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vitaminkyeom · 4 months ago

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telephone || k.mg

“NOW IT'S TIME FOR ME TO RETURN THE FAVOUR”

PAIRING || Mingyu x Female Reader

GENRES || Horror, 911 Operator!Mingyu, Romance

SUMMARY || Working the night shift as a 911 operator was hard as it is and the last thing Mingyu needed was those calls from his ex-girlfriend. Whom he had not seen in years. For obvious reasons of her being dead.

Or, in which, Mingyu kept getting calls from his ex girlfriend claiming that she had murdered him.

SERIES MASTERLIST || till death do us part

WARNINGS || inaccurate 911 stuff, description of murdered body, horror, mention of murder and ghost

WORD COUNT || 3k

A/N || If you recognise this story, no you don't. but anyways this was one of my most favourite works even though i'm not that great at writing horror so i'm really glad i'm starting off with this story for the series. i've tried my best to make it as scary as i could (sorry but im a pussy) so yeah any feedback would be really helpful!

TAGLIST || @monamipencil @nonuify @black-swan-blog27 @hipsdofangirl @wonuilu @kibs-and-bits @unlikelysublimekryptonite @gyuguys @hanicore @alyssng @hyneyedfiz @weebotakuboy @aaniag @thepoopdokyeomtouched @caramyisabitchforsvtandbts @sea-moon-star @hrts4hanniehae @athanasiasakura @doubleshoticedshakenespresso @asasilentreader @isabellah29 @mrswonwooo @nonononranghaee @hoichi02 @cheolsboo @dinossaurz @variety-is-the-joy-of-life @tinkerbell460 @bluewbwerry @hoeforcheol @kawennote09 @iamawkwardandshy @winterbeartaehyungbestboy @jjeongddol @k-drama-adict @mnstxmnbb @stervahaha @escoupseu @wonvsmile @mansaaay [if you want to be added to my taglist please fill in this form!]

“911, please state your emergency.”

Static. He waited for a minute more but there still wasn’t any sound coming from the other side.

Mingyu sighed exasperatedly, sure that this was another prank call. Halloween night was looming close which also meant teenagers found it funny to call the operators up at night to scare them.

But he was used to this. Which was funny because Mingyu was the biggest scaredy cat in his group and could not even watch Scooby Doo without whimpering at least once. But he took his responsibilities very seriously and there was no way he was going to let his fear come in the middle of his work.

He was about to hang up the call when he heard a sound. Immediately he jerked back the phone to his ear and strained them to hear anything, but all he could hear was a buzzing sound.

“Hello? How can I help-”

“Help.”

He inhaled sharply, the woman’s raspy voice very clear in the empty office. Mingyu was the only one serving night shift in his floor currently, and the only thing accompanying him was the soft beeping on the seven screens in front of him and the buzzing of the fluorescent tube lights above him.

“Ma'am, are you in a position to tell me what is happening?”

His fingers flew across the keyboard, noting down the number first and then quickly texting the other department to find out the location of the call.

“Pl-please help. Make him stop.” The woman whispered, her ragged breath harsh against his ears.

“Make whom stop? Can you tell me who is near to you, ma’am?”

Mingyu felt an unnatural calmness settle into his bones, one that always came whenever he forced himself to calm down in such situations.

A message dinged on one of his screens indicating that they had traced the nearest cell tower of the cell phone.

“Officer Lee.” He said, already on the other line, talking to the nearest official he could see. “We have a 911 emergency of abuse.”

“Roger that. Address?”

“It's…” Mingyu’s voice trailed off on seeing the address.

No way- How was that possible? There had to be some mistake right?

Because the address was of his house.

He cleared his throat, sure that the address was wrong since they tracked the nearest cell tower, and that could be kilometres away from the destination.

“Uh, the address shows my house. I… I think you need to be on the lookout for areas near my house.”

There was a pause, as though Seokmin seemed to be trying to process this information. Seokmin had been good friends with him, so Mingyu knew that even he found it odd, especially when his neighbourhood was a safe and nice one.

“On my way.”

“Ma’am,” Mingyu said, back to line one, “if you could tell me your name or your address, or even what is happening to you, I could help you out better.”

His eyes were trained to look at all the monitors at once, one monitoring the small dot that represented Seokmin heading towards the destination, another with a blank form about the caller and another one where he was rapidly typing what he was hearing, ready to call in other emergencies in case he heard something important.

“Help! Why don’t you help me? Please help!”

“Ma’am help is on the way, please calm down-”

He was interrupted by a loud pop as all the lights went out, the only source of light now being the soft glow of his computer screens. The room was now lit up eerily and he felt the hair on the nape of his neck rise up. Mingyu wasn’t very scared of the dark ever, but the growing sounds of gurgling and growling in the telephone line was causing shivers to travel down his spine.

“Mingyu…” The woman rasped, this time sounding like she had gargled razors, her screeching voice turning his blood to ice.

How did she know his name?

Goosebumps rose all over his skin as his breathing came out in sudden pants, feeling an icy invisible hand wrap around his neck. He sucked in a breath harshly and with a jolt, he realised how lonely he was, not a single soul on his floor whilst he was plunged in darkness.

Then the call cut off abruptly, and at the same time, the power surged back to life.

Yet, the cold feeling hadn’t left Mingyu as though he could still hear the woman gargling in his ear.

“Mingyu?”

He jerked as the second line suddenly came to life, Seokmin’s voice clear through the landline.

“H-Hey. Did you find anything?” He tried his level best not to sound shaken, but it was hard because the more he tried to ignore wherever had just happened, the more the gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach grew.

“Nothing. We will be needing to get a more specific address. Your entire apartment seems safe to me. Is she still on the line?”

Mingyu exhaled harshly, rubbing his chest with his hand to calm down his heart that was beating too fast. He then realised how dry his throat had become, and quickly took a sip of water before continuing.

“No. She cut the call. I- uh, I don’t think she needs help anymore. She sounded alright at the end.” He said, wincing having to lie. He still couldn’t shake off the feeling of horror he had felt when he saw his own address flash on to the screen.

“Are you sure? Shouldn’t we follow the protocol still-”

“She told me so herself.” Mingyu snapped, and Seokmin shut up, not saying anything more.

He sighed, rubbing his template, trying to forget what he had just heard. But it was like the noise had been ingrained into his brain. He could hear it even now, even though there were many other small sounds beside him.

But being a 911 operator, there was bound to be such horrors, right? He had heard some similar stories of ghost calls from his superiors. Maybe this was one of them?

“Well then…I suppose that’s it huh?” Seokmin cut the silence, causing Mingyu to flinch as he jumped out of his thoughts. “Are you calling it a night?”

Mingyu felt his heart leap to his throat.

Calling it a night? On any other day, he would have loved to crash on to his bed but all of a sudden going back to his house, the place where this lady claimed to be at, seemed like a distant nightmare, something which was waiting for him to tear him apart.

“Uh, n-no. I’ll continue my shift I think. Besides, Seungcheol won’t wake up if I call him now.”

“Hey, are you okay?” Seokmin asked, concern lacing his voice. “You sound…scared.”

“I’m fine.” Mingyu swallowed thickly, feeling a patch of sweat that had formed on his forehead as he tried rubbing his temples.

“We’ve dealt with these before, right?” Seokmin asked again, trying to sound bolder for his sake.

“Y-yeah. Yeah. We have. I’ll… hang up now.”

As soon as the phone went down, Mingyu buried his face in his hands, trying to forget the horrible sounds he had heard on the phone.

But the more he tried to forget them, the more he was convinced that they were no more voices in his head, but were coming from the room. It was almost like he could hear the noise coming from behind the door.

I’m probably just hearing things.

He got up and decided to get some fresh air. He walked to the door and paused, the sound still ringing in his ears. Clutching the door knob, he took in a deep breath and with his eyes screwed shut he turned it open, bracing himself for whatever lay ahead of his.

Silence greeted him as he slowly peeled his eyes open, looking around tentatively for anything that might jump on him out of the dark.

Ding!

The sound of the elevator’s beep caused his heart to nearly stop, the sudden sound cutting through silent night that was almost engulfing him. He felt his entire body freeze as all he could do was watch the numbers on the screen of the lift increase until it reached his floor, limbs paralysed with fear.

With another soft ding! the lift door began sliding open, and Mingyu found himself almost begging that he shouldn’t be greeted by someone, or something, once the lift door opened.

The dim blue light of the lift spilt out as Mingyu watched in terror, but to his relief only emptiness greeted him back. He looked at his own reflection in the mirror of the elevator.

Mingyu looked deathly pale, his eyes tired and haggard like he had just seen a ghost. His cheeks were hollow and he felt his stomach lurch when his reflection wobbled, indicating that that the lift was about to close.

And then the lift shut close, leaving him alone with a pin drop silence that almost felt suffocating.

Weren’t there others who had night duty? Because there was no way he was all alone in the building, right?

The thought was enough to cause his stomach to lurch, and he swallowed thickly wondering if he should call someone to take his place.

But his house! Mingyu could feel goosebumps rising on his skin the second he thought of his house.

What if she- that thing was still lurking around his house? Or worse, was actually in his house.

The ringing of the telephone cut through the silence like a blade, causing him to jump a mile. His reflexes kicked in though, and clutching his painfully beating heart, Mingyu ran towards his computers to pick the emergency phone call.

“911. Please state your emergency-”

“Help.”

Mingyu froze, the familiar voice draining out all the blood from his cheeks again.

No way.

He wanted to cut the call, wanted to block out whatever this woman was about to beg for because her voice was like icy daggers to his skin, rekindling his fear like never before. Mingyu had never felt so terrified in his life before.

“Please help… Mingyu.”

It was like her whispering his name had opened Pandora's box, and lots of emotions hit him at once. He couldn’t even question how she knew his name because that wasn’t what terrified him the most.

But it was the familiarity of the voice of the woman. A voice he used to hear almost every day before it was snuffed out of his life suddenly.

“Y/N.” He whispered, fear clutching his stomach as he felt his heart hammer in his chest.

In the empty office he could only hear his own ragged breathing and the slight buzzing sound coming from the phone.

But how was this possible?

Because you had died six months ago.

Or rather, you had been killed in his apartment. Murdered in cold blood even though it didn’t make sense because you were the sweetest and most caring person he had met in the world.

At first, he had been charged with murder. Those two months of investigation had nearly driven him mad. It was hard as it is dealing with your death but constant poking of the police made it even worse.

Finally he was set free due to the lack of evidence.

Even thinking about you made his head throb.

“Help please.” You rasped again. “Help me-”

“Where are you?” He whispered urgently, not sure why he was even asking questions. Because this had to be some sort of sick joke, right? Or maybe- maybe he was hallucinating after all. Hallucinating that you had come back to life to get some sort of closure.

“In our apartment! Why aren’t you helping?” You sobbed on the other end of the line.

He felt his head spin. Whom was he even talking to? With each word your voice turned more and more raspy and he could feel the familiar fear returning.

“If you don’t help me he’ll-”

Mingyu heard you gasp, followed by a whimpering as he heard someone slap you.

“Y-Y/N?” He asked, though he truly didn’t want to know what had happened to you. Was the person you kept mentioning your real killer? Then… was this your ghost he was talking to?

“Stay away.” A male voice spoke into the telephone suddenly, causing him to nearly fall off his seat. The hair on his arms and necks stood up at the familiarity of the voice.

“Stay away." He repeated.

He could hear his own voice on the other side of the telephone line asking him to stay away and Mingyu felt his head spin at the thought.

The telephone nearly slipped from his sweaty hand as he tried taking in a deep breath to calm himself down.

"And- and who’s this-”

“Just stay away from us.” He heard his own voice command him, before the line disconnected finally.

“Who was that?”

Mingyu jumped from his seat, hands flying to his mouth to prevent himself from screaming, until his eyes landed on Seokmin.

“You- you scared me!” He hissed, rubbing his sweaty forehead while trying to calm his shaking body down. What had just happened?

No way he had been talking to himself, right? How was that even possible?

Seokmin raised an eyebrow, walking towards him and sitting down on a chair opposite to him?

“Did I scare you? Or that call did?”

Mingyu looked away.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came to check on you.”

“I’m fine.” He snapped, wiping his sweaty face with a tissue. The last thing he needed was Seokmin asking too many questions before he started questioning his own sanity.

“You’re not. You asked the caller whether she was Y/N.”

Mingyu shivered involuntarily at the memory, giving away his fear.

“It sounded like her.” He lied, not wanting to remember what had just happened. Maybe if he was nonchalant about it Seokmin would leave him alone.

“Are you sure? That call before was unusual, coming from your house.” Seokmin said, still concerned. “It's okay to be shaken up by this, you know.”

He exhaled out, trying to calm down his nerves as much as he could.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry. Pretty sure it was a prank. I mean,” He forced out a laugh, which sounded odd against the silence surrounding the two of them, “How can it even be Y/N? That makes no sense. I probably miss her a lot. That’s why I can hear her everywhere.”

“You should go home.” Seokmin cut him, patting him on the shoulder. “I think you need to rest a bit if you’re that stressed out. Sometimes, stress causes us to see and hear things that are not real. ”

Mingyu opened his mouth to protest, feeling dread fill the pit of his stomach at the thought of going home, but with the way Seokmin was staring he knew he didn’t have an option. Or else he would need to explain how he heard his own voice speak to him and ask him to stay away.

Stay away.

Was that a warning, then? Was it a big mistake going back to his house?

But with the way Seokmin was staring at him, Mingyu had no other option but to get up slowly and pack up his things. His hands wobbled, causing him to nearly break his favourite mug, but he managed to force a smile and walk to the elevator, knees threatening to give out any second.

Once inside the elevator, Mingyu chose to stare at his reflection’s nose, unable to meet its eyes. Something told him that seeing his reflection eye to eye would not be a good idea.

Please hurry up. Please open the door fast-

His heart jumped again as his phone rang suddenly, cutting the heavy cold silence which was accompanied by the occasional soft dings.

"Hello?” He whispered, wondering who was calling so late at night. It couldn’t have been Seokmin since he had his number saved, right?

“Why did you kill me?”

Mingyu froze, unable to breathe anymore. How did you-

“Y/N? How did you- Kill you- What are you talking about?” He panted, stumbling back to support his wobbly legs with the help of the wall of the lift.

All of a sudden the air felt cooler, and his clammy hands seemed to be unable to grip the hand bar of the lift. His eyes darted to the equally petrified reflection and a yelp escaped him, phone dropping to the ground.

Because standing right beside his reflection was you. You, looking just like how you had the day you were murdered. Except there was blood all over your dress and multiple stab marks on your chest and stomach.

You smiled at him sweetly.

“Don’t you know? You killed me. Well, not exactly you. It was Mingyu. But he is you, you are him, right?”

His legs finally gave away as he pushed his back into the walls of the elevator, terror filling every single of his senses.

Helphelpelphelp-

He heard the lift ding as it reached the ground floor. Crawling to the buttons of the lift, he frantically pressed the open button, eyes not leaving your face as you grinned at him, baring your bloody and broken teeth.

Finally the door opened and Mingyu darted to crawl out but froze almost immediately, feeling his heart stop for real this time.

“No.” He sobbed, as he watched the real you walk towards him. Edging back, he felt his heart hammer painfully hard in his chest, every bit of rational thoughts leaving him as you stepped into the elevator.

You leaned towards him much to his terror, and Mingyu screwed his eyes shut as he finally accepted his fate. His breathing eased a bit but he could still feel how tense his entire body was, adrenaline rushing coursing throughout his body.

I don’t want to go.

“Now it’s time for me to return the favour.”

A/N: Please do tell me what you think about this story!! I worked really hard on it and I would love to know everyone’s thoughts on it~ Comments and reblogs are appreciated!

#fics.#telephone.#svthub #mingyu x reader #kim mingyu x reader #seventeen x reader #svt x reader

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fbfh · 2 years ago

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tristin dugray relationship and intimacy hcs pt 2

wc: 1.1k

pairing: tristin x (implied fem) reader

genre: straight up smut with some mild feelings

warnings: brief mention of exhibitionism, debriefing with madison and louise, aftercare, cuddles, car sex, sex in a variety of places, cockwarming, nudes, brief mention of oral (m recieving)

song rec: mary - alex g (bc this is literally tristin's song. it's so fucking tristin coded.)

a/n: so good news I think my adhd medication is finally working lol

tags @yesv01 @magcon7280

As with all nsfw works all characters are aged up to 18+

WITHOUT FURTHER ADIEU MORE TRISTIN SMUT BC I’M FOAMING AT THE FUCKING MOUTH

What’s fun about Tristin

Among many other things

Is his fixation with your hips

Seriously it was one of the first things this horny motherfucker noticed about you

Whenever you wear anything mildly form fitting he can’t take his goddamn eyes off your hips

Once you’re together it’s basically impossible for him to resist touching them

Sometimes it’s a playful squeeze

Or an affectionate rub

Other times it’s full on groping while he shoves his tongue into your mouth and makes you grind against his thigh

He could live like that for days and not get tired

Speaking of

Tristin has fucking stamina for DAYS

“Men can’t have multiple orgasms” tell that to him!!!!!!!!

He just… has a fixation with all of you honestly

Like there’s no part of you that he’s not going to eye the fuck up

You know the looks he’s always giving Rory????

That’s just the tip of the iceberg babe

Or should I say tip of the penis lol

Anyway

Tristin is vocal as FUCK

Like mans can’t shut up

Even when we’ve reached the previously mentioned dumbfucking point, he’s still going to be whining and grunting and panting nonstop

His moans have you gushing like niagara falls tbh

There is a zero percent chance he’s not going to give you the most affectionate aftercare every time too

So much praise and kisses and cuddles

Like he’ll genuinely get upset if you try to just bounce afterwards

Or worse

If he wakes up the next morning and you’re not there

Maybe he could handle casual hookups with other girls

But not with you

He will absolutely pull you back into bed and demand kisses and cuddles

I’m not gonna lie

He does have a little bit of an exhibitionist streak

Just a tiny itty bitty one

Mostly just from the urge to prove that you’re his when other guys keep flirting with you

If the circumstances were right and you were down, he would be happy to put on a show for them, show them how good he treats you

If you’re still friends with madison and louise/go to the same college as them they will BEG you for details and live vicariously through you

The line where they saw Tristin and Summer making out in front of Rory’s locker and one of them (I forget which one) was like “if you’re dating Tristin you have the right to make out anywhere and everywhere”

…

Yeah

They will literally grill details out of you

Whatever they can get

And the way they look at him after

The little sighs and head tilts and staring off into space thinking about what you told them, letting their imaginations go wild

It would make you jealous

If you didn’t know how much he likes you

But yeah there’s no one that can take you away from Tristin

He loves you

And he loves keeping things fresh and spicy and exciting

He absolutley fucks you in his car a lot

Like a lot lot

There’s at least a few pairs of your panties that you’ve lost somewhere in the fancy leather seats

He’ll also happily fuck you in your car

And every room and surface of your apartment

And your apartment hallway

And in an elevator once

And public bathrooms

And your bathroom

And pretty much anywhere he thinks yall can get away with

Seriously this boy is such a slut but he’s only a slut for you

You light him on fucking fire and he can’t cope

He needs you biblically,, like in a way that’s concerning to feminism.

You can tell how he feels just from the way he looks at you

And it’s obvious as shit to everyone else too

Like literally everyone

He eye fucks you a lot lot lot

GOD this boy can seduce you so fast

He moans so loud for you too

Tristin will really give you a good show

He wants to impress you

Wants you to need him

(cough cough praise kink)

He wants to breathe the same air as you

He wants to wrap you up so tight in his arms that it feels like you’re merging into one person

Tristin is the “cuddling isn’t enough I need to climb inside your skin” kinda clingy

Solution is cockwarming

Which you both love a lot

Once he realizes cockwarming is an option?????

It slowly increases in frequency

There’s a good chance you won’t be able to sleep without it at some point

Seriously he will hold you tight and rub your back and touch your soft skin and tell you all the lovey dovey things he feels about you

Most of it is lovey dovey

But don’t let that fool you

He is the CEO of both his family company AND dirty thoughts about you

Seriously he’s set off so easily by you

9 times out of 10 he’s probably fantasizing about you

Remembering your touch

How you feel around him

God he can’t wait to get his hands on you again

Let me tell you

Tristin is a motherfucking MENACE when it comes to sexting

He will have you blushing over the phone in ways you didn’t know you could blush

He’s so shameless about it too

If you send him nudes??????

He will literally die

And he’ll happily, happily return the favor

Once he realizes how you react when he sends you nudes?????

He never wants to stop

He literally loves getting you all feral and worked up over him

Don’t let Madison and Louise find out Tristin sends you nudes or else they will steal your phone and make a copy of your fingerprint with sticky tape and face powder just to access them /hj

Speaking of going feral

Tristin’s happy trail?????????

Are we gonna talk about it??????

Are we gonna talk about how you want to fucking bite him and deep throat him until you memorize every vein whenever you see his lil happy trail????

Because you will

You’ll definitely want to

Okay putting myself down now lol

I need his cock immediately

Constantly covered in hickeys and unable to walk and he loves it so much

He loves when you need him and he loves fucking you so good that you’re out of commission the next day

It’s what you deserve

You think he’s a menace now???

God help you when he gets baby fever

#tristin dugray #tristin dugray smut #tristin dugray x reader #tristin dugray headcanons #tristan dugray smut #tristan dugray x reader #tristan dugray #gilmore girls smut #gilmore girls x reader #gilmore girls #he is so biteable #i want to bite him

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flameswallower · 1 month ago

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THE BEST FICTION I ENCOUNTERED IN THE SECOND HALF OF 2024!!!

A much longer follow-up to this post. (Can you imagine how much I'd need to type out if I hadn't split them up???)

Once again, I'm not listing movies, TV shows, video games, etc. I AM listing some web fiction and comics/graphic novels, because I feel much more qualified to judge and recommend those things.

____

Novels and Novellas!

Failure To Comply, by Cavar (2024): Reading Cavar’s Failure to Comply, I couldn’t help but think of the recent David Cronenberg movie Crimes of the Future. Both deal with dystopias in which bodies and their modification are strictly regulated, and people with unauthorized bodies form a vibrant, perpetually imperiled subculture on the margins. Both use this conceit to speak metaphorically about the plights of trans and disabled people, although Failure to Comply’s characters are also presented as literally, textually disabled and trans. But, although Crimes of the Future is often accused of being a “weird movie,” Failure to Comply is undeniably much, much weirder. Cronenberg is super normal compared to this.

Maej, by Dale Stromberg (2024): a doorstopper I found difficult to put down and finished inside a week; a work of very unapologetic genre fiction that’s equally unapologetic in its intelligence and dedication to doing strange, creative things with language; a high fantasy story I actually liked. The setting is the city of Sforre-Yomn, in the country of Hwoama, whose culture combines elements from across the continents of Asia and Europe. But Hwoama is matriarchal: men are subordinate to women, who dominate politics, business, the military, and nearly all other professions. As a result of this fact, almost all the major characters in the novel are female. By turns this presents a fun, simple, mischievous inversion of maleness as the unmarked default state for fictional characters, and meaty commentary on the social construction of sex, sexuality, and gender. Stromberg has cited Le Guin as an influence on Maej and, in the most complimentary way possible, this influence is evident.

Lote, by Shola von Reinhold (2020) is a gorgeous, funny, moving academic satire/mystery and love letter to Black modernism. It’s also very queer/trans and (in my personal opinion, perhaps not intentionally) very autistic. The title refers to a possibly-mythical clandestine circle of artists/magic practitioners who style themselves after the lotus eaters and seek transcendence via experiences of sensory and aesthetic pleasure. As with many novels that stand out to me, you won’t read anything else like it. I especially recommend this one if you want a completely unique, intellectually stimulating work of fiction, but are put off by the aggressively experimental and opaque style of Failure To Comply and by the SFF-ness of FTC, Maej, and Leech.

Walking Practice, by Dolki Min (trans. Victoria Caudle) (original 2022; English translation 2024) is a breezy, sexy *, gender-bending Korean novel about a poor amorphous space alien stranded on Earth after a spaceship crash. Unfortunately for us, this alien soon discovers that 1.) the most suitable food for it down here is human flesh, and 2.) with a lot of pain and effort, it can squeeze itself into the likeness of a variety of different human beings. It figures out hookup apps pretty fast, too, and then it’s off to the races. This may sound like creature horror, but it plays more as an exploration of identity and humanity, and a satire of sex, romance, and contemporary hookup culture. (*possibly less sexy if you don’t have a vore/cannibalism/consumption thing)

Love/Aggression, by June Martin (2024) is a BANANAS mundane fantasy-comedy about two trans women who are kind of best friends, and kind of enemies. Zoe (actress) is an arrogant, cartoonishly unpleasant minor celebrity who thinks she’s much more famous and popular than she actually is— but Martin manages to show how her personality is in part the sympathetic result of dysphoria and experiencing a lot of transmisogyny over the course of her life, and how she used to be a much kinder person before fame went to her head. Meanwhile, Lily (freeloader and aspiring tattoo artist) is a sweet, spacy, passive daydreamer, and a far more immediately likable character— but Martin manages to show how she is not entirely blameless in the ongoing drama with Zoe, how her passivity is sometimes the result of immaturity and selfishness, and how even when it isn’t, it’s a character flaw that keeps landing her in situations which kind of suck for all parties involved. They live in a magical Pittsburgh that is, conveniently, located right next to Los Angeles. Their friends include a BDSM cult leader and a nonbinary person whose name becomes “Dicks” in the first chapter of the story and who is never called anything else. (This character also happens to be the…owner? Custodian?…of an infinite, maze-like, reality-distorting building that is probably the most fun and least scary infinite, maze-like, reality-distorting building in all of fiction.) There’s vore in this one, too! But don’t go in expecting a particularly cohesive plot: Love/Aggression is far more about characters, relationships, and gags.

Maybe the Moon, by Armistead Maupin (1992) was inspired by the too-brief life of Maupin’s real friend Tamara De Treaux, a little person who depicted the title character in parts of the movie E.T. Her literary equivalent, Cady Roth, is a sardonic, fashionable, thirty-year-old little person who depicted a magical gnome called Mr. Woods in a beloved, albeit treacly, children’s fantasy movie of the same name. But since she played the role inside a thick rubber suit, and since the director of the movie felt it would spoil the magic to give her any credit, almost nobody knows that. Ten years later, she lives in obscurity on dwindling funds and struggles to find work…until, out of sheer desperation, she decides to take a job with a troupe of children’s birthday party entertainers. Romance, escapades, etc. ensue. Both a very funny book and a very sad one; it’s quite frank about death, about the ways Hollywood fucks people over, about the many ways that, especially if you’re marginalized and/or an artist, your life isn’t fair and isn’t ever going to be fair and “happy endings” probably aren’t what the world has in store for you. I think ultimately it’s sentimental in a good way; it has a big heart.

Leech, by Hiron Ennes (2022) is a total banger to finish out this year with! So glad I picked it up finally! Absolute genre jambalaya, this one: sci-fi, stuff that reads as fantasy despite having or probably having a “sci-fi” explanation, horror, Gothic novel (but not, crucially, a Gothic romance), mystery, medical thriller, character study, philosophical novel about ideas of consciousness, selfhood, individuality, and free will…there’s probably something in here for everyone reading this. You’ll love it, almost guaranteed, if you love the Gormenghast books. You’ll love it, almost guaranteed, if you love any Star Trek series. You’ll love it, almost guaranteed, if you love the science fiction of Peter Watts, or the horror of Gretchen Felker-Martin. You’ll love it, almost guaranteed, if you love The Thing (1982). The prose is lush, idiosyncratic, a bit purple, but it’s nothing too baroque, it’s all perfectly easy to read. The complicated, antiheroic protagonist/narrator is delightful and memorable, and I think Ennes did a great job at conveying unusual states of memory/selfhood/cognition through it/them/her. (Some of these states are not ones with which I have, or even could possibly have ever had, real experience, but some are, and I am always pleased to find those replicated in ways I can recognize and feel as “truthful.”)

Short Story Collections!

Stone Gods (2024) and Worse Than Myself (2009) by Adam Golaski contained several of the very best short stories I read this year— especially Worse Than Myself, which is also a slightly more accessible/“normal” story collection and the one I’d recommend starting with. Golaski writes eerie, dreamlike, bizarre fiction that frequently crosses over into horror— even including time-worn horror genre tropes like zombies, ghosts, and vampires. But let me tell you, Golaski’s “The Man From the Peak” (in Worse Than Myself) is a BAD time, like give-you-nightmares scary, and it feels like nothing you’ve ever read before, even though it’s about A Nosferatu. Not just a vampire, but a vampire that is explicitly described as egg-bald with big pointy ears and two sharp buck teeth. That’s the antagonist. And it fucking works. He makes it new. Please, please read Adam Golaski, you guys. It is astounding and unjust that he’s not popularly regarded as one of the 21st century’s best authors of weird short fiction. I don’t actually know if he could have/wanted to publish more than two collections over fifteen years, but I kind of feel like maybe if a lot of people and public libraries buy those two collections, he’ll have more space and incentive to write short stories, and/or more publishers will be interested in picking up another collection of his short stories?

Brave New Weird vol. 2 (2024) was a diverse, entertaining selection of stories. Some I’d read, some I hadn’t. A pretty good overview of the mostly small press horror/sci-fi/Weird fiction scene as it stands right this minute.

All Your Friends Are Here, by M. Shaw (2024) is almost the opposite of the Golaski collections, in a way: Golaski frequently deals with themes of nostalgia, the past, cycles that repeat without end, and timelessness or being outside of time. Moreover, most of his stories feel like they’d be immediately comprehensible to a person fifty years ago or fifty years from now, if not even further into the past/future (with, perhaps, a few footnotes of cultural explanation). But Shaw’s stories are, often aggressively, Of The Moment. And that’s not a bad thing, even if it means they may seem completely dated in a few decades. Shaw is interested in speaking directly to their place and time; directly to us. They’re not going to pretend we’re not all online, that we don’t all know (if against our will) what Ready Player One is— the longest piece in the collection, and one of the best, is a suitably pop-culture-reference-laden dunk/riff/spoof on, and rebuttal of, Ready Player One! These stories are angry and clever and sometimes suffused with a kind of exhausted tenderness. There’s clearly a Bizarro influence on some of Shaw’s work, but their writing is more sophisticated and restrained than what I tend to associate with Bizarro fiction proper.

Individual Short Stories (That You Can Read Right Now!)

“EGREGORE” by Samir Sirk Morató (2024) = clubbing, hallucinatory, girl on girl

“The Spindle Of Necessity” by B. Pladek (2024) = trans academic suspects dead author may have been a closeted gay trans man

“A History of the Avodion Through Five Artists” by Eric Horwitz (2024) = Borgesian, arch, Jewish

“Mad Studies” by Cavar (2024) = loneliness, cats, autism…like Failure To Comply, this is by @librarycards

“Alabama Circus Punk” by Thomas Ha (2024) = robots, the nuclear family, disintegrating language

Comics and Graphic Novels!

Tomorrow You Don't Know Me, by Raven Lyn Clemens (2024) is a subtle, moving, and unsentimental graphic novel about being a middle schooler with problems, and how sometimes those problems just kinda...persist no matter what you do or try or want, and no matter if it's fair. Even if you summon a demon to help you! Clemens is really skilled at depicting emotion visually, at communicating both the absurd goofiness and the deep, genuine pain of the outsize negative emotions her characters experience. All of her characters are at least a little wretched, and she also handles them all with great compassion, affection, and understanding. Check out her artwork at @ravenlynclemens please; it's fantastic cartooning even without any detailed narrative.

In Fair Verona, by Val Wise (2024) is a VERY gory, VERY nasty piece of lesbian Gothic fantasy horror-erotica. I love Wise's art. The bodies she draws, regardless of gender and build, are top-tier sexy and beautiful to me, which means he's often able to get me on board* with kinks and scenarios that would usually be too "extreme" for my taste. (*Genteel euphemism for arousal)

A Guest In the House, by E.M Carroll (2023) is an equally nasty and mean, but far, FAR less explicit and bizarre, lesbian Gothic horror story, told with the visual panache and inimitable art style everyone knows and loves Carroll for. It's a worthy successor to their previous material, and if it doesn't necessarily make enormous leaps from their earlier work in its writing, the drawing and coloring has gone from "already really good" to "some of these splash pages will blow your eyes out the back of your skull."

Expiry Date, by Sloane Hong (2024) is another lesbian/queer erotica comic. This one's science fiction, and is FAR more up my usual alley of kinks. Which is to say that the lovers are quite kind/polite with one another (in a lot of ways it reads as a meet-cute), but also one of them is a hired killer who dispassionately agrees to torture the fuck out of the other one David Cronenberg-style.

Once again, all my comic recs are by queer trans people! I think I made a pretty hacky joke last year about gay trans mascs specifically ruling in this field, but based on recent data, you just have to be a marginalized gender and not heterosexual to make amazing comics.

Web Fiction!

The Frenzy wiki is a fan wiki for an imagined TV series, telling the story of both Frenzy, a popular late 2000s ensemble cast drama-adventure-SFF show drawing equally from the likes of Twin Peaks and Supernatural, and how the existence of this show was mysteriously wiped from the face of our reality-- save in the troubled dreams of a select few. I would estimate it takes a couple hours to explore the whole wiki. (2022 or 2023?)

3D Workers Island is the phenomenal, if less ambitious, follow-up to Petscop. (I don't mean it's a sequel; it's just by the same guy and covers similar thematic ground.) Like its predecessor, it's more about dropping tantalizing hints than letting you in on "what's actually going on," and more about giving you a creeped out and vaguely depressed feeling than about scaring or shocking you per se. It's really smart and well-crafted in an understated way, and does a great job replicating early internet content. I would estimate it takes WELL under an hour to get through this story, although you will probably want to immediately go back and look for things you might have missed or not understood properly. (2024)

Martin's Movies is conventional, compared to the other two. It's a ghost story. But it's a very creepy, effective, well-told ghost story rendered through the unusual medium of letterboxd reviews (of course, these become increasingly diary-like and Not About The Film as the story progresses). I would estimate it takes under an hour to read the whole thing, it's like short novelette length. (2024)

#fine here's a rec tag

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kyushiblast · 1 year ago

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⤷ 〝 jealous much? 〞

➞ pairings : grusha , arven , & jacq ( separate ) x gn! reader

➞ summary : how they react when jealous.

➞ genre : fluff

➞ cw / other : nothing

➞ a/n : need requests y’all

❝ grusha ❞

— ♥ the incident of his career hadn’t just affected him physically, a mental toll was in state along with it including his bit of possessiveness for you.

— ♥ he can’t help it. after all, you’re on his list of most cherished. and as cheesy as it sounds, he’d hate losing someone so precious to him as he’d lost his occupation.

— ♥ so when he sees this person shamelessly hitting on you, of course he’s going to step in and say something.

— ♥ glaseado mountain has a few forms. sometimes calm, sometimes sharp and unforgiving as if mad at the people climbing its skin. grusha’s cold persona towards the person embodied that.

— ♥ would probably threaten to pokémon battle. just because he’s an ice type gym leader doesn’t mean that he’ll just have ice type pokémon on hand every time, so he’d most likely use varieties including those you’ve traded with him.

— ♥ he’ll be levelheaded as much as he can until the other person initiates a snap or an aggressive show, but either way in the end he’ll definitely come up to you and ask if you’re okay.

— ♥ expect a brief hug after, and maybe a few kisses or two. he’s not too big on pda, especially if some people come by to watch him battle and he’s waiting for the area to clear up.

— ♥ but the best part is him being in denial about being clingy afterwards. that’s when teasing him is essential.

❝ arven ❞

— ❀ he’s the type to be suspicious and accusatory first, ask later.

— ❀ will cross his arms and be sassy. maybe something like, “is this person bothering you, (y/n)? i can deal with ‘em.”

— ❀ when he’s jealous he’s obvious. he’ll pull you in more, scowl and throw sarcastic comments at the other person, and he’ll suggest to go somewhere else.

— ❀ WILL throw in a regular pokemon challenge to the other if it gets to that point. like might as well make it a tradition or smth to go up to someone and challenge them whenever lmao ,, wait that already happens

— ❀ arven would also grasp onto your arm or sleeve subconsciously, afterwards backing away and apologizing after the person’s gone for just grabbing your arm.

— ❀ “i hate it when people just keep persisting on someone even when they’re obviously taken…” arven would sigh, “…but hey, it means you’re hot stuff if people keep coming to take you away from me!”

— ❀ then he’d offer to go on a picnic or something, whatever you’d like. he’s just glad that you’re there with him, no matter what.

❝ jacq ❞

— ☾ the other person isn’t gonna take jacq seriously. i mean, he does look like he just woke up, with his laid back attitude and ruffled clothing. but the charm in it was something you could admire, and clearly the other person didn’t see that.

— ☾ he’s a lil irritated. not just because this person’s competing against him, but also because they have a solid chance.

— ☾ they looked better and dressed better, they were smooth with talking, and in no way did jacq feel as if he could compete properly against them.

— ☾ you seemed to sense his thoughts, holding his hand comfortingly. his heart, as if a weight was pushed off of it, immediately lightened.

— ☾ THEN he had the confidence to say some things. and after you both left the scene, a semi-heartbroken person left behind, he’d kiss you on the forehead thanking you for everything.

— ☾ sure, it was just a small scenario that doesn’t hold much significance in one’s eye. but it strengthened your relationship in the end, and as dorky as it seems, it mattered.

— ☾ jacq’s a good person. he just needs you there to remind him of it. give him one compliment and he’ll pay back tenfold.

work of kyushiblast , please do not translate , copy , or repost here or on any other platform !!

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dumbseee · 11 months ago

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boyfriend!iwaizumi when you’re a famous idol.

iwaizumi hajime x fem!reader.

genre: fluff.

warnings: bad english/grammar :p /mention of the kpop industry (in here, dating someone is less taboo than it is in real life) / first work so it’s not that good.

after high school, you left japan for south korea, you always had this dream of becoming a kpop idol. during your time in seijoh, you were already known for being an amazing dancer but also for your angelic voice.

iwaizumi would always brag about you to the volleyball team, oikawa would tease him about you leaving him for a famous korean actor, after you became famous. to which, iwaizumi would respond with a kick in his friend’s back. truth be told, he was actually very scared of what the future had in store for you two after high school. he didn’t know if long distance would work for you, or if you even wanted it in the first place.

during your last school day, iwaizumi walked you back home, like he always did, but he seemed out of it and almost, sad? you asked him what was wrong and he told you that if you wanted to break up with him to focus on your dreams, he’d respect your decision and always support you. he couldn’t even look at you, tears starting to form in the corner of his eyes as he tried his best to keep a straight face. his words surprised you and broke your heart because you never knew that iwaizumi could be so dumb to think that you’d break up with him like that. "no matter the distance, it will never make me forget about how much i love you, hajime."

so you left for south korea and he left for america to study. you two called each other everyday, when you two were too busy, you’d try to call at least twice a week. iwaizumi was busy with school and finals took all his time while your trainee program took up yours. but somehow you two made it work. a few years later, you debuted as a soloist and sold millions with your first album whilst iwaizumi came back to japan after graduating, and became an athletic trainer for japan national volleyball team. you couldn’t be prouder of him, and you were his pride. he streamed all your songs, putting them on speaker while the boys would practice, he brought all your albums and watched the variety shows you were featured in. he was basically the president of your fanclub. and he wasn’t ashamed of it.

you two always made sure to go together on vacation in a foreign country, where kpop wasn’t really the thing. the distance actually strengthened your relationship since being apart of each other for so long, made the reunion better. you knew iwaizumi was it for you, and he was also your muse for your music. your fans often joked about how inspired and how deep your love songs were. it made you laugh to read all their theories about you being married to a farmer. if only they knew…

iwaizumi never minded being your secret boyfriend, he actually liked it that way. he didn’t know if he could bare being in the public eye every time. knowing that you were south korea’s sweetheart, being your public boyfriend would mean saying goodbye to his peaceful life, and iwaizumi wasn’t ready for that. well, he wasn’t ready yet. one day, he woke up to his phone being blown up by messages, actually tons of messages, from the groupchat he shared with the japan national team. he even had missed calls from oikawa, and all his close friends.

shoyo: IWAIZUMI-SENPAIIIIII

SID YOU SEE HHE NEWS???

kageyama: learn how to spell, idiot.

ushijima: blowing up his phone isn’t the best way to announce something like that.

bokuto: HAJI-SAN IT’S TERRIBLE ARE YOU OKAY??

atsumu: JUST SHUT UP

let the man wake up peacefully damn

shoyo: IT WAS TO BE A FAKE NEWS RIGHT??

bokuto: YEAH L/N-SAN WOULD NEVER DO THAT

iwaizumi: what the fuck?

ushijima: you should check twitter, hajime.

iwaizumi had frowned, but went on twitter, an app you forced him to subscribe to. apparently it was the genz’s newspaper. to his surprise, your face was all over his feed, it wasn’t surprising because he liked everything about you, followed dozens of fan account and basically became a fan account himself. but what surprised him was seeing those big account talking about your "relationship" with a famous korean actor.

"l/n y/n, the famous soloist who stole everyone’s heart with her heartfelt songs and beautiful looks, is dating a/l a/n!"

his eyes widened as he typed your name to call you immediately. his heart was beating so fast as he didn’t know how to feel about this. of course it was fake news, right? he knew you’d never cheat on him, you loved each other and iwaizumi couldn’t see his life without you in it. he quickly became aware of how much he loved you and how important you were in his life. without you, iwaizumi would be nothing but an empty shell. "hajime? thank god, i tried to call you!" your voice made him release a breath he didn’t know he was holding. "you saw, right?" your voice was small and for a second he thought that maybe you called him to announce your new relationship with this dumbass actor. "yeah, it’s not that fun to wakeup to your friends blowing up your phone and news outlets talking about your girlfriend’s relationship with that fucker." he rubbed his face with his free hand. "these idiots took pictures of us while we were in cabo and thought it was a/n. apparently you two look alike." he heard you chuckle which made him feel warm inside. he hated the fact that he doubted you for a second. suddenly, an idea popped up in his head, a crazy one but still. "you have an award show in a week right?" he asked you, a smile tugging at his lips. "yeah, why?"

well, iwaizumi’s idea was indeed crazy but you didn’t care, you were down for it. and as your name got called in the category, "best female artist", iwaizumi was next to you, he stood up before you could even understand what was going on, and he kissed you. showing to the world, that you were his as much as he was yours. it was a crazy way to launch your relationship to the world, but you didn’t care, because as long as you were together, nothing could happen.

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juniperdugong · 6 months ago

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Forgot Your Lunch - Scoups

WC: 1023 || Genre: Fluff :) ...Angst :( || Happy (late) Birthday to this very handsome man!! ❤

A/N: If this does well maybe a pt.2 with what happened? (I totally don't have a whole story in my head about this fic alr...and this totally wasn't meant to be a teaser but got out of hand)

Some songs that inspired this fic!

Those morning hours, right before the sun shines in all its splendor, when most people are still resting their tired brains, and when quietness feels like a warm welcome to the day.

These were Seungcheol's favorite hours. The slivers of warm orange sunlight peaking through the curtains illuminating the space, giving the house a different type of glow. He relished in the fact that no one, not even you, was awake during this time. It gave him all the pleasure of gazing at your sleeping figure and giving you a few feather-light kisses before he actually got started with his day.

Seungcheol had gotten really into cooking when you two got together. Watched the tutorials, wrote down the recipes, and did a lot of the grocery shopping when he had the time - he even asked for help from Mingyu when he was really struggling. All of this effort put in for one simple goal - to be able to make your lunches for work.

He took great pride in making sure your lunch was not only healthy and balanced but nice on the eyes as well! Presentation was half the battle of cooking in his (humble) opinion.

Today wasn't any different, after haphazardly washing up he waltzed into the kitchen and chose a fitting playlist for such a joyful morning. He knows what to make, one of your favorites, a very simple and delicious spread of kaarage, a rolled omelet, rice, and a mix of fruits and vegetables cut up in the cutest little shapes! (Never forgetting the homemade spicy mayo, of course.) It's a specialty of his - and more than that - it was the first lunch he made you that you had raved about to your coworkers, only boosting his ego evermore.

Humming along to the music he went through the motions of washing and cooking the rice, setting out all the ingredients he'd need, and placing all the dishware on the counter in an assembly line. The few times that you'd woken up early enough to witness this practiced scene you'd have to admit that it was impressive the way he had gotten it all down to a T. Like a drill sergeant he would lead the charge in the kitchen, at least in the mornings, and if you ever dared to lift a finger…the earful you'd get before work- But what else can you expect from the most loving husband in the world AND the leader of one of the top kpop groups in history?

It's like everything, all the problems and worries, drifted away during this time. The sole issue in Seungcheol's entire world being what you would eat for the day. It was his way of showing you that he still cared and that he was still very committed. With a job that kept him away from you for such long periods of time and that took up all his energy and attention when he was home, it only felt right to do something as small as wake up before you and devote some time to you - even if you weren't always there to see it.

It would be a very hard task to try and tear away the smile that grew from him as he carefully assembled the different pieces of your food into a bento box. The only change in expression coming from the way his brows would furrow and his mouth would form a pout when he was ultra-focused with a knife or when he was gently making the finishing touches.

He took the chicken from the hot oil and placed them on a paper towel-lined plate - he knew how much you hated the excess oil when you ate. Turning off the stove in a swift movement he turned his attention to slicing the egg roll into perfectly proportioned pieces that you could eat in one bite. Then the fruits and vegetables - today's variety, some blueberries, leftover chocolate-covered strawberries, and a small salad with cherry tomatoes, all served with a small toothpick - he took note of that little comment you had made about how eating things with a toothpick makes the experience a bit more fun.

With a little jaunt in his step, he moved to put the puzzle together in an eye-pleasing manner. And once he was satisfied - he stepped back from his masterpiece. His gift to you. He looked at the clock-

8pm.

Oh.

It's night time.

That's right.

He stilled completely, coming back to reality. He left the kitchen with a ruffle to his hair. Dragging his feet into the bedroom he let his hands roam around the cold sheets, desperately searching for your warmth - your figure.

This was your bed too! The one you shared. C'mon, you remember, right? You're supposed to be here.

He looked out the window, no slivers of sunlight. Just the light pollution of a bustling city.

It's late and you're supposed to be home now, works done. It's supposed to be done.

He balled up all the sheets in his two fists and knelt on the bed. Gritting his teeth through tears that didn't dare hold back his emotions. And he punched that mattress so damn hard he could swear it felt like a human fighting back against him. The tangling of the sheets feels like Seungkwan and Dino holding him back from doing something else to hurt himself. He screamed so loud that his throat hurt, and he choked himself with the sound until red and veins popped. Drunk on something akin to anger but closer to loneliness he headed face-first into a pillow - but oh it was yours. The one you laid on just a few days ago. His tears and snot smeared across the blank canvas created a gross mirage but he didn't care. He let himself sit there, inhaling everything you left. Wailing into your remnants - curling up into your side of the bed, what would always be your side of the bed.

You forgot your lunch. It's here with him. "So come back, y/n. I'm really fucking sorry."

A/N: Hey guys...been a minute (a few days) And I come back with this- I do really like this though. Love me some happy memories and train wreck tbh. Let me know what you lovelies think! Have a great weekend or week, depending on when you see this. (protip DO NOT read this while listening to "The Place Where He Inserted the Blade" almost shat tears) Please Reblog and Comment if you enjoyed ! (They act as power-ups for me)

Taglist (OPEN): @bemybabiibish @bath1lda

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2amriize · 6 months ago

Note

riize who has a crush on idolreader on the same variety show as them

˚⟡˖ RIIZE when they are on the same variety show as their crush

ᡣ𐭩 masterlist genre fluff pairing riize x idol!reader

ᯓ★ SHOTARO

When Shotaro found out that he would be on the same show as you, he couldn’t help but feel excited. He’d had a crush on you ever since he first saw you perform, but since your groups didn’t cross paths often, he hadn’t had the chance to talk to you. At the beginning of the show’s recording, he greeted you, and you exchanged a few words. Throughout the recording, he couldn’t help but feel a bit nervous, laughing at everything you said and glancing at you from time to time. When the hosts asked everyone if they already knew any of the other members, Shotaro couldn’t help but say, "Actually, I’ve seen some of y/n’s fancams because they kept popping up on my YouTube page..."

ᯓ★EUNSEOK

Eunseok had had a crush on you for a while. He knew you had a lot of common interests, and he also found you very pretty. When he found out that you were also going to participate in a video game competition show, he couldn’t help but feel excited. On the day of the recording, he couldn’t stop smiling when he saw you, as you looked really cute. After a few minutes of recording, they announced that you had to form teams, and Eunseok looked directly at you. When you noticed, you looked back at him, locking eyes for a few seconds before you both got embarrassed. Nevertheless, Eunseok approached you to ask, "By any chance… do you want to be my partner?"

ᯓ★SUNGCHAN

Sungchan simply can’t hide it; his eyes give him away. RIIZE and your group were invited to a variety show since you were the most popular groups at the moment. According to what you were told, both groups would have to compete in various categories. It so happened that Sungchan and you were going to face each other in a physical challenge, as you were the most fit in your respective groups. However, the physical challenge turned out to be a balance test. You stood face to face, close to each other, and had to try to make the other lose balance (I hope you understand what game this is). Sungchan couldn’t stop looking at you, and he was also a bit nervous about how close you were to each other. It wasn’t a coincidence that, even though he was much stronger than you, he lost his balance when you gave him a slight push.

ᯓ★WONBIN

Wonbin… simply can’t hide it either. Several groups were invited to a popular variety show, and it so happened that Wonbin and you ended up sitting next to each other. Everyone noticed how Wonbin was looking at you, even the fans who watched the show later could sense how nervous he was when he was near you. You could even see a slight blush on his cheeks. The hosts also noticed this, so they didn’t hesitate to ask him why he was so nervous. “It’s just… I’m quite shy when I meet someone for the first time.” “Isn’t it because of someone in particular?” Wonbin was a bit startled by that question, letting out a small nervous laugh and discreetly glancing at you to see your reaction.

ᯓ★SEUNGHAN

He would be so excited. Although you had crossed paths a few times and exchanged a few words, you never had the opportunity to spend much time together, so he wanted to take advantage of this chance to talk to you more and get to know you better. Both of you were chosen to do some interviews and challenges on the street for a variety show, so during the recording, he was constantly paying attention to you, looking at you intently whenever you spoke. When one of the people you were interviewing asked if you were a couple, both of you laughed and shook your heads. “It’s just that he looks at you with love-struck eyes…” “No, no… it’s just that y/n is very pretty, everyone knows that… you could say I get hypnotized.”

ᯓ★SOHEE

In general, Sohee is very shy with new people, but he became even more shy when he saw you on the same variety show as him. Even the other members of RIIZE were surprised at how nervous Sohee was, as he couldn’t stop saying random things and laughing at every situation. He couldn’t believe that one of the challenges they had to do was in pairs, and you ended up paired with him. Both of you introduced yourselves shyly, even though you both knew exactly who the other was. For the challenge, one had to dance to a song without music, and the other had to guess it. You could see how happy Sohee was at that moment, smiling at you as you did the challenge. Surprisingly, you had great teamwork, so you won first place.

ᯓ★ANTON

When Anton found out that he had to pair up with you for the three-legged race, he couldn’t believe it. Out of the more than 30 people participating in the show, he was paired with you. He approached you somewhat shyly, and you exchanged a few words about how you would approach the race. You were surprised by how tall he was next to you, and what surprised you the most was how his voice didn’t match his appearance at all. “You can put your hand on my shoulder if you want,” he said as you were getting ready to start the race, to which you nodded and placed your hand on his shoulder. Due to the difference in height (and strength), it was a bit difficult to move forward, so Anton didn’t hesitate to gently place his hand on your back to help you. However, both of you were quite bad at most sports, so you ended up finishing last. You both looked at each other and let out a small laugh at how poorly you had done.

ᡣ𐭩 masterlist

taglist: @cherryishxo @gacktsa

#riize #riize imagines #riize scenarios #riize x reader #riize sungchan #riize shotaro #riize anton #riize reactions #riize wonbin #riize smau #riize sohee #riize seunghan #riize eunseok #riize fluff #2amriize #riize one shot #riize one shots

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hoseoksluna · 6 months ago

Text

SMOKE, v. | myg

pairing: idol!yoongi x smoke!oc (ft. jungkook & taehyung)

genre: smut, fluff

word count: 8.2k

summary: everything that hurt has stopped.

pinterest board: smoke / playlist: moon kitty's playlist / taglist: join / discord: join

warnings: yoongi is perfect, mutual masturbation, lots of lustful thoughts of sex and oral, yoongi's pov—literally the biggest warning, sex toys, desperation, praise kink, neediness, mentions of punishment & an actual punishment, too.

note: this might be the best chapter in the series and unfortunately, it's the last chapter i post before my hiatus. thanks to my bestest friend in the world, @tkslovechild, this series is finally moving forward somewhere and it's not a source of my depression anymore. i hope you all enjoy this chapter, my babies. see you after my hiatus. i will miss you all, terribly. luna loves you forever.

side note: make sure to listen to oc's playlist. it's so good.

The lights must be blaring, in the bizarre simplicity of our current happenstance, and the toys for adults must be tinged with a variety of colors, but my eyes are moored on the prismatic delicacy of her utter engrossment.

Pupils wide and swallowing each detail of the display of the instruments of pleasure, my cock is so tight in my pants that I struggle for air, my fists clenched by my sides, ever so ready to snatch the product she points at just so I could become the means to make that joy explode further in her. She teased me in the car with her naughty songs, with her coy glances at me to suss out whether I caught onto the meaning—when in reality I tried my fucking hardest not to give in to my imagination and crash my car. Her body was curled so divinely, facing me, and my hands gripped the steering wheel until the leather squeaked. We laughed about it, she blamed me for farting, and I longed to kiss her until she would shut up.

And I should have—because now she’s teasing me with her utmost fascination with a certain clit sucker.

Whatever color it is.

It was her idea to head inside this store. We drove around through the moonlit streets of Seoul for an hour, listening to her playlist reverberating throughout the vehicle. With the windows pulled down, the miscellaneous paraphernalia of her soul—the erotism of persona, the melancholia of her heart and the despondency caused from her pain—rumbling out of them, letting everyone see and hear the echo of her newly bloomed enthusiasm and the sprightliness of her being. She was alive at night, alive with me, liking the principle of me learning about her through this artful form. And I liked her liking that.

The songs spoke what our mouths couldn’t, communicating for us, because we acted as though my own pain didn’t break us apart. In the vivacity of the car drive, in the lapis lazuli of our own exclusive, atmospheric globe, I didn’t tell her off for being bare for me the previous morning. No, I took off her night dress and drank from the sweet nectar of her bosom, right there on the ivory of her plush couch until she drenched it so well that she blushed.

In fact, it’s the only thing I voiced out in terms of the conflict.

Perhaps it was due to the influence of her songs, laced with the heady aroma of her energy—fuck, if I know, but I didn’t regret my words.

Not this time.

And her glimmering cheeks flushed like they did in my imagination, tightening my cock in the easy way that she was only capable of doing. I seized the tension between us—and I might as well clasped my hand over her thighs, which were still turned to me, with how her breath hitched in her throat in reaction to my brazenness.

It was the reason why she wrapped her fingers around my wrist when we walked by that sex shop en route to the restaurant I chose, stopping me dead in my tracks. She held our sexuality close to her chest, not adding to it in the car, but unraveling it there, in the middle of the street, with strangers passing by. Gave me a look only a moon kitty like her could, mischievous yet innocent, and tilted her head in the direction of the store. And I knew, deep in my heart, that it was the little creature inside her that dragged me in—no longer neglected, but attuned to my attention, to my care and the respect I wafted towards her.

There were no two sides to her, and on no account did we stand on the opposite sides of the chessboard with our agonies, despite the fact all I could see was the monochrome of its pattern once I regarded her enthrallment.

Somehow, we are unified at this very moment, and I crave to buy her that clit sucker.

“Choose a color,” I rasp, and my cock agrees with me, twitching at the idea of her picking a color of her liking, one that can match her nails or perhaps the dark wine of her hair. One that bewitched me so profusely once I observed it under that soft white light of the interior of my car, its sleekness dipping into my heart that began to thunder for her. One that absolutely pales in comparison as I look at it now, the red dull and bleak, my sight unfolding in colors. My craving expands when her eyes widen at my seemingly brainsick idea, digging into mine while her tightened lips quiver in a smile. I smirk, enjoying her coy reaction, and I take this teasing into another dimension, austerely because I want to—and because I can, because we can. “Maybe the red one to match your hair.”

Her gasp melts into a delicate laughter that tickles my insides and, mindlessly, she runs her elongated fingers through the ends of her hair at her tummy. Taps her long, cross-embellished nail, on another package beside it. “This one has the thingy that vibrates inside you.”

It’s the same rose toy, but with a silicone attachment with a bulbous end. I’m not sure how those violent vibrations inside her walls can feel pleasurable for her, but the way she gazes at it—with a smirk akin to mine and lowered long lashes that languidly beat against the tops of her cheeks—propels me to seek my answer.

I take it in my hands, inspecting it further. And I notice that the petals hide a small tongue in their center, simulating an oral sex for her lonesome times.

Heat clings to my skin as I grow feverish. I am leaving for a tour in a few weeks. Who will be there to eat her sweet little pussy?

The apples of her cheeks blaze in pinkness, regarding me as she is, and I lick my lips. “This one licks your clit. Do you think it’ll do a better job than me?”

The rose tint deepens at my teasing words and all I can think about is how she’s gonna press those petals deeper and deeper into her folds, digging her long nails into the silicon surface just like she dug her nails into my scalp. And suddenly, I can’t take it anymore.

I fast forward.

“Do you want this thing or the bullet?” I ask her, impatient, but for what—I don’t know. What I do know is that I can’t stay in this place any longer with my imagination bursting forth and clouding everything negative I ever felt towards this girl. And while the newness crests joy and contentment in me, I need to be distracted from the lust that has become so natural between us. Or else, I bend her over in this aisle, rip the package open and use it on her while I fuck her dumb.

I might become unhinged. Just for her, just for the flush blanketing her features. Just so I have her positive feelings in my hands.

She’s too overwhelmed to respond, redder than her hair and it’s endearing. Kitty cups her face and turns around, letting me see her back, and I do the thing I unknowingly wanted to do the moment I inched closer to her.

I brush my hand down her noble spine, clothed in the sheer fabric of her tight top that exposes her camisole underneath to me. I hook my fingers on the belt loop of her baggy jeans and bring her back to me. Her gasp is so tender and so unlike her when she collides into me, her fists bunched on the top of my chest, her hair a mess—tangled on her forehead and eyelashes and I’m awestruck.

By her beauty, by the way there’s no end to her. And I want to keep acknowledging myself with the inexhaustible wholeness of her until I’m gray and stooped in the old age of my affection for her.

No gold, no golden power staining my hands. She’s silver and I am desperate for that moonlit glory to mist my veins. Privately, for me and her. A thing only we know of.

No Sun-mi, no Jungkook.

Pinching the strands of hair away from her face, she seems to be swimming in a thought I’m very curious about. Even more so, when she engages her hands and hangs them over my neck. Calmness relaxes the muscles of my stomach and I take a detailed note of that.

No anxiousness, no winged demons beneath.

This is right. This is how it should’ve been from the start. Playfulness, a little bit of lust, and a whole lot of exuberance. Nothing else, at least not this early on.

And even though I asked her a million naughty questions that I’d love for her to sophistically answer for me, something whispers in my gut that I should share my thoughts with her. And without a hint of fear, I do.

“This is good, isn’t it?” I murmur, tipping my chin, my body leading me to lean my forehead against hers and I do—I do, I do. Kitty sighs, oddly validating me, and I continue. “I mean I wasn’t planning on buying you a fucking clit sucker tonight, but I’m glad we’re here.”

She laughs and I lift my head, needing to see her expression of delight. And atypically, my mouth rounds in the same grin and the same laughter spills out of me.

One that breaks into an indecent groan when she finally graces me with her response.

“You know, they have rose toys for men as well. So if I’m getting one, you’re buying one, too.”

It’s like she palmed me over my jeans with her words, but I disagree with a fraction of it.

“Wrong. I’m getting you one.”

She appears to be stunned by my willfulness to not let her spend a dime when she’s with me, her mouth parted and her head cocking back just once. And when she closes her pretty, half-glossy mouth, curls the pillows under her teeth and drops her eyes, her palms sliding down my chest, she accepts it.

And I feel like a man, not a skeleton of who I used to be.

“You’ll be getting two, then.”

I chuckle. Draw near to her ear, sinking under the waterfall of her hair, and I hear her breathing harden. “I can get three if you can’t decide,” I flirt, pulling back more to edge her than to stuff my hand with the other toy that includes the bullet, holding it up for her. Her pools sparkle as she looks at them before perching up at mine, melting.

I bite my lip, feral; and I don’t wait for her to answer once I stack them up in one hand, pivoting on my feet.

“Wait.”

She steals the box with the bullet and puts it back to its original place. Replaces it with a male version of it, her smile cheerful and full of mischief. I take something else that I cover from her sight, which glides upon the display of all kinds of different cock rings and whatnot.

Little does she know what I intend to surprise her with as soon as she allows me back into her girlish lust.

My heart hammers in my chest in tandem with my cock as I pay for it. And I hope that she gets the memo.

That she’s not just a fling—and certainly not just a friend.

“Do you think your toy will pass through security?”

Had I not swallowed my noodles, I would’ve spat them out at her black little outfit. Kitty giggles at my reaction—at the frozen tension in my face as I gaze up at her from my bowl, the soup dripping from my chin. Our movements are simultaneous—hands letting go of our chopstick, but while mine reach for a napkin, hers rummage in the white plastic bag I set down on the empty chair beside me.

The table is too narrow, and it’s a blessing and a curse.

Her vanilla perfume hits my nostrils and I’m convinced it’s what the moon must smell like. The box of the male toy is overly big for her hands and her hair shields her from me as she discreetly reads the description and the instructions. I widen my legs under the table, my bloodstream focusing on only one body part of mine, and I wonder if that’s what she was truly thinking of while she ate her own bowl of noodles.

Fucking myself with a rose fleshlight. Away from her; across the sea.

Jungkook must’ve told her about our tour. I wasn’t going to mention it tonight because I didn’t want to ruin the night with the sombreness of my work. As much as I looked forward to seeing our Army from that side of the globe, I wasn’t happy with the decision installed upon us—wasn’t happy that our management didn’t ask us about our feelings, whether we’re ready for it or not. It was more of a—you have a job now, do it well, cameras will be rolling—and that was the end of it. Namjoon sensed my dissatisfaction, slouching in his chair in front of me, with his jaw propped between his fingers and his eyes piercing through me but he, too, couldn’t say a thing.

None of us could.

It cast me to a deeper sea of my anguish that I didn’t want to stream into my ordinary life with Kitty. I was going to tell her as soon as my fresh emotions would’ve settled and we would’ve settled to the same extent, though having the toy be in the center of it changes everything now.

It’ll be different.

I won’t be a puppet, channeling my humanness through my love for our beloved Army. On the contrary, I will be a dancing fool, knowing I have someone waiting for me back in Seoul while being the epitome of my deepest longings and sentiments overseas. My heart, the toy and the means of our communication.

I wasn’t going to bring the toy with me because if the members were ever to find out, I wouldn’t live it down. But if it makes that sparkle in her irises last a little longer, I shall put extra care into hiding it at the bottom of my suitcase.

“You want me to take it?” I ask, softly, leaning back in my chair, one hand on the table, the other across my thigh. Her smile curves as she glimpses up at me, and I still can’t believe she pulled out an actual sex toy in a restaurant filled with hungry drunken people. If anyone recognizes me, I’m fucked. Majestically, devastatingly fucked if they take a picture, the said picture gets to our management and I have to write an apology letter on Weverse afterward.

I’m sorry for having a personal life with a beautiful girl who’s unlike any shallow pretty faces I’ve come across. I will be more mindful of my actions in the future.

Fuck that.

She can take it out of the packaging and see if it needs to be charged before we can use it if she so much as wishes so.

We.

Yes, that’s right.

I’m not the same person I was yesterday, and something tells me that I have her to thank for that.

“Well, I’m sure the Christmas spirit will get to you and you’ll be lonely. Also, let’s not forget it’ll be cuffing season most of all.”

It’s funny she says that, considering what I secretly bought for her. Hysterical, in fact. Hilarious.

It’s hidden in the pocket of my jacket, so even though she followed her curiosity into the bag, she still doesn’t know about the surprise that awaits her. I took it out when I let her walk in front of me, discreetly. It brought me more joy than I thought I was ever capable of bearing.

Still, I wonder how much more of it I can be filled with. And I want to tempt it—brim with it. I reckon she’s the safest person to take that risk with, but the quiet, unknown voice in me adds that it’s not a risk at all.

Quite the opposite.

And the idea of cuffing her, both literally and figuratively, draws me closer to that cliff of brisk water of that ultimate joy and I want to get soaked. I want to drink.

I want to be cleansed by it.

“Would you like to be cuffed by me, little one?”

It was automatic, the pet name streaming out of my mouth like that mini waterfall I seem to be dazed by. The question, too. And I’m not afraid, not even a hint of dread crawls upon me, and I find myself hoping that it stays. That everything I do and say from now on is of that automatic matter, unabashed, not blocked, not held back.

I hope to be a real person with her. Without any ghosts, any demons. Any pain to scar her with.

The little one doesn’t smile this time, shrinks in her flummox, but still I don’t fear, I don’t wish to grasp my words and put them back in my throat. Taking little steps means grazing your knees and I’m here to place band aids on her bleeding spots.

I’m here for her.

And my belief is supported by my actions this whole evening.

The person I was yesterday is almost unrecognizable to me and I pray, I pray and I will pray once this night is over that it shall remain so.

“I’m not sure what kind of question you’re asking me right now,” she murmurs, leaning her elbows on the table, drawing close to me like I’m drawing close to her, and it’s good enough. I don’t ask for anything else from her.

“It’s the one you think it is,” I rasp, making her eyes widen slightly, and I have to chuckle. She’s so damn adorable, standing outside of her comfort zone, and my own eye is watchful over her, over her little steps, band aids ready in my hands.

At the sound of my soft laughter, she drops her gaze, running her tongue over the inside flesh of her cheek—and there it is. That kind heat rushing through her. I want her to be smoldered by it.

I want a lot of things when it comes to her, a phenomenon that forces me ponder if there ever will be an end to it. It’s better than feeling dissatisfaction regarding someone, digging a hand deep in them, expecting gold, yet plucking out stones that only cut your skin eventually. The more you dig, the bigger the wound. But I don’t have to do that in her. The little one, the moon kitty herself, gives it over, willingly. All of her silver moon dust, glory, and the ashes from her firelight.

Maybe that’s how it should be.

Not expecting, not reaching, but being given, being provided.

Her eyelids lift and descend over the package in her hands before they root upon mine. And her response to my words keeps me company all the way to America.

“Show me how well you can use this and I just might be.”

Dead or alive, I blur between the lines. Jet lagged or just sick with love, it is a conjoined affair in me like the two halves of my heart.

I miss her, even though I haven’t been able to unattach myself from my phone, the only tangible connection between us—the back and forth exchange of words, emojis and stickers that I had never used in my life but began to spam our conversations with once she coyly hid behind them. I miss her, even though I spent nearly every day with her until I boarded my flight.

In Jungkook’s hotel room, the members share a meal together while I stay back, settled comfortably on the beige couch by the floor-length windows as the morning sun shimmers its rays across the walls. I’m sporting a hard-on, which I camouflage with a rough-textured pillow across my lap, due to the contents of our text messages. Hobi is slurping his ramen next to me, elbows propped on his elbows, posture slouched, oblivious to the fact that the girl of his platonic dreams is horny and challenging me to join her in her evening self-care.

Yes, Hobi has developed a crush on the moon kitty and I was the first one to know.

During the last of our leisure time in November before the tour, Hobi called me up and asked me to join him on his last drinking adventure before our work duties swallowed us. He lured me into his apartment with the two bottles of Hennessy that he had bought for the occasion and we talked work, we talked our management and we talked girls.

He admitted to me how guilty he felt for triggering such unpleasant memories in Kitty’s mind after I shared with him the reason why I picked her up into my arms and walked away from him. I was purposefully vague in my speech, not wanting to disclose such privacy without her present, without her knowing especially, and Hobi respected that. Told me he thought about her since that day, remembering only the negative, tethered wisps that seemed to curl tightly in his gut. And I, drunk out of my mind, doting and devoted, shared with him that I wanted her.

Made sure to emphasize in my admission that she was mine.

It was the bravest thing I ever had done.

Hobi understood, explained to me that how he regarded her was strictly friendly. Thought that she carried a certain elegance of beauty that was unprecedented in today’s culture, however, with which I enthusiastically agreed. Then he clutched my shoulder, the wounded one, with extra tenderness, looked me carefully in the eye, and gave me a groundbreaking word of advice that shook through my world.

Don’t treat her like you treated Sun-mi.

I didn’t grasp the meaning until we opened the second bottle and Hobi, seeing my puzzlement, fleshed out his wisdom.

Don’t cling, don’t make her the air you breathe. Just live your life by her side and breathe your own air. You worked too hard to get here to backtrack.

And I tried, within the little time we had together.

We didn’t fuck, we didn’t devour each other’s bodies. We conversed, I learned her favorite color, the name of her favorite band, the dishes she liked—and the common ins and outs of her life. White wasn’t the only color of her soul, she liked red; that deep, dark tint one would only witness alive in the depth of the night. She liked the color of the stop lights, of the tail lights; she liked the way it bathed my face in gentle, undangerous fire whenever we would get stuck in traffic on our car drives—and apparently she liked my patience.

Chase Atlantic was her favorite band.

Tteokbokki her favorite dish.

And I was her favorite person. A fact I already knew by the way she would kiss me at those favorite stop lights of hers.

That was all we did. Kiss and converse. And I didn’t cling to her, didn’t make her the air I breathed. On the contrary, following Hobi’s wisdom, I fell for her in the purest of ways, which I somehow made possible in this befouled world.

And, perhaps, she did, too. A deduction of mine because she began to smoke in front of me at some point.

She was afraid I wouldn’t like it, a sensitive wound that she let me in on—a formless, unclear one that kept me wide awake at night, scrambling my brain to try and figure out what the fucker before me did to her. That was, until she told me, upon our last car drive during that last week we’d have with each other, that the said wound was caused by my own fault.

I told her off for being bare for me at the beginning of the trajectory of our closeness and I sowed a poisonous plant of a hang-up in her. A block in her brain that pressured her to hide the “questionable” parts of her from me.

But there weren’t any questionable parts of her—and I told her, after I pulled out my own pack, lit up one, grabbed her by the back of her neck and kissed her until her lungs were depleted of air.

It was the bloom of our lust, particularly the vocal, intense apology I strung into her lips, kissing them deeper and deeper until they swelled. It was the beginning of our naughty text messages—right on the cusp of my absence, hooking onto my yearning and expanding it to heavenly dimensions.

Yes, heavenly. Our closeness represented heaven as we had forgotten about our toys and remembered them during our hypersexual conversations. Face to face, we focused on the stimulation of our connected intellect, our intertwined characters; phone to phone, our bodies sought compensation.

And right now, upon the first morning here in the US, the moon kitty is persuading me into unpacking my suitcase and using the rose toy in my room.

She’s straining, working so hard, sending me her little stickers of adorable, pleading animals, incognizant to the fact that I don’t need to be that much impelled to do it. She’s staying up for me, needy in bed—I made my decision the second she mentioned it.

I merely delight in her saying please.

I get off on it; it makes my cock rock hard and the concept of the members being around and unaware of what she’s doing to me—especially Jungkook, who’s stimming and happy to be eating after a restless night—heightens my pleasure, lengthening towards the heavens.

If only I could take her there. With my tongue. Like I did the first time, holding her body down so she wouldn’t rise higher without me.

pleaseeeeee, i’m gonna start without you if you dont get up rn

I smile at the text message and I imagine her writhing in her bed, her bedsheets crumpled and tousled around her, her fingers tracing the curved petals of her rose toy—itching, impatient, needy; waiting for me.

My cock grows. And I, too, meet my impatience.

Just a second. Be good, I respond back to her, locking my phone and immersing myself in reality.

The boys are uncharacteristically quiet, each one indulging in an activity of their own. Jungkook is huffing, his cheeks full and around, staring down his plate of food as if it was about to grow its own legs and walk away from him. Jimin is watching him with an endeared smile that is split by a secrecy all of us are aware of. Lopsided, its glow is shunned out by the tender, doleful layer of wetness in his eyes. And I know that his tummy will get full by watching him eat and that it will be his only source of fulfilling food for today.

I clench my fists.

Hobi beside me has finished his own breakfast and has entered his food coma, staring into nothing at the ceiling as he rests his neck against the backrest of the couch. Taehyung is looking at me in a way that brings my eyes back to him for a double take. With a smirk and a glint in the gentleness of his eyes, he flicks his browns at his own phone and nods his head, telling me something in the silent language that I don’t want him to.

He noticed something he shouldn’t have.

The words are flung out of me long before I comprehend what I’m saying, up and ready on my feet, covering my erection with the thick hem of my oversized shirt.

“I’m gonna head to mine for a bit and take a shower,” I announce, making heads lift in my direction, and considering my situation, I cower in shyness, keeping my back to them as I walk towards the front door.

“The stylist is coming at one pm and we have a soundcheck at three thirty,” Namjoon informs, and I pivot to look at him, at all six of them while my hand remains on the doorknob.

Jungkook is rubbing his eyes and I take one last look at his faded mint hair, saying goodbye to it in my heart. I know what hair color I’m changing my silver hair to, thought of it on the plane and was immediately convinced it was my greatest idea. I nod, sweeping my eyes over the last five heads as if I was going to come back to them as a different person.

Perhaps I was.

I ignore Taehyung and his knowing smile as I leave, racking my brain, trying to come up with the reason why he’s acting like this. Did Hobi say something or was I not careful enough, divulging my secret out in the open with my face or my body language? Was the pillow over my lap and my eyes, all of my attention glued to my phone making it that obvious that I’m seeing someone?

How would they react if they knew it was the Kitty girl?

I leave it be for now, my cock asking for attention. I fish out my hotel key card and close everything behind me. Taehyung’s all seeing eye, Jimin’s diet and I stoop in my homesickness.

It’s been two days and I feel as though Kitty ripped my heart out of my chest and folded it somewhere inside her purse when we hugged for the last time. I reminisce on her innocent touch on my neck, the only place she ever touched me besides my hair, on her lips that pressed against that place her hands warmed as I video call her.

She picks up, immediately.

I can only see her round head, the red of her hair sprawled messily on the silky, light beige cover of her pillow while the rest of her body is shrouded by that material. She smiles at me, no hint of embellishment lining her face—and something tells me that she’s all bare underneath her bed sheets, too.

I palm my cock, desperate.

“How long were you gonna keep me waiting?” she asks, and proves me right as she raises a hand and props it behind her head, the duvet drifting down a little and exposing the beginning of her fleshy peak and my mouth waters. I licked and kissed that breast of hers once upon a time and I would do anything to have that opportunity right now. I would do a better job; I would drive her insane. Spoil her with kisses so harsh that she would reach a point in heaven that no one ever has.

I think about her question and deem I could never keep her waiting long if I were all by myself. “You know who I was with. Was I supposed to pull out my dick in front of them?”

She giggles at my bizarre response, shifting her head to find a more comfortable spot, and the wholeness of her breasts greets me.

Bless all silky beddings. The superior invention of all.

“Oh, hello there,” I joke, deepening her giggles and she angles her phone so I don’t see anything, breaking me apart.

I shall punish her for it.

I set my phone down against the table by the wall and take my shirt off. My angle allows her to see the state of me that she created with her lust—by telling me that she was up and desperate for me, craving the toy that I bought for her and that she wouldn’t use it unless I did with her at the same time. I didn’t need any details, any obscenities that I know full well she’s capable of giving me. Just her admitting to me that she needed me, trusting me enough with that intimate information made me so hard that I couldn’t contain myself.

I watch her eyes glide down my body that isn’t good enough to be regarded like she does, stopping at the weakness she’s effectuated in my groin. And I let her, the first person who ever looked at me with such raw, undomesticated hunger.

And I wish she would eat me up. Get on a plane, get to this hotel, to my room and take her time taking out my bones. I am for her taking—and I have been since the first time our eyes linked.

“You’re not really helping me right now,” she croaks out, her raspy voice enveloping around my aching cock and I can say the same. Especially when she shifts entirely, rolls over to her tummy and I can see her natural face better, the carmine of her hair that veils and tickles her cleavage, enough that she flicks it behind her shoulder, letting me be the witness to her bare skin.

Now she’s punishing me.

“Was I supposed to help you? I thought we’re helping ourselves,” I tease, and my words pull her mouth apart, even more so when I begin to take off my belt, making sure I tug it out of my belt loops swiftly. She bites her lip, ruining me, and I want to use that leather on her. I fold it in half and point it at her. “This is what you’re getting once I see you.”

She licks the skin she bit onto, her eyes widening, and I quiver—I quiver because she likes the idea.

“What for?” she asks, raising her voice a little bit, and I chuckle.

“For being so goddamn beautiful.”

Kitty blushes and curls her lips under her teeth like I’ve noticed she so often does. I like it so much, so fucking much that I yearn for her to do it when she takes my cock into her throat for the first time.

I know she will do a good job, swallowing every inch.

“Where’s your toy, huh?”

My chuckle is savage this time, vibrating in my sternum and I watch her perk up at the sound like the kitten she is. I descend into madness, willingly, hasty to jump head-first into this thing, despite my following words.

“You just can’t wait, can you?”

Her ‘no’ is etched all over her flushed cheeks and I crave to kiss it, run my lips all over it so they can remember it beyond this day, this month—all the way into the new year.

“Did you pass through security with it or does the entire LAX know what a slut you are?”

Her words spring in me, exciting me further more, and I can’t help but smile and blush, like her. I drop my gaze, fondle the leather of my belt, and I feel little sparks of muted electricity shooting down my arms. My mind outruns me, picturing the way I physically destroy her for her bratty, delicious mouth, and my smile blossoms, denting into my face.

“Your ass is gonna be red, little one. So fucking red you won’t be able to sit down.”

She doesn’t back away at the threat and I visibly see my own reaction reflecting in her. And it’s my mouth that parts this time when she props her phone against something, rises her chest in the air and sits down on her folded legs. And I have to hold onto the table, with the belt still caged in my grasp, when she spreads her thighs and gives me the consent to see all of her.

Her perked, full breasts, asking for me. Her soft tummy, perfect for my hands to hold. And my own personal ruination down low, between those thighs, glistening and sopping wet.

“Not even like this?”

My cock aches. I let go of the belt and the clanging sound accompanies me as I unbutton my pants. “Not even like this.”

My desire lodges at the bottom of me, pent-up and animalistic. And I take my phone, rummage in my opened suitcase for the toy, lube and head for the shower. My manliness doesn’t even move due to how hard I am.

Hearing the sizzling noise of the blasting stream of the shower, her brows scrunch up in confusion and I enjoy her obliviousness to her punishment.

“You’re taking a shower?”

I’m not too sure about how loud the toy is and I’m not risking having my members eavesdropping on our intimate act with their ears pressed against the thin walls. I’m absolutely not risking shit, locking the door behind me after I leave her in the small rectangular hole in the shower and dispose myself of my underwear.

And when I step inside and the water dribbles down my sensitive skin, ignited from my lust and hers, I discover that my plan is working out perfectly.

She can’t see anything.

She can’t see the lower half of my body—and she won’t be able to watch the petal-ornamented mouth of the toy swirling around my cock.

And that’s what she gets, talking like that.

“Get your toy ready, kitty,” I say, letting the water drench me before I get the job done. I push my hair back and I hear her gasp, the sound making me stop my movements. I look over to her, swiping the drops from my eyes, and I find her humping her hand ever so slowly. I rage, beautifully, wishing that was my hand she was gliding her pussy on until I realize that I’m the reason she slid her hand down there. But that still doesn’t mean she’s allowed to do so. “No touching or we stop.”

My heart hammers in my chest when she complies and my weakness for her increases, filling up every part of me until she’s the very owner of me.

I swell up with pride.

“Good girl.”

At my praise she plunges her wet fingers into her mouth and I lose my sanity. I lose my name, my identity, and the knowledge of my whereabouts. I’m not in LA, where I don’t want to be, carrying my responsibilities and the pressure of unfairness on my back, but I’m somewhere else entirely. All by myself in a place, where she’ll soon join me. A wintry island, just for us, where I’m not an idol, where I don’t have a job that forces me away from her, but where I’m free. Free to do whatever I please.

“Good fucking girl. Let me have a taste.” I lean my palms against the edge of the hole and I die when she reaches her shiny fingers towards me, towards the camera. I hum, the sound interwoven with my gentle laughter, and I stop myself before I lick the screen. “Thank you. So good, Kitty. Now, can you be the best girl ever and lick your toy? Make it nice and wet for your pussy?”

Her breath trembles as she exhales, reaching over for the red rose beyond the set-up of her phone. And she rests her chest against the mattress, upthrusts her bum in the air and while she’s this close to the camera, she darts out her tongue and drags it over the silicone hole in the center, her alluring eyes fixed on me.

My arousal oozes out of my tip, scalding hot, and I suck in a breath, fucked out.

“Fuck, baby,” I husk, my eyelids lowering as my whole body catches on fire, and I can’t respire. I grip the edge until my fingers are bathed in white. My desire asks for more. “Spit on it for Oppa.”

She moans and I nearly explode, my memories of her noises when I was tongue-deep in her flooding through my mind, and I can’t take any more of it. Especially not the discovery that she’s keen on titles, keen on me being the dominant one.

My palm itches for my cock, but I won’t give in. Not yet.

Kitty gathers her saliva and she seizes all of me when she spits on it, circling her tongue around the rim, spreading it there. And then she whines and my manliness twitches, painfully, ridding me of any sense I had left.

“Can we start now, please?” she begs, and I’m ready to give her everything.

I moisten my lips. “Wait for just a little while, baby. Let Oppa get his toy ready.”

And under her gaze, I squirt the lube inside the hollowness and all over myself, sighing and tilting my head back when I scatter the liquid along my shaft. The pressure of my fist is delicate, yet it feels as though I’m levitating. I’m confident it’s owing to the fact I’m being watched by those rounded eyes of hers and that she’s observing what her psyche has done to me.

“I want to see you,” she whimpers, and I don’t feel like punishing her any longer.

I unclench my fist. “What pretty word do you use when you ask for something?”

She doesn’t even think about it and my pride enlarges. “Please.”

“That’s a good fucking kitty.”

She sits up and nearly fucks her mattress, moaning into her hand—and I know, I already know that I won’t last long under these circumstances.

I’m so eager to give her what she wants that I don’t perceive that she's never seen this private part of me before until she gasps so fucking loudly that I startle. I’ve set her on the lower shower shelf and her mouth is wide open, the toy prepared in her hand.

“You’re so…” she trails off, shy all of a sudden, and I might pay for her plane tickets after my shower. I’m fucking her so hard that I’ll mark every single inch of mine inside her pretty pussy.

“Tiny,” I finish for her, and she laughs in that dopey way, even though we haven’t even started yet.

“Will that toy even… fit you?” she asks, her pools entwined to my cock, transfixed, and I long to kiss her. Despairingly.

I look down to my little man, to the toy and eventually to her. “I’ll make it fit.”

Her breath hitches in her throat, pleasuring me. “If you talk like that while we do our thing, I won’t be able to hold out.”

I hum, deeply, my endearment. “Why is that a problem?” She’s taken aback, like she always is whenever we talk, and I tilt my head towards the toy in her hand. “I want you to ride it for me.”

She sinks her teeth into her bottom lip and places the rose between her legs without taking her eyes off of mine. Ever so dangerous, ever so aphrodisiacal. “I want you to fuck it for me.”

I groan, wrapping my fist around my shaft. “Turn it on, Kitty. Make yourself feel good.”

She mewls long before she turns it on—and once she does, her chest arches towards me and her eyes flutter back. Her hips slowly find their rhythm as she begins to hump it, unsure at first before falling into its temptation. And then she’s loud, louder than the raging waterfall behind me, sprinkling me, and louder than me when I get to work and tug on my length.

My noises bring her to me, but she doesn’t fix her gaze on mine—they pass down to my cock, her moans becoming needier, and she encourages me to join her.

“Come on, Oppa, it feels so good.”

I wade in a haze, spurred from her pleasure and now the title, unable to move my limbs. “Is it sucking on your clit?”

She nods her head, stopping, but it brings forth more delight for her. She crumbles, her chest curving, and she saves herself from tumbling by propping her palm flat on the mattress, struggling—struggling to breathe, struggling to talk.

“I—I’m not doing it if—if you’re not,” she stutters, her words melting into a whimper and I’m gone.

It’s her energy, her desperation-fueled energy that pushes me to move my other limb and glide the mouth of the toy down my tip. She orders me to turn it on and I do, bending forward in the paralyzing pleasure it begins to give me.

And it’s me who’s loud as it sucks on my head so vehemently that I, too, struggle.

“Fuck, fuck—” I groan, lowering the toy down my length just in time for it to take the other direction, and I don’t moan any of her pet names. No, I moan out her name—and I make her come.

My name breaks on her tongue and it is as my undoing as it is hers. I have to pull it out of me in order not to stop our playtime there, recuperating by watching her convulse while sitting on the toy as it completely traps her in the celestial realm of her orgasm. My cock twitches in the air, yearning to be inside her, and feel her walls spasm around it. I accept my death for the longevity of the bursting of her pleasure and I fall, I face-plant, drastically, for her. Deeper and deeper.

No way back.

“Good girl. So good. Oppa is proud of you.”

She yelps, overstimulation grappling her, and I bite my lip so hard I break skin. She lifts her bum, quivering, and only when she catches her breath and begs me to come for her do I fuck the toy and chase down my own orgasm.

And it doesn’t take long. Not when she topples onto the mattress and her face is what I come on while she, again, joins me, working her fingers on her clit out of my view.

“You know I’m fucking you and not this toy,” I mutter, focusing the suction on my tip as I pound it. And when she moans my name and I hear the squelching of her hole, I throw the toy on the shelf beside my phone and use my hand to stain her face as if she were here with me, on her knees.

My orgasm erupts and erupts, triggering hers, and we come together like this. Close, yet far away. Looking into each other’s eyes—never failing, never deteriorating, never diving into our past pains.

Lightness blankets me and I feel as though I could fly and drift through this world without any burdens to bear on my back. Kitty looks well-spent and I suppose I reflect her all over again—and shall reflect her until my last dying day.

I wipe my screen, my innermost craving still yet not satisfied, and I identify what it truly is. As she raises onto her knees, I lean against the shelf with my elbows and reveal it to her.

“Let me see your pussy. Show me how wet you were for me.”

She saw me up close, I didn’t.

It is only fair.

She swears, enveloping her vulgarities around my name, and she obeys. Lies back down against her silky pillows and takes her phone between her legs, spreading them. She parts her wet folds with the two of her fingers and I salivate. Her clit is swollen and carmine from the intense sucking of the toy, glimmering in the faint light, her lips dripping and her hole squeezing around nothing. I wither in need, tasting blood on my lip, and when she runs all four of her fingers up her clit, I begin to heave.

Hard, all over again.

“Such a pretty pussy. Oppa misses it.”

She purrs nonsense, as sleepy as she is, and the transfer back to reality is brutal. I check the time and it must be almost four AM in Seoul. I grieve the time zone between us, hoping the endeavor we shared was worth her staying up for me.

“Good night, moon kitty. Sleep well.”

She mumbles the same without omitting my newly deep-seated title. The three beautiful words for her form on my tongue, but I don’t say them. I save them for a better time, for the end of this tour, once I fly her to me.

I watch her sleep for a little bit, my cock softening. Her hand is furled under her chin and I think about how she’s protecting my heart right in there. It doesn’t allow me to end the call, so I take a shower, place her on the sink when I dry myself off, on the table when I dress myself and turn my microphone off when I blow dry my hair.

It is only when Jungkook knocks on my door and sloshes his sudden plan over me that I am forced to let her flow in her dreams without me and keep them undisturbed.

What he tells me is my duty and I don’t hesitate to pocket my inconspicuous knife that carries too many bad memories.

I thank him in my head that I get to wash those memories away with a different blood.

What he tells me is this: “Come with me, hyung, we have a son of a bitch to mutilate.”

𓂃 ౨ৎ LOVE-KISSED BABIES: @tkslovechild, @jjk7k, @parkinglot-nights, @bethvar, @Sexytholland, @yoongibaybee, @crystaleah,@fennecnco, @lil-kpopstan, @euphoricmyth, @jungkoock, @cinmmongirl, @hoseokkie-caeks, @kam9404, @fr0ggieth1nk.

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fairy-writes · 5 months ago

Note

hallo >:]

i would like to request the prompt :

“Oh, excuse me for freaking out. I only thought you were dead!”

for narumi gen from kaiju no.8

and any gender would be fine!

A LONG ROAD TO RECOVERY

Reblogs and Comments are greatly appreciated!!

__________________________________________________________________________

Prompt: “Oh, excuse me for freaking out. I only thought you were dead!”

Fandom(s): Kaiju No. 8

Pairing(s): Narumi Gen x Reader

Word Count: 1.1k

Genre(s)/Tag(s): Gender Neutral!Reader, Angst, Hospitals, Injuries, Minor Arguments

Notes: Combining this with another request that is exactly the same :)

This is likely medically inaccurate, but pls bear with me.

__________________________________________________________________________

The beeping of hospital machines was driving you up the wall. But it also brought you solace in that it showed that the man you loved was still alive.

It had been three days since he slipped into a coma.

You sat beside him the entire time, holding Gen’s hand as the ventilator breathed for him. His army of machines did a variety of things. Things like the ventilator, which inflated his lungs. He had a chest tube placed to drain fluid building around his lungs. There was a catheter to drain his bladder. There were multitudes of other machines and devices, all to help Gen stay alive.

But no one knew when he’d wake up.

If he’d even wake up.

A frantic beeping awoke you from your doze.

When did you fall asleep?

You look up at the machines and barely have time to comprehend the sight of his heart monitor lit up in a frenzy.

It’s flatlining.

Gen is dying.

You let out a cry and dive for the blue button next to his bed, slamming your thumb onto it and hearing the call for a “Code Blue in room G342. Code Blue in room G343” just outside in the hall. A flood of nurses and doctors come in, and you are pushed out.

“Please! You have to save him!” You beg, and a nurse you vaguely recognize from seeing in the hallways offers a kind smile.

“We’ll do everything we can. But you need to stand back and let us work.” She says quickly before Gen’s hospital room door slides shut behind her.

You are forced to wait in the waiting room as Gen is wheeled in for emergency surgery after they get his heartbeat back.

They didn’t say what it was for—maybe they did—but you had signed the necessary forms regardless, seeing as you were Gen’s significant other and he had no other family.

You sit with your head in your hands, your breathing quick and gasping and panicky as you wait for any sort of news from the medical staff working to save his life. As you sit there, you can’t help but wish he hadn’t been called in for the most recent kaiju attack. Because while yes, he vanquished the monster, it left him in this sort of state.

He was going to get an earful when he woke up.

If he woke up, that is…

Your name being called snaps you from your reverie. You had been zoning out, not thinking about anything but what you were going to say to Gen if he ever recovered. But as you jolted out of your thoughts, you checked the clock and realized that hours had passed. No one was in the waiting room except you and a nurse behind the receptionist's desk, who looked like he wanted to go home.

Well… you two and the doctor you recognized as the man who had wheeled the crash cart into the room when Gen was actively coding.

You were on your feet in seconds before you even registered standing up.

“How is he?” You demanded when the doctor approached. He gestured for you to follow him,

“We’ll talk on the way. But he’s asking for you.”

He was asking for you.

So he was alive?

Your knees felt weak, and you actually caught yourself on the wall.

“So he’s alive?” You whisper, and the doctor gives you a warm smile.

“He’s a fighter, that’s for sure. Now, follow me, I’ll take you to him.”

Gen is already awake and sitting up in bed when you get to the hospital room. A flurry of nurses flit around him like a bunch of buzzing bees. But he isn’t watching any of them.

No… Gen’s eyes are locked on yours the second you come into view.

The doctor begins to speak, telling you about the surgery, but you don’t hear him. All you hear is muffled speaking, almost as if he’s talking through cotton. It’s like this for a few moments until you come back to the present and hear,

“I’m confident he’ll make a full recovery.” The doctor says, and you feel the pricks of tears in your eyes.

He was alive.

He was going to be okay.

You all but yank the door open and slip inside as the nurses and medical personnel file out of the room to give you two some privacy. But as soon as the door shuts, it’s as if all the strength in your knees has left you again, and you all but collapse on the side of his bed, reaching to grasp his hand. You’re mindful of the IV in the back of his hand as you cradle his palm in both hands. He arches an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything just yet.

“How are you feeling?” You ask quietly, and he shrugs with one shoulder, settling back into his mountain of pillows.

“‘m fine.” He mumbles with a yawn.

“Is there anything I can do for you?’ You press, and he shakes his head,

“Not unless you’ll get me one of my games. The doc won’t let me have my phone just yet.” He complains, and you hang your head with a dry chuckle.

Of course, he wants one of his games. You wouldn’t expect anything different from your boyfriend.

“If the doctor says no, I’m going to listen to him.” You say, and he immediately lets out a whine. But before he can complain, you cut him off, “Gen, you need to take it easy. Getting worked up over video games isn’t going to help.”

He rolls his eyes and tugs his hand from yours to cross his arms across his chest, huffing indignantly, and you realize this is going nowhere. But that still didn’t mean your anger rose any less. In fact, it actively pulsed within your chest, and before you could stop yourself, you scowled.

He noticed, and his eyebrows shot up. It wasn’t often you actively showed your anger.

“What has you freaking out? I didn’t die, did I?” He asks, and you glare,

“You coded Gen. Your heart stopped.”

“But they got it back! Stop freaking out, seriously, it’s gonna give me a headache.”

“Oh, excuse me for freaking out. I only thought you were dead!” You borderline shout, and he rolls his eyes.

Gen gives you an impish, boyish grin despite your fury, the kind he gives you when he beats you at a video game or successfully kills a kaiju. He works his hand over so he can entwine his fingers with yours. You can feel your anger melting away as he speaks.

“You can’t kill me that easily.”

#narumi gen x reader #narumi gen x you #gen narumi x reader #gen narumi x you #gen narumi x y/n #kn8 x reader #kn8 x you #kn8 x y/n #kn8 #kaiju no. 8 x reader #kaiju no. 8 x you #kaiju no 8 x reader #kaiju no 8 x you #fairy writes #fairy1.6kfollowers

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yamayuandadu · 1 month ago

Text

From Shinoda Myōjin to Sakaki no Mae: the history of Kuzunoha (and a few others)

Abeno by Shūhō Yamakawa (public domain; via wikimedia commons)

A few months ago I asked a more or less representative group of potential readers how familiar they are with Kuzunoha. Save for a single tongue in check response, "that's the Devil Summoner guy with the sideburns, right", the results were fairly uniform: most people are aware that she is a fox and the mother of Abe no Seimei - but not much beyond that.

Kuzunoha is simultaneously probably the single most famous Abe no Seimei-adjacent literary character today, overshadowing even actual historical figures. She arguably changed the Abe no Seimei “canon” in a way few other works did. Even with the “onmyōdō boom” still in full swing in modern popculture, many characters from earlier Seimei tradition remain obscure - but Kuzunoha is arguably equally as famous as her son.

This prominence lead to a variety of misconceptions, most notably to viewing the story according to which Seimei was the son of a fox as considerably older and more integral to his fame than in reality. In particularly disreputable online sources you might even see it being presented as THE fox romance story, an archetype example from the dawn of history of Japanese literature. However, despite stories about foxes and onmyōji both being a mainstay of popular entertainment through the middle ages already, Kuzunoha was only invented in the Edo period - and in the case of most of the major developments pertaining to her we can pinpoint the exact sources.

Read on to find out how the story of Kuzunoha arose and changed through the Edo period, whether the character was always known under this name, what she had to do with Kamo no Yasunori, and more. An excursus will also introduce you to the works and life of Kamo no Yasunori no musume, possibly the most unique thinker of the Heian period. That’s not all you will be able to learn, though.The second half of the article goes beyond Kuzunoha, and introduces a selection of other characters from broadly understood Seimei literature - from Seimei’s wife to an immortal Chinese disciple of the bodhisattva Monju. It was initially intended as a standalone sequel, but I figured it would be preferable to publish both halves in one go. Is listening to gossip a form of divination? How many bones do you need to resurrect a person? What do eclipses have to do with board games? Answers to all these questions - and more - await under the cut!

Before Kuzunoha: introductory notes on foxes in medieval and early modern Japan

Before discussing the development of the story of Kuzunoha, it’s necessary to briefly summarize the history of foxes in Japanese literature. It arguably starts with one of the earliest Japanese chronicles, the Nihon Shoki (720). However, foxes only really appear there as omens. The relevant entries are very brief and essentially boil down to reporting an unusual (for example albinistic) fox was sighted somewhere, or alternatively that a regular fox acted in an unusual way. It’s hard to really call them “stories”. They also don’t really indicate that foxes were regarded as shapeshifters just yet, in contrast with contemporary Chinese sources. The oldest example of a Japanese story involving a fox shapeshifting into a woman - arguably the most famous and widespread subgenre of “fox literature” - appears in the setsuwa collection Nihon Ryōiki (日本霊異記), dated to the early ninth century. This motif, like many other stock elements of fox tales, originates in China. Due to space constraints it is not possible to discuss the development of this genre on the mainland, but it will suffice to say that the literary image of foxes was already fairly solid by the Tang period. A good example of a classic Chinese fox story of a similar sort as the Nihon Ryōiki one is The Tale of Miss Ren from the late eighth century. In both cases, the disguise eventually comes undone, and the true identity of the fox character comes to light, which forces her to leave her human life behind. This remained a mainstay in later periods.

An illustration from Tamamizu Monogatari (Kyoto University Rare Materials Digital Archive; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

The importance of foxes in Japanese literature grew considerably in the “middle ages”, the Kamakura and Muromachi periods. The popularity of stories about animals acting like humans in general increased, in no small part due to the growth of new ideas about the nature of enlightenment. The Tendai school of esoteric Buddhism advanced the view that every living being possessed an innate Buddha nature, and could thus attain enlightenment. A good example of a medieval fox story is Tamamizu Monogatari. It combines elements already present in these discussed earlier, though they are reconfigured in unexpected ways; furthermore, the eponymous fox character’s religious considerations are a fairly major part of the plot. It is worth noting that the story of Tamamo no Mae, Kuzunoha’s main competitor for the title of most famous fox character in the history of Japanese literature, first developed in the middle ages too. However, it is somewhat unconventional in that the original story is just a really weird twist on Sutra of Humane Kings - the fox theming is ultimately somewhat superficial.

The newfound popularity of fox tales never really declined afterwards, and many new ones arose through the Edo period in a variety of mediums, including but not limited to novels, puppet plays and kabuki. The old material was often reinterpreted in new, unexpected ways to suit the evolving taste of the audience. This is the environment in which Kuzunoha arose.

The evolution of Kuzunoha, from Hoki-shō to kabuki

The oldest prototype of Kuzunoha appears in the Hoki-shō (簠簋抄; “The ritual containers, annotated”), an early seventeenth century commentary on one of the most famous medieval religious treatises, Sangoku Sōden Onmyō Kankatsu Hoki Naiden Kin’u Gyokuto Shū (三國相傳陰陽輨轄簠簋内伝金烏玉兎集, “The Book of the Gold Crow and the Jade Rabbit, Secret and Exposed, of the Round Vessel and the Square Vessel, the Wheel and the Wedge, the Yin and the Yang, Transmitted Through the Three Countries” - the title is basically a long enumeration of various dualities representing yin and yang; as you will soon see, various fictional tomes present in stories about Seimei reference it) or Hoki Naiden (簠簋内伝) for short. Its compiler (or compilers) collected multiple, often contradictory, tales about the source of Abe no Seimei’s supposed supernatural powers - many of which were seemingly adaptations of completely unrelated folk tales.

One of them states that Seimei’s mother wasn’t a human, but donned a human guise before giving birth to him. At the age of three Seimei was abandoned by her, but as a parting gift he received a poem explaining that he will be able to meet her in the Shinoda forest in the Izumi province. Many years later, Seimei recalled the poem and decided to travel there to pray at a local shrine. Its deity, known simply as Shinoda Myōjin (信太明神; Myōjin, “bright deity”, is a common historical title of local deities, cf. the likes of Shinra Myōjin or Sekizan Myōjin), appeared to him in the form of an old fox, and told him she is his mother. It’s not Seimei’s only “origin story” collected in this volume, though - elsewhere it states that he was a being from the Dragon Palace (龍宮, Ryūgū). This seemingly didn’t catch on, and we have yet to see a modern work bold enough to make him some sort of fishman.

Hoki-shō does not explain why Seimei’s mother left him, but another likely contemporary collection of short tales, Tsuki no Karumo Shū (“Seaweed gathered in the moonlight”), provides a hint: here Seimei’s mother composes the poem and leaves because his father cheated on her. She is later encountered first by her ex, and then by Seimei, in the Shinoda forest, in both cases taking the form of a fox, much like in the Hoki-shō. She also provides her son with a jewel which lets him understand animals - an item which also appears in other legends about him, though not necessarily in the same context. Curiously, outside of this supernatural episode, this work generally follows historical information about Seimei. It correctly relays that his father was a low ranking court official and that he studied under the famous onmyōji Kamo no Yasunori.

A breakthrough in the history of Kuzunoha occurred with the publication of Ryōi Asai’s Abe no Seimei Monogatari (安倍晴明物語; “The story of Abe no Seimei) in 1662. Various disconnected legends collected in the Hoki-shō and similar sources came to be forged into a single narrative for the first time ever, which turned out to be a successful approach. Seimei, while never really forgotten, became a favorite of Edo period audiences, and a “Seimei boom” of sorts occurred, with numerous new works focused on his life and exploits being published.

Young Seimei meeting Otohime, as described in Abe no Seimei Monogatari(public domain, via National Archives of Japan Digital Archive; all illustrations from this novel included in this article have been sourced from these scans; another set can be found on the website of the Waseda University Library)

It would be unfair to say that Abe no Seimei Monogatari is just a direct adaptation of Hoki-shō, though. It is an innovative work in many ways, and in some cases rewrites completely unrelated legends with Seimei as the protagonist. For instance, Seimei at one point visits the dragon palace to help Otohime in what is obviously a novel twist on the tale of Urashima Tarō (though it might very well be an echo of his second origin story from the Hoki-shō) - just without any of the repercussions for the protagonist. Seimei was, presumably, built different, to put it colloquially.

Innovations are also present in the section of the story dealing with Seimei’s mother. In contrast with the sources discussed above, Abe no Seimei Monogatari also provides his father with a name - Abe no Yasuna (安倍保名). He is introduced as a farmer living in Abeno, a village near the Shinoda forest (in earlier legends Seimei was said to hail from Nekoshima, located near Hitachi). The reason why the mother leaves is curiously not provided. The novel simply states that one summer day she abandoned her family - and that’s really it for her relevance.

It is not certain if Abe no Seimei Monogatari was a direct influence on the next major work dealing with Seimei's origin, the 1674 puppet play Shinodazuma Tsurigitsune Tsuketari Abe no Seimei Shusshō (しのだづまつりぎつね并あべ晴明出生; “The Shinoda wife, fox trapping and the birth of Abe no Seimei”). While such a connection is not impossible, it might have alternatively depended on a now lost sekkyōbushi (説経節), a type of Buddhist ballad accompanied by shamisen and puppet performances. However, no direct evidence for the story of Kuzunoha ever being adapted in such a form exists.

Regardless of whether there is a connection or not, the play does follow Abe no Seimei Monogatari when it comes to the identity of the eponymous character’s father. It additionally establishes that Yasuna owns the mystic tome Hoki Naiden, here described as a family heirloom passed down since the times of Abe no Nakamaro (more on him later). Most importantly for the topic of this article, many new details regarding the marriage of Seimei’s parents emerge here for the first time.

Actor Nakayama Bun'emon as Ishikawa Akuemon (ukiyo-e.org; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

A new character shows up in the relevant part of the story, Ishikawa Akuemon (石川悪右衛門), a brother of Dōman, Seimei’s rival from Abe no Seimei Monogatari and a variety of other sources. While Dōman is most likely based on a historical person (though one with no real relation to Seimei - more on that in a sec), Akuemon is entirely fictional. Through Dōman’s influence he received a government post near the Shinoda forest. His modus operandi is to obtain the liver of a white fox, since his brother told him it can be used to heal his ailing wife. Yasuna encounters him during a hunt, and saves a fox from him. This leads to a fight in which he almost ends up killed, until another fox intervenes. By disguising himself as a priest serving in Akuemon’s family temple he tricks him into sparing Yasuna’s life.

Some time later, Yasuna saves a woman from drowning, and subsequently marries her. He has no choice but to live with her in the Shinoda forest, since through a complex string of events resulting from Akuemon killing his father Abe no Yasuaki (安倍泰明) he had to kill him (and is effectively an outlaw, as I understand). He and the woman eventually have a son.

When the son - who is, obviously, Abe no Seimei - is seven years old, his mother accidentally reveals to him that she is a fox who took human form. She becomes so enchanted by blooming chrysanthemums that she loses grasp of her disguise. Kid Seimei is horrified by this revelation, and his mother decides she has to leave. She leaves a letter for him in which she expresses her sadness about this turn of events, and another for Yasuna, in which she reveals that she was the fox he saved, and that everything that happened between them since was an elaborate way to repay that favor.

It might be worth noting that the idea that foxes were particularly fond of chrysanthemums was a well established trope. It goes back to a poem by Bai Juyi, who in turn influenced a host of classic Japanese poets, including but not limited to Miyako no Yoshika, Ki no Haseo, Shimada no Tadaomi, Ono no Takamura and Sugawara no Michizane. By the Edo period, it was essentially common knowledge, so the scene was less surprising to contemporary audiences than it might be for us.

Despite all of the innovations in Shinodazuma Tsurigitsune Tsuketari Abe no Seimei Shusshō, its author felt no need to provide Yasuna’s wife with a name. That wasn’t exactly unique, though it’s worth stressing once again that the first version of this character from Hoki-shō for all intents and purposes did have a name, Shinoda Myōjin.

The name Kuzunoha appears for the first time in the kabuki play Shinodazuma (信太妻) from 1699. However, its origin lies in Shinodazuma Tsurigitsune Tsuketari Abe no Seimei Shusshō. A poem in the letter Seimei receives from his mother in it ends with the line “the kudzu leaves whose backs are visible” - urami kuzunoha (うらみ葛の葉). This phrase appears fairly common in waka poems. Here it serves as a wordplay - hiragana is utilized because depending on the kanji used, urami can refer not just to the underside of a leaf (裏見) but also to bitterness or resentment (怨み or 恨み). According to Cody M. Poulton, the poem actually originates in a story unrelated to Seimei which circulated in the Izumi province. Its protagonist is a hunter who saves a wounded fox, who then takes the form of a woman and marries him; the similarities are otherwise very vague, as no onmyōdo elements are involved, and the fox commits suicide in the end, after leaving behind the poem.

Naming Kuzunoha was not the only innovation of Shinodazuma. It also makes Akuemon the central villain, eliminating Dōman altogether. His villainy reaches truly cartoony heights - before starting the fox hunt already present in the earlier play he actually tries to pressure a priest at a shrine whose kami uses these animals as messengers to procure a white specimen for him.

Some more focus is given to his wife. In the earlier play, not much is said about her other than that she is sick and Akuemon is convinced he knows how to remedy that. She doesn’t even receive a name. In Shinodazuma she is called Satsuki no Mae. Furthermore, we learn that she secretly hates her husband and is only feigning an illness to avoid him. Her real love is a certain Mitani no Zenji, a retainer of Abe no Yasuna. This character already appears in a very minor role in Shinodazuma Tsurigitsune Tsuketari Abe no Seimei Shusshō, but there he is a retainer of Yasuna’s father, not Yasuna himself.

Zenji’s relevance doesn’t end there. Kuzunoha is actually saved by him, not by Yasuna. However, the conventional romance nonetheless happens, though with a twist. Kuzunoha must reveal her true form because Yasuna has an evil younger brother, Dakaku no Suke, who shows up near the end to try to force Kuzunoha to have sex with him. To achieve that he threatens that he will kill kid Seimei. In response, his mother reveals that she is a fox, and flees. Kuzunoha returns one last time in the final scene of the play after Seimei manages to find her in the Shinoda forest with the help of another new character, a cook named Kisuke. This role was apparently added entirely to accommodate the comedic actor Yamatoya Jinbei II (大和屋甚兵衛).

Elements of Shinodazuma and its earlier partial namesake were both incorporated into yet another play, Shinoda no Mori Onna Urakata (“Female Diviner in the Shinoda Forest”), which in turn influenced the single most famous portrayal of Kuzunoha, commonly referred to simply as, nomen omen, Kuzunoha. It dates to 1734, and was originally the fourth act of a five act play, Ashiya Dōman Ōuchi Kagami (芦屋道満大内鑑; “A Courtly Mirror of Ashiya Dōman”) by Izumo Takeda (竹田出雲) II. However, the full version is rarely performed today. As you can probably guess from the title, Ashiya Dōman Ōuchi Kagami puts Dōman, here also referred to as Ashiya no Hyōe Michitaru (芦屋兵衛道満), back into the spotlight, reversing the trend of making Akuemon more prominent. The plot is essentially a succession struggle between him and Abe no Yasuna, with a variety of unexpected twists. Both of them are portrayed as students of Kamo no Yasunori (here written as 加茂保憲 instead of the expected 賀茂保憲), who passes away prematurely without designating an heir from among his disciples. This is quite troublesome, not least because the legitimate heir will gain control over the mystical tome Kin’u Gyokuto Shū (金鳥玉兎集), which originally belonged to a Chinese sage named Hakudō (this is not the last time you’ll see him in this article) before being passed down to Yasunori. Various factions in the court aim to secure control over it to effectively control the country with the mystical divinatory knowledge contained within.

Sakaki no Mae (Minneapolis Institute of Art; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

While most characters are unaware of this, Yasunori intended to have his adopted daughter Sakaki no Mae (榊の前) marry Yasuna, and to give him Kin’u Gyokuto Shū. However, as he failed to do so in time, and only provided his daughter with a key to the secret spot where the book is hidden, a plot is set in motion by his wife. She hides the book and accuses Sakaki no Mae of stealing it to give it to Yasuna against her father’s wishes. Sakaki, who is innocent and in fact refused to open the hiding spot of the book (not that it accomplished much since her stepmother illicitly prepared a copy of the key), decides to put the blame entirely on herself to protect Yasuna and then commits suicide. However, when Yasuna learns about that he is overcome by grief and disappears.

Meanwhile, the widow’s brother Jibu no Tayū (治部大輔), who is also her co-conspirator, meets with his son-in-law Michitaru to give him the stolen Kin’u Gyokuto Shū. He orders him to use the book to divine how to make sure Miyasudokoro (御息所; not the Tale of Genji character), one of crown prince Sakuragi’s (桜木親王) concubines, who belongs to the same courtly faction, will be the first to conceive an heir. Michitaru states that the best way will be the dakini no hō (荼枳尼の法) a secret ritual which requires the liver of a white fox. Jibu no Tayū’s minion Akuemon, who as far as I can tell is not a relative of Michitaru/Dōman here, is tasked with procuring it, since he comes from an area where white foxes can be easily found.

It should be noted here that Michitaru is himself not necessarily portrayed as malevolent in this scene. While he is a participant in this scheme, and even performs rituals meant to help Akuemon with killing Rokunokimi (六の君; also not the Tale of Genji character), the concubine favored by Jibu no Tayū’s rivals, he only acts under the threat of losing both Kin’u Gyokuto Shū and his wife Tsukubane (築羽根).

All of the soap opera-worthy courtly drama forms the first act of the play. Kuzunoha only appears in the second. As we learn, she is the younger sister of Sakaki no Mae, and looks exactly the same as her. Yasuna encounters her when he reaches the Shinoda forest. Due to lacking clarity of mind, he at first assumes that he got reunited with Sakaki no Mae. However, Kuzunoha manages to help him overcome his grief, and explains she is not who she assumes she is. Yasuna is nonetheless still smitten, and asks her parents (it would appear Kuzunoha was not adopted by Kamo no Yasunori unlike her sister), Shinoda no Shōji (信太庄司) and his wife Shigarami (柵), to let them get married.

Alas, it turns out this is impossible, because Kuzunoha’s parents already promised her to her cousin… Akuemon. Following the universal principle of “speak of the devil and he doth appear”, Akuemon promptly appears, chasing a white fox to complete the mission he was entrusted with earlier. He is instantly thwarted by Yasuna and his attendant Yokanbei (与勘平). The latter then leads Kuzunoha and her parents to safety, but Yasuna apparently doesn’t notice this, and for a moment he fears that she was kidnapped. However, his worries soon disappear, as she appears again out of nowhere. In the culmination of the second act, the two then decide to hide for some time in a remote village, Abeno (the same one as in Abe no Seimei Monogatari).

What follows sounds almost like a comedy of errors. Long story short, it turns out that Michitaru has in fact saved Rokunokimi from Akuemon and hid her in his house. When Jibu no Tayū learns about this, he orders her to be killed (again), which triggers a chain reaction. Michitaru by accident kills his father, who had no part in the plot, but tried to take the blame to shield his son from Jibu no Tayū’s wrath. Michitaru’s wife then kills her father, as she has learned about his nefarious intentions and about pressuring Michitaru into helping him. In the aftermath of all of that, Michitaru realizes he has had enough and should go back to honest onmyōdo practice he was supposed to engage in as a student of Kamo no Yasunori full time. He takes the new name Dōman to signify his transformation.

Seimei and Dōman, as depicted by Hokusai (wikimedia commons)

As I already pointed out earlier, the play doesn’t follow Dōman’s usual characterization. Quite the opposite, it’s pretty much a conscious reversal - that’s where the “mirror” in the title actually comes from. Other fictional portrayals of Dōman make him a villainous counterpart of Seimei, and Edo period audiences were well aware of that. There was no shortage of works focused on their rivalry. It’s explored in detail in Abe no Seimei Monogatari, but also for example in the 1792 novel Abe no Seimei Ichidaiki (安倍晴明一代記, “Abe no Seimei’s Life Story”).

It’s worth noting that Dōman’s villainy might have a vague historical basis. It generally assumed that he was inspired by a certain, nomen omen, Dōman (道満), known from the Seiji Yōryaku (政事要略). He was reportedly employed by Takashina no Mitsuko (高階光子) in 1008. He is described as a hōshi onmyōji (法師陰陽師), literally “ priest onmyōji” - a designation for an unofficial onmyōji, basically. Such individuals were seemingly particularly commonly hired by courtiers to curse their rivals (something a regular onmyōji was legally prohibited from engaging with). A reference to a hōshi onmyōji being accused of that is preserved in Fujiwara no Sanesuki’s diary, the Shōyūki (小右記), for example. It is not entirely uncertain if the historical Dōman was involved in similar activities, it is clear that his fictional derivative is based on the curse specialists.

The connection between history and fiction should not be overestimated, though. The kinship between the historical and fictional Dōmans is ultimately quite vague, and the former didn’t really have anything to do with Seimei; their rivalry is an entirely fictitious invention. In particularly it’s worth pointing out it’s basically the standard to portray Dōman as older than Seimei, while the only references to his historical counterpart postdate Seimei’s death by three years - and considering he was unusually long-lived, it’s easier to assume they had nothing to do with each other than that Dōman was somehow even older than him.

Putting the historical Dōman aside, the third act was essentially custom tailored towards the tastes of contemporary audiences, but surprisingly failed to leave a lasting impact. It is instead the fourth act which became the most famous part of the play, and the most famous portrayal of Kuzunoha. It starts with a timeskip: as we learn, Yasuna and Kuzunoha got married and had a son, who is now five years old. However, it turns out that his mother is in fact not the real Kuzunoha. This is revealed when she appears with her parents to visit Yasuna - she’s been bedridden for years in the aftermath of the escape, and only recovered recently. Her parents decided to let her and Yasuna get married. However, they don’t find him at home, since he left to journey to a number of religious sites to pray for his family. They only encounter his wife. As you can probably guess, it turns out that the “Kuzunoha” Yasuna spent the past half a decade with is in fact the fox he saved from Akuemon. When this comes to light, she bids farewell to her son, and tells him to treat the real Kuzunoha as his mother instead from now on.

When Yasuna returns, and learns what happened from the real Kuzunoha, he decides that they need to find the fox Kuzunoha. His son and the real Kuzunoha decide to assist him. Like in every other version involving a search, they eventually manage to find the fox Kuzunoha in the Shinoda forest. She shows herself to them in her true form, that of a century old white fox, and reveals that while she has cast away her earthly attachments, she plans to nonetheless still protect her son. However, to that end she had to cast away her human disguise anyway, as a fox who falls in love with a human will eventually lose all supernatural abilities otherwise. This idea is an invention of the author (had this been an established motif earlier, Tamamizu Monogatari’s namesake protagonist would have no inner dilemmas to struggle with, arguably).

After this matter is settled, the protagonists encounter Dōman. Since they are not aware of his recent deeds, they initially assume that his visit is part of some new scheme. They also accuse him of engineering the theft of Kin’u Gyokuto Shū. However, he explains that he was a tool in an evil plot before, but had a change of heart. He admits the theft accusation is not unfounded, but also that he is not responsible for Sakaki no Mae’s suicide. To atone for his past deeds, he gives the book to Yasuna. However, he says that he is too old to use it, and Dōman should instead pass it on to his son (this is probably another intentional subversion - as you’ll see later, in another story Dōman crafts an elaborate scheme to steal this book from Seimei). When the kid receives the book, he is instantly able to interpret its title. He explains that it refers to a rabbit who lives on the moon and a crow who lives in the sun, and that the book contains knowledge necessary to understand everything on earth and in heaven. Dōman praises Yasuna for teaching his son well, but he clarifies that the boy must have inherited the talent of his biological mother, who was a white fox.

Dōman is aware of a case of a supernaturally gifted kid born to a human-fox couple in China (I’m not sure if this references a specific story, also note this is not an universal motif - in at least one Tang period tale children from a similar relationship die prematurely), and therefore to verify Yasuna's claim decides to test his son’s skills. The boy effortlessly answers all of his questions. Dōman is so impressed he bestows the name Seimei upon him - he was simply referred to as Dōji (童子, “boy” - not exactly a creative name) before. To celebrate, Yasuna and Dōman decide to visit the Shinoda shrine, leaving Kuzunoha and Seimei behind.

Nakamura Utaemon III as Yakanbei, Sawamura Kunitarō II as Kuzunoha, and Arashi Rikan II as Yokanbei (Museum of Fine Arts Boston; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

Since things are evidently going too well, Akuemon suddenly appears once again, accompanied by a group of thugs. He confronts the protagonists and tries to kidnap the real Kuzunoha, but his plan is foiled by the intervention of Yokanbei and an associate of fox Kuzunoha, another white fox, who turns into a copy of him. He calls himself Yakanbei (野干平) - a pun on Yokanbei’s name and the term yakan (射干; from Chinese yegan), which could refer either to a fox-like legendary animal, a jackal, or simply a fox. The scene is intentionally comedic, and it actually takes Yokanbei a while to realize there’s a copy of him running around. In some stage adaptations the sequence was extended further with the appearance of a female servant who is yet another fox in disguise.

After the successful rescue yet another timeskip happens. The final act shows Seimei at the age of eight. His parents decide to finally take him to Kyoto. He is already renowned for his skill, and the crown prince mentioned in passing earlier wants to meet him. However, after arriving in the capital Yasuna temporarily leaves his family, and through an unlucky twist of fate ends up killed by Akuemon, who is busy with a new scheme to curse Rokunokimi. Thankfully, when he later arrives in the court, carrying a crate which contains both a doll meant to be utilized to that end and Yasuna’s corpse, the plot is revealed through a joint effort of Seimei and Dōman. Seimei then resurrects his father, while Akuemon is executed… and that’s where the story ends (with no foxes in sight).

In the end, it might appear at first glance the play regarded as the most famous take on Kuzunoha doesn’t contain all that much Kuzunoha - not the fox Kuzunoha, at least. It’s really a play about Dōman and Yasuna in the end. Kuzunoha actually comes across as sort of expandable and forgettable in dry summaries of the play, and I don’t think mine really gives a different impression. To be fair, it’s actually a genuine theory that the apparent disposability of female characters in this case served as a criticism of the low position of women in Tokugawa society.

Regardless of whether this is true or not, it was ultimately Kuzunoha, and not Dōman, who made the play famous - and that’s why, as I briefly mentioned earlier, it’s uncommon to see the whole play on stage. It’s typically reduced just to act IV - which does actually revolve around Kuzunoha (or, to be more precise, Kuzunohas). There are two reasons behind that.

For starters, the scene of a mother parting with her child emotionally resonated with Edo period audiences to a greater degree than anything else Ashiya Dōman Ōuchi Kagami had to offer. Sure, it might be short, especially compared to the lengthy sections dealing with multi-layered courtly intrigues - but it had something they lacked: it was relatable. Making sure plays resonate with audiences, which consisted largely of commoners - often commoners who represented relatively historically recent social strata molded by changes in economy in the Edo period at that - was a common concern of playwrights. While many dealt with the distant past - especially the Heian period and the tumultuous transition into the middle ages - conscious effort was often made to incorporate contemporary elements, or to emphasize down to earth concerns, precisely to that end. The results weren’t always successful, and in some cases end up heavenly-handed and unintentionally comedic, but Takeda Izumo II evidently pulled it off. It worked so well that the rest of the play became basically unnecessary.

Furthermore, whether adapted in the form of a puppet play (as originally intended) or kabuki, the role of Kuzunoha was considered suitable for showcasing the skills of performers. Special effects, and in particular transformations from one character into another, were incredibly popular - that’s why so many plays from the Edo period have plots involving shapeshifters, doubles, mistaken identity or a combination of some or all of those elements. Foxes naturally provide a great venue for that - and Kuzunoha isn’t even the only time Takeda Izumo II capitalized on it (you will likely get to see another famous example on this blog in a few months).

Kuzunoha writing her parting poem with a brush held in her teeth (wikimedia commons)

When it comes to puppet plays, the greatest accomplishment of Kuzunoha was arguably facilitating the invention of a complex type of puppet requiring three people to operate, utilized for the first time in the scene involving her, Yokanbei and Yakanbei. In kabuki adaptations, Kuzunoha’s shapeshifting between human and fox forms is reflected by rapid change of costumes - basically the default way to measure an actor’s skill. Sometimes this is boosted further by speech quirks also used for other fox characters in kabuki. Furthermore, the actor playing her is often expected to write the poem she leaves before abandoning her family holding a brush in his (it’s an onnagata role, ie. a female character played by a man) teeth, cradling a prop representing infant not-yet-Seimei in both hands. A Meiji innovation making the role even more challenging was to have one actor play both Kuzunohas - which, naturally, required even faster costume changes. In some cases, a hat with a fox mask hidden in it is used to make it particularly rapid. Through this combination of factors, Kuzunoha, initially a minor addition to a corpus of legends about a popular protagonist which grew so large it started to absorb unrelated stories, eventually actually managed to outshine Seimei himself. Of course, it wasn’t that straightforward; Seimei’s disappearance from public consciousness didn’t just boil down to a specific kabuki attaining unexpected levels of renown. It’s also important to bear in mind that onmyōdō as a whole largely vanished from public consciousness after the Meiji reforms - and that even before them, the term didn’t necessarily invoke the image of a Heian period court official anymore (see my previous article dealing with relevant matters for more context). Even though Seimei, an at least vaguely Heian-inspired idea of onmyōdō, and the traditional villainous Dōman all made a comeback after the classic sources were “rediscovered” by new authors starting with the 1980s, Kuzunoha remains a fairly major component of what I earlier described as an “informal Seimei canon” - to the point it’s probably not hard to find people convinced she was a part of it from the very beginning. In that capacity she is a remarkable outlier. Most of the other Edo innovations are now forgotten, and Konjaku Monogatari and other early collections once again define Seimei just as they did for late Heian and early medieval audiences. And yet, the story of the most famous onmyōji being born as the son of a fox and subsequently abandoned evidently continues to resonate with new audiences.

Nothing like Kuzunoha: an excursus about the real daughter of Kamo no Yasunori

There’s an argument to be made that Seimei isn’t the only historical figure who ended up existing in the shadow of Kuzunoha, or more broadly of Ashiya Dōman Ōuchi Kagami. While Kuzunoha and Sakaki no Mae are both fictional characters, the historical Kamo no Yasunori actually did have at least one daughter. It’s safe to say she didn’t influence the creation of any of her fictional “siblings”, though. For all intents and purposes, she went down in history only as Kamo no Yasunori no Musume (賀茂保憲女), “the daughter of Kamo no Yasunori” - her real name is unknown. I personally think that in absence of any information about her name perhaps it would be preferable to use the epithet she used to refer to herself - Kamo uji naru musume, “a woman of the Kamo clan” - but I am not going to tell you to ignore the consensus, obviously. Since referring to her as “Kamo no Yasunori no musume” would get a bit cumbersome quickly, I hope you don’t mind here I will simply refer to her as “ms. Kamo”, though.

The sum of our knowledge about ms. Kamo’s life and career comes from just a single source - but what a source it is! At some point between 993 or 998, at the age of forty or so, she compiled her own poetry collection, today referred to simply as Kamo no Yasunori no Musume no shū (賀茂保憲女集) - “Kamo no Yasunori no Musume’s poetry collection” (hardly the most creative of titles). The uncertain dating reflects the fact that the only clear evidence in the work itself are references to an illness she at some point contracted, which might have been either smallpox (an epidemic occurred in 993) or measles (an epidemic occurred in 998). A lot is up to interpretation, though the illness at least for a time negatively impacted her eyesight, which seems to point at the second option.

The collection resulting from her efforts has the form of a sequence of around 240 poems accompanied by an autobiographical prose preface. This is not unusual in itself - similar collections consisting from a hundred to three hundred poems were fairly common in the later centuries of the Heian period. They were pioneered by Sone no Yoshitada around 960 or so. Depending on the exact dating of ms. Kamo’s sequence, she was either the first or second woman to contribute to this trend, though. Her contemporary Minamoto no Shigeyuki no Musume (源重之女; as you can probably guess, the daughter of Minamoto no Shigeyuki) compiled a hundred poems long sequence around 994.

While common, the hundred (or more) poem sequences were what can be described as an example of avant garde or outsider approach to poetry. In the Heian period most poems were composed during official competitions or for commemorative purposes in the imperial court. In contrast, the long sequences were typically the work of people who didn’t have opportunities to partake in official poetic events, for example lower ranking bureaucrats. Furthermore, the topics were more personal. It was fairly common to complain about unrecognized skills and slow progression in the chosen path of career, for example. This was an universe many lower ranked courtiers, as well as provincial bureaucrats, were familiar with - the Heian court was dominated by the powerful Fujiwara clan, and few people who didn’t belong to it managed to advance to the most prestigious positions (and those who did, like Sugawa no Michizane, could still end up exiled or worse as potential threats to the Fujiwa hegemony). However, in contrast with ultimately fairly formulaic complaints about stalled professional careers, ms. Kamo’s collection is essentially an outlier among outliers. It has an even more distinctly personal character. Of course, part of it is that the experience of a woman was fundamentally different from that of a male courtier. Ms. Kamo had to become a unique author in part simply because she had no models to pattern her poems on. She acknowledged herself that it was viewed as preferable for a woman to remain silent and unseen.

The life ms. Kamo wanted to document was sad and lonely - as she remarked to herself, “there is no one whose circumstances are as unhappy as mine within these islands”. The catalyst for writing was the life-threatening illness she survived, but which pretty clearly took a heavy mental toll on her. In a self-depreciating passage she described herself as "inferior in all ways to others, but better than others in getting an illness". On top of that, she felt isolated and was apparently concerned that she has failed to attain proper maturity, possibly due to remaining single - she only makes vague references to a possible failed past relationship. She apparently blamed her parents, and in one of her poems compared herself to an egg that has already putrefied before even hatching.

While I don’t necessarily think it’s incorrect to speculate that she might have felt this way due to failing to enter a relationship or forming a lasting one, it does seem that she was generally concerned about her life being stagnant, and about being confined in the same place for its entire duration. In some of her poems, she is saddened by own inability to see various wondrous phenomena and partaking in assorted pastimes (she admits she’s not even sure what was in the vogue among other noblewomen). Interestingly, she recognized that her position gives her a degree of freedom she would lack if her poetry conformed to courtly standards, though.

A further peculiar aspect of ms. Kamo’s work is her focus on social inequalities. She devotes some space to explaining why she doesn’t see class as an indication of merit. As she outlines, a virtuous and talented person might nonetheless have an unremarkable career and fail to move up. Furthermore, a humble person won’t necessarily be valued as much as they should. It was apparently a major concern for her overall that success is determined by wealth and family connections more than skill and virtue. That’s tragically a pretty timeless issue.

Some degree of opposition to the prevailing model of stratification of society was not entirely unheard of in the Heian period. Miyako no Yoshika’s uncle Miyako no Haraaka (都腹赤) famously believed that what we would by modern standards define as higher education should be available to all as opposed to hereditary nobility, for example. This was doubtlessly influenced by his own experience - his family background was unremarkable, and he managed to attain a degree of renown only thanks to a then-recent system of civil service examinations. His nephew, whose life followed a similar trajectory, purportedly opposed the encroachment of the Fujiwara clan upon educational institutions because it would limit the already not particularly plentiful opportunities people from more humbled backgrounds had. Ultimately the Chinese-style bureaucratic apparatus which enabled that collapsed, though, and even before that it obviously never managed to become the great equalizer people like Haraaka seemingly wanted it to be (it didn’t even accomplish that in China in the first place, to be fair).

Yoshishige no Yasutane (wikimedia commons) Most importantly, social inequalities are addressed in depth in the Chiteiki (池亭記), the magnum of opus of ms. Kamo’s uncle Yoshishige no Yasutane (慶滋保胤). He might have been an influence on the worldview of his niece, though unlike him she didn’t see the lack of adherence to Confucian teachings as the source of all ills. As a social critic she is ultimately without an exact parallel among her contemporaries. As cliche as that might sound, it would perhaps be most apt to say she was ahead of her times. Rather unusually for her era, she even believed romantic relationships should not be determined by social class, but rather by genuine feelings. She attributed the instability of romances among courtiers to this, even. I will refrain from speculation if this might have anything to do with the references to her own possible failed relationship.

Given the avant garde character of ms. Kamo’s works, it probably comes as no surprise to you to learn that they never had a wide circulation. She did hope for an audience - in the preface she even speculates how people in the future will imagine her based on the content of her poems. However, she never really found it.

Evidently someone had to be aware of her pursuits and kept her up to date with new trends in poetry, though. A possible candidate is, once again, her uncle Yasutane. Furthermore, some of her notes indicate she seemingly was sending at least some of her poems to someone, though whoever that was, they evidently didn’t opt to recommend her as a participant in any events focused on poetry held in the imperial court (or didn’t hold a position which would let them do so). Her poetry thus failed to captivate any larger audience, and didn’t enter the literary canon.

The only pre-modern exceptions are the inclusion of a small handful of her poems in the Shūi Wakashū (拾遺和歌集, “Collection of Gleanings”; 1006; 1 poem), Shin Kokin Wakashū (新古今和歌集, “New Collection of Ancient and Modern Poems”; 1205; 1 poem), Fūga Wakashū (風雅和歌集; “Collection of Elegant Poems”; 1348; 2 poems) and Shinshokukokin Wakashū (新続古今和歌集; “New Later Collection of Ancient and Modern Poems”; 1439; 1 poem). However, in the first two of these anthologies the author is left anonymous, presumably since she was not exactly famous and lived outside the imperial court. In the other two she is identified only as Kamo no Yasunori no musume.

Something that bugs me a lot is that there are multiple weird unsourced claims on English wikipedia severely overestimating the esteem she enjoyed in the Heian period and beyond. Kamo no Yasunori’s entry calls her an “acclaimed poet” (and similarly without a source asserts she was his second daughter; in reality she is his only female relative we know about). Her own article asserts she was renowned for her talent, despite later citing a researcher who correctly points out she was largely overlooked through history.

I would argue that in addition to being incorrect, these bizarre descriptions are disrespectful, seeing as much of her work is centered on frustrations stemming from not only not being perceived as important, but lacking any venue giving the slightest glimmer of hope for attaining that. I’m not exactly sure if the intent was to be feminist, but I personally think it would in fact be a more feminist approach to stress what motivated her to write, and to honestly report the lack of pre-modern reception. These factors are what makes ms. Kamo unique as a poet.

Sadly even the modern reception of ms. Kamo’s work is limited at best, which is part of why I decided to include her in this article. There are at least two annotated editions of her works aimed at academics in Japanese and a handful of articles, including a single one in English which you can find in the bibliography, but not much beyond that. Ultimately it is probably fair to say her fictional counterparts sadly outshine her, which arguably adds an extra layer to this tragedy. Obviously, Edo period playwrights weren’t deliberately trying to do so - odds are decent they weren’t even aware she existed - but it saddens me a bit that no attempt was made to find room for her in any modern adaptations of stories involving fictionalized portrayals of her father. An argument can even be made that ms. Kamo had some familiarity with onmyōdō. While it is not a major theme in her poetry, and she never referenced yin, yang and related concepts directly, she was evidently familiar with Chinese literature and philosophy to some degree. She references the Book of Changes and the well known (at the time, at least) story of Su Wu, for instance. It might also be worth noting that she was aware it was believed certain ascetic practices can extend the lifespan - for example consuming pine needles. It’s actually fairly likely that some of her familiarity with Chinese literature came from overhearing her brothers’ lessons - we actually know this must have been the case for some women in the Heian period. For instance, Murasaki Shikibu de facto received informal education this way. There’s even a proposal in scholarship which has gained some support that part of ms. Kamo’s bitterness might have come from perceiving herself as equally capable of learning as her brothers, but never really receiving opportunities to prove it.

Beyond Kuzunoha: other figures of note in Seimei narratives

After the largely historical excursus, let’s go back to fiction. As I mentioned earlier, many once popular recurring characters from stories about Seimei - from early legends to Edo period novels - largely languish in obscurity today, even though Seimei himself arguably regained his prominence. I figured it is only fair to discuss some examples I consider particularly interesting as well.

Rika

While Abe no Seimei Monogatari is notable for being one of the earliest works which feature (a prototype of) Kuzunoha, it also provides Seimei with a further fictional female relative, a wife named Rika (梨花). And she is, quite unexpectedly, an antagonist who aids Dōman.

The historical Seimei presumably did have a family, but as far as I am aware no source mentions anything about the identity of his spouse. He definitely had children, most notably Abe no Yoshihira (安倍吉平; 954–1026), which does indicate the existence of a ms. Abe (or at least a mistress whose child was legitimized, I suppose). I won’t dwell much Yoshihira here, as he is largely irrelevant for the matters this article focuses on, though it’s worth noting that he famously managed to enact an onmyōdō takeover of hanshi (反支; from Chinese fanzhi), formerly handled by court physicians. This procedure was supposed to determine if anything inauspicious might happen during the birth of a child.

I’m only aware of a single source predating Abe no Seimei Monogatari which would mention Seimei’s wife at all, and it is similarly a literary text rather than a historical document. However, she is left nameless in it, and her characterization differs considerably. Rather unexpectedly, it’s not strictly speaking a Seimei story, but rather the fourteenth century Genpei Jōsuiki - an extended version of the Heike Monogatari. In the passage in mention Taira no Tokiko performs hashiura (橋占), an unusual form of divination. Instead of the movement of celestial bodies, it required listening to the conversations of passersby on a bridge. She chooses the Ichijō-modoribashi (一条戻橋) in Kyoto, where she encounters a group of twelve unusual children, who all repeat the same prophecy. She quickly realizes they’re actually shikigami, and not just any shikigami at that, but rather manifestations of the Twelve Heavenly Generals (十二神, jūnishin).

Why are the Twelve Heavenly Generals there, instead of performing the Medicine Buddha and engaging in other typical Heavenly General pursuits? That’s where Seimei’s wife comes in. It is revealed that Seimei sealed the Generals under the bridge because his wife was capable of seeing supernatural beings, including them, just like he was, but was afraid of them. As a result of Seimei’s ritual, hashiura performed there was guaranteed to result in receiving prophetic messages from the Twelve Heavenly Generals, even if they used passersby to convey it. The reference to supernatural powers is certainly interesting - in other literary texts a similar ability is enough for the protagonist to be granted the right to study onmyōdō (a good example is a Konjaku Monogatari story about Kamo no Yasunori’s childhood) - but the topic is not explored further.

Ichijō-modoribashi in 2005, with the shikigami statue on the left (wikimedia commons)

It’s worth noting that the story seemingly had a degree of influence on the surroundings of Ichijō-modoribashi bridge. Today there’s a statue of a shikigami next to it. However, he’s not one of the Twelve Heavenly Generals, but rather an anonymous critter who appears in medieval portraits of Seimei as his personal shikigami. Compare the two depictions below, courtesy of wikimedia commons:

As for Abe no Seimei Monogatari, as thrilling as the summary of Rika’s character sounds, she sadly receives very little spotlight. We don’t learn how she met Seimei, where she came from, or the circumstances of their marriage. No information from the Genpei Jōsuiki episode is referenced, either, and I think it’s safe to say the two takes on Seimei’s wife are independent from each other - though it’s not hard to find people treating them as the same character online. To be fair, it’s not like these sources are impossible to reconcile with each other.

Rika and Seimei are already married when she is mentioned for the first time, when Seimei leaves to China to study under Hakudō Shōnin. In his absence Dōman, who after losing a bet had to become his disciple earlier, conspires with Rika (to be fair, Seimei for whatever reason entrusted him with taking care of her in his absence). His goal is to gain insight into two books Seimei owns: the Kin’u Gyokuto Shū, written by Hakudō Shōnin, and the Hoki Naiden, brought to Japan by Kibi no Makibi. She shows him a box in which Seimei keeps them. He wastes no time and after figuring out how to open it studies both books and copies them.

When Seimei returns, Dōman offers him a wager. He claims that the books were revealed to him in a dream by the bodhisattva Monju, and suggests that he can prove it. Seimei, who does not believe in dream visions, and remains blissfully unaware of Rika’s actions in his absence, agrees, and says that Dōman can kill him if he really does have the books - that’s how implausible this scenario is to him. To his shock, his rival-turned-apprentice reveals the copies he prepared, and in accordance with their agreement kills him. Dōman then gets rid of everyone else in Seimei’s household by turning them into pieces of straw and wood - the only exception is Rika. The two become a couple; the narrator notes this is something he has desired for a long while already, though as far as I can tell the novel doesn’t mention it at any earlier point. We don’t really learn anything about Rika’s views on the matter, sadly.

Dōman’s triumph is short-lived. Through an omen, Hakudō Shōnin learns that Seimei has died and arrives in Japan to resurrect him and let him avenge his death. He visits Dōman and, in a mirror of the trick he played on Seimei earlier, gets him to agree that he should be killed if it turns out Seimei is alive. Seimei, alive and well thanks to Hakudō Shōnin’s magical abilities, promptly appears to complete this wager. Rika attempts to hide behind a curtain to avoid a similar fate, but this proves to be unsuccessful. While she doesn’t make a similar bargain with Hakudō Shōnin, the narrator states that this is ultimately a just outcome. Both conspirators are then buried near the bank of the Gojō River, and that’s basically it for their role in the story. Neither portrayal of Seimei’s wife gained much notoriety in later works. I would assume the fact that through the Edo period ultimately it was the story of his parents that captivated the audience was a factor (it would be hard to explore his own relationships if most new stories had him as a 5-year-old), but this is entirely speculative.

As for modern authors: Yumemakura Baku, whose novels about Seimei contributed towards the development of the “onmyōdō boom” in popculture, acknowledged in an interview that the historical Seimei presumably did have a wife, but said he has no plans to explore this topic.

Makuzu (bottom left) from Okano's adaptation of Yumemakura's novels (MELODY; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

This being said, the manga adaptation of his works by Okano Reiko apparently did introduce a character loosely based on her Genpei Jōsuiki portrayal named Makuzu (真葛). The reception of this addition appears to be mixed, but as I haven't read this series I won’t pass judgment. This being said, if the Makuzu subplot really does involve Seimei learning they’re the reincarnation of a pharaoh and his wife out of blue, let’s just say I think I’d rather stick to Yumemakura’s prose version.

I was also able to find a single modern work which actually features Rika: Onmyōji Abe no Seimei - Saishū Kessen (陰陽師安倍晴明ー最終決戦; “Onmyōji Abe no Seimei - Final Battle”) a very loose stage play adaptation of Abe no Seimei Monogatari by the troupe Gesshoku Kageki Dan (月蝕華撃團). A recording from 2021 can be found on their youtube channel:

youtube

Additionally there are numerous photos of the costumes on their social media (a selection of my favorites: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Parts of the plot seem… very avant garde compared to the original, but I do like the actress portraying Seimei, Shiranaga Ayumi (白永歩美), a lot. Note that Seimei isn’t supposed to be a woman here, though (this remains an idea largely exclusive to Fromsoft’s Kuon); this troupe’s performances pretty commonly involve actresses playing male roles, as I understand. Whether intentional or not, in this case it ends up as a neat parallel to men traditionally playing Kuzunoha in the Edo period and beyond.

Hakudō Shōnin

An illustration of Hakudō Shōnin from the Abe no Seimei Monogatari

Given that I already brought up Hakudō Shōnin (伯道上人; sometimes translated as “Saint Hakudō”) multiple times, I don’t think it’s particularly shocking that I consider him another character who warrants more spotlight. At least one Edo period source, Jinrin Kinmō Zui (人倫訓蒙図彙; “Illustrated Dictionary of Different Kinds of People”) from 1690, seems to treat him as a historical figure. The entry on diviners (占師, uranaishi) states that Kamo no Yasunori brought Chinese divination methods originally invented by Fuxi to Japan, but also that Abe no Seimei was taught them by Hakudō Shōnin. In reality, not only is Hakudō entirely fictitious, he didn’t even originate in China. In theory his name would be Bodao Shangren in Chinese - but no Chinese source actually mentions him. He is essentially a representation of the Japanese idea of what a Chinese Buddhist sage slash Daoist immortal (he is described as both simultaneously) would be like. In art he is seemingly generally portrayed in the garb of a monk. I’ve seen a single more unique depiction recently, but I was unable to verify its provenance:

It’s fair to say that in literature Hakudō Shōnin is portrayed as part ascetic, part onmyōji. This might seem unusual - after all, the historical Heian period onmyōji were essentially government officials not too different from other mid-level courtiers. However, Hakudō’s portrayal is not particularly outlandish - it reflects ideas about is onmyōji widespread in medieval sources. The fact that divinatory techniques associated with onmyōdō were often transmitted by shugenja - mountain ascetics - in this period is doubtlessly related, but I won’t pursue this point further here.

As far as literature goes, the merging of onmyōdō and asceticism is evident in legends about the legendary sage Hōdō Shōnin (法道上人, Sanskrit Dharmamārga) or the historical Tendai monk Jōzō (浄蔵). In the Kojidan (古事談), compiled by Minamoto no Akikane (源顕兼) around 1212-1215, even Seimei himself is described as a hermit who gained mastery of onmyōdō by leading an ascetic life in in Kumano (a particularly favored location for such activities) for a thousand days.

Given that this image of Seimei doesn’t really reemerge in later sources, I’m admittedly curious if perhaps Hakudō wasn’t created to offer an indirect way to incorporate it into broader informal “Seimei canon” - so that instead of Seimei gaining knowledge through asceticism, he instead acquired it from an ascetic? This is entirely speculative on my part, though. Note that there might very well be older sources mentioning Hakudō than those I am aware of, which depending on date could instantly sink this proposal.

Stories involving Hakudō were already in circulation in the fourteenth century. An early example appears in the preface to Hoki Naiden. It describes him as a disciple of the bodhisattva Monju who after attaining enlightenment received the scroll Monju Sesshū Butsurekikyō (“Sutra of Buddha Calendar Assembled by Monju”) from him. He then brought it with him to China, where he came up with a new title for it, Hoki Naiden Kin’u Gyokuto Shū . Many years later Seimei learned about it from him, and made it the to-go point of reference for fellow onmyōji in Japan under its full title. It should be noted here that another tradition had Seimei himself as the author, though. In reality it was most likely only composed in the fourteenth century by a hitherto unidentified descendant of the historical Seimei (or at least someone who saw association with him as a source of own credibility), though.

The Hoki Naiden preface also states that Hakudō arrived in Japan after Seimei’s death to resurrect him. To that end he collected all his bones - “12 big bones and 360 small bones altogether” - and performed a special ritual. Noriko T. Reider notes that this passage resembles a number of legends involving a historical figure either trying to create a new living being out of bones or other body parts (Minamoto no Morofusa and Saigyō in two separate tales from the Senjūshō), or encountering a person created this way (Ki no Haseo in Haseo Zōshi). The difference is obviously that Hakudō brings a specific dead person to life instead of creating a new living being, and that the deed is portrayed firmly positively. Still, given that all of these stories have been composed roughly in the same time period, it does seem fair to say we’re dealing with different takes on the same motif.

It’s worth noting that while Hakudō Shōnin is essentially absent from modern Seimei media - presumably since Seimei is, true to historical sources, usually portrayed as a disciple of Kamo no Yasunori (or, alternatively, his father Kamo no Tadayuki) - in the middle ages he was famous enough to even be referenced in at least one variant of one the most famous medieval Japanese works possible, namely in the Ōeyama Ekotoba (大江山絵詞), a Muromachi period illustrated version of the Shuten Dōji legend. It puts a peculiar twist on the connection between him and Seimei, though. It is revealed that instead of being a disciple and a master, respectively, they are two incarnations of Ryūju Bosatsu (龍樹菩薩) - the bodhisattva form of the early Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna, venerated in Japan by the Shingon school.

Hakudō encountering the bodhisattva Monju Both of the Hoki Naiden legends mentioned above were incorporated into Abe no Seimei Monogatari. An entire section of this novel is additionally dedicated to Hakudō’s early career and the origin of the Hoki Naiden. It states he was born during the reign of the Zhou dynasty (so he’s over a thousand years old - possibly nearly two thousand years old - by the time he meets Seimei), and that he initially lived in Jingshan. He tried to master yin, yang, earth and haven, but failed to do so. This prompted him to go on a journey, during which he encountered a supernatural youth - an incarnation of the bodhisattva Monju - who informed him that his approach was wrong. He let Hakudō become his disciple on Mt. Wutai (however, in the Hoki-shō his studies take place in India instead).

Under Monju’s guidance Hakudō managed to learn all of the mysteries he wanted to know, becoming a master of divination in the process. He also attained the rank of an arhat. He later returned to Jingshan, where he compiled the teachings of the bodhisattva revealed to him in 160 volumes.

Donfang Shuo (wikimedia commons)

Through the following centuries, Hakudō secretly revealed small snippets to various rulers and sages, including Jiang Ziya, Fan Li, Zhang Liang, Kong Anguo and Heshang Gong. The scrolls were eventually gifted to emperor Wu of Han, whose courtier Donfang Shuo (a veritable Han dynasty reneissance man) managed to become a great sage just by studying them (remember this detail, it will be relevant later).

As you can probably tell, the passage dealing with Seimei’s resurrection inspired the section of the story involving Rika, which I already summarized above.

Hōdō Shōnin in Abe no Seimei Monogatari As a side note, it’s worth pointing out that Abe no Seimei Monogatari also features Hōdō Shōnin in a small capacity. Somewhat confusingly, he is described both as a Daoist immortal and as a monk from India. Dōman claims to be his disciple to make himself appear greater than in reality, but in reality he merely inherited a book written by ancestor Ashiya no Suguri Kiyofuto (藍屋村主清太; as far as I know, a character invented for this novel), who encountered Hōdō Shōnin around 300 years prior to the events of the story. While this sounds like setting up further intentional parallels between him and Seimei, as far as I can tell it’s not implied that Hōdō and Hakudō were rivals, and the former otherwise appears chiefly in legends unrelated to Seimei - most commonly ones dealing with the foundation of Buddhist temples. It also needs to be noted that since this is a work following the traditional negative portrayal of Dōman, the narrator makes it clear that despite claiming to be Hōdō’s disciple and even dressing up like a monk (a possible allusion to the term for unofficial onmyōji I’ve already discussed, I assume?) he was impious and even committed unspecified crimes. Hakudō Shōnin also makes an appearance in Shinodazuma Tsurigitsune Tsuketari Abe no Seimei Shusshō. In this play Seimei meets him when he is ten years old. Hakudō gives him the Kin’u Gyokuto Shū. It is also revealed that in the past he met Seimei’s ancestor Abe no Nakamaro when the latter acted as an envoy in China. His resurrection ritual is also referenced: when in the final act of the play Dōman’s subordinates kill Seimei’s father Yasuna, he has to be resurrected using Hakudō Shōnin’s bone-gathering method. While as I already summarized earlier Yasuna’s final fate is quite similar in Ashiya Dōman Ōuchi Kagami, no reference is made to any Chinese sages - it’s just one of the many abilities young Seimei has already mastered.

Kibi no Makibi (and Abe no Nakamaro)

An Edo period portrait of Kibi no Makibi (wikimedia commons)

Unlike Rika, who you can at best call semi-historical (in that the real Seimei probably did have a wife) and Hakudō Shōnin, who is entirely fictitious, the final figure I’d like to introduce you to in this article, Kibi no Makibi (吉備真備; 695-775), was a real person. His accomplishments and postmortem career as a literary character would honestly be enough for a separate article - here I will only limit myself to a small handful of sources due to space constraints. Makibi famously traveled to China twice, first as a student and then as an ambassador, and between these two journeys spent around 20 years (around one fourth of his life!) on the mainland. He was considered unusually erudite, and was one of the foremost Japanese scholars of his era. Due to his renown he also held a number of prominent positions in the court, including the incredibly prestigious role of minister of the right (右大臣, udaijin); the only other scholar to ever attain this rank was Sugawara no Michizane.

Next to Seimei and Kamo no Yasunori, Makibi is also probably one of the most famous onmyōji in history - which is quite a feat given that he actually had next to nothing to do with onmyōdō in life. Early sources, such as Shoku Nihongi (797) and Miyoshi no Kiyoyuki’s (三善清行; 847-919) Iken Fūji Jūni Kajō (意見封事十二箇条, “Statement of Opinion on Twelve Matters”) agree that he was unusually skilled, and that in China he mastered many arts, including but not limited to Confucian classics, history, arithmetic, music, poetry, and calligraphy, but they don’t link him with onmyōdō at all.

It’s hard to tell when and why the shift in the perception of Makibi’s knowledge occurred, but he is already described as not just an onmyōji, but the founder of onmyōdō in Fujiwara no Akihira’s (藤原明衡; 989-1066) Shin Sarugōki (新猿楽記, “Account of the New Monkey Music”). Another example can be found in the Konjaku Monogatari, where Makibi is portrayed using his onmyōdō skills to pacify the vengeful spirit of Fujiwara no Hirotsugu. By the twelfth century, regarding Makibi as an onmyōji was common. This is evident in the works most relevant to this article, namely fictionalized accounts of his journey to China. The oldest of them, Kibi Nittō no Kan no Koto (吉備入唐の間の��, “Kibi’s Adventures in China”), is preserved in Ōe no Masafusa’s Gōdanshō (江談抄). A more vague account can be found in the Fusō Ryakki (扶桑略記, "Brief History of Fusang"), though it is likely a derivative of the Gōdanshō one.

Makibi (in black robes) and Chinese officials (all images from this scroll have been taken from the website of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

Masafusa’s account of the journey also inspired the illustrated scroll Kibi Daijin Nittō Emaki (吉備大臣入唐絵巻, “Illustrated Adventures of Minister Kibi in China“), which was most likely commissioned by emperor Go-Shirakawa between the late 1170 and early 1180s. Like other similar contemporary works, Kibi Daijin Nittō Emaki has very little to do with historical reality. It relays that after arriving in China, Makibi was imprisoned by local officials, who feared that due to being exceptionally skilled he would make them look inept in comparison. To regain his freedom he had to overcome a series of trials.

Distinctly oni-like vengeful Nakamaro

Makibi's only ally is the vengeful spirit of Abe no Nakamaro (阿倍仲麻呂; 698-770). He is described as the previous ambassador. After a similar ordeal he died in captivity.

In reality, Nakamaro traveled to China alongside Makibi in 716. However, he was not an envoy, but merely a student who was allowed to join an official delegation. What is true is that he never returned to Japan. This was not the result of any nefarious plot, let alone premature death, though. He successfully completed the Chinese civil service exam and became an official. He did try to return to Japan in 735, but a storm left him shipwrecked at the coast of Annam (a part of modern Vietnam which at the time was a Chinese protectorate), and he opted to return to his career. He also attained some renown as a poet, and was on friendly terms with the poetic superstars of his times, Li Bai and Wang Wei. All around his real life was most likely happier than the story would indicate - though based on his surviving poetry it is safe to assume he did feel homesick in some capacity.

Nakamaro longing for home in Abe no Seimei Monogatari

Obviously, Kibi Daijin Nittō Emaki is a particularly extreme example of reinterpretation of Nakamaro’s life in literature postdating him. However, portrayals focused on his longing for a return home are quite common, and appear as early as in the Tosa Nikki (土佐日記, “Tosa Diary”) by Ki no Tsurayuki, completed around 935. It should be noted that by the tenth century or so, even venturing beyond the capital was commonly described as a daunting task, and dying in exile was one of the greatest fears for courtiers. Based on these developments, it can also be argued that the fictionalized portrayal of Nakamaro is an example of a phenomenon derived from these fears - the belief that people who died far away from home would return as vengeful ghosts. He could thus be considered a peer of the likes of Sugawara no Michizane or prince Sawara. The possibility that someone would move to a far off land voluntarily, and die there peacefully of natural causes, would probably be hard to grasp for late Heian audiences.

Pacified Nakamaro (right) talking to Makibi (left)

Anyway, back to the story. Makibi’s captors are actually convinced that Nakamaro, who became a vengeful spirit and haunts the tower where the new envoy ends up imprisoned, will kill him. However, even though Nakamaro appears to Makibi in a fierce oni-like form, he ends up pacified through what might be an unusual ritual. Makibi informs him that he is in the presence of an official envoy, and as such needs to take a suitable form. This evidently works - through the rest of the scroll Nakamaro, now a staunch ally of Makibi, is depicted in the attire of a Japanese official, just with an unconventional distinctly orange skin tone. Makibi also learns that Nakamaro is concerned about his relatives, and reassures him that his entire clan is doing well.

Makibi and Nakamaro flying After surviving the encounter with Nakamaro, Makibi is informed that his trials are set to begin. The first of them involves learning the Wen Xuan (文選, “Selections of Refined Literature”). He is not familiar with this anthology, but using a secret art enabling him to fly he manages to secretly reach the imperial palace to listen to scholars reading it. In the illustrated version he masters flight himself, which is presumably meant to show he is in full control of the situation, and there is no genuine threat in his temporary captivity. However, in Masafusa’s forerunner it is Nakamaro who can fly, and Makibi relies on his help. Either way, the aerial journey is successful, and when a Chinese official appears to question Makibi, he reveals a copy of Wen Xuan he prepared in secret based on what he heard, thus completing the first challenge.

Makibi playing go The next day, Makibi is set to face a master of go. This might seem random, but playing it was a fairly standard part of diplomatic visits, and in fact in at least some cases envoys were selected based on their go skills. Makibi is unfamiliar with it, though, and has to learn the rules from Nakamaro. He quickly comes up with an ingenious, if unconventional, strategy. Initially neither side gains an advantage, but eventually Makibi notices an opportunity to use his secret gambit arises He swallows one of his opponent’s pieces, which lets him attain victory. A diviner informs the Chinese officials about this, and they tell Makibi to take a purgative to prove he was cheating, but he manages to counter its effects with his esoteric knowledge.

Makibi’s success infuriates the officials, and they decide that to hinder him they’ll try to starve him. He manages to overcome this hardship with the help of Nakamaro, who secretly brings him food every night. This continues for months, but eventually the time of another challenge comes.

A statue from Saiō-ji depicting Baozhi revealing his nature as an incarnation of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Kyoto National Museum; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

As it turns out, the officials decided to seek the help of a virtuous Buddhist monk, the Chan master Baozhi (宝志禅师; he actually lived during the reign of Wu of Liang, some 250 years before Makibi’s journey), who prepared a barrier meant to prevent supernatural beings from entering the palace where Makibi will be tested. This means that for the first time he will have to manage without any help from Nakamaro. His new task to interpret a complex poem, Yabatai (邪馬台). Its contents aren’t discussed in the story; it was a purported prophecy according to which Japan will undergo division and ultimately perish after the reign of the hundredth emperor. Needless to say, following the traditional order which includes mythical and legendary emperors, the prophecy evidently didn’t come to pass - Go-Komatsu was #100, Naruhito is #126. Makibi initially cannot even decipher a single sign. In despair, he prays to Sumiyoshi and Kannon of Hasedera. A spider miraculously appears, and moves across the text to help him read it properly. The gathered officials, as well as the Chinese emperor, are in awe. However, they don’t let Makibi return home, and once again lock him in the tower.

Shortly afterwards, Makibi is reunited with his ally Nakamaro, and enlists his help once more. He asks him to find a century old set of sugoroku paraphernalia. With the help of these tools, he causes an eclipse. The emperor learns about its cause from his diviners, and has his officials question Kibi. He claims that the only way to end the eclipse is to let him return to Japan. This time, they oblige, and the story ends. The forerunner preserved by Masafusa indicates that Makibi was also credited with bringing the Wen Xuan, the Yabatai and the game of go to Japan. In reality, go and Wen Xuan were already known in Japan before his journey. Meanwhile, according to the Edo period philosopher Hayashi Gahō Yabatai was most likely a hoax composed in Japan in the Heian period, even though it was held to be the work of Baozhi.

It is commonly assumed in scholarship that the story was meant to reflect somewhat xenophobic attitudes towards China or more broadly towards foreign lands prevalent at the time of its composition. While in Makibi’s and Nakamaro’s times sending envoys to China was relatively common, and Japanese emperors actively sought contact with their Chinese counterparts (though occasionally diplomatic correspondence could end up awkward as both sides aimed to present themselves as superior), with time similar journeys became less frequent, and started to be perceived as increasingly dangerous (to be fair - the risk of getting shipwrecked was genuinely fairly high). It might be significant that formal diplomacy resumed during the reign of Go-Shirakawa, though. It is distinctly possible that he saw this success as a parallel to Makibi’s legendary deeds, and commissioned an illustrated edition to basically congratulate himself.

An alternate proposal is that Kibi Daijin Nittō Emaki arose as a part of an onmyōdō feud between the Kamo and Abe clans. For what it’s worth, it does seem that despite earlier successful arrangements meant to guarantee a division of positions in the court both the Abe and the Kamo would be satisfied with, tensions arose between them during reigns of emperors Toba and Go-Shirakawa, so roughly at the time of its composition. However, the interpretation of the story as a product of this conflict rests on the argument that Makibi is portrayed as more clever and skilled than Nakamaro. This sort of power level discussion is not entirely rooted in the primary sources, where the two clearly work as a team. There are further problems with this interpretation, too.

An obvious issue is that while the link between Abe no Nakamaro and the Abe clan is self-explanatory, it is not exactly evident in which way Makibi would be a representation of the Kamo. It is sometimes claimed in scholarship that the Kamo clan claimed descent from him, but this appears to be an Edo period misconception. It’s most likely a result of confusion between Kamo no Kibimaro (鴨吉備麻呂), a member of the Kamo clan who also traveled to China (his journey occurred earlier, during the final years of the reign of Wu Zetian), and Makibi. No reference to a relation between Makibi and the Kamo can be found in the fourteenth century genealogical treatise Sonpi Bunmyaku (尊卑分脈; “Genealogical Branches of the High and the Low”), though. Kamo no Yasunori is essentially treated as the founder of this lineage. A further problem is that there’s no good reason to doubt that the scroll was prepared for emperor Go-Shirakawa - who himself favored the Abe clan, as evidenced by the esteem Abe no Yasuchika (安倍泰親) enjoyed in his court.

Kibi Daijin Nittō Emaki wasn’t commonly copied in the Kamakura and Muromachi periods, but portraying Makibi as an onmyōji only became more entrenched in literature over the middle ages. He was supposedly responsible for transmitting rituals focused on Tenkeisei (天刑星, “Star of Heavenly Punishment“; this deity was held to be a master of all shikigami, for more info see my previous article) alongside Kamo no Yasunori. In a local tradition from Mount Hiromine, he was credited with enabling the enshrinement of Gozu Tennō by making a pact with him during his journeys to China.

While the examples cited above were essentially new, the specific story illustrated in Kibi Daijin Nittō Emaki evidently wasn’t forgotten either. It regained popularity in the Edo period, as evidenced by its various new adaptations. These include works from various genres, such as Koikawa Harumachi’s novel Kibi no Nihon Jie (吉備能日本知恵, “Japanese Kibi’s Ingenuity”) or the kabuki play Kibi Daijin Shina Tan (吉備大臣支那譚, “Story of Minister Kibi in China”). However, from the perspective of this article what matters the most is that it was incorporated into Abe no Seimei Monogatari, thus firmly becoming a part of Seimei’s origin story.

A personification of Mars, as depicted in Sōkan’s Iconographic Drawings of the Secrets of the Nine Luminaries (public domain; via Metropolitan Museum of Art)

The novel introduces Abe no Nakamaro first, and reveals that he was the reincarnation of Dongfang Shuo (remember him?) and by extension of the planet Mars (sic). Since Dongfang Shuo was incredibly loyal to his country, it was only natural the same was true for his reincarnation. However, as Nakamaro was born in Japan, and not China, this was less than optimal in the specific situation he found himself in. After arriving in China as an envoy, he was imprisoned - as described in earlier works - because his actions were perceived as disrespectful. He dies in prison shortly after.

A year after Nakamaro’s ill fated journey, Kibi no Makibi arrives in China as the next envoy. The Chinese emperor, Xuanzong, is infuriated that the tribute he presented was inadequate, and considers executing him, but decides to give him a way out. If he can complete a series of trials, he will be allowed to return to Japan instead (inadequate tribute be damned). These overlap with the earlier versions, though the order is changed.

Makibi playing go in Abe no Seimei Monogatari

The first of the trials involves go. Makibi is set to face a master of this game, a certain Xiandang (玄東; Gentō in Japanese) in it. His opponent actually doesn’t have a name in any of the early accounts of his adventures in China; it seems this was an innovation of an abbreviated version from the Hoki-shō.

The fateful go match, as imagined by Kunisuda Utagawa; note the inclusion of Xiandang's wife (Egenolf Gallery; reproduced here for educational purposes only) The name evidently caught on, though, since in addition to Abe no Seimei Monogatari it also pops up in other Edo period works, such as the 1852 kabuki play Kin’u Gyokuto Wakoku no Irifune (金烏玉兎倭国入船, “The Golden Crow, the Jade Rabbit, and the Ship that Arrived from Japan”). The resolution also differs somewhat: Makibi learns go by secretly observing Xiandang, who plays it regularly with his wife at home. He wins two matches against him fair and square, without the need to eat any of the pieces.

A spider helps Makibi

The Wenxuan trial is next; it essentially goes the same as in Kibi Daijin Nittō Emaki. The Yabatai trial is altered slightly, though. For starters, Bao Zhi is not physically present - he is only referenced as the poem’s supposed author. The emperor selects it specifically because it’s uniquely difficult, and he can’t read it himself. Nakamaro learns about this, and tells Makibi the best solution might be to pray, which he promptly does. No reference is made to Sumiyoshi, but Kannon of Hasadera gets a more prominent role. Makibi’s devotion to this figure is stressed over and over again. The spider whose help lets him read Yabatai is explicitly identified as a manifestation of this bodhisattva, as well. Reading Yabatai is presented as a grand feat. The entire court cheers (a far cry from the excessively villainous portrayal of courtly officials in Kibi Daijin Niitō Emaki). Even the emperor is deeply moved by Makibi’s skill, and instead of simply letting him go back home as he initially intended he tells him that he can stay as long as he wants in China in order to study. This seems like an attempt at reconciling fictional portrayals of Makibi’s journey with historical reality - I must say I think it works pretty well.

In any case, Makibi accepts the offer, and spends a long time studying various arts in China, much like he did in real life. When he finally decides to return to Japan, Xuanzong bestows various gifts on him, including a variety of literary texts, musical instruments, relics of the Buddha, a robe made from the hide of a “fire-rat” (火鼠, huoshu in Chinese, kaso in Japanese; Makibi could thus complete at least one of the trials of princess Kaguya if he only met her) and, most importantly, the Hoki Naiden (presumably passed down from emperor to emperor, though the story doesn’t state it explicitly). He also ordered a thousand monks to pray to guarantee his voyage back home would be safe.

The Abe no Seimei Monogatari account of Makibi deeds doesn’t end here, in contrast with Kibi Daijin Nittō Emaki. He safely returns to Japan, and the emperor bestows prestigious positions upon him as a reward for his accomplishments in China. Many years later, as an elderly man, he starts feeling like he essentially ended up with a life that should’ve been Nakamaro’s, though (somewhat confusingly, Nakamaro makes no physical appearance after the trials), and decides to find his family. He is unsuccessful, and ultimately writes in his will that he wants his own descendants to seek Nakamaro’s to give them the Hoki Naiden. As it later turns out, they have fallen into poverty, and have no real use for this tome. It ends up hidden until the birth of Abe no Seimei many years later.

The same events are described differently in the Hoki-shō. Makibi acquires the Hoki Naiden basically through the same means as in Abe no Seimei Monogatari, but after returning from China he gives it to young Seimei, who is introduced as a descendant of Nakamaro. In reality, despite sharing the same family name Nakamaro and Seimei were not directly related, though (Abe no Seimei Monogatari approaches this issue slightly differently, by having Seimei be a reincarnation of Nakamaro,as revealed by Hakudō). Furthermore, comparing the dates of Makibi’s journey and Seimei’s birth makes any encounter between them chronologically awkward.

It seems in at least some other works Makibi had one more role to play in setting up Seimei’s career: supposedly Kuzunoha (or, at the very least, Shinoda Myōjin) could be portrayed as his reincarnation. The problem is, while I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of this tradition, I can’t pinpoint its original source for now - this is in part why this article took so long to release.

More than once I’ve seen an assertion that it comes from a sekkyobushi, but as I outlined earlier, it seems no actual evidence for the existence of such an adaptation is available. Furthermore, the most prominent online source of this claim is seemingly a blog on which I also found posts uncritically discussing Hotsuma Tsutae and JJCAT - which doesn’t exactly fill me with optimism. In the article Kitsunenyōbō Ni Miru Ikai ― Futari no Kuzunoha Ga Deau Koto ― Atsuko Katō states that the notion of Shinoda Myōjin being a reincarnation of Kibi no Makibi comes from Abe no Seimei Monogatari, but either this is a mistake, or for some strange reason a scene was omitted in Nana Miyata’s recent German translation (Die Erzählungen vom Leben und Wirken des Divinationsmeisters Abe no Seimei); unless the reference is actually to be found in the supplement to Abe no Seimei Monogatari which had the form of a divination manual, which is left out of the translation. Finally, the Kuzunoha article from Japanese Wikipedia gives the source as Shinodazuma Tsurigitsune Tsuketari Abe no Seimei Shusshō, relying on an anthology of Edo period puppet plays from 1965, edited by Shigeru Yokoyama. Sadly, I can’t consult the full text of this work to verify. I’ll update this article if I ever manage to solve this conundrum. Until then, though, it must end on a slightly unsatisfying note. Bibliography Tumblr for some unfathomable reason didn't let me include a bibliography here, so sadly you have to visit a google doc to access it. I'm sorry.

#kuzunoha #abe no seimei #japanese literature #onmyōdō #onmyōji #ashiya dōman #ashiya douman #kibi no makibi #abe no nakamaro

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