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strryskys · 3 months ago

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STOPPP ITTTTT IM ACTUALLY ABOUT TO CRY

— To everyone I've had the pleasure of meeting here,

I just want to take a moment to say thank you, truly, from the bottom of my heart. You’ve each been there in different ways, each of you bringing something unique and special into my life. Whether it’s a quick message that brightens my day, the way you listen and support me when things are rough, or the laughter we share that somehow makes everything a little easier—I’m so grateful for all of it, and for each of you.

You’ve all been a part of my life’s ups and downs, and I honestly can’t imagine getting through it all without your presence and support. Some of you have been there from the very beginning, steady and constant, while others have entered my life more recently, bringing new warmth and joy. Each one of you has touched my life in ways I can’t fully express, and I hope you know how deeply I value and appreciate you.

Thank you for being there, for being yourselves, and for allowing me to share a part of this journey with you. Whether we talk every day or just every so often, you mean more to me than words can say. Your kindness, patience, humor, and loyalty mean the world to me, and I’m so incredibly lucky to know you all.

Here’s to every laugh, every shared thought, every moment of support, and every memory we’ve made together. I’m beyond grateful, and I look forward to making even more memories with each of you. Thank you for being you—there’s truly no one else like you, and I’m so lucky to call you my friends.

With all my love and gratitude, always.

-Aly.

@starrveill :

Fawn,

Every conversation with you feels like stepping into a warm embrace—a burst of sunlight that seems to reach into even the cloudiest corners of my day. You have this incredible way of making everything feel lighter, brighter, and somehow more alive. I honestly can’t remember a single dull moment with you; every time we talk, it’s like a spark that adds so much more color and joy to life. You bring an energy that’s so rare and beautiful, and I’m so grateful for it.

Talking to you reminds me again and again just how special you are. There’s this light within you, something deeply genuine, and it’s impossible not to feel its warmth. I could spend hours with you, listening, laughing, sharing stories, and it would never be enough—I’d never tire of it because being around you is like breathing fresh air after being cooped up indoors for ages.

I love you in a way that’s beyond words, more deeply than anything I could ever fully express. If I could, I would take away every single one of your worries, anything that ever brings you down, just to see you at peace and filled with happiness. You deserve nothing less than boundless joy, endless laughter, and all the good things that life has to offer. And please know that, if there’s ever a way for me to make even a sliver of that come true, I’ll be here, always. You’re worth the world and so much more, and I’d do anything to see you smile.

@umgatochamadopercyval :

Clara,

Thank you so much for being such a steady presence in my life, even when we don’t talk as often as I’d like. I know I’m not always the easiest to keep up with, but you somehow manage to be patient and understanding in ways that mean so much to me.

Even in the times we’re apart, I always know I can count on you, and it’s such a comforting feeling. You put up with my quirks, my silences, and my scattered attempts to stay in touch, and I’m genuinely grateful for that. You’re one of those rare people who makes life feel a little easier, even from a distance. Thank you for being you, and for being there, no matter what.

@romaritimeharbor :

Aph,

Thank you so, so much for always listening to my silly ideas and endless rambles, for letting me share my thoughts and dreams with you, and for being so wonderfully patient through it all. It means the world to have someone as understanding as you, who genuinely listens and never makes me feel like I’m saying too much or being too much. You’re not only kind beyond measure, but you’re also such a genuinely amazing person in every single way—someone whose warmth, humor, and openness create this space where I can be completely myself.

Every time I see you on my dash, it’s like a little burst of joy, something that brightens my day without fail. You have this incredible way of bringing extra sunshine into everything you do, and it makes such a difference. Just knowing that someone as kind and wonderful as you is out there brings me so much comfort and happiness. You’re truly one of a kind, someone whose presence is a gift, and I’m so so grateful for you.

And on top of everything, you’re one of the most talented, creative people I know. The things you create are filled with this unique spark that only you could bring to them, and it’s inspiring to see. I hope you never lose that light, that beautiful spark in you that brings so much magic to your work and to everyone around you. Thank you for being you—for all the ways you make life a little bit better.

@kopivie :

Cinna,

You are absolutely amazing, and I mean that with everything in me. It’s hard to find the right words to capture just how much you mean to me, but I’ll try. You have this rare, incredible kindness and warmth that the world honestly doesn’t deserve. You give so much of yourself to others—more than most people will ever know—and you do it with such quiet grace, as though it’s just the most natural thing in the world. Even when life throws challenges your way, you somehow keep shining through it all, and it’s nothing short of inspiring.

It breaks my heart that the world hasn’t been nearly as kind to you as it should be. You deserve so much more—more happiness, more peace, more of the love and care you so freely give. The fact that you’ve had to face so much is a damn shame, because if anyone deserves the entire world, it’s you. The strength you have to keep going, to keep being this light for others, is something I admire deeply. And when things get tough, I just want you to know that I’ll be here, ready to tell the world to fuck off whenever it tries to dim your light.

Thank you for sticking with me through everything, for being such a constant, loyal friend. You’ve been there for me in ways I can’t even begin to describe, and that kind of friendship is something so rare and precious. Your presence in my life means more than I can say, and I’m beyond grateful to have you. You’re one in a million, a friend that anyone would be lucky to have, and I want you to know that I’ll always be here for you, just as you’ve always been there for me.

You mean the world to me, and I hope you always remember how loved and appreciated you are.

@papiliotao :

Rei,

Even though we haven’t talked as much lately, you’re still so dear to me, more than words can capture. I honestly think of you as a sister—you have this warm, calming aura that just makes me feel safe, like everything’s going to be okay. Knowing you’re out there, even if we’re not talking every day, brings me so much comfort.

You’re so kind, and I can never be thankful enough for everything you’ve given just by being you. Thank you for being such a light in my life. You mean the world to me, and I hope you know that.

@kazumist :

Aki,

It’s been so long since we last talked, but I still think about how kind, funny, and incredibly talented you are. You’re honestly one of the sweetest people I know, and every memory of talking with you brings such a smile to my face. You have this amazing way of lighting up conversations and making people feel genuinely good.

I really hope we get the chance to talk more sometime, if we can both find the time! It would be amazing to catch up, and I just know it’d be just as fun and heartwarming as always.

@yaminohimeyume :

Yume,

We haven’t had the chance to talk as much lately, but I just want you to know how much you mean to me. You are, without a doubt, one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met, and the kindness you’ve shown me is something I’ll always cherish. Even in the smallest interactions, you have this way of making me feel understood, valued, and supported, and I can’t express how deeply that touches me. I hope you realize just how special you are and how much I genuinely appreciate every little thing you’ve done.

Thank you for being such a wonderful presence in my life—a constant source of warmth and light. Your kindness and sweetness are rare and beautiful, and I’m beyond grateful to have had even a small part of it.

@nordicbananas :

Shroom,

Thank you, truly, for being there for me in every way that matters, for standing by my side and offering your support, from the very beginning. Your kindness and warmth have been such an incredible gift, something I genuinely cherish and hold close to my heart. You've always been a constant source of comfort and encouragement, bringing light into even the darkest days, and I can’t tell you how much that means to me.

I feel so incredibly lucky to have someone like you in my life—someone who’s as caring, genuine, and thoughtful as you are. You’re one of the sweetest, most understanding people I know, and the way you’ve shown up for me time and time again is something I’ll never take for granted. You have this amazing ability to lift me up just when I need it most, and your presence has been a true blessing that I don’t think I could ever thank you enough for.

Your friendship means more to me than words could ever capture. Thank you for being there, for every conversation, every laugh, every moment of support. Having you in my life has been one of the greatest gifts, and I’m so so grateful for all the ways you’ve shown me your kindness.

@lexisism :

Alexis,

I can’t put into words just how much your kindness and warmth have impacted me. You’re one of the most genuinely compassionate people I know, and knowing you has made my life so much richer. Whether in moments of joy or times of challenge, you've always been there with an open heart and a gentle strength, supporting me through everything with such kindness and care. There are so many ways you've helped and encouraged me, and I don’t know what I would have done without you.

You’re also incredibly talented—everything you create shines with your unique touch, and it’s a privilege to witness the brilliance you bring to the world. Each piece of yours is a reminder of your creativity, your dedication, and just how extraordinary you are.

Talking to you, spending time with you—it lifts me up and reminds me of the beauty in simple moments. I feel so incredibly grateful to have someone like you in my life. Thank you for being such a radiant presence, for always showing me what it means to be truly kind, and for making the world feel like a brighter, better place.

@milk-violet :

Mirei,

You are honestly the sweetest person ever, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. Talking to you is like a burst of sunshine—it feels effortless and fun, like the world just gets a little brighter whenever you’re around. You have this beautiful, bubbly energy that’s so contagious, and being around you always lifts my spirits in ways I didn’t even know I needed.

Every conversation we have, no matter the topic, is something I genuinely look forward to. You make everything so much more enjoyable, and I love that we can talk about anything and everything without missing a beat. You bring such a joy and warmth into my life, and I feel so lucky to know someone as incredible as you.

Thank you for being you, for every smile you bring, and for being such a wonderful presence in my life. You’re an absolute gem, and I’m beyond grateful for you.

@floraldresvi :

Vivi,

I don’t think I can express just how much you’ve meant to me this year. You’ve been one of the main reasons I could keep going, and I’m beyond grateful for all the kindness and support you’ve shown me. You’ve been so sweet and understanding, never once judging me—only ever encouraging me, lifting me up, and being there through everything. I truly don’t know what I would have done without you by my side.

You’re so, so talented, and it’s incredible to watch you shine. Seeing the things you create, and the way you put your heart into everything you do, is such an inspiration. And somehow, even on my roughest days, you have this magical way of cheering me up like no one else can. Just hearing from you makes everything feel a little easier, a little brighter.

Thank you for being the incredible person you are, for believing in me, and for being a constant source of light. I’m so grateful for you, and I hope you know just how much you mean to me.

@strxnged :

June,

You are honestly one of the kindest and most talented people I know. Every time we talk, I’m reminded of just how much I cherish our conversations. Even though we haven’t been able to talk as much over the past year, each conversation with you feels special, like I’m talking to someone who genuinely understands and cares. I can’t tell you how much that means to me.

Your talent never fails to amaze me. The way you approach things with such passion and creativity is inspiring, and I feel so lucky to witness even a glimpse of it. You’re one of those rare people with a warmth and openness that makes it so easy to talk to you about anything, and every moment shared feels like a gift.

Thank you for being the incredible person you are. You bring so much kindness and beauty into the world, and I’m grateful for every chance I get to know you better.

@meimeimeirin :

Meirin,

I don’t think I can fully put into words just how much you mean to me. You are, without a doubt, one of the kindest souls I know. Your kindness is something rare, and it shines through in every interaction we have. Even though we haven’t been able to talk as often as I’d like lately, I think about you so often, and I just want you to know how much you’re appreciated.

You have this sweetness that makes talking to you feel like a breath of fresh air after a hard day, like a reminder that there are truly good people in the world. And your talent—it's something I’m constantly in awe of. Everything you create seems to have a piece of your warmth and beauty in it, and it’s such a joy to witness.

Thank you for being such a positive, comforting presence in my life, even when we’re not always in touch. You make a difference, and I’m super grateful for every bit of kindness you’ve shown me. Just knowing you’re out there makes the world feel a little brighter.

@camvrin :

Oliver,

Where do I even start? Talking to you is like stepping into a whirlwind—in the best possible way. You’re so wonderfully chaotic, and that’s exactly what makes every conversation with you so much fun. I never know where we’ll end up or what twists the conversation will take, but that’s what makes it feel so refreshing. You keep things lively, spontaneous, and full of laughs, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

You’re not only hilarious, but you’re also genuinely one of the kindest, sweetest people I know. You’ve always been there for me, supporting me in ways that mean more than I can put into words. Somehow, no matter what kind of day I’m having, you always know how to lift my spirits and put a smile on my face.

Talking to you feels like one of those rare, easy connections where I can be myself completely, knowing I’ll always have someone who gets it. I could talk to you for hours on end about anything and everything, and it would never get old. Thank you for being such an incredible friend. You’re truly one of a kind, and I’m so lucky to know you.

@mlkbwunnies :

Ying,

I can’t say it enough—you are truly kindness personified. From the moment we met, you’ve been nothing but incredibly sweet, thoughtful, and supportive. You have this gentle, genuine warmth that’s so rare, and just knowing someone as kind as you makes the world feel a little brighter.

You’ve been there for me in ways I’ll never forget. Whether I needed advice, a kind word, or just someone who would listen, you’ve always been right there, ready to help. It’s the kind of support that sticks with you, and I’m forever grateful for it. I honestly feel so lucky to know you and to have had your friendship in my life.

You deserve the absolute best in this world, because that’s exactly the kind of goodness you bring to others. Thank you for being you, for every act of kindness, and for the countless ways you’ve been there for me. You’re a treasure, and I’m so grateful for you.

@thestarswhisper :

Zee,

You are one of the most talented and sweetest people I know, and I’m so grateful to have you in my life. You’ve been with me for so long, through thick and thin, and knowing you’re there has been such a comfort this past two years. Even though we haven’t had the chance to talk in a while, I think about you often and appreciate you more than words can say.

Your talent is something I’m constantly in awe of. You have this incredible way of bringing so much beauty and meaning into everything you do, and it’s inspiring just to see the amazing things you create. Beyond that, you’re genuinely one of the kindest people I know, and that kindness is something I treasure deeply.

Thank you for sticking by me all this time, for being such a wonderful friend, and for all the ways you’ve supported me. I’m so lucky to know someone as remarkable as you.

@glacialheart :

Mika,

It feels like forever since we last got to chat, and I’ve missed seeing you around. I know life has been super busy for you lately, and I just hope you’re taking care of yourself and finding moments to breathe. You deserve all the rest and peace in the world, and I’m really hoping things ease up soon so you can take a break.

You’re genuinely one of the sweetest people I know, and I don’t think you realize just how talented you are. Your creativity and kindness leave such an impact, and everything you do seems to carry this beautiful spark that’s so uniquely you. Thank you for all the times you’ve been there for me and for being such a steady source of warmth and support.

I hope the days ahead bring you a fresh start and all the happiness you deserve, because you truly mean so much to me. Sending all my love, and know I’m always here if you need anything.

@strryskys :

Avery,

I just have to say how much joy you bring into my life. You are genuinely one of the funniest, most talented people I know, and every time I see you on my dash, it feels like a little boost to my day. There’s something about your humor that’s so effortless—you know exactly how to make me laugh, and it’s such a gift. It’s like you have this natural way of bringing lightness and fun wherever you go, and I’m always so grateful for it.

Not only are you incredibly funny, but you’re also so talented. Every time you share your work, I’m blown away by the skill and creativity you pour into it. You’re one of those rare people who seems to have this spark of inspiration and creativity that just can’t be contained, and it’s amazing to see. I feel lucky every time I get to witness even a piece of what you create.

And beyond all of that, you’re so sweet. You’ve always been so kind and supportive, and it means the world to me. Knowing I have someone as wonderful as you around makes everything feel just a little bit better. You’re a true gem and I hope you know how much you’re appreciated. Thank you for being you, for sharing your humor, your talent, and your kindness. I’m so glad I got to know you and be your friend.

@ruruumin :

Rurumi,

It’s been a while since we last talked, but I wanted to let you know how much you still mean to me. Even from the very beginning, you were nothing but kind and warm, and I can’t tell you how much that meant. I was in awe of you—not only because of your talent but also because of the genuine kindness you showed me right from the start. There’s something so rare and special about that, and it’s something I’ll always cherish.

Your work left such an impression on me; I still remember being completely captivated by your creativity and the incredible skill you put into everything you do. You have this unique talent that feels almost magical, like you’re able to bring your imagination to life in a way that’s truly inspiring. Every piece you create feels like a small masterpiece, and it’s clear that you pour so much of yourself into it. Being able to witness your talent is honestly an honor.

Thank you for being such a sweet and thoughtful friend, for your support, and for all the kindness you’ve shared with me. Even though we haven’t talked as much recently, you’re often in my thoughts, and I’m so grateful for the time we’ve shared. You’re truly one of a kind, and I hope you know just how amazing you are.

@oceanreveuse :

Anastasia,

It feels strange to put this into words, but I just need you to know how much you mean to me, even now. Even though it’s been a couple of months since we last spoke, I still think about you often, and I can’t help but miss you. I keep replaying our conversations in my mind, remembering how much brighter things felt with you around. It feels like there’s this empty space where you used to be, and it’s hard to ignore.

You’ve left such an impact on my life in ways I can’t fully explain. We may not have known each other for long, but somehow, in that short time, you managed to find a place in my heart, and I’m not sure that spot will ever really go away. You brought so much joy and comfort into my life, and I can’t thank you enough for that. I remember feeling truly happy for the first time in a long while, and that was because of you. Knowing someone like you exists gave me a reason to keep going, to hold on to the hope that there are people out there as wonderful as you.

I wish I could tell you all this in person, to let you know just how much I appreciate everything you did for me. I’m grateful beyond words for the time we shared, for the support you offered, and for the kindness you gave so freely. Even now, I find myself wanting to tell you about my day or share a small thought, hoping you’re doing well and finding your own happiness. You were someone who made life feel a little lighter, and I’ll always be thankful for that.

So, even if we don’t talk anymore, please know that you still hold a special place in my heart. You’re unforgettable, one of a kind, and I’ll always be grateful to have had you in my life, even if just for a while. Thank you for everything. I miss you, and I hope you find all the happiness you deserve.

@femivi :

Femi,

Even though we just met not even a week ago, I already feel so lucky to have crossed paths with someone as wonderful as you. From what I’ve seen so far, you’re incredibly sweet, and you have this amazing talent that completely blows me away. It’s rare to meet someone who can leave such an impression in such a short amount of time, but somehow, you’ve managed to do exactly that.

I’m genuinely looking forward to getting to know you better. I can already tell there’s so much more to discover and appreciate about you, and I hope this year gives us plenty of chances to connect, share laughs, and build some great memories. Here’s to what feels like the beginning of something really special—I can’t wait to see where our friendship goes!

— Here's to new beginnings, friends.

#happy birthday aly!!!#i am wishing you the best of days because you are amazing and you deserve it #you're too kind to me #like. i dont know what to say but thank you so much <33 #im so grateful to have you as a friend #you're such a hardworking and kind person #not to mention resilient #i admire how you kept on writing and posting even after getting those hate anons last year #that truly takes courage.#even if it was completely undeserved a lot of people would just have quit altogether but you kept going.#and im so happy you did because now i still get to see your amazing writing. like you are so talented in how you can just ++#++ effortlessly weave a story together. your ability to write emotion especially is what made me fall in love with your posts.#i hope you continue to do what you love because i know you will do amazing at it.#and i hope that we keep being friends because im so happy i met you #you truly make my day better by just being here #mwah mwah ilysm <3 /p

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afterglowsainz · 5 months ago

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is it over now? | carlos sainz

pairing: singer!reader x carlos sainz

summary: you decide to release a breakup song on your ex boyfriend’s birthday, one year after the break up

fc: riley keough

warning: some grammatical errors in the tweets that i was too lazy to fix sorryyy

a/n: me??? writing a carlos fic??? the stars must’ve aligned

—

liked by ynupdates, f1wags and others

f1gossip it’s been officially one year since carlos sainz and y/n y/l/n broke up

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username it’s been a year already?? 🤯

username nooo don’t bring the memories back 😭

username i’m never getting over this breakup :( they were so meant for each other

username i have no perception of time why did i thought they broke up like a month ago?

username and not one single breakup song from y/n…

username no i’m waiting for the album

username we really are delusional huh

liked by landonorris, taylorswift and others

yourusername my favorite type of night 🖤🥁🎤

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username MOTHER

username best concert eveeeer

username and you know the one about releasing the album ???

username what a WOMAN ugh

username i don’t understand you carlos sainz

username how did he fumbled so hard 😭

username the aesthetic is everything

username so beautiful so gorgeous so ethereal

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f1gossip carlos sainz was spotted with a new date at the monte-carlo opens

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username uhhh ….

username i wish i could say “that quick?” but to be fair it’s been a year

username bestie weren’t you there after they broke up?

username he literally went on a date five minutes after they ended things 😭

username and he told you that personally?

username so it’s really over with y/n huh

username i mean … yeah!

username noooo lord please bring back the family as we know it (carlos and y/n)

username this is the worst type of news i could’ve got

liked by alexandrasaintmleux, francisca.cgomes and others

yourusername i hope you’re in the mood for new music … because my new single “is it over now?” drops today at midnight 🕊 thank you to my amazing girlfriends for writing this song with me and having the most fun at the studio

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username now that’s what i’m talking about

username new music at last omg i could cry

username okay but THAT COAT !!!!

username i need her whole wardrobe actually

username girl not on you ex’s BIRTHDAY 🤣

username dare i say … carlos song?

username crossing my fingers

username ohhh she knew what she was doing with this release date

username not only during carlos’s birthday but also right after he was seen on a date with a new girl

username i aspire to be THIS level of petty one day

liked by charles_leclerc, danielricciardo and others

carlossainz55 really great weekend! thanks for the birthday wishes❤️

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username pookie how are we feeling after y/n’s song?

charles_leclerc happy birthday! wanna get three thousand takeout coffees? (liked by carlossainz55)

username i didn’t wanna get mad cause it’s his birthday but like …. i’m gonna need you to pay for your crimes mate

username no cause the song was crazyyyy

username “you search in every model’s bed for something greater” ma’am ???

username it was the “your new girl is my clone” for me

username “if she’s got blue eyes i will surmise that you’ll probably date her” ….

username carlos just answer the question

liked by reyesvdec, fernandoalo_official and others

yourusername forever in love with this city <3

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username MADRID 🤍

username my city my city !!!

username reyes liking this 🥹

username that’s her girl fr!

username sooo excited for tonight’s concert

username ahhh can’t wait to see her

username if she sings is it over now? tonight i might actually faint

username imagine her singing this at the city of the guy she wrote it for 😭

username poetic

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ynupdates carlos sainz was in attendance at y/n’s concert tonight in madrid

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username say again?

username he has two moods only: happy and confused

username what the hell is he doing there 😭😭

username does this means what i think it means ???

username ahhh the second picture is mine! it was so random to see him there haha

username girl if you don’t start talking right now !!!

username was he with his new girlfriend?

username nooo he was with his family only

username you really can’t make this up 😭

username he listened to that song and was ready to risk it all

username who wouldn’t!

liked by carlossainz55, georgerusell63 and others

yourusername one of my favorite cities with one of my favorite crowds 🇪🇸 madrid you never disappoint 🤍

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username y/n if you’re trying to make me fall in love with you it’s working

username name a more iconic concert quick!

username literally the gold dust woman

username THE OUTFITS THE SETLIST THE LOOKS UGHHH

carmenmmundt 🤍🤍🤍 (liked by yourusername)

username forever obsessed with her aesthetic

username not to start anything but carlos liking this… 👀

username i meaaan the guy was at the concert …

username this night will go down in history

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f1gossip carlos sainz and ex girlfriend y/n y/l/n have been seen together recently in numerous occasions

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username of course they are going on dates OF COURSE THEY ARE

username and all it took was one year and a single song from y/n

username no bc i’m sure if she released that a year ago they would’ve been together by now

username so it was NOT over gotcha

username are we witnessing the comeback of y/n and carlos in real time?

username god i never ask you much but i’m asking you this one thing

username when ynupdates likes this so you know it’s serious

liked by yourusername, maxverstappen1 and others

carlossainz55 some people have asked me recently if it’s over now? the answer is of course not 😊

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username “some people” you mean your literal ex-girlfriend ???

username GIRLFRIEND NOW ***

username i can’t with the 😊 he thinks he’s so funny

username idk why they broke up in the first place but if all it took for them to get back together was y/n releasing a song and carlos going to her concert let me tell you …

username i think what really did it for him was the fact that she released it on his birthday 😭

username they’re just obsessed with each other i guess 🤷🏽‍♀️

yourusername oh i knew it wasn’t! just wanted to know what you thought 😁

carlossainz55 i love you let’s never do that again ❤️

username she’s so real 😭😭

username MY PARENTS BACK TOGETHER AT LAST💖

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norikuna · 2 months ago

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WHAT? LIKE IT'S HARD? ✶ choso kamo

abstract ✶ there are six physiological stages of having a crush. you just wish that you didn't have to learn this through first-hand experience. everyone said that choso kamo was a loser in high school, a quiet kid who haunted the campus with no friends. sure, he was brilliantly smart, but he dropped out in senior year. he even managed to break your heart, the glittering prom queen, with the world at your fingertips. imagine your surprise three years later, when you find yourself stuck with him in med school. what's worse? he's actually super hot now!

PART II. of the new years letters, a series of fics dedicated to some of my lovely mutuals! 🎁

pairing. choso kamo x afab!reader genre tags and warnings reader is practically a blair waldorf prototype (filthy rich, a bit bratty, spoiled), bestfriend!gojo, background gojo x geto, mentions of blood and injuries, med school, MISCOMMUNICATION, angst and hurt, fluff, kissing and making out. sukuna and yuuji cameos.

word count. 17.5k! song inspiration. crush culture — conan gray

a/n. shameless med student insert i rlly projected my full heart and soul into the anatomy lab ick. art belongs to all respective artists [will add credit!] crossposted on ao3 💖

dedication. for my dear kashika, first of all happy (belated) birthday @kasukuna 💗 wanted this to coincide with ur day but i'm late, i fear!!! you hype me up so much, send the sweetest asks and you're so damn talented that i'm left begging for an ounce of your creativity and amazing mind! your fics are so witty and well thought out and i like to think that you've spawned an incredible dumbass!bf sukuna renaissance on jjk tumblr 😭 idk if you remember but i sent you an ask on creamflix so long ago like the start of december asking you to choose between characters and au's so i tried lifting this as verbatim as i could from ur answer <3 hope you had the most amazing day ever!!

mp3. ✶ crush culture makes me wanna spill my gut out, i know what you're doing! tryna get me to pursue ya <3

You refuse to speak to Gojo Satoru ever again. Not today, not tomorrow, not in this lifetime nor the next. He’s officially dead to you, figuratively, of course. Unfortunately.

The moment he stops cackling like a deranged hyena in the middle of your bedroom, you’re going to shove him out the door so hard that he’s going to see stars. You’ll block his number, you’ll delete every photo of his smug grin, and you’re going to hire an exorcist to cleanse his essence from your life.

Except right now, your best friend is sprawled across your bed, practically writhing as he gasps for air in between bouts of ridiculous, chipmunk-like squeals. He’s still in his uniform, having crashed at your place after school, with his white shirt untucked, sleeves pushed to his elbows and his tie dangling uselessly around his neck.

“You are such a child,” you grumble, shoving your sticker-laden journal off your lap with a huff, just so you can aim a precise kick at his ribs. Satoru wheezes dramatically, clutching his stomach like he’s just been mortally wounded in battle.

“It’s -” he’s snickering, slapping the fine-thread sheets with the fervour of one trying to summon a higher power, “It’s just too good. I – oh my god, I really can’t breathe! I think I’m going to pass out.”

Satoru’s rolling over dramatically, dark-tinted sunglasses slipping down the bridge of his hawkish nose, leaving him to look like a cherubic bird with a bad attitude.

“If only,” you mutter darkly, arms crossed over your own blazer as you glare daggers at the white-haired boy, “It’s not that funny.”

But Satoru just doesn’t listen, of course. His grin is wide enough to split his face in half, and every breath that he takes is another affront to your polished dignity, and every stupid wheeze is a reminder that you made the colossal mistake of trusting this man with classified information.

“Keep laughing,” you say, your tone low and menacing as you snatch your phone off your nightstand, “And see what happens when I play offence.”

That gets Satoru’s attention, as he freezes mid-snort. Grin faltering just enough to make you feel a small and petty thrill of satisfaction, “You wouldn’t.”

“I would,” you say, already tapping away on your phone, scrolling past the ninety-nine notifications clogging Instagram. A certain raven-haired boy’s name hovers in your mind, one who shares the same initials as Gojo Satoru.

You’re not above sending a risky message.

Hey! Gojo’s been totally obsessed with you, ever since you bashed his head in with a spiral notebook back in seventh grade, and called him a spoilt, rich kid. He draws love hearts around your name every night. Just thought you should know, XOXO.

“Wait!” Satoru bolts upright so fast that his sunglasses fall into his lap, his grin morphing into a scowl as panic flashes in his too-blue eyes, “That’s playing dirty. Totally unfair.”

“You’re the one who laughed like a lunatic,” you say sweetly, tilting the phone towards him as if you’re about to hit send.

“You can’t be serious!” Satoru points a long, accusatory finger at you, his dramatic outrage undercut by the way his lips keep twitching, “I mean -” Another snicker escapes him as he buries his face in his hands, shoulders shaking again, “Like how? Of all people, you really have a crush on that guy.”

For a fleeting moment, you wonder if it’s too late to enrol in witness protection. It was clearly your mistake, deciding to tell Satoru critically sensitive information. Revealing the name of the boy that you were crushing on.

And yes, your type has turned out to be greasy Tim Burton reject loners who wander around school in faded Lord of the Rings hoodies.

You’re just totally head-over-heels for Choso Kamo.

“Whatever,” you snap, shoving your phone into the pocket of your school blazer with as much dignity as you can muster under the barrage of Satoru’s relentless cackles, “You wouldn’t understand?”

“Understand?” Satoru shifts himself with all the casual arrogance of someone who, unfortunately, has never been truly humbled in his life, propping himself against one of your enormous plush pillows.

The velvet squishes beneath his weight, gold embroidery bunching, but he’s utterly unbothered. “Enlighten me, we’re talking about the same Kamo right? The guy who sits behind you in class, and doesn’t so much blink in your direction? The one who looks like he’d rather gargle glass than talk to you?”

Another pillow sails across the bed before you even realise that you’ve hurled it. It strikes him square in the face, with a satisfying thwump! Muffling his laugh as he flails, tangled in thick, down stuffing.

“He’s just shy!” You insist, your voice rising as you get up to pace. Your Prada loafers click against the polished floor, before you kick them off. “And he only acts like that when others are around, by the way. He talks to me when it’s just us.”

“Oh, sure,” Satoru sits up, wrestling the pillow aside with a theatrical groan. His snowy hair sticks up at angles, like he’s been electrocuted, “That’s probably because he’s plotting his escape route while you corner him, like a lion closing in on its prey. Poor Kamo’s the gazelle.”

“Just know that I’m blowing you up in my mind.”

Satoru huffs, “So, what is your plan now? Are you going to ask him to prom? Are we going to see a proposal for the ages?”

You pause mid-pace, fighting the hot flush that creeps up your neck. It burns brighter as you glance towards the gilded vanity mirror, for that is exactly what you had wanted. You just needed to hear someone’s validation, “Should I?”

Satoru’s grin falters for a second, replaced with a look of sheer disbelief, “You’re kidding, right? That kid hates social events. You think he’s going to go with you?”

“Why not?” You’re fiddling with the crystal perfume decanters, the bottles of skincare on your vanity, “I’ve been dropping hints, okay? Subtle ones, all that manifesting shit.”

“Subtle?” Satoru snorts, “You mean letting half the football team pile bouquets into your locker? The locker that’s right next to his? Oh, yeah. Super low-key. Very humble.”

“At least I have options,” you snap back, flicking on the lights as the sun begins to sharpen its afternoon glare. Warm golden light spills across the room, catching on the ceiling-length silk drapes, “Meanwhile, I hope you end up alone at prom. Making ugly, kissy faces at Geto Suguru, while he’s with someone else.”

Satoru groans, like you’ve truly pierced his heart, “Cruel. So cruel when provoked,” but he’s propping himself back up on one elbow, “But hey, if you really do like Kamo, you know that makes him my future brother-in-law or something. That’s cool.”

Your gasp is sharp, scandalised, “Excuse me?”

“But think about it,” Satoru continues, ignoring your sputters, “You’re practically confirmed to be Prom Queen. Do you really want to drag that guy up on stage with you?”

“I think you’re being judgemental,” you mutter, tugging the drapes close and blocking out the faint twinkle of the city skyline, “He’d have to be insane not to say yes to me.”

“Someone is going to deflate that big head of yours one day,” Satoru says, and his voice has softened just enough to make you glance back at him, “You do know he cuts class a lot, right?”

“What’s your point?”

“I’m not being a bitch, I swear,” Satoru holds up his palms defensively, “He shows up for only half the month, you might want to check on your boy.”

You flop onto the chaise lounge, throwing an arm over your face tragically, “This isn’t the inspiring pep talk that I need right now.”

Satoru leans lazily against the gilded frame of your canopy bed, “Hey, it’s not my place to tell you what to do. But if you are that into him, then fine! Just ask him to prom and see what happens. And tell you what? If you ask Kamo, I’ll ask Suguru.”

You narrow your eyes, “Wow, this must be serious if you’re out here wheeling and dealing like this. Are you feeling okay?”

Satoru presses a dramatic hand to his chest, his grin morphing into something faux-solemn, “Cross my heart. I’m making a binding vow, like, it’s unbreakable. Life or death.”

“Deal,” you quickly say, ignoring the sudden leap of your pulse, because there’s no way that you’re letting him see how the sudden time-pressure is making your stomach twist into ugly knots. You point towards the door with a flourish, “And as much as I love our time together, I need to get ready. So…out! Chop-chop.”

Satoru groans like you’ve just asked him to drag a boulder uphill with his teeth, slumping off your bed in exaggerated defeat. He sluggishly reaches for his discarded backpack from the floor, slinging it over his shoulder, “I still don’t get why you bother with working. You and I both know that we don’t need it,” he mutters, as if the concept of responsibility personally offends him.

“It’s just babysitting,” you gently correct, shrugging on a cashmere cardigan from the back of your chair, “And anyway, you know I need a well-rounded list of extracurriculars for Pre-Med.”

“I’d rather eat my sunglasses, one lens at a time,” Satoru shoots back, adjusting said sunglasses squarely over his face, “Instead of being stuck babysitting brats all evening. We’re not meant to be saints.”

“It’s just one kid tonight. New family, new house,” you reply, grabbing your bag where it rests by the vanity, “Anyway, I expect a full report on your prom date by tomorrow, Satoru. I’m not forgetting that vow.”

Satoru pauses in the doorway, with the edges of his grin sharpened into something that makes you pity Geto Suguru in advance, “I never disappoint.”

You had finally managed to shove Satoru out of the doorway, his obnoxious laughter echoing faintly down the hall. The quiet that follows is a relief, albeit short-lived. You’re left standing in the stillness of your room, phone in hand, thumb hovering over the text with the address of tonight’s gig.

Honestly, Satoru might have a point. You, the only child of one of the country’s most obscenely wealthy families, babysitting? It’s not like you’re chasing pocket money or trying to build character. But medical school applications don’t only care about your bank account, there’s so many extra boxes to tick. Factors like being selfless or dedicated to the community.

The request had been odd from the start. Some child had called you himself, and normally, it’s the frazzled parents who handle that kind of task. His voice had been small, but determined, saying that his brother was out, and he needed a sitter for the evening. Something about the earnestness of it had softened you, though, now you were starting to regret the whole thing — seeing how far out this house was from your own penthouse.

Showing up in the Bentley with tinted windows and your chauffeur had felt a little off brand for this role. So, in the name of relatability, you had popped a piece of cherry gum and a book, taking on the bus. The sticky seats and questionable patrons had almost been enough to make you reconsider, but the suburb itself offered a strange charm.

It was quiet here, too quiet, the kind of place that might have once been picturesque, but it had gone soft around the edges. The homes were older, cozy but tired, with paint peeling in places and lawns that were overrun with weeds. You wrinkle your nose as you step off the bus, weaving through tufts of stubborn greenery and abandoned toys in the yard.

The house that you’re looking for stands a little crooked, but sturdy. It’s faded shutters are barely hanging on, and a basketball hoop leans precariously over the driveway. There’s a small, red toy car that’s entirely faded and scratched, sitting forgotten near the porch steps.

Just as your knuckles hover over the worn wood of the front door, it swings open with such force that you nearly stumble backwards. A blur of motion catches you off guard, and you’re suddenly face-to-face with a tiny, pink-haired whirlwind.

The boy’s grinning up at you, wide and gap-toothed, with big golden eyes. His hair is wild, a fluffy crown of rosy strands over a dark undercut, and his scraped knees are haphazardly patched up with dinosaur bandages.

“Wait here! I’m going to get my brother!” He chirps, his voice bright and slightly whistly, thanks to the missing tooth. Before you can get a word in, he’s gone, sprinting back inside with the energy of an overeager puppy, leaving you stranded on the porch.

You shuffle awkwardly, glancing down at the scratched paint on the doorframe. There was something endearing about the child, and you’re starting to feel less apprehensive. That is, until the door opens again, and time slows.

Your heart stutters, skips, and then plummets. As if someone’s dropped you into an industrial freezer. Standing there, with one hand resting lightly on the kid’s shoulder, and an expression that’s one part confusion and one part disbelief, is Choso Kamo.

It’s as if the universe has conspired against you, playing its most cruel and ridiculous joke yet. Tall and broad, with tired eyes that sweep over you in slow recognition. Dark mark twitching across his face, like a deliberate smudge of ink.

Choso’s blinking, startled to see you here, though his usual stoic expression has yet to crack. Meanwhile, your inner monologue is screaming a symphony of pure panic. You can already heal Satoru’s stupid squeals in your head.

The pink-haired boy tugs on Choso’s arm, “See, I got a babysitter! Isn’t that cool?”

Choso glances down at the kid, then back at you, his lips parting as if to speak.

“Uh, hey,” you manage. The picture of eloquence, the master of the verbose elite.

It strikes you, with almost absurd clarity, that you’ve never seen Choso outside the campus bubble. No dim library corners, no lab tables cluttered with textbooks, or heavy beat-up laptops parked in front of him. Gone are the oversized hoodies thrown over his school uniform, or the baggy jeans he dons when he forgoes the dress code entirely. Instead, he’s here, standing in the soft glow of the broken porch light, wearing a loose black tee and dark track pants.

His chestnut hair is free from the two greasy, spiky knots that he favours on his head, falling softer around his face. Your traitorous heart lurches, feeling a sharp pang of betrayal.

“You’re the babysitter?” Choso’s voice cuts through your spiral. Raspy as always, roughened like rock salt, but there’s something else threaded into the question. A flicker of irritation, and confusion. As if he’s struggling to reconcile you, with the person standing on his doorstep.

“You didn’t know when you booked?” You shoot back, aiming for casual indifference, but landing somewhere closer to petulant. Your eyes flick to the box he’s holding, with contents that glint faintly in the light. Suspiciously metallic, as if he’s cradling surgical tools.

Choso follows your curious gaze, exhaling sharply, and shifting the box to a nearby table, just out of your line of sight.

“I didn’t book,” he grunts, “Told Yuuji to check the ads, and pick one.”

“And I picked the best one!” The delighted chirp comes from behind Choso, as Yuuji reappears, practically bouncing with a sunny grin. His golden eyes are locked on the ribbon-wrapped box in your hands, and his expression is lit up with unabashed glee.

You glance down at the box, containing an array of decadent artisan doughnuts. Saffron glaze, coconut cream, pistachio and chocolate. All from that impossibly chic Swiss patisserie downtown. You ignore the dull ache building between your eyes, smiling as you hand the box over, “These are for you, little man.”

Yuuji’s already snapping his hands for the box, as though you had just delivered a treasure chest of gold doubloons, “Can I have one? Please? Pretty-please?”

Choso glances down at him with a long-suffering look that somehow manages to carry an undertone of fondness, “Just one,” he warns, his voice dry but warm, “For now.”

Yuuji doesn’t need to be told twice, bolting towards the kitchen and clutching the box to his chest like a sacred relic. The faint sound of icing being smacked off fingers echoes from somewhere around the corner.

Choso watches him go, before turning back to you, his posture easing slightly. “That was nice of you,” he says, his voice softer now, almost tentative, “But he’s going to crash hard after that sugar high. Good luck.”

You wave off his scepticism with a breezy smile, “I’m good with kids. I’ll manage.”

For a moment, the boy’s expression shifts. Something fleeting and unreadable flickers across his face, a hint of thoughtfulness or something heavier.

Another thought gnaws at the edges of your mind, a tiny spectre of dread wrapped in Gojo Satoru’s smug grin. Two hours ago, though it feels like a lifetime now, you made a pact.

You ask Kamo, I’ll ask Suguru.

At the time, it had seemed like an impossible bluff. But the thing about Satoru is that he’s infuriatingly reliable when he sets his mind to something. No matter the cost.

Which is why you’re here now, sweating under your cashmere sweater. The fabric is suddenly too soft, too warm, clinging to the nape of your neck. You, with half the school population ready to pen sonnets just for a chance to take you to prom. Jocks, debate captains, the crème de la crème of eligible dates. All overlooked in favour of the quiet boy that no-one seems to notice.

The boy whose locker was assigned right next to yours, empty and cold steel. While yours was glittered with Polaroids, and pastel sticky notes, and the occasional folded love letter. The boy that everyone said had no friends, but he was easily the uncontested valedictorian. The boy that you desperately wanted to ask to prom.

Choso is shuffling papers on the table, avoiding your gaze like it’s a laser beam. His movements are slow, and deliberate, but there’s an edge of tension in the way his fingers linger on a set of silver keys, before he slips them into his pocket.

“What?” His voice breaks the quiet, low and rough like gravel underfoot. It startles you out of your spiralling thoughts.

“Nothing,” you blurt out, far too quickly. You’re grasping at straws to keep the conversation going, “Where are you headed?”

Choso hesitates, a slight hitch in his movements, picking that cardboard box again. For a moment, you think he’s going to ignore your question, but then he mutters, “Work.”

You tilt your head, your curiosity outweighing your better judgement to never press Choso Kamo for more than two sentences in a conversation.

He shifts uncomfortable, and you catch a glimpse of latex gloves tucked neatly inside before he angles it out of view, “I…clean up things,” he says finally, his tone clipped as though every word is a concession, “Errands. I’m a cleaner.”

The kind of response that’s designed to kill conversation in its track. It’s vague, annoyingly so, but you let it slide, “Oh.”

You’re this close to spontaneously combusting. The pact, the reason that your hands shake when you catch yourself staring at Choso Kamo for just a second too long. It’s either now or never. Rip the band-aid before your central nervous system completely betrays you and implodes.

Objectively speaking, you’re a real catch. Second-best grades in the cohort, from an old business dynasty that rivalled the Youngs from Crazy Rich Asians, two-time prom queen with med-school practically knocking on the door. Yeah, a dream. College applications adored you. Surely, Choso would have had to be running on a clone’s brain stitched into his head to say no.

Yet, somehow, it doesn’t make your heart beat any less erratically. It doesn’t erase the hollow pit that’s clawing at your insides. And now, you’re wishing that you had asked for advice from someone with an ounce of finesse. Like Shoko, or Utahime. Not your best friend who called himself The Honoured One.

You clear your throat, the taste of artificial cherry gum still lingering, “So, are you going to prom?”

Choso snorts, the sound entirely dismissive. But he seems to realise that you’re not joking, flicking you a glance, like he’s deciding to humour you, “What’s it to you? Need me to vote for you to be prom queen?”

You roll your eyes, fighting the flush creeping up your Burberry sweater, “Didn’t I already ask you to do that, like, two months ago?”

His lips twitch, barely, like he’s holding a smile back under layers of indifference, “Yeah. You pestered me three times. And I actually did it.”

You latch onto the softer tone in his voice, “So, are you going to go, then?” You’re watching him, almost desperate for a sign, for anything other than no.

Choso’s shoulders tense, “Can’t.”

“Can’t?” The word slips out of your mouth before you can stop it, incredulous, “What do you mean can’t? Why? You need to study or something?” You’re trying so hard to sound indifferent, like you’ve got a roster of dates lined up. And well, you do. But this is the only one that you want. The panic creeping into your voice betrays you before you even realise it.

“No,” Choso replies, his tone quieter, “I really just can’t go.”

A weight drops in your stomach, heavy and cold. Is this what rejection feels like? The thought hits like a wave, leaving you breathless. Your heart’s flipping in your chest like it’s teetering on the edge of cliff, seconds away from freefalling into nothing.

You inhale sharply, steeling yourself for the words that are about to spill out.

“I want you to be my date for prom.” “I can’t go because I dropped out.”

The words slam into each other, and for a moment, everything freezes. Choso’s mouth has fallen open, the curve of his lips slack with shock. As though as someone’s hit the pause button on him, mid-thought. You blink at him, your brain becoming a skipping CD. Round and round, never quite catching the beat.

“What did you just say?” Your brows knit together in a sharp pinch, like your face can’t decide whether to wince or frown. But Choso just grimace, lips curling into a tight line as his shoulders stiffen.

“You first.”

Your fingers fidget around the cream Van Cleef that rests on your throat, tracing the cool edge of the pendant. It’s one of your mother’s newer gifts, the kind that comes with all the frills and none of the warmth. Her true transactional brand of maternal affection.

“I wanted to ask if you’d go to prom with me, as my date,” It spills out of you in a jumbling mess, like you’re tripping vowels and consonants over each other. Choso’s eyes widen, but you barrel on before he can interrupt, “I mean, I get it if you think it’s lame or boring, or you just don’t want to go. But I promise my friends are actually really nice, and you can sit with us.” The rest of your monologue trails off, crumbling to dust, “I just really wanted to ask you.”

You wish to sink into the floor, like the soft earth will swallow you whole. You can almost picture Satoru’s ridiculous proposal to Geto Suguru, no doubt involving fireworks or an airplane trailing a banner.

The air is so still, you can hear the faint crackling of Yuuji’s incessant doughnut quest from across the small house, his movements clumsy and unintentionally loud as he rips open cellophane for more than one sweet treat.

Choso’s shifting slightly, and there’s a faint blush creeping onto his cheeks. The pink hue is a stark contrast to his usual sickly pallor. Even his ears are a shade darker, and his jaw tightens like he’s chewing on something bitter and struggling to swallow it down. It’s hard to tell if he’s upset or just lost. Or somewhere in-between.

“You wanted to go with me?” His voice is low, hoarse, like the idea is too outlandish for him to even process. You don’t know whether to laugh or apologise.

“Mhm.” It’s all you can manage, your throat suddenly dry and tight.

“I dropped out of school two days ago,” Choso mutters, as he runs a hand through his dark hair. He’s glancing at you, with the ghost of an apology flickering across his expression, but the shock that you can’t seem to mask makes him wince, “Look, it’s not a big deal. And it’s nice that you asked, but…”

“Dropped out? Like, entirely out of school?” Your voice cracks, each word climbing higher like you’re stepping on a broken escalator, “Why? What happened?”

Never let anyone tell you that teenage love is simple, or wholesome. Full of first crushes, and sweet moments. Because this? It feels like someone ripped the floor out from under you, the air yanked from your lungs, leaving you stranded. And it’s not a pleasant feeling, being denied something that you want, for the first time in your life.

Choso shrugs, like he’s been answering this question a thousand times already. Though, you’re sure that this is the first time he’s said it to out loud to anyone, “Family stuff. Just had to.”

You try to piece this together, for this house does smell faintly of stale coffee, and the worn leather of the couch has clearly seen better days. You can tell, on some level, that something is off. That there’s no parental figure in sight for little Yuuji, just the harsh edges of whatever it is that Choso seems to carry on his own.

You can feel the words bubbling up again, stupid and reckless, “But you know you just can’t leave. You’ve got the top marks in the class, Choso. And you know that you were on a scholarship, right? For one of the most elite schools in the country? How are you ever going to get that again?”

The second they leave your mouth; you hear how self-righteous and insensitive you sound. You already regret it, almost reaching up to slap your hands over your face.

Choso’s expression darkens, his face tightens. Like a storm cloud rolling in, as his lips pull into a tight and angry line, “Back off,” he snaps, voice suddenly sharp enough to cut, “You don’t know a damn thing about my life.”

His sneer twists, not with malice, but something deeper. Harder, like he’s being chewed up by all the things he never got to say before, “Don’t worry, though. I’m sure they’ll make a big, shiny tiara for when they name you valedictorian. Maybe, it’ll match your prom dress.”

“Hey!” Your eyes well up, stupid heat of tears prickling behind your eyes, and swelling a thick lump in your throat, “That’s not what I meant.” You cannot believe that you’re tearing up, over this. Over wanting something that you can’t have, and someone who seems to have more to lose than you ever thought possible.

Choso’s lip curls into a half-sneer, but there’s a flicker of something else there. His posture shifts, as if he’s trying to fold in on himself. He lowers his voice, still low and uncomfortable, but careful. Careful, because his little brother is just down the hall.

“I don’t need your pity, okay? Or your help.” His fingers grip the metal of the net door, “I have to go now. Just look after Yuuji.”

The heavy clang of steel on mesh echoes in your ears, sharp and final. The sound lingers like a ringing in your skull as you stand there, utterly paralysed as your mind scrambles to catch up with the wreckage of what just happened. Your five-year crush crashing down in five minutes.

Your feet move, and you find yourself in the bare dining room. Yuuji’s perched at the table, with a doughnut half-eaten in his hand, a mess of pistachio cream smeared across his chin like a brave trooper. There’s an iPad, an old, scratched model, with a silicone tiger case, propped up in front of him. The screen is flashing with something, like blueberries. Bouncing in time with some peppy tune.

“Did Choso leave for work?” Yuuji asks, utterly oblivious to the emotional landmine that his brother left in your hands. His eyes are wide, curious, the innocence of a kid who still thinks the world works in neat, little boxes.

“Yeah,” you say, forcing a smile, “He works a lot, huh?”

“Oh, yeah,” Yuuji mumbles through a mouthful of pastry, sugar clinging to his lips, “He always gets upset when Uncle Kuna’ calls him in. Even after school.”

Choso has never mentioned an uncle. Or a brother, for that matter. But then again, why would he? You had never even asked for his number, never bothered to learn anything beyond what was right in front of you. You realise, with a strange pang of guilt, that you’ve built your entire image of infatuation with Choso, from incomplete sketches. Filling in the blanks with whatever fits into the tiny box you’ve kept him in.

“Hey, do you have Netflix?” Yuuji’s voice cuts through your thoughts, bright and eager. “I want to watch How to Train Your Dragon. It’s Fushiguro and Kugisaki’s favourite movie!”

The names are unfamiliar, but Yuuji’s excitement is infectious. You cannot help but smile at the boy, his messy hair and too-big shirt. It’s hard not to be fond of such a kid. You take the iPad from his sticky hands, logging into the app. All the while, chasing yourself around mentally with a baseball bat for the biggest fumble of the century.

If last night felt like a disaster, this morning was just the encore performance. And you were the unwilling star. Just the effort of peeling yourself out of bed felt like an Olympic event. And facing your reflection of swollen eyes and blotchy skin felt like punishment for sins that were way out of your paygrade.

Reluctantly, you’re tugging on your blazer, and clipping a barrette into your hair. There’s a sparkling, diamond tennis bracelet fastened around your wrist. All little things that you need to don like armour, to face your senior year, the student population and the empty locker that would remain untouched next to yours.

Satoru and Shoko are the first faces that you spot in the crowd, and Satoru’s practically bouncing down the hall, “Oh, yeah, I got it locked in,” he announces, cheeks flushed with an absurdly boyish grin, “I got it in the bag.”

He’s sliding his sunglasses down just enough to peer at you, wordlessly handing you his coffee cup, as is your morning ritual. The overly sweet, creamy warmth does nothing to ease the ache in your chest, and your lip-gloss stains the edge of the paper.

“What about you, eh?” Satoru chirps, but you must look blatantly devasted. Because your best friend’s grin falters, the corners of his mouth pulling down.

“Wait, you’re joking right?” His voice is marred with disbelief, and his eyes scan the hall like he’s trying to spot someone’s dark head of hair, “Where is he? Jughead Jones lookin’ ass? Shoko, do you know where Choso Kamo sits? Because I’m going to give him a real piece of my mind and —”

You cut him off, abruptly shoving the coffee back into his warm hands, “It’s fine. He dropped out school, anyway.”

Shoko hums beside you, her fingers absentmindedly twirling a strand of cinnamon-brown hair. The chipped polish on her nails catches the fluorescent light, “Prom queen and valedictorian in one year? Not a bad run for you.”

You glare at her, and Shoko’s doe-eyed expression softens. The breeze from the open window catches her sleek hair, making it sway gently, and she shifts. Voice dropping to something quieter, more thoughtful, “That really does suck, though. Sorry.” She sounds like she means it now, her usual flippancy up in smoke, “I didn’t even know you liked him like that. Not until Gojo told me, like, two hours ago.”

Your eyes snap to Satoru who, for once, has the good sense to shut his mouth.

Shoko’s voice is subdued, “I wonder if it had anything to do with him being called into admin.”

“Wait, when?” Satoru interrupts. He’s taking another long slurp of his sweet mocha, the froth giving him whiskers.

“Three days ago,” Shoko shrugs, “Some big guy rolled up to the office. Demanded to see the principal. No idea who he was, but he was important. And rich. Like you need to be super wealthy to call the shots in a school for the children of the top one percent.”

You must look tragic, because even Shoko pauses mid-chew. Her lollipop moving from one side of her mouth to the other. She looks at you, really looks at you. You can see the careful shift in her demeanour, as though she’s considering the most diplomatic answer that she can offer you to avoid making things worse.

“Well, you don’t have to go to prom with anyone, right?” Satoru says, the words hanging awkwardly in the air like a balloon that’s just lost its helium. His consolation is well-meaning, but a bit clueless. But now, his sunglasses are perched atop his head now, leaving his eyes exposed. Icy blue, framed by lashes so long that they practically flirt with his eyebrows. For once, there’s a flicker of real concern in them, clouds passing over clear skies.

“I know,” you gripe, your voice flat as you find yourself glaring at a group of juniors who are skipping by, with their phones out in unison, clicking away like it’s a competition. Fantastic. You can already see the gossip Instagram stories by lunch, wondering what happened to you. Rumours milling about the reason for your glum expression.

Shoko shifts her heavy bag onto her shoulder, patting your arm. “I’ll see you at lunch. My treat,” she says, turning her heel for the Chemistry building. Leaving you alone with Satoru, as Shoko quickly picks her pace up to catch her Honours class.

“So,” you start, keeping your eyes on him out of the corner of your vision, watching how his fingers twitch around the coffee cup, “How did it go with Geto Suguru?”

Satoru’s shifting, as though he’s trying not gloat, but clearly bursting to tell you, “It was nice,” which is an unusually subdued, sensitive explanation from Satoru. The one who can take five hours to tell a story that you could wrap up in ten minutes. “He was really friendly. More than I thought he would be.”

“That is nice.” You’re forcing some perk back into your voice, but it comes out rather weak, “Like, genuinely.”

Satoru crumples the empty cup in his hand, tossing it into a nearby trashcan. Then, he shoots you a sharper look, “Did you actually talk to Choso, like, in-person? How did that go?”

You exhale, “Turns out I was babysitting his little brother,” and Satoru’s eyes widen slightly, “He was fine. And then he wasn’t. I asked him to be my date, and told me he dropped out. I said something…stupid. And now he’s going to hate me forever.”

Satoru stares at you, his gaze sharp, as though he’s dissecting you. And you swear that he can see right through your skin, right into your bones. It’s moments like this that make you feel like maybe your best friend has a sixth sense, some secret radar for picking up on these things.

“Wow,” he murmurs, a touch of something in his voice, “It really got you bad, huh?”

You bristle, a mix of annoyance and embarrassment flooding your chest. You’re straightening your shoulders, but it’s all too obvious and so fucking frustrating, “Yeah, well, I don’t even know why it matters so much.” The bite in your voice is more directed at yourself, than him.

Satoru doesn’t flinch, just tilts his head, and he’s quiet. It’s a weird look on him, soft concern, “You genuinely really liked him that much?”

The truth sticks to your throat as your chest tightens, and your eyes blur. It would be nice to tell Satoru that you didn’t really care that much. That it was never fully that serious, but the lie won’t leave your lips. The lump in your throat is palpable, and all you can do is sniffle, “Yeah. I did.”

“Do you want to cry?” Satoru’s voice is gentle enough to catch you off guard.

You open your mouth to retort, something sharp and defensive. But before you know it, tears spill as your chest constricts. It’s sudden, like a storm that breaks on the horizon.

And just like that, your best friend pulls you into him. For once, the wild energy that crackles off him is gone, replaced by something quieter and more unwavering. You can feel his shoulder under your cheek, soft and warm, salt staining the expensive fabric. And if anyone does see you sob into Gojo Satoru’s arms, while the white-haired boy pats your back, no one says a word.

But to borrow a line from Bangtan Sonyeondan, life goes on. The next few months slip by like the kind of indie film that you’d see at film festival. It’s bittersweet, and there’s a melancholy that everyone can taste in the air, especially as you all realise that this last blue spring of youth is slipping through fingers like sand.

In this haze of time, you discover a few things that you didn’t expect. For instance, Geto Suguru is, in fact, far more than the tall and brooding figure that you once shrugged off. He’s the stillness to Satoru’s sharper teeth, the quiet that counters the blue eye of the storm. He’s soft-spoken, with an easy patience that tempers Satoru’s edges. He’s become a bit of a constant presence, as they always bicker and makeup in a sort of perpetual cycle.

Spring arrives like a first kiss. It’s hesitant, not rushing in. Just tiptoes around you, tentative enough as it coaxes you out of winter’s gloom. Before the flurry of sparkly gowns and speeches, there’s Utahime’s birthday to celebrate. It’s supposed to be a relaxed affair, she insists that she has no desire for fuss. But you all show up anyway, surprising her with a giant, pastel cake that takes up nearly half the table.

Her laugh is loud, and carefree, mixing with the salt of the ocean breeze on this beach trip. Her black hair whips around her face, even as she blushes at the attention. She’s protesting, but it’s swallowed by laugher, by the sound of waves breaking against the shores.

The awards and titles are all well and good, prom queen and valedictorian. A shiny, little stamp on your high school resume, a golden ticket to the next chapter of your life. But when anyone brings it up, or someone presses too hard on the subject, you shift uncomfortably, your fingers toying with the edge of your pre-med acceptance letter like it just might tear under the pressure of your grip. No-one talks about how you’ve been visiting your locker less and less.

Satoru, of course, loudly denies crying at graduation, even as salty, shiny tears tack to his cheeks. They’re practically immortalised in every digital snapshot that you take. But for now, he’s too busy wrapping everyone in a bear hug, clutching the group that it’s the last time he’ll ever see them. Nanami’s already peeling him off, shaking his head with a worn sigh.

It's late in the morning after the graduation ceremony, as you all pile into cars, driving to a riverside café. It’s one of those places where people with money go to prove that they have money, to prove that even their breakfasts are above the meals of the common folk. But you all sit there, with the graduation ribbons still pinned to your lapels. There’s the debate over who cried the most during the ceremony (Gojo, easily, though Haibara is a close second) and who’s the one who peaked in high school. Everyone unanimously votes for Geto, who sulks as he tosses his hair out of his face, ever the drama queen.

“Bullshit,” he’s grumbling, “Just you wait. You’ll see what I accomplish in ten years.”

Satoru grins, all teeth and lazy confidence, “Yeah, what? You’re going to start running a pyramid scheme cult?”

Utahime’s voice cuts through the chatter, her white ribbon flouncing as she leans towards you, blinking at the empty space in front of you, “Where’s your food?”

You wave her off with a smile, “It’s fine. You guys can go ahead and start, I’ll just go and check.”

You hear Satoru choke around a mouthful of food, already bulldozing half his way through his plate like a bottomless pit.

There’s a pretty glass display at the front, filled with delicate chiffon cakes that glisten in the soft light. You wonder if you should have just ordered one, perhaps to share with Nanami. You know he likes desserts like this.

“Can I help you?”

Your pulse stutters as you bite your tongue, heart crashing against the rocks. You soothe your tongue over the tang of iron that blooms in your mouth from the stupidly familiar voice.

Choso Kamo.

You’d like to say that he looks good, but the truth is, he doesn’t. The hollows beneath his eyes are far more accentuated than you remember, and his hair is pulled back into a messy knot at the back of his head. Even his pale skin has taken on a sicklier pallor than usual.

“Hello?” His voice cuts through the silence, sharper this time, carrying an edge that takes you by surprise.

“Oh, uh, hey. Choso. Just wanted to check on my order,” you say, like it’s a poor prelude to small talk. It sounds far too chipper, almost artificial.

Choso’s expression tightens immediately, in an ill-omen. It’s as if he’s irritated that you even have the nerve to recognise him, to stand there in his space. He doesn’t meet your gaze, his attention flicking back to the screen in front of him with a quickness that almost feels deliberate.

“Hello.” He’s muttering back, more out of obligation than any real interest. Like it’s a formality.

The sharp, hollow feeling in your chest expands, deeper than you’re willing to admit. The last time you saw him, you had been standing at his door, and he had slammed it in your face.

“What are you doing here?” Your question is clumsy, hanging in the air, and far too intrusive for a stranger.

“What?” Choso doesn’t even look up. But then he does, just briefly, his gaze flicking to yours with the same disinterest. He shrugs, as though the query is too trivial for any answer.

“It’s just…it’s been a while, yeah?” You’re not quite sure how to word and I want to know how you’ve been.

“I’m fine,” Choso replies quickly, dismissing your question with a wave of his pale hand, “Just working around here and there.”

It’s offbeat, landing wrong. You don’t think it’s unfair to think that everyone expected more of him. One of the smartest, most brilliant minds in your cohort, who had been a shoo-in for medicine, alongside you.

The bustle of patrons behind you intensifies, but you stubbornly dig your heels into the polished tile, “How’s Yuuji?”

The mention of his younger brother softens him, just a little. A small, bashful smile tugs at the corner of Choso’s pink lips, hesitant, like he doesn’t quite know how to let it show, “He’s good. Says you were the ‘bestest’ babysitter that he ever had. Even asks about you sometimes.”

You fight the urge to smile too openly, not wanting to seem too affected by the gentleness that suddenly lingers in the space between you two, “I’m glad. And…are you still working for your uncle?”

It’s as if you’ve thrown a switch, causing all the warmth to evaporate from his features. His jaw tightens, as his brow furrows. Settling a coldness over his expression, “Who the fuck told you that?”

You blink, surprised at the sudden harshness of his words. “Yuuji mentioned it,” you murmur, quieter now, careful. The hesitation in your voice isn’t feigned, and you realise you’ve broken the golden rule of ‘never push Choso Kamo about his personal life.’

Choso doesn’t seem keen on letting you explain, as his glare cuts through you, “If you wanted to snoop into my life, just ask me your stupid questions, okay? Don’t drag my little brother into it.”

The accusation lands like a slap, stinging you more than you expected, “What? I wasn’t snooping,” you insist, defences flaring open, “He told me that himself. I didn’t even ask him anything, and I didn’t ask anything else!”

He just stares at you, eyes burnished and unreadable, but he seems mollified by your answer. Like he knows that your explanation is sincere, but the chasm is nigh impossible to bridge, “Sure. Okay.”

You don’t know how to respond, opening your mouth to ask what on earth has made him so unreasonable. To dig the tips of your almond nails into his long sleeves, and demand that he treats you as adoringly as everyone else in your life does. But he interrupts you first, “Your order’s coming.”

Choso’s tone is clipped, colder. As though he’s already moved on, “And I’ve got a lot of other customers to serve. Nice seeing you again, or whatever.”

A dismissal, if there ever was one. The embarrassment rushes up your neck, hot and insistent, but you bite your tongue. You let your heels clack a little more loud than necessary, as you stomp away. You’re swivelling your head to deliver a final, withering stare but his gaze is no longer on you.

Choso’s looking at the table where everyone is sitting. Where your friends are laughing, leaning into one another as they snap their final graduation photos. Where Geto has his lips pressed to Satoru’s cheek in a rare display of affection, arms linked with Shoko and Utahime. Where even Nanami’s smiling, the sunlight leafing through his golden waves of thick hair.

There’s no anger in Choso’s eyes, or even that solitary, brooding stare. He looks almost…sad. Profoundly sorrowful, in a deep and aching way that makes your anger dissipate.

He’s looking at your friends, at their graduation certificates stacked in sleeves on the table, as though he’s lost something that he never had. It aches your chest tightly, a knot pulling at your heart.

Once, he was Choso Kamo — the quiet boy you liked in school. Then, he became Choso from the café. Soon, he'll be someone whose name you won't even remember in a few years, someone who's path you'll probably never cross again.

You find yourself blinking furiously, feeling as though you've just lost something yourself, but you fight back the salt that threatens to blur your vision before your friends see.

THREE YEARS LATER.

Your day had started off deceptively well, like a glass of water poured perfectly. Clear, refreshing, with no chance of spilling. The sun was shining, your skin looked like it was having its best day, and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. But of course, it didn’t take long for things to spiral, as they tend to do.

It was like playing a real-life Sisyphus game, except instead of a boulder, it was a series of small, dumb annoyances that you couldn’t dodge fast enough.

First, Satoru had texted to cancel lunch. And to be fair, you weren’t that bothered. He had been talking all week about a world-renowned professor dropping in on his fourth-years Honours class, something about nuclear engineering. And you knew that Satoru lived for anything involving theoretical mass and explosions.

Then, your favourite tote bag had decided it was done with you. The strap had snapped off with a surprising, sudden violence. Your beautiful new water bottle had hit the floor with a sickening, metallic thud. Pens rolled across the tiles like little soldiers. You had been kneeling, already late for class, muttering curses under your breath when your phone had rung.

Your mother.

And you already knew that tone well enough, that voice that could cut through steel.

“You missed the charity dinner? You know how embarrassing it is for your father and I to come up with excuses, just to explain your absence —”

Yeah, like you had personally insulted her by choosing to study for your exams, instead of milling around an event hall. You tried to explain, but it was like trying to explain Satoru’s quantum physics to the wall. Totally pointless, and not worth your time and energy. And naturally, her tone escalated, because that’s what she just tended to do. Nevermind that she was calling from some ritzy hotel in Europe, crackling over the phone.

And then, just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, the course coordinator paged you in for a meeting. You were still in your first few weeks of medicine, so you had been scratching your brain for what he could have possibly wanted, snapping gum as you rushed and clacked up stone steps, breezing through campus.

Now, here you were. Standing in front of his desk with your arms crossed, almost petulantly. The room smelled like old coffee, and expired textbooks as the man coughed, leaning back against his desk, littered with academic transcripts and stacked envelopes.

“Look, there’s no denying that you’re one of our most brilliant students. All the tutors and lecturers admire your work ethic,” and the professor stopped, and you grimaced. Ah, here it comes.

“But, you’ve chosen Ieiri Shoko as your partner for the past three years, am I correct in saying this?” His dark eyes are narrowed behind wiry glasses, as you frowned.

“Yes.”

Shoko had practically excelled in Pre-Med alongside you, surviving late night study rants, extreme caffeine dependency, and textbook-induced breakdowns.

“You work together well,” the coordinator adds, looking like he was trying to make this sound like a compliment, “But you need to branch out. Develop your versatility. In a noble field, such as medicine, it’s important to be able to work with others. Not rule and conquer.”

You blink at him, “Branch out? I don’t know how else to say this, but I don’t like anyone else in my class. And Shoko and I are easily the best.”

He ignores your comments, “So, I’ve thought it better to move you to a new stream. Instead of Tuesday’s clinical practice, I’ll have you attend the Thursday session, starting today. There’s a new partner for you, and I assure you, he is just as competent as Ieiri Shoko,”

You doubt it. No-one can handle the sight of infected perineum stitches like Shoko can.

It seems there’s only one card left for you to pull, “My grandfather paid for this entire wing of the building. His name is on the plaque outside.”

The coordinator doesn’t even budge, “That may be true. But you still need to grow. You will never learn if you just continue to stick with what is familiar.”

You leave the office with a sour taste in your mouth, clutching the crisp sheet of paper that’s already being emailed to your student account, no doubt.

“Collaboration,” you’re muttering under your breath, “Building character, my ass.” You’re squinting at the page, trying to decipher the name of your new stream partner, but it’s obscured by a hastily scribbled note with your classroom change.

The faint ache in your neck refuses to budge, and you roll your shoulders with a sigh. Pushing through the double doors to the anatomy facility. Immediately, the frigid air bites at your cheeks, sharp and unwelcome. These buildings always feel like high-tech mausoleums, with tables lined up like gleaming altars. Surfaces cold enough to numb your fingertips if you’re careless.

The faint, cloying scent of formaldehyde hangs in the air, sharp and chemical. It’s supposed to preserve the cadavers, but it has the unfortunate side effect of making your stomach growl at the worst times. Hunger, and embalming fluid. A combination so disgusting that you try not to dwell on it for too long.

Your lab coat is rubbing uncomfortably against your arms, and your Loewe sweater is bunched awkwardly around your elbows. It’s a long-suffering sigh that echoes the hall as you shove the heavy barred doors to the classroom.

The tutor is a stalk-like man, with perpetually knitted brows, glancing up at you as you enter, “Ah, yes. The transfer,” he’s brisk with it, “Got the note about you moving to my Thursday stream. Just sit over there, for now. Yeah, there. Your partner should be along soon. If he’s a no-show, I’ll reassign you to a different table.”

You nod wordlessly, scanning the room as you head to your non-descript, assigned corner. The faces at the other tables blur together, some curious and others indifferent. Most focused on pushing worksheets under steel clipboards.

Great. A room full of strangers with all the warmth of wet cardboard.

Sliding into your plastic seat, you pull your notebook out and flip it open, the pages crinkling and echoing in the too-quiet room. It’s a minute, maybe two of shifting uncomfortably in your chair, feeling the awkward hollowness of sitting alone at a two-person station. But the door swings open with a groaning creak.

“Perfect! Full class today, that’s what I like to see. Just head to your usual spot, and I’ll start passing the models around.”

You glance up, squinting at the figure who’s broad enough to cause a solar eclipse of the fluorescent light.

“Get out,” you blurt.

“This is my class,” Choso Kamo stares at you, equally bewildered. His bronze eyes widen briefly, flickering from your face to the lab tables, to the unaware tutor.

“Don’t care. Get out,” you scowl, speechless for a moment, “No. Don’t sit. This is my assigned stream. Don’t tell me that you’re my —”

“Partner?” Choso finishes for you, deadpan.

“Of all the people in this entire school —”

“I’m starting to feel offended,” Choso cuts in, already pulling out the chair beside you, and slinging his bag down with an air of resignation.

“What are you doing here?”

Choso’s lips twitch, but he doesn’t quite smile, “I’m getting an education. Obviously.”

Your gaze flickers away from his unfairly handsome face, following the motion of his hand as he shifts. There’s a single black hair tie, looped around his wrist.

But something just does not add up for you. This isn’t just any medical program. It’s the kind of rigorous, cutthroat, soul-consuming degree that requires three years of a top GPA from Pre-Med. It’s designed to weed out the faint hearted before the first semester is even over. Graduates here don’t just get jobs. They get titles, and invitations to Westminster where the British monarch probably bestows them with Dame, or Sir, or some other archaic title.

And Choso Kamo is a high school dropout, with nary a certificate to his name.

“You got into medicine?” It’s as blunt as you can get.

“What? Like it’s hard?”

“Don’t quote Legally Blonde at me,” You snarl, wordlessly taking the tray of silicone gashes from the tutor.

Choso blinks, as though he’s truly stumped by your hostile reaction, “Then don’t ask stupid questions.” He seems…different now. Sharper, and less apologetic. There’s a streak of confidence that’s as unnerving as it is infuriating. Is he taller? He seems taller.

You exhale sharply, a sound between frustration and resignation. It’s not like you can go up to the course coordinator now and say, ‘Oh, sorry! I can’t be in this stream because my new partner is the boy who broke my heart in high school. I cried and threw up on my best friend’s blazer for three days.’

But you’ve definitely given the group chat enough material to fuel their devious amusement for days, even weeks. You’re practically writing the jokes for them.

With a defiant swing of your arm, you hoist your bag onto the desk. The soft leather tanking against the sterile surface, like a gauntlet being thrown. You slide it firmly into position, the strap dangling just enough to make a point. That this is your line in the sand.

“Don’t move one centimetre over your side of the desk.”

Choso just rolls his eyes.

“They…modify bacterial ribosomes.”

“Wrong.”

You sigh and tap the edge of your notebook with the tip of your mechanical pencil. The rhythm is irregular, your thoughts too scrambled to produce anything like a steady beat.

“They inactive carbapenems,” you try again, your tone pitched with the kind of hope that knows it’s already on life support.

“Nope.”

Choso’s shaking his head, the movement loose and lazy, and it sends strands of his chestnut hair tumbling into his face. The harsh fluorescent lights above make his hair shine with an almost metallic lustre, and as he tugs a thick sweater over his broad frame, your gaze drifts.

The fabric of his white top is riding up, revealing a pale stretch of skin. There’s the faintest dusting of dark hair trailing downwards, and your eyes snap back to the textbook. Your cheeks flushed, for the briefest second as your resolve breaks.

“Just tell me the answer.”

Choso exhales, in a soft and patient sound, sliding the textbook your way. He’s tapping the page with his finger, his blunt nail landing on the highlighted sentence.

“Extended-Spectrum Beta-Lactamases hydrolyse a wide range of beta-lactam antibiotics, including third-generation cephalosporins. This contributes to antibiotic resistance.” His voice is smooth, but it carries that faint rasp that always makes it sound like he’s just woken up.

“I was close.”

“Close doesn’t get you any marks,” Choso replies, deadpan.

Your retort dies on your glossy lips, when a sharp shhh cuts through the air. You glance up, spotting a student two tables away, glaring at you over the rim of her stylish tortoiseshell glasses.

Your next sip of coffee is deliberate, making an obnoxious gurgle as you drain the bottom of your cup. Choso’s eyes flick to the order scribbled on the side, Caramel Crunch Latte, Extra Whip. His lips twitch, but what can you say? Satoru’s dropped a habit or two on you over the years.

This has become the routine over the past few weeks. The outright disdain you had initially felt had eroded, once you had realised that you were truly stuck with the man. It had become something closer to a begrudging truce, but ‘truce’ may be too generous a word.

The two of you found yourselves studying together. Regularly. Choso needed to interact more with people, and less with his old, dusty laptop. And you needed a study partner that could match your wits. Unfortunately, Choso seemed entirely oblivious to the reason you nursed an ancient grudge against him, choosing to accept your bad attitude in stride.

It doesn’t help that Choso is, well, hot now.

In high school, he had always been cute in that underdog way. Endearing, if not exactly the type to inspire confidence. He had been the subject of your sweet trope-like fantasy that you would nurture during long, dull classes.

You, the radiant prom queen, standing under a canopy of glittering lights, extending a perfectly manicured hand to him. The shy, awkward loser who’d clearly underestimated how gorgeous his messy hair and tendency to trip over his own words were. Ugh, now you’re not sure who had been the bigger loser.

But three years had passed, and the Choso that sat across from you now bore only a passing resemblance to that daydream. Time, it seemed had been suspiciously kind to him. Unfairly, even. His frame was lean but undeniably defined. His shyness remained, because you knew that he refused to correct the woman at the food trucks whenever she got his name wrong, but it had softened into something less clumsy, and more self-contained. Far less teenage angst.

The dark violet smudges beneath his eyes were still there, giving him that haunted and sleep—deprived look. And his hair was still the same stringy, chestnut mop that you remembered. But it was more of a deliberate statement now, instead of an oversight. It hung just over his shoulders, and you had heard many a passerby giggle and whisper about hot emos on campus. Like, get in line.

“What are you doing next weekend?”

The question comes so abruptly that your head snaps up like a spring-loaded trap.

“Huh?” You blink, the tip of your pencil teetering dangerously close to snapping against the page.

Choso stares back at you, his expression maddeningly neutral, “Like, are you busy?”

“It’s my friend’s birthday on Saturday, we’re going out at night,” you’re narrowing your eyes at him, already feeling your composure fray.

It’s Suguru’s birthday, and Gojo’s gone full-out with a surprise planned at some five-star restaurant. You managed to get your hands on a vintage vinyl turntable for him, courtesy of a Sotheby’s auction.

Choso nods, like he’s filing that away somewhere, “What about Sunday?”

“Sunday?” You repeat, dragging it out, “I’m free, I guess.” Against all reason, you find yourself answering honestly, even as some internal voice is screaming at you to lie and make up an excuse.

“Do you want to study at my place?”

There’s a pause, long enough for the air to grow heavy between you two. You wonder if he remembers the last time that you asked him to go out with you. Your eyebrows shoot up, and your mouth must be twitching in something close to incredulity.

Choso notices, for his ears go pink first. Then his cheeks, like someone’s spattered him with a splotchy watercolour paint. The flush sits pretty, just under the dark mark that crosses the bridge of his nose, “No, I mean, like really study. Just studying. It’s easier than being here…” He twitches, looking anywhere but you, “Yuuji would be happy to see you again, and stuff.”

And stuff. How ridiculous that two words make your heart trip over itself. Your three-year resolve to keep him firmly in the do not touch zone has basically cracked wide open. There’s a traitorous smile tugging at the corner of your lips, but you manage to suppress it. Barely. Playing it off with a nonchalant hum.

“Hmm. Sure, I’ll think about it.”

Choso lives in an apartment now. Not a polished high-rise with sleek fixtures and panoramic views, but a tired and unremarkable building with flickering yellow lights that cast long and ominous shadows along the stairwell. You clutch the slip of paper that he scribbled his address on, squinting at the nearly illegible scrawl. It’s barely decipherable, a penmanship perfect for prescriptions and indecipherable notes.

In your other hand, you balance a box of cream rolls from the bakery that Nanami swears by, their golden horns stuffed with airy dairy and dusted with cinnamon sugar. The smell is warm and sweet, a sharp contrast to the questionable stairwell.

The ascent feels longer than it should, each step accompanied by the faint swing of those tired lights overhead. But you bite back any judgement, you’ve made that mistake before.

Someone else is already there, a tall figure that knocks on Choso’s door with wide, lazy knuckles. Once. Twice. The man huffs, pocketing his phone and pulling out a key. There’s a practiced ease to the way he clicks the lock open, and for a moment, you hesitate, wondering if you’re witnessing a breaking-and-entering type of situation.

But there’s something familiar about the muted shock of rosy, pink hair that spikes over his head.

“What are you doing?” His voice is rough, deep, with an edge of irritation that makes you stand a little straighter. He looks over you once, and his eyes fall on the box of pastries in your hands. Disinterest giving way to a little bit of curiosity. It reminds you of Itadori Yuuji.

“Uh,” you clear your throat, “Choso invited me.”

The man’s eyebrows lift in surprise, and you’re fascinated by the tattoos that curl around his face. Even running along his jawline, and down his neck. There are silver studs littering his ear, and if you didn’t know better, you would say that there are real precious stones scattered among them.

“Didn’t know he had a date.” The man seems gruffly amused, and you stomp your heels, the sound snapping off worn walls.

“It’s not a date. We’re studying.”

“Don’t care. Didn’t really ask.”

With that, he swings the door open, stepping inside before you can. You linger in the doorway, before hesitantly following him, watching as he kicks the door shut with his heel. He seems to be making himself at home like he owns the place, peering through an empty fridge and rifling through cabinets. All before collapsing on the sagging couch like it’s his throne, sprawled out as he starts scrolling through his phone again.

You just perch awkwardly on the edge of a cold chair, as the space suddenly feels oddly claustrophobic. Your fingers toy with the edge of your notebook, as you wonder whether you need to call Choso, to see if this was all a mistake. Instead, your gaze flickers over to the man sitting opposite you.

You’re sure that he comes from money. You’ve spent enough summer holidays backstage at Milan and Paris shows to recognise the season’s latest pieces. And the crimson racing jacket on his shoulders is definitely a Dior piece that costs more than what you assume is the rent of this entire apartment complex. Plus, you had spent enough time flicking through Van Cleef’s catalogue to recognise the whirring, high-jewellery piece that sat on his wrist. A watch with an eye-like mechanism, studded with Burmese rubies. Easily the price of your penthouse.

“So, you friends with Choso?” He asks suddenly, lowering his phone. His eyes are sharp russet, locking with yours.

“We know each other from high school,” you say, trying to keep your tone neutral. It’s best to leave it at that, it’s safer that way. You’re playing Choso’s game, the one where you don’t share a thing about your personal life.

“Hmph,” The sound is more of a grunt than a response, and it makes you bristle. Why bother asking a question if you’re not interested in the answer?

“Did I leave the door unlocked?”

You hear Choso’s faintly bewildered murmur, almost to himself, before he catches sight of you. It’s cute, how a bashful smile creeps over his face again, almost embarrassed at the sight of you. But it darkens instantly, sharply. His bronze eyes are fixed on the man that loiters on his couch.

“Get out.”

The man is unfazed, “Why? Am I interrupting your date?”

“It’s not a date. We’re studying.” Choso’s mirroring your exact, previous words. His tone is stiff, like you’ve never heard it before. A snarl, with irritation bubbling underneath the surface.

“I don’t know how else I can stress this enough, brat. But I really do not care what you do to get off.” The man drawls, pushing himself off the couch. He’s absurdly tall, easily the height of the ceiling. You catch a glimpse of the tattoos trailing up his forearm, dark ink that winds around his wrist. A startling splash of red staining the sleeve of the pristine jacket. It’s dried up now, crusting the edges of the fabric. Sort of like…

Weird. And impossible.

Choso grunts, “Fine. Get up. Go,” and he’s gesturing towards a door leading into another room, his jaw clenched tight. The muscles in his neck are taut, the apology in his expression at you somehow mixed with a faint flicker of regret, like he wishes you weren’t here to see this.

What happens next is an absolute masterclass on being nosy. You’ve edged closer to the door, shifting on the couch so you’re practically perched on the armrest. You can hear the muffled thrum of Choso and the stranger’s voice through the door, but it’s not enough. Curiosity is clawing her sharp nails at you, and you wonder if you should text Satoru. Or maybe drop a quick message in the group chat.

You end up leaning in closer, ignoring the way that you’re teetering on the very edge.

The conversation is low, like the rumble of thunder in the distance, but the voices are gradually building until —

“What? You did not just fuckin’ throw something at me!” The man’s voice booms so loud that you almost jump out of your skin, “What is wrong with you? Can’t even have an honest conversation these days?”

Choso’s response is tight, simmering with frustration that you don’t understand, “Nothing you do is honest. And don’t break into my place then!”

“Your place?” The man’s scoff is almost a sneer, like he’s amused at the mere thought, “Brat, let’s not forget all the favours I’ve done you.” There’s a crash, something hitting the floor with a thud, and the man’s voice bellows again, “Oi! Put that down right now. Don’t you dare throw something else at me. Fuck, you’ve got good aim, I’ll give ya’ that.”

You can hear Choso shuffle, spit something sharp in response.

“You’ve done all these things for me before, eh? Why the hesitation now? Got tired of cleaning it all up?”

Choso’s response is firm through the thin walls, “I’m done with doing your dirty work all the time.”

The silence that follows is thick, suffocating, punctuated with a low and disbelieving laugh.

“You said that last time. But you came crawling back when you couldn’t handle looking after the kid all on your lonesome.”

“Leave Yuuji out of this!”

There’s another muffled scuffle, a loud thud that makes your heart race as the stranger growls, “Can’t believe you bit me.”

The door swings open with a suddenness that almost knocks you off your seat. Choso’s practically putting his entire back into shoving the man out with a sharp grunt, like he’s had enough.

The stranger turns, giving you a lazy, bored wave. Like he knows that it will simply irk Choso off even more. And he’s right. Choso, not having it for a second, snaps at him, “Get out. And don’t come back.”

The man rolls his eyes, but not before pulling out a pricey Italian wallet, slapping a wad of thick bills down on the kitchen counter, “That’s for this month. I’ll send a cheque next month for the little brat’s birthday.”

Then he’s gone, muttering something about bitchy, little bastard children, born on the wrong side of the sheets, with sharp teeth.

Choso’s whirling around to you, his expression unreadable and blank. Like the surface of still water that refuses to betray even a ripple of emotion. You school your features, meeting his gaze with a look of equal, quiet disinterest.

“Friend of yours?” You ask, your voice cool. But there’s questions dancing on the tip of your tongue, and you can taste them in the air.

He doesn’t answer right away. He’s flicking through the thick stack of bills that the stranger left on the counter. The sound of cash shifting in his hands is oddly loud, and you whistle low, almost involuntarily. It makes Choso look up, catching your appreciative gaze. His fingers tighten around the stack, his jaw clenching, as if to keep in whatever thoughts or words are threatening to spill out.

“Don’t say anything.” His voice is a low mutter, hard.

“I didn’t.”

Choso looks at you again, his hazel eyes softening just enough that you catch the flicker of something unsure. He lets out a low sigh, “But you want to ask.”

“Will you let me ask?” You’re pushing, your voice a little softer and coaxing than you intended. You can already see the signs, the slight stiffening of his shoulders, the way his gaze flickers to the door as if he’s considering an exit. Choso’s like a clam, snapping shut, as if there is a pearl that he’s not ready to share.

“What do you want to know?” He’s saying this like it’s a chore, as if it is the last thing he wants to do.

You make your way to the kitchen counter, “What will you tell me?”

If Choso is irritated by the vague, passive nature of your questions, he doesn’t show it. He simply tugs his purple sweater down, sharply. “Yuuji will be sad if his uncle didn’t send him money for his birthday. He turns ten next month.”

“So that was…Uncle Kuna,” you ask, murmuring more to yourself than to him. But Choso’s sharp gaze flicks to you, a faint confirmation in the nod that follows.

“Mhm.”

And just like that, something clicks in your brain. A conversation that you had overheard once, perhaps a year or two ago. A rare moment that both your parents had been home, still too distracted to realise that you were listening. The realisation hits you hard, like a small shot of adrenaline, “That’s not Sukuna, is it? Ryomen Sukuna?”

Choso’s amber look is like fragile glass now, “Yeah. How’d you figure?”

In a world such as yours and Satoru’s, it’s quite hard to avoid gossip, and whispers that float around in the backrooms of business meetings, or in the too-quiet halls of private clubs. For all the older business-clans, Sukuna is quite the upstart. A man who clawed his way to the top, not just content with money, but power and influence as well. Apparently, he made quite the name for himself, building an empire with wealth beyond measure.

And all at the low price of being wanted in more than thirty-five countries and territories. A businessman, a crook and a criminal. Your father said that Ryomen Sukuna’s ledgers were written in red ink, fresh blood for both personal and financial debts that were owed to him.

“Why did he say that you came crawling back to him?”

Choso’s eyes flutter shut, and you can see that he’s calculating whether it’s worth the effort to respond.

“He’s the reason I dropped out of school,” Choso mutters, the words low enough that almost don’t catch them. They land with a soft thud, the kind that makes your pulse stutter. You stare at him, with the kind of look that people give when a ticking time bomb has just been dropped in their lab.

Choso scoffs, eyes darting away, “Yeah. He’s always been sending money for Yuuji. And I was stuck doing his…favours.”

Suddenly, you’re back in high school. On Choso’s doorstep, watching him try to hide a cardboard box of surgical tools. There’s a little corkboard map in your head connected with red strings, as you pin other things on there. The latex gloves in the box, Choso’s general lack of squeamish misery when it comes to the stickier parts of medicine, and the bloodstain on Ryomen Sukuna’s Dior jacket.

It’s almost odd, in a morbid way, that a crime boss chooses the latest Vogue streetwear, instead of a dark Godfather suit and a cigar.

Your expression must betray the pieces that you’ve put together, because Choso’s eyes widen, like he can see the cogs turning in your brain. “Look,” he stammers, voice rougher now, with a nervous edge, “I didn’t do anything wrong. Never saw what he did. Not really. Just —”

You shush him gently, a hand reaching out to land on his, a little too quickly and a little too hot. The instant your skin brushes against his, there’s a sharp feeling. Like you’ve touched something that burns beneath the surface. His face flashes a faint pink, muscles stiffening as though your touch seared him in a way he wasn’t prepared for.

“Go on,” you hope that your tone is reassuring.

Choso swallows, his throat bobbing as his fingers suddenly curl around yours, “Anyway, I got tired of doing his dirty work, you know? Thought that if I dropped out, I could get a job. Work enough to support myself and Yuuji, without taking a single dollar from him.”

“But he’s your uncle?” Your question is tentative, like you’re testing the waters of a deeper pool, “Wouldn’t he support you, too?”

Choso’s sigh is deep and weary as he gently corrects you, “He’s Yuuji’s uncle. Yuuji’s my half-brother.”

Suddenly, Sukuna’s comment about ‘biting bastard children’ snaps into place with clarity. Oh.

You’re not sure what to say now, what words could possibly fill the emptiness that lingers between the two of you. What a misery it would have been. Being a teenager with such potential, forced to close off your own future for the sake of family, and those that you love.

You remember Choso’s face that day, after graduation, with his hollow expression as he watched your friends celebrate their youth. There’s a bitter lump in your throat, but for once, you keep it down. This really isn’t about you.

You frown, the thought sneaking up on you and settling in your chest like a splinter you can’t ignore. “He said you owed him favours.”

Choso exhales sharply, his shoulders stiffening as if bracing for something unpleasant. His voice is low, bitter. “You think high school dropouts pay their own way into med school without a benefactor?”

Right.

“So?” Choso’s voice cuts through the fog of your thoughts, and you blink at him, startled.

“So, what?”

Choso shifts, unease seeping into his posture. His calloused fingers are still curled tightly around yours, like he’s afraid that you’ll pull away and slip past him.

“Are you angry?”

You’re not sure whether to laugh, or sigh, “Why would I be angry?”

He’s hesitating, dark hair falling loose around his face, “I was a jerk to you.” The words come quietly, like they’ve been gnawing at him, biting at the edges of his thoughts, “At the time, I don’t know, I guess I was just angry. Everything felt unfair, and I didn’t want anyone else to be involved.”

You frown, not fully understanding what to say, “You were still a teenager,” you say slowly, like you’re trying to convince both him and you. You hesitate, unsure whether you’re underplaying things, so the worlds come out a little jagged, not quite as comforting as you wished. “I guess…” It feels weak as your words suddenly stagger off.

Choso’s eyes flicker to yours, searching, like he’s trying to figure if there’s something else, you’re not saying, “What?”

You can practically hear Satoru’s voice in your heard, groaning and whining about screwing the long game. But you puff a breath through your cheeks, worried you’ll lose the nerve, “You know, I really liked you, right, Choso?”

Choso’s mouth drops open, as his face flickers with disbelief. The same way it had three years ago, “Like, really?”

You nod, a smile tugging at your lips without even thinking, “Yeah. And you know, everyone else thought I was being, like, silly. But I really liked you. I just never knew what to say to you.” It feels so stupid, and obvious now. But back then, it had been a great chunk of your world. You force yourself to hold his bashful gaze.

Choso’s quiet for a moment, before he admits, “I couldn’t believe it when you asked me to be your date. I thought it was just a game you were playing, or there was no-one left to ask.”

And then, after a beat, “Who did you go with?”

You snicker, a little too bitter and honest, “No-one.”

Choso’s quiet, relieved ‘damn’ makes you laugh even more, threading your fingers with his.

“I just can’t believe he’s in your classes. What are the odds?” Satoru mutters, abandoning his sunglasses for the evening, his bright eyes flashing like sunlight refracted on water. He claims that his eyes are less sensitive today, but you’re certain it’s an excuse for him to freely rifle through your kitchen without obstruction. In the living room, the rest of your friends hover like a pack of starved hyenas, waiting for the snacks that Satoru is currently monopolising.

“I’m telling you, when I first saw him, my heart dropped straight to my ass,” you say, tearing open a bag of sour cream crisps with more force than necessary. The chips tumble into the earthenware bowl in a noisy cascade.

Satoru snickers, expertly arranging small platters on a big, oaken serving board, “I pity the lack of cushioning it got.”

You flick a stray crisp at him, the chip bouncing off his shoulder with a gratifying crunch. For a moment, his grin is steady, but it quickly turns rueful. That slight furrow in his brows, the way the corner of his mouth twitches downwards. There’s something else simmering under that veneer of carelessness.

“You’re not happy, Satoru?”

His expression hardens slightly, plucking a cluster of wine-red grapes, twisting them off their stems with methodical precision.

“Well, yeah,” Satoru admits after a beat, his tone uncharacteristically sober, “I’m glad that he’s, like, nice now or whatever. But he basically broke your heart, didn’t he?”

You glance away, your fingers tighten on the corner of another snack bag, “He had his reasons.” Your flat reply avoids his curious gaze, perceptive and knowing. You hadn’t filled him on the Sukuna-lore. You’re not sure what it is, but there’s bad blood between the Gojos and Sukuna, and you’re not keen to exacerbate it.

Oh, hey, Satoru! So, Choso is like Sukuna’s adopted nephew. And I think Sukuna forced him to like clean up people’s chopped fingers and arms, or whatever. But I have a big crush on him, yep. Right after I said that I wouldn’t catch feelings again.

Satoru scoffs, wagging a long finger at you. A glistening droplet of grape juice clings to his thumb like a ruby bead, “Don’t make excuses for someone hurting your feelings. You know better than that.” His tone carries the same theatrical lilt as always, but it’s underpinned with something firmer, genuine.

Before you can fire back, a new voice meanders into the kitchen, soft and unhurried, “Who hurt your feelings?”

It’s Suguru, propped lazily against the doorway, choppy layers freshly framing his sharp features. The dim kitchen light catches on the faint sheen of his silver rings as he crosses his arms.

Satoru grabs a bag of pretzels, lobbing it towards him, “Choso Kamo. Remember that emo guy I told you about?”

Suguru catches the bag with practised ease, without looking, his mauve gaze flicking to you. You silently curse Gojo Satoru for broadcasting your love life, or lack thereof, to what feels like half the city.

“What’s he look like again?”

You narrow your eyes at the tall man, “He was literally in our grade.”

Suguru shrugs, his palms raised in mock innocence, “I never saw him, okay? He was quiet as hell, never had classes with him.”

“He wasn’t that quiet,” you protest, but your words are drowned out by Satoru’s triumphant declaration.

“Hold up! I got visual aid.”

He’s whipped out his phone, unlocking it with a brief glance of his face, before shoving the dimmed screen inches from Suguru’s puzzled face. The photo, a grainy yearbook photo of Choso in junior year, gleams under the kitchen lights. You wonder if you’re going to need to fight for your life on the frontlines again.

For a moment, Suguru’s expression remains neutral. Unimpressed even. Then, as if someone’s flipped a switch, his eyes widen with dawning recognition, “This is Kamo? His girlfriend’s my neighbour.”

Half a grape travels down Satoru’s windpipe, “The villain!”

Your best friend’s exclamation ricochets off the kitchen walls, loud enough to silence whatever protest was forming on your lips. Not that you had much ground to stand on. How would you even know? Choso had talked to you about his family, not his love life. You saw him a few times a week, and then the two of you would drift away, back to your own orbits. And he was a grown man with a life that had surely moved past you.

You had told him that you had liked him, and he hadn’t said a word back that hinted at any mutual connection. How had you missed that?”

Satoru is still recovering from his near demise at the hands of fruit, “What girlfriend? You’re sure, Suguru?”

Suguru raises an eyebrow, looking like he regrets ever opening his mouth, “Hey. Don’t pin this on me. But he comes by, with a little pink-haired kid. His brother? And she’s like talkative,” and he gestures vaguely above his head, “Like, really tall. Blonde.”

Your eyes had drifted to the unopened case of vodka sitting on the counter.

Satoru clocks you immediately, “Don’t even think about it. We’re going to handle this like mature adults.”

“We?”

Satoru nods solemnly, looping his arm through Suguru’s leather jacket, “Yes. Your Choso loss is my Choso loss,” and he pulls Suguru closer, “Our Choso loss.”

Suguru sighs, not shaking him off as he looks at you sympathetically, “Why am I a part of this? No offense. You could skip all this misery, and I don’t know because I’m just spit balling here, ask him?”

The dark-haired man continues, “Or, and I know this is radical for two divas like you, you could just let it go and spare yourself the drama. If you’re going to be working in the same field, wouldn’t professionalism be better?”

Satoru scoffs, “Or! We do some reconnaissance. I mean, you’re the girlfriend’s neighbour, Suguru. Go snoop around.”

“Why is it always me?” Suguru’s pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Because it is always you. You’ve got the best sneaky liar face I know,” Satoru replies breezily, ignoring how Suguru mutters about the love he feels in this kitchen, “And you need to do this for the greater good. All that noble shit.”

Suguru shoots you a half-hearted glare, as if this is somehow your fault, and not Satoru pulling every string. You’re one more inconvenience away from slumping onto the counter, head in hands, a shot glass by your side.

Your mind flickers to the hair tie that Choso always wears on his wrist. It could be innocuous, sure, but the green-eyed monster claws itself up in your chest. You imagine this faceless girlfriend passing it to him, like an intimate, inside joke.

“What am I supposed to do? Corner him in the break room on placements, and interrogate him? Should I pull out the clan funds, and pay him to date me?”

“It’s what I did with Suguru,” Satoru quips, not missing a beat.

“Now who’s the liar,” Suguru murmurs.

The hospital’s looming ahead. A hulking mass of glass and steel that outline the bleak sky. It’s a bitter Monday morning, the kind that bites at your cheeks and sinks into your bones, no matter how tightly you bundle up. The drive has been long and so utterly tedious, the pale sunlight doing little to brighten the cityscape as you crawl along congested streets.

Now, on the far edge of the suburbs, you’re left squinting and fuming as you circle the parking lot for the third time. The situation is grim, spots are scarce, and every turn feels like an ill-fated gamble that only ends in someone else’s bumper.

You mutter curses under your breath, the heater in your car doing little to thaw your mood.

Choso’s already there, not a massive surprise, for his apartment is far closer than your waterfront residence, smack-bang in the city’s central district. His dark hair is loosely tied back, and he’s thrown an old hoodie over his scrubs. There’s a clipboard tucked under his arm, and a coffee cup in the other.

He extends the cup towards you without preamble, “Want it?”

You blink, catching on the incongruity of the gesture. But Suguru’s intel still echoes in your mind, he has a girlfriend.

You furrow your brow, the cup hovering between you, “Where’s yours?”

Choso shrugs, “I don’t drink coffee. Makes me jittery.”

This answer irritates you for no logical reason. Who doesn’t drink coffee? It feels like some fundamental character flaw, and you snatch the cup from his hand. Doing your very best not to unfairly glare at him, for the sole crime of having a life outside of you.

It’s hard to focus when he’s nailed your exact order. You lower the cup, the warmth seeping through the cardboard sleeve and into your fingers, doing little to melt the icy knot that sits in your chest.

Choso seems almost unnervingly chipper this morning, a far cry from his usual brooding demeanour. There’s no scowl etched on his handsome face, no trace of his typical stoicism. Instead, he wears the faintest trace of a smile, a subtle and almost tentative thing that pulls at the corners of his mouth as he glances over a nearly printed itinerary.

The sight throws you further off-kilter. It’s rare to see him like this, easy and unguarded, and you can’t help the way your lips twitch, the barest hint of a smile threatening to escape before you smother it.

“We’re starting in the ER for two hours,” he reads aloud, voice steady, “then, the paediatric unit.” He pauses to flip the page, his expression shifting to mild exasperation, “And then, paperwork in the break room.”

“Figures,” you grumble, tucking your hands into your coat pockets, “Free labour from the students, yeah?”

Choso glances at you, from the corner of his eye, an unimpressed but faintly amused look on his face, “Thought that you would start the day with a more upbeat attitude.”

You grunt in response, which only earns a shake of his head as he folds the itinerary back into his clipboard.

A beat of silence stretches between you, only punctured by the sound of light metal snapping as you clip a badge to your pocket, but he’s speaking again.

“You good?”

His bronze eyes flick to yours, clearly searching, and your pulse stutters, “Yeah. Obviously.”

Choso takes a deep breath, his chest rising and gearing up for something monumental. The way his fingers fidget against the clipboard betrays him, they tap out a staccato rhythm. There’s a flush creeping on the back of his neck, subtle but unmistakeable.

“Want to get dinner tonight?” He blurts, the words tumbling out so fast that they barely sound like a sentence.

You blink at him, confused, “Bless you.” Your automatic response, because he spoke so quickly that it sounded as though he had sneezed.

Choso’s scowl is immediate, “No.” He says it firmly, drawing out each word in exasperation, “I asked if you wanted to get dinner tonight. After this.”

Oh. Oh.

The realisation hits you like a jolt, and for a second, all you can do is gape at him. He’s looking at you now, an almost defiant sort of expectation in his gaze, as though he’s worried that you’re going to laugh at him. But before you piece together a coherent response, there’s a sharp rap-rap-rap of knuckles on the doorframe.

The ward manager is here, her expression brisk and no-nonsense, gesturing for the two of you to begin your shift placement.

Your head snaps back at him, mouth moving before your brain diplomatically catches up, “I don’t think that’s fair to your girlfriend, do you?”

Choso’s brows knit together, his expression shifting to something startled and indignant. Irritated, even, as you push past him.

He’s trying to speak to you. It’s painfully obvious, as he’s got that mildly dazed look. All that awkward, earnest attention is squarely focused on you.

You’re having none of it.

He steps to your side as you shuffle through patient charts, his broad frame taking up more than his fair share of narrow space, shadowing your elbow as you scribble furious notes. His mouth opens, probably to say something that you don’t want to hear, but you’re faster.

“Hey, Choso, what’s her blood pressure?” You interrupt, not bothering to look up from the faintly lined paper.

There’s a second of hesitation before he answers, “120 over 50. Just write that down. Got it? Okay, yeah, can you stop moving for a second and —”

You squint at the chart, cutting him off again, “Hmm, don’t you think that the diastolic is a little low?”

His shoulders slump, “Yes, but the doctors already know that. She has hypothyroidism, you told me that when you interrupted me like half an hour ago. Can’t you just —” Choso stops mid-sentence again, muttering a resigned oh my god, when you pivot away and head to the next room without so much a glance back.

It sets the tone for the rest of the shift. You make a sport of avoiding him, weaving through the emergency department like a fish slipping upstream, leaving Choso stranded in your wake. He follows, persistent in his mild-mannered way, but you’re relentless.

“Can you hand me that chart?” He’s trying again, as you’re elbow deep in filing.

“Oh, this one?” You sweetly ask, holding it just out of his reach, before conveniently remembering that you need to double-check something on it. He just huffs at you.

By hour three, it’s clear that Choso’s patience is wearing thin, and fighting a war against his professionalism. He corners you near the supply cart while you rummage for gloves.

“There you are.”

“Oh, are we low on size medium?” You cut in, loud enough to catch the attention of a passing manager, “Should we restock?”

Choso inhales through his nose, “We’re not low on gloves. We’re fine on gloves. Can you stop talking about gloves for one second?”

You flash him a smile that’s all teeth, “Gloves are important, Choso. Hygiene is crucial.”

This time, you see him run an exasperated hand over his face, before realising that now he’s just contaminated his own pair of gloves. Snarling at you as he rips the blue latex off and reaching for the size large box.

Your phone buzzes in your pocket, once and then twice. Then thrice, as if whoever’s contacting you as something urgent to say. You ignore it, you’ll check it after placements.

The hours tick by, and your strategy remains the same. Stay busy, stay distant, and stay unreachable. Don’t make it seem like you’re irrationally bothered by Choso having a life of his own and having a girlfriend. Or that you actually had hope that this time round, his feelings for you were requited.

By the time you both stumble into the break room, Choso looks as if he’s experienced the full emotional spectrum, like he’s been knocked through the five stages of grief and landed somewhere in the resigned space of acceptance. He looks as if he’s clearly preparing to lecture you, to tirade you on professional conduct and —

Without warning, his phone buzzes.

You don’t even look up from cracking open your water bottle, the sound of plastic barely crinkles louder than the dull thud of your own heartbeat. Choso glances at you out of the corner of his eyes, a flash of alarm crossing his face, before he draws his attention back to the screen of his phone.

You hear the faintest scoff from his direction, and he’s shaking his head as you watch in mild interest.

“What?”

Choso doesn’t answer immediately, still scrolling through his phone.

“I’m not dating Tsukumo Yuki.”

Your mouth goes dry. You blink rapidly, wide-eyed as if he’s just spoken in an ancient, dead language.

“What?” You manage weakly, “Who? What? —”

There’s a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, and you fear the cause of this slow and curling chest is a meddling duo of two men, one with dark hair and the other with snowy-white.

Choso doesn’t even glance up at you, his voice tinged with something incredulous now, “Why is Gojo Satoru texting me? He says that you’re not replying to his or Geto Suguru’s messages. And apparently, this is super urgent, and he feels like he must do his divine duty by interfering before you do something stupid.

Choso pauses, finally looking at you as if he’s truly baffled, “And you all thought that I was dating Tsukumo.”

You’re crafting a list in your head. Twenty creative ways to kill Gojo Satoru and not land in prison afterwards.

Maybe you should ask Choso for Ryomen Sukuna’s contact.

“That’s crazy,” you say, the words tasting thin and hollow in a bitter, embarrassed lie.

Choso shakes his head at you, some dark strands of hair falling across his eyes, “She looks after Yuuji sometimes. I take him over to her place because Yuki’s adopted a kid, Todo. The two of them are friends.”

“Uh.”

Choso turns back to his phone screen, scrolling through whatever nonsense Satoru is feeding him, “Have you being icing me out all day, because you thought I had a girlfriend?”

“Will you hate me if I say yes?” You’re looking anywhere but him, focusing on the chipped, lilac paint on the break-room door. Or the slightly off-centre light bulb flickering above. Somewhere, in the back of your mind, you’re adding Geto Suguru to your kill list.

Choso’s voice is softer when he answers, almost too quiet, “Hey. You know I couldn’t hate you if I tried.” But there’s a strange mixture of amusement and disbelief in his voice, a bemused chuckle that lingers in the air, “Wow. Just wow.”

You grimace, fingers toying with the edge of the water bottle as you wrangle your thoughts into words, “Are you mad? I mean, look. I told you I liked you. And then you held my hands, so I thought you liked me back. And you got me coffee. But Suguru said you had a girlfriend, and you can’t blame me for being — Oh my god, I’m going to stop talking, you’re looking at me like I’ve gone crazy.”

Choso’s expression shifts, just staring at you. You don’t more than a split-second to process his strangely intense look. There’s no time to recover before he leans down, his hands surprisingly warm and gentle as they cradle the side of your face.

Your breath hitches, but before you can form another thought, his lips are on yours. They’re warm, deliberate and surprisingly firm. The scent of crisp green apples falls over you, as his hair envelops your face.

He pulls back just enough to study you, “Was that okay?” he asks, his fingers still lingering at the curve of your jaw, like he can’t believe he just kissed you. You can feel the sharp blush sting your face, as your heart practically goes into cardiac arrest, nodding quickly.

“Uh, I’m not really an expert in this field,” Choso murmurs, “But I can’t believe that I waited this long to do that.”

“You can do that again,” you say. Wondering if you should buy Satoru and Suguru a bouquet of flowers instead.

Choso, predictably, blushes deep enough that it nearly looks like he might combust. His eyes flicker away, avoiding your gaze in that way he does when he’s trying to sort through his emotions. But it’s hard to miss the warm flush that’s firmly planted on his neck.

“Can I do it over that dinner?” Choso murmurs, his voice dipping lower, before he quickly rephrases, “I obviously do want to kiss you now, again, that is, but if they catch us in the break room —”

You suddenly beam up at him, patting him on the cheek, “You can kiss me as much as you like over dinner.”

Choso looks as though he’s been struck with a metaphorical thunderbolt, as if he didn’t expect you to agree so straightforwardly. And then, as if he can’t help himself, he presses a quick and soft kiss to your forehead. For the briefest second, it feels as if you’re a teenager again, caught in the whirlwind of something simple and so sweet.

“Okay. So, is that a yes?” He asks, a little breathless, as if he’s not sure what kind of confirmation he’s just gotten but needing it to hear it anyway.

“If it’s a proper date, it’s a yes.”

Choso mutters under his breath, “You know Geto Suguru texted me with a five-paragraph apology, something about sneaking around my apartment. Stalking me this morning,” and here, he looks at you, utterly exasperated but fond, “Something about checking to see if I had a girlfriend. I mean, I don’t even know the guy. We never talked in school.”

You loop your arm with his, pulling him in slightly, “See, I always did say my friends were super nice. They’re going to be super nice, and normal. Trust me.”

ONE WEEK LATER.

“And to my brother-in-law, my brother-in-arms, my brother in the Constantinople Crusades of 1204,” Satoru hiccups, his words slurring together in a rambled mess, as he sways over the edge of Suguru’s arms, and for a split second, you’re worried the white-haired man is going to tip over entirely, “My new brother, Choso. We always knew it was going to happen, eh?”

Choso’s cheeks turn a faint shade of crimson in the sudden spotlight as everyone cheers, and he shifts awkwardly. Suguru’s shooting him an apologetic look, the corners of his mouth twitching as he props Satoru up, “He’s a lightweight. And we watched a historical movie last night.”

“I can tell,” Choso grumbles, his face flushed now as Satoru’s monologue drifts like an aimless plastic bag in the wind, his words growing nonsensical as you reach over to pinch at his cheeks. He yelps but continues to babble on about how he and Choso are going to be best friends now, and they’re going to go shopping together, and ice-skating, and fruit-picking. All nonsense burbles being strung together by the tequila shots that Satoru swore he could handle an hour ago.

You glance over at Choso, faintly embarrassed, but he just laughs, a sound that’s unexpectedly light and unguarded. His fingers slide into yours once more, and the motion is gentle and natural, as though this, you, are exactly where he’s meant to be. And he drapes the wide expanse of his aviator jacket over your shoulders.

Meanwhile, Suguru is wrestling with Satoru, pushing him back down from his impromptu toast to your boyfriend, before the bartender can usher you all towards the exit. The burly man is already giving Satoru’s drunken proclamations a nasty look.

Shoko, of course, is grinning at you, a tankard of beer glimmering in front of her. Her eyes gleam with the sharpness of someone who’s won a decent amount of money in a bet. And Utahime is standing back with a faintly judgemental expression that only veils her gossipy curiosity, and a glum look as she passes wads of cash into Shoko’s waiting hands.

“They really do like me,” Choso murmurs, his voice low and almost carrying the undertone of vulnerability, alongside some quiet self-awareness.

You laugh, brushing your thumb over the back of his hand, leaning in to press a quick peck to the dark mark that streaks over his face, “They all have no choice. You’re my boyfriend now.”

The words slip out effortlessly, and for a moment, they hang between you like something solid and unspoken, as though saying it aloud has made it feel real in a way it never quite did before. Choso’s eyes flick to yours, and something shifts in his expression — just a slight softening around the edges.

Then, without warning, you lean in, closing the distance between you, and kiss him. It’s slow, deliberate, with none of the frantic energy of your first kiss but instead the quiet certainty of something just beginning to bloom. You feel the faintest sigh from Nanami in the background, the sound of Geto groaning as Gojo whoops with drunken delight.

The noise from the bar fades into nothing as you focus entirely on the warmth of Choso’s shy lips against yours, the gentle pressure as he presses more into you, the soft thud of his heartbeat where your hand rests over his chest. For that moment, it’s just you and him, and everything else is an afterthought.

“Okay! I’ve had enough of the lot of you snogging and yelling in my bar! And take stupid Jack Frost out with ya’!”

#choso kamo #choso kamo x reader #choso x reader #choso fluff #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen fluff #jjk fluff #jjk x you #choso x y/n #jjk choso #jjk fic #jujutsu kaisen x you #jjk angst #daphworks

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wwooyology · 8 months ago

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Rough Me Up | P.JS

「pairing」 : bf!jay x fem!reader 「word count」 : 4.2k

「synopsis」 : you and jay have been together for a few years and you couldn't be happier, but there's was something about your sex life that was just too plain. too vanilla. you wanted something more, but you were scared to ask so you rant to your best friend, only this is..... jay heard everything and he plans on giving you everything you want and more.

「genre」 : smut, tinge of fluff

「warnings」 : MINORS NOT INTERACT!!, cussing, mentions of porn, making out, degration, praising, petnames (princess, baby, love, slut, good girl...), choking, breath play, begging, oral (f. receiving), biting/marking, fingering, manhandling, dom!jay x sub!reader, slight teasing, cum eating, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, unprotected sex, cream pie, hair pulling, spitting, bulge kink, breeding kink, lmk if I missed anything!

「notes」 : I would like to wish a very beautiful girl a very happy birthday! happy birthday nessa (aka @heeslomll) I hope you've had an amazing day and that you enjoy this fic I pulled together as a present! I love you sm and can't wait to hear what you think 🤭

“You don’t get it Nia,” You pinched the bridge of your nose, eyes closed as you paced the ground by the end of you and Jay’s shared bed, “you and Jungwon actually have an interesting sex life.” you could recall the times that she had called gushing about all of the new things that they would try, whether you really wanted to know or not.

“Then talk to him girl, it wouldn’t hurt and hey maybe he’s just been scared you wouldn’t be into it.” Nia shrugged from the other side of the phone, she had heard this conversation from you countless times. Even more here as of late because you had just got off your period and were going insane because of ovulation.

You groaned once more, “what am I supposed to tell him? ‘Hey Jay I’m tired of the boring shit you should tie me up and fuck me till I pass out’ or maybe ‘I want you to pull my hair and spit in my mouth’.”

Nia burst out laughing on the other side of the phone causing you to roll your eyes as you walked over to the window. The thoughts of Jay doing all of those things to you were making you all hot and bothered, your thighs subconsciously rubbing together to try and relieve some of the pressure.

“Girl, how much porn have you been watching?” She asked between laughter, “just ask him if he would consider it, you know how much he cares about you y/n.”

You sigh, shaking your head. You knew she was right, that all you had to do was talk to Jay about it, but you couldn’t help but feel embarrassed by it. What if he thought that you didn’t enjoy the sex that you did have? Or what if he thought you were weird for being into the more kinkier side of things?

Clearing your throat you just decided that you would just keep your mouth shut, too embarrassed. Biting at your bottom lip you just told Nia that you would call her later and she sighed before saying goodbye and hanging up.

Your whole body felt warm, needing to fill your veins, but Jay was downstairs cooking dinner so you weren’t going to bother him. Trying to shake the feeling off a bit so you could take a shower to maybe cool off, you turned only for your breath to hitch in your throat.

Jay stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed over his chest. Your heart started to race, heat creeping up your neck, praying that he had just gotten there and didn’t hear a word of your conversation. Your tongue jutted out to wet your lips as you tried your best to keep his intense eye contact.

“H-Hey baby,” You cured yourself for stuttering, instantly giving yourself away. “Is dinner done?” You tried to keep your voice steady as you watched him push off of the door frame, walking towards you.

All of the hairs on your body stood up as Jay made his way closer, his eyes bore into you like a wolf stalking a rabbit. Swallowing thickly you started to back away with every step that he made towards you.

Your heart was beating loud enough that you were sure that he could hear it and your face felt so warm that you started to wonder how you hadn’t passed out yet.

“Jay?” You called out his name as your back came into contact with the wall, stopping your movements. “What are you-”

“You know…” He cut your words short as he closed the space between you, hand pressed against the wall next to your head taking in the panic in your eyes. Your heart nearly stopped when he leaned down until his lips were right next to your ear, “I never thought my sweet little princess was such a nasty slut.”

Your eyes went wide as he backed away to meet your eyes once more, he had heard the conversation. So many things started to spiral in your head, did he really think that? Had you grossed him out?

All of those thoughts came to a screeching halt when he grabbed your chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting your head up until his lips were merely inches away from yours. Your eyes flutter closed waiting for him to close the space between you. However, he doesn't instead he rubs your bottom lip with his thumb, prompting you to open your eyes.

“Is that something you really want, princess?” He asked, eyes searching yours as you looked up at him. Not having the courage to speak the words you went with nodding your head softly, but Jay just shook his, “I’mma need to hear you say it love.” His voice dropped an octave making your knees weak.

Swallowing thickly, “yes, I want this Jay. Please.” your voice was merely a whisper, but the male had heard it nonetheless.

“Good girl.” Jay’s voice was like honey, coxing you into a trance. Your eyes fluttered closed once more as he closed the gap between the both of you, stealing the air from your lungs. His lips were soft against yours, moving slowly as his hand moved from your chin to encase your throat causing a small squeak to leave you lips, but it was quickly swallowed by his lips.

“Jay.” You whined as he pulled his lips away from yours trailing down your jaw, nipping at the skin. The hand around your throat moved away allowing him to leave wet, hot kisses along your jugular.

You could feel your panties growing wetter and wetter by the second as his hands roamed your body, squeezing your hips before trailing down to your thighs.Before you could even process it Jay lifted you off of your feet, hoisting you up his hip. In seconds Jay’s lips were back on yours as he walked towards the bed, laying you down on the soft mattress. Small whines fell from your lips as his hands wandered from your inner thigh to your core, pressing down enough to elicit an actual moan from your lungs.

Jay pulled away from you so he could take in your dazed eyes, your kiss swollen lips and how your chest rose and fell with ragged breaths. He had been holding back for so long, thinking that you wouldn’t like how rough he could be, but seeing how desperately you had wanted it when you were on the phone with your friend. It was driving him crazy thinking about how much he could ruin you.

His eyes followed your hands as you reached for the hem of his shirt, but he was quick to grab your wrists, holding them in place.

“Here’s the deal baby,” He looked down at you with a lust filled gaze causing you to bite your lip, “if you want this, we’re doing things my way, meaning…” Dropping your hands he grabbed your thighs pulling your lower body flush against his and a gasp escaped from your lips as you felt his erection against your clothed core. “You just be a good girl and listen.”

You nodded quickly, the need to have him touch you growing way too strong to care. Jay smirked knowing that you were already losing yourself, making his job a bit easier. Biting his lip he leaned back over you, pressing his bulge against you, watching your eyes roll slightly.

His hands moved to the hem of your shorts, fingers looping around the band to pull them down. Your whole body was tingling with excitement, you weren’t sure what to expect but you were going to take anything and everything that he has to offer you.

“Jay, please.” You whined, lifting your hips slightly, your body shivering when you felt him against you.

Chuckling, Jay made quick work of your sleep shorts and underwear, leaving your bottom half completely bare. Once the articles of clothing were discarded elsewhere in the room, he moved down until he was face-to-face with your dripping cunt. Your heated gaze followed after him, watching in anticipation.

“Oh you’re dripping baby,” He teased as he spread your folds, taking in the way your hole clenched around nothing. A gasp fell from your lips when buried his face in your cunt, nose bumping your clit as he inhaled your scent. “Fuck princess, you smell so sweet.”

Your thighs already started to tremble when he licked a stripe up your slit before wrapping his lips around your clit. A loud moan ripped through your throat when he started to devour your pussy like it was his last meal.

“Fuck Jay!” You cried out, your hand flying to his head, finger gripping on his hair. You back arched off of the bed, pushing your hips further into his face causing him to groan. Jay was quick to press his hand flat down on your stomach, keeping you in place.

Choked moans fall from your lips as your head falls back, fingers gripping Jay’s hair tightly. The pain only spurred Jay on further.

Sparks flew across your vision as he moved down to your slit, tongue moving along your velvet walls while his nose rubbed your clit in ways that left you seeing stars. Your orgasm was right on the tip of your tongue and your legs shook on either side of his head.

“F-Fuck! Jay!” You cried out as your body started to spasm, toes curling as your orgasm washed over you. Your eyes nearly roll to the back of your head as he moves back up to your clit, sucking on it harshly. “Jay, ‘s too much.” Whimpers fall from your lips as he keeps up his pace throwing your body into overstimulation.

“You can take it baby,” He pulled away, allowing your vision to focus for a moment, until his fingers started to trace your entrance. “This is what you wanted after all.” Then he slipped his middle and ring finger inside of your soaping cunt with little to no resistance. Your back started to arch once more, but his hand on your stomach pressed down firmly causing you to whine.

“J-Jay… fuck!” You moaned out as the pace of his fingers picked up, rubbing one picurlier spot which left you lying there breathless. “Jay, shit please.”

Jay didn’t say a word as he latched his lips back to your clit, completely losing himself in the taste of you.

Your heartbeat was ringing in your ears as your mouth gaped open, your head falling back. Stars danced across your vision, your whole body shaking underneath Jay’s hold. The pace of his fingers was relentless as he easily found the spongy spot inside your pussy, making you cry out his name. Your whole body tingled as all of your senses became overwhelmed, thighs trembling, threatening to close. Noticing this, Jay took his hand from your stomach to grip one of your thighs tightly.

You weren’t able to give him a warning as you came around his fingers, as he continued to suck on your clit in time with his fingers. Feeling you squeeze around his fingers as you cried out his name left Jay groaning against you.

“Fuck baby, you came so much.” He cooed at you as his fingers continued to work into your sensitive cunt, prolonging your orgasm until you shook tremendously.

Tears prick at the corners of your eyes, threatening to fall as he rubs your sweet spot once more. Your hand falls from his hair to grab at his wrist, hoping to pull his hand away from your sensitive pussy.

“Come on, princess, give me one more.” He smirked as he kissed his way up your tummy, moving your shirt out of the way. You whined when his thumb made contact with your clit, your head falling back, allowing Jay to latch his lips to the soft skin of your neck.

“Jay, I can’t, please.” You whimpered as you clenched around his fingers once more, your orgasm right on the horizon, but Jay just sped his fingers up more, causing a choked moan to fall from your lips.

“Take it like a good girl, and stop whining.” He growled against your skin, making your head spin at the tone. Moving away from your neck, he hovered over you, taking in the fucked out expression on your face with a smug smirk. “You are a good girl, right?” He asked, watching in amusement when you shook your head vigorously, biting your bottom lip.

After a few more strokes of his fingers, you came undone around Jay’s fingers for the second time, your eyes rolling to the back of your head as silent screams fall from your lips. Jay’s fingers move along your silky walls, helping you ride out your orgasm.

Your chest heaved as Jay pulled his drenched digits from your core, bringing them up to tap on your bottom lip, looking at you expectantly. You looked at him with dazed, wide eyes.

“Go on, clean my fingers; this is your mess, after all.” He raised an eyebrow, tapping your lips once more, prompting you to open them. He watched with a smirk as you allowed him to stick his soaked fingers into your mouth.

Wrapping your lips around his fingers, tongue dancing around his digits. Your brain nearly short-circuited at the taste of your own release. Jay bit back a groan, his pants becoming uncomfortably tight.

Once he deemed his fingers clean enough, he pulled them from your mouth, watching the string of saliva grow thin until it snapped. You breathed deeply as he moved away from your body, tugging at the strings of his sweatpants.

Your eyes stayed trained on his body as he pulled his shirt over his head, allowing you to ogle at his toned stomach. Feeling your eyes on him, Jay looks over at you, meeting your eyes and sending you a wink. Heat crept up your neck as you kept his eye contact.

After Jay had discarded all of his clothing, letting his hard cock spring free, beads of precum decorating the tip. Your thighs clenched together at the sigh, mouth-watering, wanting nothing more than to crawl to him and let him use your throat until he was content. However, Jay had a different plan, leaving that idea for the next time.

Jay made his way back to the bed, sitting down where his back was pressed against the headboard. You sat up on shaky arms, watching and waiting for his instructions, not wanting to do anything against his command.

“Come here, princess.” He motioned you forward and you did as told, moving towards him on shaky legs.

His hands grab your hips as you straddle his waist, your heart hammering in your chest as the need starts to creep up your spine once more. One of your hands gripped his shoulder while the other went down to his dick, starting to line it up with your entrance. Jay couldn’t help but chuckle at how desperate you were to have him in you.

However, his grip on your hips tightened, keeping you from sinking down onto him fully. A whine tore through your throat as you looked at him with teary eyes. You tried to wiggle your hips as you felt his tip prodding at your entrance, but not quite going in.

“Mmm, what do good girls do?” He asked, leaning forward to press hot kisses along your collarbone. You whined, fingers digging into his forearms as you fought against his grip, just wanting to sink down onto him. Noticing that you weren’t going to do as he said, he pulled away, a hard gaze fixed on his features. “Don’t make me ask again.” Jay’s voice was cold, causing a shiver to run down your spine.

A whine fell from your lips as you met his heated gaze. The tears that pooled at your waterline broke free. Frustration bubbled in your chest, biting on the inside of your cheek. You wanted to talk back and tell him to just let you ride him, but you had a feeling that doing so would just result in the opposite. Then it clicked in your brain: This could be what gets you what you want.

“Just fuck me, Jay.” You sassed with a roll of your eyes and it was then that something switched in Jay’s mind. Something clouds his mind as he flips the two of you around until you are lying on your back, staring at him with wide eyes.

You opened your mouth to say something, but only a small squeak came out as he wrapped his fingers around your neck, squeezing. Your hand wrapped around his wrist, staring up at him, body wiggling underneath him in anticipation.

“What happened to my good girl?” Jay asked the corner of his lip twitching and his eyes growing dark.

You couldn’t help the smirk that started to spread on your lips. You were not entirely sure what was coming over you, but the insatiable need to act out was stronger than ever. The expression, however, only annoyed Jay further, though your next words finally pushed him over the edge.

“The good girl is gone, Jjong, fuck me like the slut that I am.” Your voice was sweet like honey as you stared up at him with doe eyes.

“So you wanna be treated like a slut?” He chuckled darkly, causing more heat to pool in the pit of your stomach, “then I’ll treat you like a slut.”

He then slid inside your wet heat in one go, causing your jaw to go slack, eyes rolling back. Broken moans fall through your lips as his pace picks up, not giving you a moment to adjust. His hold on your throat tightens as he fucks into you, dark spots clouding your vision.

“Who knew you were such a dirty girl?” Jay chuckled, hips snapping into yours, hitting all of the right spots deep inside of your cunt.

His hold on your throat tightens until you are left with very little oxygen supply, making your brain go hazy. Jay watched smugly as your mouth opened, gasping as he positioned his cock into your cunt. It wasn’t until your nails were digging into his wrist, gasping for breath and walls clenching around him tightly, that he loosened his grip, allowing you to breathe.

“Fuck baby, you’re squeezing me so tight.” Jay groaned, his other hand squeezing your hip to keep you in place. As you started to squirm, the sensitivity started to get to you. He watched as your mouth dropped open once more, and a thought flooded into his mind.

Leaning down, “Stick your tongue out, princess.” His voice was husky as he bit back a groan from how tight you were squeezing him, a tell-tale sign that you were close. You whined as he brushed over your sweet spot, pulling more tears from your eyes. Moving his hand from your neck, he grabs your cheeks, smooshing them together, making your eyes focus on him. “Stick your tongue out,” Jay repeated himself with a growl and this time you did as told, letting your tongue loll out.

Jay gathered a ball of saliva in his mouth before spitting into your mouth, watching as it slid down your tongue, which only made him ten times harder. When you closed your mouth to swallow without him telling you to do so, he groaned.

“Jay!” You screamed his name as he slammed into you roughly, inching you closer to your orgasm, black dots clouding your vision.

“Are you close already, baby?” He cooed mockingly as he removed his hand from your face to place it back on your throat, squeezing until a choked moan came from your lips. His other hand then moves down to circle your clit, eliciting a breathless cry from your lungs.

With a few more tweaks of his fingers on your little bundle of nerves had you falling over the edge. Your back arched off of the bed, a strangled cry falling from your lips as your walls started to flutter around Jay’s cock. Jay groaned loudly as he continued to pound into you, relishing in the lewd sounds that came from your spasming cunt.

“Fuck princess,” He chuckled but was cut off as you squeezed him rather tightly, nearly knocking him over the edge as well, but he wasn’t quite ready yet. So he slowed his movements until he was completely still, allowing you to breathe for just a moment.

“J-Jay…” You whined when he pulled out of your abused pussy, but you couldn’t help but feel empty and want nothing more than to have him stuff you full once more.

Just as you were about to open your mouth to beg him to fuck you full of his cum, he let go of your throat and flipped your body around until you were lying on your stomach. A gasp fell from your lips when he grabbed your hips to pull you up, laying on your knees and forearms.

“We’re not done yet, still gotta stuff my little slut full of my cum.” He teased your entrance with his tip once more, listening to your whines, “Stuff you so full you’ll be lucky I don’t get you pregnant.”

A choked gasp fell from your lips as he slid into once more, your cum and slick, making it far too easy to do so. Your eyes roll at the feeling of his tip hitting your cervix with each thrust, making your whole body tremble from the oversensitivity.

“You would like that thought, wouldn’t you?” Jay teased, hands gripping your hips tightly as he continued to fuck into you, “You’d look so fucking hot carrying my baby.” He groaned, just thinking about how swollen your belly would get or how big your breasts would grow; the thought nearly made him bust then and there.

“Please,” You cry out, face muffled by the pillows as your tears stained the fabric under you. Your brain turns into mush as he hits your sweet spot repeatedly, making stars dance across your vision.

However, Jay didn’t like how quiet you had gotten, wanting to hear every little sound you made. So he removed one hand from your hip to trail up your spine, leaving goosebumps in its wake until he got to your head. He wrapped his hand in your hair before tugging upward, lifting your body and causing a loud whine to slip from your lips.

“J-Jay, ‘s too much. I can’t-'' You cried out, tears spilling from your eyes. Your body felt overwhelmingly warm as another orgasm crept up your spine, tightening the knot in the pit of your stomach.

“You can, baby, I know you can.” Jay’s voice turned soft, making your mind reel as your head fell back onto his shoulder while his hands fell back to your hips.

Your vision was going hazy as you wrapped your hands around his forearm, trying to ground yourself. However, when Jay pressed down on the bulge in your lower tummy, that little band snapped, and you came all over his cock once more, silent cries falling from your lips as you went lightheaded.

“That’s my good girl; you did so good for me.” Jay cooed against your head, hand moving up to your sternum to hold you close to his body as his own orgasm hit, spilling deep into your womb. His thrust slowed until they came to a full stop inside, plugging his seed in your still tight hole.

Jay pressed soft kisses along your shoulder and neck, waiting until your breathing evened out and you opened your eyes. Once your eyes were open, he pressed a soft kiss against the skin of your cheek.

“Let’s get cleaned up so we can eat dinner.” He whispered softly, trailing kisses along your jaw. You inhaled deeply, trying to focus your vision before nodding, allowing him to take care of you like he normally does.

After you both cleaned up and ate dinner, you were sitting on the couch, cuddled up under a blanket, watching whatever movie you had agreed on. You lay against his chest, playing with his fingers that were wrapped around your waist.

“Princess,” His voice jolted you out of your thoughts, and you hummed, looking up at him. “Don’t ever be scared to talk to me about stuff like that, okay?” He told you, tightening his grip on your waist and pulling you further into him. “I want to make it enjoyable for both of us.”

You felt your chest tighten at the guilty look on his face. Turning around, you sat on your knees in front of him, cupping his face in your hands.

“I will. I promise, my love, and don’t feel guilty, please.” You pouted slightly before leaning forward and pressing a soft kiss to his lips. Jay chuckled against your lips before closing the gap and sealing your lips in a gentle and sweet kiss.

The two of you then parted, and you laid on his chest, relishing in his warmth. Jay wrapped his arms around you before turning his attention back to the TV. Not quite tired yet, but once you fell asleep, he turned everything off and carried you to bed.

@wwooyology | Do not steal, plagiarise, translate, or repost any of my work

𝖉𝖎𝖘𝖈𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖒𝖊𝖗 : ᴛʜɪꜱ ɪꜱ ɴᴏ ᴡᴀʏ ᴀ ᴛʀᴜᴇ ʀᴇᴘʀᴇꜱᴇɴᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ᴏꜰ ᴀɴʏ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀꜱ. ᴛʜɪꜱ ɪꜱ ᴘᴜʀᴇʟʏ ꜰɪᴄᴛɪᴏɴ ᴀɴᴅ ꜰᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ᴇɴᴊᴏʏᴍᴇɴᴛ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ ᴀɴᴅ ɴᴏᴛ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ ᴛᴀᴋᴇɴ ꜱᴇʀɪᴏᴜꜱʟʏ.

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janumun · 6 months ago

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A Bond Everlasting (LaDS Rafayel - NSFW)

Rated: NSFW/18+ Pairing: Rafayel/Reader Words: ~17k

Tags: soulmate AU (the red string of fate, with a twist), college setting (and they were roommates), angst with a happy ending, mutual pining, minor violence and action, scent kink, blow job, oral and vaginal sex, facial, multiple orgasms, vaginal fingering, overstimulation, merman knotting, sexual rut/Lemurian sexual cycle

Summary: Rafayel tries — and miserably fails — to forget the one his red thread weaved against once upon a time, even a decade after its break. Finding her, once more, years later, and residing within the same place as her doesn’t help his cause.

A/N: A happy very belated birthday gift to you, @chibamari. With all of my love and all of our favorite heartbreak, I hope you enjoy this, darling friend.

I. EBB

The red string of fate. Rafayel found he truly loathed the concept.

What was it, truly, if not just the Fates contemptuous scorn upon them?

Forcing kinship and eternity in between a pair that did not mould against the other. That would, if time given, drift apart as mere bottled wishes left traversing, lonely, across the seas.

And yet, the manacles remain celebrated, since time immemorial. As legends of the rare, and lucky few, destined to be bonded in harmony.

Rafayel used to be — once upon a time — part of the same foolery brigade as the rest of them, the day his red thread spun and found itself interweaved against his first, and last, love. To her, he promised a Lemurian’s vow of faithful eternity.

Until the day that blood-red thread quivered and ruptured apart, weakened by her absence.

Leaving to Rafayel only the hollow remains of a heart rejected. The brand of its mockery left behind as indelible remains of the severed — useless — string wound against his finger.

II. FLOW

Deft, practiced digits streak a brush across canvas; the truculent quality to his paint lines reflecting the agitated knot of Rafayel’s brow and the hand he scrubs through his hair in chagrin at constant-wheeling thoughts. Bold strokes; an amalgamation of bright colors — gentle turquoise and oceanic azure — setting into paper to shape unconscious form to his muse, for his current class.

It is only when he hears the ripple of applauding gasps behind — “You’re amazing, Senior Rafayel!” — is he knocked back into his senses, angling a stupefied gaze up at what he’s made of his project: originally an interpretation of the depths of the sea, the topic he’d presented his class for the day.

He notes, in no small proportion of growing aversion, the strokes of his brush having shaped form of a delicate back — hers — against the backdrop of a vast sea, reminiscent of home. His thoughts — he muses in self-derision — having lent unconscious connection in between his place of most comfort to the person who stood as his entire comfort.

Rafayel’s head throbs with heat, as if knelling the oncoming of a particularly harsh fever. Perhaps his less than perfect health was to blame for his momentary lapse of concentration.

“Is the lady underwater inspired by anyone in particular, Senior? Your brushwork for her seems particularly passionate.”

Rafayel’s mouth twitches into an insouciant, cool smile, he directs at his students. “Hmm I’m not sure. Perhaps, she’s inspired by that one mermaid movie they’re currently playing in theatres.”

“Oh, ‘Aquatic’? I’ve seen it!”

“Me too! It's really good.”

“The part where she turns to sea foam—”

A seamless lie; he lets it steer the focus of conversation away from him and his lapse in concentration. Turning back towards the board to proceed with his lecture.

Opting to teach a fine arts course to a bunch of junior year students, for extra annual credit, was clearly shaping to be one of the worst decisions he’d ever made.

Especially so, when the subject in question, he’d offered to teach for, in the first place, remained starkly absent throughout the duration of the lecture.

III. EBB

Shouldering open the door to their shared apartment, Rafayel steps inside, staggering under the weight of his stack of the newest arrival of deliveries. The apartment is silent, devoid of the sound of her characteristic pattering footsteps.

Depositing his packages down against the side of the sofa in the living room, he collapses back into the cushions, tuning a distasteful frown towards the empty kitchen counter. Recounting to mind, the events of this morning, having shepherded him into an entire day of distraction at the University.

“Ouch.” She hissed, a sound of surprise, wrenching her arm back from the sizzling frying pain at the spits of oil it spewed.

Rafayel released an exaggerated sigh at the sight, ambling over towards the kitchen. “Let me help.”

“You know, I’m perfectly capable of fixing breakfast on my own.” She attempted heroic reassurance, even as she easily treaded backwards to let Rafayel replace her at the stove.

“Yes, yes, I believe you. I'd still like to ensure you don’t burn our apartment to the ground while I’m away at work. My paintings are priceless treasures, you know.” He deftly takes the eggs off the stove and plates them before shoving her share at her. “There you go, Miss All-Capable.”

“Stop making fun of me.” She smiles in relieved gratitude, moving to set cutlery across the table. “And thank you.”

Rafayel swivels a puffed smile her way. “Whatever would you do without me?”

She shakes her head at him, attempting no effort to refute him. “Indeed.” Her fingers brush against his as she moves to pass him his share.

“Rafayel.” She sweeps a sudden grab at his hand, digits entwining in between his. “You’re a bit warmer than usual. Are you feeling sick?” She smooths a gentle hand across his forehead.

He feels his face burn darker at the sudden intimacy of their contact. “No, I don’t.” Instinctively jostling away from her touch. “I’m just tired, is all. I was up the entire night, after all.”

“You really need to fix that terrible habit of yours. A healthy body leads to a healthy mind!” Rafayel can’t tamp back the grin from his face at her chiding.

“Take better care of yourself. I can’t be here to keep you in check round the clock, you know.” She sighs in resignation.

“Yes, yes, my noisy Mistress.”

“Speaking of which,” She begins, just as Rafayel seats himself at the table. "I'll be out late tonight.”

Rafayel feels his smile frost over; a dreaded, sour feeling immediately spurning at the base of his belly.

“I have a study date with Caleb.” She does not meet his gaze, forking at her egg.

Rafayel hears himself speak before he can tuck back his impulsive thoughts. “You sure you should be trusting the man this much? I don’t—”

“’Like him.’ I know. I don’t know why you’re so biased against him, he’s a good person.”

The praise dredges bitterness across his tongue; ashy and tepid. His fork nearly stabs at his own food, a disapproving moue he knows is dark upon his face. “Sure,” he intones at last, grappling against his desire to ask her not to go, to spend her day with him instead. “Have fun.” An unfair burden he knows he throws onto her shoulders; he does not possess the right to dictate who she chooses to associate with.

And yet—

Rafayel’s gaze deliberately treks the line of red thread adorning his ring finger — treacherously cut off a few centimetres in and dissipating into nothingness. Following the absent line of it; her own finger sits vacant against the wooden table-top. An immeasurable dejection he isn’t able to shuck off, no matter how many times his eyes have witnessed its emptiness.

Perhaps she is right and he is sick, an inscrutable tremor setting into his fingers as they continue on with the rest of their meal in silence.

IV. FLOW

The oncoming dawn encroaches a gradual shell-pink spill of color across the velvet skies as Rafayel’s feverish gaze drags, listless, to the view past the patio windows, the bone-deep ache from the day past yet to recede.

The angry scrapes of charcoal rushed across paper, forgotten as the unfinished sketch drifts purposeless down onto the floor to join the rest of its discarded predecessors.

She has yet to return home — Rafayel had stayed up the entire night and remained planted, firm, within their lounge, to make sure he would be there to greet her on her return. She'd never been away from their apartment overnight.

Rafayel knows because he had — on more occasions than he could count and didn’t wish to acknowledge — found himself crumpled within cool sheets, self-confined to the privacy of his room, listening in to the comforting sounds of her padded, soft movements around their apartment.

She'd often slip back through their door, close to midnight — she made it a point, always, to return home, no matter the hour — after slaving away hours at the library for her Hunter exam. She'd try for quietude; he knew, so she wouldn’t disturb his absent sleep.

A gentle clink of mugs at the kitchen counter as she’d make herself a cup of a coffee in preparation of burning the midnight oil.

Despite having the physical structure of their apartment — a shelter and comfort in name — his room’s four-walled sanctity, it didn’t truly feel warm as a home until the moment she stepped past the threshold and into their shared space.

And only when he’d hear the soft crinkle of pages turning steadily as she’d settle herself onto the living room sofa to study, would he find himself beckoned into slumber. As if she too, knew on instinct, how her presence aimed to soothe, choosing to make space for her studies right where he could hear her, in the lounge, instead of the confines of her own room.

Yet now.

Midnight had come and gone, dawn scraping indigo for approaching light, and no signs of her return.

A long day behind him endured in feverish unrest and the toll of another sleepless night, doesn’t help disentangle burgeoning thoughts of her within the embrace of another man at that very moment, one not him. He can’t help but sorely curse himself for his ill-thought decision of staying the night up, waiting for her like some sorry love-struck fool.

Not that he would’ve been able to sleep, either way; a part of him mocked in muted whispers.

His thread throbs; a nipping bite of rejection and along with it, his body. Languid gaze absently trekking the severed thread, flickering incandescent against his ring finger. The constricting heat of it, as if traversing up his veins along with the fever within his body. Colluding against his heart, as if it wishes to eventually wither him up instead. A slow, bittersweet poison.

Rafayel feels nauseous.

He’s beginning to contemplate on retiring for the meagre, precious hours before his upcoming classes for the day — perhaps that bitterly strong liquor she’d stowed into the fridge earlier would help do the trick — just as the door lock clicks open.

The sound violently startles Rafayel out of winding, unheeded thoughts enough, he springs off the sofa just as she steps foot over the threshold.

Opening his mouth to put words to turbulent emotions — a million queries — before his questions wither off the tip of his tongue when he fixates a good, long look at her.

She appears downright exhausted and an instinctual, foreboding spurts forth in him. The look on her careworn face, light-snuffed gaze meeting his — Rafayel thinks, mirrors the state of his own affairs — before it dissipates into stifled surprise. “Rafayel, what’re you doing up—”

And before he can tamp himself back into composure, Rafayel’s striding the few paces it takes for him to reach her, dragging her into his embrace.

She stiffens at the contact on instinctual reflex, it chips away at another piece of his heart. Tightens the strangulating hold of his severed thread against his soul.

He hedges her tighter into his embrace, regardless. Head pitching down onto her shoulder; a hand he smooths down the line of her quivering back before she relaxes into him, at last.

“Rafayel—” Arms twitching by her side and up as she circles him within her own comfort, returning his warmth in the cling of desperate digits against the back of his shirt.

“You’re late. You're so late.” he gripes, half-hearted.

A beat. Two passes.

“Yeah, I’m sorry.”

A peculiar relationship; she calls them friends — close — inappropriately so and he’d agreed to be one, to her, if it were the sole thing that allowed him to be by her side. For her to not abandon him once more. A relationship edging something far gnarled than friendship.

He doesn’t believe even she has a name for what they share, in moments as these, where Rafayel forgets himself and the boundaries he holds himself to. Turns blind to pretenses and masks he fixates, so delicately crafted, for her benefit and the safety of his own heart.

He is not, however, a man strong enough to ignore the strain of his beloved’s gaze, tiredness rimming her entire being, she feels so brittle in his arms, and it ruins him to not know the cause of it.

“...Got something on your mind?” He murmurs into her hair.

“Perhaps.” Her response is slow, halting.

“Want to tell me what it is?” He breaks away from her, enough to let his eyes scour her face in stern scrutiny.

A whispered laugh escapes her at his inspection.

“...Rafayel, how do you feel about an early morning stroll with me?”

V. EBB

The shores of Whitesand Bay stretch empty within the wee hours of dawn, quiet, save for the twittering song of birds cutting across the sky and the gentle wash of waves at their bare feet as they amble along the sandy belt. She hasn’t uttered a word since, absent gaze trekking the gradual rise of the sun above the horizon, light flittering its diamonds across the lap of waves.

The easy access to the sea — and by extension, the remarkable view — was one of the reasons they’d jointly agreed upon renting an apartment this close to Whitesand Bay, two years prior. On any other usual occasion, Rafayel’s fingers would’ve been upon pen and paper, soaking inspiration up and through rough strokes, sketching across paper.

Now, however, his focus is all but entirely removed from his environment, vision honed in on her by his side.

“It’s a beautiful view, isn’t it?” She murmurs, gaze still fixated upon the horizon. “I’m not an early riser like you are so I’ve never seen the sunrise here up this close.”

She's skirting the issue, Rafayel has no mind to force her to spill her heart when she does not wish to.

For her, he is willing to remain patient.

Regardless of the consequences to his person.

He joins in on her flimsy facade.

“If only I wasn’t a little too aware of the fact.” Tapping a light fist against her temple, he angles a skewed smile down at her. “Despite my very arduous efforts to get you out of bed on multiple occasions, you’ve persisted in your terrible ways, Miss Hunter.” Heaving an exaggerated sigh. “You’re far too stubborn for your own good, I fear.”

That gets her breaking a smile, the tensed knitted worry within her gaze easing just that tiny bit; Rafayel plucks it up for the small reward it is. “A classic case of the pot calling the kettle black. Like you’re any less bull-headed.” She defends. “Don’t make me recount all the times you nearly gave poor Thomas a heart attack because your paintings weren’t ready even mere hours before the exhibitions they were supposed to be featured in.”

His mouth pulls into a distasteful moue at that. “Don’t tell me you’re on his side. He refuses to understand the world of difference it causes in between using cherry red or wine on a canvas. If it were up to that simpleton, he’d have me besmirch all my works, just for the sake of those trivial exhibitions.”

She chuckles. “Now, no need to get so worked-up. You know Thomas cares for you and wishes to have your talent recognized like it deserves to be.” She moves to seat herself by the shore, close to where the waves lick up at the sand. Rafayel follows suit.

“I know how much passion you pour into your paintings.” Crinkling a gentle smile up at him. “That’s exactly why I love your art so much.”

Rafayel’s heart catches at his throat at the easy slip of her compliment.

She's never been sparing with her appreciation of his artworks.

Ever since she’d chanced upon them a few years back when they’d only shortly been re-united at the time.

She’d always been generous and open with her admiration.

His heart, however, wasn’t immune to its traitorous stuttering, every single time at her attentions and praise.

Perhaps she discerns the look on his face, tapping into his emotions, or realizes the curious intimacy of her statement, she wrenches her gaze away from his. Rafayel swiftly feels the keen loss of it.

Silence sweeps once more between them, her gaze having drifted back into the seas and with it, the steady droop of her shoulders as she curves in tighter against her huddled knees. “It was a place, similar to this one, where we first met. A lost little human meeting a young Lemurian washed ashore.” Her voice barely hikes above an octave. “I didn’t think Lemurians existed for real before that, and to know I shared a red fate with one...”

His throat closes against a sharp inhale at her whisper, the first time she’s chosen to address their past severed bond, ever since their reunion.

Why now. He means to ask. A question that dissipates off the tip of his tongue, un-uttered.

“We were so young back then and I inadvertently hurt you. Ever since I moved away, and time just passed, regardless...” She pauses. “You must’ve really hated me for that, huh.” She angles a cautious smile at him.

I did not. Rafayel means to refute and yet his tongue refuses to cooperate.

She continues on, as if she had long perceived his answer and made peace with his supposed resentment of her, unperturbed by his lack of response. Her reaction vexes him.

“I’ve hurt someone dear to me again. Caleb—”

The familiar name spurns bitter within his chest. “Did he do something to you?” His fingers jam against coarse sand, snagging his thread tight against his ring finger.

“No! No. Caleb’s a good man, he’s been nothing but kind to me.”

Deep within the recesses of his heart, Rafayel knows it, he knows it only too well; he only wishes he could truly bring himself to hate him.

“He...” Her fingers tense harsher against her arms. “Last night, he asked me to be his girlfriend.”

His ring finger throbs; the missing line of its thread seeming to constrict against Rafayel’s neck.

“I turned him down.”

A quick, involuntary bite of wicked relief thrums at the back of his breastbone. And yet—

Why do you look as if your heart is shattering into a million pieces?

Rafayel’s mouth seems to form words on its own as if he wishes for his own demise. “Do you regret it?”

Her silence is a dagger that digs pointed, deep in between his ribs, the longer she lets it steep.

She meets his gaze, a turbulent question within hers, beseeching. “I don’t know… I don’t know if I should.” She looks as if she has more to speak, restive teeth biting into her lip to hold back unsaid thoughts.

Rafayel dares not parse the emotions he sees flittering within her eyes, dares not hope for what he cannot have. Not again, for his heart to fracture once more by setting up false narratives. He has loved and will love still for eternity — he doesn’t, however, have the tenacity to bear being abandoned again.

And so, he shutters himself, gaze wrenching away from hers, a frown knitting tight against his brow. “Whatever it is that you want, if it makes you happy, I want you to grab onto it for yourself.” Fingers brushing against hers from where they rest within the sand, index and middle lingering longer against the base of her ring finger. Before he moves, carding hesitant digits through the fall of her hair.

For it is the only way he knows how to love — regardless of broken vows — in her happiness, even if it would never be found by his side.

VI. FLOW

The dream stirs vivid beneath restless lids — Rafayel hasn’t dreamt of that time of theirs together in so long, a welcome awareness of his mind’s conjuring, he embraces in that moment.

Perhaps by-products of an exhausted, sick mind.

Or yearning for an unfulfilled wish.

A sweet sting of desire, just as the first time he remembers it. He lets himself drown deeper into the abyss of its calling.

He’d cut a boring class during first semester at college — he could no longer remember the subject — in lieu of chasing the path of an ambitious sparrow within a secluded spot. Located far back along the grounds of the college and protected further underneath the dense foliage of the overgrown greenery as he’d sat perched upon a bench, motionless and silent.

Save for the smooth rush of his pencil across his journal. Detailing the quest of the bird as it leapt across the grass towards a lazing cat, blissfully dodging the feline’s half-hearted attempt at pawing it away.

Tranquility rippled only at a surprising intrusion; she’d walked into his private space — she always seemed to find him — and he’d startled at her presence.

“Oh! Sorry. Rafayel, I thought I—”

Their relationship on strained ice at the time — neither of them choosing to dig up unfulfilled childhood vows or the break of their fated thread.

A hastened apology she’d tripped over, for disturbing him before her eyes had flickered to the open journal in his lap and she’d breathed an awed sound. Called it beautiful — a slip of the tongue, he could tell, from her demeanor.

They'd gotten back into conversation — albeit halting — after that.

The moment, a pivotal one, in Rafayel allowing himself to accept her back into his life, both emotionally and physically.

He recalls the citrus notes to her perfume as she’d tentatively seated herself by his side. The way her hair curled delicate against the curve of her cheek, beckoning Rafayel to dare a hand out and slip it back against her ear.

The unconscious brush of soft digits against his as she’d moved to accept the proffered journal from him, when she’d asked for permission to view more of his artworks.

The relief that had sunk into his marrow, body strung far too tight for so long — he felt each ache settle and ease, when she returned to his side. As if their bond still remained.

As if it had never fractured in the first place.

She moves to tug the curtains close, clipping back the last shafts of light from Rafayel’s room; his damp brow now decidedly relaxed in restless slumber, after being exposed to the heat of the sun for so long.

He’s made a habit of drawing his windows open at night, perhaps to relieve the fevered pitch of his body off the cool breeze wafting of the sea. Restive sleeplessness; keeping him tossing until near close to dawn, when she often catches him falling, thankfully, into exhaustive sleep at the end of his long, disturbed nights.

Rafayel had been out of sorts for nearly two weeks now; a distracted gaze and a listless stride his constant companions. Adamant and mulish in his response, at inquiring of his health, every time, that he was perfectly alright and merely plagued by the weariness of sleepless nights spent on his paintings.

Barely a day or two into that ridiculous spectacle of his before her patience with him had expired and she’d hauled him off to his room and strong-armed him into bed.

A rueful smile tugs at her mouth at the recollection of their silly argument then.

“Hey, ow. Easy, you’ll break me! Aaah... too late. I think I’ve already dislocated my wrist. My life as a painter is done for. Ow.”

“Rafayel. Shut up unless you want me to gag you as well.” Forcing the covers over his body; she glowered at him for obedience while she hastened to take his temperature.

Rafayel’s mouth soured deeper in distaste the longer she fretted over him. Opening his mouth, surely to protest, before she cut him off. “You’re running a low-grade fever.”

Pressing a gentle hand over his forehead, “Please, rest now.”

A knot twisted in between Rafayel’s brow at her plea. Threading his fingers against hers. “Alright, alright I will,” he murmured, a gentle thumb he smoothed against her furrowed brow. “So, stop making that face now.”

His agitation at his prolonged ill-health, however, had manifested in numerous half-finished drafts and rough sketches, he’d filled sheets upon sheets of paper with, littered upon his bed.

The subject matter of most, inexplicably similar in features; a fact that surprised her, for Rafayel had always been one for continual exploration of a wide variety of subjects in his artworks, rather than one stationary objective.

She reaches for one such sketch now, discarded by his bedside. Predictably, it is the same subject her eyes have grown accustomed to: the graceful arch of a person’s — a woman’s — back, the cascade of her hair shrouding her gaze from view. It is ethereal, haunting. Lonely.

And.

She exhales an unsteady breath. Although a mere unpolished sketch, she feels Rafayel’s longing in the hastened strokes of charcoal across her visage. An inscrutable sprout of emotion twinges at her chest each time she looks upon this faceless woman, a desire to tear her gaze away from the care put into the strokes and never look at them again and yet, it’s as if her hands are not her own, each time they sift through his sketches to reveal a new one made. She despises it, and the feeling of her selfish loathing itself. Not when she bears reason nor right to feel the way she does.

The ring finger of her right hand throbs, an echo of her turbulent emotions manifesting in the faint red restraint flickering against the base of her digit before it winks once more out of existence.

No.

Her gaze instinctually jumps to Rafayel, his prone form still deep in sleep.

She'd nearly forgotten the other reason for her undue distress these past couple of days; worry for Rafayel occupying each of her thoughts, leaving little space for much else.

She sinks, weak-kneed, onto the bed, right next to Rafayel. Carding her fingers through the soft brush of his hair, gently thumbing a line down his temple.

She’d thought her mind was conjuring illusive tricks the first few times she’d caught that fleeting flicker of red across her finger.

Impossible, for it had been nearly twelve years since she’d lost her bond after being forced away from Rafayel. And then, her eyes had insistently tried tracing the line of it, every time it shimmered against her finger, hoping that it would perhaps....

Just maybe, if a miracle were to occur—

That it would re-connect. Back to the only person she’d ever loved. Back to him, her beautiful Lemurian. That perhaps, he’d grant her another chance. That perhaps there was a sliver of hope that Rafayel would love her back once more.

Once more.

Her yearning dashed in the brutality of a truth, far too incomprehensible to her mind.

On the day her grandmother caught sight of her glimmering thread before she’d informed her with much joy; a red thread of fate, if once severed, made an appearance once more, within the lifetime of rare, chosen… fortunate individuals. If Fate ever ordained for the individuals to find new love once more. Another love so great, it changed Fate’s threads and course itself.

“You’re blessed, my darling girl. Most people are happy enough if they get to enjoy even one fated love throughout their lives. But you've found two in your lifetime. It is a joyous thing, my love, do not be sad. Do not weep.”

“...Perhaps, it is time you let him — let your past go.”

Like ice curdling within her veins. As if Fate itself were playing upon her a cruel jest. She could never. How could she ever?

And then, her denials had crumbled entirely, shortly after that dreaded truth.

Her oldest friend, her sole pillar when she’d lost Rafayel. The person who’d held her close and kept her heart safe—

When she’d lie in bed all day during her earliest days, screaming from the deluging fever of her bond withering.

—It was the day her childhood friend, her Caleb confessed.

Even without the evidence of a corporeal bond connecting them, that had been her last straw.

She presses her lips against Rafayel’s cheek, overwhelming emotions threatening to surge, unable to resist or hold herself in control. “I could never.” she vows under her breath, fingers stroking down the line of his cheek. “Even if you have let go of me, Rafayel, I’m—”

She feels the roughened pads of his digits against where she touches his face, perturbed at the sudden movement. His eyes flitter, restless, beneath his lids, grasp tightening upon her wrist. “My beloved bride.”

She tries and yanks herself away from his touch, startled at his unconscious murmuring. Rafayel does not let go, nudging his cheek against the crook of her captured palm.

“Rafayel.” She urges, her heart stuttering over its beats. “Rafayel, please wake up.”

At long last, he listens; that beautiful, florid gaze misted with the callings of sleep still, as it focuses on her. He makes an indiscrete sound. “Is it morning already? Agh, my head hurts.” He continues to nuzzle his face against her palm.

“R-Rafayel! Hey!” She winces, hand unbearably hot within his hold. “Let go of me now. If you’re up, have some breakfast instead. You need the energy, dummy.”

“Don’t want to let you go. Pamper me more.” And yet, he refuses to heed her lukewarm pleas, extremely wilful in his post-sleep, feverish daze.

She huffs out a breathless laugh, her apprehension ebbing, gentle, into silence the longer she feels his warmth against her.

Maybe she is allowed to indulge just a bit longer.

VII. EBB

An errant thread and an inexplicable long spell of heat, as if trudging up a steep path, burgeoning fast towards an inevitable destination he could not quite clutch at. Unsolicited suspicions, as to the true nature of his predicament, incessantly rapping at his thoughts.

Rafayel feels that dour twist to his brow; darkening his features at the wheeling course of his mind.

She’s caught him in similar moods since his “illness” commenced, more times than he can count. The endless time afforded his way, involuntarily threading his thoughts to places he doesn’t wish to visit. He doesn’t wish, ever, to alarm or upset her, setting to ease her thoughts the moment worry mars her features, testing index and middle against the sharp knot at her forehead before his attentions — and hers — are compelled entirely her way.

That is also something that has shifted in between them, into something entirely different. He’s been unusually attuned to her for the duration of his peculiar period of ill-health.

She has always been his primary muse, the focal point where all of Rafayel’s tangled thoughts find eventual and inevitable convergence. However, somehow, all of those sensibilities have turned sharper, impossibly aware of... her.

Unconsciously turning to placations the moment he comprehends her distress. Choosing to bury, in turn; soothe the heat of his body within the scent of hers. Her hands on him when she fusses to take his temperature, her clothes, he takes a surreptitious, lungful breath of, when she moves close to towel the fevered sweat off his body. Truly, he does not understand what is wrong with him.

Two weeks in now and his need for answers has driven him to near madness. He’s loathe to admit he must consult one, perhaps, more knowledgeable on the subject than he.

He paces into the lounge, heavy in thought, fingers worrying at the phone in hand.

“Oh, you’re up. Are you feeling any better?” Just as she calls over to him from the kitchen counter.

“Of course,” he fibs, tucking the phone back into the pocket of his trousers. He ambles over to her, dressed neat in her trainee uniform as she works a paring knife around an apple. “What’re you doing?”

“You should have something healthy to eat while I’m away.”

“Ah.” He plucks a piece of fruit off the plate next to her, eyeing the peculiar shape. “So, you decided to cut me some apple bunnies.” The corners of his mouth drag into a skewed grin. “I am not a child, cutie.”

She makes an inflated motion of surprise, pressing a hand against her chest. “Really?”

And when he rolls his eyes at her, “Of course you aren’t,” she grins. “I’ve never met any children as stubborn as you.”

“Cheeky.” He flicks a gentle hand against her forehead.

His eyes skim towards the wall clock and back towards her neatly pressed outfit. “You have an on-field Hunter’s exam this afternoon, don’t you? You’ll be late if you dawdle any longer. Besides, I can feed myself just fine.”

She startles a bit as her eyes, too, take note of the hour. Hastily shoving the plate of her fresh cut fruit into his hands. “Alright, I’ll leave. You better eat, then rest up. Don’t exert yourself, alright?”

She steps past the counter. “Come, Kiki.” A white dutiful ball of fur capers up to her as soon as she calls. Rafayel hedges further against the counter just as the white ball tumbles into her waiting arms.

“There, what a good girl you are!” She croons over the cat, petting at that little fiend pet of her friend’s. She rises to her feet.

“I’ll drop her off at Tara’s before heading to the centre.”

“Good riddance,” Rafayel mutters, blenching just as she moves closer with the cat still in her arms.

“Rude, I’m sad to see her go so soon.” She pulls a glum face at him. “Do you want to pet her goodbye before she leaves and you start missing her?”

“I won’t,” He dissents, even as he braves the tips of his fingers against Kiki’s head in a cautious scritch before snapping his hand right back. “Bye, white menace.”

Rafayel’s moue of specious disapproval turns deeper with her knowing grin. “Let’s go now that you’ve said your farewells to Uncle Rafayel.” She kisses the top of the cat’s head as it purrs in elated satisfaction at her attentions.

He quirks a flippant brow at her. “All affections for the furry feline, I see.”

She laughs, the sound an aching balm against long-wrought nerves. “Why, is my fish jealous of a little kitten? Come here, then.”

“I am not—!” He sputters, just as her hand curves about the back of his neck and pulls downward, pressing a quick kiss to his forehead.

The previously simmering, barely tamped warmth of his body bursts forth with a brilliant vengeance, his skin set ablaze at just the graze of her touch. Rafayel has to actively constrain himself from keeling over entirely on the floor from his sudden deluge of emotions. Has to curb the quiver of his arms from wanting to steal that heat back against his body.

She draws back, just as swift, on her feet. The pink of her cheeks is infectious, enticing. Rafayel stares at her, mute and slack-jawed, even as she backs out of the kitchen and through the front door. “I’ll see you tonight, my little fish!” And then he’s left to his own spiraling thoughts.

Ah. Rafayel scrubs agitated palms down the length of his face in the ensuing silence of their home. His scarlet thread burns incandescent in his hind-vision, flittering in its sporadic expansion. If only she knew how entirely ruined he was at her feet, alone.

VIII. FLOW

“You rejected Caleb’s confession?”

She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t anticipated Tara’s baffled outburst.

It was part of the reason why she chose to reveal the ‘news’ to her this unceremoniously, as she gently eased Kiki over into Tara’s arms while they stood at her open front door. She adored Tara but was of no mind to be sat down at length while her best friend grilled the details out of her.

Not ready for the difficult conversations that would ensue; of her past grievances, the break of her fated thread and how she dreaded, within a dark crevice of her heart, that Caleb might turn out to be the one her Fate was once more, trying to bind her to. How could she even begin to delineate it wasn’t what she wanted?

No, she wasn’t ready for that conversation with Tara, at all.

“I’m going to be late for my exam, Tara.” She gives her a contrite smile.

“Yes, I know, sorry, darling, but… why? I really thought things were well between you too. And I was sure there was something going on—! I— can’t you say?” Her friend’s gaze is weighty, imploring. “Is there... someone else?” Her eyes widen. “Is it—”

And the longer she’s met with terse silence, the heat of her gaze wanes in gradual realization before, at last, she retreats her onslaught, a troubled groan leaving her lips. “At least tell me you’re alright. I’ve been worried about you.”

“I know, Tara, I’m sorry. I’m perfectly fine.” She gives her free hand a squeeze before withdrawing back a few steps. “I should really go now.”

Tara loses another sigh. “You really should. Promise we’ll catch up later?”

“I promise.” She raises her hand in farewell, jogging down the few steps to her house.

Tara calls out to her just as she reaches the foot of her stairs. “Good luck, girl! I’m cheering for you.”

She flashes her friend an appreciative smile.

With Tara, she really can’t be sure if she meant her encouragement for her qualifying physical exam. Or something else entirely.

Knowing her friend, it was probably both.

She reaches the examination centre just under the wire, right as the towering gates to the grounds swing shut behind her and two other late-comers.

Toggling open her Hunter’s Watch, she hastens to join the formation up ahead of several other students, already lined in neat rows for their on-field Wanderers exam. Sidling in place, into her empty spot, just as the instructor in front drones on the list of rules for the exam, from upon his podium. “You are to form pairs of two, as per your roll numbers and enter your designated Protofields, to commence your exam. Before you begin, make sure...”

He goes over the structures of the regulations one by one, detailing what actions would mete them points and what would deduct them in case of improper conduct.

“These Protofields have been simulated under intensively controlled environments and contain a plethora of C and B-grade Wanderers you are to deal with, within the desired time limit. Coordinate with your partner, watch each other’s backs and follow all routine safety regulations. Violators will be disqualified on the spot.” He continues. “Keep within bounds of all marked fields, maintain your senses and you should do well. Lastly, trust your education and the skills you have acquired over the course of these years via means of your perseverance and hard work. May you reign victorious, young Hunters!” With his final words, the crowd disperses, heading towards their designated spots for their exams.

She taps her fingers against her Hunter’s Watch, pulling up the specifications of the Protofield she is to clear, before setting out.

“Gabriel? Hi.” She calls to her team-mate as she moves to join him, recognizing the man from the same class division as hers.

He returns her greeting, the two setting to sync their data via their watches within the final minute countdown before their exam commences. The flux nexus, in front, pulses to life upon confirmation of both their identities, filtering its pre-programmed wavelength to project upon the barren field. A kaleidoscopic flitter of energy wheeling across the space once is their only indication of a protofield activated, before the two step forwards, cautious, weapons at the ready.

“No.” Rafayel’s jaw steels in chagrin, hearing the resigned, gentle finality of the words on the other end of the line.

“Rafayel...” Talia coaxes.

“I said no. You’re wrong.” He gnashes out, even as the heat simmers, muggy and suffocating, within his body. Even as he continues to deny the indubitable truth of her words.

For if he did, he would have to face the looming fate of another horrifying possibility.

The regret of asking for Talia’s help sits heavy within his throat. Facts she utters in such certitude, it leaves Rafayel irrationally agitated. He knows it is not her fault.

He hears her soft sigh on the other end of the line. “You told me you’ve been suffering these bouts of ‘fever’ since the past two weeks, an ‘illness’ that refuses to abate and that your...” She pauses, as if seeking words best to voice her next. “incomplete thread has been showing sporadic signs as of late.”

“Yes.” His voice is quiet, stiff.

“Rafayel, you’re experiencing early symptoms of an oncoming rut and you know it. You feel it. You didn’t need to call me, when you’re well-informed on the matter yourself, even if you’ve never experienced it before.” She pauses. “The only reason you reached out to me is that you wanted me to validate your suspicions, isn’t that right?”

He does not respond to her astute observation.

“An unmated Lemurian cannot experience sexual cycles the same way as a bonded Lemurian. And as you are well-aware, my thread was long severed.” He refutes, contemptuous. “You know what, forget I asked. You clearly don’t understand what’s wrong with me any better than I do. Sorry for crashing your honeymoon. Goodbye, Talia.”

“Is your thread truly severed, Rafayel?” Her voice rings, solemn, from the other end of the line, just as Rafayel moves to disconnect the call. He pauses, gaze involuntarily skewing towards his lengthening line of red thread. The frown in between his brow turns severe, as if being coerced to witness a sight against his will.

“You’re experiencing a re-connection and you’re not allowing yourself the happiness that comes with new love. It’s a rare and beautiful thing, for your red fate to find itself weaved against a new person you would cherish.”

Rafayel does not have the resolve to discredit her words despite his vehement disagreement; having known her experience the loss of her first love, the agony of her days after. And only years later, had she allowed herself to love once more, a happiness Rafayel was content to stand in observance to, glad at her well-deserved peace.

He, however, was different from Talia. He’d rather his Fate dissipate entirely than for it to wind itself against a stranger. He was different, for Rafayel knew he would never love again, never cherish another, no matter the decades in between.

For him, there would never be anyone else.

A transitory pressure curdles heavy about her shoulders as they pace past the barrier and into the protofield. The familiarity of their training grounds dwindles away, large looming falls of thick trees rising, ominous, to blot the skies. Blanketing twilight, instantaneous, overhead. A slow, sweeping curl of gray, mists about their feet, soaking into the dank ground beneath.

Beside her, she hears Gabriel’s apprehensive breaths. “I can never get used to this.”

Weapons at the ready, they trudge a slow, cautious path through the simulated wilderness. Gnarled branches seize and snick at their clothes, the craggy mire beneath, a strenuous trudge to keep upright through; as if the forest itself were alive with wicked intent.

Gabriel’s firearm is the first to go off in a thunderous shot, breaking a flock of obsidian birds to startle into the skies. She follows suit, breaking into a dash along with him; the dark, hunched figure of a fleet-footed Wanderer she aims her gun at and fires, the shot catching it right against its head. The creature lurches forwards onto its body in a seething screech of sound, following its crackling demise into a spoor of pungent smoke.

The two maintain their steady pace of weeding the area of Wanderers, most they’re able to dispatch with ease. Reflexes and hard ingrained years of training coming into play, the more battles they win through, setting into an easy rhythm of partnership.

The Wanderer Gabriel skews his sword through in a final thrust, disintegrates into smoke with a rattling gurgle. She pauses to survey their surroundings, the deep, metallic skies yet to dissipate entirely: indication of a cleared exam. Up ahead, she spies a peculiar forking at the path, the protofield seeming to disperse into dense, murky mist past the intersection. Gabriel flicks the blood off his sword, moving to join her. “Strange.”

“Yeah. I don’t think low grade Wanderers can distort protofields to this extent.” She agrees.

“Likely an A grade, at least. Shouldn’t be harder than what we’ve handled so far.” He pauses. “Besides the fact that this one seems like it can replicate itself into weaker copies, judging from the splice it’s created in the field.”

She frowns at his conclusion, likely accurate. There shouldn’t be an A grade on the loose within a junior hunter’s exam, to begin with; a Wanderer class reserved only for the final year senior field exam. Signals are, as expected sparse, this deep within the protofield, and with an A grade, at hand, tampering the protofield, the possibility of communications being established sits non-existent, at present. She drops a distress signal onto the Hunter’s site, regardless, moving to join him at the fork.

“We’ll have to clear out the Wanderer, either way, if we want to leave this protofield.” She swipes her empty magazine for a new one, securing it fast back into her gun.

“Right.” Gabriel’s own fist tightens against the hilt of his sword. “You take the right, I’ll take the left? The distortion should be obliterated on its own once we eliminate all of its copies. I’ll see you soon, partner.”

“Right back at you. Good luck.”

Gabriel flashes a flimsy grin at her before treading onto the left path. A swift heavy oppression belts massive across the field, the compression settling a deafening din to her ears. “Hah, Gabriel, wait—”

But it’s too late. Her partner’s form, long digested by the roiling clouds of black before she can call him back.

Something’s not right. An A-grade Wanderer shouldn’t be able to exert that kind of pressure.

An electromagnetic resonance tremors across the space, as if something rattles at the confines of the protofield from beyond. Wanting in.

Sweat gathers clammy and unpleasant across the back of her neck, her eyes skittering back towards where Gabriel vanished into the murk.

She firms a hand around her gun, steeling her spine for courage. Whatever anomaly has occurred within the premises of their exam can be dealt with later. Her first priority; to help Gabriel out in eliminating all of the A-grade's clones and dissipating the distortion in front before they planned their next move. And help would arrive soon, once transmission allowed her distress signal to go through, they just had to hold on until then; she reassures herself.

Moving forward to stride past the muted obsidian barrier at her right.

The dark cloak of the Wanderer’s protofield washes across her skin like skidding, frigid fingers of emptiness, it spills an involuntary shiver down her spine.

The cold, metallic spires of the protofield taper off into the void overhead as she steps onto the main field. A skittering figure, one, two, three; lunge, whip-swift, towards her as soon as they spot her, gaping maws and needle teeth poised to tear into her before her fight or flight reflexes jam in. She empties a volley of bullets into their bodies, sieving clean through the approaching Wanderers. Lobs of inhumane flesh, dissipating as soon as they hit the ground.

Several far smaller figures melt out of the darkness to aim their attacks at her; one after the other she takes down in swift shots. Breaths trembling harsh and hot, her heart hammering over its frantic beats the longer the fight persists.

A fatigued mistake; being mere seconds slow to switch her empty gun for another, costs her a hard, long gash sliced through the sleeve of her shoulder by the remaining Wanderer. Fire licks up across her arm in a sudden shock of pain, muted instantaneously underneath the roiling pump of adrenaline. She wrenches a dagger off her leg strap. Twisting her torso about to bring her uninjured arm up in a sharp arc, furiously tearing a split through the last Wanderer with a fierce yell and the remnants of her fraying stamina.

The Wanderer’s remains snivel into a fire just as it hits the ground, the cool, metallic gloom giving way to the unraveling edges of the original forest once more.

And just as her eyes adjust to the shadows of the protofield once more, she catches sight of a figure slumped upon the grass, unmoving. “Gabriel!” She yells, forcing her limbs underneath her through the pained grit of bared teeth. Clutching hard at her arm to stopper the slow rivulets of blood flow seeping from the gash before she stumbles across the grass towards the man.

Her Hunter’s Watch blinks, in indication of a transmission successful — her distress signal. Collapsing to her knees at Gabriel’s side just as her watch flares to life in blaring red, an ominous warning running across the screen.

S-Grade: Deluge Wyrmlord. Protofield type: Memory Distortion Solo Hunters, do not engage.

Her mouth runs dry at the far calls of her name—

“Special Grade—!” Gabriel’s voice resounds just from across the field. “—Run!”

The collapsed figure at her feet assimilating into thin air, a trick blanketed over her weary mind, by the workings of a high-class Wanderer.

She feels that intense bone-crushing pressure creep across her back once more, her breath coming through in fits of raspy air. Fixing the barrel of her gun back across her shoulder, she fires, just as a great, dark talon comes across her face, drowning her in darkness.

The call has barely disconnected when Rafayel tosses the phone aside, staggering onto his feet under the heated weight of his body. His eyes drift — an involuntary reflex — towards that squeamish glow of red, his thread flickering in and out of sight, the extended length of it, an alarming sight. Vexation ticks harsh at his jaw.

Before he’s able to reign control, the spits of a brilliant vermillion fire spurt forth from tapered digits, rushing across the incorporeal red string, in an effort to blaze the blasted thing off of him entirely.

The fire dissipates, harmless, as expected, with the absence of a pure solid medium to burn. His thread glimmers to life once more, as if deriding Rafayel with its presence.

Beyond agitated, fervent digits pluck upwards, summoning his Evol to life for a stronger burst of energy —

A sudden inundating contraction pierces in vengeance across his heart, sending a bolt of excruciating pain lancing through his chest. Rafayel flounders; violently pitching to his knees from the intensity of its sensations. His breaths are hard to smother past lungs that burn for oxygen and yet refuse to inhale.

Red throbs, vivid and urgent, across his ring finger, as if the call of a terrible siren, knelling of ill-fate and destruction.

His own fire, begs to consume, hurtling across his skin, a throat that chokes from the fervid heat of his bond, threatening to annihilate him entirely. He feels his humane features molding against the translucent glimmer of cerulean scales, his human form scattering in response to the irrefragable call of his bond, his mate.

She’s in danger.

Alarming apprehension dawns upon his mind, the sole thought of her throttling his mind, his oath promised, urging to call upon the one person her thread connects to, a Fate irrefutable, a bond everlasting.

No.

A savage inferno tears across Rafayel’s body — scarlet and florid licks of fire — until it engulfs him entirely, leaving nothing in its wake.

Silence is all that remains behind.

IX. EBB [TW for this chapter: passing mentions of domestic abuse]

White peels back from her field of vision; slowly revealing to her the dreary, stifling atmosphere of an incredibly familiar room. A young girl stands amidst a crowd of mourning adults, some in loud tears. Others who secrete their faces into handkerchiefs and shake their heads in dismay at the “poor orphan”. Nausea wrestles pungent within her belly at the sight.

Her gaze, involuntarily shepherded, past the throng of mourners and towards the picture of the deceased — she knows that face before she sees it — her absent father who had often left her to her own devices, save for the times he was not actively trying to assault her with stray bottles of alcohol, laying in plain sight or the utensils and plates she used to serve his meals, on days he wore down all of their expenses for another swig of tepid, cheap alcohol.

She knows the child in front of her now feels neither sadness nor remorse as people who call themselves her relatives step over, one after the other, offering words of specious pity and solace she has no use of.

It was also the day she’d met her Grandma for the first time.

The scene in front falls out from beneath her feet, traded for the sounds of defeated shrieks and futile violence in the tiny fists that try and shove off the social workers, from bodily dragging her away from the familiarity of her old house. The young girl screams and screams for Rafayel, begs them not to take her away, that she doesn’t want to live with her Grandma several cities across the seas; a gap so wide, how would she ever find the only person who had meant the entire world to her, once more? She hadn’t even told him she was leaving. They wouldn’t let her leave the house, for fear she might run away.

Her head throbs in vicious pain, ominous tendrils of rooted fire curling through the recesses of her brain as she watches the girl’s — her — futile resistance.

A gibbering shadow skates past the edges of her vision. She feels like she’s forgetting something direly important, skirting just past the edge of memory.

The young girl never told the adults around her of the young Lemurian boy — bonded though they were. She knew of the dark whispers that coiled through the cesspool she lived within, how the Lemurians were a species, well-coveted for how steeply priced their bodies sold for, within the black market.

Her fierce possession and numbing worry for her vulnerable Lemurian had kept her from ever revealing her thread in another’s presence. For how had any of the adults stepped up to be her protectors, ever, in the young girl’s life? She trusted no one, save for herself and her sole mer-friend. She'd promised him they’d stay together forever; she’d vowed upon the sole pair of glimmering seashells, they’d found sanded within their beach, that she’d marry him when they grew up. She had—

Obsidian smoke curls about her limbs, seeps into her lungs; a slow, poisonous ingestion. The deep, dark dreary roar of a beast sounds from afar, within the recesses of her memories.

“You abandoned me.” She whips on her heel, coming face to face with her young Lemurian, eyes listless, lightless.

“No.” She totters away from the horror of her nightmares manifested.

An ice-cold hand wraps about her torn sleeve, digits digging deep into her wound. She cries out in instinctive pain, wrenching at her arm in an effort to free it. Her wild gaze meets Rafayel’s. Older, far frigid; the present Rafayel looks at her with an insouciant emptiness, it tears at the heart bruising within her chest. “You abandoned me,” he repeats.

His hand jams about her throat, lifting her clean off her feet. She throttles violently within his grasp, breaths coming in rapid, tapering hisses. “And then, like the rest of those shameless humans, you thought it wise to appear before my eyes once more.” The pressure upon her wind-pipe increases, bit by bit, forcing tears into wide, panicked eyes. “You wanted to capture me too, didn’t you? You're just like the rest of them.” Rafayel’s just ire, cleaves like knives shoved right beneath her breastbone, bleeding out her heart.

It’s an illusion, Rafayel would never. A stray whisper catches at her ears.

“Would I really never? Well, aren't your thoughts so convenient. Admit it, you’ve always known.” Rafayel’s gaze is dark in barely tamped wrath and disgust. “I despise you, you and all your kind.”

“R-Rafayel...” The dull, grey curl of smoke — previously shifting in wait at the edges of her vision — approaches nearer, her defences swiftly waning underneath his assault. Fingers, she scraps bloody against his grip upon her throat, and yet he refuses to relent.

“It would be better for you to perish here, no? You'll leave me free to live my own life then. I would no longer be shackled to you like some pet.”

“Y-You were never—”

A furious scarlet fire splinters a path through Rafayel — his body distorts out of existence for a moment before he gathers form once more. A surprised brow he raises in question at the interference.

“Snap out of it!”

Rafayel?

Her swimming gaze hones in on her beloved, from across the indifferent Rafayel’s shoulder, surely another wraith of her mind; wide blown panic, turbulent within his gaze.

“What do you think you’re doing believing that sham?” Another burst of Evol sparks across his fingers, aimed at the other Rafayel.

“You must trust me, believe in me alone.” Another volley of enraged fire skewers through the Rafayel holding her captive — cleaving past him harmless — the latter views him as if he were an offending impediment. “That thing is not me. It’s trying to devour you!”

“Shut up,” the colder Rafayel speaks, hand jamming tighter against her throat, causing precious breaths to come through stuttered wheezes.

The other Rafayel steps forward, a desperate hand he holds outstretched for her; an electromagnetic interference rippling about his body, stalling his further motions. “You have to believe the truth in front of your eyes — believe me — to be free of its prison. I have never, not for a moment, held our past against you.”

“An imposter,” the cruel one says.

Rafayel drives another step forwards, through the whipping waves of the scape’s resistance, snicking wounds across his jaw, tearing at his clothes. “I don’t regret meeting you.” The gentle azure of his gaze sparks vivid in a deluge of emotions; misery, panic and hopeful sincerity commingling. You were — you have always been my greatest joy, my only muse.”

The Rafayel that holds her captive bites out an inhumane bark, eyes fading swiftly into obsidian. “I hate you, I’ve always hated you.”

“Do you remember,” Rafayel urges, heaving another step closer. “the seashells you used to weave into necklaces and put on me when we first met? You told me they made me seem as brilliant as a Sea God, your Sea God, when you did.”A splintered laugh escapes his mouth at the recollection. “Even when I told you the ocean’s gods didn’t wear necklaces made of shells.”

His voice breaks, emotions raw and desperate within the throaty catch of it, dragging her down the spiral of fond memories. “And the songs you used to hum for us in that odd, off-note voice when you were happy, you’ve retained that silly habit long even into your adult years now.”

Emotions spurt and tumble free-fall from the inky desolation of her heart, tearing open at the seams of doubts and guilt.

“And when you are mad, the reckless storm that gathers at your face is endearing. When you forgive me just as easily, the smile that lights your face...”

A distant rumble sounds through the scape of your illusions, world crumbling apart at the seams.

“I remember it all, like irreplaceable ornaments, treasures. Without you, I—” He bites back, harsh, at his words. The curious blue sheen across his face, glimmers.

Eyes that glisten in moisture that threatens to seep past damp lashes; Rafayel’s eyes fall shut in a scraped plea.

Emotions fueled by the catch of a distraught mind though he were, his words snag, painful, at her throat, springing tears to flow free-fall, at the comfort of his tender confessions. She, too, remembered all there was to know about him, her Rafayel, because of how she adored him. His words and steadfast affection seeping gentle into her mind now, in swift recollection.

The great, dark beast in front has long shed its false skins, rattling useless in the face of her realization; it wrenches away from her body as if burned. “Pestilent humans.” As it flees entirely from the scape of illusions, great, dark fractures spilling up the space with its departure.

She drops towards the disintegrating floor, once released, heaving in great lungfuls of air. Rafayel — the wraith of her mind — lunges forward, snatching her body mid-air against his as they fall, with the demolition of the Wanderer’s illusions shattered from her mind.

A deluging rush of remembrance; the exam, the Wanderer, of being dragged into darkness by the Deluge Wyrmlord tumbles back into a now clear mind.

And this Rafayel, having stood witness to all her memories.

He lands on nimble feet, upon the now revealed protofield of the Wanderer; the weight of his Evol, she feels, scatter into the air.

“You’re injured.” He mourns softly, fingers glancing gentle against the abrasion of her throat from where the Wanderer choked her, down her bruised arm, the blood long staunched in dark red across the cut.

“I’ll be fine.” She cradles his face within a careful palm, face softening in overwhelming gratitude. If only she, too, could tell him how much she truly loved him.

Rafayel makes a skeptical sound of disapproval. A hand, he sifts up into her hair and curls about the back of her head. “Hold still.” And before she can finally think to question why a figment of her mind still persists outside the cast illusion, Rafayel is pressing his lips against hers, mouth moving to part hers until she feels warmth flow into her, the shock of his actions making her throat swallow around him on instinct.

The dull throb at her arm, the cuts and bruises across her aching legs — breaths that seep in easier, with the patched abrasions of her throat — give way to strength as she witnesses her wounds stitch up, in disbelieving surprise.

“A Lemurian’s essence holds healing properties,” He breathes, heated against her lips. “our tears, saliva—” He pauses. “You’ll feel better soon.” The fever of his skin beneath her grasping fingertips, his shallow breaths come in quick; the flush across his cheekbones feels much too corporeal to be mere figment of her imagination.

Her eyes widen in disbelief, mind refusing to comprehend his presence. Restless hands tracing the shape of his firm body underneath hers; his neck, the strength of his shoulders, down the unyielding expanse of a solid chest.

It just couldn’t be.

“Are you... real?” She slips a palm about the curve of his cheek, index and finger pinching at the flesh. “You can’t be real, you can’t be here.”

Rafayel chokes on an incredulous laugh. “What an inane question, can’t you tell, silly girl?” He sounds offended.

A plethora of questions tumble within her mind as Rafayel bumps his forehead up against hers, moisture glistening like pearls upon his cheeks. “I can sense you. And I felt it, when I nearly lost you.” He grits out the words, chagrined; breath hitching in pain as if reliving a nightmare.

Her heart shrivels at his admission, aching gaze tracing the outline of his Lemurian features. “But, I... I don’t understand. You look so different, Rafayel, what—”

A great ominous roar sounds from the center of the protofield, the Wanderer now having recovered from its short rebuttal of having been torn away from its prey.

Rafayel lets her down onto her feet cautiously. Taking her hand in his, his skin sits unbearably warm against hers, “Questions later. We have to get rid of that Wanderer right now. Come on.”

She nods at him, the two turning to face the Wanderer before they fixate their stance. Hurtling forth in tandem towards the approaching monster; weapons materializing within firm fists.

They rush, as one, at the large winged creature, aiming right against the base of its great talons. A shield thrown upon the Wanderer, comes half-way down with their first assault.

Back against his, she feels him tackle down the monster’s onslaught of weaker Wanderers, unearthly fire blazing away at its minions. A shimmering, amethyst line of fetters gathers form with his Evol, to grasp about the Wanderer’s body as it rages. She feels his breaths coming in harsher, feels the way he tightens his body through each motion of offense against their enemy — in no condition to be fighting off a high-class Wanderer with the weight of his sickness slowing him down.

She captures Rafayel’s wrist in hers, jolting him backwards. Lunging in front of him to take the Wanderer’s next full-bodied assault. “Rely on me, I’ll fight for us both!” She calls to him over her shoulder.

She catches his mute moment of surprise, out the corner of her eye before he bursts into quiet laughter. “What a reliable bodyguard.” Curving a palm about her shoulder, his Evol, she feels resonating against hers in harmony. “But if you insist.” Weaving their Evols together to strengthen; the dark fetters that plunge forwards this time, chain about the Wanderer’s girth, firmer, breaking clean through another of its shields.

The Wyrmlord screeches in crazed agony, ramming a heavy appendage straight for them. The two lunge in opposing directions to avoid the assault; Rafayel, a split second too slow to dodge as its claws catch at the side of his abdomen, tearing at his shirt.

He hurtles heavily onto the ground, body rolling across the Protofield before he swiftly catches himself, teetering back on to unsteady legs. His pants come in harsher, the scales across his face glimmering in fevered sweat; his body’s condition holding him back.

“Rafayel!” She calls for him on an urgent shout, rushing the Wanderer from its side, to cleave clean through its shield of defense. “Don’t push yourself anymore and stay back! You aren’t well!”

He shakes his head at her, holding his body high once more. His shallow wound, she sees, stitch up soon after, the incandescent cerulean glow of his scales striking against his features. “It’s not what you think it is.” Rafayel streaks forward just as the Wanderer attempts to take flight for a sweeping offensive.

He springs for the monster, using the momentum of his run, punting hard off its body; vicious chains of static purple zipping through it, to bring it crashing down onto the ground. The Wanderer’s remaining shield shattered in one critical hit, bringing it down in a violent collision of great, dark wings and a massive scaled body, vulnerable to damage.

“Now! Rafayel instructs. Coalescing the bulk of his powers into the clench of a fist, he lunges for the Wanderer; her own movements, complimenting against his. Raising their weapons up high, their Evols converge against the other’s in a final, galvanic purple blast of energy.

The Wanderer screeches one final sound of agony before it skitters lifeless at the ground, its disintegration setting into tattered fragments of energy.

The protofield around them begins to wane, jagged shards of breakage appearing across the domed surface of it, as soon as the Wanderer falls.

“It’s over.” She exhales, relief plucking sharp across the back of her breastbone.

“Let me take… a moment to catch my breath.” And with the sheer adrenaline of the fight holding him up now, gone, so too does Rafayel’s strength ebb from him entirely, as he pitches onto his feet. “Rafayel!” Just as she dives forward to catch him within her arms before his body hits the ground. “Hey!”

Rafayel’s breathing harder, the sweat that dampens his brow far more pronounced with the appearance of his Lemurian features, glimmering scales gradually fanning wider across his skin. “Stay with me, it’s over.”

And then she sees it, the flittering of vivid red, burning against his ring finger. Pulsing harsher with each labored sound of breath he endures through and her breath frosts within her lungs.

She feels the distant pattering of approaching footsteps just as Rafayel’s hot palm curves about her wrist in a possessive hold. “We have to get out of here. I need to get home.”

The frantic calls of her name echo across the field; she lifts her head to catch sight of a pale-faced Gabriel, waving his hands at her from just across the area. She shouts at him to stay where he is, cradling Rafayel closer to her torso for fear of his scales being seen.

In this moment, she cannot bring herself to care for anything except providing what Rafayel needs; the frenetic urgency to his words enough to have her obeying without questions asked.

Calling for her teammate, once more, to let the others know they were both alright and that she’d be back at a later time before Rafayel urges her thoughts back to himself.

“That’s... enough. Come now.” He moans within her embrace, just as Gabriel utters an unintelligible question of confusion. Her Lemurian’s fingers spasming against hers, “Hold tight.” he grinds out, before they’re both engulfed in a florid sea of fire.

X. FLOOD

The two of them come crashing onto a hard, polished surface; Rafayel’s arms tightening about her body in protection, just as his shoulder connects with the floor, with their fall. Deposited into the empty safety of his room — she notes in shock — by his Evol already shriveling out of existence.

He shudders in visible pain beneath her, just as she scrabbles to get off his body. “I’m sorry—” The ferocity of his strength, however, hauls her back, bodies crushed against each in a firm, searing line.

Rafayel’s pants rattle hot against the skin of her neck; the harsh rise and fall of his chest, she feels burn against her own, even through their clothes. He keeps them enclosed within that sweltering space of silence for several, long moments.

Reaching her fingers out to comb through his unruly hair, in comfort, the adrenaline of their fight having fast shifted into worry for his health.

Why had he decided to come after her in the fevered state he was in? How had he even known to come for her? The questions, unanswered, careened about in an endless cycle within her mind.

Her Rafayel shifts, face sinking deeper against her breasts. Nosing, delicate, at the space exposed by her open collar as he inhales, long. His previous labored breaths seemingly soothed in her proximity, as he continues to breathe her in.

Her next gasp soughs past her lips on a catch of barely tamped sound, Rafayel’s gaze rolls up to meet hers — hot and piercing.

“Rafayel,” She cups a hand about his warm cheek. “Let’s get you off the floor now, you’ll worsen your fever.”

He knocks his cheek further into the space of her palm, lashes quivering shut, in comfort. “I told you... it’s not a fever ruining my body.” He repeats the words he’d uttered to her back in the Protofield.

“It’s you.” Her mind jostles to a screeching halt.

“What?”

Rafayel’s body tightens beneath hers, the lean strength of his arms coming about to lift, with an ease entirely unexpected of a sick man. He moves them both onto the expanse of his bed, seating himself down, with her firm on his lap. “I’ve been going through these feverish bouts because you’ve been calling for me.” He heaves. “I’d never experienced them before because we’d never—” his words break. Rafayel’s fingers slip a slow, cautious path along the base of her spine, it makes her shiver above him. “I could’ve lost you,” he murmurs, “back there.” Hauling her close once more to sink his face into the crook of a tense shoulder as he breathes her in deep.

“I’m here now, I’m fine.” She soothes a gentle palm down the line of his back, the mild quivers that take it, muted into rest with her strokes. “Thank you for coming for me earlier.”

“Of course I did.” His grip upon her body tightens. “You called for me.”

She rakes her fingers through his hair. “I... did not call for you, Rafayel. Even if I did, it’s impossible for you to have heard—”

“Silly girl.” He captures her hand within his hair, entwining his fingers in between hers. “Do you not see?” Bringing their palms up close together for her to witness—

Red flitters about her ring finger, vivid — her heart jostles over its beats — the line of it longer and far corporeal, glimmering within the dark of his room, spiraling an undulating path up, up.

Finding its other half, caught against the base of Rafayel’s finger. Her breath seizes within her throat at the sight, wary gaze tracing the line of the previously absent thread against their fingers. Not daring to believe the implications of the sight and what Rafayel too was saying. “How could this— I thought we were—”

“A Lemurian’s very being is set to perceive their beloved, in their entire capacity. Without exception.” He brings their entwined fists up to his mouth, feathering a kiss onto her knuckles apiece. “And I have not changed since the first moment I met you.”

The heat of his words is within her head, the frenzied hammering of her heart within her throat. She dares not breathe too loud, dares not speak for fear of this precious moment shattering. The inference of his words could not be clearer and yet. A fleeting recollection of the Wanderer’s cast illusion comes to mind, the cold Rafayel’s unforgiving gaze flashing against hers.

“Has your heart then... changed?” He asks, the wavering azure of his gaze fixated firm upon hers.

She caresses the back of her fingers against his cheek, down the line of his jaw. “It has not, not for a single moment in all these years but—” She whispers. But could you ever forgive me for leaving you on your own?

“I’m not asking you for anything beyond that. I don’t care for it.” He shifts a thumb against the line of her lips dampened with a nervous swipe of her tongue. “I’m asking to know if the woman I love is willing to accept me again.”

Her breath hitches within her throat. Turbulent emotions burst forth within her chest at his words, a sweet ache quivering at the back of her breastbone, the magnitude of his words she isn’t able to comprehend. Unable to believe the words she’s been wanting to hear him say, all this time, leaving that beautiful mouth.

She surges forward onto his lap, desperate to answer the man who’s entrusted his heart so keenly into her hands. “I never stopped in the first place.” She speaks, adamant. Her fingers brush at his face, down the length of his neck to hold. The pads of them grazing the beauty of his scales, glimmering within the moonlight that shafts into the quiet dark of his room through the gauzy curtains. “I’ve loved only you all these years and by god, Rafayel, I don’t think I could ever love anyone but you.” She’s out of breath and dizzy in love, it’s a feeling she never wants to clamber out of, if it means he’d continue to look at her, just the way he is now.

She hears the audible throttle of his breath; a low, anguished sound, as if she’d told him something he’d considered entirely impossible. Rafayel had seemed so sure of her feelings, and yet, he looks at her now, with a relieved sort of devotion and desire. “Which god?” His whisper is sultry, his gaze along with the heat of his skin beneath have her feeling faint within his embrace, the flex of his arm tightening its hold about her waist.

She tips her head closer, her lips shaping her answer a mere breadth from his. “My Rafayel, my own Sea God.” She braves a kiss against his mouth. “I love you.” She confesses, “I love you so—”

Rafayel heaves forwards, filching the rest of her words right against the desperate tongue he sweeps into her mouth. Lips moving against each other in a mesh of reckless teeth and tongue, refusing to release from each other. Her fingers catch at the fabric of his collar, in a bid to drag him closer. Rafayel’s palms, a stable hold about the flare of her hips as she bucks against him in instinctual desire at the feeling of his tongue sweeping into her mouth. Her core grazes against the distinct line of his stiff arousal, straining beneath the placket of his trousers.

Rafayel moans a low, throaty sound against her damp lips. “This is your fault,” he whispers, feverish. “You’re the one who has left me so vulnerable.”

The turbulent seas within his gaze burn luminous, the gentle florid pinks of his irises swallowed within the blue that takes them. The scarcity of his scales now fleshing a path from his face. Down the graceful arc of his neck and across the expanse of his clavicle. Disappearing just under the line of collar of his shirt. She treks a reverential path about his beautiful Lemurian features; a shuddered exhale leaving Rafayel, in his inexplicable state of heightened sensitivity. “Do you know what’s wrong with me?” He seizes her exploring wrist within his gentle hold, halting her movements. His chest heaves once more in vehement, anguished pants, his skin impossibly hot beneath hers.

“No, tell me what’s happening to you. Why are you—”

“—so sexually aroused?” He supplies, mouth skewing into a smile with the hot flush of her cheeks.

“...I was going to ask about your humane features unraveling but that too. You're... burning up.”

He sighs against her glancing touch, at the scales of his neck. “Each year, when the moon shifts phases and the tides ebb from the shores, bonded Lemurians go through an inevitable period of increased sexual activity. We are,” he pulses a delicate kiss to the inside of her captured wrist. “extremely vulnerable during this time, our base appetites, near insatiable, unless we bear it through with our bonded mates.”

A streak of desire spurts within her chest, seeping down into her abdomen to pool in between her legs. “So then, all this time, you were...”

“‘Sick’”, he continues, “because I wasn’t funneling my desires with my mate.” He tugs her close by her imprisoned hand, murmuring, hot, within her ear. “within my mate.”

A low moan of desire breaks from her lips at his licentious provocation.

“I’ve never experienced one before.” He confesses heavily. “I wasn’t sure what it was, when it started; the time of the year seemed to coincide with my symptoms but we weren’t bonded... not to my knowledge.” Rafayel’s gaze treks against the shimmering line of their thread, re-connected. “It’s a rarer miracle for it to find itself weaved against the ones it broke in between, more so than it is for the thread to re-emerge in between new lovers.” He laughs; a low self-deprecating sound. “Fate really played me for its fool.”

She murmurs his name, gathering his hand closer to press a reverent kiss against his ring of red at his finger. “I love you, Rafayel.” she reiterates, dragging his wide, wavering gaze back towards herself, letting the irrefutable truth of her words sink in. That it’s not Fate that tugs at the cogs of their bond now, but her feelings, unchanged as they’ve remained.

“Promise me,” he implores. “Promise you’ll continue to see me the same, no matter how many years pass us by. Promise you’ll stay by my side this time?”

Her answer rushed, eager, yearning to soothe. “Yes. Yes, I will. I want to stay by your side.” Stealing her arms about the broad strength of his shoulders, to pull closer.

“Don’t let me go.” Rafayel breathes. Their mouths crush against each other in a consuming kiss; an urgent prayer he makes of her name.

Each time she squirms atop his lap with the force of his kisses, her increasingly damp core shifts in glancing strokes above his clothed length. Her fingers jolt about Rafayel’s shoulders, sinking harsh into the skin through cloth, with a particularly ruinous lap of his tongue into her mouth.

Her fingers fly for the clasps of his shirt, rushing down the length of buttons, generously revealing the unyielding expanse of his chest, the line of his toned abdomen. Briefly trekking the warmth of his skin with the pads of inquisitive digits before her mouth follows suit, drifting from Rafayel’s to kiss a path across the firm expanse of his chest. Slicking a gentle tongue right above his heart in devoted gratitude for the one who loves her so wholly.

She glides a slow palm down his abdomen, appreciating the tremulous clench of muscles, underneath her touch. Her coveting digits pause at the metal clasp of his belt, gaze canting up to meet Rafayel’s in silent request.

“Yes,” he grinds out, through arduous pants of her name. “It’s yours, I’m yours, do as you please.” She pushes off his lap, dropping onto her knees in between his legs at his affirmation. Rafayel’s breaths hitch higher within his throat, at the snag of her fingers reaching to swiftly undo the fastenings of his belt, pulling it clean from its confines to discard it onto the floor of his room. Her palm slips down the line of his zipper, stimulating him impossibly harder as she works to release him from the confines of his trousers.

Until Rafayel sits there; her devastatingly alluring Lemurian, near-naked, save for the shirt that sags against broad shoulders, and the remaining modesty of his underwear. She takes a moment to control her shaky breaths before her thumbs slip under the waistband of his final barrier, keeping him from her gaze. Sliding the garment in one careful stroke, down the strength of his legs until she tosses it off to the side. His cock springs to full length, freed from its confines, hard; it curves, slight, towards his abdomen, the gentle slick of minute bluish scales running along the underside of his shaft. A thing of beauty, just as its owner.

The twitch of his length within her grasp is palpable as she moves to work an admiring fist about it. A lone bead of pre-cum sits upon the flared head of his cock; her tongue darts out in instinctual rapacious desire to sweep it into her mouth. The sweet-salt tang of him she hums against, in a soft moan, “I love how you taste.”

Long, tapered digits thread through the fall of her locks, curving a loose fist at the back of her head. Her eyes traveling up his torso to meet his, bright in aroused impatience. It makes her want to flip that expression over into something entirely different. She tips forwards, lips falling apart to take the head of him into her eager mouth, just as Rafayel rewards her with his first approving groan. Tongue slicking about the head of him to lick, down, at a vein just underneath the flare of his head. His hips judder up into her face with the action, slipping more of him into her welcoming throat. “What’re you doing to me?” He moans, in gravelly rapture. “Your mouth feels divine.”

She feels the clench of her own abdomen at his praise, wetness seeping further into the cloth of already damp panties. Her mouth slips further down the thick length of him, working him deeper into her throat as she tries and relaxes against the instinctive gagging intrusion of him. A shuddering string of words, he makes of her name, in overwhelming arousal, help her along on his cock. Until she is sliding about the length of him, back and forth, tongue drooling its spit down the expanse of his cock she cannot fit into herself.

His fingers have tightened into a near-spasm within her hair, not nearly enough it hurts, holding her fixated in place; the pads of his digits tracing soothing, encouraging circles about her scalp as she sucks at his cock. “You’re doing so — agh — so well.” The fingers of his free hand, Rafayel brings to curve, delicate, about her jaw, tipping up; her eyes finding his, on silent instruction.

He looks entirely gone, the rugged flush of his cheeks enticing as it dashes across his ears. Springs down the crescent of his neck and across the firm expanse of his chest. Rafayel’s cock hits the back of her throat on her next intake; she swallows against the heady swell of him, deliberate, measured, refusing to relent her gaze as she does. It immediately has the effect she desired; Rafayel’s next breath rattling out of his chest on a wrenched groan of pleasure, the blue of those inhuman eyes glistening brilliant as he propels his hips into her, in a reflexive bid for more.

His fingers skid along the underside of her jaw, where mouth meets throat, grazing for the place he knows she has him settled inside. A long, tapered index, he flicks down the line of her neck — she swallows on instinct, dragging another choked moan out of him as reward — before it comes to rest at the buttoned collar of her shirt. “Off.” He murmurs, hazily. Deftly unfastening open the first few buttons before he curves his index beneath her collar to tug. “Take it off. I want to see all of you when I come.” Pooling a blush into her cheeks at his sweetly sensual appeal.

She pulls her shirt over her head, lured along by the nimble hands that drag her close, reaching around her, to undo the clasp of her bra before he coaxes that too, off her body. Mouth falling slack, cerulean flashing vivid, in flared arousal and want; to witness the heaving tremble of her breasts as she descends on him once more.

Rafayel eases stray locks of her hair back against her ear to better afford himself the view of pink, moist lips parting to swallow around him once more in renewed enthusiasm.

Her hands flitter about the length of him, slick slide aided by spit and pre-cum as she moves to work her tongue around the tip; the broad of it she teases at the slit, making Rafayel shudder above her. Slipping, slow and sure, down the generous length of him, insatiable desires flooding in the clench of empty walls, for the brimming taste of him within her throat.

Rafayel’s pants have turned far harsher, sporadic in impending release. She continues to ease her tongue about his length, her palms soothing down the tense muscle of his thighs before she moves to cup her fingers about his balls. “I’m—” Rafayel snaps.

The skin beneath her fingers tightening, as she sucks about his shaft, to help him along the final stretch of his incoming release, swallowing up to the base of him in one forceful go. Her throat constricting in protest at the rough intrusion. Rafayel groans out loud — frenzied palms pressing at either sides of her head to force her off of his cock, just as he comes in thick, spurting strokes, across her cheeks, her nose; down the curve of her chest.

“I can’t take it any longer,” he rasps. Hauling her onto her feet by her arm, he tumbles her back onto the cool, crumpled sheets of his bed.

She barely has but a single moment to catch her breath — more from the surprise of his vehemence — before the shorts of her uniform, are being wrested off her body in the fervent catch of desperate fingers. Rafayel gets the material half-way down her thighs before his long-frayed patience snicks off entirely; a cool rubescent fire licks up clean across the material, blazing the offending cloth away entirely.

She’s left dumbstruck, pleasure-addled mind wrung in between faint amazement at his precise Evol manipulation and mild offense at his ruination of her uniform. “We’ll get you a new one.” He heaves — as if he’s read her mind — in between kisses laid onto the instep of her bare leg, working up across her calf. “As long as you let me have you right now, I’ll do whatever you want.”

Her breath seizes within her throat at his sultry request. Rafayel’s palms trace about the shell of her hips, curving about the sides of her abdomen before he caresses them up her stomach, pressing, light, into the yielding flesh. Her body shudders beneath his testing caresses. One of his hands steals down the cusp of her clothed mound, index and middle stroking at her labia above panties, before he skates them in between her folds. The two moan in unison; to feel how drenched she is for him.

Her body squirms against his, begging for more of that sweet friction. Hips bucking up into his hand to force more of him against her aching slit. Rafayel towers above her, the delectable flush across that slack, sensual expression has her fluttering in on emptiness, her hole aching to be filled completely — as if she too has taken on the fever of his desires, writhing in phantom heat. Her drifting mind wonders for a fleeting moment, if a human bonded to a Lemurian could experience the mind-numbing lust of their cycles, along with their partners. That stray thought, she believes, with each passing second he riles her up in delirious rapture.

Holding himself above her upon the crook of a folded arm, Rafayel descends for her mouth, covetous tongue savoring a moan against hers. She feels the hot, wet strength of his cock — already firmed to stone once more — rolling against the inside of her thigh. Just as he slips a long, tapered digit past her underwear, to curve it directly against her soaked opening. Her hips jump violently at the contact, her squeal of arousal Rafayel pilfers against a throaty chuckle. “You’re so wet.” Pressing up into her to make his point, the audible squelch of her slick, loud within the quiet night. “Are you enjoying this, my love?”

“Isn’t,” she gasps, heat gathering, strong, into her face. “isn’t the answer obvious?”

Rafayel hums, the skew of his smile tugging higher; a slow, relishing tongue he runs across his upper lip, end to end. And before she can think to parse the intention behind that wicked gaze, Rafayel’s palms are cupping about the soft of her ass — digits pulsing into pliant flesh — to shear her underwear off, lifting her hips up to shove his tongue in between her legs.

Her next sound leaves her on a shriek of pleasure, blaring stars wheeling across her field of vision. Fervid digits she convulses into the yank of his hair, in a manner that has to hurt and yet Rafayel makes no move to budge back, mouth sinking deeper against the wet flood of her heat. He curves his tongue up against her fluttering walls, sweeping at the slick. Nosing a stifled hum against her clit and that is all it takes for her over-sensitised body to break, spasming into a prompt, violent orgasm that siphons the breath from her lungs and the voice from her throat.

Dazed in her floating awareness of the scrupulous mouth that continues to suck at her folds, laving away all of her released desire for himself. And when she sinks a quivering hand into tousled locks in whimpered protests of being too sensitive, all Rafayel offers her is an impish chuckle pressed into the soft of her thigh, right beside her mound. “You had your fun, didn’t you? It’s my turn now.”

With that sensuous warning uttered, his mouth returns its attentions to her weeping slit once more, lips closing about the nub at her apex, sucking gentle at the bead. The jump of her hips Rafayel conquers, in the indolent arm he shackles about her waist, fingers reaching to hold hers across the quivering pliance of her stomach.

The broad of his tongue laps a path above her entrance, catching at any stray slick that leaks from her before he eases the tip of it back into her slit, relishing the clench of her walls in a throaty groan. He continues to prolong that titillating torture of his, edging his tongue at just the entrance of her pussy, till her body burns once more within the kindled flames of a cresting orgasm.

“Rafayel, there — hah — right there. Rafayel.” Sliding that tormenting tongue into her walls once more, to her relief, to the mewls of his name flooding like rain from a parched tongue, the spasm of her fingers she smothers against their entwined digits at her abdomen.

“Sing higher,” his stuttered groans smothered enthusiastic, into the drench of her slit. Tongue curling up against her frontal walls, in a drag that has her fracturing under his mouth once more. Tears sprung to lust-hazed eyes from the overwhelming arousal wrought upon her body under Rafayel’s dexterous tongue.

He exhales a pleased sigh against her mound, each heated breath causing shivers to jump across tender skin. A kiss, Rafayel lays right against her swollen clit.

“Once more.” Her walls clench in wrecked protest, a whimper leaving her throat at his whispered words. “Give me just one more.” He entreats. “I need your taste in my mouth again.” A flitter of kisses he strokes against the line of her pelvis, her mound; dark gaze rolling up to meets hers from in between her legs. She flushes at the intensity of their contact held, without mercy. Her wordless squeeze about her hand given, is all the permission her hungering Lemurian requires to sink back towards her wet heat.

Tapered digits reach to shape a path about the sensitive bead of her pleasure, pinching in between steady, pleasurable strokes. Before they descend lower, coveting towards her fluttering entrance. Rafayel presses up, gentle, into her walls to coax wetness onto his digits with each drenched thrust of his fingers into her.

His hand releases from hers, palm drifting up across the plane of her body to cup about a pliant breast. Fingers caressing a circular path about her areola in soft, stimulating strokes and she quivers at the sensation, breaths coming in short, stifled bursts of air.

Rafayel’s mouth closes about her clit, just as the arch of his fingers hit at a particularly hot, sensitive spot within her pussy; walls spasming about his fingers, swallowing him in. His name soughs past her lips on whimpered gasps with each steady thrust of him up into her walls.

The pads of his digits tweak about the puckered bead of her breast, thumb denting gentle at the bud, sending a jolt of arousal straight in between her legs.

Rafayel continues to lap her up, dutiful; his lashes descending in pleased satisfaction just as her third, mind-numbing release crests through her body, leaving her skin a drenched, ruined mess Rafayel sucks at, in throaty moans of delight.

“Rafayel,” she urges, unable to stand the searing desire he’s put inside her, body hungering for the heat of his cock in desolate emptiness. The overwhelming desire to feel his heat flooding into her, with how long he’s strung her dry for himself. She catches his face in between tremulous digits, pulling him from in between her legs to meet his gaze, dark in fervent desire. “I need you inside me now.”

Heated obscurity scatters momentarily from his eyes at her fevered request, hips rolling against hers so she feels the hot strength of his arousal brush against her inner thigh; her gasps breaking into the air, at that brief second of contact. Burying her next moan in the vicious bite of teeth at his clavicle, when his cock ghosts across her mound, so close to where she wants him. “If you’re sure you want this...” He groans in ardent murmurs against her mouth.

Her clambering response is swift and eager. “I want this, I want you.”

“I’ll let you have me,” he relents in between their wet kisses. “this time, all of me. So drown with me, my beloved bride. Love me.”

Just as he snaps his hips forwards, the head of his cock pressing her open for himself. The delectable stretch of him, so easy within the drenched warmth of her body as it ravenously sucks at him, all the way in. Rafayel’s searing groan of pleasure, he breaks against her jaw; mouthing, mindless, at the taut skin.

The union of their bodies, have left them both winded, without breath to draw into aching lungs; several moments they take in between heated gazes and consuming kisses, unmoving. Growing accustomed to this new, exquisite feeling of being so deeply intertwined into each other, she feels she could live like this against him for the rest of her life.

Until Rafayel begins to move and her world explodes into turbulent sparks of blinding pleasure, unlike anything she’s quite experienced before. His hands are upon her body, covetous digits flittering in between them to touch at dewy skin. Testing his touch against the trembling give of her breasts. Mouth capturing a pert nipple into his mouth, to suck until she keens underneath him.

Her ankles hook about the base of his spine, dragging Rafayel’s propulsions deeper into her. A stuttered moan, she throttles out of him, at the stimulation before his hand steals about her ass to lift her lower body entirely off the bed. Angling his hips, Rafayel’s thrusts turn impossibly deeper, with the assistance offered in their new position; his pelvis grinding flush against hers on each fevered plunge. “You’re perfect around me, so very — hah — warm,” he grinds out in heedless praise, hips snapping against her harder, in rising intensity, in chase of a hovering orgasm.

She moans in appreciation around the tongue he slips into her slack mouth in yearning want. “Rafayel,” she chokes out. “I’m so close.”

“Me too,” he groans, shifting his weight forwards to lean against the crook of his arm at her side. His fingers trek up a path against her slack arm, digits entwining through hers, the line of their red thread flickering in between them both as they approach the crest of their combined pleasures.

“I love you,” she sobs in between quivering gasps; his gaze crinkling in warmed affection and desire so acute, it drags another whimper out of her.

“I love you.” Rafayel declares, into the catch of his kisses against her mouth, her cheeks, down the crescent of her jaw. Laving a kiss into the curve of her neck in a worrying bite of teeth, marking her for his own. He switches his pace once more, cock spearing up against her frontal walls in frenzied thrusts. “Come for me,” he beseeches.

Jaw falling slack in a daze of undulating desire when she obliges at the heated scrap of his words, tumbling over the edge in an orgasm so vehement, her spine arcs clean off the bed. “You’re so good for me.” He worships.

Cresting waves of pleasure, she rides in the hard clench of her walls against Rafayel’s throbbing cock, pulsating hot within her until he too follows soon after. An incomprehensible swell of his cock inside, rising with its pulsations, has her gasping out a low, keening sound at the aching stretch of her pussy, it prolongs her high onto wondrous, searing moments of dizzy elation. Her toes curling into the sheets as the steady bulge of him catches at her walls and snags inside, hot spurts of cum surging into her, so much of it, she feels light-headed from how stuffed he has her. Just as Rafayel’s head falls low, on a loud, long groan of release.

Their damp breaths break against each other’s mouth for several moments that follow after, as they try and muster their senses back to themselves. Her fingers tracing absent, soothing circles along the curve of Rafayel’s spine until his trembling body stills to a gentle lull above her, quieted in the wake of their vehement orgasms.

A strange, fascinating imprint, throbs scarlet right above his heart — in the fleeting likeness of a fish — just as Rafayel’s rattling breaths abate. Captivated fingers she ventures, to trace against the edges of the mark. “...What is this, Rafayel?”

“A sign of Lemurian loyalty.” A quiet smile tips across his face at the question.

The swell of breathless surprise, she knows is upon her face. “My devotion, here on, it’s yours to do with, as you please.” A kiss he buries into her palm in overwhelming affection. “I’m allowing myself to be trapped by you.”

A low sob of adoration breaks from her throat at the words, just as the proof of his vow fades fast into his skin. A hand, she brings about his neck, to haul him down against her, to treasure a kiss right above where his heart thrums its beats, elated desire burning warm within her chest.

Rafayel moves above her, maneuvering their positions until she rests at her side, within the circle of her arms, bodies still conjoined. His cock — she realizes with dazed shock — is still hard within her body. “Are you afraid?” He asks, gentle fingers carding through the mussed tresses of her hair. “I’ll need you much more times before I’m sated, you know.”

She shakes her head at him, palm moving to cradle against his cheek. “I want all of what you have to give me, Rafayel. I’ll take it all.”

He drags her closer by the hips at her affirmations; his touch along the back of her ass tending a slow fire back up within her weary body, as he moves to hoist her leg up against the cut of his hip.

And she lets him show her just how profound a Lemurian’s devotion to his beloved truly runs, throughout the entirety of the night and into the greeting of dawn — a depth as unbounded as that of the Oceans.

End Notes: Tagging as requested: @samanthagnicole , @catboi-anon , @bitches4lifebro

If you’d like to be tagged in my future stories, you can fill this short form here.

You can also find me on Ao3 and twitter, if you’d like to scream with me about hot characters.

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pastryfication · 7 months ago

Note

Can you please do Oscar x reader, who's birthday is coming up but she doesn't want to celebrate or acknowledge it?

I'm that way. My birthday is on the 30th. 🥺

happy birthday!!! i hope you have an amazing day, love xx

this is my gift to you ❤️🥳

birthday celebrations | oscar piastri

pairing: oscar piastri x reader

content warnings: oscar being the perfect boyfriend.

you wake up to the soft light filtering through the curtains, the warmth of your blanket cocooning you against the world outside.

you snuggle deeper into the bed, just wanting to hide. today is your birthday, a day you’ve dreaded for as long as you can remember. birthdays have never been your thing—too much fuss, too many expectations. you’d rather it pass like any other day, quiet and unremarkable. but your boyfriend has other plans.

you hear the faint clatter of pots and pans in the kitchen and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafting through the air. curiosity piques, and you pull yourself out of bed, padding softly to the source of the noise.

and there he is, oscar, standing by the stove, a look of concentration on his face as he prepares your favorite breakfast—fluffy pancakes with strawberries and jam. he turns, catching sight of you, and his face lights up with a smile that melts your reluctance just a little.

“happy birthday, love,” he says, coming over to kiss your forehead. you try to protest, to remind him that you don’t want a big deal made out of today, but he hushes you gently.

“just a simple breakfast,” he insists, guiding you to the table.

breakfast is a cozy affair, the two of you sitting close together at the small kitchen table. the pancakes are perfect, made exactly like you love them, and the berries are sweet and fresh. oscar keeps the conversation light, steering clear of any mention of birthdays or celebrations. he knows you too well, and it makes your heart swell with gratitude.

after breakfast, oscar insists on a lazy morning. he pulls you back to bed, rewrapping you in a cocoon of blankets and his arms. the two of you spend hours cuddling, watching your favorite shows, and simply enjoying each other's company. his constant attention and gentle touches make you feel cherished, and you start to wonder if maybe, just maybe, birthdays aren't so bad when spent like this.

the day slowly unfolds in a series of small, thoughtful gestures. oscar dotes on you, bringing you tea while you read and stealing kisses when he thinks you aren’t paying attention. he suggests a walk in the park, knowing how much you love the feel of the sun on your face and the rustle of leaves underfoot, and you walk hand in hand through your favourite park.

as the evening approaches, you start to worry about what he might have planned. you’ve made it clear you don’t want a party, and oscar has always respected your wishes, but birthdays make you wary. he sees the tension in your shoulders and wraps his arms around you from behind.

“i know you don’t want a big celebration,” he murmurs into your ear, “but i thought a quiet dinner with a few of your closest friends might be nice. just us, no fuss.”

you turn to face him, searching his eyes for any sign of deceit. all you see is his genuine desire to make you happy, and it softens your resolve. you nod, agreeing to the dinner, trusting that he’ll keep it simple.

when your friends arrive, the atmosphere is warm and intimate, just as oscar promised. there’s no grand entrance nor any loud singing, just the comfort of familiar faces and easy conversation. you find yourself relaxing, enjoying the evening more than you expected. the dinner is delicious, the laughter infectious. you catch oscar’s eye across the table, and he gives you a wink that makes your heart flutter.

as the night winds down, and your friends start to leave, you realize that today hasn’t been so bad. in fact, it’s been kind of wonderful. oscar walks you to bed, his hand in yours, and you snuggle into his side, feeling a contentment you hadn’t anticipated.

“thank you,” you whisper, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

“for what?” he asks, feigning innocence.

“for making today special,” you reply, “without making it too much.”

he smiles, pulling you closer. “anything for you, my love.”

and as you drift off to sleep, you think that maybe, just maybe, birthdays aren’t so terrible after all.

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daisyblog · 1 month ago

Text

The Month of December

Our Story Masterlist Summary: YN’s Instagram posts leading up to Christmas.

ynstyles

liked by annetwist, lottietomlinson and 2,652,871 others

ynstyles first christmas with our girly🤍🎄✨🩷 view all 8,728 comments

harrystyles My favourite girls❤️

lottietomlinson So cute 🎀 🤍

gemmastyles An exciting year for both our girls💕

annetwist I love your matching outfits🥰❤️

the.daisytomlinson 🩷🩷🩷

niallhoran Can’t wait for my Christmas visit xx

louteasdale my heart🥹

zoesugg soooo cute🩷

daniellepeazer sweethearts💞

markyyferris Aww darlings🥹💕

louisfan Grace has light hair like the Tomlinsons🥹🥰

harryfan it still surprises me in 2024 that Harry is married to Louis sister and they have a baby!!

ynstyles

liked by louist91, gemmastyles and 5,832,467 others

ynstyles 2am selfie because this mama was craving tea and toast🤰🏼 view all 11,922 comments

louist91 Poor Harold looks half asleep!!

gemmastyles I don’t miss those 2am cravings😂😂

annetwist Hope you’re getting plenty of rest my love🩷

lottietomlinson I bet you woke Harry up to make it too🤦🏼‍♀️😂

marktommo1111 You two make me laugh😂😂❤️❤️

niallhoran I don’t mind babysitting Grace if you both need some rest ❤️

the.daisytomlinson You always eat tea and toast?😂

harryfan7 dreamy😛

harryfan5 HARRY😍😍😍

ynrryfan How good does Harry look even at 2am😫😍

ynstyles

liked by j_corden, zoesugg and 803,793 others

ynstyles our type of date nights🤎 view all 6,892 comments

annetwist Save some for me☺️

jefezoff Keeping my job easy😅😂

zoesugg Omg these looks amazing😍

j_corden Look at you two all grown up😂

mitchrowland Send me and Sarah the recipe please!!

the.daisytomlinson Can we make these together for Christmas plsssss🥰

louteasdale how times change ey? from being caught making out to baking gingerbread😂

harryfan4 the dream date night💙

harryfan7 ❤️❤️❤️

ynrryfan LOVE YOU BOTH❤️🩷❤️🩷❤️🩷

ynstyles

liked by zayn, thephoebetomlinson and 4,519,701 others

ynstyles baba is growing nicely🤰🏼🎄❤️ view all 8,682 comments

harrystyles ❤️

niallhoran Aww cuties xx

zayn Beautiful photo🖤

annetwist Absolutely precious💞

thephoebetomlinson your bump🥹🥹

the.daisytomlinson can’t wait for another niece or nephew🤍

anastasiakingsnorth You’re glowing✨🥰

markyyferris I’ve never seen a more stunning couple☺️❤️

harryfan2 they’re so love in love😫

harryfan8 Anyone else see these two and realise how single they are??!!

louisfan9 Tell Louis I love him🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵

ynstyles

liked by annetwist, gemmastyles and 908,652 others

ynstyles Christmas fun at auntie Lotts house🎄🫶🏼❤️ view all 7,283 comments

lottietomlinson our babies🥹🥰

gemmastyles Little cuties🥰🫶🏼

lewisburton ❤️

the.daisytomlinson aunties babies😫🥹

marktommo1111 my grandbabies💙🩷❤️

sallietommo Precious memories🥰❤️

annetwist Awww memories to last a lifetime❤️

louisfan9 They’re growing up so fast!!!

ynrryfan Have the best Christmas as a married couple and parents❤️❤️❤️❤️

ynstyles

liked by harrystyles, lottietomlinson and 4,681,721 others

ynstyles A huge happy birthday to the best brother and uncle that us girls could wish for!🥳🎈

Louis, my older brother, my best friend and one of my favourite people! Have the best day and we can’t wait to celebrate with you later❤️

The absolute best uncle to Grace and watching your bond grow is priceless. Grace can’t wait for birthday cuddles and more belly laughs because your the funniest person she knows🩷

Love you millions Lou xxx view all 9,713 comments

louist91 Thanks tiny!! Love you both so much!!xx

harrystyles Happy Birthday Louis!

annetwist Happy birthday my darling! Have a lovely day🥰xx

gemmastyles Have the best day🥳

lottietomlinson ❤️❤️

the.daisytomlinson ❤️

niallhoran Happy birthday lad!!

louteasdale happy birthday babe🤍

louisfan7 HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOUIS🎉🥳🧁❤️

louisfan4 The bond these siblings have is so beautiful💖

harryfan3 Happy birthday Louis!! Have the best day/Christmas❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Tag List:

@pansexualwitchwhoneedstherapy @harrys-flower @platinumbarbie143 @frickin-bats@harrysbbyh0ney @chronicallybubbly @goldensunflowe-r @walkingintheheartbreaksatellite@kaverichauhan @peterholland04 @panicattheuc @or-was-it-just-a-dream @hittiesontour@bunnyharold @fanfictioncafe @lilfreakjez @iamahallucinationnn @theekyliepage @indierockgirrl@buckybarnessimpp @ashleighsss @jerseygirlinca @fake-coolbeans @itsmytimetoodream@treehouse-mouse @mrs-anna-styles211994 @macy-tpwk @mrs-anna-styles211994 @fruity-harry

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ask-the-pioneer · 2 months ago

Text

Hi slugchat!

This year I hit an important milestone in my life, and all things considered... I won't miss my 20s too much. I'm in a better place now with clear sight of what's ahead. Whew!

That said, I wanted to share pictures of this lovely clay sculpture of Marbles that I received for my birthday. It was made by @rchetype, my other half, who is a DnB virtuoso but also prints and paints sick looking minis. The sculpture is about 4 inches (10 cm) tall, made with wire base and fimo clay, and gently airbrushed with a custom mixed paint. There are real tiny marbles in her sling bag, which was carefully hand-stitched from a piece of linen fabric. I'm an artist, but sculpting has always been a kind of black magic in my eyes, so I'm not exaggerating when I say my jaw dropped to the floor the moment I saw her. One of the best b-day gifts ever (ง˵•̀ᴗ•́˵)ง

To all my readers - thank you for the asks you sent me so far! If you celebrate xmas I would like to wish you a merry one, otherwise I hope you have a blast during this long holiday season, getting a good rest away from work or school. Please admire this amazing sculpture of Marbles in the meantime.

- Kali

#rain world #rain world oc #rain world au #rw pioneer #rw slugcat #rw slugpup #rw artificer's pups #clay sculpture #sculpting #ooc #ask blog #i'm still losing my mind over this #the contrast between her blue fur and red shrubs is 💯👌👌

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pinkslipxox · 2 months ago

Note

Can you write a fic about what Billie does for y/n’s birthday? xx <3

hey my love! Hope you had a good New Years! And yes ofc hope you like it 🥰💋

——————————————————————————

The sun peeked through the curtains, casting soft rays of light across the room where Y/N stirred awake on her birthday. It was a day she had been anticipating, but the sight that greeted her made it even more special. Billie Eilish, the girl who had stolen her heart, lay beside her, a shimmering smile on her face.

“Happy birthday, pretty girl,” Billie chirped, her voice laced with warmth and affection as she brushed a gentle hand through Y/N’s hair.

Y/N felt her heart flutter at the sound of the endearment. “Thank you, Billie,” she replied, her cheeks flushing at the attention.

Billie leaned in closer, pressing soft kisses to Y/N’s neck, trailing her lips lightly against her skin. “Today is all about you, sweetheart. I have a whole day of surprises planned,” she murmured, her breath warm against Y/N’s ear, sending shivers down her spine.

With a playful grin, Billie jumped out of bed, her energy infectious. “Get ready! I made you breakfast.” Y/N’s eyes widened in delight as she followed Billie into the kitchen, where the aroma of pancakes and fresh fruit filled the air.

As Y/N entered, she was met with a beautifully set table adorned with colorful decorations and a small bouquet of flowers. “Billie, this is so sweet!” she exclaimed, a smile lighting up her face.

Billie smiled back, her heart swelling with love for the girl in front of her. “Only the best for my pretty girl,” she said, beaming with pride. Billie served up the pancakes, drizzled with syrup and topped with whipped cream and berries.

Between bites, Y/N couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed by how much thought Billie had put into the day. “This is delicious! You’re amazing,” she said with a mouthful, earning a hearty laugh from Billie.

“Only the best for the birthday queen,” Billie replied, playfully bowing her head. As they finished breakfast, Billie stood and grabbed a small gift wrapped in soft pastel paper. “This is just the first of many. Open it!”

Y/N’s eyes sparkled with excitement as she ripped open the wrapping to reveal a beautiful bracelet adorned with tiny charms that represented shared memories: a moon for their late-night talks and a music note for Billie’s songs that always made Y/N feel cherished.

“It’s perfect!” she gasped, her heart swelling with love.

“I’m so glad you like it, mama,” Billie grinned, slipping the bracelet onto Y/N’s wrist. “Now, let’s get ready for some fun!”

The day unfolded like a beautiful dream. They ventured to the nearby park, where Billie surprised Y/N with a picnic filled with her favorite snacks. They laughed and played games, relishing the warmth of the sun and the joy of each other’s company.

With each passing moment, Billie showered Y/N with affection—draping her arms around her waist, whispering sweet nothings in her ear, and stealing kisses that felt like magic. Y/N couldn’t remember the last time she felt so loved and cherished.

As the sun began to set, casting golden hues across the sky, Billie took Y/N’s hand and led her to a picturesque spot overlooking the shimmering lake. They settled on a blanket, the sweet sounds of nature wrapping around them.

“Make a wish, pretty girl,” Billie said, her tone soft and sincere as she watched Y/N with fondness. Y/N closed her eyes tightly, her heart filled with gratitude and love.

“I wish for today to last forever,” she finally whispered, her voice barely above a whisper.

Billie leaned in, her forehead resting gently against Y/N’s. “Me too,” she murmured, brushing her lips softly against Y/N’s. “You deserve all the love in the world. You’re my everything.”

In that moment, with the sun setting and their hearts intertwined, Y/N felt an overwhelming sense of joy. Billie had truly made her birthday an unforgettable celebration—a day filled with love, laughter, and the sweet bond they shared. As they sat together, wrapped up in each other’s warmth, the world around them faded away, leaving only the two of them, celebrating love in its purest form.

#billie eilish fluff #billie eilish x you #billie eilish fanfiction #billie eilish x reader #billie eilish fanfic #billie eilish imagine #billie eilish x female reader #billie eilish fic #billie eilish blurb #billie eilish x fem!reader #billie eilish #billie eilish x y/n

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dirtylilspawn · 2 months ago

Text

Tɪɢʜᴛ Wᴀʀᴍ Eᴍʙʀᴀᴄᴇ

NOTE: Hello friends, Merry Christmas and Happy New Years to you all. I decided why not let my first fic be about this scrumptious man right here, since it is his birthday month. I hope you all like it! P.S. - [B/S] breast size, key word.

Fandom: Attack on Titan

Pairing: [Levi Ackerman x Reader]

Word Count: 4.9k

Warnings: 18+ only, NSFW content, modern AU, Fem Reader, Fem genitals, Christmas eve/Christmas day, fluff, soft Levi, mentions of kids, romantic, steamy floor sex, nipple play, light spanking & biting, thigh riding, P in V, rough & unprotected sex, multiple orgasms, bulge, cunnilingus, hair tugging, breeding, cream pie, praise, aftercare, overstimulation

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

Somehow, you've convinced your pessimistic husband to accompany you to a wonderful vacation in a cabin.

It was December, Christmas season, and soon to be Levi's 30th birthday. You decided you wanted to do something special for your loving husband this year. So, with some research, and some help from a four eyed friend, you introduced Levi to a four-day vacation up in a snowy cabin in the mountains.

Now during these holidays, Levi wasn't so big on the cold season, in fact he hated winter. There's snow slush everywhere, his skin gets dry as hell itself while also being numb from the cold, and you could slip and fall on your ass from the icy ground without warning. He is the one staying inside his warm home, sipping on some tea while watching others fall on their ass, through the comfort behind his window.

He was also not a big birthday guy as well. Not caring much for big parties while a bunch of people sang to you happy birthday in a very annoying and monotone way.

And although you agreed with some settlements of his during the wintertime, you also couldn't help loving going out, enjoying the festivities Christmas had to offer. Especially enjoying such festive times with the person, you love and care for. All you wanted to do was spoil your husband and make him feel loved in every single way possible. So, when coming up with this plan to Levi, you were a bit surprised to him agreed to this so instantly. Expecting him to be a bit reluctant to said offer.

But for Levi, whenever it came to you, he would be willing to do anything for you, as long as you're there, he's happy. He discovers that doing things with you tends to be a lot brighter than if he ever done it alone. Plus, at the end of the day, being too overwhelmed by your sweet kindness, he couldn't have said no. Being too much of a softy when it comes to you, though he'd never admit it to you.

So just like that, the two of you packed and set off into the mountains.

The cabin was beautiful, it looked out of something you would see in a Christmas movie. A small, yet cozy home that made you wish it was your second house. The interior was as amazing as the exterior, beautiful furniture, a large bedroom, an indoor jacuzzi with a view of the wilderness, and a big fireplace.

A fireplace that the both of you decided to watch tonight, as snow fell from the dark sky.

You and Levi were on the carpeted ground together, cuddling up under near a large soft blanket, it's white fluffiness adding extra comfort and warmth. His body pressed up against yours and vice versa, heads leaning together as you both admire the burning red and orange flames. Both a scabble board game and two empty cups of a new blend of cinnamon tea, were pushed aside for more room.

There was nothing but the sweet silence between the both of you. Only the comforting sounds of soft breaths, fire cackling, and hush sounds of the wind from outside.

You turned your head a bit, eyes now focused on Levi, who just kept his view on the fire. Lips turned into a giddy smile as you could help staring at his calm relaxed features. His handsome face illuminates from the soft glow of the fire, hypnotizing you with his beauty. You were so distracted that you didn't notice Levi's eyes on you, staring with a mix of confusion and amusement.

"What's caught your eye brat?" You jump a bit, before going back to your giddy daze of him teasingly.

"Just seeing how much you're enjoying this vacation more than you'd like to admit it."

His eyebrow quirks up from this, "Who says I'm enjoying this?"

"You didn't have to say anything, I could tell already you enjoy this very much. You even wore the matching pjs I got for us."

You indeed bought matching pjs to Levi, suggesting you both where it on Christmas eve tonight. The two of you were wearing both black long sleaved t-shirts, that said 'Merry Christmas' with a Christmas tree down below the text. Matching out with red and black flannel pants.

"Only because you wouldn't stop persisting at it."

"You literally took it out of my hands and started changing without another word."

Levi rolled his eyes annoyed, clicking his teeth before looking away from your eyes. You laughed at his defense, knowing that he didn't take the comment at heart, and that you were only joking. He always got like that whenever he didn't want to admit to something, especially when it came to his feelings.

Your hand came up to caress his cheek, making his head towards you again. There was a soft look in his silver-blue eyes, as he looks down at you. Immediately, you go in to kiss him softly on the lips, making his eyes go wide before kissing your lips back.

He leans more into the kiss, not liking how you pulled away to soon making him chase your lips.

"Want anything else for your birthday?"

Levi looked at you surprised, hearing you suggest another gift to him, "This is already enough."

"Oh c'mon, there must be something else you would like for your birthday, it's your 30th."

"Nothing."

"I don't believe that?"

A scoff guised as a laugh emitted through Levi as he looked into your (E/C) eyes. The eyes of the person hold close to heart every single day. He didn't really say anything, as if it was his turn to stare at your beautiful features. Memorizing every single detail of your face as if this was the last time he'll ever see you again. Looking at every single freckle, dimple, every eyelash on that pretty face he loved so much.

Hands wrapped themselves around your hips, pulling you gently up on him. Just so he could have you seated on his lap, close and personal, with your chests pressing up against one other. Your ass was against his thighs, legs straddling him as you wrapped your arms around his neck.

"You know what, I think I know what I want?"

His calm baritone voice whispers this to you, feeling the chill of his tone sent shivers through your body. All the while you could feel a heat pulling through your stomach, his big hands running up and down your back. The sleeved shirt slightly ridding up from the bottom, making you slightly feel his warm hand on your skin.

"...What's that?"

Whispering back at him, feeling your heartbeat pound against your chest. But what made it even more comfortable was that you could feel his heartbeat in return.

His answer was just a passionate kiss.

Both your eyes closed, as Levi kissed your lips immediately. His lips were dry, but very soft as you pressed your lips together. His lip's part yours before diving his tongue slowly into your mouth, caressing his appendage on yours. The kiss was hot, slow, and steamy as you both could feel each other's heated breaths against both of your lips lip. Your hips start to unconsciously grind themselves onto his lap, ass rubbing up on his crotch, as a prominent bulge start to rise from his pants. His hand grips your waist as in a warning for your grinding.

"Behave."

A whine left your throat, from that muffled word, already feeling the slick arousal spill in your panties. He heard letting another scoff come out of his mouth, pulling away from your lips which had you chasing for more.

"Impatient, if you're that much in a rush then how about you take those clothes off." He ordered in a stern tone.

In an instant you unwrapped your hands from around Levi, before you start to undress yourself. You removed you long sleeved shirt, showing off your [B/S] that jiggled softly with each movement. You noticed Levi himself was doing the same, his bare-naked chest open to the warm air. Eyes marveled at him in awe, watching his muscles flex with every move he made. Your hands made their way towards your pants, lifting your hips up so you could easily take them off. Throwing them wherever your mind was too occupied at the moment.

Levi had stopped you before you could take off your lacey panties, taking your wrists away from your waist.

"No, I want them on."

You chuckled at his command, teasing him with a "Yes sir~"

He only narrowed his eyes before a smack was introduced to your thigh. It made you gasp a breath, it wasn't painful, but it was enough to send a small sting.

"Now come here."

Levi pulled you closer to his body, moving your legs around his, so that his thigh could be between your thighs. You set yourself down, a soft moan breaking from your lips as you could feel your pussy press up against his thighs.

His hands held your hips tightly, as he kisses you again.

Your hips start grinding back and forth on him. even though you still had your panties, while he still had his Pj pants, you can still feel his hard muscles in his thighs dig deeply into you pussy, especially your clit. This caused you to dig your hands into his shoulders, muffled moans coming naturally out of you.

Large hands roam up your back, fingers trailing underneath your hair, running through your [H/C] tresses of hair. His fingers then decided to grip the underside of your hair, causing you to gasp loudly and pull away from the kiss. Your head is now tilted back, exposing your neck and chest to him. He leans into your neck and clavicle, teasing your skin from soft kisses, to marking bites. Knowing there going to leave a temporary scar the next day. But that's what Levi loved about it, leaving marks on your pretty skin, reminding you and everyone who saw them that you were his.

Honestly, he didn't know what he did in his life to get you, but the thanks whatever God, or higher power out there for making he meet you.

"You're so damn beautiful."

Your eyes, half lidded, looked at your husband. You felt your heart flutter from his words, anything this man said to you made your body heat up. He just had that power over you, and you knew you had that power with him as well.

Before you could comment back, your eyes suddenly close, lips parted, as Levi took your right nipple into his mouth. His left hand was still gripping your hair back, while his other hand encouraged your hips to grind more on his thigh. "C'mon sweetheart, keep grinding on me." He whispers to you in a huff. his tongue rolling your nipple in his mouth, saliva coating your hardened nub.

Obediently you did what he said, grinding more faster on his thighs. Your body shaking with each hup to his muscular thigh, you could feel him tense thigh, just to make it even harder on your clit. "F-Fuck Levi...baby..." Trembled words came out. Panties defiantly ruined from the rough humping on his leg, soaking up with your arousal creating a large dark imprint in the middle.

You were pretty sure that it might of soak through his pants too.

Levi's mouth switched to your other left nipple, giving it the same treatment. He groans, as he was turned on from your desperate cries, as you ground yourself hard into his thigh. He had to keep his composure, his erection bulging from his pants, as all of his thoughts were to just take you right here and now. But he was a patient man, and Levi wanted to draw this out as long as he could.

"-Nngh- Levi shit, I'm gonna-"

"Shh, be a good girl and cum on my leg."

He says this as his teeth gently bit on your nipple, giving you love hickeys in between your breasts. That was just about enough for you to release the hold on your orgasm.

Levi held onto you tightly, as the same with you, all while you came on his thigh. His hand continued to guide your hips on him, just so you could ride your orgasm all the way. You stopped yourself, as Levi removes his grip on your hair, making you lean into his body, head placed on his shoulder. Your breaths were the only thing that was audible, trying to calm yourself as you shudder in his hold. His hand comforts you, rubbing your back up and down.

"You...you still haven't told me what else you wanted for your birthday." You said with a cheeky tone in your voice. All you heard was a faint chuckle in your ear, making you smile.

That was until you founded yourself on the ground, with Levi looking down at you with an all-knowing smirk of his. The two of you were laid next to the fireplace, illuminating the erotic scene even more. He pulled the blanket over the both of you, making sure that you were comfortable before giving your forehead a kiss.

"Let me think about it some more."

He smiles softly at you before kissing you lips briefly. He then starts to kiss down from your lips to your neck. Down to your chest and stomach, until he reaches all the way to his destination. Heat pools inside your lower abdomen, as you watched your husband slide his hot hands up your soft thighs slowly. Gripping both sides of your red lacey panties, slipping them off with ease and placing them away with the other clothes. He spreads both your thighs open, putting himself between them.

Looking at you puffy pussy, dripping wet from your previous orgasm made Levi groan. He hard cock just throbbing from the site alone; his thumbs spreading your labia to see your hole clenching for attention. His actions made you shy, your cheeks heating up in embarrassment. Your thighs start to close a bit, but Levi instantly catches them, using his strength to pull them apart and keep them apart. "None of that."

"O-Oh c'mon! Shouldn't I be the one doing that to you." A pout forms on your lips as your eyes made contact with Levi's.

Levi only nips at your inner thigh making you yelp in surprise. "My birthday, my rules brat."

Your lips purse at his response, wondering what this man was playing at. But all worries about such things went out of your head, as you felt a tongue all the way up your slit.

A whimper came out from you. Your eyes were closed, back arching as you felt Lev's tongue lick your pussy multiple times. Drinking up all the essence left behind and is still producing. It hard to think with all the pressure bombarding you over and over again. Hips start to grind back with him and his movements, shivering when you felt his tongue prodding your hole. You bite your lips, hands not knowing what to do or what to grab on. Left hand makes it way down to Levi's jet-black hair, running your fingers through his undercut. All while your right hand starts to play with your own nipple, pinching it between your fingers.

You can hear his groans, as he dives even deeper into your pussy, his nose pressing into the clit making your whole body convulse. Still a bit sensitive from the last orgasm. Levi's sees this and proceeds to wrap his lips around your clit, fiercely sucking on it. "Levi!" You cry out, toes curling from the intense burning feeling in the pit of your stomach.

"O-Oh f-fuck...please don't stop!" Slurring your words.

You felt one of Levi's hands leave one of your thighs and move to his abandoned cock. His pants were pulled down a bit, exposing his leaking shaft. You couldn't see much of what he was doing, but you can see his forearm moving viciously up and down, the veins in his arms as he pleasure himself, fueled by your delicious taste.

You can see how aroused Levi got by pleas. His hand and fingers moving effortlessly around his thick girth, coated with the copious amounts of pre-cum. It honestly looked like he already came with just how much slick was smeared on himself. You've known Levi as a very clean and pristine person, who cares very much if things are messy. But when it comes to you, all those rules seem to jump out the window. The sight alone of his feral actions, made you lick your lips.

But you daze was interrupted abruptly, as you felt you second orgasm come crashing down. Your body thrashes erratically, as he sucks hard on your sensitive clit, holding you down in place as you came undone all over his face.

Levi hums, sending electric vibrations to your overstimulated pussy, moaning at your cum squirting onto his tongue, drinking all of it.

"Levi, t-to much...please..." You whine out gripping onto his hair, trying to push him away from you.

But he can't seem to hear you as he continues to devour your pussy, like he was starved. Levi forces himself off of you, now kneeling between your thighs, with his angry red dick close to your slit. His cock spurts right onto your quivering pussy, hot white cum coating your entrance.

"F-Fuck hell..." Levi groans breathlessly, his hand was still jerking himself off, as ropes of his cum continued to land of your dripping pussy. It rolls down your pussy, pooling down onto the soft carpeted floor. Levi's head leans down close to yours to catch his own breath. His face furrowed, and eyes were closed as he tries to calm his own heart down. You looked up at him, seeing his beautiful face, sweat rolling down his temple, as the fireplace made it look like his body was glowing. Your hands make their way to cup his cheeks gently, pulling his in so his forehead was on your damp one, his eyes open to look at you.

"I love you so much."

There was a bit of silence after that, as Levi couldn't think of anything to say to this. It was his turn to get fluttered by your words, but of course he doesn't show it on the outside. But a lot of things were happening on the inside.

"I finally know what I want now."

Your eyes widen at his sentence, lips curling into a smile.

"Really? Well, what is it?" You asked eager to make his birthday best yet.

Levi only looked at you, many emotions filling his mind, as if he was unsure but determined to this question. Rough hand came up to place itself onto your stomach, making you shudder at the touch.

"Let's have a child."

The moment those words were said, your heart clenched.

Throughout all the years of dating, to getting married to Levi, the concept of having kids was a touchy subject with him. You guys talked about it before obviously, wanting to know his stance was. For you, you were fine with either one option. Whether you had kids or not as long as you were together it was perfect. Levi on the other hand in his earlier years didn't really see the benefit of having a child, not even wanting to have them. It didn't come from a place of hating kids specifically, more so in a fear sense of not being a good enough father figure. But you have told Levi a million times, that he will have no problem loving their child, that if he ever decided on giving it a chance, you would be there with him every step of the way.

So, you guessed throughout those months and years of debating it inside his head, he turned around and decided to give it a chance. Levi wanted -no he wished for a child with the woman he dearly loved. And with the look into his silver eyes, you knew that he meant it, that he was serious about his gift and was not backing out any time soon.

Your head nods excitedly, as you kiss Levi, so overcome by emotions that flooded your mind.

"Okay."

You whispered back, as Levi smiled softly back at you. A genuine smile, that he was comfortable to show to you. Levi leaned into you more kissing you fully on your lips, your bodies pressed together on the floor. His weight never felt troubling, just warm and pleasant. He pulls away, his lips still brushed over against your, noses touching.

"Then I guess we should start the process of making one." He smirks at you, making you sensitive pussy clench, longing to have his cock inside you. You then felt his dick press right against your pussy, thrusting in between your labia, pushing on your clit making you whine from the teasing.

"Please...please put a baby in me Levi."

You seriously are going to be the death of him.

Without a word, Levi gives you a brief but deep passionate kiss. A hand slid underneath your thigh, pulling it up for more room. You can feel his hard shaft rub against your pussy, angling itself, before slowly sliding himself inside your hot walls. Your eyes were shut tight, holding onto Levi's back, as you made a low groan along with Levi, matching each other's breaths. He curses, feeling your tight slick pussy, sucking him in, as if you didn't want him to pull out, and you didn't.

Once he bottoms out, he pulls his dick out leaving the tip in, before quick thrust all the way back inside. A sharp cry in surprise came from you, as he continued this pace. Slow but deep hard thrusts into your pussy.

You could feel the breaths and groans from him, as his face was buried in your neck, giving you light butterfly kisses against your soft [S/C]. His left hand was on the side of your head, gripping the carpet, while the other was still holding your thigh, giving it a few light squeezes to your flesh.

The thrusts were agonizingly painful, but at the same time blissfully pleasurable. The slow thrusts felt as if he was trying to edge all night long, giving you enough to feel amazing, but not enough to go over. It didn't help that you were also still so sensitive, so cock drunk, added in with Levi's baby confession. So, your mind was far out of reach from reality, that you couldn't help all the pitiful whimpers and whines that left your mouth.

And Levi knew this.

He knew how these leisurely thrust to your pussy would make you feel crazy. How your fingers would dig deliciously into his back, hips wiggling in desperation, egging him on for more. He knew that's what you wanted, and he was willing to give you ever bit of it. Not before teasing you for a little bit.

"Does my sweet girl want more?"

It was hard to say anything with the number of breaths you had to calm down. Tears pooling in your eyes, threatening to spill any second. All you could do was nod at his words, your eyes pleading with him to move a bit faster. He grins sending a hard thrust up making your squeal, holding onto him tighter. "I need to hear a response, otherwise I won't know what you want." He says this giving your ear a good bite.

"Beg me...beg for me to fill you up with my cum."

His eyes never left yours, as if he was staring into your soul. It sent whole body shivers within you. The atmosphere felt hot and heavy, making you feel so dizzy.

"I... I want -ngh-" Christ it was hard to say anything with his thrusts teasing your insides. If you weren't so out of it, you would have made a snappy remark.

"Faster p-please, I want your cum, I want your baby Levi."

"Good girl."

A smirk sketched his lips, as his both hands now go underneath your thighs. He pushes the down your chest, and up on his shoulders, immediately placing you in a full mating press. There was no time to get ready for the quick thrusts Levi gave to you. It left your breathless, eyes rolling back, mouth hanging open, as you let the man ruin your pussy for the third time.

The room was filled with loud moans echoing through the whole living room, with repetitive dirty -plap- noises.

"There you go, lose yourself...f-fuck, such very good girl for me..."

His sweet praises threw you to the edge, getting you closer and closer to release. You could feel it, and Levi could also feel it as well. The coil in your stomach starting to rise, you pussy clamping onto his dick like your life depended on it. Your heels dig into his back, tears falling, rolling down your cheeks. A friction rubbed on your clit due to Levi's pubic bone, it was all too much.

Levi was doing very much to hold on for you, wanting for you to cum first all over his dick before he came. He watched your face turn and twist with pleasure. Drowning in his love, your fingers digging into his shoulder blades causing him to groan deeply.

"Levi...I can't-"

"You can and you will, so cum for me baby."

One hand left one of your thighs to place itself upon your lower abdomen. Small but noticeable bulge pressing up against your stomach, from his cock pounding you. He then decides to push his hand onto your abdomen, making you go overboard.

Less than a second you came all over his cock, crying out his name into your shared cabin. It made you wonder if people could hear from the outside. You pussy clenches onto his cock, squirting heavily due to the amount of edging and sensitivity you endured. Levi watched this with amazement, an intense haze in his eyes as he watched you come undone. Your sweet fluids drenching part of his thighs and dripping down your ass. Before he knew it Levi came as well, groaning in your ear while his hot cum filled up your womb. He kisses your neck, before making his way towards your lips, passionately making out with you. His thrusts becoming a bit slower as he rides both of your orgasms to the end. He stops once you wiggled underneath him, too overly sensitive and tired.

There you both are, drenched in glistening sweat, your breaths mixing together, pressing kisses once in a few seconds. Your bodies pressed together, your thighs burning from being folded. Levi carefully sets your legs off his shoulders, laying them down on the floor. He slowly pulls out of you, making you whine from the loss, his seed rolling down from your pussy. Levi manages this by taking two fingers to scoop back his cum, before fingering it back into your pussy. You bite your lip, groaning as your head fell to the side from exhaustion. His hand makes it back to your stomach, rubbing in a soft soothing motion. It made your heart flutter, knowing the implications of his meaning. Your hand was placed on top of his as you whispered a "Soon", making him smile at you.

Your eyes then meet the electric clock on the wall, showing it was now 1:00 o'clock in the morning, Christmas Day, and your husbands' birthday. You look back at Levi with a tired but sweet loving smile,

"Merry Christmas to you and a Happy Birthday old man~" you sing playfully making Levi roll his eyes at you.

"Thrilling, now let's get up and get cleaned."

"Mmm...in a few minutes..." You preceded to close your eyes with a smile on your face.

"No, not in a few minutes, and open your eyes. Don't you dare fall asleep brat." Levi's eyes narrowed at your peaceful face.

"-Yawn- Let's just sleep here..."

"[Y/N] I'm not sleeping on the floor, when we have a damn bed-"

Snore.

You were already deep asleep before he could even finish his sentence. He clicked his teeth with a sigh, shaking his head in disbelief and amusement to how quickly you fell asleep.

He gets up and leaves, to come back with a wet towel and a large pillow. If you two weren't going to take a shower tonight, then he figured that this was the second-best option. Presuming that you both would take a shower in the morning, or at least whenever you wake up. Once he was done, he turned off the remaining lights, only leaving the warm fireplace on in the dark living room. He didn't need to turn it off, having its own timer that sets off.

Levi then gets the large pillow that he brought in. He places it on the floor, lays on it, before bringing you over to lay on his chest. Bringing the blanket over the both of you to get more comfortable in warm, he kisses you on the forehead.

"I love you so much and thank you."

He closes his eyes while holding you close in his arms. The sound fire cackling in the background and your steady heartbeat luring the man to a good sleep.

The things Levi does for you, but it was all worth it just to see you smile.

This really was the best birthday he's ever had.

#levi ackerman x reader #levi aot #fanfiction #levi fluff #smut

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