#he almost wishes he was back to that point

[euthymiya]

greens — ft. wriothesley

includes: hints at wrio’s past and his mother that he reflects on ; established relationship ; gender neutral reader ; reader force feeds him veggies because i hc he hates them ; based kind of on this post

“Wriothesley,” you warn. He pauses, glancing at you cautiously at your tone.

“You sound…not happy,” he points out.

You raise a brow, unimpressed and unamused as you say, “Very astute observation.”

“What’d I do this time?” He pouts, slumping in his chair as he tries to sift through his brain for what he’s possibly done. He doesn’t have to think for too long, though—you answer for him instantly.

He almost wishes you never did.

“Finish your vegetables, Wriothesley,” you scold firmly, “you’re not leaving this table until you finish your greens—they’re good for you.”

Finish your vegetables, Wriothesley.

They’re good for you.

You’re not leaving this table until you finish.

There’s something eerily familiar about the words. He thinks he may have swallowed his vision—a chill seeps along his esophagus as he swallows thickly, the frost mixing with his blood as it runs cold and makes him stiffen. There’s ice in his veins. Frigid, harsh, cruel, and sharp.

He plays with his fork, not meeting your stare as he moves the leftover on dinner his plate around with a dazed look.

“Not hungry,” he mutters. “I’m full.”

“You never finish your vegetables,” you huff, “honestly, Wrio, you’re an adult, you know. Don’t be difficult about eating healthy.”

Everything you say sounds devastatingly familiar. His mother’s words take shape in your voice, molding in your throat and waltzing past your lips to haunt him. It’s your voice, sure, but they’re her words. Something about it makes him feel young again—but it’s not rooted in nostalgia. Not fond memories or amusing moments he can look back at and smile.

They taunt him, he thinks. The sweet smile and kind eyes, the firm tone and gentle strictness. His mother’s love was easy to believe. So painfully simple, it felt like she did it just as she breathed. Inhaling his presence and exhaling her care for him in a steady rhythm between expansion and contraction in her lungs.

Eat your vegetables, Wriothesley, she’d tell him. If you want to grow big and strong, you have to eat them.

He wonders now, as he stares at the remnants of dinner, if she’d ever cared for his growth because she cherished his wellbeing. If the thought of him being older, stronger, and maybe even wiser was something she was proud of. (He knows the answer. Deep, in the gaping hole of his chest, the knife twists into the raw edges of a still-healing wound.

He knows. Better than anyone, he knows she never cared. Not for anything other than growing him big and desirable so she could sell him off, offer him up like she saw him as though he was marketable. Like an animal, maybe. An item. A luxury, even.

But not a child. He was never a child in her eyes—simply always just a person who wasn’t grown yet.)

“Hey,” you snap your fingers in front of his face, pulling him out of his daze. Something in your face is softer now, flooded with concern, dripping with anxiety. “You okay?”

“Sorry,” he blinks, staring past your head and at the wall. His voice is soft and barely-there as he all but whispers, “just haven’t heard that in a while. I guess some things never change, huh? I was a handful then, and now, too.”

It’s a poor attempt at a joke. You see right through it—you always do. Some form of recognition and realization and maybe even heartbreak flashes in your eyes, and he hates it. Hates that he can never escape something as mundane as dinner being tainted with demons that make everything unholy. Past demons that shape shift into his present. His future.

His everything.

They reach to grab him, to drag him back into that dark, unforgiving hole in his mind where he can’t climb out. Can’t reach for any sort of leverage to pull himself out and find the light. But just before they can reach out and touch him, you get to him first—one hand grabbing his across the table as you smile softly.

“Well, there’s only one way to handle a stubborn child who doesn’t eat his vegetables.”

“What? Punish me?” He raises a brow. You pretend you don’t hear the underlying bitterness in his tone.

Instead, you reach your fork across the table and onto his plate, stabbing at the broccoli head left untouched before bringing it up to his lips and waving the fork in circular motions.

He scrunches his brows in distaste. You smile and fight back a giggle as you sing, “here comes the plane! Ready for landing in three, two, one…”

“Are you serious?” He snorts, equal parts amused and equal parts in disbelief.

You huff, glaring. “The plan is waiting to land, y’know.”

“Fine,” he sighs in defeat, letting you push the broccoli past his lips and into his mouth. He grumbles, chewing against his will as you watch him intently. “This is gross.”

“Well, one day, when you’re big and strong, you’ll thank me.”

“I’m already big and strong,” he insists, looking a little dramatically wounded.

“Bigger and stronger,” you correct. “You’ll thank me eventually.”

He already has plenty to thank you for, he thinks, eyes trained on you as the light casts over your features like heaven resides in your skin. But adding one more thing to the list is more than okay.

Better than okay, in fact.

So umm….idk. I’m sad about him :( also it’s 2 am and I’m sleepy and this is not proof read I’m sorry. It could be written better but I’m tiredddf

[authorpanda15]

PROXIMITY

↳ katsuki bakugō x reader

a/n: this was just supposed to be a small blurb, but it turned into a whole ass fic halfway through!!! wtf!!!

imagine forced proximity with katsuki bakugō...

-> katsuki didn’t like you, and you didn’t like him; his abrasive attitude clashed with your personality. and yet, you were a recurring presence in each other’s lives...

-> the two of you often found yourselves butting heads whenever you had to work together. he wished he didn’t have to look at your face so often, but your agencies kept pairing you two together. “you work well together,” they said. katsuki didn’t miss his agent whispering that you’re “the only person who can reign him in.”

-> as he's wrapping up his shift, katsuki receives a text from eijirō— affectionately saved as “shitty hair” on his phone— inviting him out to drinks and food with the group and for once, he accepts. after the day he had, he could use a drink, or two. but as he steps into the restaurant and finds his friends extras, he thinks that he’ll need more drinks than that when he sees you sitting at the booth.

so not only do you two have to work together, you also have mutual friends. great.

the once lively atmosphere at the table had slowly simmered, with a terrifying tension taking its place. mina, denki, eijirō and hanta would have to be completely tone-deaf to not notice the way you and katsuki stared daggers at each other.

eijirō, always amicable, was the first to speak up. “so... I take it you and bakugō know each other?”

you confirmed with a small nod, making the conscious effort to keep your eyes trained on the redhead. “our agencies thought it would be a good idea to work together.”

“ooh, that must be fun,” denki added, glancing at you and katsuki, the latter scoffing at his enthusiasm.

“if by ‘fun,’ you mean ‘I need to take pain relievers at the end of every shift because a certain someone has never heard of an inside voice before’,” your eyes flickered towards the certain someone in question; he’s already glaring at you. “...then, yes; I’ve been having a swell time!”

“the only reason I yell is because you don’t listen to me,” katsuki said, pointing an accusatory finger at you. “I swear, it’s like you’re deaf.”

“hearing loss is often caused by loud noises— now, who’s fault would that be?”

“yours, because the second you get off shift, you shove your earbuds in and turn your music volume all the way to the max!”

“music is the only thing that soothes me after working a shift with you! maybe if you had something to calm you down after a day’s work, you wouldn’t have a stick up your ass.”

eijirō attempts to interject. “guys—!”

“what’d you say to me?”

“hey, I think the food’s coming!” hanta suddenly announces to the table, which turns everyone’s attention to the waiter coming their way, balancing multiple orders on a serving tray.

you and katsuki simultaneously slump back into your seats without another word, prompting the rest of the table to breathe a sigh of relief as the waiter starts placing down plates of food.

the rest of dinner was uneventful compared to earlier. thankfully, denki and eijirō managed to bring the mood up— bless their hearts. drinks were shared and stories from the past were recalled, all the while you and katsuki remained mostly silent.

once dinner came to a close, you followed the group out of the restaurant as they discussed each other’s schedules— possibly planning when they can all hang out again.

you can’t help but wonder if they’ll invite you next time. you’ve no doubt made a fool out of yourself, acting so hostile and vulgar at the dinner table. but it’s not your fault! it’s his... isn’t it...?

you feel a sudden weight on your shoulder.

“what’s up? you look bummed,” denki said, titling his head to the side as he leaned against you.

“I, uh, I didn’t mean to start shouting back there, it’s just...” bakugō gets me so riled up... is what you almost said, but you decided to hold your tongue after a second thought. “...nevermind. I just, I hope I didn’t make dinner uncomfortable for the rest of you.”

denki patted your back and offered his signature grin. “don’t be so uptight! it’s all good!”

you exhaled, relieved he didn’t cause you to make a fool out of yourself, when denki suddenly leaned in close and whispered in your ear, “between you and me, I also think kacchan is a bit of a prick...”

“you say somethin’, dunce face?” as if he sensed he was being talked about and materialized behind you, katsuki’s presence suddenly towered over your’s.

denki yelped and cowered behind you, partially hiding his face in your shoulder. “protect me...!”

you tilt your head upwards to look at the blond not currently clinging to you. “you’re paranoid. we were just talking about dinner, that’s all.”

katsuki rolled his eyes at your reply, but didn’t argue.

for once.

later that night, after you made it to the comforts of your home, you received a message.

[wannabepoeticischiya]

all the colors of the sun

ao3: all the colors of the sun pairing: karasu tabito x f! reader genre: romance wc: 17.6k status: one shot

You don't need to wish for love or for someone to love you. Because… sometimes, you just never realize that you've had them all along.

And if he were to put it into words, he'd tell her: “And ya don’t need to wish for him to love you…”

Because he already does.

“No way in hell did Karasu get a girlfriend before me!” Otoya protests, voice laced with all the stinging sensations of envy as he, Isagi, and Yukimiya huddled together like the Avengers if the superhero group was the type to peek at people from around a corner.

The object of their interest? None other than the assassin, Karasu Tabito—talking animatedly to a girl all the while looking like he just won the World Cup, saved the universe, and had gotten married all in the same day. His smile was very annoyingly wide, and his laughter sounded so happy that it scratched the ears of his very envious teammates.

"Maybe he’s just being nice to a fan," Yukimiya offered, though the model himself couldn’t stop the bitterness from tagging along with his words. He swears he could almost taste it.

“Karasu?” Otoya questions incredulously.

“Nice?” Isagi follows.

“Ha! The only way Karasu and nice belong in the same sentence is if the word isn’t is in between,” Chigiri remarks, arms crossed as he leaned against the opposite wall, silently judging his teammates—who were very keenly drawing nearer and nearer to the borders of looking like electric posts if they could pull the We Bare bears pose—from their spot in the corner.

“Why’re you guys talking about him anyway?” Chigiri asks, sipping casually on his energy drink.

“Look at him, Chigirin!” Bachira’s head popped up from behind the trio like a Whac-A-Mole, pointing dramatically at the crow in the crowd. “Karasu’s talking to a girl!”

Chigiri chokes mid-sip, spilling his drink all over his hands and on the floor from absolute mortification. “He’s what?!”

"Whatcha guys yellin' for? Yer gonna get us in trouble if ya don't keep it down—"

“Hiori! Look at your childhood friend!” Isagi whispers in alarm, as if the scene he’s been watching unfold before his eyes for the last five minutes is nothing but fever-induced hallucinations.

"He ain't my childhood friend,” Hiori mutters, rubbing the back of his neck in annoyance that he had to clear this up, again. “If anythin’ he’s—”

Tired of Hiori’s stalling, Isagi shoved the Ice Man’s face in the direction of their crime-committing teammate.

“[Name]-san?” Hiori mumbles in surprise, blinking repeatedly as if the scene before him was something out of this world. Well, he should’ve expected this considering… well, considering them.

“You know her, Hiorin?” Bachira pokes his head from Yukimiya's side, curiosity all over his honey-colored eyes.

“Yeah,” he breathes, still struggling to process the image, “She’s…” his words faded to a dull echo. It’s only been a few months since he last saw them together. There wasn’t anything unusual, same old Karasu, same old [Name], still laughing and talking like they were the only two people in the world. They’ve always looked like that. Always looked at each other like that. So how come seeing them now… how did they look so different? Almost as if they were…

“In love.” He whispers.

“What?!” The peepers—minus Yukimiya—screamed in unison, garnering a few odd stares from the people walking by.

“What I meant,” Hiori clears his throat, “is that she’s Karasu-kun’s childhood friend.” Hiori smiles, “She’s also ridiculously strong.”

“Can’t be stronger than Karasu, right?” Otoya asks, his eyes giving way to the bubbles of whatever evil plan it was that he was concocting in his head.

“Oh, I ain’t sure.” Hiori shrugs, “But from all the fights they had that I can remember, she never lost a single one."

Hiori caught sight of the smirk on Otoya’s face growing wider, and if he were to push it, Hiori was certain that Otoya would was going to tear his jaw open from it.

Amused by the ninja’s shamelessness, Hiori imparts a very much needed word of wisdom.

"If she and Karasu-kun were to fight for real right now, she would still win.” He laughs, not quite liking the sudden image of Karasu’s bruised face from long ago showing up in his head, “and that's with Karasu-kun burnin' all the candles at every end."

Otoya’s suggestive expression wilted like a rose at the new information, stepping behind Yukimiya all of a sudden.

Wanting to see how far he could go, Hiori hummed and pretended to think deeper, “I think she does kickboxing—or was it karate? Well, doesn’t matter. Yer screwed either way, Otoya-kun.” Hiori pats Otoya’s shoulder as he walks past the group of terrified teenagers, “Best not to try!” He calls, waving his hand in farewell.

As he walks away, snickering softly to himself as he noted the look from his teammate’s faces. He remembers the day those two met, a moment in time so engraved in his head it felt kind of strange to see how much had changed.

Or maybe… just maybe, nothing’s changed at all.

---

"Didja lose your partner?"

A younger [Name] stood in front of a boy crouched by the bike rack near the curve, popsicle in hand as the other scratched the back of her neck—craning her head to see if anyone was around the corner.

[Name] tried to catch his eye, shamelessly offering the half-eaten treat to him when he ignored her question.

Met by his silence, she steps closer to him, setting her bag next to his yellow hat as she crouches down to try and get a glimpse of his face.

"Oi," she calls again, waving a sticky hand in front of his face. "Can ya hear me?"

The boy hides his face further in the comforts of his arms, swatting away her hand without a word.

[Name] furrowed her brows at his dismissal, pouting at him even if he couldn’t see.

What’s this kid’s deal? She thought.

Just as she was about to get back up and walk away, she heard him—albeit very soft that could be mistaken for the wind—whimper.

He wasn’t upset at her or anything, but he just didn’t know what else to do at the moment, so he couldn’t help but try to push her away. This was the last thing he wanted… for someone to see just how weak he was. He didn’t get partnered up with the girl he wanted, so what? It wasn’t like it was the end of the world. He thought it was the stupidest reason in the world. It shouldn’t be something to be so upset over.

But he was.

To him… getting partnered up with Marisa really, really mattered.

Pained by the sudden reminder, he felt the back of his eyes tingle, silver brimming his downcast gaze.

"H-Hey, c'mon now, don't cry..." [Name] panics, dropping down to eye level with him once more at sight of the tears streaming down his very sad face. Mindlessly, she thrusts the melting, half-eaten popsicle to him like an offering, like the spirit of summer could magically solve all his problems.   

She pats his back awkwardly, "I lost my partner, too." She blurted, her voice colored in cheer and laughter, as though the matter of losing a buddy on a school field trip was a funny story they can share for life.   

The reason for Karasu's sadness was a very different matter altogether, still, he appreciated his classmate's efforts. Her kind, and frantic energy pulling at the corners of his lips even by the smallest centimeter.   

"Hio-kun prolly made it back to the teacher, maybe your partner is there!" She smiles at him, like there was no surer thing in the whole wide world aside from her optimism. She extended a hand for him to take. "Let's go back, Nakimushi-san!"

"I'm not a crybaby!" He snaps, finally looking—more like glaring—at her through watery eyes, "And the name's Karasu. Karasu Tabito!" (believe it!)

"Okay, Tabito-chan!" She beams, one so bright it made him squint.

Before he could reprimand her for her actions, she plopped the matching yellow hat back onto his head, the brim settling crookedly as her sticky fingers lingered for a second too long. She adjusted the straps of her red backpack and looked to him in anticipation.

"Don't go calling me by my first name like we're close or somethin’!" He yells, flustered at the thought of a girl being all chummy with him.

"Sure thing, Tabito-chan!" She replies, completely ignoring his protests as she drags him by his hand and led him back to rest of the group.

---

That was how they became friends.

According to the testimony of Hiori Yo—who was originally [Name]’s assigned partner—she was seen ditching him half-way when caught sight of an ice cream store, and somewhere along the way got wired with a crying kid on the sidewalk.

From that day onward, they just sort of… stuck together

---

At eight years old, [Name] discovered Karasu’s secret, as much as a secret it could be but… what she unveiled was his crush on Marisa—the resident cutest kid in class, according to him.

It wasn’t intentional. [Name] blamed it on Karasu. It was completely by accident.

She went to his house one Saturday morning to return the ball he had left by mistake last night when he came over her house to play.

His older sister, Tsubame-nee-chan, who looked just like Tabito but with longer hair and a kinder attitude, had told [Name] that her best friend was upstairs. She was so used to having the girl come over that it started to become weird when there wasn’t any laughter and banter in the house.

“Tabito’s upstairs,” Tsubame waves from the living room, laughing at something her friends said. “Ya can just grab him yerself!”

Muttering a faint, ‘Pardon the intrusion’, taking off her slippers, and a ‘Thanks, Tsubame-nee-chan!’, [Name] climbed the steps, no limit to her usual buzzing energy.

But the second her foot closed the last step of the stairs, she halted.

[Name] caught sight of Karasu at the far end of the corridor, standing in front of the full-length mirror he probably used more than his sister—or anyone in his house for that matter. The boy hadn’t taken note of her presence just yet, seemingly immersed at whatever it was that he was doing that merited his undivided attention and spatial awareness.

She tilted her head in curiosity and breathed to call out to him.

And with little to no warning at all, his voice broke through like thunderstorms.

"Marisa, I like you," he tells his reflection, flushing red from the weight of his own words.

[Name] gasped, her jaw dropping to the center of the earth—the surprise simmering in her soul that it had frozen her over where she stood, causing her grip on the soccer ball to loosen. The ball slipped from her hands, descending step by step down the stairs, sounding like a drumroll for impending doom.

The sound had Karasu whipping his head in her direction looking like roadkill. Blushing, in the nicest word; lovesick in the worst.

"YOU LIKE MARI—!"

Karasu, in sheer mortification, bolted toward her, yanking her away from the stairs and slapped a sweaty palm over her mouth before she could blacken his name in his own household. His heart racing faster than when he stayed past curfew and had to go home knowing his mom was waiting for him by the door with a slipper.

“Shaddap!” He hisses, voice barely above a whisper as he glances around like a criminal.

Meanwhile, downstairs, in the living room, Tsubame glanced at the direction of the stairs—noting the series of thuds and muffled and restrained yelling—raising a questioning brow as it had her pausing mid-laugh. A minute of silence ensued after that, so she immediately concludes that it was probably nothing… hopefully.

Those two were always loud and rough and chaotic, there existed no day where she could describe them with just two of those adjectives, and frankly, it would never work anyway. Where there was loudness there was chaos, and all the other matches.

Besides, her brother was a soccer player, and [Name] was a karate practitioner.

Totally normal.

Back upstairs, Karasu dragged [Name] into his room like she was a dead body he was desperately trying to hide.

When he was sure that the door was slammed shut and that no other human on earth could possibly lo and behold his newly discovered secret, only then did he let her go. He knew full well that as he stands there all red-faced, heart pumping, colored in all the shades of horror for his impending fate, shoulders heaving as he struggles to regain his composure… Karasu Tabito was never gonna hear the end of her teasing.

And it began the moment [Name] stood up, dusted the dust from her clothes, and looked at him with the most skin-crawling smile to ever graze humanity. “Sooo… Marisa, ey?” She jabs his side with her elbow, her smile growing impossibly wider.

Karasu groans, sliding dramatically against the door like a telenovela star as he hides his face behind his hands. “Yer absolutely not allowed to tell anyone!” he commands, glaring at her from where he was, trying to act all big and scary but failing in [Name]’s eyes since he was far too red-faced like a stoplight to be considered a threat. “’Specially not my sister! She’d tease me and I’d be forced to hit the grave early.”

"Don'tcha worry, Tabito-likes-Marisa, yer secret’s safe with me!" [Name] salutes dramatically, a certain twinkle in her eyes as if his wishes were a heaven-sent mission to their strongest soldier.

Karasu let out an exasperated sigh, ruffling his hair in frustration—already beginning to count the days that remained of his secret.

"So...” She started, leaning closer to him with a mischievous smile, “Whatcha like about her, Tabi-chan?" [Name] teases, wiggling her eyebrows while she was at it, poking his reddening cheeks at the reminder of the pretty girl from class.

His face erupted in all the shades of red—if it was even possible. [Name]’s prodding wasn’t helping his racing heart one bit, in fact, it only made him feel like his own organ was trying to break down his rib cage and run as far away as possible.

He wasn’t getting away from this—not unscathed—so might as well fess up.

"Well, she's really cute." Karasu admits, a tiny, soft smile painting his expression.

[Name] nodded enthusiastically, leaning closer in anticipation. But Karasu remained silent, he was just smiling there like an idiot staring off into yonder.

"What?" he asks as he took note of the unimpressed expression on his friend's face.

"Ya mean that's it?" she deadpans, all the happiness draining from her face at the sight of Karasu's lenient expression speaking volumes far more than when he spoke the words—"Should there be more?"

"Oi! I always thought ya weren't the sharpest tool in the shed, but I didn't know yer stupidity was this high—OW!" [Name] yelps as Karasu karate-chopped the top of her head, effectively drawing the curtains to her insults to a close.

[Name] glared at him, eyes reflecting the thought: you dare use my own spells against me?

"You don't get a say!” He protests, crossing his arms over his chest defensively. “Ya never liked anyone but the neighborhood cat!"

Because for the life of him, no matter how many kanji he learned to read or write, he was certain he couldn't convey a hundredth of Marisa's beautiful qualities.

"Liking someone is dumb!" she shot back, wincing as she rubs the top of her head to ease the ache. She was certain she'd develop all the necessary dodging maneuvers from her friend alone.

"Of course, ya'd think that you gorilla." Karasu laughs as he leaned over to pull at [Name]'s cheeks just to annoy her further.

The small conversation was something only the two of them shared. Lost under the stars of all their laughter and the echoes of their smiles… forever just theirs to keep.

Karasu never confessed his feelings for Marisa in the entirety of elementary school, or ever for that matter. And [Name], surprisingly true to her word, kept his secret well, a secret.

That’s why it came as a surprise.

It was the day of their elementary school graduation.

Tabito and [Name] stood next to each other as his sister took their photo, saying that they were one step closer to ‘reaching the age of maturity’ as she had so cryptically put it. Because what on earth could she mean by that? They were plenty mature. It didn’t help that she was smiling weirdly at the two of them while she was at it.

But the biggest shock of the day wasn’t Tsubame-nee-chan’s sudden teasing, no. It was something entirely different.

Marisa called to Tabito just as their class had finished capturing a photo together. [Name] hardly had any time to see everything unravel before she was whisked away by the Karate Club to take a picture of their own.

As she caught the last of their shadows from the corner of her eye—Marisa, all smiles and laughing, Karasu, standing looking like he could snap like a taco shell at any moment but hid his situation very well.

For some reason unknown, the sight of them talking rang an unpleasant melody in the caves of [Name]’s chest, rattling the once peaceful solitude.

She blamed it on the pollen. She blamed it on the heat or the cold, whichever was more prominent. She blamed it on… quite literally everything else. Not willing to admit to anything—not when she didn’t even know what the heck this was.

Later that afternoon, when the two found themselves at the beach loitering on the wave breakers by the roadside to watch the sunset, Karasu told [Name] that Marisa—his life-long crush at the time—had confessed to him.

He told it like it was nothing. As if it was no more than an ordinary occasion, like a weather report!

But [Name]’s reaction was a stark contrast to his nonchalance.

The revelation crashed against her like a tidal wave that nearly had her toppling over the concrete barrier, in danger of falling to the sandy shore—a generous twenty-foot drop at least.

Karasu grabbed her by the scruff of her clothes, heart pounding at the sight of her almost falling— “Idiot, be more careful!” He scolds, carding a hand through his ever-growing violet hair.

“MARISA CONFESSED TO YOU?!” [Name] screams, standing up in absolute shock with zero regards that she almost had a close date with the grim reaper a few minutes ago.

"Hey! I already told ya to watch yerself! You'll fall!" Karasu reminds, reaching out to steady her. His brows remained furrowed as he stayed seated on the concrete barrier, only this time, one hand caged her own as his other found anchor on her ankle.

"Whatcha say? Ya better not have told her somethin' stupid! Gosh this is excitin'—"

“I rejected her.”

The world came to a standstill at the resounding echo of his words. But the tides continued to crash against the shores, drawing away not a moment later. The birds’ orchestra flowed like the spring zephyrs as they flew over the vast finiteness of the horizons. Still… [Name] could not feel herself move from her frozen state.

Wasn’t it too sudden? It felt like only yesterday that she discovered his crush for their classmate. Why… why?

Karasu looks to the ocean with a completely calm face, a stark contrast to the slowly rising tides. The sunset painted him golden, like all the stars melted just to color him in this moment.

When he was colored in that light, saturating him in every shade of soothing silence, softening his features… for the first time in forever, Karasu felt unreachable. Like he belonged to a world she had no right to step into. As though he would continue to travel past the borders of the milky way to some unknown universe far beyond what [Name] could comprehend.

When he was painted in all the colors of the sun, it was hard to deny.

It was difficult to fight the fluttering sensation thrumming in her heart—surging in all the forms of power—of happiness.

[Name] tugged on his arm that held her own, urging him to look at her as she asks, "Why?"

Indeed, why?

For as long as [Name] had known him, Karasu's always liked Marisa. He even went as far as to make her swear not to tell a single soul about his infatuation with the girl, not because he was embarrassed, but because he thought far too lowly of himself—believed that he was too ordinary—for someone like Marisa to ever like him back.

"I... well, we're gonna go to different middle schools,” he shrugs, sweeping it under the carpet like it was no big deal. “It would be a long-distance thing ya get me? So I rejected her." He talks about it so easily, always acting that it isn’t eating him up inside.

He was always like this.

Using the hand that held the hand of the girl standing before him, Karasu pulled himself up from his sitting position. He towered over her easily, already breaking past a hundred and seventy centimeters—a reminder that they were growing up—and he was sure to grow taller in the near future.

"Nothin' weird about it,” he comments apathetically. “Completely normal—ow! Hey! What're ya doin'—[Name]!" He hurriedly shielded his arm from [Name]’s aggravated assault.

“Yer an idiot!” she fires at him, her frustration dropping on him like a bomb.

"Ow! [Name]—stop! You hit like a gorilla—ow!" Karasu finally held her thrashing arms, caging her in his hold so she couldn't hit him anymore.

He wasn't sure why [Name] was acting this way, or why she was so upset over this. What he was certainly most certain of is that her punches hurt. They hurt a whole lot.

"You're an idiot..." she echoes.

Karasu tried to look her way, but it proved to be an arduous task as she kept her head down. A few stands of her hair prevented Karasu from discerning what sort of expression was on her face. He hesitantly let her arms go, watching them fall to her side softly.

Karasu poked [Name]'s forehead, pushing her head slightly to get her to look up.

"Hey..." he calls gently, closing the remaining distance between them with a single stride, "Why're ya cryin'?"

[Name] looks to the ocean, aggressively wiping away the traitorous tears that slipped from the shackles of her eyes. She wasn't gonna cry over this. It was stupid.

"You liked Marisa a lot, Tabito."

It took Karasu by surprise that [Name] called him by his first name, free from her usual teasing jeers and awful nicknames—still, he didn't understand why is it that she was so upset by his situation.

"I just..." she begins, glancing at him from the corners of her eyes before sighing and turning to face him, "It was yer chance to be with the one you loved—"

"Oi, oi... love is a strong word for that—" Karasu wanted to complain, to say that it really wasn’t like that, but looking at the saddened expression of his friend, he thought otherwise.

"—and you let the chance go just like that." She admits, her voice threatening to crumble from the heaviness that she felt—and before long, her tears had broken free from their holding cells.

"I know I can't say anythin' to ya cuz I'm a gorilla and I don't like anyone else but Miiko but don'tcha think it's a waste—" Karasu cut her off by wrapping his arm around her form, tangled her in gentleness that stood in great contrast to his usual rough and jagged demeanor.

Because he didn’t like seeing her cry.

He doesn’t like it when other kids make fun of her, even if he knew that she was better equipped to handle them far more than him. He doesn’t like it when she’s sad. And he doesn't like it when she wasn’t around.

[Name] was an irreplaceable figure in his life… and it hurt him just as much that she—that she was sad… and he felt even worse this time because he knew that he was the one who caused it.

"Gettin' a love life ain't everythin' in this world ya know?" he tells her, threading a hand through her hair in a soothing gesture.

[Name] buries her face in his chest, nodding despite knowing that he wouldn't see.

She felt like the world's biggest scumbag. Her best friend in the whole wide world just turned down the girl he liked for so long.  She should've been sad—angry at the world for forcing this fate unto Karasu, to her best friend who was the kindest person on earth. And she was!

Desperately, she tried to convince herself that she was.

But here she was… taking advantage of his kindness. Trying to take more than what she was given.

Because what else could this be? That there was this thrumming sensation in her chest that rejoiced in knowing that Karasu turned Marisa down.

"Hold on, why are you the one cryin'? Shouldn't it be me?" He teased, ruffling the threads of [h/c] that covered her head.

"Idiot!"

---

As the seasons changed and the moon waxed and waned, a good chunk of their time in middle school was spent with Karasu breathing into his soccer career slash club slash obsession, playing alongside Hiori Yo—[Name]’s initial elementary school partner whom she ditched to get ice cream and was later forced to apologize to by her mother—all the while [Name] dedicated hers to Karate.

The two remained as close knit as ever, choosing to wait for whomever had practice the longest so they could walk home together. Spending all breaks and lunches lounging around and glaring at people who looked at them funny. [Name] complaining about chemistry because who the hell would find joy in dragging numbers up and down, sideways and backwards, all over roll over. It was a pain. All she knew was that Protactinium + Nitrogen + Calcium + Potassium + Einsteinium = PaNcaKEs. And that was just about how far her Chemistry braincells could peak.

It didn’t help that Karasu was a wizard when it came to that godawful subject so when it came to helping her with it, tutoring sessions are 5% learning, 3% complaining, with all the rest occupied by his relentless teasing.

A horrible experience.

But for them who had known each other since once upon a time, it was nothing unusual.

Everything the same as ever. Same old science woes. Same old swimming classes despair. Same old faces. Same old Karasu. Same old [Name].

for the majority of middle school, karasu dedicated all his time and effort to soccer—playing along side hiori yo, yn's initial elementary school partner whom she ditched to get ice cream and later apologized for leaving him behind—while yn gave hers to karate. the two best friends remained close as ever. choosing to wait for whomever had practice the longest so they could walk home together. Everything was the same as ever. same old clubs. same old faces. same old karasu. same old yn.

That was until one winter night of their second year of middle school...

[Name] was set to compete for the winter Karate tournament and if she did well, it was one step closer to Nationals.

She trained day in, day out near the field where Karasu played soccer when the school field was out for break.

The soccer player was not privy to her unshakable resolve, even going as far as labeling her—and letting her know—that she was “working so hard like a cow” which he received a kick as thanks.

It was fine during spring—her training that is, even more so in summer, and Karasu would even let it slip in autumn but winter? Winter was a different matter altogether.

For the past days (and even last year), he had told her off for it—scolded her far more times that he would like to admit with a tone laced with all the streamers of irritation and illuminated by the lights of his concern. “Ya gotta stop workin’ yerself so hard like a cow, gorilla girl. You’ll get sick!”

As he makes a move to hit her head like he always did, [Name] dodged and repaid his words with a very kind kick to his side, sending him staggering a few steps away.

"Ya don't get ta lecture me on that, stupid crow! Yer here too, equally as guilty! And don't call me a cow! Or a gorilla!" She points a numb finger in his direction, because even with her stubborn and brutish attitude, it sadly didn't make her immune to the cold.

"Yeah, yeah..." He waved her off with one hand as the other rubbed the spot she kicked.

"But I'm runnin' around so I ain't as cold, but you've just been standin' there for the past thirty minutes, aren'tcha cold?" He quirks a brow at her as he approached her slowly, like a wild predator cautious to scare away his prey.

"Oh, I'm freezin’." She agrees nonchalantly, a mist of white clouds leaving the borders of her lips.

"Act more like it then, idiot." he deadpans, scratching his head in frustration.

"Here," Karasu breathes into his hands moving closer so he could cup her face.

"Woah. Ya really weren't jokin' when ya said yer freezin'" he says in surprise, laughing at his own discovery like it was the most amusing thing in the world. "Are yer hands cold, too?"

He retreated his hands and made a motion to take off his soccer gloves not a moment later, looking at them for a few moments—trying to figure out which hand was right and left, even if they wouldn't matter in the end—before sliding them onto her trembling fingers.

They hung loosely on her despite the Velcro straps going as far as they could possibly go.

Since when did he grow so much?

When she looks away from her hands to thank him, [Name] felt the world around her freeze into place, frosting over like the trees that bordered the field. Light snow descended from the heavens, the last sunrays dipping behind the horizons of the sky as the stars flickered to life one by one.

And then there it was again, that same fluttering feeling from so long ago. Only this time, it set everything in her to flames: her blood rushed far too fast for her head to keep up, lighting the meadows of her face to a vibrant shade of red, setting every hollow and edge into a raging inferno. She felt cold and warm everywhere—like her body couldn't decide if it wanted to burn to ash or forever freeze with winter.

The colors of the night shone in a vibrant light, flowering in circles from the sheer intensity—brighter than the summer sky yet dimmed in comparison next to him—to Tabito who looked at her like she was the only thing in the world, rubbing his hand against his arm to spark heat so he could thaw the frozen wasteland ravaging her soul.

Since when did she begin to see him like this? When did he become so saturated in all the colors of everyday life that he blended in so well?

When... did I start feeling like this?

Don't look at me like that, [Name] wanted to tell him. Don't laugh at me. Don't hold me like this... just don't.

Because if he did—when he does all of this—how was she supposed to fight off this greedy, hungry feeling festering inside her? This needless longing to keep him close to her, to never let him go, to show him all the wonders of the universe... all the colors of the sun, everything that he turned his back on because he believed that he wasn't enough to have any of them.

When he looks at her like that, when he laughs... when he holds her like this—how was she supposed to deny it?

That she was in love with him.

[Name] was in love with Karasu Tabito.

---

When the wave of High School crashed against the two best friends, it brought with it the cruellest game fate could play on [Name].

Marisa… had returned.

The same Marisa she had teased and jeered at Karasu about when they were kids. The same Marisa… Karasu had loved—again, such a strong word—for so long. And she guessed—no matter how much she didn't want to entertain the thought that Karasu could still like the same Marisa from elementary school—he loves even now.

And it nearly killed her inside when she found that her suspicions were true.

It was a week after their first year had begun when Karasu came running from the pitch to meet her halfway, cleats thudding against the grass as she made her way to the bleachers.

"[Name]!" He yells as he ran towards her in full speed it nearly had [Name] contemplate if she should move aside so Karasu doesn't accidentally trample her over. But he ran to her with the biggest smile she had ever seen on him—yes, even happier than the time they won the local tournament—it broke her heart to even think of sidestepping him, even if he did pose as a road hazard from his speed.

"Why'dya hafta feel like ya need to win a marathon, Tabi-chan?" She punches his arm playfully once he skidded to a stop near where she stood (after nearly running her over).

She sets her bag down as she laughed at the sight of Karasu buzzing in excitement. Must be something really important to him if he's this happy about it. Before [Name] could fully turn to face him, he had already grabbed her by the shoulders and started shaking her back and forth. "She's here!" He cheers.

"Who's here?"

"Marisa!"

[Name] felt her heart shatter from the happiness decorating every word that left the orbit of his tongue, shining like the stars that could’ve littered her evening. She should have been happy for him. Really, she should have shared even half the joy he felt from his supposed amazing discovery. She should've... she knew full well that she should.

So why does it remind her exactly of elementary graduation?

When he was whisked away from her by the same girl who she cheered Karasu to pursue? Why does it remind her so much that she wasn't a figure like Marisa in his life? She wasn't the object of his desire. Karasu didn't hold an ounce of romantic affection for her like he did for Marisa. She... [Name]... was just his friend. She was his best friend. And god... did that hurt—that she couldn't be more than that—when all she wanted was to be a little greedier, to have a place in his heart like Marisa did. She couldn't quite understand it... even if she knew deep down that Karasu liked Marisa, that he had her image perched atop a pedestal in the center of his heart, [Name] couldn't be contented with just being his friend.

The one friend who loved him so much.

The one friend... that he couldn't love back.

"Ya hafta help me, [Name]!” His voiced anchored her back to reality. “I know I told ya that gettin' a love life ain't everythin' but now that I actually stand a chance... I—I don't wanna lose it agai... [Name]? You still there?"

Karasu waved a hand over her face, taking note of the expression painted on her face, almost as if she just saw a ghost. "Hello? This is ground control to [Name], are ya still in orbit?"

Through the haze, [Name] watches as Karasu walked around her in circles, poking her cheeks to try and get her back to him—huh, what an easily misunderstood thought.

She blinked, taking in the way he eyes her in confusion, his ridiculously gelled hair remaining immovable even as he prods and scratched his scalp like they held all the answers in the world. Really, it wasn't him who was stupid for trying so hard... it was her.

Because as it stands, she was the one foolish enough to fall for him.

"Oho~ so yer finally mannin' up to ask her out, eh?" she smirks, her facade tugging at the seams of her resolve, pulling at the pieces of her shattered heart. In the silence of his unspoken rejection, she found herself gluing them together, even if they threatened to come apart later. Just a little longer, she would coerce. Just a little more... so that he doesn't find out—so he wouldn't find out—that his feelings... were slowly killing her.

"Don't even start," Karasu holds a hand to her face, he couldn't stomach that teasing shine in her eyes. How long has it been since he last saw that? Far too long he believes, still... he asked himself why he didn't miss it as much as he thought he would've.

Back then, even if it annoyed him to the point of starting a fist fight with [Name]—which he not-so-surprisingly lost every single time—he would secretly be grateful that she pushed him to go reach for the things that made him happy. In his little love life endeavors. No matter how badly it ended for the two of them—like getting scolded for coming home late or getting accompanied by the neighbor who owned Miiko, the cat, back home.

So why now? He didn't quite understand why it had to be now that it felt so wrong to see her pushing him towards someone else again.

She used to do it all the time, and it never bothered him.

Karasu briefly asked himself if the reason behind it was because they spent three—going four—years having no one else but each other. No, that couldn't have been it. Hiori was there sometimes, and Karasu was sure it never felt like this unpleasant feeling.

This was [Name] for crying out loud! The elementary kid who offered a half-eaten popsicle to him like it was some treasure. [Name] whom he pushed into the mud pond and laughed as she tried to get the dirt off her face. [Name] who could kick him so hard that he would fight to hold back his tears—even now that they were in high school.

[Name] was his best friend...

"I'll help ya get with 'er!" she grins, planting her hands on her hips in that little mannerism of hers that Karasu bets she doesn't even know she does, as though she was about to give him some prophet-level guidance free of charge.

Karasu just stares at her, longer than he would have liked to admit. Has she always been this short? Or did he simply grow taller?

Had they always been like this?

Yeah, she was his best friend.

And there should be nothing more.

…Right?

---

And so, the first semester of their first year in high school was spent planning ways to get Karasu together with Marisa while [Name] pulled all the hair on her scalp trying to hide her ever growing affection for her violet-haired friend.

This also consisted of asking around the campus for Marisa with [Name] doing all the "cow's work" as Karasu had oh-so-gently put it, which merited him a much-deserved kick to his shin.

He had many excuses. One, he didn’t want to seem desperate (which he was). Two, he was too busy (which he is). And three, apparently, he didn’t want any rumors to start going around that he was still pining over his elementary school crush (which he very much was).

Even if [Name] told him not to be ashamed of it, Karasu still couldn't bring himself to do it...

Part of it, though, was because he didn’t miss the way the fire in [Name]’s eyes froze over whenever it was mentioned. He just decided that he didn't like that even if he didn't know the reason why. It bothered him. A lot.

If it were [Name] who asked around, it was different. There would be nothing to worry about since she was also a girl, and girls look for other girls all the time, didn't they? They even accompany each other to the restroom like a pair of FBI Agents.

And if Karasu were to lay his heart bare for everyone to see, the only girl he looked around for, flipped heaven and earth over, out of his own jurisdiction and nearly toppled over in despair when he couldn’t find—aside from his mom and his older sister—was [Name].

But he didn’t know how to tell that to her.

The two best friends (mainly [Name] doing all the hard work) discovered a couple of interesting information about Karasu’s person of affection:

Marisa was in the swim club, an extremely coincidentally convenient twist of fate since the pool was by far the nearest facility near the soccer field (the dojo the farthest having been located on the other side of the school).

She excelled in Japanese Literature and Chemistry.

She worked part-time at a local café on Saturdays around the afternoon, another heaven-sent opportunity since soccer practice ended right before noon.

And finally written at the bottom of the paper in all caps along with a few doodles of hearts.

4. MARISA LIKES MUSHROOMS!!! ❤❤🍄❤❤

"Is that enough, yer highness?" [Name] asks him sarcastically, rubbing the tiredness from her eyes as she had spent majority of her night stalking Marisa across all social media platforms.

She could pass as a CIA agent by now from all this digging.

She eyes the page ripped from her notebook that Karasu held in one hand as they sat face to face in the classroom—with their desks pushed together to accommodate their lunches.

Written on the slightly wrinkled paper, in messy scrawny handwriting were the fruits of her hard labor.

"I better get compensated for his, you rabies-infected crow." she mumbles, resting her head on the desk, closing her eyes from the tiredness.

"Wow, ya got all of this in one night?" Karasu scans the paper, they weren’t much but it was still far more than what he could’ve gathered on his own. His stare lingered a moment longer on the girl—noting the way her head stayed resting on the desk, exhaustion seeping through the crevices of her skin as he observes the way her entire frame wilted from exhaustion.  

[Name] hummed in confirmation, far too tired to give a worded reply. Now that the less than sufficient hours of sleep were getting to her, she feared that if she spoke another word to Karasu about Marisa, she would end up saying something she'd regret. So, it was best to just... stay silent.

It's getting easier to hear Karasu talk about Marisa. Bearable in the kindest word; numbing in the worst. Still, it didn't mean that she could deny that it hurt any less.

Learning to live through something was very different from accepting it, especially when it was the one you love loving someone else.

[Name] just hopes that she gets over this soon—because the last thing she wanted was to get in the way of Tabito's happiness. Or worse, lose him because of her own selfishness—because she couldn't get over a silly pathetic crush—that she couldn't stop wanting, praying… hoping to have him more than a friend.

"Oh, she likes mushrooms," she hears Karasu mumble, seemingly intrigued.

It was better to pretend that she didn't hear him. It's better this way, she tells herself. He wasn't going to remember anyway, but somehow, her traitorous mouth always worked faster than her brain, a step too late to grab the chance to hold her tongue before she says something she would regret... which is now.

"Ya can give her yer mushrooms now, Tabi-chan."

Silence blanketed the distance between them, seemingly setting them apart from the reverberating chaos ensuing in the classroom.

[Name] was embarrassed beyond belief, feeling her entire face catch fire yet was too exhausted to shield it away from him—not like he could see, but still!

Please let the ground swallow me whole.

Karasu looks to her like she suddenly grew three heads. "I'll always give ya my mushrooms, [Name].” He whispers softly, placing an elbow on the table, propping his face upright with his palm as he unconsciously smiled at the blush that littered the meadows of her face.

“Ya love 'em right? Just ‘bout the only other thing ya like other than Miiko." He snickers at his own jest, remembering a time in their childhood where [Name] would look over the fence and stare at the neighbor's cat for hours or chase it around the little alley way near Miiko's house.

She felt her heart skip a beat. [Name] blamed it on the weather, or perhaps a growing ailment that made her heartbeat irregular. This was practically Arrythmia—dangerous and a health risk!

But she was sure that heart diseases didn’t come with lingering affections for your best friend. It also didn’t come with the pain of knowing that he was never gonna like her back. And she was most certain that it wasn’t attached with happiness after knowing that he remembers…

[Name] didn't like that she felt happy that Karasu knew that little thing, even if everything about her had practically become baseline knowledge for the soccer player. She just didn't like it.

"Uhuh," she agrees mindlessly, her voice squished by gravity as she remained still laying her head on the desk facing the window and looking at the world vertically.

"When ya marry her, can't just go out in the middle of dinner ta hand me some mushrooms, right?" She teases, the rumble of her laughter feeling more like a hurtful jab to her already breaking heart.

"I guess..." Karasu no longer stared at the paper he held in his hand, opting to observe his very sleep deprived [Name].

Maybe the dryness of her eyes was getting to her or perhaps she was tired of him beating around the bush and walking on eggshells every time Marisa was around.

Karasu sighs, folding the paper three times and tucking away in the safety of his bag. The raging inferno in her soul dwindled to a small flame, her usual bladed tongue that cut through his ego had dulled, her silence all too prominent in a world where everyone had something to say.

Ah… I don’t like this.  

"Hey, gorilla woman." he grips her head like a ball, although he took a conscious effort not to hurt her—lest he risk his well-being be a training dummy for the karate practitioner.

[Name] tried to wave away his arm but right now, she was too tired to even lift her hand. She could only mumble a very annoyed, "Don't call me gorilla, you rat-nest haired crow."

"Let's go to a café this weekend." he suggests, taking a strand of her smooth hair and twirling it between his fingers like it was some sort of scientific breakthrough.

Was it weird that he was inviting her to go out all of a sudden?

But this was [Name]! They always went out together whether it's the local fair, watching a soccer match, those late-night convenience store runs... this was nothing special.

Karasu started to chant that phrase like a mantra in his head. He was catching himself doing that too much—trying to convince himself that it was nothing—that spending time with [Name] was like a norm already.

They've done it a thousand times and he reckons, a thousand more after this... so what's the difference?

His heart thudded against the confines of his ribs at the sight of her: tired beyond all rhyme and reason, brows furrowed from the noise buzzing in the small room filled with their classmates and other students, her empty bento box next to his own like yin and yang. Salt and pepper. It wasn’t complete without the other.

Has she always been this present in his life? Since when? When did she start to be so interwoven in everything he did that it became strange when she suddenly disappears even when she’s right there? Really… since when?

Since forever...

And maybe, just maybe, that was the difference.

An idiotic part of [Name] rejoiced at his invitation—

"We can see Marisa there while we're at it," he quickly adds without thought, afraid she might misunderstand.

—yet all too suddenly; cruelly, she is reminded that she shouldn't long to be more than just his friend.

"Sure thing, Tabi-chan..." she whispers softly, forcing the thorns in her throat to pin down the hurt so they wouldn’t tumble out—that he may never see them.

And there, with the afternoon gale flowing past the curtains, she feels her heart breaking a little bit more.

---

When the weekend rolled around, Karasu finished his soccer practice exactly before noon, leaving him with a few spare minutes to change into the extra clothes he brought with him. Initially, he felt like the unluckiest athlete in the world when he dragged his ass here at 5 in the morning yet now that he was preparing to spend the rest of his day earlier than what he originally planned, he began thinking that it wasn't so bad after all. At the very least, it gave him enough time to go and see [Name] look at him in envy that his practice ended earlier than her.

[Name], much to Karasu's expectations, did not look at him in jealousy as he had hoped. Instead, she was second-in-line for kicking practice, looking like all the forces of good and evil conspired together to make her day as terrible and energy-draining as much as it could.

The Karate coach, a middle-aged woman who was also their gym teacher, made everyone stay back to practice some drills, claiming she saw it on her social media feed last night and wanted everyone to try it out... and no one was going to leave until at least one of them got it. It was cruel—very much the kind of savagery she expected to get from this tyrant (coach) in her innate domain (karate)—not that she was any stranger to cruelty, though she would be lying if she claims she didn't feel just a little bit sad when she was at the receiving end of it.

Karasu was allowed to stay in the dojo and watch, so long as he remained a safe distance from any potential kicking pads that might come flying his way—a warning he engraved to his mind and soul after getting smack-dabbed in the face by one, and many, many close calls.

It wouldn't be the first time he'd watch [Name] practice; he'd been making the trip from the soccer field to the dojo ever since the beginning of first year that the coach relented and let him stay no matter how many times she told him to go away.

Karasu didn't mind the extra cardio, more often than not, [Name] was the one who had practice running so far from dismissal time, leaving him with nothing to do but sit and wait for her to finish so they could go home together. And it was rarely the other way around.

But seeing her here, in her element, always tugged at something in his chest. A sort of reminder that this was the girl he was lucky enough to call his best friend.

When it was [Name]'s turn to do the drill, everything faded to silence... until it was just her: bouncing on her feet under a thousand shimmering lights, drawing in a breath in preparation. And like the flow of the spring zephyrs, she sliced through the air like a fairy—an aggressive and very, very strong fairy—striking the lowest pad with her left foot, her right foot forcing the middle pad to fly, and finally—after so many failed attempts and an almost sprained ankle—successfully kicked the last top pad with her left foot.

She landed gracefully, like the first fall of snow, shattering the momentary reverie Karasu found himself raptured into.

What the hell?

[Name] looked to her coach in miserable anticipation, a silent plea to release her from this torture. It was between this room and this witch how many times she and her teammates had to do that godawful trick.

The coach gushed over the exhausted [Name], complimenting her for a few seconds before dismissing training.

[Name]'s tired vision zeroed in on Karasu, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor near the door, bag next to his side, and looking every bit the part of someone going on the most anticipated date of his life. [Name] blamed it on the light, or the fatigue seeping into the cracks of her heart, but for a small moment, a foreign light shone through the depths of sapphire pools of his irises.

She thought nothing of it, choosing to lazily wave at him from where she stood, completely oblivious to the lingering glimmer in his expression or the way his face shone brighter at her greeting as he waves back; that for the first time ever, the usually cocky soccer player found himself drowning in the oceans of shyness and hesitance at the sight of his best friend.

"Imma change real quick, so wait for me a little longer, 'kay?" she called, brushing past his figure as she sluggishly—bag in hand—made her way to the locker rooms.

Karasu nodded absentmindedly, his eyes tracing the shadows of her figure until she disappeared around the corner.

C’mon, me, this isn’t the time to feel all mushy for [Name]! That’s [Name]! Your best friend! The gorilla girl next door always working hard like a cow, he internally scolds himself.

Karasu let out a low groan, slumping over on the floor, staring at the place where [Name] once stood. He swore he could almost see her figure there, and he would have believed his own illusions if he didn't just see her walk past him to go change.

The soccer player runs a hand over his face in frustration. "Honestly, what's wrong with me..." he mumbles, covering his head with his arm like it can somehow magically put out the wildfire wreaking havoc on the meadows of his face, burning through his resolve like paper.

In the locker room, [Name] was facing a dilemma of her own.

"Hey, [Last Name]-chan, are you and Karasu-kun going out?" one of her teammate asks, a gentle curiosity for Karasu and her long-term friendship, but the words felt like collapsing stars in the once quiet place.

In horrified befuddlement, [Name] screamed an anguished—"Huh?!" like the words her teammate spoke had been a cursed enchantment that will linger through her bloodline for a thousand generations and not the fantasy she wanted to bleed into reality.

"That gel-faced crow who's scared of water? Hell no!" she denies, trying to have it look like the teases and jeers she usually passed around with others.

"But he always waits for you to finish practice" her teammate pointed out.

And it was true—Karasu always made the trip across campus just to wait for [Name] to conclude training no matter how long it dragged on. She recalls the many times the soccer player had fallen asleep by the door, using her gym bag as a pillow because, according to him, her clothes were fluffier and a lot more comfortable that the mess of dirty, sweat-drenched heap in his bag he called clothes.

And as told by another one of his anecdotes, [Name]'s stuff (and even herself) were lot more preferable sleeping buddies than a soccer ball. A soccer ball! Then there was also the day he carried her home after a particularly bad fall from kicking practice, even if Karasu himself was tired beyond belief.

"That mole rat's been around for so long, we prolly look the same in everyone's eyes by now." [Name] jokes as she continues to rummage through her bag, shaking her head from the horrible image of her having Karasu’s hair.

"And besides..." she murmurs, her gaze distant as she stares at the dress she chose—picking apart her closet all night, spending so long trying to carefully place it in her bag—only to betray herself by abandoning it last minute.

He already likes someone else.

---

The walk to the café was relatively silent.

Karasu kept the comments of [Name] being far too quiet for the past week to himself. He thought, maybe she was just tired. The school festival was coming up, but she also still had to train. It was cruel, especially the arduous training he saw her endure earlier that she looked ready to rearrange her coach’s face to roadkill.

Domed by an eternally blue sky, he glances at her from the corner of his eyes.

She looked like hell!

Karasu wasn’t about to lie and tell her that she looked great—that would just be cruel—so he chose not to say anything at all.

He didn’t trust himself with his words, a restraint he put on himself like heaven’s command after he caught himself looking around a store and thinking: Oh, [Name] would like this,or, She’d look good in this, before a hollowing echo of, She always looks good in everything though,would cause him to freeze where he stood and cover his face in shame for having such thoughts.

By far the worst case of this was when he stopped someone because he mistook her for [Name]—it was ridiculous! This was getting outrageous!

Yet one look at her, right here, when all the colors of the sun had painted her in an ethereal light, how could he still think that she was the most beautiful person on the planet?

It must be witchcraft. A curse put upon him for lying. A truth… that he was finding increasingly difficult to deny.

Absolutely… ridiculous…

"You tired?" he asks casually, even if the answer was staring at the road in the form of dark circles heavier than Oganesson.

"Nah.” She smiles through the haze, lazily eyeing him from the sides. “This is the usual ain't it?" she laughs, shifting the weight of her bag that she refused to let Karasu carry despite his many offers and demand for her to just give it to him.

"Don't act so tough, gorilla woman. If yer tired, we can always just go another day." He rubs the back of his neck, finding no other thing to do to ease this shaking sensation in his cardiac muscles.

"Stop callin’ me gorilla woman, you turd-face crow,” she barks, though her tone didn’t hold an ounce of real bite. “'Sides... we're already here. It'd be a shame to leave now."

They stood in front of a glass-front café, cakes and other deserts peering at the passersby from the window. The little signboard by the door offering a warm welcome.

The scent of something faintly sweet weaved with the aroma of coffee waltzed though the warm air of the shop, a low hum of conversation rippling the serene atmosphere.

It thankfully was not the busiest place on the planet. There were a couple of middle school kids by the window side laughing amongst themselves, an office worker staring blankly into the horizon as the sunlight caught her auburn hair in a shimmering light, lastly, an elderly couple shared a pie and some loving smiles near the bar.

"Welcome!" A melodic voice cuts through the air, littered with all the scent of flowers in an open field, warm like the hearth of a fire.

Karasu turned at the direction of the voice, squinting at the sight of a girl in an apron holding a notepad. Who the hell was this loser? He thought, amused in the kindest light, domineering, in the worst.

The soccer player pushes [Name] to an empty booth, telling her to go order whatever her heart desires.

“Just get me whatever,” she mutters, closing her eyes looking every bit like the monks he occasionally sees on TV… only cuter—what the actual hell?

“Sorry to burst yer bubble but they aren’t sellin’ that here.” He teases, reaching over to pinch her cheeks to get her to wake.

“Ow! Quit that!” She yelps and swats his hand away, sticking her tongue out at him before grabbing the menu from the table. “I’m gonna make your pockets hurt, turd-face.”

She buries her head in the menu dedicating every bit of concentration on the booklet, and he let her—even if he knew how this was gonna end.

“The Chocolate Milk non-coffee drink! And some cake trio platter!” she smiles at him—like he hung the constellations in the sky, or that he had been the one who conjured all the colors of the sun—the first in a long while, so it seems.

“Ya always get that everywhere we go.” He sighs, tracing her features with a gentle gaze.

“Ya asked me what I wanted, and I want that—” she raises her voice in faux defiance as if daring him to contradict her.

“Yeah, yeah…” he waves her off, flicking her forehead to add to her ire. “’Scuse me,” he calls over the lady who welcomed them earlier.

[Name], lost in her own thoughts, allowed her gaze to linger on his side-profile from under her lashes. It wasn’t intentional. Why was he sitting there like that anyway all broad-shouldered and tall and—and…

She sighs in defeat.

When did you get so pretty? She thinks, mapping the edges of his jaw, memorizing the sudden sharpness in his gaze.

When did I get so sappy? She lets out a breath, shaking her head to clear her thoughts.

"Oh, Karasu-kun! Long time no see!"

The greeting caused [Name]’s eyes to shoot open, her stare landing on Karasu before it traced his gaze to the café worker smiling at them—at him, every atom the embodiment of a daydream. Built upon the foundation of effortless femininity.

“Uh…” Karasu trails off, unsure of what to reply. He was certain he didn’t know this person—

“You don’t remember me?” the waitress points to herself, “It’s Marisa, from elementary school.” She laughs, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ears.

Karasu didn’t speak for a moment, short enough to feel natural yet all the stretch to let [Name] know that he was struggling to think about what to say.

"Marisa… Oh, Marisa!” His voice raises higher than expected, like he was caught red-handed for something he was guilty about. “Didn't expect you to be working here." He says, his easy-going tune hiding the truth that they intentionally chose this place because she was working here—that it was not a fated coincidence but a conspired plan. That was what [Name] thought, after all, she was the one who brought him here.

But Karasu… Karasu had forgotten all about that.  

"[Last Name]-san, too. Hello," Marisa greets politely, every inch of her polished to a girly perfection. [Name] nods her head in acknowledgement, mumbling a quiet “Hi”.

"So, what can I get you two?" She asks smoothy, quickly pulling out a notepad.

Karasu steals a glance at [Name] finding her slumped where she was seated, painfully aware of the feel of her knee grazing his from under the table.

"I'll get the bamboo shoot soup if ya will." He replies cooly, like it was the most natural thing in the world, and it probably was.

What wasn’t natural, however, was that…

"Ever the favorite, huh?" Marisa teased, writing down his choice. "Ours have some mushrooms in it, so do be careful."

…She remembered.

"No biggie, [Name] here loves those." Karasu tilts his head to her direction. Did he have all the intention to rub it in her face that he was so close to getting the girl of his dreams? Or did the world mocked her through him as if saying, in big bold letters: Stop dreaming already, girl, yer never gonna get ‘im. Totally not cool.

[Name] didn’t know how to reply, she had no intention of doing so in the first place since she wasn’t even supposed to be part of this conversation to begin with.

"Really? I love mushrooms too, [Last Name]-san." Marisa beams, smiling like an angel.

"Well ain't that a surprise!" Karasu laughs.

No... it really wasn't.

He was enjoying this too much, [Name] thinks. How cruel does fate have to be that [Name] was hearing this conversation right in front of her face? Pretty damn cruel. She was no stranger to that, her coach made sure of it, fate made it certain, and the world set it in stone so that she may never forget.

Yet it still hurt. It hurts… so much. Every time she’s led back to this road, back to this desolate, empty, and pot-hole-riddled road—her resolve… breaks just a little bit more.

But she took one look at him, at Karasu—her best friend in the whole wide universe—looking so happy, and she plunged to freezing depths of her acceptance.

She steeled her heart, tightened the seams that they bled through the threads. Just a little longer, she whispers. Please, just for a little longer. Karasu's happy. Finally, after three long years of waiting for this chance, it's already within his grasp.

That's right.

This is how it should be.

This would be the inevitable outcome of all this planning and running around. All so he can be with her.

These useless feelings need to go away, they need to leave because they would just get in the way. They'll wedge themselves between Karasu and his happiness. [Name]’s yearning to be more than just a friend in his eyes would drive him away. Karasu didn't think of her like that. He didn't like her that way. And he would never. And she needs to learn how to accept that.

Because why would he—how could he—if Marisa was the one in front of him? How could he bring himself to love [Name] when the girl of his dreams liked him, too?

I'd rather see them happy together. So happy that it'll show just how ridiculous it is for me to want him. Until I can't even dream of it anymore.

Because that was how it should be.

This was the reality.

[Name] loves Karasu that much was true.

But... Karasu loved Marisa… and no power on earth was going to change that.

---

"Isn't this strange," Tsubame, Karasu's older sister, mused, looking up from her schoolwork all the way from the dining room table to stare at her little brother's entrance like he was some strange lab experiment gone wrong.

"What's strange?" Tabito questions, yanking his shoe off with all his usual carelessness before haphazardly shoving them in the cabinet by the door.

"Yer not with [Name]-chan."

Tsubame now stood before him, an inch taller than him, courtesy of the higher leveling of their living room from their entry way.

"Didja get in a fight with her or somethin'?" She buzzed around the taller male like a bee, completely forgetting about her work still littered on the table. "Finally win? Yer count is on an outstanding three to fourty seven, those three wins because you cheated!"

Karasu dodged his sister's nosiness, grabbing a glass from the cupboard to fill it with his usual kelp tea.

"We didn't fight," he mumbles, from his spot, he could see past the window above the kitchen sink and to the window of [Name]'s living room. "She was just tired 's all." He answers mindlessly, rinsing off his glass before turning to leave, brushing past his older sister and her simmering curiosity.

Tabito didn't understand it himself.

That was supposed to feel like mission accomplished! He should've been over the moon, even reaching farther than the center of the galaxy... but he wasn't.

He blamed it on the mushroom he was forced to eat! He blamed it on the karate team's coach. He blamed it on destiny, on fate, on any other higher being messing with him and laughing in the coves of their habitats!

Most of all... he blamed himself.

Whose fault was it other than his that all [Name]’s hard work got burnt to the ground?

Because when he talked to Marisa for the first time in three years—just when he thought it would be a lasting moment that would echo for all eternities to come—he felt absolutely nothing. Like that day back in elementary graduation. Completely impassive from that girl's confession.

Empty.

He didn’t even recognize Marisa! He called her a loser! And despite having her right next to him, within arms’ reach, close enough to hold, all the bit possible to touch… all he could think about was the girl sitting in front of him.

How her eyes looked too tired, that she probably wanted nothing more than to sleep, or get that tournament trophy over and done with and goof around.

Everything about Marisa blended with all the colors of the earth, nothing but a backdrop to make everything else shine. Her voice fading to a dull echo until all he could hear was the silence…

"Ya can't keep denying, Tabi-chan."

...Silence left by the lack of [Name]'s presence.

It must be witchcraft; someone must've cast a spell on him on the way home! That must be it! Because why on earth was he hearing [Name]'s voice in the safety of his home when he very much clearly saw her walk through her front door and shut the door on his face?

He blamed it for forgetting to clean his ears earlier, because the next words he heard came in the form of his sister's voice. "If there's somethin’ ya wanna say to her then ya better say it."

It was tsubame-nee-chan from the very beginning.

It was just Tabito thinking otherwise. It was him summoning all these hallucinations of [Name]. Conjuring the image of her in the afternoon haze, seeing her face in the breaks of dawn, hearing her voice in the horizons of twilight. It was all him. All him.

"It'll make ya feel better if yer just honest with yerself. Do it now while ya still have the time." Tsubame places a comforting hand on her little—who is now not so little—brother's shoulder. "Regret always comes when the moment's over."

"Does this come from yer personal experience?" Tabito shot back, evading what he already feels engraving in his heart.

"Imma let that slide, you ungrateful brat," Tsubame smiles through her irritation, before it quickly thaws to a sigh, "It's an old saying, Tabito. 'Repentance comes too late' or 'the biggest fish is always the one that got away'." She shakes her head, tired of her brother being an idiot!

"While she's still there, just tell her how you really feel."

"What's that s'posed to mean?" he barks, aggravated by the hidden implication, he didn't like that—

"Oh, please! Assess yerself for once!" Tsubame yells, throwing her hands fed up with this idiot’s stubbornness, turning her back and retreating to the dining table to continue her work. “Ya shouldn’t need someone to spell it out fer ya! Figure it out like man, ya idiot!”

His sister’s words strike true, rattling the peace within his great fortress of denial. The weight of it left him standing there in the ruins of his cowardness, unsure if he should rebuild the remnants of something he once had thought would stand for eternity.

Tabito needed to know that for himself, he knew that. He also knew that he shouldn't need an external force to have him work on his tangled feelings of friendship and love, because it would make it meaningless. He needed to find that out on his own.

He needed to do all that gruelling powder and brush work on his own accord and find out for himself where exactly did he cross the line between friends and 'I guess spending life with you wouldn't be so bad'.

[Name] was always there.

Everywhere he looked, in every memory he held, she existed. No matter what point in his life he travels back to—she was just... there.

All the memories he could recall had remnants of her: a smile, her daunting laugh, the pain of her kicks, the scent of daylight that lingers around wherever she goes. She was there. In everything. Everywhere. In all the colors of the sun.

The heat from soccer practice. The gentle gale of spring. The moon in all its glory. She was there. The laughter echoing in the streets. A shadow in the playground. The starting thought before daybreak. A lingering memory before he succumbs to slumber. She was there.

In all his thoughts, every action, every smile, every laugh... they all led back to her. The fall of snow, the rain of petals, the crashing waves, the eternal saturated autumn sky.

There's a piece of her in everything.

When did it all change?

When did I start seeing you like this? When did I go so far beyond the boundary that I couldn't see that everything was blurring past all the colors of friends? When did I start missing the sound of your voice? When did I start staying in the illusion that I didn't see you more than a friend?

When did I...

This was the reality.

An undeniable truth he had always run away from. Choosing to cower behind the fragments of a past he had long swept out of his heart.

He was in love with her.

Karasu Tabito... was in love with [Name].

And he has been for a long time.

---

When Monday morning came in, Karasu showed up on her doorstep with his uniform thrown on his figure looking like a whirlwind passed him by on his way to her house.

He gave her his usual smirk, trying to bite at her ego from the way he stares at her. Condescending from an outsider’s words; lovesick from his.  

“Didja run twenty before comin’ here on somthin’?” She teased, fixing his crooked tie with a laugh.

Karasu stares at her face scrunched into concentration, his head buzzing from the drumming of his heart—reaching all the way to the tip of his fingers. He prayed to all the deities out there that she couldn’t hear the way his chest wanted to split open from the lingering warmth of her touch. Or that she couldn’t feel that his body was emitting more heat from her close proximity.

Did he do this on purpose? No.

But for once he thanked all the cells in his body for working late on a Monday morning because he gets to be at the receiving end of [Name]’s warm touches.

“Tabi-chan? Are ya listenin’?”

Karasu’s momentary reverie crumbled at the sound of her voice. [Name] eyes him with heavy concertation, tilting her head as she looks up at him, her hand no now holding to the strap of her bag.

“Sorry, what were you sayin’?” he whispers, his breath falling short and had his words tumbling like the wind, left for only his and the earth to hear.

[Name] paid no mind to his strange demeanor, shifting her weight from one foot to another and looked at anything but his searching gaze.

“I said I was sorry,” she purses her lips together, the words didn’t taste particularly unpleasant, but the reminder of their laughter still haunted her more than she’d like to admit. “Fer cuttin’ yer date short with ‘er, I mean.” She clarifies, shutting the door behind her as she steps a foot onto the front lawn, walking past Karasu who stood on her porch a moment longer than usual.

Karasu quickly pulled himself together and closed the distance she put between them in a few large strides, slyly taking her bag with her as he distracted her with conversation.

"'S nothin'. We had a talk while ye were dyin' in the bathroom," he muses, poking at her side to rile her up.

"Hey! I wasn't dyin'—" [Name] rose to protest, because she really wasn’t. She excused herself to the bathroom to spit out whatever the hell it was that she ate—"Their bread had raisins on them. Raisins. I hate raisins." She argues defensively, crossing her arms over her chest… entirely unaware that her bag was no longer in her hold.

"Could've given them to me," Karasu shrugs, leaning half his weight on her, a terrible habit he developed when they were nine years old and hasn’t grown out of ever since.

[Name] dragged her weight to her legs, trying to keep both him and her upright. She doesn’t wanna topple over the sidewalk... again. It’s happened too many times already, and with more than at least ten of their neighbors seeing.

"Not in front of yer Mona Lisa," [Name] sneers, pushing his ever-drawing face away.

"Puhlease, she's hardly a Mona Lisa." Karasu comments, voice mumbled by the nice-smelling hand that belonged to the girl next to him.

[Name] was not sure how to respond to that. The truth was that they left the café after they finished eating. But some might think, oh, isn’t that what you do though? Well, it was what she wanted to do. She planned that meet-up to end with Karasu and Marisa living happily ever after. But as she went to the bathroom, came back, and told Karasu that she had to go home because she wasn’t feeling well—he offered to walk her home. It was what a good friend does, really it was. But you don’t do that when the girl you like is standing right next to you!

Plus, they talked about that! [Name] told him that she was gonna make up some dumb excuse to get them alone. This was the dumb excuse! But he was being more of an idiot than the idiotic excuse leaving her lips.

In the end, they ended up bidding her farewell… with Karasu lying through his teeth that he was gonna come back—not that [Name] knew that considering she was far too busy glaring at him from the side.

"Marisa... has a boyfriend already,"

Karasu’s voice froze the gaping silence between them, his words flying into the blue skies, forever left to find their way to the land of acceptance Karasu has long since passed.

[Name] looked to him in shock, stumbling over her step before regaining her footing only to gawk at him again.

Is that true? Did Marisa really have a boyfriend? Since when? I never saw that on her socials. Did Karasu confess or something? Or was Marisa possessed by some sort of psychedelic mind reader?

[Name] would never know… and she reckons Karasu was never gonna talk about it either. She knows that look, when his eyes stare so far into the distance she begins to wonder if he was seeing a portal to another universe open before his eyes, let’s not talk about it.

"Oh... uhmm,” she starts; racking her brain for an appropriate response that wasn’t Hell yes! or Woo hoo! because that was not appropriate in the least. “That's rough buddy." She awkwardly pats his back, only this time, she had no melted, half-eaten popsicle to offer him. Only a heart, battered and bruised, covered in bandages and held together by a thread… that will only ever be his.

"Ya know, I thought I’d be more upset about it." Karasu looks to the heavens, oddly vocal of what he felt.

Maybe it was morning dew refracted by the early morning rays. Maybe it was autumn gale, ruffling the threads of his clothes. Maybe it was because of her—of [Name].

She looks at him with a raised brow, "And ya aren't?"

He smiles at her, one so gentle it could rival the clouds, replace the sun in warmth… dethrone Aphrodite from her position. “No,” he whispers, “No I’m not.”

He takes it all in, the image of her in this light. Karasu traces the contours of her face, the dust of roses powdered on the hills of her cheeks, the shine of a thousand galaxies in the pools of her irises.

Karasu was never one to believe in magic, or the supernatural… he couldn’t even consider himself an avid fan of the faerie folk.

But if somehow, somewhere—in this vast infiniteness, in the depths of the parallels, and the lullabies of the unknown—if there existed a figure for love, he was sure that it would be her.

"Maybe it's cuz I never liked her enough to begin with."

His confession slipped past his lips in a low murmur, faint enough that it could pass as a song of the fall, but she heard it. Always. Because what else could explain the reason that [Name] had suddenly started choking on her spit.

"Oi! Ya alright? Hey! [Name]! Don't die!" Karasu panics.

"Whaddaya mean ya don't like her?!” She screams, shoulders heaving from the sudden strain on her lungs. “What's all that work for then? Didya lie to me? Karasu Tabito—"

Her tone sent shivers crawling through his spine. "Woah,” he raises his arms in surrender. “Don't go drawin' the full name card on me [Name]." he tries to laugh it off, but the look in her unimpressed eyes told him that he needed to say something else.

"I did get somethin' out of yer hard work," he smiles.

"Which is?" [Name] nods in anticipation, leaning closer.

"Realizin' I don't like her anymore."

[Name] draws a deep breath, releasing it in an exaggerated huff of air, and without another word, continued to walk to school.

This was hopeless.

She walked in front of him. One, because she didn’t want to look at his face at the moment. And two, so that he won’t be a witness to her burning cheeks and her desperately suppressed smile. Yeah, no way in hell was she letting him see that!

"Told ya about it remember?" he calls from behind, a good four to five steps apart.

"I can barely remember what I ate yesterday, ya gotta be more specific."

Karasu stares at the back of her head, a view he’d seen for at least half his life already. "That day… by the seaside."

[Name] remained wordless; she remembers that vividly. Because how could she ever bring herself to forget.

The day that she…

"Ya have the memory of a goldfish," Karasu groans, every bit the telenovela star he was. "I told ya, getting’ love ain't everythin' in this world."

…began to like this guy.

"Oh." She whispers.

"Remember now?"

That memory had always been something she treasured, never an ephemeral wandering like a half-buried shell washed ashore.

[Name] looks to him from over her shoulder as she nods in confirmation. "What's that gotta do with this though?" She continues ever forward, eyes once more trailing to focus on the pavement before her.

Karasu’s answer got stuck in the tunnels of his throat, like his own brain was unsure of the reason why he brought it up in the first place. He just wanted to talk to her, to hear her voice echo for all eternity in the caves of his soul, even long after he’s left this world. "Losin' an ordinary girl ain't worth it to be upset over."

[Name]’s footsteps falters, the edge of her shoe getting caught by a crack appearing out of nowhere, much like her own traitorous heart, once again caught in the snares of his words. The words someone spoke to her long ago echoing in her head, you two are finally reaching the age of maturity. Finally—after so, so long—brave enough to let do of the things that weren’t meant to stay, and to be strong enough to accept those who were supposed to.

"Woah," this time, [Name] turned to face him with a skin-crawling grin, an all too familiar shape, he thinks.

"Who ever knew a day would come when Karasu Tabito calls his lifelong love an ordinary girl—"

"She wasn't a lifelong love!"

---

It took a long time for Karasu to gather the dust and form the courage to profess his love for [Name].

He was cocky, and overconfident, and rough and ragged around the edges, and disliked it when anything went wrong. Basically, he was his own enemy when it came to his own love life. Sure, people liked him enough to give him Valentine’s Day chocolates, but the issue lies in him, not his admirers. For the life of him, he could not be nice to anyone he saw as mundane or boring. He was an—in the nicest way possible—Karasu Tabito was an asshole. His smirk didn’t help his case one bit.

Oh, but how humbling an experience it is for him when she was the one standing before him. The great, I’m-gonna-make-you-see-yer-ordinary Karasu Tabito who stared down his opponents on field, was afraid to tell his best friend that he liked her.

That’s why he had dragged his feelings by the collar all the way to their second year of high school. His sister had more than a few not so nice things to say about him when she hears that up until now, he was still shaking in his elementary-school-boy shorts.

But could they blame him? Yeah, they really could. Even his parents looked at him weird when he always offered to wash the dishes at night because it gave him the excuse to see [Name] from the comfort of her living room.

Still, here he was—beating around the bush with the girl he likes.

But could they really blame him? This was [Name]! The one who could brawl in a gang fight barehanded and win. [Name] who had the nicest laugh and the warmest touch. It was [Name] whom he liked… [Name] who was dyed in all the colors of the sun.

And he was scared to lose her.

Karasu didn’t want to mess this up because not only will he lose her as a lover, he’d also be left to live in a word where he was no longer her best friend.

What if he did confess and she turns him down?

What then?

In his eyes, compared to her—[Name] who was everything in his world—to [Name] who had the nicest smile, and the happiest laugh, Karasu felt mundane in all the aspects of his life.

So sometimes, when his own emotions overwhelm him as he gets so lost just thinking about her in the silence of the night, he tells himself that maybe, it was fine like this.

Tabito and [Name]; [Name] and tabito. Best friends.

Maybe, he should just shut them in, keep it all inside and wait for it to go away, pray for it to go away. He was having loads of fun already. They were together all the time. Maybe... just maybe... it's fine like this. Maybe staying as childhood friends—as best friends forever—isn't so bad.

"Why're ya dressed like an old man?" [Name] raised a brow at him, lips twitching as she fought tooth and nail to swallow her laugh. Her eyes analyze his get up from head to toe, taking in his fake white beard down to his green yukata and his grey haori, and the geta on his feet that echoed with every exaggerated step; wooden footwear she saw inside her grandpa's shoe cabinet. He was hunched over like a shrimp, with a cane to support his weight.

"'S for the class!" he replies with enthusiasm, stroking his fake white beard like some wise old monk.

"Ya look like a senile old man." [Name] snorts, her restraint shattering at the angry look on his face as her laugh resonates in the crowded hallway. She adjusts her grip on the box of props, shoulders shaking from the little giggles that seeped from her lips.

Karasu cracked an eye open to glare at her, and with an added pizzazz, rose in hand to counter—more like agree—with her. "I am a senile old man!"

[Name] laughed harder, the box rattling like the happiness that rippled the once serene calmness of her soul. "Ya sound just like gramps!" She breathes, wiping her eye on the cloth of her shoulder.

Karasu grumbles in defeat, knowing he couldn't win against [Name] and her oh-so-creative teasing.

He dropped the act and adjusted his posture to stand to his full height, ultimately noting that [Name] had stopped laughing once she realizes that in height, Karasu would always have the last laugh. Or in this case, a triumphant smirk on his face as he eyes her from above, not even craning his head.

She squints her eyes at him. “Damn evolution,” she mutters under her breath and made sure her voice was loud and clear as she finishes her sentence with— “Since when did idiots grow to be so tall?!”

[Name] hmphed, turning her head to look away and sidestepped to get past himto move onward to her destination, but before she could, Karasu shifted to block her path.

"What is it now—" The words got lodged in the tunnels of her throat as the weight of the box she’s been carrying since the school gate suddenly disappeared from her arms.

She looked at him, startled to find him looking at anywhere but her. The autumn daylight made the crimson on his cheeks all the more prominent.

Karasu couldn’t bring himself to believe that he could ever be happy with being just her friend. He reckons he never will. It would kill him not to love her beyond all this. If there ever existed a universe where he was contented with that—he was damn sure it would not be this one.

Because he as much as he was cocky, and overconfident, and an asshole. Karasu was greedy. And he was selfish. And painfully stubborn.

"Just helpin' the pretty girl lift the heavy boxes."

[Name]’s face erupted into a thousand shades of red, but this time, she had nothing to use to hide it from him. He caught her by surprise. A dirty trick. Ambushed her to this—this… vulnerable position. She could feel like fire spread through her veins like lava, setting all in its wake into a melting heat, burning at the thorns of her restraint, drowning the caves of her hesitance to a resounding calm, and lighting the heavens of her soul into all the colors of the sun.

She hated this. Stupid Tabito. Before she could contain herself, her embarrassment took reign of her actions, her knee jerks up, landing a solid kick to the back of his thighs.

"Ow!" He yelps, did Karasu ever mention that her kicks were heavy? Well they were. The force of her assault had him fumbling over his own steps, but he could not stop the growing smile on his face.

"Get goin' old man!" she snaps, crossing her arms and glaring at all the things around them. She was flustered. Her body couldn’t decide if she liked it or hated it. Why does he find the need to say that? Why does Karasu have to be so—so… embarrassing?

[Name] buries her face in the palm of her hands, as if her own flaming limb could help cool the raging inferno on her face. Her mind replays his words like a broken record. Pretty girl. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Did he even mean that? Probably. That stupid crow always pushed her so far, teased her to no end. So, what was the difference this time?

Karasu laughs, a sound so cool and warm, the sting from his best friend’s kick fading to a dull echo. His gaze made from the softest threads, one so intertwined with the melody of affection, blanketed with the warmest colors.

…Maybe it’s because this time around, he actually means it.

And this time, he wasn’t afraid to say it to her.

This one will probably come around to bite him back, but he would take it. Anything the world throws at him—he would take it. Because he wouldn’t allow himself to see another sun if [Name] didn’t go to sleep not knowing that she’s pretty.

---

The day of the school's culture festival rolled around.

For the past three weeks, their class united on the single idea of setting up a little café. By some miracle, they actually pulled it off quite well, despite battling the initial deadline, heavily handicapped at the loss of their two athletes. Between Karasu’s rigorous training schedule and [Name]’s tyrant of a coach monopolizing every spare second of her time for practice, there was no way they were ever going to contribute much beyond the bare minimum.

But [Name] did not want to be dead weight.

She volunteered to carry the boxes containing the ingredients and decorations, carrying them across campus like a one-woman moving company. While Karasu was left with no other option but to dress up like an old man inviting people to come and buy—he would probably garner more attention if he stayed just the way he is, but with his sharp tongue and domineering stare, he would just scare all their customers away (not like a beard and a yukata could hold his words back).

By the time the sun had reached the middle of the sky, they already looked like they wanted to go home—both completely floored from the physical work.

[Name] sat crisscross apple sauce outside the classroom, her back against the wall, and Karasu plopped down beside her, stretching his legs out with a groan—no respect for anyone walking by, his legs were nearly occupying a quarter of the hallway!

Their lunches were as mismatched as their personalities: [Name] poked at the pasta littered with raisins while Karasu grimaced at the sight of mushrooms contaminating his bento.

He knew he should be thankful to his sister who had oh-so-kindly offered to make them lunch seeing as she was on break from college, but Tabito has already told her like a million times! He doesn’t like mushrooms, [Name] does. And [Name] didn’t like raisins, he did!

Without a word, he begins plucking the raisins out of her food like they were newly ripe fruits ready to sell, dumping them on the lid of his bento. In honor of distributive justice, he traded in all the mushrooms he had on his lunch to hers.

"Yer actin' weird," she mutters through a mouthful of pasta, eyeing him from where she sat.

"Whatcha talkin' 'bout, I've always been this kind." He retorts, smiling to convey his sincerity as he places a hand over his heart like it could vouch for his claims.

"Kind-a suspicious ya mean!" [Name] squints at him, pointing a stick of bread at his face. "Just say whatcha wanna say already!"

"Yer ovethinkin' it! i'm always like this!" he defended, not bothering to hide the way he eyes [Name]’s stick of bread.

If he were to just…

"Hey, Tabi-chan...” her call drew the curtains close to his evil scheme. “What would you do if I got a boyfriend?"

Her question silenced the chaos in his head, pulling apart at all the worlds he built until everything came to a standstill. Until he was surrounded by the never-ending nothingness that came with the weight of her question. Heavier than all the stars, so it seems. Why was she saying this? Why now? Why does it have to be now? Now that he was finally—

But she didn’t wait for an answer. Maybe he was perturbed by his silence, mistaking it for agreement. Yet the truth was that she just caught him off guard.

Like [Name]… he didn’t hold all the answers in the world.

"I probably wouldn't, huh?" she laughs, smiling despite the obvious squeeze in her throat. A jest, in the kindest words; hurt, in the worst. "No one's ever gonna want a brute like me."

That's not true, Karasu wanted to protest. What she spoke of couldn't have been farther from the truth.

He didn’t want her to think like that—she just couldn’t. She was someone who deserved the love she wanted to have… more than anyone else. And he wanted to say that to her. He wanted to tell her desperately that there was someone who loved her—hell, so many people loved her.

Every day, he raced against so many people for her affection, for a chance to feel what it’s like to be loved by someone like her.

"There's gotta be someone out there, right?" he offers. Or right here... if you can only look at me. "Someone who'll love you… just fer who ya are."

"Ya really believe in that?" she asked, laughing again, but this time it sounded more like an escape. She wraps the furoshiki on the bento box, her hands moving far too quickly that Karasu knew she was doing it just so she wouldn’t have to look at him.

But that didn’t matter. She could turn a blind eye to him today. He would wait. Ignore his attempts tomorrow—he would still wait. Stay oblivious to it for the next five years? Then he’ll just have to step up his game.

"I know it."

There was something about the way he said it, shacked by all the chains of his beliefs, as thought there could exists no surer thing that what he knew right at this very moment.

It took her by surprise, stole all the breath reserved in her lungs that she forgot that she needed to breathe to see the next day.

“Ya don’t even need to wish fer that,” he adds, voice steadied by the foundation of his own experiences. “They come naturally,” he continues.

In all the forms you can think of. A piece of paper with the things about yer crush. A soccer ball. The kicking pad almost takin’ yer head off. Or a melting, half-eaten popsicle on a summer day.

“Sometimes… ya never realize ya had them all along.”

[Name] formed her courage from the dust, turning to look at him, despite every pull of gravity telling her not to.

He was never gonna make forgetting him easy, was he? Perhaps he never wanted her to forget. Because how could she when Karasu says all these things that made her heart want to run out of her own chest? When he says all these that it leads her back to her planet-sized crush on him. How was she supposed to get away from him now? How was she supposed to move on? How was she going to ever fully deny that she didn't like him anymore when everything, in everywhere... all the roads lead straight back to him?

“And ya don’t need to wish for him to love you…”

Karasu smiles at her, one so different from all the others he ever gave her. Dyed in all the colors of gratitude, blessed by the heavens, shaded in all the colors of the sun.

“Because he already does.”

---

"Why'd we hafta go, Tabi-chan?" [Name] whines, tired from all the walking they had been doing for the last thirty minutes, now tired from all the hiking—seriously, who hikes in the evening?

"Whaddaya mean why?” Karasu shot back, raising a questioning brow at her complain. “We always go every year! And don't act like ya don't like it when yer all dressed up." he points to her yukata, dyed in the shade of violets, decorated with the flowing river in the form of cranes. Karasu had to leash his head and make a conscious effort not to look too much lest he risk getting reported for being a creep.

"Only cuz Ma made me,” she admits, tugging slightly at her obi. “Always naggin' 'bout actin' like a girl and lookin' like a girl as if I ain't a girl." She huffs, the corners of her lips weaving to a scowl.

Karasu tilted his head in fond gentleness. “You look beautiful,” he whispers, the sentiment flowing past his lips like the gentle spring breeze. “Yer always beautiful.”

His words crashed against her like a tidal wave: caressing the soles of her feet, drawing back, before coming at her all at once—with little to no warning at all.

[Name] tilts her head to the side to look at him, smiling at him with all the happiness in the universe. “Ya don't look to shabby yerself, Tabito."

Before he could fire back, Karasu caught a glimpse of sparks tracing the obsidian sky, rising to reach the heavens for it to fracture into a thousand colorful fire, dyeing the obsidian canvas with all the colors of man.

Yet he already saw something far more grandeur than those when he looked into the pools of her eyes—reflecting all the stardust and galaxies, as if everything existed just so they could dim when compared to her, like it all came to being, just so they could fall short when she breathes.

"They're so pretty..." she whispers in awe, smiling at the sight of the transient lights.

"Yeah," he hums mindlessly, but his eyes never left hers. You are beautiful.

"I like you, [Name]." Karasu’s words silenced the chaos of the world, as if everything spiralled into nothingness to create a space only the two of them shared.

[Name] stares at him in bewilderment, her lips parted slightly, not knowing what to say.

"Don't look so surprised,” Karasu berates her with a crooked grin. “Whatcha expect? I'm only human, ya know. Ain't immune to yer charms."

"Tabito what the hell—"

Her vision burst forth into multitudes of colors at the sight of him, red-faced, flustered beyond her wildest imagination, eyes that shone with all the bravery and strength in the world, still his voice is riddled with a careful gentleness—like if he spoke any louder, this ephemeral space would crumble and he’d find himself back to reality. But his words would resound in the depths and skies of her soul for all the eternities to come, until all the stars are nothing but a dream. Until the earth is painted with all the colors of the sun.

"I'm in love with you," he confesses, his hand reaching for hers. Shaking from his nerves, determined in his affection.

His eyes searched hers for traces of disdain, any hints that she didn’t want this. Karasu dug through the colors of her face for anything—anything that told him to go away, to never show his face to her ever again.

"And I have been for a long time."

His touch lingered, hesitant to take another step forward.

"I know I'm nothin' much.” He admits, pained at the thought of his own imperfections. “I get jealous easily, and I can't be nice to mediocre people. I can't swim, and I'm afraid of water. I'm prolly the last person ya'd ever want to love ya but..." he falters, his breaths coming in short intakes as he scavenged the lands of his soul for the right words to say—for the courage he had stacked upon one another.

“I don’t—” His voice cracks, holding her hand tightly as if her touch could piece back his crumbing confidence. “I want ya to be happy. God knows that I do. But I don't want to lose ya to anyone else.” But it seems like her warmth could not hold together his voice that shattered from the weight. “I’m selfish. And I’m greedy. If you still have space in yer heart for a little bit more of me, even if the odds are one to a million... then I'd want to have it.”

I'd risk everything to have it.

Karasu looked at her again, mapping the face of the one he loves, breathing heavily until he found the words he always wanted to say. "Yer beautiful. Yer smart, and strong. Anyone would be lucky to have ya love 'em."

He smiled weakly, voice softening to melt into the silence of the night.

"And... I'm just an ordinary guy, standin' in front of the most amazing girl... askin’ her to love him."

He could wait a thousand more years if she told him to. Capture every star in the sky if it makes her happy. Karasu would move the universe for her, and she will only ever need to ask.

He would color the world to her liking if she tells him too.

“Yer an idiot are’ntcha?”

Karasu raised his head to meet the sound of her voice. God, she was so beautiful.

“I guess I am,” he laughs.

“Good on ya that I like idiots.” She tightens her hold on his hand, smiling at him for all that he did and more.

Because people can’t love you exactly the way you want them to. You just have to let them try to do their best.

I think I got sidetracked halfway tbh 💀this is my first time writing a non-tragedy paleontological distaster-ending fic also my first time writing for karasu because he wouldn't leave me alone 😭 I can't believe I managed to give birth to a fic in under four??? yeah four days. I think I began liking this guy like five days ago for some unknown reason 💀 anyway, my requests are still open, and ya can read my other works here! thanks fer readin' 😁❤

[innieslut]

what about a titfucking with mingi req? 🫦

now this got me wilding ngl. hope you enjoy !! <3

warnings: smut MDNI, titfucking obv, mentions of period, mingi is whiny n desperate, tiny bits of oral & handjob, cum tasting, cumshot. lmk if i forgot anything!!

"Baby please, i'll make it quick." your boyfriend whined for the at least 10th time that day, his hand tugging your arm and a pout glued to his face.

You couldn't explain yourself how Mingi was always the neediest when you were on that time of the month. It almost looked like he was the one ovulating.

"Mingi, i said i can't, you have a hand– two actually. You can do a lot of things." you objected, still curled up in your bed and trying to find a position that could make your cramps less painful.

"But it's not the same!" he plopped down beside you, the bed jumping a little.

He sounded like a little kid. A six feet tall kid with an insanely deep voice. It was already a good thing he wasn't stomping his feet on the floor and crying.

As he spooned you, his arms around your waist and big hands splayed over your aching stomach, you could feel his rock hard boner pressing against the back of your thigh. That shit must hurt.

"Baby, i really wish i could help you, but i'm in too much pain right now." you apologized, managing to turn around to face him. His pupils were dilated enough to tell he was really horny. You kind of felt sorry for him, that pout on his lips only made you want to kiss it off his face.

And that's exactly what you did, you cupped his face and pressed your lips against his, immediately hearing him hum and moan into the kiss, his hands moving to your ass to squeeze it harshly; you giggled at the way his hardness twitched slightly against your thigh.

As you parted, he wasted no time and moved to your jaw, neck, collarbone, leaving a trail of kisses and spit until he ended up with his head buried between your breasts, nose pressed firmly against your sternum and lips kissing every inch of exposed skin on your chest.

"Baby.. can i at least see you?" He whispered, his voice muffled as he looked up at you, his eyes big and pleading. You felt his smirk on your skin as you nodded, his hands rushing from your ass to your front, pushing the fabric of your top up to reveal your tits, a deep groan leaving his throat at the sight of your hardened nipples. A low "fuck" escaped from him before he leaned down and began covering one of your tits with kisses, tongue sucking and lapping at your nipple; then he moved to the other, reserving it the same treatment, desperate moans and whimpers leaving his mouth during the whole process.

"Shit babe i'm so hard it hurts." he whined against your skin, his hips twitching uncomfortably. You grabbed his hair and pulled him away from your chest, forcing him to look up at you. As he whined again, you looked down at his crotch, not really surprised by the tent on his pants that were threatening to rip open at some point.

But before he could dive into your tits again, an idea popped to your mind.

"Mingi, baby take those off." you said, your voice breathy as you pressed your knee between his legs teasingly.

While he hastily tugged his sweats off along with his boxers, you completely pulled off your top, tossing it on the side of the bed.

"C'mere." you laid on your back, bringing your hands to your own boobs, squeezing them and gesturing your boyfriend to come straddle your chest. You saw his cock twitch and jump against his abdomen as he realized your intentions, precum leaking from the tip.

He quickly did as you told him, his thighs now on each side of your chest and his rock hard dick pulsating shamelessly in front of your face. You looked up at him, eyes locked with his as you took his lenght in your hand, giving it a few slow pumps and feeling it twitch in your hand, a few droplets of precum running down his shaft and your hand.

"S-shit babe please." he breathed out, his hips bucking slightly forwards. You looked up at him with big doe eyes as you darted your tongue out, reaching for his angry, aching tip to lap at the precum that was dripping from it.

"Y-you're so– fuck, s-so pretty, shit." he groaned, looking down at you with his cheeks painted red and his big hand reaching up to move his hair away from his face.

"You like this, baby?" you asked innocently, pulling off his cock to spit on your hand, bringing it back to stroke him faster and smear your spit all over his lenght, lubing it up.

As he frantically nodded, you pulled your hand away from him and brought both your palms to your tits, kneading them and pushing them together invitingly.

"C'mon babe?" you looked up at him, his fucked out gaze sending waves of arousal straight to your core.

He positioned his cock between your breasts, whimpering as you wrapped them around it, his hips immediately starting to move back and forth, eyes closed shut and lip stuck between his teeth.

"G-goddamn it." he hissed, deep groans and pants coming out his throat as his dick slid in and out the space between your tits fervently.

"Mingi, look at me." you whispered, releasing little high-pitched moans to tease him and help him reach his high faster.

He slowly opened his eyes and looked down at you, his face flushed and eyes almost watering from the pleasure. His lips parted to say something, but his words were choked down by a deep grunt as you squeezed your tits tighter around his throbbing lenght.

"Y-you're fucking perfect." he moved his hands to your boobs, pulling your hands away from them to replace them with his own, groping the flesh harshly as he kept thrusting his cock between the two soft mounds.

"Are you gonna cum baby?" you cooed, your now free hands moving to his toned thighs, caressing them softly as you enjoyed the view above your head.

"Shit, y-yes i'm gonna– fuck, i'm gonna cum." he whimpered, head falling backwards as his hips bucked wildly, precum smearing all over the skin of your neck and cleavage.

You giggled, tongue slipping out to give soft kitten licks at his tip each time it poked out near your chin.

"You're gonna be the fucking death of me." he growled, his thrusts turning erratic as a loud series of whimpers left his throat, turning into soft cries as he finally reached his peak, his hips stilling as string after string of white shooted out and coated the skin of your chest and chin.

You watched as his chest heaved with every breath, his hips moving ever so slightly to remain on his high as long as possible, his head thrown backwards to expose his neck, some hickey marks still printed on his skin after a few days.

You scooped the cum that landed on your chin with your thumb, bringing it to your lips and wrapping them against your digit, tasting the sweet flavor of him with a teasing smirk.

"Naughty girl."

He pulled back, his cock now resting against your stomach as he almost collapsed onto you.

"Fuck." he huffed out, reaching out to press a kiss on your lips. "Thank you, baby."

"You're going to return the favor once i stop bleeding everywhere." you warned, arms wrapping around his neck and melting into his warmth.

"Oh baby i'll do it so good you'll be jealous of my abilities." he teased, his hands sliding down to caress your bare sides and landing on your waist, wrapping around it perfectly. His eyes wandered all over your body, gaze fixating on your perky buds once again.

"You know what i think everytime i get this sight in front of my eyes?" he asked, fingertips playing with the waistband of your sleep shorts.

"Yeah?"

"I really must be the fucking luckiest man on earth right now."

[avianyuh]

Romance Novels | Choi Seungcheol

“What are you reading?” Seungcheol questioned as he sat down beside you on your shared bed. He lightly pulled back the book, peeping onto the vast span of words decorating the pages. "You look so focused." He smiled. You smiled as you placed the book down on your chest. 

“No offense Cheol, but I don’t think you’d be overly interested in this one.” To that, Seungcheol raised an eyebrow in surprise at you. 

“Now why would you assume that? I read the last book you gave to me.” He explained as he reached his hand over to grab the book sprawled across your chest. There was something so inherently sweet about the fact you were comfortable enough to grab each other’s things and investigate. You’d do the same whenever you’d catch Seungcheol spending more time than usual on his computer. Kicking him out of his seat if you weren’t sitting in his lap, investigating what had your boyfriend so fascinated. 

“Well, the last book I gave you was a mystery so I knew you’d be entertained.” Seungcheol nodded his head before resting it onto your shoulder. “But this book is a romance novel and I know you hate watching rom-coms with me so I just assumed you wouldn’t want to read this one…”, you trailed off. 

“In my defense, that last movie you made me watch was horrible, even you lost interest after the first hour.” He laughed as he lifted his head to get a better look at you. You rolled your eyes and playfully pushed his face away. “What’s this book about?” he asked curiously, glimpsing down at the back cover. 

“You seriously want to know?” you said in surprise. When Seungcheol smiled, responding back with a resounding yes, you obeyed his wish. “The main character is this girl who moves to this new city. She doesn’t know anyone and she’s working at this new job which was the whole reason behind her move. Anyways, turns out that she hates the new job and all of her coworkers treat her like an outsider. So she’s walking home from work one day and she’s thinking about how she’s homesick and how she regrets moving.” You watched as Seungcheol laid down on his stomach, propping his head up with a pillow, looking invested. You found the image adorable as you continued explaining the plot of your book. “So she’s walking, it’s pouring rain and her emotions get the best of her. She breaks down in tears, and she’s keeping her head down and all of a sudden she crashes into someone. And it turns out to be this guy she went to High School with that she hasn’t seen in almost a decade. So he takes her to this coffee shop and he’s trying to comfort her and then they start catching up on life. But the whole point of the book is him trying to convince her to stay in the city, and then they start to develop feelings for each other…Well, I don’t want to say anything else because I don’t want to spoil it.” Seungcheol nodded his head understandingly. 

“How far along are you in the book?” He asked, handing it back to you. You skimmed through it, counting how many chapters you had left. 

“Uh, I’m on chapter 19 and there’s 23 in total so I’m almost done. Why, you want to read it? Romance isn't your thing”, you teased. 

“Would it make you happy if I read it?” Seungcheol responded back which in turn made your heart melt. "And that's not entirely true, I only like our romance. It's better than the books you read." You covered your face as you tried to conceal your giggles.

“Aw, Cheol, I told you that you wouldn’t like it.” you shook your head as you crawled towards him so that you were now also situated on your stomach, face to face with your boyfriend. He leaned in, placing a soft, chaste kiss on your lips. 

“I figured I wouldn’t but I like to get involved with your hobbies because your eyes light up when I talk about all of your favorite books. I love to see you excited and happy.” He whispered, caressing your cheek. 

“So do I.”, you answered as you both sat up, leaning back in for another kiss. 

{A/N: HAPPY 2025 EVERYONE! This is the first post of the year and I can't wait for the new stories this year will bring. As always love you and mwahhhh💋}

[yuikomorii]

Shu-Yuma because their friendship is the most engaging in the series, yet idk if it still counts as mere friendship, given that in DF and LE it was sort of implied that Shu feels something more for Yuma.

I saw this interesting point you made, I’ve played both games repeatedly over the years and have honestly never thought of it as anything much what’s presented surface level. I’m intrigued by your comment and would love to see what points in routes could be used to back up such an interpretation? :)

p.s you converted me into ayato stan ;P

// Hello there, fellow aNYAto stan! >:3

In my opinion, Shu seems to have feelings for Yuma because he is overly obsessed with him and his well-being, to the extent that he does things for Yuma that he doesn’t even do for us, the players.

Of course, he does feel guilty, but even Shu admits that feeling such remorse is unusual for him, and he's right.

We know Shu is a sadist who enjoys torturing his prey in grotesque ways, so why doesn’t he regret what he did to the previous sacrificial brides? Why doesn’t he regret hurting his own brothers? He sometimes doesn’t even feel remorse when he’s hurting you/Yui. But when it comes to Yuma… Shu would sacrifice ANYONE for him.

This guy must have some kind of built-in Yuma radar, since there’s no other way to explain how he always manages to find him. He willingly goes out of his way to save him and doesn’t even care if he looks pathetic, as long as Yuma is safe, even in routes that aren’t his own, where he’s supposed to be a lazy and apathetic loser.

Not only that, but Rejet had to make him commit sui€ide and then say the “I hope we will get along in another life 🥺” part. What makes it even crazier is that he’s reincarnated as a fetus from the Tree that Yuma later decides to adopt. Basically, his wish to be on good terms with Yuma was so strong that it literally came true. When Shu dies in his own endings, he never says anything as emotional or profound, which is a bit… questionable.

Last but not least, you know how the apple is supposed to symbolize Edgar? It almost feels like Shu was trying to hint something, but when Yuma didn’t catch on, Shu was just like “Yeah… nevermind.”

All translations belong to dialovers-translations

While I understand that he might consider him a "best friend," it feels obvious that, deep down, Yuma holds a more significant place in his heart than anyone else. The way he fixates on Yuma makes it seem like their bond goes beyond mere friendship, with Yuma being someone irreplaceable and central to his world.

I know that BL themes would likely never be included in Diabolik Lovers, given the backlash such elements often receive in otome games. As a result, everything is left open to anyone’s interpretation! :3

[antinousletmehit]

˚₊‧꒰ა Chapter 11 ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

୨୧┇Telemachus x fem!reader

୨୧┇note: Mama Eurymachus behind YOU 💜

────୨ৎ──── ────୨ৎ──── ───

Telemachus ran his hands through his hair. Y/N’s lips on his. Her breath mixed with his own. His body pressed up against hers.

Oh gods…

It was all the prince could think about. He went over to the window, staring out at Ithaca. The sky accumulating into a mix of orange and red and the sun set over the roaring sea. Telemachus wishes a little sightseeing would fix his anxiety. He was about to continue his pacing when he heard a voice ring out from behind him.

“Telemachus.” It wasn’t so much a question but a statement. Telemachus turned around to see Athena standing in the middle of the room, her same tall stance visible.

“Athena.” He sighed in relief. The boy had believed that the goddess was done with him forever after their disagreement.

Athena’s face furrowed as she glanced at him, “You’ve done something little wolf.” Telemachus could feel his cheeks go crimson as his mind raked with an answer to reply with.

“I-I haven’t done anything..” He stammered, his fingers fidgeting with the bottom of his tunic.

The goddess felt like rolling her eyes at his attempt of disguising his guilty tone, “You’re lying.”

The prince let out a frustrated sigh, “Yes..I admit. I’m lying.”

“Now the only question is what are you keeping from me?” The goddess crossed her arms, and looked down at the boy. Telemachus debated what Athena would do with him when he came out with the truth. Possibly throw him out the window. Find a way to make his life miserable for the rest of his existence.

“I took your advice..I fought back.” Telemachus began his pacing once again as he talked.

The goddess seemed proud, “Is that so?”

He sighed, “Well..Y/n had been avoiding me and staying close to her brother ever since the other night. I was pissed off…so when she got up from the dining hall…I followed her.” Athena nodded as he talked, waiting for him to continue.

“...Then I cornered her…and pushed her against the wall.” Telemachus slowly stated.

“And?” Athena had an expecting tone.

“We..um..argued, “Telemachus suddenly said in a fast tone,

“andthenimayhavesortofkissedher.”

“I’m sorry?” Athena’s eyes widened.

“I’m not repeating that.” Telemachus muttered, almost ashamed.

“I told you to fight back, not with your lips.” Athena groaned, rubbing the bridge of her nose with her fingers.

“In my defense you got extremely unspecific when you said to push her against the wall.” Telemachus’s voice cracked as he tried to defend himself.

Athena scoffed, “I thought it was obvious that you should pull a dagger or hit her, but apparently not.”

The boy ran his hands through his hair, “What do I do.”

He sat down on his bed once again, putting his head in his hands, “I know you said you’re not any Aphrodite..but you have to help me.”

Athena once again had flashbacks of Odysseus, helplessly pining over Penelope, and begging for her help. And once again, she couldn’t refuse helping. Especially someone who was Odysses’s son.

“You may not blame me if my advice does not work. I also refuse to be your Eros.” The goddess pointed her finger at Telemachus.

“Really?” The prince’s eyes lit up, a new hopefulness igniting his spirit.

“I suppose..” She sighed, no hint of excitement in her voice, “Go with your instincts.”

He looked at her expectantly, “And?”

Athena shrugs, “That’s it.”

˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

Y/n slipped through the dimly lit corridors of the palace, her jaw clenched so tightly it ached. She hated herself for agreeing to Eurymachus’s demands, but she hated him even more for putting her in this position.

The servant quarters were quiet at this hour, the faint sound of snores drifting from behind closed doors. Y/N moved silently, her steps careful as she approached the small room where Eurymachus had said the necklace would be.

The servant, a young woman named Thalia, known for her kind smile and amazing cooking, was fast asleep, her breathing even and soft. Y/n hesitated at the door, her hand hovering over the curtain that separated the room from the hallway. What am I doing? she thought bitterly. This is beneath me. But Eurymachus’s smug face flashed in her mind, and she forced herself to push forward. Slipping into the room, she quickly spotted the necklace hanging on a nail by the bed. It was simple but elegant, its gold chain glinting faintly in the moonlight streaming through the small window.

Y/n moved swiftly, lifting the necklace from its hook and tucking it into the pouch at her waist. She turned to leave, but her foot caught on a loose board, causing it to creak loudly. Thalia stirred, her eyes fluttering open. “Who’s there?” she murmured sleepily, sitting up in bed.

Y/n froze, her heart pounding in her chest.

But Thalia’s gaze sharpened as she caught sight of Y/n. “Lady Y/N? What are you—” Her eyes flicked to the empty hook where her necklace had been, and her expression turned to one of alarm. “Wait! That’s mine! What are you doing with it?” Y/n didn’t answer. She bolted from the room, ignoring Thalia’s shouts as she darted back down the hallway. Her chest heaved with each breath, her guilt clawing at her insides.

By the time she reached the agreed meeting place—a secluded alcove near the main hall—Eurymachus was already waiting, leaning casually against the wall with his ever “pleasant” smirk.

“You’re late,” he said, his tone mocking.

“Here,” she snapped, pulling the necklace from her pouch and tossing it at him. He caught it easily, inspecting it with an approving nod.

“Perfect,” he said, slipping the necklace into his own pocket. “Thalia’s been a little… resistant to my charms. This should give her the incentive she needs.”

Y/n’s stomach churned. “You’re disgusting.”

Eurymachus shrugged. “Call it what you want. It’s effective. At least I’ll get some good pu—“

Pandora turned on her heel, her fists clenched so tightly her nails dug into her palms. She didn’t look back as she stormed away, but Eurymachus’s smug laughter followed her down the corridor, a reminder of how low she had been forced to stoop.

——

Y/N sat in the shadow of a column, watching the main hall with narrowed eyes. Eurymachus had been annoyingly vague about this errand, but she knew what she was looking for, a suitor sneaking away with food under the cover of night. She hated herself for even considering helping Eurymachus, but if it kept him quiet, she had no choice.

The palace was quiet now, save for the faint sounds of distant laughter from the drunken suitors who hadn’t yet stumbled off to bed. Y/n eyes darted toward the dining table, still laden with leftover food from the evening feast. A plate of roasted meat sat untouched, along with a basket of bread and a jar of honey.

She crouched lower as footsteps echoed down the hall. A figure emerged from the shadows: Amphinomus, one of the less obnoxious suitors usually. He paused near the table, glancing around to make sure no one was watching. Y/n’s breath hitched as she saw him quickly gather a loaf of bread and a slab of meat, wrapping them in a cloth before tucking them under his arm.

Gotcha, she thought, rising silently and following him at a safe distance.

Amphinomus moved with surprising speed for someone who’d spent the evening drinking. He slipped through a side door that led to the servants’ quarters, his steps quiet and deliberate. Pandora stayed close, keeping to the shadows as she trailed him. He finally stopped near the kitchens, where two servants were waiting, a young man and woman with thin, worried faces. Amphinomus handed them the bundle of food, his voice low but urgent.

“Take this,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “Make it last, all right? If anyone asks, you didn’t see me.” The servants murmured their thanks, their gratitude evident in their expressions. Y/n’s chest tightened as she watched. She hadn’t expected this.

As Amphinomus turned to leave, she stepped out of the shadows. “Well, well,” she said, crossing her arms. “Isn’t this interesting?” Amphinomus froze, his face pale as he turned to face her. “Y/N,” he said cautiously. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” she replied, tilting her head. “Stealing food for the servants? That’s not very suitor like of you.” His jaw tightened. “They need it more than we do.”

“Maybe,” Y/n said, her tone cool. “But if the others find out, it won’t end well for you.”

“Are you going to tell them?” Amphinomus asked, his voice laced with suspicion.

She hesitated. For a moment, she considered lying, covering for him, but Eurymachus’s threat loomed in her mind. She had no choice. “Not me,” she said finally, her voice quiet. “But you’d better hope no one else does.”

Amphinomus studied her for a moment, his expression unreadable, before brushing past her and disappearing into the shadows. Y/N stood there for a long time, guilt gnawing at her as she thought about what she had just witnessed. When she finally returned to Eurymachus to report what she’d seen, she kept her tone curt and her answers short. Eurymachus, of course, was delighted.

“Well, well,” he said with a sly grin. “Amphinomus, huh? Who would’ve guessed? Well, actually everyone could’ve guessed. I’m not really shocked, he has this weird thing with greeting the world with open arms or whatever that bullshit means. But anyways, I’ll have fun with that little sliver of information.”

Y/n didn’t respond. She turned and walked away, her stomach churning as she realized just how far she’d fallen, and how much worse things might get.

——

Y/N groaned as she leaned against the stone wall of the courtyard, the weight of Eurymachus’s errand making her stomach churn. She’d avoided Telemachus for days after the kiss, unsure of what to say or even how to act. Now she had to approach him with a favor? For Eurymachus of all people? It was humiliating.

But she didn’t have a choice. Eurymachus’s smug grin and veiled threats lingered in her mind, and she knew he’d make good on them if she didn’t comply. Taking a deep breath, Y/N pushed herself off the wall and made her way toward the palace library, where she knew Telemachus would be. He’d taken to hiding there lately, away from the chaos of the suitors.

When she entered the library, she spotted him immediately. He was seated at a table near the window, a scroll spread out before him. The light from the window cast a soft glow on his face, and for a moment, she hesitated. Why does he have to look so…earnest? she thought irritably.

Clearing her throat, she approached the table. “Telemachus,” she said, her voice steady despite the nervous flutter in her chest. He looked up, his eyes widening slightly before narrowing in suspicion. “Y/N,” he said flatly, setting down the quill in his hand. “What do you want?”

She winced inwardly at his tone but pressed on. “I need a favor,” she said, leaning against the table with feigned nonchalance. Telemachus raised an eyebrow. “From me? That’s bold, considering…” His voice trailed off, and his cheeks flushed as he avoided her gaze. She felt her own cheeks heat, but she refused to acknowledge it. “Look, it’s not for me,” she said quickly. “It’s for Eurymachus.”

Telemachus blinked, clearly caught off guard. “Eurymachus?” he repeated, incredulous. “Why on earth would I do anything for him?” She shifted uncomfortably. “He… he wants you to put in a good word for him with your mother,” she said, each word feeling like it physically hurt to say.

Telemachus stared at her as if she’d just sprouted a second head. “You’re joking,” he said finally.

“I wish I were,” Y/n muttered.

He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms as he regarded her with disbelief. “Why would I ever help Eurymachus? He’s insufferable.”

“Believe me, I know,” Y/N said, her tone exasperated. “But he’s been… persistent. And I’d really appreciate it if you just—”

“No,” Telemachus interrupted, his voice firm. “Absolutely not.” Y/N sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Telemachus, please. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.”

He gave her a long, searching look, his expression softening slightly. “Why are you even doing this? What does he have on you?” Her heart skipped a beat at the question, but she quickly masked her panic with a scowl. “That’s none of your business,” she snapped.

Telemachus frowned but didn’t press further. “I don’t like this, Y/n,” he said quietly. “You shouldn’t have to do Eurymachus’s dirty work. If he’s forcing you—”

“He’s not forcing me,” she said quickly, cutting him off. “I can handle myself.” Telemachus’s eyes narrowed, but he sighed and shook his head. “Fine. I’ll think about it. But only because you’re asking.”

Y/n blinked, surprised by his sudden acquiescence. “You will?”

“I said I’ll think about it,” he clarified, standing and gathering his scrolls. “Don’t expect a miracle.” Y/n watched him leave, her emotions a confusing mix of relief, gratitude, and something else she didn’t want to name.

As the door closed behind him, she let out a long breath, slumping into the chair he’d vacated. This wasn’t how she’d envisioned her day going, but at least she’d made some progress.

Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that her tangled web of alliances and obligations was only growing more complicated, and that Eurymachus wouldn’t stop until he’d completely squeezed her.

——

Y/N found Antinous lounging in the great hall, reclining on a cushioned bench with a goblet of wine in his hand. He looked perfectly at ease, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. But she knew her brother well enough to sense the sharpness lurking beneath his casual demeanor. This errand was going to be trickier than the others, and it was very last second. “Heyyy Y/n!! Can you go and convince your brother to lend me money? Please! Last minute request?” Eurymachus’s irritating voice rang in her head.

She approached cautiously, clearing her throat to get his attention. “Brother,” she began, forcing a light tone. Antinous glanced up, his lips curling into a smirk. “N/N. To what do I owe this rare display of sisterly affection?” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself,” she said, sitting down beside him. “I…I need a favor.”

Antinous raised an eyebrow, clearly intrigued. “A favor? From me? This must be serious.”

“It’s not for me,” she said quickly, twisting her fingers together. “It’s for Eurymachus.”

At the mention of Eurymachus, Antinous’s smirk disappeared. He straightened, setting his goblet aside and narrowing his eyes at her. “Eurymachus?” he repeated slowly. “Why in Hades would you be doing him any favors?” Y/n hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “He—he just needs to borrow some money. One last time. That’s all.”

Antinous stared at her, his expression darkening with suspicion. “Borrow money?” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “And why would he come to you to ask me for that?”

“He said you’d be more likely to agree if it came from me,” she lied, trying to sound convincing. Antinous leaned forward, his gaze piercing. “Since when are you and Eurymachus so chummy? Last I checked, you couldn’t stand the man.” Y/n’s heart began to race. “We’re not… chummy,” she said, her voice faltering slightly. “I’m just…helping out. That’s all.”

Antinous’s eyes narrowed further, and he let out a low, humorless laugh. “Helping out? You’ve got to be shitting me.” he echoed. “Do you think I’m an idiot, ‘N/N? What’s really going on between you two?”

“Nothing!” She said quickly, her face flushing. Antinous stood abruptly, towering over her with a look of barely restrained fury. “Don’t lie to me,” he growled. “If Eurymachus is trying to worm his way into your good graces, or worse into your bed—”

“Antinous!” She snapped, standing as well and glaring up at him. “It’s not like that!” But her denial only seemed to fuel his anger. He began pacing, running a hand through his hair as he muttered under his breath. “That little snake,” he snarled. “I’ll kill him if he thinks he can take advantage of you—”

“He’s not taking advantage of me!” She interrupted, stepping in front of him to block his path. “It’s just money, Antinous. That’s it.” Antinous stopped pacing, glaring down at her with clenched fists. “If that’s true,” he said slowly, “then why do you look so guilty?”

Y/N opened her mouth to respond but found herself at a loss for words. She couldn’t tell him the truth, not about Eurymachus’s threats, and certainly not about the kiss with Telemachus.

Antinous shook his head, his jaw tightening. “I don’t like this, Y/n,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “You’re hiding something. And if I find out that Eurymachus has crossed a line, I swear to the gods—”

“He hasn’t,” she said firmly, cutting him off. “Please, Antinous. Just do this one thing for me.”For a moment, Antinous simply stared at her, his expression unreadable. Finally, he let out a heavy sigh and turned away, rubbing a hand over his face.

“Fine,” he muttered. “But if I find out you’re lying to me, I’ll grab eurymachus and throw him so far he’ll be in Mount Olympus.” Y/N nodded, relief washing over her despite the knot of guilt tightening in her chest. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

Antinous didn’t respond, his back still turned to her. As she left the hall, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d just set something in motion, something she might not be able to control.

started a tag list!

@procrastination20

[writingroom21]

Rafe teaching innocent reader how to suck dick

"That feel good?" You sweetly ask as you look up at Rafe.

Rafe decided that he wanted to help you out. He's tired of hearing you complain how the other boys won't come near you. Tired of hearing you whine about wanting someone to touch you. He thought scaring every guy who looked at you would have you crawling into his bed. But he underestimated you.

After what seemed like constant torture he snapped.

"Fuck do you ever stop whining? Do I need to fill that mouth of yours just to know peace." His words had shocked you, leaving you to gap at him. What really was the shocker of the night was you saying yes. He knew the real reason why you never acted on anything was because you were inexperienced. You told him multiple times how you wish you weren't a virgin anymore.

It was a miracle that he even has you kneeling between his legs right now. One that he was not about to pass up. "Feels amazing. Try using your mouth." He orders. Blue eyes meet your confused face as you try to understand what he means. "Start by using your tongue. Lick from the base to the tip." You do as he says. Sticking your tongue out to finally taste him.

There's a salty flavor that your tongue catches. It almost makes you pull back but Rafe's hand holds your head. He uses the leverage to bring you in closer. "Focus on the tip. Swirl your tongue around it." He lets out a low moan as you do what he says. His eyes closing when you give it a little kiss. "Open your mouth." Confused you do as he says, choking as he pushes his fingers into your mouth.

Rafe lets out a tsk. "It's okay sweetheart. We can fix that." It seems like more of a promise to himself than reassurance. The thought makes you feel something that you can't really pin point. Retracting his fingers, Rafe replaces it with his tip. He sits there watching as your mouth closes around him. The hand behind your neck keeps pushing even after you choke.

He grips your hair giving it a few tugs and pushes to get you used to the motion. When your gagging got too much he pulled out giving you some time to breathe. "Fuck sweetheart." He barely gave you time to recover before pushing you back down. You hands reach for his thighs to stabilize yourself. He hisses when you dig your nails into him as you gag. "Wanna try sucking me now?"

The way he says it kind of fools you into thinking it was your idea because you do want to suck him. Hollowing your cheeks, you suck Rafe as he bobs your head. Moans slip past his lips as he twitches inside your mouth. His cum shoots down the back of your throat causing you to coke and gag. Pulling you off of him, he instructs you to swallow.

One of his hands cups your cheeks making your open your mouth. "Did such a great job sweetheart. How about we try again tomorrow?

Taglist : @rafedaddy01 @rrafeswhore @10ava01 @selfcontollover07 @akobx @starkeysbebe let me know if you want to be added

[pursuitseternal]

“Come Again…”

Cambion Raphael x f!Reader | E | 1K

Summary: Knotted and stuffed, you need something as your Devil sleeps… you need to come again.

CW: Knotting, somnophilia, cockwarming, fem masturbation, keep quiet, soft Raphael, aftercare

For @marimosalad

Ao3 link | Raphael Masterlist

Infernally hot and sweaty. But you’re always sweaty here in the hells. Not even your tiefling biochemistry accounts for hot blazing the devil’s body is, his seed is, even after he’s taken his pleasure and fucked nearly every hole.

In his mighty cherry-fleshed form, he’s so long and so heavy. Even just the weight of his arm around your side as he spoons you close makes breathing a chore.

Never mind the way his infernally hot cock is locked inside your own grooved channel, ridges scored too deep into your flesh as you warm him.

“Such a… soft little mouse,” he puffs in your ear, voice already thick and husky close to sleep. He shifts a bit, sliding his leg between yours, making those ridges of his cock tug in your walls… not unpleasurable, but enough to remind you that you have nowhere to go…

Not that you would wish to…

You rest the weight of your horned head into the silk cushion of his pillow, the scent fills your every breath… cherries and musk and sex… It’s arousing and comforting all at once, especially as your heart still thumps against your ribs, your tail still entwined loosely with his own.

It’s these moments that the great Archdevil who claimed in you in his bed eases. And despite the weight of a crown on his head, he now rests that head beside yours, breathing in your hair and lips whispering at the back of your neck.

Soft things.

Sweet things.

Thoughts his perfectly measured speech and carefully crafted syntax would never allow during his waking.

“Sweet mouse… all mine, my good little girl… my perfect fuck…”

You have to close your eyes to concentrate on his deep voice, barely distinguishing it from the almost snoring rasp in his chest.

Each hummed epitaph in praise of you only makes you that much hotter… more aroused… you can feel your slick wetting again, even with him still knotted inside you, those ridged locked deep into the grooves of your cunt. A perfect fit. The key to your lock, imprisoned as you are and impaled on his length. Even as he fades into sleep.

He rumbles again, dancing in and out of quasi-consciousness

“Mine… mine… my….”

You can’t help it, the way your back arches to feel his searing breath in your pointed ear, his heavy arm pinning you with heat to the silk that’s damp beneath you.

Silk that will only dampen more as your hips roll ever… so… slightly. You pause as his breathing hitches. You’ve only ever known him to be a heavy sleeper, once he reached that point after fucking you raw and often senseless.

Do you... dare seek more pleasure as he lays inside you, ridge buried in your cunt wall, stuffing you full of his seed? Do you dare to come again?

You let out a little moan, slightly stifled… but enough to make you pause as he shifts.

More discretion, perhaps, you decide, freeing your arm from under his to snake your fingers between your legs. A shudder races up your spine the second you find your clit… the second you finger tip brushes his still-hard length inside you where it disappears in your cunt. Hells… the thought, the feeling alone is enough to make your breathing accelerate and your belly coil with need again.

Just one more little orgrasm. He had teased you so much before… bringing you to the brink and pulling away again and again.

And again.

One orgasm had cooled you, but not quenched. So you circle your clit, sneaky and holding your breath. You try to keep it quiet under the blanket, turning your head into the pillow.

But the scent of him in his sheets and the feeling of your walls clenching and fluttering harder already in anticipation… a moan slips from your lips into the scarlet silk you’ve buried your face in.

That scent, his scent… his breath in your ear, his knotted cock locked in your spasming channel…

“Fuck…” you whisper into the bedding again before you come up for air. For a moment, you panic, your tail tensing as you realize it’s been rubbing in the sheet with your pleasure.

He shifts. Raphael lets out a small rumble, pulling you closer, and you fear too much to turn your head to look and meet a pair of black and yellow eyes…

So you, impaled coward that you are, you wait and listen to his breathing.

And yet, even as you listen to his breathing grow slow and steady again, your fingers circle and press and stroke and tease yourself.

Hot… hotter… you bite your lip as your wave of needy blissful heat builds in your belly. Your hips start to roll now, your fingers thrusting their friction over your clit, pulling at its hood, and teasing towards your entrance that’s stuffed with him.

You can almost hear his heart beating faster, the slightest roll and drag of his cock inside you, but you’re so close, orgasm so near you can taste it on your tongue and feel your walls clenching and releasing in anticipation.

“Yes… yes…” you barely whisper…. Just a few more thrusts of your fingers, and you spill around his cock inside you.

A strangled moan, a bucking body, you are nothing more than the plaything he’s used finally… finally taking the pleasure you need.

And then, his tail wraps its blunted end around your slowing wrist. A sinister chuckle in your ear, you hear him whisper, his body inching to enclose more around you.

“Again, mouse…” he commands you, biting his pointed teeth into the supple flesh of your ear. “Come again around me…”

[euthymiya]

not a selfship but alhaitham + when you’re reaching for the same obscure old tome, of which the house of daena only has one copy

Your palm meets warm skin instead of the cold, leather cover of a tome. You pause, glancing up as sharp, teal eyes meet your gaze, staring at you expectantly as if you should be the one letting go.

You need this tome. It’s the final research element to finish your thesis, and you’d like to be done with it. End of story. No matter how devastatingly handsome the man (because he is handsome, even you’ll admit that much), you will not be handing over the last, final key to your academic freedom.

“Um, excuse me,” you say dryly, “I was kind of reaching for that.”

“As was I,” he says, staring at you with a bored, almost uncaring expression. Your eyes narrow. “Now, if you’d please kindly take your hand off of mine.”

“I believe it should be you taking your hand off of mine,” you correct, huffing as you add stubbornly, “I reached for it first.”

He blinks at you, bland and a little irritated as he points out, “your hand is on top of mine, which means I reached the book first.”

Well.

Maybe if you were feeling particularly patient, you’d be inclined to admit that yes, he does have a point. But stubbornness, combined with pure exhaustion have you at your wits end, and if you have to play a bit difficult, then so be it. You’re pretty sure you need it more, and you’re probably a much speedier reader anyway. You’ll have it done and returned in no time.

This guy on the other hand…he doesn’t look too bright. You’re not willing to take your chances and let him walk off with a tome that you might never see again.

“I started reaching for it first,” you scowl, “you just sped up your hand once you saw me. I should get it.”

“Unlikely,” he scoffs, “I didn’t even see you. Although,” he gives you a once over with his eyes, making you feel uncomfortably seen under his judging gaze, “I suppose you are a bit easy to miss.”

You gape at him. “Just what does that mean?”

“It means,” he smirks, taking the opportunity to grab the book as you stand in shock, “that I got here first.”

“Hey!” You glare at him, seeing red for a moment. What a perfectly good waste of a perfectly handsome face—and such an awful attitude coupled with his ridiculously smug grin couldn’t make for a worse combination. But, before you can even say anything, the book is being pressed back into your hands.

“You seem like you want it more than I do, though,” he hums, “I suppose I can let you have it. It’s a bit outdated for me, anyway.”

With that, he saunters off. You push down the soft flutter in your heart for a moment and force yourself to hope you’ll never see him again. (Faintly, you hope your wishes don’t come true—but you refuse to admit it to yourself.)

Throws UP I love him so much. TY RAE FOR SPOILING ME ILY

[aritsukemo]

Invisible Scars | Multiple Characters

Summary: In which the night before leaves you traumatized and causes your emotionally constipated/emotionally reserved friend to seek you out.

Warnings: Purposely vague descriptions ahead ( no names are mentioned besides yours ). Reader killed someone and is negatively reeling from it. Blood is mentioned but nothing seriously descriptive. All that said, read at your own risk!

A/N: I got the idea to write this after scrolling through @creativepromptsforwriting's sideblog and finding this prompt. I plan to tag characters who come to mind, but this is really an open drabble so feel free to imagine whomever you see fits! :D

Tagging: @nursedflowers and @saioratral

The high-pitched screech that bounced off the walls was a sound one would typically associate with tea at it's boiling point or maybe a hotpot screaming to be eaten. One thing that certainly would not have come to mind was a running faucet—specifically one that ran water so hot that it made even the durable metal cry out in pain.

The incessant shrieking, as annoying as it was, didn't faze the girl who sat before the sink. It was as if the noise was never there...which actually wouldn't be that far off from the truth.

In reality, she couldn't hear a thing aside from the same bloodcurdling screams.

Her hands worked as if they were trying to create a fire. They slide together at blinding speed, rubbing against one another so hard that a few more minutes of it would surely cause a tear in the skin of her palms.

Part of her wished that would actually happen.

A knock on the door sounds followed by the mellow hum of her friend's voice as he called from the other side, "Y/n. Are you still in there? It's me."

Heavy silence replaces her much needed answer, and if it weren't for the faint sound of running water, he would've been none the wiser in assuming she wasn't in there. Since that wasn't the case, however, he had no other choice but to try again.

"Y/n," He calls only for the same result. He then tries a third time, "Y/n!"

Silence. He sighs. Guess he has no other choice.

"Forgive the intrusion," With that gentle request serving as a small warning, he takes his time to twist the knob, giving her more than enough time to make herself presentable if need be as he swung the door open at a turtle's pace and peered inside.

As he suspected, she was standing at the sink, her back facing the door and preventing him from seeing what she was doing—not that he needed to. The steam, the running water, the uncomfortable sound of her hands sloshing together and sounding like two blades clashing...it all gave him an inkling of what was happening.

But how long has she been doing this for? He was almost to scared to ask. Almost.

"You've been in here for a while now," He said, and unlike his usual tone, his voice was dipped in uncharacteristic gentleness and sounded rather withheld. It was as if he was being held at swordpoint, and even then, it was surprising to hear him sound that way.

Maybe if she was paying attention she would've heard it and teased him about it. Possibly cracked a joke or two about him finally growing soft enough to warm up to her after all these years.

But instead he received silence and that scared him more than any enemy he's has faced in his lifetime.

"Hey," He called out again, but this time more sternly. He also didn't give her nearly as much time to answer. Not that she likely would.

"You can stop now. I doubt your hands are that dirty.." He's slow with his steps, closing the distance bit by bit, "Hell, by now, your hands are probably cleaner than mine."

She doesn't move, flinch, or do anything that would acknowledge that his words had reached her. It was as if she was in a trance, put under a spell of some kind or was a victim to some hypnotism caused by unknown means.

In a sense, what was happening right now was kinda like that.

In the matter of a minute or so, he's close enough to reach out for her delicate wrist. He does just that, but not too long after he snatches his hand away. He then paused, looking at his hand before looking back up at her with horrid shock gleaming off his hues.

This water was hot. Really hot. Hotter than any water boiled for food or tea.. He's surprised that the droplets don't just evaporate as soon as they leave the faucet.

"You don't feel that?" He leans in, getting closer to her face as his brows furrow, "Does that not hurt?"

He already knew the answer—of course it did—but the fact that she wouldn't answer him struck a nerve and in the end he finds himself grabbing her roughly by the wrist and snatching her away from that molten lava altogether.

He shuts off the water quickly after that, putting the annoying whistling it produced to an abrupt end. It seemed only then that the trance she was put under was broken and she was finally able to think and move for herself again.

As he lets go of her wrist, she finds herself opening her palms and staring down at them. She stares for a long while. Just opening and closing her palms repeatedly and rubbing her fingertips together, as if she was examining a foreign object.

The skin of her palms looked as if she had ran them across a rough surface for an hour; puffy with an angry hue of red to them.

They were a deep shade, just like... She clenches her teeth. He's quick to notice.

"If this is about the other day.." He began, his words dying in his throat as he watched as she flinched away at his very words.

He knew this would happen in the end. He tried to warn them all but nobody wanted to listen to reason. They sent this fragile glasswork into that cage of knives and sharp fangs without a care in the world and left him with the job of mending anything that was broken back together.

It truly irked him. More than something like this usually would.

"If... If you were in my shoes yesterday.." She began slowly and quietly, and despite her voice sounding like a mouse's squeak and a part of his blood boiling at the sound of it, he bit his tongue and held back his snapping comment.

Right now was not the time to be reckless. Too hard of a hit—or any pressure at all really—would cause his dear friend to shatter into a million pieces and he can't have that. How would he be able to fix her up in that condition?

"If you were me last night, if... If you had your weapon to that person's throat. ...If they begged you through their sobs and reduced to a blubbering mess...going on and on about how they needed to live.." She pauses, whether that was because she noticed how her voice grew more and more unsteady with every word she spoke or the fact that her hands had begun to tremble was unknown to even her. It seemed that at this point she was unsure of, well, everything.

And at that point, her friend saw no better of a time than to take a risk and speak his mind.

"If you plan to continue on to ask me if I would've still killed them than let me spare us both the time; I would in a heartbeat."

She laughs at him, her giggle sounding like a sick bird trying to sing. It should be comforting to here despite it's raspiness. After all, despite it not sounding exactly like her usual laughter, it's a miracle she's able to laugh at all. He should be sighing out of relief that she still seems to be gripping onto her sanity enough to find humor in such a dank situation.

But he couldn't, and all because of the simple fact that he had grown used to her sounding so full of life. It was truly a pity.

"I suppose that was a silly question of me to ask you of all people."

In all this time, he's noticed she hasn't looked up from her hands once. It was unnerving to see her like this, but there was nothing he could truly do about it. He could direct her attention elsewhere, sure, but that wouldn't stop the swarming of her thoughts or reduce her heightened awareness of what was once staining her hands and forearms. And, it surely wouldn't halt the constant loop of that incident from playing in her mind—that moment of her taking a life with her own hands, in a quite grotesque way at that.

Her mind was stained just like her skin and just like how she couldn't truly rid herself of the grimy feeling of blood sticking to her skin no matter how hard she scrubbed, he couldn't wipe her mind of what happened. They were both truly powerless.

But he had to do something. Now that they've gotten her foot out of the door, she has to walk through it. There's no backing out of this, she knew this when she went on that mission yesterday. There was no way but forward. He knew that better than anyone.

"Nevermind what happened, come on," He slides his hand up her arm, over her shoulder, and dips down to the upper part of her back where he gently pushes her in the direction of the door, all as he tells her, "You should get off your feet and actually rest. You'll need it for tomorrow.."

For the first time that night, she glances up at him. It was for a mere moment, but that quick second was all he needed. Her eyes..were like a starless sky; completely devoid of it's usually glimmer of life. It was as if he was staring at a solider who's spent the last decade at war.

Truly astounding how such a look was formed just after a single night.

Wordlessly, she allows him to push her in the direction of the door as if she weighed nothing. She walked slowly, and as she did she looked back down at her clean, reddened hands. Her eyes sinking even more as she does.

She finds herself wondering if the blood she felt would ever go away—if it were possible that her palms would be capable of ever being truly clean again—and that led her to softly murmur to the only one she could think of turning to; her companion and partner in crime, him.

"Does it.. Does this ever get better?" She asks to which she receives probably the heaviest sigh she's ever heard in her life. It tells her all she needs to know but does little to quell the turmoil in her heart. It has her questioning if she'll be able to handle the path forward. If she'll reach the end or go insane halfway through.

Whatever happens, she finds herself praying that she'll be able to walk this path hand in hand with someone who's treaded this gravel before.

..And it so happens that a person like that is leading her to her bedroom right now. How convenient.

Dividers were made by me, pictures used are from Pinterest, post formatting is inspired by @xxsabitoxx

[charmac]

thoughts on charlie learning how to read?

As to the effect, I think we’ll have to wait to see what really comes of it, considering the very final joke of the episode is he thinks “guest” on the scoreboard says “ghost,” they definitely made a point to make it clear he’s not necessarily literate by any means beyond “enough to graduate kindergarten”

I do like what Justin and Patrick, the EPs for Abbott said about the longevity of that establishment:

In the end, it’s definitely what Sunny and Charlie Day decide to do with this canon. We know the Abbott ep was filmed before any of the episodes for Season 17 of Sunny, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that they do stick with the idea that Charlie doesn’t struggle as much with reading and writing and maybe has a little kick in him to keep practicing.

Personally on the existence of the storyline now incorporated into Sunny canon, I think they did it in such a fantastic way it’s hard for me to argue anything against or say anything negative. I loved watching it. The thing I love about Abbott is the heart they have in the stories and how real a lot of what they address and tackle in childhood-into-adult development is, and you feel that here, for sure. And we’re watching Abbott, not Sunny, so it’s something removed from the purgatory of the bar.

For those of us that know and love Charlie, I think it’s hard to not feel soft toward this idea that (even if it doesn’t stick or it’s so so basic) there really truly are ways for the Gang to develop and improve on their faults/stubbornness to change, provided it’s treated the right way. And that can only be done (and maybe only continue) in a completely different environment, like Abbott.

The tragedy of Sunny and the Gang is that they’ll never treat each other in that way and therefore can rarely develop. It’s not that they don’t necessarily care, but that their communication methods are so crude and fulled by (often trauma-born) selfishness, they can never give each other the support needed to help improve each other. They make each other miserable in most cases, but they’re also content with that because they almost equally inflict what they take on....

Though Sunny isn't all complete misery, as we all know. They do love each other in fucked up ways and (maybe) almost wish they could help each other in certain respects. Mac's support and encouragement of Charlie being able to read is evident in many Sunny episodes, so it really warmed my heart that Charlie was so eager to show Mac how he had learned and could do a more difficult part of the book for him :) In my opinion, they kept it well aligned with Sunny canon. The Gang don't have the tools to teach Charlie to read, but they do all support and even partly enjoy him learning if they don't have to do it themselves.

I think what we see of Charlie in the Sunny episode will be interesting. Since he's the A plot in Abbott, I have to imagine he has a minor role in Sunny, but will certainly be present. If the idea here is that everyone other than Dennis is serving to distract the teachers, and Charlie only learned to read for the week and goes back to his baseline state of illiteracy, I think I would accept that too.

The lasting effect of the plot doesn't matter too much to me. I think instead the idea that, in the right environment, Charlie can learn to read (and even gets some sense of pride and excitement out of being able to read) but Paddy's and the Gang are really what hinder him from being able to do so (despite the Gang not necessarily against the idea, and considering the fact that Charlie contributes to and prefers the environment they've created) reinforces the Sunny that we hold dear.

[lolitastories]

Blue Eyes

Rafe Cameron

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.

Read alone or consider it as Part 4.

“Are you sure we can’t just skip town and settle in- I don’t know, Canada sounds fun!” I woke up early in the morning to head back home hoping Rafe would stay in his house with our daughter while I dealt with my family. But Rafe being Rafe convinced me it was better to deal with it together, so now I am cleaning my house while he plays with the baby on the couch not listening to my pleas. “She can learn how to ice skate, maybe hockey?” I scream from the kitchen. “I heard healthcare is amazing-”

“Breathe.” I turn around setting the rag on the counter. I look up and see Rafe on the kitchen doorway with our daughter in his arms. I pat my hands dry on my pants as I walk closer to them.

“Japan?” He grins, shaking his head. I groan as I place my head against his chest. “This is going to be unbearable.” Rafe moves his fingers under my chin and lifts it.

“Maybe it won’t be,” I raise my brow, he couldn’t even believe in his own words. “As long as they don’t make any rude remarks, we will be fine, civilized.” He comes down and places a kiss on my forehead.

“If It hadn’t been for a moment of weakness, I wouldn’t have been dealing with this.” I grab Rafe's hand and pull him towards the couch. “I just had to visit my grandmother,” I hear Rafe laugh as he sits down and places our girl in between us.

“By the stories, what else did you expect from a mother-in-law who deep down never liked her son’s wife?” My father was her first born and definitely her favorite.

“Maybe respect her granddaughter's wish of wanting to wait before I tell the rest of the family.” I look over to find Rafe just grinning. “That grin won’t last long,” I stood up and moved to take a spot on his lap. One arm around his shoulder while the other caresses his face. “I can handle them if things go south. I don’t want to put you in a difficult situation.” I look down, chuckling as I watch our daughter grab a fist full of my pants as she tries to crawl between us. “I know your temper and I want you to promise you won’t let them get the best of you,” I look back at him, who is staring blankly back. “Please?”

“Okay” He helps our daughter stand on his lap and her small arm waves around to get a hold of Rafe. We laugh seeing her almost hit me.

“She has to learn how to share,” It's like she understood. Her small head turns over to look at me. I placed my face in the crook of Rafe's neck but soon after she was back to hitting me. “He was mine first” I playfully joke which she smiles at. Our moment is cut short when we hear a knock on the door.  I took a deep breath before opening the door which revealed my parents, grandmother and sister. “Hey”

“Hi honey, how are you?” My grandmother passes by without even looking at me. “There she is!” I hear her excitement.

“Let us have a good reunion, okay?” I move aside a bit more and stay quiet due to my mother's words. My father only nods his head and walks in close behind my mother.

“Ready?” I look up and shake my head. “Too bad.” I know my sister was trying to lighten up my mood, but these nerves can’t be knocked out until they are out of here. I walk to stand beside Rafe who was already being stared down by my parents.

“Mom, dad, grandma, this is Rafe” My grandmother looks up and smiles before going back to babbling at my daughter.

“Nice to meet you” Rafe goes to shake their hand, but they don’t even give him that. I roll my eyes and turn towards my sister.

“This is my sister.” I point over and she smiles, coming forward to shake his hand.

“Nice to meet my sister's first boyfriend,” I give her a stare, but she doesn’t take the hint. “She wasn’t much for dating so imagine us more than surprised when we heard she had a kid with someone.” She was the only one laughing.

“Yeah, imagine us surprised.” My mother coldly said. “We never interfere with her choices because she has always been our responsible one but not even letting us be part of such an important part of her life well, we didn’t expect that.”

“What made you think that was a good decision?” My father finally looked straight into my eyes. “Wasn’t he the reason you came home for those weeks? Now you have a child with him?”

“No. My reasons for coming home were about me, I needed time to breathe, and I thought going home would clear things up.”

“Doesn’t seem like it cleared up anything in you. You must have come home because you told him you were pregnant, and he didn’t want anything to do with you or your child.” He knocked the wind right out of me. “Then you moved back, and he probably didn’t even help you through your pregnancy and only shows up once a week” His tone got higher as he spits out his words.

“I am not going to argue about what he did or didn’t do because you don’t deserve or have the right to that part of my life. I have a child with this man, and he will keep on being part of my child's life because he wants that too.” My hands felt numb.

“What will happen when he decides to leave huh? How would you take care of your child alone as a single mother? You’re tough my girl, but you fall down so easily.” My jaw stiffens as I watch my mother agree with my father's words.

“Well, that is part of life, isn’t it?” I look directly at my mother. “You know more about fighting for your kids as a single mother than I will, but I can assure you I will not find a man of convenience. I can handle that, you two on the other hand have no right to give me advice on that topic.” My mothers' eyes look down before taking her stance again. I remember the day I was hiding in the living room. She was talking on the phone, and she was talking about not loving my father. She married him because he had the means to take care of her and her children she brought into the marriage. That is when my view of them together forever changed, he wasn’t my real father, but I loved him, and she didn’t love him. “Now another part of my life I don’t need advice on is you being a part of her life,” I pointed over towards my daughter who was getting fussy in my grandmother's arms. “I know you aren’t here for me so if you want to get to know her, I will accept it as long as you know your place.” I feel Rafe's hand entwined with mine.

“You think-”

“Dad.” My sister walks forward. I could see the anger in his eyes. The way his hands are fisted shut. My head turns when I hear a cry from my girl. I walk over and take her from my grandmother's arms. I didn't hear what my sister was telling them, but they were quiet when I walked over to Rafe.

“We need time.” My mother finally speaks. She picks up her purse and starts heading towards the door with the rest. “We will let you know when we are available to visit.” My grandmother kindly hugs me before she walks out along with my sister.

“Mom?” I stand in the doorway watching as she steps down the stairs following my father towards the car. “My life will continue with or without you and so will hers. I will not go out of my way to please you anymore; I have more important things in my life now.” Her cold stare and demeanor don’t change. She walks off taking another quick glance back at me as she gets into the car. I shut the door and hear in the background how the tires drive off in the gravel. My mind was interrupted when I felt two hands grip my face and pull me in. Rafe places multiple kisses on my lips, then my cheek until he stops and stares at me. I didn’t notice until a laugh came out of my mouth, but I had a huge smile on my face.

“I am so proud of you” He wraps his arms around my waist making sure not to squish our daughter. “Are you okay?” He says lovingly. I nod my head letting my shoulder fall from all the tension.

“Yeah.” It felt like forever with them here but now that is it all over, I feel so relieved like it never happened. “We need to make this a happy day again.” Rafe raises his eyebrow questioning me. “Let's go out!” I pull apart with him and start getting the diaper bag ready.

“How about the aquarium?” I pause thinking back to the last time I visited one. “You love it, and it will be nice to share that with her since she is becoming obsessed with that otter” I laugh putting that exact otter in her bag.

“You don’t want to go thrifting?” I tease handing him the bag.

“No.” He instantly responds. “I will follow you through hell, but I don’t think I can do another antique store or thrift store for another month.” I roll my eyes.

“You are exaggerating,” I hand over our daughter so I can put on my shoes. “But I guess I will just have to find me another man who doesn’t mind”

“You do that, and he won’t last long breathing.” I ignore his comment and stand up to take the diaper bag from his hand.

“Whatever macho man. Let's go because we have enough time to get back before her nap.” I rush over to the door and see him slowly walking. “I thought we would repeat our prior activity while she naps but it's fine-” I hold back a laugh when I see him speed run past the door.

“You should have started with that!” I shake my head as I lock the front door and rush down to the stairs towards his truck. “Don’t you dare touch that door!” My hands weren't even raised I thought in my head. I hear the gravel move under his feet as he comes around the truck. I go to turn around, but his hand meets my hip and pushes me against the truck gently. His other hand moves to tuck my hair behind my ear.

“I know this feels too normal to go back to where we used to be, but We know that we can’t go back to the way we were before.” He moves his body closer. “I want to be the man you need not just because you are the mother of my child but because you deserve someone who treats you right.” My body shivers to see his eyes full of such devotion. “We will go slow when it comes to us because this is forever. I will take my time for the sake of us.” I wasn’t the one to cry but Rafe's always brought it out of me.

“I love you” I say in a shaky voice. A smile appears on his face, and he moves forward to place a simple kiss on my lips.

“I love you too” I didn’t meet Rafe in his crazy teen years, but I have heard stories about how unhinged he was back then. I wonder how many people would be shocked to see him now. A devoted father who will do anything for his little girl, and a man who looks so lovingly at me. So sappy, I smiled to myself. Then again why did I care? This was the Rafe I knew and loved, and he wasn’t going anywhere.

[deusfoundry]

Hii again, sorry if I'm asking for a lot of Cedric requests (you can ignore this if you'd like). But there's this idea that's been plaguing my mind, where Cedric has always been told he has a lovely, charming, or beautiful smile that brightens up people's day or anything of the sort. But to him he doesn't really know what people mean when they say that. Until he sees reader's smile that just instanyly brightens up his day. "7 billion smiles, but yours is my favorite"

Thank you for reading thiss

hi nonnie! im assuming you're also the one who sent the ced request i got prior to this one and if so, please dont apologize!! i truly adore this man and i love writing for him! i hope i was able to do your prompt justice w this one eheh MWAH <333

if cedric's got a sickle for every time someone has told him he had a pretty smile, he'd be bloody rich by age fourteen.

he's heard it from everyone. from strangers on the street, older men with a head full of gray hair seeing a reflection of themselves decades ago in his youthful eyes. from letters he'd find slipped into his bag, secret admirers waxing poetic about his smile, how it had been enough to make the hour and a half they spend in snape's class bearable, how seeing him from across the great hall at dinner was the one thing they look forward to the most.

he's heard it first, and perhaps most often, from his own mother, who'd take his cheeks into her hands and look at him as if she's holding the entire galaxy between her palms.

"you've got the loveliest smile, my dear boy. never lose it."

but he doesn't know what it means, to have a smile that brightens up the room. he can't wrap his mind around how one tiny smile can be enough to rid someone free of the burdens they accumulate as dawn turns to dusk.

cedric doesn't understand until he finds himself tucked in a corner of the library, buried under a mountain of books and parchment on what's supposed to be a weekend spent at hogsmeade.

he normally has a better hand at managing his responsibilities, but the combination of head boy duties, quidditch season starting in two weeks, and the workload that comes with n.e.w.t. level classes has made it impossible to do anything but thank merlin that he even manages to get through a single day.

cedric fights the urge to groan as he feels the seeds of an all familiar headache sprouting. an invisible force pounds against his head, a faint thud every few seconds that sends a twitch to his eye, but he knows it won't take long until he feels like an ogre is bashing his head against the thick books laying in front of him.

he wishes nothing more than for you to be here, with your own share of work, filling the stifling silence of his own little corner of the library with your frantic scribbling on parchment.

you'd let him take a break by now, body slumping against yours as he slots his head on the crook of your neck. he would breathe you in, greedily, and bite back a grin when you giggle at the ticklish feeling of his nose brushing against your skin. your fingers would find themselves tangled with his hair, tugging at the roots and digging at his scalp with enough pressure to release the tension on his shoulders.

he needs you, overwhelmingly so, but your friends had already whisked you off to hogsmeade before he could even ask if you'd want to join him.

at this point, he'd much rather take the ogre than spend another second alone.

"there you are."

cedric's head snaps towards the direction of your voice. he knows you're talking, watches the open and close of your mouth and the almost animated expressions your face dons as you approach him, but he's not hearing any of it.

he sees your smile, a reflection of the sun and the stars, and finally, he understands just how powerful it can be. he remains in a trance even as you clear a spot on the table for you to sit. his body moves entirely on auto-pilot, thighs spreading apart to make way for your legs as he drags himself and his chair closer to you. you've barely touched him, and yet he feels as if he's being pulled into a warm embrace by the clouds as you fish for his hand, locking your fingers together.

"love? are you alright?"

cedric swiftly slides his arms around your waist. he rests his head on your lap and hopes that the quiet hum he lets out is enough to quell your worries.

"better, bug. now that you're here."

vividly, he can imagine the face you make. a grimace in feigned disgust, your bottom lip between your teeth as you try to hold back a giggle.

"that's cheesy, ced." you give his head a light shove before running your fingers through his hair, to which cedric responds with a laugh and the tightening of his arms. he's given you no chance of escape, palms clutching onto the flesh.

"it's the truth."

and it is. if your smile had been enough to ease the ache in his body, brighten his day despite his workload that refuses to decrease, what more now that he's got you in his arms.

[cupids-carnival]

i actually Have More thoughts i’d like to add…. if you even care…………….. random facts & info abt this au below the cut! :D i actually thought about it more this time and even if it’s not fleshed out fully i hope u like it ^_^ i might even write a fic about this……. if my motivation will let me and you guys like it…………..

(for added context, this iteration of squid games works a little differently then the og one did, and the characters aren’t really meant to replace the original ones !!!!! :D also a teeny bit ooc but they’re in A Death gameso………….tbh i’m mostly saying that to cover up my plot holes but SHH!!!!!!!!!!!)

clown snuck a dagger inside of the games !!!!!!!! like sae-byeok did!!!!!!!! constantly wishes he had his sycthe back though

there’s also some other lifestealers there …….. ash & squiddo team up in the marbles game . take that as you will……..

evbo— like gi-hun— is really stubborn about his morals, believing most of the people in the games are good people and don’t deserve to be put in the games. but unlike gi-hun, he has no problem indirectly or directly killing people, like how he is parkour civ ! it doesn’t mean he doesn’t regret it / feel guilty about it, just that he doesn’t have a problem with it in the moment if it means he gets to survive and pursue his goals (ending the games/saving his friends, and other people)

the reason evbo is in debt is Because he impulsively Bought A Whole House. a nod to pvp evbo and the whole pvp mansion thing LOLL

evbo and emf ended up pairing together for the marbles game (emf ended up losing)

seawatt ended up betraying ally (ali reference) HARD in the marble games, basically manipulating them like sang-woo did and stole all their marbles. doesn’t really regret this, even if he’s a little guilty about it. willing to do anything to survive in the games

the reason seawatt & ally ended up in the games is basically a punishment, or a repaying of debt. they, both former guards, got in BIG trouble with the front man / evil champion, so they were basically forced to play the games as a form of punishment. seawatt was pretty confident the evil champion wouldn’t kill him— as he was a pretty high ranking guard, to the point he was almost like his right hand man, like in park civ— until he got Dangerously close to dying and got saved by evbo, which pushed him to join evbo’s group since evbo was already showing that he was willing to protect seawatt in some form (and also made him realize he wasn’t as protected as he thought he was). ally ended up joining evbo & seawatt since ally vaguely knew seawatt from the time they were gaurds & thought evbo as a good person, but also really naive.

the final three are clown, seawatt, and evbo.

clown takes sang-woo’s place in this, as he ends up killing an injured seawatt while evbo isn’t looking.

seawatt, while dying, does end up saying something along the lines of “for what it's worth, I was telling the truth when I said I enjoyed working with you” to evbo. evbo, despite already knowing of seawatt’s betrayal to him (due to him working w the evil champion) is wracked with guilt because of this. he still sometimes wonders if seawatt truly meant it even after the games were over! :D

instead of clown sacrificing himself for evbo though, or both of them choosing to end the games willingly, evbo is forced to kill clown as the other man was way too angry and filled with grief from having branzy— one of the only people he was genuinely close to in the games (and also may or may not be his first and last crush)— die, so there was no point to try to end things peacefully in clowns eyes. ofc, there’s other reasons- like clowns innate desire to win, the fact he had both his life on the line and money to win for him and his sister. evbo feels super guilty about this, because even if clown was an enemy for most of the games, he still saw how human clown was in the end; and that fact still keeps him up at night. esp in the marbles game, while he was still grief-stricken about emf, he saw how sad and vunerable clown was after branzy died (even if the other man never admitted it, and aggressively pushed evbo away when evbo tried to reach out). evbo can only hope that clown is happy w branzy in the afterlife!! :D

the reason why i wanted branzy to end up sacrificing himself for clown!!! it was to have a kaboodle cameo in there!!! :D clown ends (vaguely) mentioning his little sister, kaboodle, and branzy decided to willingly die because he knew clown would have a better usage of the money then branzy would, having a family to come back to (even if it was just a sister- still, branzy could see how much she meant to clown through how he’d speak abt her, even though he’d never met her personally!) when branzy had little to none. branzy ended up joining the games to pay off his debt, as with all the other people, but as his literal creditor was also in the games with him & the fact he ended up developing a genuine connection with the guy (to the point clown even offered to let go of his debt if they both made it out of there) left him with little reason to even use the money, so he decides to sacrifice himself! besides, clown is obviously destined for more, something great, right? and this money would surely push him to that fate:O

lastly, in clown and branzy’s last talk, branzy ends up half-jokingly mentioning running a casino together & getting married for tax benefits once they’re out of the games, which is the in-universe replacement for the whole jeju island & mojitos bit in the original squid games :D

now that i’ve rewatched squid games i’ve realized how much of a squid games au can work with all my favs…………………. slight squid games spoilers ahead!!!!!!! but also you need to watch squid games to like understand half of this lmfaooooo

squid games with evbo being the winner / “champion”, the front man being the evil, ex champion / winner, seawatt, one of evbos allies, secretly working w the gaurds / the front man, emf being evbos closest ally/friend, their entire friendship being born out of circumstances but them still being best friends anyway…. ally being someone who works with seawatt & the front man but telling evbo about seawatt anyway since they think he has a good shot of winning and doesn’t want too see him get betrayed… clown being one of evbos enemies and the parkour god being like 001 (the old man version lol) in which the cookie god tells evbo like. crucial information about the games

branzy in squid games lowkey being in debt with clown and being one of the most physically weak players (especially if lifestealers are also there) but clown protecting branzy anyway because he’s cute, but also because he’s really smart and strategic about these games— and branzy ends up accidentally saving clowns life like three times because he always comes up with a plan last minute,, clown relying on his physical strength for most games, but also being logical and calculated, which pushes him to team up with branzy because he can see the potential in him,, branzy is so confused because it looks like clown is fine on his own, with sharp thinking but also the strength to keep him safe, but clown ?? teams up with him anyway?? even when he knows branzy is in debt to him (judging based off of the vague threats clown says to him occasionally) AND THEN to add to it, branzy ends up betraying subz & vitalasy in an early game ( idk what his reasoning was though lmfao ) and then people urge clown to stay away from branzy because he’s a “known betrayer” but clown teaming up with him anyway… branzy ending up being extremely loyal to the very end, because they end up forming a genuine connection, which is the marbles game where they team up but end up being opponents………… branzy willingly gives up his life for clown ( ji-yeong style ) and clown is DEVASTATED

[sahrii]

omg congrats on your 100 followers milestone ⭐️⭐️ can i get a posy bouquet of 15 roses? make the bouquet that will remind you of leftover feelings by regina song. i’ll give it suna rintarou 🙈🙈 my boy

suna rintaro!

❛So between me and you and this floor and this ceiling//I've been wanting to say//I have leftover feelings for you❜ — leftover feelings by regina song

warnings! hurt to comfort, gn!reader, songfic, suna is a player, situationship implied (??), mentions of crying, suna is kind of an asshole, confrontation.

word count! 858 (give or take haha)

100 followers event

suna rintaro has been avoiding you for 17 days and 16 nights now. at this point, you’re not sure what you are. you’re not sure what the sweet kisses meant, or the late night calls, or the not very secretive giggles you shared. you always tell yourself that you’re over him, but the next morning, the second your eyes set on his figure, you convince yourself that this time it’s going to be different.

The second you step into the same class, room, floor he’s standing on, he scurries away. and it takes everything in you to not break into a fit of sobs and cries.

but this time it’s different. he’s in front of you, and it was involuntary, the way your legs moved towards him. it was always you running to him, you wished it was the opposite for once only.

“suna,” you yell. you yell loud enough for him to hear, but not loud enough for everyone else to. the hall was already filled with a faint buzz of different murmurs so your yell wasn’t really heard.

his head snaps back, only to be met by your forlorn gaze. he felt something tug at his heart. he turned his head back, wanting out quickly, but your hand wraps around his bicep to stop him from running away. “can we please talk?” you quietly ask.

suna rintaro was a playboy. but he seemed different around you. you were not going to get over your leftover feelings for him anytime soon, so might as well try.

he stared down at you, golden pale eyes contemplating on whether it’s a good idea or not. he let out a defeated sigh, though its not really defeated because he’s been waiting for you to come back.

he always pushes you away, but waits for you to come back. he doesn’t know the endless nights he’d spent with his friends, gaming and laughing, and the endless nights you spent in solitude, tears dripping down your chin because of him.

he likes you. he really does. he feels different around you, more like himself in a sense. as if he’d been living with a missing piece, and that missing piece is you. you make him whole, but he knows he’ll hurt you. so he would rather stay away, stay incomplete, because he was okay with feeling completely incomplete if it meant that you found someone better than him.

now instead of it being suna, you, and the many students are you, it was suna, you, and the whistling trees.

his hands were stuffed in his pocket. he was waiting for you to talk. he missed being in your presence.

“you’ve been ignoring me,” you mumble. your voice almost cracks, almost. “have i done anything wrong?” your eyes move from your feet to his face. your heart was beating in your ears. you hate confrontation, but for him you’d do anything.

he was quiet for a while. his stare was intense, you almost felt naked under his gaze. he was contemplating on whether or not he should tell you. whether or not he should express how he likes you a lot, but the voices in his head keep telling him that he’s not good enough for you. that his bad reputation will stick to you. that he might end up hurting you. the voices in his head grew louder, but the hum of his heart shut them down. he likes you.

“you’ve…you’ve done nothing wrong,” he sighs, his eyes still on yours. “i’m the problem here,” he blinks and shakes his head slightly when saying that.

“what do you—“

“i’m gonna hurt you if we keep doing this. i think it’s best for us to stop here,” he cuts you off. your throat feels dry. your brows furrow.

“do you think i’m stupid?” your voice is raised, and his mouth slightly parts. “do you genuinely think i’m stupid?” you repeat.

“what? of course i don’t,” he replies.

“then why do you treat me like i am? i know what’s going to hurt me and what’s not, i know what’s best for me. you can’t decide that for me,” your eyes feel teary and wet, but nothing is rolling down your cheeks yet.

he didn’t reply. he was taken aback. he thought he was stupid. he wanted to punch himself.

“you’re hurting me more by avoiding me,” you faintly mumble, sniffling in the process.

“i’m sorry,” he replies. “i like you, and i’m too scared i’m going to end up hurting you,” he simply says. “i have never been in a committed relationship before,”

your throat feels dry. you swallow. “okay,” you breathe.

“okay?”

“we can try,” you say. “we can try and if doesn’t work out, i’ll stop bothering you,”

“but what if—“

“i don’t want what if’s, you just need to promise that you’ll try your best. what comes after that…i don’t know but if we both want to do our best then there is no harm in trying,” you cut him off.

he looks at you, he really looks at you. then he breathes. “okay,” a small smile forms on his face. “i promise i’ll try my best,”