mind took her own turns lmao)

MDNI 18+

older! jason todd x reader

—ㅤ꒰ྀིㅤ jason todd x reader ಿৎ

▐ age gap (reader is early 20’s and jason is late 30’s) vaginal sex, oral (both m and f receiving), a little manipulation

a/n: i loved everything you wrote!! it’s so spot on because he would def have a corruption kink

older! jason todd who couldn’t keep his eyes off from a pretty girl like you, in your early twenties who just graduated from college. you would prance around in the shortest dresses, allowing him to catch a glimpse of your panties occasionally. you were always so sweet to an older man like him, bringing him cookies whilst he worked in the garage fixing cars, your girly self juxtaposing against the roughness of the oil stained place.

older! jason todd who wanted to corrupt you, you were extremely sheltered hence why you were known as the neighbourhood sweetheart, so kind and innocent always expecting the best from people. so when you came to him about your broken aircon and how it was bothering you because your dad was away for the summer, jason did not hesitate to help. there was something about being alone with you in your own house, in the summer heat where you only wore a thin tank, no bra because he could see your nipples and the shortest baby shorts where he could see your panties and the outline of your pussy if you bent down.

older! jason todd who made you turn into his own whore, he just felt so good who started craving him constantly!! you would go to his garage, where he bent you cover the table and fucked your cunt until you went limp, occasionally, if he wasn’t working on the cars and instead on boring paper work, he would have you under his desk and sucking his cock. sometimes if he felt nice, cock warming would happen which then turns into pure fucking.

older! jason todd who loved the way your small cunt took his cock, how your body was so eager please him despite how big he was. your body was so determined to please him, how you were bouncing on his lap, completely naked begging him to fuck you. “please jay? it hurts,” you pleaded as you pathetically humped his leg, and how could he say no to a pretty thing like you?

older! jason todd who taught you how to suck his cock, watching your lips stretch out to accomodate his thick length as you gagged half way down. it was adorable how eager you were to take him, “slow down yeah? can’t have you choking when you are barely halfway.” jason was filthy, he loved making you give him the sloppiest head, your eyes rolling back as saliva dribbled down your chin and out the corners of your mouth.

older! jason todd is the biggest munch, he would grip your thighs apart as he devoured your cunt, watching your puffy folds drip with your own cum, his chin glistening as he refused to waste a single drop. whenever you told him that you were overstimulated he would guilt trip you. “i just came home from working and now a starved man can’t get a taste of his own girl? come on sweetheart, i thought i taught you better.”

[twstfanblog]

Heyyyyy so uhhhhh…

What if the mc back in their world was a slave? Not servant like jamil, just, straight up slave where their opinion didn’t matter :( n they r female, afab, pronounce she/they? Hopefully nothing bad happened but people who get slaves r bad people so :((( overblot boys pls 🙏🥺

I feel like they would all threaten crowley to absolutely NOT look for a way to send mc home n to stop making her do his things cause that reminds her of back home in a very bad way :(

N then they comfort n hold the mc cause they r safe n wont have to be treated like shit anymore :(

They will punch anyone who treats em like shit

Which practically everyone in school did when they arrived at NRC, and they just thought ‘this is normal’. :(

Overblot Boys React to Slave Reader

Overblot Boys x Reader

Riddle

Lowkey saw you as an ideal student. Polite, respectful, and mindful of the rules. So he wouldn't notice anything past a few odd ticks that he himself wouldn't fully question since his own upbringing was shitty.

It takes him and Ace having an argument, Riddle brings up that Ace can learn a thing or two from you on being a respectful student. And Ace fires back on you being a SLAVE. Of course, his overbearing ass would love that. And Riddle has to really think about what kinda person that makes him that he didn't even notice.

He talks to you, wanting personal confirmation on what Ace had blurted out. Once he gets the confirmation, his attitude gets much softer. You don't get as harsh treatment for rule-breaking, but he's still stern about them.

End game, he makes up a secondary set of rules for you only. Rules like 'We say something if we are uncomfortable' or 'We are allowed to say No'. He just gets much softer but remains true on rules being important. He just also stresses that you should have your own personal rules now.

Leona

Clocked immediately you came from a background of servitude, though he wasn't aware how severe it was.

He didn't plan on getting invovled but his little bleeding heart took Ruggie under his wing for a reason. It was one part pity and mostly annoyance seeing you getting bullied by his dorm everyday.

You basically get 'Leona's Servant' boot camp with Ruggie suddenly. He teaches you how Leona likes his laundry tended to and what snack flavors he prefers. It's a smooth transition from slave to servant until Ruggie tells you it's free game to steal from Leona.

Leona never brings it up, but he knows your old home was not a good environment. He also knows he can't just fling you into a healthier dynamic with those around you, so he'll do it slowly and sneakily. Ruggie is the perfect one to bridge the gap for him to start spoiling you.

Azul

Knew something was off but had no real frame of reference. He would make little theories and try to figure out why you act the way you do. He only started thinking you had come from a background of servitude when you follow orders so quickly.

Honestly doesn't know how to feel because he did do slavery in tricking the contracted students into working at the lounge against their will. He's not entirely sure how to save face with you after he's come across as a cruel and unfair slaver. Lowkey uses his overblot aftermath as an excuse for a fresh start with you.

He starts treating you kinder, making sure to address you properly and showing that he respects you. People from his dorm follow his lead, at least. The Tweels are part-time bodyguards, making your old bullies more hesitant to start anything because an eel might slip out of a crack or something.

Azul is a sneaky one too, slowly helping you raise your standard of how you should be treated by others. If you get him blabbing long enough, he'll slip into just stating how precious you are to him.

Jamil

I'm sorry, even with the English sanitation, Jamil’s situation can only come across as slavery to me. He's a very well cared for slave because Kalim adores him, but a slave none the less.

It's a little jarring to him to see someone who really could understand. But he's so used to keeping himself guarded he never reached out in a friendly sense. Treating you more like a new coworker; helpful but distant. It wasn't until you accidently broke something in Scarabia and nearly had a panic attack when Kalim looked at you does he realize how severe punishment was back in your world.

Gets much softer to you. It's sad because he does love and care about you, but he would not allow you to be with him long term. You've managed to come to a new world where your old masters can't reach you, you're free. Don't waste it following him back into a life of servitude.

Jamil would understand you the best so he'd be the one to really push and guide you to trying new experiences with your freedom. Wants you to be selfish and use your friends' kindness to make your life better. If he never gets his dream of being able to travel the world he wants you to be able to.

(Should the miracle happen and he and Kalim have the conversation finally, Jamil would go globe trotting with you. He legit has thoughts of just not going back and disappearing with you.)

Vil

I don't think he'd mean anything malicious by it. But he would end up treating you like a purse dog for a while.

Vil has a strong and cemented personality and sense of worth. Dealing with someone as passive as an abused slave, he would easily bulldoze over them and not really notice. Because he'd basically have you on the 'Betterment Plan' he has Epel.

He saw the potential and just kept going because you never said stop. Lots of beauty routines, he picks outfits for you for outings, basically has you as his shadow before either Rook or Epel bring up how he's running you ragged.

Vil never dealt with someone who's come from the situation you did. The very idea that 'No' wasn't a boundary you were ever allowed horrified him for a bit. But like the queen he is, he doesn't try to defend his misstep and goes right into correcting his behavior. The introduction of choices was the best start, but you slowly start saying no to events and choices and Vil couldn't be more delighted.

Idia

Lowkey, I'm not sure if he'd notice in any capacity until you told him point-blank. Idia is the one of the boys who sticks mostly to himself and he'd avoid you if he saw you constantly being hounded by other students.

But, if you managed to get close enough to him, he'd question why you always freeze up when your bullies call you? Why running isn't an option you take? And then you'd tell him about where you came from and how running never ended well for you or the other slaves...

He's not one I think would actively try to curb your behaviors but it would effect his own. Now when he sees you being bullied there's a high chance he'll use what power he has a housewarden to get them to leave. When he's sneaking around, he'll catch your eye and give the mental offer to come hide out in his room with him. He becomes a legit safe space for you to just breath since no one but Ortho really enters his room.

He's had to stop you multiple times from cleaning his room. Yes, it's a mess. No, you don't have to thank him by cleaning. Yes, he's aware you can also keep his stuff organized for him while you clean. You don't have to clean, you aren't his maid. (He is terrified he will ruin your friendship the second you find anything embarrassing under his piles of junk. Like a body pillow, or a 18+ comic, or a stray love note he wrote you-)

Malleus

Adorable you think the bonds of slavery from an unknown world matter to him. Malleus is...a prince, a crown prince at that. I don't think he has 'slaves' but with servants of royalty, I'm never really sure. But anyhow, this boy hasn't been told no enough in his life and it shows.

So when you try to back away from the friendship a bit under the fact of you being a slave and not...worthy of his princely company. He just decides you aren't a slave anymore. Just wills and speaks it into existence. There, it's fixed. You can continue being his beloved child of man, now come. He has a new gargoyle he wants to show you.

Fae to me have favorites, and they love to keep an eye on them. So god help some poor schmuck who tries to bully you into doing their work after Malleus has decided you don't do that anymore... You start saying No and leaving the situation with much more effectiveness because the other choice is Malleus making some poor student drop out for fear of their life.

Malleus canonically ignores the autonomy of others for his own gain. So it would be a really weird balance of him simply stating that you are your own being capable of choice and that your old-world status as a slave doesn't matter here. But with that new free status, you are also his best friend, who will come on night walks with him, talk with him, and make friendship bracelets.

[enhaflixer]

For our marriage law couple:

Q1. Did the readers' parents ever meet jay or their kid/s????

Q2. How did they find out about the pregnancy? Muggle ways or any magical ones????

Q3. How is jay during the pregnancy??

Thank you soooo much for the wonderful fics love you <3

Exclusive Interview with Park Jongseong & His Wife on Love, Parenthood, and a Certain Marriage Law

—A sit-down with the unexpected love story that defied the Ministry’s rules, featuring Jay Park, his wife, and a surprise mention of their daughter.

-

Q1: Did your parents ever meet Jay or Jane?

(You sigh, running a hand through your hair while Jay, sitting next to you, casually rests an arm along the back of your chair. His thumb absentmindedly brushes against your shoulder.)

You: “Not for a long time.”

Jay: nods slowly “Yeah, that was… complicated.”

You: “I didn’t expect them to reply when I texted them about the marriage. And they didn’t.”

Jay: quietly “For years.”

You: nods “It wasn’t until Jane was, what? Two?”

Jay: “Yeah, around then. I remember because we had just started thinking about putting her in a playgroup, and that’s when your parents reached out.”

You: “It was... tense.”

Jay: shrugs “I mean, I get it. They didn’t know me. And the whole ‘pureblood wizard married their daughter through some law they probably didn’t even understand’ thing? Not exactly the easiest thing to process.”

You: snorts “I think they barely tolerated the idea of magic in general, let alone their grandchild having it.”

Jay: grinning slightly “To be fair, Jane won them over before I did.”

You: softly “Yeah. They were distant at first, but then Jane did… I don’t know, something ridiculously adorable, and suddenly my mother was acting like she was the world’s most doting grandmother.”

Jay: smirks “She levitated a toy broomstick, and your dad nearly fainted.”

You: “He still thinks she’s telekinetic.”

Jay: shrugs “Let him believe that. If it helps him sleep at night.”

-

Q2: How did you find out you were pregnant? Muggle ways or magical ones?

Jay: groans dramatically, dragging a hand down his face “This is my villain origin story.”

You: laughing “Jay knew before I did.”

Jay: deadpan “Because your magic was acting up. And you kept getting dizzy.”

You: mocking “And your first thought was ‘pregnancy’?”

Jay: “And I was right.”

You: grinning “But I still needed proof, so after the healer confirmed it, I made Jay go buy a Muggle pregnancy test—”

Jay: glaring at you “There are way too many kinds of those things.”

You: mocking “Which one is the most accurate? I should just buy all of them—”

Jay: grumbling “Look, if I was going to do it, I was going to do it right.”

You: laughing “Anyway, I took the test, stared at the two pink lines, still trying to process, and then he just—” pauses, smiling at Jay “You just knelt in front of me, held my hand, and said, ‘It’s real, baby.’”

Jay: clears his throat, rubbing the back of his neck “Yeah.”

Q3: How was Jay during the pregnancy?

(You roll your eyes. Jay scoffs, shaking his head, because he already knows what you’re about to say.)

You: “A complete mess.”

Jay: offended “I was not a mess.”

You: flatly “Jay. You read twelve books on pregnancy, six on magical child development, and made a whole binder of research.”

Jay: muttering “...organization is key.”

You: “He wouldn’t let me carry anything heavier than a quill. And if I so much as sighed, he was at my side like, ‘Are you okay? Do you need water? Are you hungry? Should I get the healer?’”

Jay: grumbling “I was taking care of you.”

You: grinning “You were being dramatic.”

Jay: “And you loved it.”

You: softens “Yeah. I did.”

Jay: smirks “Told you.”

You: “You were also so soft. You would just randomly kiss my belly, whisper to Jane when you thought I was asleep. And you lived for when she kicked. The first time it happened, you completely froze.”

Jay: “Listen, feeling an actual human foot kick your hand from inside your wife is a lot to process.”

You: laughs “You were so in love already.”

Jay: quietly, brushing his fingers over your hand “Still am.”

-

Q4: Why Jane? Why that name?

Jay: scoffs “You act like this was some deep, symbolic decision. We were just tired of arguing.”

You: grinning “We fought for months over names.”

Jay: “Because you kept coming up with the worst ones.”

You: mocking “‘Jayden’ wasn’t that bad.”

Jay: horrified “I refuse to name my daughter after myself like some egotistical maniac.”

You: “Says the guy who wanted ‘Seraphina Aurelius Park.’”

Jay: shrugging “Sounds powerful.”

You: “Sounds like she should be ruling an empire.”

Jay: smirks “Maybe she will.”

You: laughing “Anyway, we were lying in bed one night, and I just said, ‘What about Jane?’ and he didn’t even argue. Just said, ‘Yeah. That’s it.’”

Jay: grinning “Because it fit. It was simple, classic. No unnecessary nonsense.”

You: mocking “So not Seraphina Aurelius Park?”

Jay: deadpan “I stand by my decision.”

-

And there you have it—proof that even a government-mandated marriage couldn’t stop love from finding its way in.

TL: @naurwayyyyy @ziiao @ddolleri @somuchdard @beariegyu @ijustwannareadstuff20 @zzhengyu @annybah

[chokkzou]

PART. 1 ! the bllk boys discovering that they are your cute submissives (?

characters: isagi, reo, nagi, bachira, hiori, ness and kaiser.

tw?: top! male reader x sub! bllk. i speak spanish so sorry if there is any mistake or idk

link to part two !

⊹ ۪ ࣪ ꒰ Yoichi Isagi has always been someone who thrives on recognition and validation. He lives for those moments when his skills are acknowledged, when he feels like he’s making a difference, when someone tells him that he’s doing great. But it wasn’t until you came into the picture that he realized just how much your words affected him.

At first, he thought it was normal—after all, he liked being praised, right? But then you started doing it in ways that left him completely off guard. A simple "good job, yoichi," said in a low, smooth tone after a match, your fingers barely brushing his sweat-dampened hair? That had him completely losing focus for the next few minutes.

And you noticed. It didn’t take you long to realize that whenever you praised him directly, with intensity in your voice, isagi would react in the most adorably helpless way. His lips would part slightly, his eyes would flicker with something unspoken, and sometimes—if you were close enough—you could hear the way his breath hitched for just a second.

One day, you decided to take it a step further. After watching him score a goal, you pulled him aside, leaned in close, and murmured, "You looked so good out there." His face turned completely red. His hands clenched into fists, his body stiffened, and he stammered something incoherent before looking away, desperately trying to regain his composure.

That’s when you knew. Compliments were his kryptonite. And if you ever wanted to see him break, all you had to do was whisper something sweet with a bit too much confidence.

⊹ ۪ ࣪ ꒰ Reo Mikage is used to taking the lead. He’s confident, he knows what he wants, and he’s never had a problem going after it. But for some reason, when it’s you taking control, he absolutely melts.

It started with small things—placing your hand on the small of his back to guide him through a crowded space, casually hooking a finger under his chin to tilt his head up, pulling him by the wrist with just enough force to make it clear that you were in charge.

At first, he brushed it off, laughing it away like it was nothing. But you saw the way his breath faltered each time, the way his fingers twitched slightly, the way he swallowed a little too hard when you did it without warning.

The moment you realized how much he loved it? You had casually placed your hands on his hips to move him aside while saying, "let me through, reo." He froze.

It was barely a second, but you saw the way his pupils dilated slightly, the way his lips parted as if he was about to say something but completely forgot how to speak. And when he finally stepped aside, he did it almost robotically, like his brain was still catching up with what just happened.

After that, you made sure to test the limits—pulling him into you when he wasn’t expecting it, whispering "stay still" in his ear just to see if he could obey. Spoiler alert: he couldn’t.

⊹ ۪ ࣪ ꒰ Seishiro Nagi doesn’t care about a lot of things. He’s lazy, indifferent, and rarely puts effort into anything unless it’s truly worth his time. But for some reason, he cares so much when it comes to you.

It started out simple—he began noticing the small things you did for him. You’d grab his water bottle before he even asked, adjust his hoodie when it slid off his shoulder, remind him to eat when he got too distracted with his phone. And each time you did something for him, he’d just… stare.

Not in a creepy way. More like in complete awe.

One day, when you casually handed him a towel after practice, he took it but didn’t move. He just blinked at you, gripping the fabric a little too tightly, before mumbling, "…you’re spoiling me."

But he didn’t stop you.

And you noticed something else— nagi never initiated much, but when you did, he followed effortlessly. If you tugged on his sleeve, he’d move. If you tilted his chin up, he wouldn’t resist. If you told him to do something in that smooth, confident voice of yours, he’d do it without even thinking.

So, naturally, you started pushing the boundaries.

One evening, as he lazily lay on the couch, you ran your fingers through his hair and said, "sit up."

And without hesitation, without question, he did.

That’s when you knew— nagi wasn’t just being spoiled. He was waiting to be led.

[lostinlovingrevery]

Logan idea: him being married and starting a family with his wife 😍

OMG UGH The way I'm so in love with that man

I actually have two fics related to this in my drafts! One is reading finding out she's pregnant, the other is just a peak into family life with reader and logan. it's gonna be teeth rotting fluff. I hope you'll enjoy them <3

implications of sex below the cut, also pregnancy mentions!

Marriage with Logan:

I mean not to be cheesy but...

it's bliss

you all saw him in origins with kayla (gag)

that man is a total lover boy

hes on his knees for you

he will do anything for you

He didn't think he'd get to do something like this. to experience the whole joy of getting engaged, planning a wedding, getting married

just finding his other half....He considers himself the luckiest man in the world

He takes on the role of a hubby proudly

He'll laugh and pretend the wifey and hubby mugs you got him were cliche but he uses the hubby mug every single day proudly and ignores any comments regarding it

He'll proudly introduce you as his wife (or hubby, or partner, whichever term you prefer!)

everyone sees how so in love you both are

holding hands, your arms around each other

he'll admire the ring he put on your finger all the time.

"this is a nice look for you baby"

if you going through with having a wedding wedding, logan is going to be so damn nervous

he fights all sorts of bad guys. standing in front of family and friends, being vulnerable? thats a different kind of fight

but he finds when he sees you, all prettied up walking down that aisle

well, maybe this isn't so bad

but if you end up having a something small and simple, hes just as happy

either way, he's grinning ear to ear by your side. no ones seen the wolverine happier than when he married you

theres a comfort that settles between you both after marriage. a trust that the other is going to be there. you don't have to worry about a thing with him.

If you're getting or already have your own place, your engagement/marriage kicks off nesting in him. Hes' gotta make sure that his baby is taken care of...

Speaking of babies...

Starting a family!

Oh boy

or girl?

However the conception happens, planned or accident

logan will be thrilled (after he gets over the nerves)

he'll be so supportive to you. he may take a moment and go vomit out in the bins outside but he's happy, truly

hes so supportive

i mean i talked about pregnancy headcanons before but imma go into it again

he hates seeing his love in pain, suffering, etc etc. will hold your hand the entire way.

Hold your hair back during those morning sickness events uggh

will make you tea, slice apples, whatever the hell helps you

will rub your back, feet, shoulders. whatever

he thinks your mood swings are adorable (he won't say that to your face though. he knows you'll just tear him apart)

very handsy. can't help it. you looked good pregnant w his kid

every doctor appointment. hes there.

hes strong for you, god knows you're doing the heavy lifting but he's definitely going to be anxious. worried about every little groan and huff you let out. worried about labor. your safety. the babys safety.

hes so happy to be here but he's also terrified of losing it

yes, if you wake him up at 2 in the morning, he'll go get you those weird things you're craving. he'll do it happily. no you're not bothering him.

loves when you get a burst of hormones and become feral over him. he literally wants to bang you all the time but you're pregnant and not in the mood usually

you give him small kisses at first that end up getting intense and becoming more bc you're both just so happy and your hormones is making everything so intense and he's the only thing you want and need

anyhoo...

When you're big, big, like 8-9 months. He's all over you. You could bite his head off over his clingyness but the most he's gonna do is sit across the room with his tail between his legs

his instinct screams to stay close and to protect. he's not going anywhere

designing the babies room together

SHOPPING

bad bad wolverine is holding up lil jammies with sheep on it. "This is cute" he mumbles.

you can't even bring yourself to tease him over it because he's so damn cute like this. also hes' right. those are cute jammies. put em in the cart

Logan really doesn't care about the babys sex. he's just happy to even.. have all of this. and with you.

he'd be a great boy or girl dad honestly.

they're both gonna have him wrapped around their finger

you buy a plush wolverine animal for the babys crib and logan gets emotional over it

"yknow sweetheart these things are pretty mean in real life." he says as he holds back tears. "don't know if we should..."

he's gonna go into slight shock when they baby comes. like. woah, this is happening? really? actually happening?

Of course when you start reacting to your contractions, hubby mode is going to kick in. He's all over you, talking you through everything as you go the hospital

hes scared, terrified, but hes not gonna worry about himself when you need him more than ever

WILL cry when he meets yalls baby for the first time.

Going to feel like he'd been waiting his whole life to meet them.

He's going to be an amazing dad. hes got all sorts of life experience to share with them

your kid(s) will adore their dad (and you!)

they may have their teenage phase where everyone annoys them

but Logan having memories of how his family/parents were broken apart. he doesn't want that to happen

no ones a perfect person/partner/parent. logan tries pretty damn hard

movie nights

waking up to the kids running into yalls bed

him literally trying to steal ONE private moment with you, but your child is in a "i only want this parent phase!" for one of you and won't leave you alone.

your kid(s) gagging whenever you kiss or get affectionate. it happens often.

"mom and dad are really gross"

Im gonna add adoption in here too

he's gonna be really nervous because he doesn't want to scare whoever you adopt with his mutation, and just his general self. hes big and scary.

but you meet the child you two are meant to raise and he's in love

he adores the kid just as if it was his biological because to him it doesn't matter

thats you and hims child and he's going to do his damn best to take care of you and any child you may raise together

I just love him and I want me and him to build a lil life together on a farm or a cabin and have little ones that look like him running around and just *sobs*

[rocketbaby]

MHA master list

Bunny!Izuku who acts like a brat but you finally had enough of his shitty behavior.

He was messing with you a lot, taking away your stuff and ruining them,but you feel bad punishing him or doing something to stop him. He looked so cute and Sweet,he is such a pretty bunny you can't bring yourself to stop him.

Well you finally had enough of him,of his bull crap. What pushed you to this point was when he made holes into your favorite shirt. You loved it so much but now it was completely ruined and you couldn't wear it anymore.

He actually upset you this time. He was not getting away with it.

Bunny!Izuku who tries to get away by acting all innocent and cute, knowing that those tricks usually work on you. He tries to cuddle with you and starts rubbing his chin on your hand. Well you just pushed him off you.

You punished him by refusing to cuddle and pet him. He was a cocky brat but he loved physical touch a lot so when you refused to cuddle him to sleep he was shocked. You never refused him like this.

Why wasn't his cute adorable face working to trick you anymore? What happened to you? He wanted you to hold him and pet his ears while he falls asleep! You always do that!

Bunny!Izuku who started begging and apologizing, whining to you non stop.

"Please,I said I'm sorry! I didn't mean to ruin your shirt!"

He did in fact mean to ruin it, knowing that it'll piss you off but he didn't think you'd actually get this upset about it.

He does this a lot, throwing away your things,ruining them, hiding them, but you always just forgave him,so now that you won't let him get away with it he doesn't know what to do.

"But you promised me we'll cuddle, please pet me? Just my ears, please,you know how good it feels..I love your hands on me, please"

He's whining while following you around the house, demanding pets and cuddles.

He thumps his feet when you refuse him. He also huffs and pouts at you whenever you tell him to piss off.

Bunny!Izuku who started genuinely crying after two days of you refusing to cuddle him or give him any kind physical touch. He is trying to snuggle into your embrace as his tears get on your shirt.

He was no longer the cocky and bold bunny,as he is just begging for your attention.

"Please,I'm sorry, please hold me again,I miss you,I miss your touch. I promise I won't ruin your clothes again,I won't touch them anymore!"

You still refuse to give into him and his pleas.

[save-the-villainous-cat]

Hello, Cat! If it’s not bothering you too much, may I please have a small request?

I just want to a sick villain who gives off sick Victorian child vibes. That’s all.

“It actually hurts so much,” the villain whispered.

The hero stared at the nemesis in their bed and wondered when they’d become soft and merciful enough to let an enemy into their home. They couldn’t even remember when their last visitor had come over.

That was…maybe five months ago? When their mother had visited?

They couldn’t recall.

“I think I’m dying.” The villain was actually tearing up, tossing and turning in bed. They were trembling. The hero let the back of their hand touch the villain’s forehead again.

“I told you it’s a fever.”

They weren’t exactly worried. If the villain died which was very unlikely, they could simply throw the body into the streets for some patrolling hero to find. However, it would raise quite some attention.

Especially because the public was aware of their regular fights.

“I’m really not kidding it’s actually so bad…” The villain’s entire face was red. Their body was basically radiating heat, just like a reactor. “Breathing hurts so much. My head hurts…I’ll die, I swear I’ll die…”

“Ugh, shut up. It’s just a cold.” The hero frowned. The villain had suddenly collapsed in the middle of the fight. It wasn’t unusual for the villain to be lightheaded, that much was clear to the hero. But collapsing during a fight was a bit much.

Maybe the hero had thought the villain would be a useful hostage after recovering. It sounded like a good plan and maybe that was why the hero had brought them here but, slowly, they seemed to regret it.

“I don’t deserve you, I really don’t,” the villain mumbled. They seemed a little delirious. Sweating. Complaining. Moaning. The hero tilted their head and realised that their hand was still to close to the villain. They pulled it away.

“Just rest for now.”

“I mean it, I…God, I don’t deserve you. Everyone always says you’re so scary, but I like that about you so much, do you know that?” The hero shifted on their chair. The villain was surely overwhelmed by pain. And it wasn’t like the hero could exactly trust them if they weren’t either.

“You should-”

“That one time when someone was robbing this bank and there were a lot of explosives going off, do you remember that? There was this child, she must have been like five years old. And you rescued her and she held onto you the entire time and you didn’t let go of her. She was crying, tears streaming down her face. And you calmed her down, you searched for her parents and everything. When I saw that, I…it was so adorable. You’re so adorable…” The hero could barely make out the words the villain was mumbling.

But it was true. That had happened a few months ago. And the hero was still in contact with the girls’ parents.

But the villain hadn’t been part of that incident. Had the villain watched them from afar?

“You’re one of those grumpies who are really soft inside, aren’t you?” The villain smiled. They were still sweating, still red. The hero doubted they’d recall this conversation in a few hours.

And the hero…the hero’s throat was dry. They were frozen. Couldn’t move, couldn’t say a thing. It was true that the hero preferred to be alone. Not because they thought they were better or worse than everyone else.

It was simply, that they didn’t believe they were that significant, that special to other people. Sure, they were a hero, but it didn’t matter who was behind the mask. In their mind, they were only half-visible, walking around like a shadow. Barely noticeable. If they died, someone else would get the costume and continue.

And the hero was fine with that, enjoyed it even.

So, when the villain had acknowledged this, the hero wasn’t really sure what to say.

“Too bad we ended up on opposite sides, I would love to work with you. But it’s alright.” The villain cleared their throat. “Sure, I have my orders and you have yours, that’s totally respectable.”

“You’re having a fever. What you’re saying is…it’s…” The hero sighed. “…you should get some rest, you’re barely making any sense.”

“Mm, yeah. I just…if it does come to the point where one of us is killing the other, just keep in mind that I know you’ll make it quick and painless,” the villain said. They brushed the hero’s knee with their fingers. “I know you’re very merciful. I love that about you.”

The hero was too stunned to say anything. Instead, they threw a few more blankets onto the shivering villain and fled into the kitchen.

[butlervibesonly]

Hi love! I hope you’re doing well. Can I request a headcannon with Austin x reader about their love languages? Maybe they both enjoy physical touch and words of affirmation, but the reader also enjoys quality time? Basically a bunch of fluff lol.

I love your work, it’s amazing!! Thank you sm 😊

𝐿𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑢𝑎𝑔𝑒𝑠 | Austin Butler headcannon

•Pairing: Austin Butler x female reader

• Warnings: bunch of fluff

• Note: Hi dear! Thank you so much! I love this idea and goshhhhh how I wish I could experience those! Enjoy! 🤍

• Both yours and Austin’s love languages are words of affirmation and physical touch. And yours is also quality time. And these three combined? Heaven.

• When the two of you started dating, you loved the fact you both share the same love language, and Austin couldn’t help but notice how much you love quality time together and he did and does whatever it takes to achieve that.

• You both LOVE watching movies. And while watching movies together, what could be better than cuddling during it? Either you or him would hold each other in arms, rub soothing circles to one another’s back, occasionally stealing some kisses.

• Austin’s significant gesture is definitely holding hands in public. He has to feel your touch whether it’s just walking through the park or shopping together. He feels protectiveness over you and needs to know that you’re his. 🤭 He would also hold your hand at any public event such as awards. Austin would never let go of your hand.

• What he also loves to do are massages and back rubs. When at home, he would sit behind you and give you the best massage you could ever wish for. And when at public (also at home) he would rub your back and so would you.

• Austin would do any kind of playful touches. He can start tickling you in the middle of cuddling or playfully ruffling your hair (which he would then brush to normal form, because he knows how much work you have with your hair 🤭).

• The thing you both definitely do is sleeping tangled up. Neither him nor you would fall asleep without at least some physical contact. He would spoon you, hold you, let you sleep on his chest, … And so would you, cuddle him, cling onto him just to feel his presence.

• The cute gesture between you would be definitely small kisses from time to time. He would press small kisses on your forehead, on the top of your head, on your hand, cheek. Anywhere. And you would just pepper his face with kisses until he is giggling and laughing!

• When it comes to words of affirmation, you two would definitely text each other during the day when you are not together. It would be texts like “How was your day?” or “I love you!❤️" or “I can’t wait to come home and see you!”

• Austin would remind you how beautiful you are any time. In the morning, during the night, before you go to sleep. He would whisper how beautiful goddess you are at the awards while wearing absolutely gorgeous dress. And you would also tell him how handsome he is to you!

• Daily “I love yous”. Cmon, what day would it be if either of you didn’t tell each other I love you. Austin would just randomly go and say “I love you” or he could just stare at you and say “I love you” while doing the most random thing like cooking.

• Verbal appreciation would be also really important for you. Reminders how much you mean to each other, how much you appreciate each other… I can imagine him saying “You make my life so much better,” or “You are the best thing that ever happened to me.” 🥹

• We all know Austin love letters. That would be his thing. He would write you those little letters and give it to your birthday, anniversary or Valentines. Or just when whenever he wants and feels like so. (He would definitely end each letter with “Your Austin” 😭🫶🏼)

• Thing you would do the most is complimenting each other’s personality. Completing looks is beautiful, but character? “I love how kind you are.” or even “I adore how caring you are.”

• Lovely nicknames!! He would call you love, darling, sweetheart, baby, dear, and you would call him honey, love, babe, and my sweet boy which he doesn’t admit but love so much!

• You two would definitely go on walks together. Either to city or nature, park or garden… Just anywhere where you can be together!

• Cooking or baking together! You guys would cook dinner, or he would help you with baking. Just imagine that: flour everywhere but in the dough, but laughing and eating together would be worth it.

• When Austin would find some free time in bus busy acting schedule you guys would use the time to do various of activities. Weekend getaways, playing board games together, paint together, do pottery, watching movies. Anything.

• READING TOGETHER. You two would be splayed on the bed or couch, he would lay his head in your lap or conversely, and you would read together, and quote some cheesy lines. “Romeo, oh Romeo! Wherefore art thou, Romeo?”

• You guys would try new hobbies together! Who doesn’t want to try new sports or maybe doing origami? (He would surely teach you to do the napkin rose!!)

• Coffee shop dates with deep conversations – Just sitting together, sipping drinks, and talking about life. God’s…. Take my money… imagine gossiping with him once things go unserious.

[worstgenerationloser]

just a random thought but like sanji x reader on their wedding night🤭 I'll leave the creative writing to u

,, My Person. ''

Pairing... Sanji x GN! Reader

Summary... after a day full of festivities with your now husband Sanji, you two share your bed for the first time as a married couple.

Contains... wedding vows, fluff and slight nsfw, soft romantic moments, sanji shenanigans, undressing eachother to shower, kissing, and sanji freaking out over you.

A/N: he's such a cutie, i loved writing this! Happy birthday to this handsome man 💞

Casting a cool blue hue over the two of you, the moon congratulates you with the widest smile… Is what Sanji says, anyways. He hasn't been talking much since you two got back, and he seems a bit stiff, you think it's just him trying to keep all his blood in his nose. Sanji always had rushed to your side in the most dire moments, and he knew for a fact he would marry you eventually. He just can't believe it's actually happened— you looked so gorgeous in your wedding attire, he loved the adoring looks the crew gave you when he first announced your engagement together, how they all congratulated him and the fact that his eyes were stuck on none other than you every step of the way.

A breath of fresh air, what with everything he has had to endure. Sanji knows his love for you takes over his entire body and soul, he says his love for you is his entire reason for being— maybe you are a blessing bestowed upon him from the grand creator of this world? He says silly things like that so often, but he makes sure you know it. In the softly colored bedroom of the lodging you have chosen, there's a wondrous balcony onlooking the sea— which seems to have presented the purest blue coloring for your perfect day; everything seemed so grand, not in the sense that it's making up for a lack of sincerity in your union, but for representation of the grandest union of two lively souls.

The beauty of the balcony, venue, and sea weren't nearly as beautiful as Sanji. A face painted of pure joy and adoration with each glance he shot your way, but you noticed his fraying nerves when he grabbed your hand to place the ring onto your finger. His hands were so shaky, and silent tears cascaded down his flushed cheeks while his pure smile beamed straight to cast away any lingering shadows. His vows were so clear, though he was struggling not to cry anymore, how dare he taint the memory of your wedding in such a way? Tears borne from love didn't count if it was from you, but he hated crying in front of you.

“My most cherished lover, I will accept you in your entirety. Things will never be left unsaid, for my heart will speak aloud to you forevermore, not once will I forget myself for as long as I am bound to you; which will be as long as my heart, mind, and body will be left on this lovely earth. Even then, I must promise that our souls will never travel apart, because on this day, we are informing the sea, the sky, the stars, and the entirety of the universe that together we are. Smitten as I am with you, I will never overlook your character. Not only are you my love; you are a part of my life in every possible way. My companion in all things romance, my crew, my heart… I solemnly swear, most of all, that I will be proudly at your side, no matter what turbulence occurs in our long lives shared together.”

Franky was trying his best not to cry, meanwhile Brook was shaking in his seat, holding back jokes for the tender moment. Such sincere smiles gathered from your friends and those who have aided you along the way, but Sanji and you kept your gazes locked onto each other. It was like you could see the beat of his heart, and he could see the vows ready to be spoken in yours.

Being pirates, you can't have your marriage recognized by the government, but who needs those bastards to know you're in love anyways? Franky is ready to loudly announce it to anyone who looks at you or Sanji’s way, why do pirates care about what the government thinks? If two can love, then they can keep their passion private, or they may be free to soar it across the skies as they please. Sanji would proudly announce it to his fiercest enemies faces, you’re sure.

Sanji is still nervous. His heart is racing like he's supposed to rehearse a play all by himself whilst playing every single role there is— but he's just sitting next to you in bed. His blue eyes flicker over your features to commit them to his memory once again as if he hasn't memorized every mark and every dip and curve on your body, he needs to do something to stop such intense longing for what is already in his grasp. His hands, shaky yet warmer than ever, reach out to touch you; but Sanji balls his hand into a fist, bringing his knuckles to his mouth to sink his teeth into. Though he's next to you in bed, he feels like he's thousands of years away.

You're both still dressed in your clothes from the reception, matching the beautiful colors which soared across the ceilings at your venue. You should have been changed a bit ago, but you can't brush off the fact that Sanji is acting odd, when you see him nervously bite around his knuckle, you smile softly and begin to speak.

“Sanji, calm down…” Your own hand reaches out, tracing the back of his palm and easing his teeth away from his knuckles. Though his hand is loose from the clench of his jaw, his soft pink lips remain parted, and he looks like a lost puppy for a second. Well, it isn't all that different from the way he is when you're separated for longer than an hour or two. But besides when you were getting ready, he was there every step of the way. “It's improper of me to abandon my love on this important day.” Was his newest excuse for standing outside the door when you went to the bathroom.

“Oh… I apologize for… My distant mind. I swear I only think thoughts of us.” You watch him catch his bottom lip between his teeth, his posture loosening only ever so slightly.

“That's okay. Think whatever you want to, Sanji. I’m not going anywhere anytime soon…” Murmuring, you begin to pick up a soft smile as you move a little closer to where he is sitting atop the bed, your weights recognized as one on the firm mattress. Hands finding their way to his collar, they start to unbutton his dress shirt, your actions aren't entirely sexual in nature, surely many couples do that, but you would prefer to put his nerves back into the right places before Sanji starts to malfunction.

“Would a warm shower help? Or would you prefer a bath?” You watch as your proposal; In real time, allows a spark to return to Sanji’s eyes, but then you think maybe you moved too quickly when his eyes widen and his lips quiver as he looks you up and down.

“B-Bath… With… With- With you?”

Ah, your first mistake on your wedding night. Well, it's entirely your fault but it's comforting seeing him go back to his usual self. And again, he catches himself and prevents another nosebleed.

“Gah! No! My apologies, my dear, I… I meant to ask if you would like to bathe together… As a married couple. It's a common thing with modern couples, you see—” After his loud gasp, he begins to stammer and then pause when his brain processes his own words. Does he think he sounds creepy? His perverted nature has seemed sweet in nature to you as of lately, so maybe he's realized himself for once.

“M…Ma—... Married...”

Stiffer than a stone statue, Sanji’s body freezes entirely. It took longer than you feel comfortable admitting to just to get Sanji back to earth, while his shirt still remained halfway undone. How can you get him naked with his… eccentric personality, then? Do you bribe him like a dog chasing after a bone? Distract him? Ah, you should just drag him along with you before he gets on all fours or something. It's endearing sometimes you swear, but you're not sure how much everyone else believes that.

“Apologies. I can't fathom that I am with you… Ah, no�� I can't believe we are married. Oh, I feel like a fool.”

Cupping his face in his hands and wallowing in utter despair at his slippery speech, he fails to realize that you are dragging him along with you in the direction of the bathroom door. When he removes his hands, he's greeted by the feeling of his belt being undone, making him pause. Not again, Sanji… And with gritted teeth, he masks himself, but his eyes twitch and his nostrils flare repeatedly, it's not like he's never been nude around you, he feels like it's even more significant considering you are officially forever.

When his pants drop, he politely steps out of them, kicking them to the side as his hands reach out for you to return the favor. It's been done before, he can do it again, but his hands hesitated as he awaited a confirmation.

“Yes, you may undress me.” Your voice is clearer inside the bathroom.

Breathing a sigh of relief, his hands start to reach for the fabric of your clothing, sliding it down your shoulders, the pads of his fingers slipping down each inch of skin newly exposed. It didn't feel as lewd as it was, standing half naked together. There weren't any shy giggles, no heavy panting, no hands dancing across each other's skin for any reason other than to shed clothing. It could take a turn once you two reach the shower, maybe you two would end up in a tangle of passionate limbs, but Sanji would prefer to love you somewhere more comfortable.

He respects you. Though he's dense at times, though he can be perverse and pathetic, it's all out of the love he has for you. He's vulnerable with you more than he ever knew, he sheds his skin and presents his back to you, he's not afraid to be less of a man if he cries near you. He doesn't worry you with tears of any sort, but at times he feels so lucky that his life has taken such a positive turn and allowed him to find people who love and care for him the same way his mother did. Would she be proud her boy found his true love?

Opening his heart, he lets you feel him. He lets you hold his hands, he lets you in the kitchen though he hates being disturbed— before you were his love, you were always the one for him. Not once did he view you as pure romance, you were a person, and you were his person.

Pss... you... you should comment and reblog👀

[miinaaa-s]

Heyy can you do an yandere!kageyama x reader please ? I noticed that you never wrote about him and I love your work 😭‼️

Yandere!Kageyama x Fem!Reader

Tw : Stalking, obsession, implied murder

Summary : You were a big fan on Kageyama. But did you know he was an huge fan of you ?

( Nda : Thanks for your request !! This is my first request so I hope I'm doing well !! )

Kageyama Tobio wasn’t the type to let himself be distracted.

He lived for volleyball.

It was his only obsession. His only reason for being.

Until her.

[Y/N].

He didn’t know exactly when it happened.

Maybe the first time he saw her in the stands, her eyes shining with each of his serves.

Or maybe the first time he came across her account, hundreds of posts where she complimented him, analyzed his matches, defended his name against absurd criticism.

She was his biggest fan.

And he was her biggest admirer.

Kageyama didn’t care about fame.

He didn’t like the spotlight, the cameras, the interviews.

But knowing that his matches were the center of [Y/N]’s universe…

That was exhilarating.

When he saw her in the crowd, he played for her.

He looked for her after each smash, wondering if she had seen him.

When he scored, he watched for her reactions.

And when she exclaimed, jumping with excitement, he felt invincible.

But it wasn’t enough.

He wanted more.

He had never really cared about his fans.

He didn’t take the time to read the messages they sent him.

But [Y/N]’s?

He knew them all by heart.

Every tweet, every comment, every mention where she defended him tooth and nail.

“Kageyama is the best passer in Japan, you’re just jealous.”

"Tobio has the mentality of a champion, that's why he doesn't let himself be distracted by childish things."

"Honestly, he's perfect."

Those words... he could recite them like a prayer.

[Y/N] adored him.

She idolized him.

She saw in him what no one else saw.

And he wanted to laugh at the idea that she thought she was just another fan.

If only she knew.

One evening, he had passed by her apartment.

By chance.

Or maybe not.

He knew the address. Obviously.

He knew where she lived. Where she worked.

Who she hung out with. Who she admired.

And who he had to eliminate.

There was no one else.

No one else who mattered.

She belonged to him.

Even if she didn't know it yet.

But she would figure it out eventually.

Because he wouldn't stop.

He would follow her, over and over again.

Until she had no choice but to love him back.

Until he was the only one in her world.

Her only star.

[froidefille]

Hi! Welcome to my kinkuary inspired recs! Seeing the prompts, they were simply too delicious not to share some of my favourite fics <3 Enjoy! 

Day 28: wildcard // Soft Dom!Draco 

📚 God of All Comfort by @dodgerkedavra

🎧 podfic by @cailynwrites

Draco/Harry, 10k, Explicit with capital E so mind the tags please! 

Summary: 

Harry likes to hurt. 

You guys... have I been waiting A WHOLE MONTH for the wildcard to make it allllll about soft Dom!Draco? MAYBE. Maybe. 

As a surprise to no one, one of my most favourite soft Dom!Draco ever is the one in @dodgerkedavra's work. Dodger somehow has access to my SOUL and writes stuff that pierces my heart and heals my mind. She just collects all of my favourite tropes, mixes them all up and serves on a silver platter FOR FREE TO ENJOY. I’ll never get over what a gift fanfiction is, really.  

As it happens, Dodger has written SEVERAL soft Dom!Draco fics and I love them all from the bottom of my heart, so I chose one of them for today to gush about <3

“What about the rest?” “The rest of what?” “Once you’d got the pain where you wanted it, who was going to wipe your tears and pet you until you felt better?” Harry can hardly breathe. He tries for a sentence, then settles for a word. “You?” Malfoy opens his arms. Harry tilts into them, not at all gently, and grabs for anything he can reach. Malfoy’s clothes. His waist. Anything. Anything. Malfoy’s arms fold around him, tight enough to keep Harry together. “Yes,” he says into Harry’s hair. “Yes.”

This fic depicts drarry relationship through BDSM somehow so gently, it's WILD. AND the're Curse Breakers. AND partners. What's not to love??

Go see my further ramblings about this fic under the cut!

Thanks for today and make sure to leave the author and podficcer some love in the comments under their works! <3 

Read more: more dodger recs // kinkuary inspired recs // my other recs

See, my problem is that I have zero ability to write comprehensively about sex so let me just say this - I love when things happen for a reason and there's sex in a story for more than just sex's sake (although that is also enjoyable, ngl xd). And in the dodger!verse it makes PERFECT sense and I AM HERE FOR IT. Harry is just tired and needs and a safe outlet for emotions, needs to let things go, not having to fucking DECIDE for a moment - and Draco can give him that. And it's fucking RAVISHING. 

Aaaaaand also so hot I just cant 

Dodger dives straight into all my headcanons and I'm SO here for it! I absolutely adore the idea of adorable disaster human being!Harry and Soft Dom!Draco who keeps his boy afloat. And I LOVE Dodger’s portrayal of neurodivergence, I feel so so so SO seen in those descriptions, have a look at this one: 

When he’s down to his wedding band, it’s confirmed—Harry’s skin is the thing that doesn’t fit. Too small. Too tight. Pressing in on his ribs. His hips. His shoulder blades.

yaaaaaas, this feeling put into words!!!! Also, the wedding band, love me some married Drarry 

“You,” says Malfoy, his fingers still tight around Harry’s wrist, “are hungry. You are overtired. And if those things weren’t enough—and make no mistake, Potter, they are—you’re having one of your days, and I will—”

This, here - I LOVE Draco who just takes a look at Harry, says "baby, you probably have no idea but you're tired and hungry". WE ALL NEED THIS DRACO 

Harry doesn’t have days. He doesn’t even know what Malfoy means by that. Harry’s normal. He’s just a normal bloke who has normal feelings, and if they get into weird places in his head and occasionally make him have a fit, then that’s probably what happens to everyone.

sure, that's what we all think and then go through an epiphany moment when we realise that, after all, not everyone have a non-stop radio chatter in their heads for instance xd 

Except then October comes ’round, like it tends to do every year, and Harry can’t quite shake the sense that he’s…wrong. Off-balance. Everything bothers him. He writes to his solicitor to put Grimmauld Place up for sale three times in the first two weeks and has to write three times to take it back. He knocks over his glass at brunch at the Burrow one Sunday—a matter of, like, three charms maximum. The spilled pumpkin juice is clean and dry in a flick of Molly’s wand, but Harry can’t stop shouting and blaming and throwing a wobbly, so Ron takes him outside under the pretense of looking for gnomes and walks him about the garden until he can breathe. He drops his glasses one morning and steps on them by accident and can’t think of a single spell, can’t think of anything, so he barges into Level Nine and causes a massive scene as he searches bitterly for Hermione, blind and snapping at everyone he comes across, and feels absolutely mad once she’s fixed them.

Harry and his wobblies :') How Ron knows exactly what his friend need, how Harry relies on Hermione :'))))) It’s one more element of the dodger!verse I am the greatest fan of – the Golden Trio being actually there for each other and being supportive best friends. Sounds corny, I know, but somehow Ron and Hermione as friends make more sense to me? IDK. 

“Felt bad,” says Harry instantly, because Draco’s got him in this place where there’s no distance between Harry’s thoughts and his mouth. “Felt—felt—guilty. For being alive when everyone else is dead. And I miss being in school. But not the war. And not the dragons. And I don’t want that bread with the herbs or whatever. Anymore.

It's always the fucking herbs!!!! And there's a surprisingly short distance from unwanted herbs in your meal (fucking parsley, don’t even get me started on that shit) to feeling guilty about being alive, I 100% stan Harry here 

“Er…” He hasn’t been able to relax all day, hasn’t been able to settle, and they’re supposed to be sorting through the heirlooms that have collected at Grimmauld so they can redecorate or something. And now Malfoy’s watching him with a look in his eyes that says he already knows what Harry’s problem is, but he’s having a bit of a teaching moment. “It’s my jeans.” The hole has become too large, slipping off Harry’s knee in a way that pulls threads across his shin, and he can’t bloody stand it. He spends hours one night searching for a specific jumper—green, with a white H on the front—and when Malfoy says he should come to bed and look in the morning, Harry throws an enormous wobbly that ends in him shouting I want my parents to be alive, I can’t find them, I can’t lose this jumper, too.

Well, see, it rarely is about a jumper itself, after all. Mostly it's about finding comfort in controlling what we can. And Dodger provides such beautiful examples of that in her fics <3 

I know it’s supposed to be mostly sexy rec, and the sex is really fucking hot, I just do not have the ability to put that into words. You’re going to have to go and read (or listen!) yourself to find exactly how hot 🔥 

[scribe-of-hael]

Why Starscream?

I talk alot about the ever fumbling of Starscream's character alot here. Hasbro is no stranger to the mishandling of this character or having been tossed around form one set of writers to another inna desperate attempt to change him only to retcon him.

But what I haven't talked about it the positives in what they have done with Starscream's character or the potential his character had glimpses to be.

I think Starscream being a fan favorite is not new to anyone for the 40 years he has been aorund. Some ppl love him, love to hate him. Or love to hate him. Either way, Starscream manages to make you think about him depaite what light he is in.

For me, I was introduced to the character in 2008 when Transformers animated aired in Cartoon Network. So yes Tom Kenny was my first Starscream and I adore him 💖

But what drew me to Starscream, besides his large build, magenta color, and cliche silly bad guy destined to fail. Was his insufferable personality being clever and cunning, but fumbling at every turn. He was menacing was also silly and kind dumb in ways. He was a treat every time he was in screen. I knew whatever was going to happen would be filled with choactic schemes and banter.

Depsite knowing he was a bad guy. There was also a part of me that really wanted to see Starscream succeed, or at the very least have some sort of win and live to fight another day at that chance. I felt with all the trouble he had gone through he deserved at least SOMTHING for it all.

Yes it was never going to happen, he was written to fail. But also it seemed that was suposse to be a reoccurring antagonist for the s4 that never came around.

But you can imagine my devastated 9 year old self at seeing two of my favorite characters loosong their lives in one episode. I was so upset and angery , esspcially when I begged for him to run away so he could get away.

I think there is an aspect of Starscream, that is shared in alot of his iterations is the fact Starscream is an underdog. He bullied, undermined, never taken seriously, degraded and fumbles almost every single opportunity. Even in some stories characters pointing out that even if Starscream some how gets the upper hand, he will eventually fail.

You can't help but want Starscream to get some sort of win even though you know it could end up bad for everyone eles. But its a big thing that Starscream is his own worst enemy. With an ego and insecurity to make it worse than what it already is.

If Starscream ever truly locked in and ignored all those down playing him and put his ego aside i do think he would be a unstoppable force. But because of these flaws he is left to go from ine failed scheme to the next. There is not to say Starscream isn't capable , skilled or knowledgeable. He is , but he gets in his own way of success. Which I feel is relatable to alot of ppl.

That and what i find to be Starscream's most incredible trait. His persistence and determination.

It doesn't matter WHAT it is, a goal, a means to an end, revenge or pure fucking spite. Starscream is the most persistent mother fucker I have ever seen in media. He just never ever give up for any reason even if that some how is a horrible idea. Once he sets his mind on somthing he is going to go through with it.

Coupled with some iterations of being immortal, Starscream being someone who will endlessly scheme, chase and blow anything in his way is both terrifying as it is and incredible trait of his.

I always admired in TFA how Starscream (despite him taking a while to maybe rethink his tactics) just endlessly went afterMegatron, over and over and over again depaite failing. He tried a diffenrt method. He still stuck to his goal . Yes he fumbled like he always does but it fueled that want for him to get a win ! I felt like he earned it.

I think at Starscream's core he is a driven character, ambitious, determined fueled by spite, which is a dangerous combo with ego. But I admire that dwpaite the odds always being aginst him whether in plot or in the writers room.

Starscream will find a way to live rent free in ppls minds and make his presence know to all. I don't see this Star fading soon, I think he shines even brighter depsite it all.

[tamoscringecorner]

FiddleStan headcanons! (HORRAY NO MORE TOXIC OLD MAN YAOI!!)

-Fidds is the one who cuts Stan's hair and generally takes care of it and Stan in general

-Stan owns one of those cheesy "kiss the cook" apron's and each time he is cooking he jestures to it saying "food ain't free ya know, pay up, honey" with a smug look on his face and much go his surprise after Fidds had a quick laugh at his boyfriend's stupid yet adorable antics he'd do so

-Stan is the one who makes breakfast and when he does so he always cuts the eggs into hearts or drizzles the syrup to say "morning Fidds" on it

-Fidds adores saying cringe nerdy science pick up lines like "are you a pile of bones? Because i dig you!" Or "my love for you is like pi, never ending!"

-As a response Stan would say something back like "Damn baby, are you a parking ticket? Cuz you've got fine written all over you" and they would go back and forth till they were dying of laughter and one managed to it fluster the other

-They sometimes tease each other with playful insults like "country bumpkin" or "city rat"

-Stan always insists on Fidds wearing his clothes because frankly he finds it concerning how many years he spent in just overalls and a hat

-Every year they celebrate the day Stan opened the mystery shack and when Fidds recovered from his insanity

-Fidds is making Stan cut back his drinking and smoking and so far he has made good prgress

-If they are walking outside and it's 0 or just -1 Stan will offer his coat and if he refuses then he pulls him closer and makes some lame excuse like "this is just to make sure ya don't freeze yer ass out here, idiot.."

-Stan likes to flex on Fidds by lifting a table for example with Fidds then casually picking him up with one arm while he is reading without a care in the world

-Fidds owns a yt channel with him posting lovey songs he made for Stan and Stan sometimes helps with the melody of the banjo or being a guest and singing along with him providing lyrics

-At first Stan hated or pretended to hate it when Fidds would call him "pretty boy but now he just blushes and says "really..?"

-Fidds sometime relapses and has meltdowns whenever he sees something from his such as a picture of his son or old newspapers with him in it and would just disappear for a couple of days

-When Fidds would return to his senses he would be rather embarrassed of his behavior but Stan would always be there to comfort him

-Stan sometimes due to PTSD wakes up in the middle of the might shaking and sobbing from nightmares, each time this happens Fidds is next to him and spends the whole night if needed to comfort him

-Stanley's greatest fear is messing things up with his new family and his bf

-Fiddleford's greatest fear is losing his memory and losing and forgetting Stanley like he did with so many others

Like what ya read? Welp don't worry! There is more coming soon depending on how this post does!

[xylatox]

The Terrible Half-Truths of the Undead King | cyj

Yall😭 Ashlynn is back, after reading TSFAWC, I was left for dead (it's such a good series btw!). I'm always excited to read Ashlynn's work so unto my thoughts:)) (ready to have my heart broken)

Among those strange beings and within the veils of Aethera, there was a girl loved by death. — I already feel sick in the best way possible. God the descriptions thereafter drive me insane, the subtle personification of Death?? in love.

The basket’s already pretty heavy with a variety, black morels and sorrel and burdock, as you bend down to pull a truffle from the dirt against a tree.— literally just taking a moment to gush over the sorrel mention (it's a big part of my culture) and oftentimes I think no one knows about it, so it just made me super happy to see it mentioned here :))) (after further research I realized it isn't only a fruit but a leaf(??) as well, but I will take a win whenever I can lol)

The entire description of The Wild Hunt? The Fear? the entire thing was beautiful, Ashlynn you always have a way with words.

“There you are, love.”— I was dying in the spot good lord.

Something akin to old longing passes through those witty eyes, and then he eats up the distance between you with languid steps of his long legs until he’s nothing more than one last step in front of you. The closeness consumes the air in your lungs, leaving nothing for you but short and shallow drags. The forest has gone dead silent aside from the sound of it. His voice is even more magnetic now that he’s so close.— I am so in love with this.

“Yeonjun.” He tilts his head, strands of sparrow hair brushing over his watching eyes. “Most don’t know it, but you’re not most people, are you?”— in every lifetime I will be downbad for Choi Yeonjun.

That doesn’t explain the ache in your chest when he holds your eyes for too long. But you shove that feeling way, way down. It’s nonsensical.— the ache??? I'm going to scream

Omg Soobin cameo😭 a cutiepie has appeared. Their relationship is adorable, I love that death's affinity for reader doesn't dissuade him. —Going quiet, he seems to notice that today’s different. His gaze is heavy as he stares at you for a few long moments. Crossing his arms over his chest, he asks, “What happened?” — I love thst Soobin realizes something happened too :(((

A chill trickles down your spine. You feel his presence before you even see him; it’s a feeling that you used to get fleetingly, as if something far away was tugging at you. But then he became real, a living thing in front of you that can touch, and that is much different. — im loving this so much, you would not believe.

“I was,” he says ruefully. “And I had everything. I had the love of my life. I think that even the most bitter of creatures on this island had envy for our love. She would braid dandelions into my hair, and then I’d braid them into hers.” He swallows thickly and pauses, as if the wound was still festering and fresh. “And then she died. She died starting our family. She died because of me, in my arms.” — Jjun's backstory nooo :((((((((

“I couldn’t accept that. I wouldn’t. So I went where I shouldn’t have gone, and angered something much bigger than myself. They thought it would be a fitting punishment for me to live an eternity, the King of Death who could not bring back his dead lover.” The harrowed look that he gives you, only briefly, has your chest heavy all over again. “They have a sense of humor, the forces.” — omg I love this. Going to be a League nerd for a moment. This absolutely reminds me of a champion called Viego, his law revolves around trying to resurrect his dead wife (he's like a tyrant ish kinda king, super weird guy) but when he resurrects her, she doesn't even want him😭. This just reminded me of it a bit :))

The grim light in his eyes tells you his answer. “My curse is to take life,” he says, “not to give it. But the one who made me this, he is cruel in a twisted way. If I were to find her, as a human or an animal or a blade of grass in the forest, only then could I rest.” — oh this makes me dread what is to come (I'm so excited)

Eventually, he’s gone. Quiet and at peace, no longer hurting. This time, when you look over to Yeonjun who still smooths over the deer’s skin even as he goes, guiding him delicately into whatever greets us when we go, you see death as a gentle thing.— the ending part feels so melancholic

“They are.” He nods, leaned back onto his elbows, his eyes alight with a hunger that makes your insides feel funny. “It doesn’t stop once we’ve died. You don’t need to be scared, my love. — the pet name was killing me on the spot.

“No?” he echos, pushing himself up so that he leans back onto his palms. “Isn’t that strange? Pretty little thing says she’s not afraid of death, but her heart races when I’m near. Her sweet heart jumps at just the brush of my leg. Are you sure you’re telling me the truth, love?” — ASHLYNN I WILL GO INSANE

He straightens, pupils blown and eyes as tense as his set jaw. “No, you don’t understand what you’re asking for. All I’ve ever done is ruin. All I’ll ever do is ruin. I won’t ruin you; not again.” — oh my god.

“You think I don’t want you?” he says, straightening up and meeting your gaze. His breath is hot on your mouth. “I want you so fucking bad. You are in the marrow of my bones. — this line is insane????!?!?

Again, I really do love reader's relationship with Soobin, it's adorable; it breaks my heart to see them have an argument tho, my babies :(.

The laugh that Yeonjun breaks into has you sending him a glare, but you break too. Everything about him is ironic; and how ironic indeed that Death himself should show you how to be alive, rather than to just live? — im going to sob :(((

Okay. I expected it. I saw the major character death warning. I had a mind it would've been him, but I still can't help and tear up at the death of Soobin what :(

and their last convo wasn't the best no :( I'm so sad

Yeonjun’s face twists up, looking scalded. Not surprised, though. “Don’t do this,” he says. “Let me hold you while it hurts. Don’t push me away. I can’t… I won’t lose you again.” — :((((((((( she's so hurt and doesn't know what to do no

“I hate you,” you spit. “I hate you so much.” You repeat it a few more times, and you sob it into his chest as he takes you into his arms. “Is this what you wanted? You’ve been waiting for this forever, haven’t you? To find me again, so that you can die and fucking leave me here. So that you can make me exactly what you are, while you get your peace. You are a liar and a thief. All you’ve ever done is steal and take. How could you do it? Huh? Tell me…” Your voice trembles and staggers off. “Tell me how you made love to me, how you made me believe that you loved me, and all you ever wanted was to save yourself? You betrayed me.” — full on tears I can't even stop rn omg this hurts.

Don’t go, you want to tell him. Please don’t leave. Please, hold me. But your mouth is dry, and you let the radiant hurt in your chest stop you. You let him go. — Ashlynn you broke my heart in a million tiny pieces.

For the first time, Yeonjun appears in front of you rather than behind you. He materializes from nothing, his elbow on his knee as casual as if he’d been sat there the whole time. The darkness beneath his eyes seems heavier, but then again you know that exact heaviness. It sits right in the very center of you. — I could throw up

Yeonjun makes love to you in a thousand dusted kisses and sweet words, your hands holding each other’s soft edges. — im dying (in such a good way rn) words cant even express.

Maybe, in some years, somebody might dig up your bones and find you immortalized like this in your love. Your bones bowing toward each other, as if even death were not enough to stop you from reaching for each other. Or maybe they’ll just find yours, and Yeonjun still curling into them how you know he will for an eternity more. — ASHLYNN 😭😭 girl. you know I always love your work but my goodness this was absolutely amazing. Like my heart is so broken but it's so good?? your brain is absolutely massive, I enjoyed this so much, I'm so glad I had the pleasure to read it♡♡

THE TERRIBLE HALF-TRUTHS OF THE UNDEAD ҜING

⠀(🍂 ) 𝓡EVENANT in folklore, a revenant is a spirit or animated corpse that is believed to have been revived from death to haunt the living ... ( 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑦𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡 )

1︎5.5k revenant!yeonjun · ƒ ! r ft. soobin ⸺ ✴︎ 𝖿𝖺𝗇𝗍𝖺𝗌𝗒 ... smut, violence, angst, death, animal death & vivid descriptions of animal death, major character death, unprotected sex, cumming inside, dry humping (because bring it back), biting, dom yeonjun sub reader, mentions of death in childbirth, reincarnation, teasing, breast worship, yj calls reader ‘my love’, def some typos

🪶 ⦂ how fun is this collab? :,) this fic was so fun to write. i personally believe that tsfawc enjoyers will love this one,, but you'll have to read it to confirm that, right? hehe. and of course, go read everybody else's if you love this one! they're all set in the same world, and everybody worked so hard on these fics. send some love their way!

rꫀׁׅܻblogs & asks arꫀׁׅܻ always apprꫀׁׅܻciatꫀׁׅܻd!

𝒪𝑁𝐶𝐸 𝒰𝑃𝑂𝑁 𝒶 𝒯𝐼𝑀𝐸, in a land far, far away, where the treetops touched the soft clouds of the sky and the water sparkled under the glowing sun, where mountains rose high, and long, deep caves ran through them, where the sea met shore in collisions of swirling, foamy punches, where the undead walked among the living, where the winged flew above the finned, there was a land where things beyond reason and rhyme existed perfectly true. Among those strange beings and within the veils of Aethera, there was a girl loved by death. 

He sits on your shoulder, a dark, boding shadow and glared at those around you with promise in his eyes.

That’s how it seems, anyway. That’s how everybody looks at you. They dodge you, whisper about you, evade your gaze as if he might reach his claws for them next if they linger for too long.

Crows with dead eyes arrive at your doorstep like some lover’s cheeky gift, other poor creatures like fat grey mice are left to rot in the wheatfields, and yarrow stocks wilt outside the wall of your room. If Death thinks that you are flattered, he misunderstands you. You are terrified of nothing more than dying. The first time, it was a sly joke. Then it happened again, and you watched their eyes change. And it happened again and again, and your people are a suspicious type. Something can only be a coincidence so many times.

When you began to sneak into a little shack with a village boy, you thought that maybe, somehow, this would all pass. He died too. There’s really no coming back from that, is there? You don’t blame them. You’re not the freak that they all believe you to be—none of them get close enough anymore to know that, though.

The wickerbasket’s handle creaks under your fist. You usually only forage along the shallow line of the forest; you pluck from bramble bushes topped with plump berries that crawl between trees during the summer, and when the crab apple tree’s branches hang heavy with the fruit, you snatch those up too. You’re more useful to your family out here, in the woods that they deem just as cursed as you. Where you won’t be their burden.

Crisp autumn leaves crunch under your boots. You scan between them—more grey and rotted this late in the season than fresh and orangey—for the edible mushrooms and roots that you usually forage at this time of year. The basket’s already pretty heavy with a variety, black morels and sorrel and burdock, as you bend down to pull a truffle from the dirt against a tree.

You drop it down with the rest of your finds. The basket smells like earth, no doubt your hands do too. You dust your palms off on your skirts and go to rise back from your squat.

A deep, billowing horn pierces the forest’s silence. It’s both far away, wiggling between the whispers of rustling leaves, and much too close. It draws out. Long. Bone-chilling. You freeze, scanning between each tree trunk and praying that you won’t find what you fear you might.

You are much deeper into the woods than you usually are. Than you ought to be. And you know what that horn means—you know that it means something far worse than what you’d been afraid of, coming into these woods. Much more primordial than the hide-behinds you were scared you find this deep, much less avoidable than the faerie rings you stepped around.

Why would The Wild Hunt be here? A shudder runs down your spine, and you curl your fingers into your skirts and lift them as if to prepare to run, but you don’t. Your feet find root in the forest floor and all you can do is stand terribly still in catatonia. Their horn sounds again, and a procession of wicked whoops and howls follow. Wild hoofbeat rumbles under it all—the hunt and their rides. You hope that they’re just passing through, and you won’t so much as see as one of those wild riders. There were plenty of folktales that the matrons of your village would bolster to terrify you as children, but you knew even then that their stories of the riders, with their flesh falling away from them and their pale or beady eyes and their gnarled maws and frightening figures as they rode on the backs of equally terrible steeds, were not fabricated. They are not a bogeyman or a wailing banshee; they are death made in the flesh, and they are here. In your forest. 

Your legs won’t work. You curl your clammy fingers tighter around your basket and lean into the tree beside you. How deep had you wandered into the forest? Hopefully not too far; when you gain the courage to run, you hope that they do not send their hounds to snap their foul breath on your heels. Maybe just standing here and blending into the trees is best. The Hunt would love a chase, and you don’t want to become their next.

The next call comes and you throw that all to the wind. Your heart pounds against your ribcage as you let your basket clatter to the leaves and you take off. You fly over roots and shrubbery and between the trees, your blood roaring in your ears faster. You’d oblige if you could.

Above the loudness of your frantic mind, the harrowing whinnies and The Hunt’s ruckus dulls until it’s faraway again, and then it’s gone. Well, you don’t stop to check if they’ve really passed through the forest. You just run.

“There you are, love.”

His voice cuts through your frantic escape and stops you dead in your path. You almost go crashing down over the ground with the force that you dig your heels into it. Though the voice is non-threatening, you don’t turn to face the source.

He speaks again. You already know who it is. He, old as the earth you stand on itself, leads that band of wild riders. Is the king of the undead, collects souls for reaping.

And he’s the one who’s plagued you with his attention. Death.

“Why do you keep your back turned to me?” he says. “I frighten you. That hurts.” His voice lilts with amusement and sharpness. “I wish that you would face me.”

You’re not fond of the way that he speaks to you with a familiar fondness. But then again, you’re not fond of dying, either. Your legs are boneless beneath you. Turning, you slowly indulge him, though it takes a great amount of willpower to not run again like your jittering jaw and trembling hands ask you to.

The King of Death stands tall and utterly preternatural, leaned against a crooked tree in the woods behind you. His smile cracks across his face in a jagged way that suggests he finds you amusing, but none of that meets his eyes. They’re the color of the greyish, rotted leaves beneath you. The dark shadows beneath his eyes are the only thing belying the weight that his infinite life might have on him. That, and the hollowness that rings from him.

And though he sounded entirely playful, you are shaken by the sorrow that you find in him now that you’ve turned. Even more so, you’re not sure why you feel it echoed somewhere in the hollows of your bones. “I’m sorry,” you say. It trembles terribly. You want to say that you’re sorry you caught his attention, but it seems you’ve always had his attention. It’s more that you are petrified down to your marrow that the time’s come that you face this… strange infatuation. Here he stands: the one who leaves hollowed out husks of creatures at your doorstep. Should you run or thank him? Is Death as prideful a creature as the other kinds that inhabit Aethera? “I don’t mean to…”

He pushes off his tree, fixing his cape that cascades over only one of his shoulders. It’s tattered and falling apart like the rest of his clothing, though you think that the bronze stitching and swirling oakleaf patterns in the black say that they might have been immaculate at some point. Or maybe they weren’t, and they had started that way. He is Death, anyway. “You’re sorry?” he says. “Why are you apologizing to me? You’ve hardly done a thing to warrant it.”

Faltering, you wet your chapped lips. You’re not really sure. Holding back another apology for fear that you’ve offended him and he’ll now strike you down for it, you say, “I thought that, maybe the hunt was…” Wow, you sound stupid. You can see in the sly smile his lips form that it amuses him. That’s almost worse than angering him: intriguing him. What you really should be doing is boring him so that he’ll find you a waste of his time. Then, maybe, he’d give up haunting you.

“After you?” he finishes. Shaking his head, he says, “My hunters only answer to me.”

“Oh,” you say plainly. Part of you wants to ask why that should comfort you, especially when you’re the one that he sends little bits of death to, but rationality keeps those words in the back of your throat. You don’t really want to know. “Why are you passing by here?”

Something akin to old longing passes through those witty eyes, and then he eats up the distance between you with languid steps of his long legs until he’s nothing more than one last step in front of you. The closeness consumes the air in your lungs, leaving nothing for you but short and shallow drags. The forest has gone dead silent aside from the sound of it. His voice is even more magnetic now that he’s so close.

You recoil when he brings a hand up to brush the pad of his thumb over your cheek and then cup your jaw, as if afraid that he might snuff you out here and now. His fingers are softer than you thought they might be, and the lines of his face sharpen into what you think is hurt. Hurt that you flinched?

“We go here and there,” he says, “but it’s been a very long time since we came here.” There’s a certain thickness to his words; a certain tension coiled over them from something that you’re not privy to. And yet, there’s a farawayness, too. You bet he’s full of a lifetime of secrets. Lifetimes of secrets. “But I think I’ve found myself a reason to finally return.”

Breathy and still struggling to flatten out your breathing, you ask him, “Why?”

The Undead King’s smile turns wicked once more, and he doesn’t answer you. It’s awfully eerie.

“Do you have… business here?” you try again. It’s a roundabout way of asking, do you have someone to take away?

“I have business wherever the living go,” he says, letting your face go but not giving you any more room. You narrow your eyes. He’s quite good at non-answers. “Nothing is more certain than that I will greet every living thing eventually. I’ll come to take you, too, when the time comes.”

Your mouth dries up. The entirety of your home, all the people you’ve ever known, fear you for all the death you bring. Not one of them fears it more than you do. You’ve seen it enough to fear its frightening finality.

The drop of your face must’ve told him how much that scared you. “Dying is not such an awful thing, love. Living pales in comparison.” Searching your eyes, he adds, “But I’ve not come to take you.”

That’s easy for him to say: that death isn’t something to fear. His words don’t calm your thundering heart, but you offer him a, “Thank you…” It trails off toward the end when you realize that you don’t have his name. If he has one, anyway.

“Yeonjun.” He tilts his head, strands of sparrow hair brushing over his watching eyes. “Most don’t know it, but you’re not most people, are you?”

Your breathing had just begun evening out. It’s a shame, the way that it kicks back up at the way he looks at you. “What do you mean?” you say, but of course you know. Nobody else is given dead things like you. It’s not like you yourself are very strange; you like pretty dresses and sharing gossip with friends just as much as any other girl your age.

Giving you another one of those knowing smiles that he uses just like words, he steps back. “I’m sorry that I scare you how I do.”

You don’t answer him. What could you say to that? That he doesn’t? That would be a lie, and he would know it.

Yeonjun’s eyes flit over your face, over your cheeks made pink by the autumn cold, lingering on your lips for a few unexplainable beats, and then landing on your eyes where he searches and finds something that sends his throat bobbing with a thick swallow. “I don’t mean to be your monster. It’s only that…” He steps back again. “You remind me a terrible amount of someone I once knew.”

“Who?” Though your shoulders relax a bit with some distance between the two of you, you do your best to not let your guard down. All the stories that you recall being told, all those cautionary tales passed down through word of mouth around a fire, end with some stupid girl thinking that the monster could be changed or tricked. You’re willing to bet that the man in front of you, no matter how human he looks or how enchanting his words are, could be neither.

That doesn’t explain the ache in your chest when he holds your eyes for too long. But you shove that feeling way, way down. It’s nonsensical.

His voice takes on a parting tilt when he says, “It doesn’t matter anymore. Death takes us all.” Yeonjun dips his head at you. His smile wavers. You’d think that crooked smile on his mouth was indelible had you not seen it twitch down at the corners only for a moment. If you’d have blinked, you’d have missed it. “You think I’ll hurt you,” he says, “well, don’t let me stop you. Go ahead, run. I apologize for your basket.”

Death takes us all. You’re not sure what that’s supposed to mean, coming from him, but it sends a cold wind up your spine and goosebumps crawling over your skin.

He watches you go. You don’t look back when you do, but his gaze sits on your back until you’re sure you’re out of his sight. When you return to your home, your mother asks where the basket full of ingredients for supper went.

You imagine what her face might look like if you told her the truth. But that was impossible, so instead you tell her some stupid story about a wolf that startled you so bad that you ran home paying no mind to where your basket was. It’s close enough to the truth.

༺ ꘏ ༻

It doesn’t matter what you do; you can’t get his face out of your head. While you cut butter into flour and then roll out dough, simmer fruits over flame and you slice cheese off blocks, you replay that meeting in the forest. The memory spins and turns over no matter how hard you try to put it away from your thoughts.

It’s not every day that somebody meets the likes of him. You can’t blame yourself; he had such captivating eyes. Dark, playful, and endless. There they are again. You sigh and dust your hands off. Maybe you are just as strange as they all think that you are. Morbid curiosity is like that, though. Taking the most normal of us and making you wonder what you absolutely should not wonder about.

And you absolutely should not wonder about him.

The sun has begun to hang high in the sky, but the breeze that crawls through the window you pulled open before you got to work is a crisp one. Autumn’s really come, now. Outside the window, a huddle of children play around in the leaves that you’d raked up. You’ll have to rake those back up, but you hardly have the heart to tell them to take their playing elsewhere. Their giggles and small voices waft in with the breeze, and an awful part of you yearns for a family that you know you’ll never have. No man would risk that fate, not after what happened to the last man who paid you any attention. You grit your teeth at the memory.

Having a face for the thing that’s made your life the way it is is strange. Seeing him in the flesh, with handsome eyes and a taunting mouth, looking something near human, you think you’ve come to resent him for it. How dare he ruin your life? He, more than anybody, should know how fleeting life is. What is in it for him to deface what little time you have? You keep going back to that thought: why did he ever even appear to you in that forest? There is not one story in which you remember Yeonjun showing his face to those he hasn’t come to claim. Death makes his visits swift and purposeful.

Moreover, why on earth would he even look your way? You wish there was a plain way to ask him why, or even to plead with him to spot. Whatever it is he’d ask of you, you think you might give him. To get back to living, you would.

A deep, familiar voice from behind you gives you pause. “Want some help with that?” Soobin says. He stands  in the doorway, his head nearly brushing the top of the frame. It’s made too small for him. Most things in your tiny village were made too small for Soobin. There had been a time where you’d been taller than him, that had hardly lasted long enough.

“As if,” you dismiss and gesture at his dirty hands. He’d no doubt been out working his family’s field, his tunic sleeves rolled up to his elbows.  “Cow shit isn’t an ingredient.”

Anybody else might’ve scoffed or taken offense, but he just laughs and invites himself in anyway. It never fazes Soobin. He doesn’t let you push him away.

It’d be better if he did. How long before he ends up dead, too? Alive one moment, and then a husk without a soul next. You don’t think you could handle seeing cold, dead eyes where the annoying, warm shine should be. Of course it would be better if he stayed away, if he had half the mind to. Even most of the children have heard enough from their mothers to stay a healthy distance. He’s not too much better than a child, though.

“Isn’t it?” he says. His cheek is smudged with whatever sort of dirt he’s got on his hands and under his nails. “I’m done with work for the day. Want to go out to the field?”

You two have always ran off and avoided your life in between willowy, flaxen wheat stocks. They were just tall enough at this time of year to hide you away. But, for some reason, your stomach does a quick flip at the thought of being outside. It’s silly; couldn’t he find you here, too? “I’m busy,” you say. You’d already kneaded this roll of dough plenty, but you dig your fingers into it and begin again.

“Busy?” he scoffs, “Since when are you too busy to get away from work?”

Gritting your teeth, you let the sounds of your kneading answer. Now, more than ever, he should keep his distance. You know one thing that you’re sure nobody else does: Death’s come to visit. 

His brows shoot up in your peripherals. “I don’t get answers today?”

“I’m sorry,” you say, giving up working the over-kneaded dough only because your arms ache. “Why don’t you go talk off the ear of some other poor village girl? I’ve heard as much as I can handle today. And then when that one’s tired, you can bother the next, I’m sure.”  You soften the words with a quick smile his way. No matter how many times you say something sour in hopes that it’ll send him away, as soon as you glance up at his face, you reel it in.

His company is all you’ve ever had. The least you can do for him is make sure he doesn’t end up like carrion, even if he chooses to take that risk himself. You don’t know why he does.

Voice playful, he says, “I’m glad to hear that you believe I’ve got ladies falling at my feet, but I’d rather not annoy a pretty girl, so you’re my only option.” He pokes at the sleeve of your simple cotton dress. “Should I drag you out of here? Don’t your arms hurt doing all that?”

“Oh, you are a refined man, aren’t you?” you say, shuffling out of his reach. Damn him, he makes it difficult. “Well, I am a pretty girl, so you should take yourself elsewhere.”

Soobin smiles easy. “I’m bored out of my mind. You’re just going to let me suffer?”

“That’s not my issue.”

“I’d argue that it is,” he says. “Come on. Why are you giving me a cold shoulder?” Leaning, he tries to get a look at your face. “Did I upset you? I wasn’t aware that you cared much about what I thought.” When you spare him a sharp glance, he says, “I think you are very, very beautiful. Would you stop ignoring me, now?”

You wish you could fall into the easy banter that comes with being around Soobin, but you can’t. You can’t let him be around you. “Soobin, stop it,” you say, draining your voice. You don’t look at him while you say it.

Going quiet, he seems to notice that today’s different. His gaze is heavy as he stares at you for a few long moments. Crossing his arms over his chest, he asks, “What happened?”

You swallow. “Nothing. I’m just doing something.”

“Oh, alright,” he says, tone inflicting in a way that says he doesn’t believe you one bit. He pushes off the counter. “I’ve put up with you pushing me away for years. You think I don’t know what you’re doing?”

“Soobin,” you warn. If you look at him, you fear you’ll be forced to watch the only one who never cared much what a risk it was being around you leaving. So you don’t.

Your friend raises his hands in the air defensively. “Okay, then.” He makes for the doorway with languid, lingering steps. As if he doesn’t want to leave. “Tomorrow..”

That’s both a threat and a promise, knowing him. Sighing and watching the rowan tree out your window sway, you bid him a curt goodbye.

If only that jerk took offense to things. It would make things an awful lot easier for you.

༺ ꘏ ༻

Being out in the wheat fields brings you peace when you’re alone, but you find it to be terribly lonely. The earthy, sweet scent of it wraps around you, and the stalks whisper against each other in a soothing way.

When you look beside you, the patch of wheat imprinted with the shape of your bodies is empty on his side. You are quite weak; it makes you want to go knocking at his door for his company. But that would be the selfish thing to do, so you card your fingers between the golden straw instead.

A chill trickles down your spine. You feel his presence before you even see him; it’s a feeling that you used to get fleetingly, as if something far away was tugging at you. But then he became real, a living thing in front of you that can touch, and that is much different.

“Why is it that I always find you out in the wilderness?” Yeonjun says. His voice comes from behind you.

Has he been watching you? You stand and dust your bottom off, heart kicking to life. “It’s nice out here,” you say. In truth, you haven’t come outside since that day. You’ve dodged Soobin and made a million excuses as to why you won’t go anywhere past the fences of your home. “I like to… watch people go about their days. It’s interesting.” It’s true—you always watch from afar how the village folk interact. How groups of girls your age link arms and whisper to each other, how neighbors come together to fix up a shoddy fence. You watch them be a community that you are not a part of. Watching it tastes bitter sometimes, but mostly you take pleasure in imagining yourself there with them. You’re not sure why you try making small talk with him, but what else? Should you go running again? If you were to listen to your pattering heart, maybe that’s what you’d do. He’s hardly shown you any bad will, though, and he’s the one that’s come to you. Maybe it’s silly to wait until something bad happens to be cautious.

A thousand pounds in stones sit at the center of your chest, though, and his voice makes them feel lighter. Why on earth that is, you’re not sure. It’s a nice relief regardless.

He smiles. It's different from the ones he showed you before. It’s knowing; more sweet than cracking over his face like the smile you would expect from the likes of him. What use might he have in being sweet? “Could I join you?”

Blinking dumbly at him for a second, you nod. “Oh, uh… Yeah.” Settling back down into your spot, you spare him a few curious sideways glances.

The breeze billows over the gold stems, moving them like gentle waves over the ocean and blowing your hair in it too. The flattened bits rustle under his weight. He doesn��t even turn his face toward the village; instantly, his gravitational eyes are on you.

“Do you come here often?”

“I do,” you answer. Mostly when you and Soobin have too much to do and not enough will to do it. “It’s nice. The village doesn’t like me much, so it’s easier out here.” You don’t mention that mostly you don’t come here alone.

Yeonjun’s face becomes far away. It looks strikingly like somebody forced into an old, unpleasant memory. “Don’t like you?” he asks, “What reason would they have for that?”

“They fear me. Things go wrong around me, that’s all.” You pluck at the hay absentmindedly. “Things die. They’re smart to stay away.”

The hay whispers much louder for the long moment he remains quiet, digesting what you’ve said. Maybe deciding what to say, considering that it’s his fault.

“Die?” he asks, voice inflected with surprise.

Turning to him, your brow creases. Shouldn’t he know? He’s the one that’s done it to you. “Everything that gets too close ends up dead. Everything,” you say, resting your temple on your knee. “So, I guess, I just keep it all at arm’s length.” You look back at your tiny village, a collection familiar, un-familiar thatch-roof homes. 

Continuing to blink at you, his eyes narrowed in a strange grimace, Yeonjun says, “Death follows me, too.”

What? A laugh of disbelief bubbles up in your chest. Of course, death follows him. You cover your mouth with a hand to obscure your laugh, but you just giggle at him harder.

A laugh twitches at the corners of his mouth, too. “I mean it,” he says. The lines of his face become distant again, eyes both trained on your face and melancholic as if the sight reminds him of something.

It ignites a question in your mind about something he said in the forest. “You said that I reminded you of somebody,” you say, testing the waters. “Who?”

A muscle feathers in his jaw. He looks away, as if he can’t look at you while he says it. “I loved a girl from this village once. When I was human, no less than you.”

You falter, mouth falling open to ask all the questions that flurry through your thoughts. You settle on one. “You were human?”

“I was,” he says ruefully. “And I had everything. I had the love of my life. I think that even the most bitter of creatures on this island had envy for our love. She would braid dandelions into my hair, and then I’d braid them into hers.” He swallows thickly and pauses, as if the wound was still festering and fresh. “And then she died. She died starting our family. She died because of me, in my arms.”

You don’t know what to say, so you just look into his shining eyes as if that’ll help. You’re not very useful with people, much less comforting them.

“I couldn’t accept that. I wouldn’t. So I went where I shouldn’t have gone, and angered something much bigger than myself. They thought it would be a fitting punishment for me to live an eternity, the King of Death who could not bring back his dead lover.” The harrowed look that he gives you, only briefly, has your chest heavy all over again. “They have a sense of humor, the forces.”

You imagine what it would’ve been like for him to lose his lover in that way. How far he’d gone to try and have her back, but death does not give back. Where had he gone to have been turned into this? An immortal thing, forced to roam the world and scoop up the souls of the living for an eternity? To be bound in ancient bones and made to remember forever how you had lost your lover?

The grandness of what you want to say is too big, but all those words feel pitying and patronizing in a way that you don’t think will actually bring him any comfort. Rather, you doubt anything you say will be able to patch up a wound older than you could imagine. Simply, you offer him a raw, “I’m so sorry.”

Yeonjun lets a crooked smile replace the trembling at his lips. “As long as I live, so too will she,” he says, placing his palm over his heart. “Death doesn’t so much happen when we leave behind our bodies, but when we’ve left the minds of the living.” Narrowing his eyes at you, he brushes hair behind your ear with his knuckles. “I know she lives on, somewhere out there. Somewhere. I’ll find her.”

That intrigues you. “Is there some way that you could bring her back?”

The grim light in his eyes tells you his answer. “My curse is to take life,” he says, “not to give it. But the one who made me this, he is cruel in a twisted way. If I were to find her, as a human or an animal or a blade of grass in the forest, only then could I rest.”

It is cruel. “You’ve been searching, then,” you conclude. “When you find her, you’ll both be able to rest.” But how could he find her, if as he says, she could be any living thing? Where would he even begin?

Slowly, he shakes his head, throat bobbing. “Death needs a farrier.”

She would become what he is. You swallow thickly. Was it not him who caused the deaths that follow you? Or, at least, it was not on purpose?

Opening your mouth, you go to tell him that you’ll help him look. You’re sure you’ll be of no help. He’s spent an immortal lifetime searching, and he still hasn’t found his dead lover. Nobody would know better than him where to look.

The ground shakes beneath your palms with impact, and something cuts through the wheat. The noise of its bleating becomes nearer until the both of you scramble up to find out what’s in such distress.

A deer stumbles around wildly. It looks lame, but you don’t see anything wrong with its legs. Your throat tightens at the awful sound, piercing and sad. Frozen, you watch it try to stay upright before it finally collapses down, legs still kicking as though it still wants to run but its body has begun weakening on it. “Oh my god,” you say, stumbling back. The sounds; its sounds are awful, echoing in your bones and constricting your thoughts until they’re a pinched panic.

There’s an arrow lodged into its ribcage, deep and at a terrible angle. You already know that it’s pierced some vital organs, if not its heart. It continues to writhe on the ground, not ready to give up. You’re not sure if you should approach it—you don’t want to scare it, and you can tell by the look in its wet eyes that it already wants to be away from you.

Or, maybe it had come to you. How else had it found the two of you in the middle of this field?

Yeonjun’s already on it. He puts his knees into the dirt and dried wheat to kneel by it, running his hand over the beast's pelt in long strokes. The small buck flinches at first but relaxes once he learns that his touches are gentle, not the gnashing of hungry teeth ready to make him a meal.

Blood runs like lead through your veins. You say, “Can we help it?”

He shakes his head. “He’ll die.”

Whip-lashed, you swallow thickly. He says it so unphased, and you’re sure he is. You can hardly make yourself mirror that serenity that he exudes as he runs his hand over its flank, but you get on the ground beside him anyway.

The buck’s breaths slow to desperate drags for breath. For a few long minutes, the two of you sit in silence and stay with him until he no longer fights, until his breaths are ragged. You feel his side, still warm and alive, but you see the life going from his eyes. You sit here, talking to each other about nothing just so it hears gentle voices as it goes, for a while.

Eventually, he’s gone. Quiet and at peace, no longer hurting. This time, when you look over to Yeonjun who still smooths over the deer’s skin even as he goes, guiding him delicately into whatever greets us when we go, you see death as a gentle thing.

༺ ꘏ ༻

Though you never seek him out, Yeonjun always finds you. In hidden places, away from prying eyes, he appears behind you and makes himself known. Well, you have a feeling that he watches you for a while before saying anything. It’s hard not to feel the strange tingling of his gaze over your form. It’s akin to the sixth sense that’s supposed to keep you safe out in the dark hearts of forests, an innate feeling that tells you some beast with a rotten, pale maw watches you between the trees.

Yeonjun doesn’t feel rotten, though, preternatural and eerie as he is. As you shirk your duties and talk with him for hours, you stare into ancient eyes and watch his crooked mouth move around his words and you feel an odd comfort. As if he’s the only one who’s ever understood you, or maybe that your strangeness pales beside him and for once you’re nothing but who you are. So many nights, the sun fell on your talking until the night insects buzzed from the grasses and your eyes were heavy.

Sometimes, as you dozed off with your back to a hay bale or a hardwood wall of the abandoned home beside yours with its sagging thatched roof, you caught such festering longing in his his eyes that you’d let your lashes fall and pretend to sleep so that you could imagine what it was that he longed for. No doubt his lost lover. When you imagine him, bound in bones and coming back to haunt the living for an eternity as he mourns her infinitely, searching for her in impossible places, your chest aches with a gnawing intensity.

It’s a terrible, cursed existence. Even the nothingness of death becomes a paradise beside it.

“Is it scary?” you ask into the air, sat criss-crossed on the thick duvet of the bed. He sits across from you, looking perfectly lazy. Moonlight pools in like sterling mist through the shutters.

“What?” He watches you, sitting in your plain dress, as though you’re the only thing in the world.

You’ve begun to wonder. Wonder about those looks he gives you.

Shifting, you fix the shoulder of your soft chemise where it’s slipped down when you catch his eyes lingering on it. His throat bobs. “Dying,” you elaborate. “Is it really nothing? After we go, all of it was for nothing?”

A slow smile tugs his full lips, made a bit red in the middle where he likes to worry it. It’s such a human habit to see on something so far from human. “Hardly,” he says. “It’s like going home, right where your soul is supposed to be. Who do you think rides with me?”

Furrowing your brows, you tilt your head toward one shoulder and let your hair pool there. “The riders are dead?” You had thought they were undead in some way like Yeonjun, other sorts of revenants come back to life with their own purposes. Then, are their creepy horses dead, too? A chill goes down your arms. Sometimes, sitting here with him when his face is made soft by the orange glow of the fire he puts on, you forget what he is.

“They are.” He nods, leaned back onto his elbows, his eyes alight with a hunger that makes your insides feel funny. “It doesn’t stop once we’ve died. You don’t need to be scared, my love. So many things end, but then so many things begin. The earth no longer holds you down, the weight of being is gone. You don’t know anything like it; you don’t know leaving behind the pleasures of earth to know the ones that only the afterlife can show you.”

His eyes laced with something entirely else, he adds, “And it’s not the end. Not for everything. For some it’s only the beginning, and for others, those who have not yet fulfilled their purpose, they come back to the flesh. They return.”

You can’t tell if he means himself, or something else. The weight in his eyes, dark, endlessly swirling pools, makes you wonder again why it is that he’s lingering here: the place that he had not visited once since the death of his lover, for the fact that it still hurts too much. Why his shadow of death, his fault or not, was tangled in your soul enough to brush its fingers over the things around you.

“It’s scary,” you say, breathy. The thought of eternity.

Soft hairs brush over his eyes as he tilts his head at you. “Do I scare you?”

“No.”

“No?” he echos, pushing himself up so that he leans back onto his palms. “Isn’t that strange? Pretty little thing says she’s not afraid of death, but her heart races when I’m near. Her sweet heart jumps at just the brush of my leg. Are you sure you’re telling me the truth, love?”

Your blood roars in your veins, inflaming your cheeks and making your head dizzy. Nobody’s ever looked at you like that before. Hair prickles on your skin. “Yes,” you breathe.

Feral delight sparks in his eyes, black as pitch. His smile turns up all feline at the crooked corners. “Crawl to me, then.”

Like how fire licks up oxygen in any room it is in, his words steal the breath right from your lungs. What does he think you are? You blink at him wide-eyed and dumb for a moment.

How can he say that as though it were nothing? Moreover, how does the ravenous flare in his eyes, his head tilted back as he watches you down his nose expectantly, do that to your belly?

Your mind glazes over with something thick and heady, and you damn the nerves in your belly and begin to crawl from your end of the bed to his. His tongue darts out to wet his lips, making sure you feel every inch of the taunt in his eyes as he trains them on you. When you’ve gotten to him through the thickness in the air, you settle into his lap and bracket his waist with your thighs.

Yeonjun takes the soft fat of your hips in his fingers. “Fuck,” he says. It sounds like he’s barely holding the gates on something endlessly consuming. Something that might break loose on the two of you, and leave you changed forever with its hungry, gnashing teeth. His head hits your collarbone. “Tell me to stop. Please, tell me to go. Because I don’t know how.”

“Don’t,” you say. “Don’t stop. I want it, Yeonjun. I want this.”

He straightens, pupils blown and eyes as tense as his set jaw. “No, you don’t understand what you’re asking for. All I’ve ever done is ruin. All I’ll ever do is ruin. I won’t ruin you; not again.”

That rings bells somewhere outside the heavy fog that’s infiltrated your mind, but they don’t sound too alarming when he looks as though he wants to drag his teeth over your heart to taste its beating. It doesn’t touch the ground, when you want him to, so badly. So badly that you taste it on your tongue and it tinges your words as you tell him, “I do know what I’m asking for. I want you. Yeonjun. Don’t you want me too?” Voice and confidence wavering, you pull back. Maybe you’ve read this all wrong. A tickling shame crawls over your skull. “Do you not want me?”

“You think I don’t want you?” he says, straightening up and meeting your gaze. His breath is hot on your mouth. “I want you so fucking bad. You are in the marrow of my bones. Fuck, I have done nothing but want you, but I am foul. I will only hurt you.”

He takes your hand and places it over his chest, where a heart should be. Beneath your palm, you do not feel the thumping of an alive thing. Yeonjun has no heart. You knit your brows and examine the strain of his features. Does he think that you’ll be disgusted? Maybe the girl you were in that forest might’ve been, but being near Yeonjun has changed you in ways you couldn’t start to put your finger on. “I’m asking you to,” you say. “Show me what you want to do to me. What you’ve wanted to do to me.”

Searing silence burns between you as he drinks that in, and then he shoves you onto your back. Supporting himself with an arm beside your head, he curls his fingers into your hip and nudges your thighs wider. He doesn’t lift the hem of your chemise like you expect him to. No—Yeonjun begins to grind himself into your cunt through all the layers of your clothes. Though your dress is bunched up and his pants lay between any real contact, Yeonjun’s hard and that friction tastes fleetingly sweet.

“I want you to beg me for it,” he says, grinning down at you with cruel intention. “Beg me, and make it so pretty.”

You let little sounds linger in that back of your throat and become hungrier each time he grinds against you. It’s so much, mind swimming and sparks spraying up your spine, and yet each time it is not near enough. Damn that foxish smile on his face; you beg for him anyway. “Yeonjun,” you breathe, curling your fingers around the wrist of that hand with which he pins your hip. “P…lease, will you help me? It feels so good; I want more, please.”

He raises his eyebrows at you and an eager grind comes right over your throbbing clit. 

You know he wants more than that, but mortification already is making your voice unsteady and your cheeks burn. “Yeonjun,” you huff, hips wiggling.

The king of the undead delights fully in your shame and rewards you with more of those pointed, dry grinds. Your legs tremble; he’s giving you so little, and yet your need takes it and magnifies it into something grand.

Though he pretends he’s on some high ground, you hear his shuddering breaths each time his fucks his hips against you. He feels that roiling, liquid need in his belly just as vehemently as you do. The room fills with your breathy pants and grinding bodies. You catch your lip in your teeth and begin to meet him half-way. Your moans are low and sweet, and each one sends his jaw tighter. 

You twist and grind against each other like fumbling teens until you’re coiled up so tight that he has to pull himself away. Your throbbing cunt protests, but you know he doesn’t want you cumming like this.

“You want me to show you what I’ve wanted to do to you?” he says, working at his pants. His eyes are so drunk on you, and his cheeks betray his state. “Open your legs, my love. Let me show you a little death.”

Throat gone dry, you slowly let your thighs fall open. The dull throbbing between your thighs roars to life. He slides your skirt up your leg, stopping when he frees your knee to pepper a few hot kisses into it. Once he’s got it bunched up at your ribcage, he runs his tongue over his dry lips to wet them. “Fuck. Such a pretty pussy. I want to fucking eat you up.”

“Yeonjun,” you whine. His name is all you can muster out, anticipation sharpened to a knife point.

Flashing his teeth, he purrs, “You like that, you filthy thing. I bet you’d like for me to fuck you till your brain’s gone and all that’s left is my name. Isn’t that right? Is that what you want?”

Your thoughts stall and you nod, making your mouth into a filthy pout. God, how you want that. Maybe he’s right about you being filthy. Coming from him, it sounds like a delicious thing to be.

The pretty, leaking tip of his cock brushes your clit as he slides it up and down your slit to collect the mess there. Your thighs jump to close before your mind gets the better of it. He does this a few times—up and down, letting you feel and get used to the size and length of him all the way till his cockhead kisses your clit and you squeak.

“Are you comfortable, love?” he asks, shifting your hips with strong hands. “Do you need anything from me?”

It’s so at odds with his other, nastier words. Your head spins, the moonlight blurring. “I’m okay,” you tell him. “I… just want you. Want you to put it in, want to feel you.”

His cock catches on your hole, and he begins to push forward with promising pressure. But then he pulls back, smiling downturned. You whine; why can’t he save his capriciousness for later? You’d almost had it…

“I could give it to you, or I could not…” He hums. “Wouldn’t that be so cruel of me? To leave you wanting?”

You flutter around nothing. Every inch of your body buzzes. Alive. You are more alive now, at the promise of Death’s touch, than ever before. The irony might be something to wonder about if you weren’t dribbling down onto the bed sheets with crude need. “Stop it,” you say. Your voice is whiny. You’re glad you can hardly hear yourself past the pounding in your bloodstream.

That delights the King of Death. He wrinkles his nose at you, burning you alive with his eyes as he presses his palm to your belly and guides himself into you with his free hand. You wrap around each inch of him slowly. The air between you bows under the weight of your gazes; he holds your eyes the whole way, inch by inch until he’s seated fully into you with his groin flush to your body. He stretches you to fit, and yet it’s just right. You could ask for no more or no less; you might even think your body was made for him, were you not too busy circling your hips to feel him.

“Good?” he says, squeezing your hip. “Do you need a moment?”

Pursing your lips, you test out the shape of him with another wiggle. “Maybe… Maybe a second.” Truth be told, you need a moment to grapple with the sparks sprinkling over your mind more than you need a moment to adjust to his stretch. You let out a shuddering breath.

He traces circles into your belly, just beneath your navel. The pad of his thumb goes round and round, warm on your flesh. “As long as you need,” he says, but it’s more like a triumphant, playful coo. There’s that lopsided smirk. One day, you’d like to kiss it off him. Taking that hypnotizing finger, Yeonjun trails it up your stomach, over your ribcage. He hooks it beneath your dress and drags it higher, revealing the soft swells of your breasts to the air. You shudder, body so, so hot that your nipples peak and tighten against the cool air.

“Such pretty tits,” he says, brushing his knuckle up the underside of one. “Everything about you. Such a pretty, pretty body. God, I don’t know if I want to worship it or ruin it.” His breaths fan over your skin as he bends down and pops an eager nipple into his mouth, lavishing it before releasing it with a lewd pop and letting his mouth fall all over your breast. Lick here, nip there, until you’re squirming adequately and squeezing him like a virgin. Then he blows cool air over it and watches with eyes like a cat toying with its prey as you shudder harder, your chest jumping. “Fucking look at you,” he sneers.

“Junnie,” you say, lost for breath. You think you’ve walked yourself into the lion’s den.

His breathy laughs fall over your breast. Taking his teeth, he drags them over your skin, right over where your heart thunders a rhythm fully for him, and then he bites. Nothing more than a shallow mark, the shape of his teeth in your soft tit. He lingers there, admiring the sight before he straightens himself up again.

“Fine.” He pulls out of you slowly, but you know what comes after that, so you savor every second of it. “I suppose you’ve wanted after it long enough. Let me hear your sweet voice again, my love.”

Yeonjun fucks you just right. His cock nudges right up on your sweet spot as if he’s done this before. Like he knows where to find it. You gasp and whine—you’re just happy he’s finally giving you something. 

“Oh, fuck,” you mewl. His shoulders wear the red crescent marks of your nails. “That’s—so good right there.”

Ever egotistical and cocky, he croons, “Yeah?” Rolling himself back, he makes it his mission to hit it ruthlessly.

A sharp, pitchy sound comes tumbling past your lips. You bring your hand up over your mouth, letting your eyelids dust your burning cheeks so that you can brave the flipping in your spine and deep in your belly. It’s nearly insufferable—the way pleasure licks up your spine, how it spreads out into your veins and takes control of you.

“No,” Yeonjun growls. “Don’t you dare close your eyes. Let me see that look in your eyes when you cum.”

Your eyes are heavier than they’ve ever been, but you open them. The sight that greets you is worth the effort. Yeonjun’s lip twitches and then he throws his head back, the column of his neck on display as his Adam's apple jumps around a thick swallow.

If that sight wasn’t enough to send you teetering down into whatever depths of lust and ecstasy that he crawled out from, then the angle he hits as he pushes one of your thighs to his chest is. The world frays, deep tremors starting at one small point in your cunt and then exploding up through your stomach and down the back of your thighs. Your chest arches off the bed and you mewl helplessly, fighting and embracing your orgasm in an intoxicating death.

“Oh, fuck,” Yeonjun growls, strained with something whinier as he watches you shake beneath him. “Fuck. I’m gonna—fuck, I’m gonna cum…” His voice chokes as his hips become stuttered more than pointed, the slick sounds of your own release tangling up with his grunts and pants until he shudders and stills, cumming into your puffy, fluttering cunt.

You both catch your breaths as if there’s no air in the room left for a while. His hair’s damp on his forehead, as is yours on your neck, and his eyes droop lazily. More lazy and content than you’ve ever seen him.

Collecting you to his chest, where only your heart thumps away frantically, he presses his mouth to your ear and says, “Do you think death is so scary now?”

With your limbs nothing more than boneless and liquid pleasure floating slowly through your thoughts, you smile.

A little death can be more visceral than living, you think.

༺ ꘏ ༻

The tree stump beneath you makes your tailbone ache. You sit criss-crossed, watching Soobin work away at the soil and tend to that section of the fence that’s begun to rot and sag. Your mouth moves endlessly, filling the space that would otherwise just be made up of his grunts of hard work.

“You know, you ought to help me if you’re just going to sit and watch,” he says, straightening to swipe at his forehead, sweaty despite the cold in the air.

“Totally improper,” you say, smiling at him cheekily. “Are you saying that you can’t handle yourself, strong man?”

He glares at you with the venom only somebody made to put up with hours of chatter could muster. “What’s got you so talkative?” he says.

You know he means why you’re suddenly not glaring him away. You can’t tell him that you’ve spoken with Death himself, so instead you say, “Nothing.” Letting your legs dangle down, you smile at him.

Yeonjun hadn’t done any of it. It’s a comfort, to some degrees, to know that. It’s not your fault that they died. Being around them, being around Soobin, won’t make them turn up dead. The rest of them still don’t know that—and they wouldn’t believe it, anyway—but the black shadow hanging over your shoulders dissipates.

For the first time in so, so long, you do not feel marked by death.

“Sure.” His smile tilts. “A week ago, you wouldn’t even look at me.”

Rolling your eyes, you decide to give him a hard time. “Not true. You just have a way of getting on my nerves.”

“I take pride in that.”

“Take pride in what? Being insufferable?”

Crinkling his nose, he says, “Knowing how to bother you best.”

“Get back to work, stupid.” Your heart soars. It’s good to have friends. To let yourself have friends is an ever better thing. Is this how it is? To be with others and not feel like their burden, or like they’re crossing their fingers behind their back to ward off whatever bad things you might bring onto them? He’s made it his mission to hover around you no matter what, but this feels different.

Maybe, for so long, part of it has been your own gloom that’s obscured it all. Maybe if you didn’t bare your teeth to anybody who got too close, it could’ve been like this always. You hate to think that your own isolation could be some part your own fault. But how were you not to show your teeth when someone tried to reach their hand out to you?

It doesn’t matter now. You shove that all down and let yourself feel the slight warmth of the sun’s glow on your skin where it peeks through the clouds. It’s a nice day, you shouldn’t ruin it with those thoughts.

The sun’s begun making its descent when Soobin’s done. He takes a long drink of water, hissing with relief and crumpling down to the ground with his back to your stump.

“Are you making any way with that girl you were talking to me about?” you prompt.

Giving you a long look over his shoulder, he says, “Don’t.”

“What?” You laugh a little, raising your brows down at him. “I’m not doing anything.”

“You know what you’re doing,” he says, voice flat as he picks stickers out of his fingers.

Soobin’s had a thousand different crushes. There was that daughter of the shepherd, and then the wealthy merchant’s daughter and her long pretty hair, and then the neighbor… Well, you could go on. None of them ever really came to fruition for the poor guy. He thinks that it’s because he’s a poor farmer’s son, but you always tell him that it’s because he’s got an insistent mouth, and that he should be more grateful that you deal with him. Your lips turn up at the corners a little thinking about it—he’ll find the one eventually, but you like the indignant look on his face when you say it.

“I mean it!” you say, nudging him with your leg. “Tell me. I want to know.”

“You won’t even tell me what’s happening with you. Until one of us quits keeping secrets,” he says, placing accusation heavy over the words, “I’ll keep my dealings to myself. What’s it to you, anyway?”

Feeling the weight of his head as he lets it loll lazily against your thigh, you decide that it couldn’t hurt to tell him. The itch to tell somebody crawls under your skin. Especially to tell him. “You know the other day? When I was… being awful?”

His body shakes with a vindicated laugh. “If you’re nothing else, at least you’re self-aware.”

You skirt around that with your own, more awkward, laugh. It’s nice that he thinks so, but you don’t feel it. “Stop,” you huff and nudge him again. “I was foraging out where I usually go. But I guess I wandered out farther than I thought I did. You remember when they used to tell us stories, right? Like the bogeyman. That he’d come snatch us up if we didn’t listen.” Your mom especially had loved that one, back when she cared what became of you. Would she care again, if you told her that everything was fine? “Well, I don’t know if you remember the one about The Wild Hunt, but… Anyway, I was picking some stuff, and…”

Sitting up from his exhausted slouch, Soobin looks like he’s suddenly come back to life. “What?” he interrupts. His voice is strangely serious.

“What?” you say, brow creasing. “They travel here and there… but they were here. In the woods. Like, I heard them.”

Tersely, he asks, “What were you doing that deep in the woods?”

“I mean, I just kept on finding nice stuff until I just… was deeper.” You survey him. You hadn’t thought that he’d react like this. “So I ran, and then there was this guy,” you say, watching realization fall over his face. He knew those stories as much as you do—knew where you were going with this. He is as starkly superstitious as the rest of your people, you forgot. Pushing past the grimace on his face, you say, “And I knew that he was the king. The one from the stories. It was so weird; it’s like you can feel it. And I spoke to him, and then…”

Stood up now, he cuts you off once more. “Are you kidding?”

“Why are you being like that?” you say, messing with your skirts to quell the defensive bite in your tone. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You didn’t do anything? Are you trying to get killed?” He throws up his hard-working hands. “We have rules for a reason. Don’t go out into the forest, don’t make deals with faeries, don’t follow a banshee scream. And then you go and talk to the king of death? How am I not supposed to be upset about that? You know that…” Soobin blinks a few times as if second-guessing what he’s about to say, but he says it anyway. “You know that he’s the reason that they treat you how they do. You know that he’s the one who ruined your life. Why would you ever mess with that?”

You push yourself up from the ground, eyes burning. That stings like a cut. “He didn’t do it. None of it is his fault,” you say, furrowing your brows. “What are you trying to say, Soobin? Just say what you want to say. Come on.”

“He didn’t do anything?” He scoffs, letting a heavy silence hang suspended in the air for a moment before saying, “Is that what he told you? And you just believed it? Listen to yourself, does that make any sense? He’s played with your life like it’s some fucking toy, and now he’s come to rub it in your face. Think about it: do animals just fly into anybody else’s windows and die? Do the trees that they pick from just end up dead? It’s his fault that they all treat you the way you do.”

Mouth opening and closing, you don’t know what to say. 

He sees the hurt in your burning eyes and tries to reel it back in. “What I’m trying to say is—”

“I know what you’re saying,” you say, grabbing up the lunch you’ve been nibbling on. “I know exactly what you’re saying. I just never thought you’d say it out loud.”

“Say what?” Soobin says, his voice raising behind you as you storm off.

That you think it’s my fault, you want to say. That they all die because I am a plague, and you are a charity worker for being my friend. Instead, you just leave and try to choke down the tightness in your throat.

༺ ꘏ ༻

You curl your arms around yourself, the night biting cold. Yeonjun had dragged you from bed, and who knows what hour of the night it is? If the heaviness beneath your eyes is to judge it by, it’s far too deep in the dead of night to be outside with your boots half-laced and nothing but your sleep chemise on.

You might’ve just stayed wrapped up in your blankets if you weren’t so lonely as you’ve been. Soobin’s been scarce. The most you see of him is in the fields from morning to afternoons. You hope that he’ll stop by your doorstep and knock so that you can groan about it but swing the door open anyway each time, but he doesn’t. He thinks that you won’t want to see him, and so he allows you your space.

That couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s hard to be the one to come back after a conversation like that, though. You watch him from the windows and hope he understands at some point instead. It’s an awful lot easier.

Other than preparing meals and window watching, you’ve been up to nothing much at all. You hadn’t realized how much you had, but you feel him in his absence. 

“It’s cold…” you say. The fog of breath that punctuates it makes your point. Whatever he’s brought you out here for, you have no doubt it’ll be something strange. The grin on his face tells you as much.

Leading the way, he heads for the Darkwood. “Only you would come rushing out without a cloak for your shoulders.”

“Well, only you would drag me from my nice, warm bed at this time of night. For what?”

“Can’t anything be a surprise with you?” he says, shooting you a cheeky glance over his shoulder. “Surprises are fun.”

“Surprises!” you say, working your legs to catch him. “Not surprises that involve you bringing me out into the woods. You know, it’s awfully suspicious. Somebody who sees this might think that I am the type to… sneak out with men.”

“Aren’t you now?”

Your lips tug down. “You know what I mean.”

He laughs in his airy way, a twig snapping under his foot. You’re well in the woods, now. Probably somewhere near where you’d first met him.

Lifting a brow, you look at him expectantly. Maybe a will-o’-the-wisp will come floating through with its light bouncing off the trees. That would be a nice surprise, you admit.

Yeonjun circles you. His presence behind you tingles in the way it always does, but true chills erupt when his breath puffs against your ear. “Close your eyes. I have something I want to show you.”

Your mind wanders back to what Soobin had gotten so twisted up about. It might be naive and reckless and against everything you ever learned, but you let your eyes fall shut to blackness. If he was going to hurt you, you imagine he’d have had that opportunity a mind-numbing amount of times before.

“Are they shut?” he asks, waiting for your nod. His voice comes from in front of you now. “I want you to keep them shut. You can’t open your eyes, or it will all go away. Okay?”

“Okay,” you breathe, mind full of a bounty of questions. You don’t even know where to begin to assume what he’s got going on, so you stand there shifting your antsy feet.

There’s a strange, rustling sound that catches you off guard with your eyes closed. It drags on for a long moment. Curiosity pries at your eyes; you want nothing more than to just crack an eye open to spy the source of the ruckus. 

It’ll be gone if you do, anyway.

You let out a surprised squeak as something rises up beneath you, as if risen from nothing more than the dirt and roots of the forest floor, bringing you up from the earth. You wobble and send your hands out to find a perch.

A horse. It’s a horse, its mane so tangled and windswept, but matted and clumped with leaves that crunch under your palm when you find them. It reeks of mud—everything around you begins to smell of earth and decomposition.

You know that if you open your eyes, you’ll find yourself sat upon the pale white steed of the Undead King, its eyes white and its knobby knees almost as famous as the leader of The Hunt himself. It chuffs beneath you.

“Are you ready?” Yeonjun says over your shoulder. You can hear the feral grin in his voice. It’s the leader of The Hunt, a creature of folklore, that sits behind you now. He curls an arm around your waist and tugs you closer to him, securing you against the wall of his chest. “Hold on tight, my love.”

The call of the wild, that horn, bellows again like it had the first time you heard it. Rather than coming from nearby as you thought it would, it dances between trees far off just like it had that time, too. Your heart jumps up into your throat.

Taking off with a howl, the Wild Hunt follows it.

You dig your fingers into Yeonjun’s at your waist. Weight melts away, and you know you’re in the air. Your belly swoops in tandem with the howls and hoots of the riders, heart palpitating to the hoofbeats. How there’s hoofbeats as you ride through the air, you’re not sure. The ghostly fleet manifests around you in vivid imagery, though you squeeze your eyes shut. They are wild enough to imagine just what they might look like: with their clothes and flesh in tatters, with their eyes beady or pale, with their hounds piercing the air with their calls and running alongside them, they are a perfect personification of freedom.

Whip-lash sends you reeling, body going rigid. You grit your teeth and squeeze your eyes harder, wishing that you’ll touch ground soon and that everything would become real again.

Yeonjun feels you go stiff. Bringing his head back to your shoulder from his own delight, he says, “It’s okay. You’re okay. Let it into your bones. Do you think I would let it hurt you?”

He is their leader. If it got too much, you know Yeonjun would be there to catch you. Curling your fingers into his, you release that tension and allow their drumbeat to echo through you.

And when it does, your blood begins to sing along. The wind whips your cheeks and your hair, and you begin to laugh with them. The Hunt twists and turns and dances through the air, an apparition in the night, but nothing more than that.

It comes to a slow, eventually, until the noise and even your steed crumbles back down into the dirt it appeared from. Your eyes pop open hoping to catch at least a glimpse of them, but only the dark forest and pale moonlight answer. Your legs threaten to give out on you, veins still thrumming, but, oh, do you feel alive.

You feel more alive than you ever have, more than you ever could have hoped to have known. Mind spinning, you stumble. Yeonjun catches and steadies you before you can go scraping your knees on a rock.

“Oh my fucking god,” you say.

The laugh that Yeonjun breaks into has you sending him a glare, but you break too. Everything about him is ironic; and how ironic indeed that Death himself should show you how to be alive, rather than to just live?

༺ ꘏ ༻

The air is so fresh in your lungs when you step outside that it nearly burns. You clutch your basket of warm fig tarts. Songbirds trill and fly between tree tops that slowly become more bare the deeper you fall into the season, singing their sweet songs that sound like new beginnings.

Raising your hem from the ground churned up into mud from the afternoon’s trickle, you prance into town with a lively pep in your step. You spent all last night making these—Yeonjun had kept you company, watching you how he always does as you pored over making them just right. His cruel snicker when the jam had simmered over flame for too long and became too thick bounces off your bones in a sweet melody. You’ve come to adore his wicked delight, the way his smile cracks over his face and the facetious raise of his brows, more than you fear it.

Sending small smiles to the people that you pass, you stop by a huddle of kids digging sticks into the mud. They look up at you with curious eyes, stopping to gawk.

“Hey, guys,” you say, pulling back the cloth laid over the sweets. “I’ve made some fig tarts. Do you like fig? I bet you’ll like them; they’re sweet.”

The kids stand up, eyes big as they share a look. They don’t let out so much as a peep before they scurry off home.

You blink. Well, you’re used to weird reactions, but that was… different. Picking up your deflated shoulders and hesitant limbs, you make a shoddy attempt at not letting it dampen your good morning. You were expecting wary looks, anyway.

You head down a little further toward the far side of your home village, the side that breaks off after a fenceline into a great, grassy field. There’s a bustle, mothers washing their clothes in pails and hanging them up to dry and a few others whispering at each other lowly as they go about their days.

An old woman so old her back curves and her fingers have gone knobby makes her way to wherever the day’s duty demands her to be. Your neighbor—an eccentric old lady bound in her times. You decide on her: the elderly are forgotten by the young. She might enjoy knowing that her neighbors still know she exists.

“Hello,” you say, showing her your basket with a hopeful, excited heart. “I have some treats that I was wanting to give out. I know they might not be much, but would you like one? I’m not the best baker, but I do it often enough.” A face like that, dragged down by her years on this earth and not long to death, has no doubt spent many years making meals for her family. You imagine your goods would be nothing beside hers, but it’s the gesture, no?

“Oh, girl,” she says, voice crackling as she clutches her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “I’m afraid it’s best if you found yourself missing from this place. Hurry yourself up and spare the drama.”

The incessant cawing of a crow from a clawed tree fades into the background as you furrow your brows and lower your basket to ask, “...Huh?” Your belly goes up in knots; terrible knots done up tight and fast. You haven’t got a clue what she’s talking about. Elders always did speak a bit strange, though. It could be nothing much; she’s a stern old lady.

But her eyes are not angry and glaring in the way that a harrowed old hag might turn her nose up at the youth. They drag down with a cold pity.

“Listen to me, girl.” She points at you with one of those worn, sun-spotted hands. “You had best leave. The boy’s gone, and they are already not fond of you. Who will they point their fingers to?” the woman says. “I hardly know you, but I would hate to see it.”

The rest of her words fade into the roaring in your ears, the feral drumbeat of your heart like a wardrum in the cage of your ribs as it beats against them as if to escape from you. You don’t feel the basket in your hands, don’t feel the solidity of the earth beneath your feet, and don’t feel a single one of your thoughts like tangible things. They flit as if liquidated into a rotten, sick mush.

Nothing. You can think of nothing. Nothing real; nothing holding you to the earth.

“What?” Your voice hardly reaches your ears, but what does is weak and broken and like a plea for her to tell you that it’s not really what you think it is.

And if you could see or hear anything beyond your fraying little rift in reality, you would’ve heard the man coming up to you. You would’ve heard the words coming from his angry, sneering mouth, and would’ve done something when he picked up a pail of water, and you would’ve been shaken by the nasty ice water that runs down your frozen body and plasters your hair and clothes down as he pours it over you. But none of it cuts through your stupor.

He yells some awful, stabbing things at you, and a few others join him. They tell you that you are nothing but a plague, tell you to leave and to not come back here.

But this is your home. Where else would you go?

With your sopping wet dress clutched in your shaking fists as though that might keep you grounded, you choke down the tightening of your throat and sift through their faces, searching for his face. Those brown eyes, brown and always shining with nagging playfulness, do not come up anywhere. Jaw trembling, you search harder. Out on the field where he should be at this time of day, at your doorstep demanding that you go spend the day doing nothing with him, in someone’s yard helping them fix up a broken fence, no matter where you look, neither his broad silhouette nor his cheeky, dimpled face is there. You continue to stand stricken dumb, looking for him even though you know by the churning in your belly that it’s true, and you’re just hurting yourself trying to find him right where he should be.

Fine. Alive. Untouched by your disgusting, destructive presence.

When you can no longer fight the strangling tightness in your lungs and your dress is as heavy as your heart, you take off. The hem of your dress drags in mud and sticker bushes and catches on stray twigs, and you don’t know where you’re going, but you just run. You’ll give them what they want. 

You stumble, probably like some lost, undead thing, until you find yourself at the edge of the forest. Only then do you let the wall of whittle-edged tears roll down your face. And you assume you sound like a choking, dying animal with how you choke and heave on them, but he was the one you might’ve dropped your head and cried to, so what’s the use of making it pretty? No; you let it all fall as it is.

Soobin’s dead. Soobin’s dead, and it’s nobody else’s but your own fault. You clutch your chest to staunch that old ache that’s grown teeth and tears at your heart; you have and will always be the end of everything that comes near. You are just as much the plague that you began to pretend, to believe, you weren’t. It was your stupid hope that maybe you could have something and not watch it become carrion that drove that pick. It was by your hope that he’s gone.

The hair on your arms begins to raise. You pick your head up and find Yeonjun standing in front of you.

There’s a few beats of long, dreadful quiet as he takes in the state of you. He drags his eyes down and they become liquid flame—something different from the impious delight that he is made of. He becomes the King of Death.

“What happened?” he says. The chills on your arms prickle furiously at the words, furling out distant and yet furious like the center of the fire.

You shake your head, wiping your soaked cheek.

“What the fuck happened?” he growls again, taking your face into his hand. “Who did this? Who did this to you, my love? I need you to tell me who the fuck did this to you.”

Letting the venom in your mouth out, you shove his chest and say, “Get away from me. Don’t fucking touch me.”

Yeonjun’s face twists up, looking scalded. Not surprised, though. “Don’t do this,” he says. “Let me hold you while it hurts. Don’t push me away. I can’t… I won’t lose you again.”

All the pieces that you had been putting into the corners of your mind snap together at that. As many suspicions as you had, though, it feels sour hearing it confirmed from his mouth. That you are his dead past lover, reincarnated or whatever you are. That it was his presence—because even though he stayed away for centuries, a part of him still lingered with you—that now has torn down everything you ever thought you could love. He, standing there in front of you like a kicked puppy, is the ruination of your life in the flesh. The flipping of your stomach is nauseating.

“I hate you,” you spit. “I hate you so much.” You repeat it a few more times, and you sob it into his chest as he takes you into his arms. “Is this what you wanted? You’ve been waiting for this forever, haven’t you? To find me again, so that you can die and fucking leave me here. So that you can make me exactly what you are, while you get your peace. You are a liar and a thief. All you’ve ever done is steal and take. How could you do it? Huh? Tell me…” Your voice trembles and staggers off. “Tell me how you made love to me, how you made me believe that you loved me, and all you ever wanted was to save yourself? You betrayed me.”

Pulling back, Yeonjun says, “No.”

“Yes,” you say, stumbling back away from him with a shaking, accusatory finger pointed at him. “Yes you did.”

Fingers itching to reach out to you, he holds them back by curling them into fists. “No. That’s not fair. I have spent an eternity loving you. I spent the entirety of my immortal, monstrous life searching for you, just so that I might find you in any form. I would have been glad to find you as a leaf in a tree, as long as I found you. But, then, I find you alive. Alive and back, as if… it never happened.” He steps toward you, aching to be near you. His voice wavers. “Please, don’t do this to me, love. Please, just let me have you again. I’ve waited… I’ve waited and I’ve waited, and I finally have you, and now you’re looking at me like I… Like I’d ever hurt you. Finding death—finally getting to die would be worth nothing if you weren’t there with me. It was never about that.”

“I could never love you,” you say, matching his steps forward with steps away from him. “I could never love a monster that does… Does nothing but kill. Take.”  You know your words are cruel, but you need them to be. You need him to hurt, you need him to go so far away from you that never again will you cause another living thing’s death. 

“You did.” Yeonjun’s mouth cracks into a pained smile, sharp at the corners. “You loved me just as much as I love you, once.”

“Just leave me. Leave me, and I wish to never see you again. If you love me, then you’ll give me that.” 

He looks at you, clever eyes intense and glassy, for a long time. And then he says, “Would that make you happy? Would it make it so that you could live a happy life, and find yourself something to live for?”

What’s left for you? A small village that won’t ever embrace you? No, it wouldn’t fix your life. But you open your mouth and tell him, “Yes.”

“Okay,” he says, brushing his knuckles over your cheeks reverently. He swallows in your features, running over them for what he knows is the last time he’ll be seeing you—the very last time he’ll see the face of his undying love. When he finally opens his mouth again, his voice is gentle. “I’ll leave you. If my being here hurts you, then I won’t be selfish. I love you, darling.”

Don’t go, you want to tell him. Please don’t leave. Please, hold me. But your mouth is dry, and you let the radiant hurt in your chest stop you. You let him go.

༺ ꘏ ༻

There’s only one place you can think of going to. It’s the only place your vagrant feet take you.

His spot still is held sacred by the flattened, gold wheat stalks. Your best friend, still living here on Earth in at least one way even if he’s not here to listen to your stupid rambling. And he would maybe complain, but he’d always listen.

The last thing you’d done was fight with him. What an awful thing—what an awful way to repay him for being the only one who ever dared to get close.

You sit in your spot, beside his, and rest your chin on your knees. If only the ground beneath you would open up and swallow you whole. You’d deserve it.

What’s left for you? Is there a place in the world that would keep you happily once they see what you do? No. There is not. You wish you knew what to do; you wish you had somebody to ask.

Releasing a long, tight breath, you just sit and wait for something to give you answers. A gentle breeze makes your hair dance, but it does not whisper anything to your ears. Something’s circling over head, but it doesn’t caw in the cadence of his laughter.

The day moves along without you. You’re not sure how long you sit, but it stretches somewhere between a few minutes and eternity. No matter how long you wait, there are no answers. No matter how long you mull over it.

Conceding, you begin to push yourself up from the ground. A rustle in between the foliage stops you before you stand.

A tawny hare leaps out in front of you. It sniffs around you, nose twitching. Then it stands back on its haunches. It stares straight at you, and intelligent light in its eyes that knits your brows. The wild thing stands there with a purpose that is uncharacteristic of a forest animal.

But entirely familiar in the face of your best friend. That shine in its eyes as it stands there, nose still twitching, makes your chest tighten up.

“Hey,” you say, as if it might answer you. Your eyes well up with hot tears again. Of course, it doesn’t. 

Maybe you’ve gone mad, but you know that it’s him. That idiot, coming to show you that he’s okay in the afterlife—that you shouldn’t worry for him or cry for him. Look at him, full of life once again. The hare blinks its beady eyes, saying that there is still something waiting out there for us once we go. You reach out a hand. He does not flinch as you scratch behind its ear.

“Okay,” you whisper. “I’m glad to know you’re alright. I know what I need to do, now.”

He blinks.

You laugh a hoarse, breathy laugh, familiar in only the way that Soobin could achieve. “You look stupid.”

Indignantly, the hare settles back down onto its forelegs and scurries off. He goes to live out this new form of life.

Maybe, like this, he’ll find that pretty lady that loves him the way he deserves. That loser.

༺ ꘏ ༻

You spend only one night in your home and you know that what you’ve chosen is right. After spending your day out in the field, you sneak under night’s cover into your husk of a room and let yourself sleep there under the covers one last time. When morning breaks through the window, you gather your weary bones up and leave. 

You run into your mother on the way out. She doesn’t yell at you to leave, but her eyes have gone cold. Colder than you’re used to. You’ve killed again, in every way that counts. So you don’t bother with bidding her or any of them any grand goodbyes. You couldn’t handle the relief you might find falling over them, should you.

Plopping down to the floor, you take a few bites of the cheese and bread lathered in sweet jam that you’d swiped from the kitchen. The grass is long and willows in the wind, bending and dancing prettily. It’s so soft; you enjoy the feeling of it beneath your fingers in your quiet serenity. The scent of it, fresh over the baseness of dirt, you breathe into your lungs.

It would be the loveliest place to spend the rest of eternity.

For the first time, Yeonjun appears in front of you rather than behind you. He materializes from nothing, his elbow on his knee as casual as if he’d been sat there the whole time. The darkness beneath his eyes seems heavier, but then again you know that exact heaviness. It sits right in the very center of you.

You both are quiet for a bit. You let the tall grass whisper, instead.

“Bread?” you say and slant your lips into a smile. Bringing it up, you offer it to him.

His smile wrinkles his nose and curls at the edges. Entirely him. Yeonjun accepts the bread, ripping a bite out before throwing it away into the sea of green. Once he’s chewed, he leans in and captures your lips in a kiss that’s utterly at odds with his sharp mouth. Your lips move over each other gently, save for an indulgent nip or bite here and there.

He pushes you back into a bed of sweetgrass, never letting your lips go. Not to breathe, not to say something that’ll pale in comparison to the sweetness of your mouths on one another. He kisses you until he’s had enough to fulfill a lifetime without it, and then some more.

“My love,” he whispers into your skin, his breath hot on your collarbone. “Mine,” he says, pressing a kiss into the column of your neck, and then he says it again with a hot kiss to the place where your dress suggests your breasts. He says it a handful more times as he pushes your skirts up your thighs. “My love forever. I waited for you so long, and I would do it again.” Lowering his voice to a honeyed whisper, he adds, “I would find you no matter what.”

Laughing softly, you run your fingers through his raven hair to better see his eyes. You know he would.

Gently giving you one more of his lingering kisses that make your skin tingle, right into your bare shoulder, he presses into you. You loose a soft breath, wrapping your arms around his shoulders. The beating in your chest slows to a content purr as he begins languid thrusts in and out of you, rolling pointedly and unhurried.

Yeonjun makes love to you in a thousand dusted kisses and sweet words, your hands holding each other’s soft edges. Yeonjun traces the lines of you, taking the pads of his thumb down your cheeks and your lips and then his hand over the swell of your breasts and down your belly and over your thighs. Clamping down on him as your belly grows tight in the way it had the first time you had done this, your thighs begin to shake.

 Breathlessly, as you hurdle over the edge, all that you can say is, “I love you, ‘Junnie.” 

Yeonjun smiles at you and then presses his face into your neck. He doesn’t even brace himself against the grass to chase his own peak. Neither of you want this to end; you want to hold on to this moment and let it span forever. Slowly, Yeonjun rolls up into you until his hips finally stutter and he cums into you, his cheeks pink. The weight of him above you as he shakes with your shared ecstasy, and even as you both have come down and are nothing but lazy, is the only thing in this world. He is the only thing in this world.

Once you’ve both evened your breathing out, you roll apart and face each other, still just two forms bending the grass into your shapes. Blinking slowly and digesting his features one at a time—the angle of his eyes, softened but never tamed, the line of his nose, the line of his mouth always so proud and playful, and that pretty dot below his left eye—you let them solidify fully in your mind.

“Yeonjun,” you say, finally meeting his eyes across from you. “I want to go. I’m ready.”

The gentle, knowing look that he gives you soothes over the way your heart begins to race in your chest in rebellion. “I know,” he says.

Of course he had known. Yeonjun had been called here to ferry you into the afterlife. Chewing on your lip, you will your hands to not shake as you curl toward him. You’re no longer scared of going. You know that if you’ll be with him, it will be okay. It won’t be so scary. A hot tear rolls down your temple and then drops into the rover of your hair. “Will you be with me? I won’t be there alone? I’m scared.”

He tucks some hair behind your ear reverently and then leaves his hand there. “I don’t know,” he answers. “But I won’t leave you. I’ll stay right here with you.”

You lay there for a long time. Chatting and giggling and just looking into each other's eyes, until your heart becomes slow and all you feel is the wind singing in your blood. Yeonjun presses one final kiss to your forehead.

Maybe, in some years, somebody might dig up your bones and find you immortalized like this in your love. Your bones bowing toward each other, as if even death were not enough to stop you from reaching for each other. Or maybe they’ll just find yours, and Yeonjun still curling into them how you know he will for an eternity more.

Either way, the going is still slow and gentle, as death always is.

🪶 ⦂ tears. omfg i cried writing this which could totally be me being a bitch baby but it DAMN. omfg.

rꫀׁׅܻblogs & asks arꫀׁׅܻ always apprꫀׁׅܻciatꫀׁׅܻd!

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[a-stars-art-blog]

#3 for those two ace attorney gays you're always drawing 🥰

#3 Something in canon you dislike

YOUUUU knew what you’re doing…making me say something bad about my darlings that totally never did anything wrong-

ANYWAYS…

Barok - do I even have to say it?? Do I REALLY even have to say it??

That’s the easy and obvious answer so I’m gonna say something else.

Wish he had some more variety in his animations. Most of the time, they’re pretty subtle. Only the slightest of movements. Very boring.

Albert - I am actively struggling to think of something…he’s just too silly!!!

I mean, the way he stubbornly kept self sabotaging his trial for the sake of his hypothesis is understandably annoying. But I kinda admire his dedication and I kinda like the trope of characters loving their creation to the point where they’ll sacrifice themselves for it. It says a lot about the character which i appreciate. It’s kinda sad actually.

And actually for both-

The fact they don’t keep in touch for 10 years is pretty upsetting :((( we don’t get reasons why but it’s not hard to assume of VERY plausible reasons why. It’s just a shame they consider each other close personal friends but didn’t write to each other.

But at the same time, it’s actually cute that they can still think deeply of each other after all that time