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nanpecan · 3 months ago

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₊✩‧₊˚once more to see you˚₊✩‧₊ pt 5

{nanami x f!reader}

pt 1. pt 2. pt 3. pt 4.

˚₊✩‧₊summary: You’re a manager at Jujutsu Kaisen and you’ve now had two three extremely intimate encounters with grade 1 sorcerer Nanami Kento. He's confessed his feelings for you, you've spent the night at his place so now its back to work, but not without a quick rendezvous in his office...

˚₊✩‧₊tags: nanami x fem!reader, explicit smut towards the end (mdni), food play...let them eat cake !!

˚₊✩‧₊word count: 7.3k

˚₊✩‧₊author’s note: i really debated only posting the smutty part of this as a one shot but ultimately decided to post the whole thing for the two people that are interested in the story eheh.

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As you opened your eyes the next morning you became aware of just how warm and cozy you felt. You felt safe. Nanami’s chest was pressed against your back, your legs intertwined, and his hand rested on your arm, rubbing soft circles into your skin with his thumb. You turned back to look at him and smiled. You shut your eyes and let out a big groan, you didn’t want to get up. He smiled back and placed a soft kiss on your temple. He shifted and sat up in bed. You turned to watch him stretch. His arms reached far above his head as he moved from one side to the other. You moved a hand his way to poke his lower back. He looked back at you and smiled.

As the two of you got ready for the day, you were silent. You moved in sync with one another. You brushed your teeth side by side, using the toothbrush he had provided you the night before. He had even gone so far as to wash your clothes for you. You lay your clothes out next to his on the bed and you both watched each other get dressed. You smiled as you reached over to help him button up his shirt, and he returned the favor.

It was as if you had always done this, like this was just another morning in a long line of mornings and you had never known anything else. As you finished dressing, you looked back over to him. He was adjusting his sleeves and all that was left was his tie. You approached him and Nanami turned to face you with his flashily patterned tie in his hands. He looked at you expectantly, and you obliged, grabbing the silky fabric and letting your fingers brush against his hand. You bounced on your tiptoes and popped Nanami's collar, slipping the tie around his neck. You grabbed the end of the fabric in each of your hands and pulled him closer, bringing his face to your own.

You smiled as you shook your head. “I wish I could help, but I actually don’t know how to tie a tie.” You frowned and sighed dramatically, “I know, it's grounds to send me packing, but I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. I’m only human after all.”

“I knew you were too good to be true,” he said, raising his head and peering down at you. You felt color rush to your face. What should have been an intimidating expression was now making your heart flutter. “I’ll learn,” you said, pulling him even closer. “And I’ll be so good you won’t ever want anybody else to tie your ties for you. I’ll be the best.” He lowered his face closer to you, now inches apart. “It’ll always have to be me.”

He hummed in agreement as he wrapped his arms around you, hugging you close. “Will you be coming back here after work?”

You wrapped your arms around his neck. “I should go home, I haven’t been there for two nights now. What will the neighbors think?”

He chuckled. “Would it be too forward to ask if I could...come over?”

You smiled and felt your cheeks burn. “I-”

“You don’t have to say yes, I just thought I’d ask.”

“Usually I would say yes, I’m just…I mean I didn’t leave it in the cleanest state. If you think your place is messy, mine is…I mean it’s not horrible, it's just-”

“I’ll leave it for another time then,” he said smiling, amused at how flustered you were.

“Yes. Eventually. Maybe…tomorrow?” Was that too soon?

He nodded. “I’ll drop you off tonight and pick you up tomorrow morning.”

“Breakfast at mine then?” you offered. Nanami nodded and you smiled back, “Sounds like a date.”

“Finally,” he grumbled as he pulled you into a soft kiss.

Nanami drove you both to Jujutsu High. Neither of you looked forward to being apart again, you wanted to savor the tenderness of this morning. As he parked the car and stepped out to get the door for you, you looked down at your hands. You looked them over. The crease, the lines, the imprints were all the same. Despite everything you were still yourself, but everything felt so different now. You were discovering a whole other side of yourself, and it hadn’t even been a whole four days.

Nanami opened the door and offered you a hand as you stepped out. You both lingered outside of the car before silently walking towards the school entrance, exchanging glances and longing to be back in each other's arms. You both began to speak at the same time.

“Sorry, go ahead,” you said.

“Ah, I was just going to say, I don’t have any off campus duties today, so I’ll be in my office doing paperwork,” he said.

“I need to write my report about yesterday. Which reminds me, I have to stop by the infirmary again to ask Shoko some questions...” You thought about what else was on your plate. “Then I’ll be grading some of the student assignments and I’m also assigned for tutoring duty in the afternoon,” you sighed. “At least that’s what I think I’ll be doing. Something always seems to come up.” He stared silently. “I…I should be off by five, so maybe…I’ll come find you if you’re still in your office.”

He seemed satisfied with this addition. “I’ll be waiting,” the smirk on his face was devilish.

You blushed, OH.

As you walked in opposite directions, you were sure your face must have been red.

“I need to mention using RCT, but I’m not sure what the best way to word it would be... Without giving away how I did it I mean,” you said to Shoko, who was shuffling around the lab.

“Healing yourself and healing others are two very different things. Most high level sorcerers eventually develop the ability to heal themselves. Minor injuries mostly, just enough to get by until real help can arrive. For you to potentially be assigned so I can train you, you have to show that you go beyond that. You healed those two museum workers, but didn’t heal yourself completely.”

“I didn’t heal them so much as just cap off the bleeding,” you muttered.

“There you go, you could describe that. If they ask I’ll confer that you were able to heal yourself and that I’m confident you would be able to heal others.” She finally turned around and looked right at you. “Why did you do that by the way? Heal them but not yourself?”

You thought about it. “When it came down to healing them, the answer to me was pretty clear. I needed to scab over their flesh to tank the bleeding. So when I turned the CE into my own, I used the output to concentrate on hardening the blood and healing the open flesh. I didn’t try to go any deeper. When I healed myself it wasn’t really intentional, it was because there was an excess of CE flowing into me from the curse. I tried to get rid of it by transferring it to the katana that was logged in the curse’s mouth. It ended up fixing the sword somehow and that’s how I was able to kill the curse.” she nodded. “I only stopped myself from healing because I don’t understand where organs go, or how the blood flows, so I was afraid of messing something inside up.”

“What?” Shoko looked confused.

“What?”

“What did you mean you were afraid of messing up your insides?”

You were confused now. “When I go to heal, I visualize what I’m healing. Otherwise I feel like I’m shaping something into a completely useless item. I feel like I need medical knowledge before I’ll be able to heal large internal injuries.”

Shoko still stared at you puzzled. “How do you think RCT works?”

“You turn CE into blood and rush the healing process.”

“Very good, however, I don’t think there is a real need to visualize what needs to be done. If you were to ask Gojo how he does it he’d probably say he does it on instinct. What feels right.” She looked at you seriously. “I only consider the range of the area I'm healing, I don’t focus on the tissue or how it needs to heal specifically.”

“Oh.” You furrowed your brows. “I…I feel like I have to think about it. Otherwise it doesn’t turn out the way I like. My lip for example,” Your fingers went up to touch the scar. “I held it together and imagined the flesh coming together. It worked, I mean my skin fused but it didn’t heal anymore because I didn’t know what to do next.”

Shoko blinked and you saw a burning look of curiosity wash over her now. It made you nervous. “What time are you off of work today?”

“Ah, I need to leave by 5.”

“Oh? Plans with Nanami?” She said cheekily.

You blushed. “Y-yes. I think we’re grabbing dinner. I’m not sure yet.”

“I see,” Shoko was staring at you intensely.

Both of your phones dinged and you were relieved at the break in eye contact. She tsked as she read the message. “Your date might have to wait. Yaga just called for a meeting at 5.”

Shoko asked you to come back tomorrow morning before the work day started. Something about “wanting to see you in action”. You weren’t sure what she meant, but it made you feel a bit uneasy.

The day dragged on and you felt yourself checking your watch every thirty minutes. You hammered away at the copious amounts of paperwork flooding your desk. Grading papers, turning in permits for projects, following up on leads about curses and the like. When it came time for tutoring you weren’t surprised when no one showed up. You could imagine the students had other things on their minds than the novel they had been assigned to read. You just went back to your paperwork. With everything going on, the news of Gojo returning with the Okkotsu kid barely registered in your brain.

A couple of hours later you found yourself sitting at a table in the managers’ break room, reading over writing assignments from the second years. You cringed as you read Hakari’s history report. You had so many questions…mainly why it was only four sentences long and why he had decided to use informal slang.

“You look like you’re reading something unpleasant.” You looked up and saw Nanami standing at the doorway.

You smiled at him dropping the paper down on the table in front of you. “Hakari is a great fighter, one of the most talented students I think I’ve ever seen. However, his writing skills are crap. I feel sorry for whoever has to read his reports in the future.”

Nanami smiled a little. “Have you had lunch?”

You looked at the clock, it was 2. “I haven’t, actually.”

“Eat with me.”

You smiled and nodded. “Okay.”

He pulled out two sandwiches from the cafe, the ones you hadn’t gotten to try. You smiled. “How did you-”

“I have my ways.” He sat down next to you as you moved the paperwork away. “I seem to recall you complaining about not being able to enjoy them. This is my way of apologizing.” He let you pick a sandwich and took the other. You ate silently, just enjoying each other's presence.

“Any crazy missions pop up?” You asked.

He shook his head. “They’re not prioritizing outings right now. All the sorcerers were asked to stay on campus while the Okkotsu boy was brought here. I imagine we’ll learn more about the situation at the meeting.”

“Oh, that’s right.” You tilted your head in curiosity. “Have you seen him? The boy I mean.”

“I have not. Gojo immediately placed him in the talisman room while the elders discuss what to do with him.”

“What do you think is going to happen?”

He was quiet for a bit, thinking. “If I’m being honest…they will likely call for his execution.”

Your stomach dropped. “I see.”

He was silent. “...Does that bother you?”

You frowned, “A little yes,” you looked down at your sandwich. “People are dead because of him, however I feel like there has to be more to the story.” You looked up at Nanami. “Someone that powerful doesn’t just pop up out of nowhere, he’s most likely lived like this for a while and has finally reached a breaking point. He’s just a kid, he doesn’t need to be punished, he needs help.”

“You sound like Gojo.” You made a face at his statement. “Why do you do that whenever I mention Gojo? Most people adore him,” he asked.

“I have a lot of admiration for him, but I don’t get along with the cocky type.” Nanami smiled. “Do you think… he’ll stop the Okkotsu boy’s execution, if they vote for it?”

He didn’t answer. “Wouldn’t you be hesitant to work around a child capable of that much violence?”

You considered it for a second. “Honestly, I don’t know. I like to think everyone deserves a second chance, but then again, I could meet him and not like him at all, in which case I’ll probably regret sticking up for him,” you said laughing a bit. “But until then, I’ll see the best in him.” Nanami stared at you. “What? Was that a stupid answer?”

“You’re a good person.”

You blushed and shook your head, “I think I’m just naive.”

“No. You’ve got a good heart. I hope you stay that way.” You looked at him curiously.

You suddenly noticed Ijichi coming into the break room. He looked at Nanami confused for a second and then at the sandwiches you were eating. He looked at Nanami again, nervously, and opened his mouth to say something when he was interrupted by a familiar voice.

“Nanami~” Satoru came into view of the door frame, singing Nanami’s name as he pat Ijichi’s back. “I’ve been looking for you.” Nanami stiffened and he looked up at Gojo, clearly annoyed.

You bowed your head politely in acknowledgment but didn’t say anything. Gojo inhaled sharply and frowned dramatically. “No sandwich for me? Not even a sweet treat? I see you have a dessert in that bag, you wouldn’t hide that from me right?”

“What do you want?” Nanami said, ignoring him.

“Ugh, I’m exhausted, I don’t even remember. Maybe something sweet will stimulate my mind and I’ll be able to tell you.” Gojo taunted with a smug smile.

Nanami’s jaw clenched. You smiled a little at seeing his reaction. “You should go look for something sweet then, do you need to borrow some coins? Was that what you were going to ask me?”

Gojo frowned. “What are you doing in here anyway? Tired of Ijichi? Trying to butter up another manager to do your bidding?” Gojo walked over and pulled out a chair from the table, flipping it and sitting with his chest to the back of the chair. “Nanamiii, lack of sugar is bad for my brain, you know how I am. Besides,” he turned his head towards you, “it’s not like you particularly like sweets; unless you got it for a special someone?” You felt your cheeks get hot. Gojo smirked, turning back to Nanami looking for a reaction. You glanced at him and he was deadpanned, staring at Gojo.

You laughed and broke the silence. “Let’s just split it up. Ijichi, sit and have some too.”

“I don’t share.” Gojo said, scrunching his nose.

“I don’t either, but I’d hate for you not to feel special to Nanami too.” You said back.

You looked at Nanami and smiled at him. He seemed to relax a little. Gojo frowned again. “I don’t share.” He mumbled again.

“The cake isn’t for you. We’re not sharing anything. What did you want?” Nanami said firmly.

“You’re no fun.” Gojo whined.

Nanami turned to you and handed you the bag with the dessert. “Please enjoy this. Thank you for keeping me company during lunch.” He got up and walked out beckoning Gojo to follow.

“Wow you’re so cool.” Gojo said to Nanami, teasing him on his way out.

You stared at him as he walked out, smiling like a fool.

“May I ask you about what just happened?” You jumped, not having realized Ijichi was still there.

“About what?” You said trying to play it off.

“Are you and Nanami…”

“Ah, no- well yes. I mean we’re not really…I mean…not yet anyways, not officially. We just- it’s…it’s complicated.” You knew you were probably red.

Ijichi was silent and you looked at him waiting for him to say something. He just smiled. “I see.”

“I don’t know why I’m so flustered.” You laughed awkwardly. “Don’t spread this anywhere. It’s still sort of new.”

“Okay.” Ijichi nodded.

You were both silent for a bit. “What do you think about it?”

Ijichi furrowed his brow. “You want to know what I think?”

“I do.”

“Hmmm…” he leaned back slightly. “I don’t really think anything of it. I was a bit surprised at first, but it’s only natural he would eventually talk to you.” He shut his lips to stop himself from saying anything else.

You looked at him. “What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing.” He said a little too quickly.

“Ijichi…” you knew if you pressed him he would tell. Usually you felt bad about how easily he was pushed into revealing information but today it was to your advantage. “What do you know? What did you mean by eventually? Did he talk about me before this week? I didn’t think he knew I even existed.”

“Ah, it’s not really for me to tell.” He was starting to sweat. You stared at him. What did he know? Had Nanami liked you back all this time? Since when? Ijichi stared back with resolve. You narrowed your eyes at him and leaned back in your chair.

“Don’t worry I won’t make you tell me what you know. I’ll get it out of him.” You smiled confidently. You wanted to hear the whole story from Nanami himself. Ijichi relaxed.“Do you think others will be shocked? By us I mean, by me and him, him and I?”

“I don’t see why they would be,” he answered.

You frowned. “That’s no fun.” You were sort of disappointed. “Wait, but why? Because everyone else saw it coming or what?”

“No. Like I said, those that know Nanami could have seen it coming, but,” you made a note on that, “you’re two adults. I don’t think it violates any rules.” He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead quickly. “Besides, I think you two are more alike than you think.” He turned to you. “And I won’t elaborate.”

The rest of the day felt painfully slow after your lunch. You finished the rest of your tasks around 4pm and decided to head towards the library. The meeting wasn’t for another hour and there were a couple of books you wanted to look over before speaking with Shoko again. There was so much about RCT you didn’t know. You wondered if you could find something that could explain what had happened at the museum. If it truly was taboo, there had to be accounts of a similar situation somewhere, right?

You inhaled deeply as you entered the library. The smell of the old books had always brought you comfort. A lot of your time had been spent here while you were a student. Your first month at the school had been rough to say the least. Yaga recommended you read up on some history and basics to try to catch up with the rest of the students. You did end up learning a lot, but what was book smarts to raw strength? You still got your ass kicked for the next two years.

What little you could find ultimately left you more confused. You found information about cursed spirit manipulation, object manipulation that could feed on the cursed energy of its opponents, but nothing related to reverse curse technique. You looked up at the clock and saw you had about 20 minutes before the meeting.

You began to pick up the books around you to put them back in their designated spots. You put away a couple of other books that were strewn about the tables too.You quickly moved around the library placing the items back on their corresponding shelf. The last book was a bit higher up than you were used to. Who had been reading about clan family histories? You reached up to put the last book away.

“Let me help you with that.” You turned and smiled at Nanami. He took the book from your hand and easily placed it on the top shelf.

“Thank you.” You said. “Do you want to head to the meeting?”

He looked at you but didn’t say a word. He took a step closer to you and you immediately blushed. “We have some time.” You felt your face get hot, and your hands went up to cover your face.

“I’m not sure I healed the succubus’ wound all the way, you’re very…” you tried to find the right words.

“Very what?” He said as he stepped closer, grabbing your wrists to gently move them away from your face. He smiled as you looked up at him.

You laughed and shook your head. You pulled your wrists out of his hands and put them on his shoulders to pull him closer. You wrapped them around his neck as he lowered his face and kissed you. He was so gentle, you felt yourself melt into him as he put a hand on your spine to pull you closer. He pulled back and smiled. You moved your arms under his and pulled him in for a hug, he wrapped his arms around you, holding you close. You buried your face into his chest and hummed happily. Embarrassment suddenly flooded over you and you pulled yourself back away from him.

“Sorry,” you muttered.

“Don’t apologize,” he said.

You looked up at him and felt yourself blush again. “I don’t know what it is about you… but you make me feel so safe,” you said. He smiled. “Kissing is nice and all, but,” you shrugged, “I like when you hold me.” You felt embarrassment from head to toe. You couldn’t believe you were actually saying this to him.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” He stepped closer to you again and pushed a piece of hair behind your ear. “We should go.”

“Right.” You quickly pulled yourself together, but immediately fell apart the second you looked up at him. “I can’t look you in the eyes, I’m too embarrassed.”

“Don’t be.” He began to walk next to you out of the library. “I’d like to hear more of what you like.” He smirked as he saw your flustered face. “Would you like to come back to my office after the meeting?”

“What for?” you asked innocently. The tips of his ears turned red and you swallowed hard. “Ah, I really should have Shoko look at the area on your neck where that curse got you. I’m really not convinced her spell wore off, but I’ll help you if you need me again I guess,” you teased.

He laughed and shook his head. “I think you’re the one who has me under her spell.” he stopped walking and you turned to look back at him. “I can’t get enough of you.”

Your hands shot up to your face to cover your burning cheeks. You turned and started walking again. “Let’s change the subject. I’m going to be beet red at the meeting.” You heard him let out a breath of laughter. He caught up to you walking by your side again. “What did Gojo want?” You felt Nanami stiffen at the mention of his name. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s fine.” He said as he held the library door open for you. “It was about the Okkotsu boy.”

“Oh?”

“You were right, he was sentenced to death, but Gojo is trying to convince them otherwise.”

“What does that have to do with you?”

“He’s asked Ijichi and I to look into the boy’s past.” You were still confused. “He thinks there might be more to him than meets the eye.”

“Sorry I took him away from you like that.” Gojo appeared out of nowhere as you two approached the meeting room.

“Gojo…” Nanami said low, in a warning tone.

“What? I’m apologizing for lunch.” He turned to you. “He chewed me out for that, he’s so cold,” Gojo pouted, exaggeratedly.

“It’s alright,” you said. “I heard you’re going to try to save the Okkotsu boy.”

“What, ya against it?” Gojo asked.

“No, I think it’s a good thing.”

“She’s the only reason I agreed to help you out,” Nanami said flatly. “If she changes her mind, so will I.”

“Quite an influence she has on you.” Gojo said, he elbowed you playfully. “What did you do to him, huh?”

“I don’t really know,” you answered honestly. You looked at Nanami and smiled. “I’m growing more and more suspicious.”

Nanami smirked and opened the door to the meeting room for you.

“Thank you~” Gojo said, walking in first.

You spotted Araki and went over to sit next to her. Nanami followed and sat next to you. He bowed his head politely to Akari as he sat. She nodded in return. They would get along just fine.

The doors opened and Yaga walked in. The room went silent as he made his way to the front. “Thank you for making time to be here, I’ll make this very brief.” He looked hard at Gojo who was leaning back in his chair in the front row. “The Okkotsu boy has been captured and brought here, as I’m sure you’re all aware.” He took a deep breath and sighed. “The council has generously allowed the boy to live.” The air turned tense. You looked around and saw many of the sorcerers frowning. Gojo had a huge, self-satisfied smile on his face. “He will be starting as a student in April. Gojo will be in charge of him along with the rest of the first years. You are all to treat him as a student.” He said firmly. “If there are any questions or concerns please come speak to me directly.”

“This is bullshit.” One of the sorcerers said.

“As I said, if you have concerns, relay them to me. Now is not the time, this is not an open ended discussion.” Yaga said.

“He killed a sorcerer, how will we treat him like a regular student!”

“Do you want to take him on next?” Gojo said nonchalantly. He didn’t even turn back to look at whoever had spoken. The room went silent again. “If you have concerns you can go to Yaga, but I would prefer it if you came to me. I am taking direct responsibility for the boy after all. Anyone unhappy with my choice can say it to my face.” He stood up and turned back to look at everyone. “Or feel free to take it up with the boy himself, unfortunately I think you’ll find your fate similar to the last sorcerer who challenged him.”

You clenched your jaw. You understood his point but you thought he might have been taking it too far.

“Be strong or shut up. Understood?” Gojo said. Yaga was tense.

“That was all I had to say for the meeting. Stick around if you would like to speak with me.” Yaga began to shuffle his papers as he dismissed everyone.

“That was a little intense,” you watched as the sorcerers began to talk amongst themselves, frowns on their faces.

“I’ll say.” Akari turned to you. “What do you think about all this?”

“I’m for it.” You said. She furrowed her brows.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” You said. She looked like she was thinking deeply. “What?”

“I don’t know what to make of it, but I trust Gojo knows what he’s doing.” She sighed. “If I lose faith in him I’d lose faith in Jujutsu society altogether.”

That’s right Akari would rather die than admit it but she liked Gojo. Him and Ijichi had helped secure her younger brother a spot at the Kyoto school after he graduated middle school.

Akari looked down at her phone and sighed. “It looks like I’m going to be at work until 9 today, but text me when you get home. You have a lot to catch me up on,” she said looking at Nanami.

“Yes, ma’am.” You said. You all headed out to the hallway and Akari took off first. You looked back at Nanami and tilted your head. “So….your office?” Nanami smiled and nodded.

“Afterwards would you like din-”

“Nanami, can we speak to you for a moment.” You saw him grimace before he turned around. You looked to see who was calling him and saw that it was one of the sorcerers that had looked discontent with the announcement. He had a group with him, equally upset.

“He’s friends with Gojo, he's not going to help.” You overheard one of them whisper.

“What would you like to discuss?” Nanami questioned.

“I have a feeling you know.” The sorcerers said sternly. You couldn’t remember his name, he was a bit new.

Nanami furrowed his brows together and turned to you. “Go ahead to my office, I’ll meet you there. You know the way, correct?” he asked. You nodded. “Good.”

He turned and started walking towards the other sorcerers. You started walking again, you could feel your heart beating wildly. In his office? Was this a fantasy of his? You smiled a little, whatever it was, you were happy to indulge.

You stopped by the manager's break room on your way there and picked up the dessert he had gotten for you. You hadn’t eaten it during lunch, maybe you two could share it later. You stepped into the office.

Shutting the door behind you, you looked around. It smelled nice, like wood and books. Everything was pristinely organized on the bookshelves. You looked over at his desk and smiled. Sitting down, you looked at the chair behind the desk and imagined him there. How intimidating, you thought. No wonder Ijichi was always so nervous around him.

You unpacked the dessert and placed it on the desk. It was a single slice of cake, decorated with an intricate lace pattern of pink and white frosting. You frowned as you realized you hadn’t grabbed forks. You checked the bag. None. Damn.

You got up to see if maybe he had some in his desk drawers. You hesitated to open them. It felt wrong to snoop. You shrugged, you were just looking for silverware. It's not like he had anything to hide…You opened a couple of drawers and found various stationary supplies-papers, pens, stamps. You opened one of the upper drawers and saw a picture. Another picture of him as a teenager with the brown haired boy, Haibara, throwing up a peace sign. Nanami had a birthday hat on and looked miserable. You smiled.

Something about Haibara was so familiar to you. You racked your brain trying to remember where you had seen him before. There was just something about his eyes- round, soft, kind.

Suddenly the door opened and you quickly shut the drawer. You turned red as Nanami gave you a curious glance. “Sorry I was just looking for forks. Not that it would make sense for you to have them in here…now that I think about it…”

“Forks? For…?” He questioned. You looked down at the cake on the desk. “Ah, I see.” He closed the door behind him and you heard the click of the lock. You swallowed nervously. “I guess I should ask you what you would like to do next.” He looked up at you. “We could go to dinner…or we could stay here for a while…enjoying each other's company.”

You felt your cheeks grow warm. You looked down at the cake. “Le-Let’s stay and enjoy ourselves first.” Your eyes flicked back up to him. “It would be a shame to let the cake go to waste.” He nodded and began walking over to the desk, coming around it to sit at the chair.

You stood still for a second considering where to move to. You looked at the chair across from you and then back at him. He moved his leg to touch yours and cocked his head. You took the hint and sat on his lap.

You wiggled your way back until your spine was pressed into his chest. You reached over for the cake, shifting your weight and making sure you pushed your ass into his crotch. His hands went to your hips and he pressed his fingers into your skin as you brought the cake up. “This is why I was looking for a fork,” you said, holding up the cake to your faces. “I’m gonna end up sticky,” you said, pouting your lip. You looked around again. “I don’t suppose you have any napkins in here either?” You reached into your pocket for your handkerchief.

He moved his hand off of your hip and caught your wrist. “I can think of another way to clean you up. Don’t worry.” He pulled you back against him, his chin resting on the space between your neck and shoulder. “Go ahead,” he said.

You leaned your head against his as you pinched a piece of the cake between your fingers and placed it in your mouth. You smiled as he suddenly pulled your wrist back towards him and began licking the frosting clean from your fingers. You felt a fire ignite in your stomach. He released your hand and you went to grab another bite of cake. You swiped the frosting in your fingers, and instead of putting the sugar to your mouth you craned your neck to the side and smeared it on your skin. Nanami latched onto your neck instantly, licking at the sweet frosting and sucking slightly. You pushed yourself down on him, rocking your hips back. You quickly swiped some more cake on your neck for him to keep going.

He reached over and fed you some more and you wrapped your lips around his fingers. You grabbed hold of his wrist and kept his hand there, sucking on his digits, swirling your tongue around them. He shifted underneath you trying to accommodate the tent in his pants that had begun to push up on you.

Using his free hand he began pulling the blazer off of your shoulders and then moved his hand forward to undo the buttons on your blouse. He placed his hand over your bra and gently caressed your breast. You moaned. You suddenly got up and sat back on the desk facing him. You finished taking off your shirt and slowly removed your bra. Nanami sat back, entranced as you reached down to take more frosting and spread it from your lips, down your neck and onto your chest. Nanami stood up and nestled himself between your legs. You smiled as he lifted your chin up to meet his gaze. He moved his lips down to kiss you. You kissed him back running your tongue over his, he smiled and tugged on your lip with his teeth.

“You’ve made a mess,” he growled. He began kissing down under your chin, swiping the frosting off of your skin with nipping movements and licking his way down. He placed a kiss on your collarbone, stopping for a moment. You looked down at him and nodded. He smiled coyly and lightly bit your skin. You threw your head back as he continued. He reached your breast and pressed a flat tongue over your skin, licking upward a couple of times before latching onto your nipple.

“Fuck!” you exclaimed. He looked up at you, giving you a warning stare. You had to keep quiet. You laced your fingers in his hair and pushed him towards you, urging him to continue. He brought a hand up to knead your other breast. He ran his tongue around your bud and gently tugged your nipple with his teeth. You whimpered at his touch. He responded by pinching your other nipple between his fingers. You stifled a moan as he moved his other hand down to press between your legs. You rocked your hips forward into his hand. He pulled back, your nipple still between his teeth and he smiled. You laughed. You ran your fingers through his hair and sat up. He let go of your nipple and put both of his hands up to hold your breasts now.

“Soft,” he said, squeezing them lightly. He settled the pillowy flesh in his palms and pinched your nipples between his pointer and middle fingers. You smiled as he stared, transfixed.

“Hard,” you teased as you moved your hand down and touched his dick through his pants. He laughed. He watched silently as you scooted off of the desk and went to your knees. You quickly made work of his belt and pant buttons. You kissed at the skin along his happy trail, pulling down his boxers and immediately wrapping your hand around his erection. He hissed and put his hand in your hair. You looked up at him as you pumped him a couple of times. He furrowed his brows and placed his other hand on the desk to support himself. He was getting close. He bucked his hips into your strokes and moved his hand out of your hair in front of his cock to catch his release. You moved his hand away and placed your lips on his tip as you continued stroking. He let out a whimper as you ran your tongue around him. You took him deeper into your mouth applying pressure with your lips as you pulled back. He grunted and slumped forward. His hand now hovered behind your head, you looked up at his burning red face and you could tell he wanted to take your head and shove it forward. You hummed amused and saw him wince.

You pulled back with a loud plop and smiled up at him. He looked down at you and almost came on the spot. Your lips were glossy, a wetness coated your chin, and a string of saliva still connected the two of you. “Finish in my mouth,” you said, placing a small kiss on his tip. “It’s my turn to taste you.” His hand moved to the back of your head and he rocked his cock against your face. You closed your eyes as he spread the saliva on his dick all over your face. You smiled. His face was focused, his eyes wide as he looked at you in front of him. He was in a state of complete concentration, trembling in anticipation. You moved his dick back towards your mouth and nodded. He began pushing himself into you. You knew there was no way you could have taken all of him, but he watched carefully as you took him as deeply as you could.

Your eyes teared up as you tried not to gag and he pulled back. You began stroking him as you took him in again, once again applying pressure with your lips and swirling your tongue around his sensitive tip. He bucked his hips forward a couple of times. His breaths were becoming more labored and he was grunting slightly. He sped up his pace and you quickened your strokes and applied more suction as you hollowed out your cheeks. He grunted deeply burying his dick in the back of your throat and you felt warm liquid splutter forward. You swallowed around him, drinking in the liquid and he moaned in bliss. You pulled off of him and winced as he continued to come onto your face. You laughed a little and opened your mouth again to catch the rest of his release. You rolled the dense fluid around your tongue taking in the slightly salty taste.

Both of his hands were on the desk now, and he was trying to catch his breath. He looked down at you and smiled, shaking his head. He pulled you back up on the desk. “I’ll take that handkerchief now,” you said, collecting the cum on your face with your fingers. He smirked and wrapped his mouth around your fingers. Your core pulsed. He licked up along your face collecting the rest on his tongue and you lurched forward to kiss him, sucking the fluid from his tongue and tugging at it between your teeth. He kissed a quick peck on your lips before pulling you forward and slipping your pants down your waist. He hastily removed your panties and knelt down, placing your legs on his shoulders.

You laughed and put a finger on his forehead stopping him from moving forward. He looked up at you with desperation in his eyes. You were a bit taken aback. You moved your hand down and caressed his jaw. “Do-Don’t worry about taking your time. I want-” he moved forward immediately, licking a long stripe up your core and rolling your clit in his mouth. You arched your back and laid back on the desk. You put a hand over your mouth as he continued. You writhed beneath his touch and almost yelled out when pressed two fingers into you. He curled his fingers and you whimpered. You lunged forward and dug your fingers into his scalp tugging on the blonde’s hair. “Nanami-” you whispered. The pressure building in your core was becoming more and more intense. “Nanami, fuck-!” He looked up at you with a deadly look in his eye, and slowed the movement of his fingers. You looked down at him and whimpered, “Nanami-” he shook his head. You smiled as you understood.

You laid your head back and pushed your hips up. “Kento….” you said quietly. He started his pace again. “Kento-Kento-FUCK!” You shut your eyes as he attacked your senses. Curling his fingers and twisting as he roughly tugged at your clit in his mouth. A hand flew to your mouth again and you muffled a scream as you finally felt the spring in your stomach snap and relief wash over you. You arched your spine again, pushing his face closer to you as you rode out your high. You collapsed back on the desk, breathing deeply.

You looked up at Nanami who was standing now. He pulled out a handkerchief from his jacket and moved forward to clean your face. He grimaced. “I don’t think I thought this through.” You laughed and grabbed your handkerchief and began cleaning his face.

He reached down and opened a drawer to your left. Forks, spoons, paper plates and napkins. You frowned playfully. “I never said I didn’t have any,” he said.

He grabbed a couple of napkins and continued to clean you up. Helping you slip your panties and pants back on. You tucked his dick back in his boxers and zipped up his pants. You looked over at your shirt and gasped. “Oh no!” you lifted it up and saw the frosting had gotten on it. It was right on the front. You sighed and shrugged. Nanami smiled apologetically. “It’s just a bit of cake.”

“Shall I attempt to lick it off again?” he asked snarkily.

“Oh please, we’ll be here another hour," you laughed as you wrapped your arms around him. "Not that I would mind...."

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

pt 1. pt 2. pt 3. pt 4.

˚₊✩‧₊i cant thank all you readers enough for the kind words. i suck at replying but just know that i love you all so so much. i'm so glad theres so many people that love Nanami as much as I do...he's just so...perfect. thanks again -Nana

and HUGE thank you to @zoldsick for always being willing to read my obsessive ramblings. much love Cath<3 big brained things coming from her soon yall are not ready muahahaha

˚₊✩‧₊ taglist: @wrldtups @rjreins @phattyboo90 @tnyblacklesbo @silkija @justwantedachange @inthedarkshadows000 @nniiyyaa @starkmila09 @sikuthealien @wifenanami @bloombb @kentos-glasses @inciteterr0r @naturalismi @kimkimoruo

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fun-loving-peach · 7 months ago

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Different Types of Kisses with Toji Fushiguro

a/n: the last one is so long omg I just had too 😭 if anybody wants to be on the tag list comment or send me an ask, have a lovely day my little peaches 🍑✨

Divider by lovely @plutism 🤍

Toji loves to wake up to sleepy kisses, you both haven’t even opened your eyes and are already wanting each others lips. Mumbling things that are half incoherently as your lips brush against one another. Before y’all go to sleep once more for a little while longer

Toji can’t bring himself to open his eyes for a few moments after kissing you. Something about having you so close tasting you smelling you feeling your warmth makes him absolutely melt against you.

Toji lets out a hoarse “kiss me.” As he pulls you in eyes dark wether it’s lust or anger, depending on the day. He completely forgets anything that happened and focuses solely on you.

Toji knows what you want once you trail your hands around his neck with a look only meaning one thing. And he’ll be damned if he doesn’t want it too. He throws his arms around your waist pulling you close as tightly as he can. He leans down capturing your lips in a passionate kiss before things get heavy.

Toji can kiss you for hours as if his life depended on it. If you’re not sharing each others breath he’s gonna keep going. He loves heavy make out sections where the only thing you can do is pull away for a second not even catching you breath completely before diving back to one another’s lips.

Toji can’t just give you a kiss and get on with his day. He’s gonna reel you back to devour your lips as he pushed you against any surface so he can have you squirming and whining for more before he pulls away with a shit eating grin telling you to wait until he gets back. Jerk <3

Toji french kisses you as if there’s no tomorrow. Guy literally traces all your teeth as if trying to memorize them. And don’t even get me started on how sloppy it gets too. Chins slightly dripping from how he’s kissing you and not letting go for a second.

Toji has to kiss your neck every chance he gets. Whether you have your hair up and it’s just tempting him or he has you wrapped around him and the view is just to good. He can’t help it you have the sweetest neck and the sweetest noises you make when he trails kisses on it just make him go feral and pin you down as he takes you right then and there.

Toji has you on his lap as he caressed your curves. He trails his fingers on your skin as he looks up at your hazy eyes just full of want and need. He presses you down closer so you’ll feel he’s just as full of want and need. He grips your neck pulling you down as he captures your lips and a hungry passionate kiss. Mouths devouring each others as whines and groans are heard around the room.

Toji gets home after all you’re teasing in public and releases chaos. He pulls you in kissing you hard not caring about anything else as he moves around the house to try get to the bed. He pushes you against the wall gripping your thigh pulling it to his waist as he kisses your neck trailing a hand to your heat feeling how wet you were. He picks you up wrapping your legs around his waist as he kisses you before reaching the bedroom and tossing you on the bed roughly. He takes off his shirt before crawling to you not getting you any peace for the rest of the night.

Taglist: @ladythornofrivia

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anonymous-dentist · 11 months ago

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The QSMP fandom has a bit of a problem about reblogging, we know this, and it's absolutely heartbreaking to experience as an artist and writer because like? How else are our creations supposed to spread! We need people to interact with our posts and reblog them so other people can see our art!

But also? People are bad at commenting, and I don't mean that in "Wow, only two words? What a loser!"

Nah, I mean that in the "Why isn't anybody commenting :(" way, and it's especially bad these days. Writers pour hours and days into their writing, and artists pour just as much into their art, but at least artists can sometimes get keysmashes in their activity feed from people who like their art.

What do writers get? A like, if that.

This is how you lose your writers. You forget to cherish them (lol, Suite Life reference anybody?) But, seriously, leaving a comment or an ask or even a tag in a reblog is enough to let writers know that people are reading their work. Otherwise, writers feel like they're writing 5k words for an empty audience, and they lose motivation. They stop writing, and people wonder where they went.

QSMP fandom! Leave comments for your fanfic writers, please! Let them feel the same love the rest of the community feels! We're a wonderful community, we just need to share the love some more! If we don't, we risk losing our artists and writers, and literally nobody wants that

#qsmp #i've been noticing this for a while now #but it's gotten REALLY bad recently #like. REALLY bad and idk why? what did we do to y'all lol #where did you go?

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glossdebut · 3 months ago

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Take a Bite Ch. 6

✧ PAIRING: yoongi x fem!reader

✧ SUMMARY: Your fledgling career as a music journalist is finally going in some kind of direction that must be on the path to success. Your coworkers like you enough to invite you out on Fridays, your boss is starting to think you’re competent enough to let you score a few bylines, and you’re finally getting the hang of InDesign. All of your hard work, late nights, and complete lack of a social life are starting to pay off… Even if it all came at the expense of the longest relationship of your life. Fine. You’ve accepted the fact that romance isn’t for you, under any circumstances. You won’t risk your career for anybody. Not even Min Yoongi.

✧ TAGS: slow burn, eventual smut, eventual romance, producer yoongi, music journalist reader, neighbors to friends to lovers? you’ll see, reader is bad at feelings, reader is post-break up

✧ WARNINGS: um... CLIFFHANGER?

✧ WORDCOUNT: 5.4k

✧ STATUS: complete

✧ AUTHOR’S NOTE: chapter 6 is here early!!! holy shit. this is the second to last chapter of take a bite, so next week's update will wrap everything up! i don't want to give too much away about what happens in this one, but just for reference... um. P.S. i'm sorry in advance. P.P.S. thank you so much tanni @love4myg for beta reading this chapter for me! you saved my wordy ass from publishing so many run-on sentences.

Chapter 6: Y’all Ain’t Never Been To A Party Before?

“Y/N, YOU WHORE!”

So, many things are happening. Holy shit.

First, to your surprise, midnight kimchijeon with Yoongi last night very quickly devolved into more sex.

You had been a little bit anxious while you watched him cook, and even more anxious while you both ate in relative silence, that the weirdness coming off of Yoongi in waves at the mention of Yijeong had effectively killed the vibe. Thankfully, being bent over his kitchen counter and fucked into oblivion did wonders to kill that worry before it fully took root.

It was… You’ve never been fucked quite like that before. Practically drooling onto the marble beneath you as he pounded into you, his hands gripping at your ass, his gravelly voice in your ear, growling “thank me again. You wanna come? Thank me for fucking you like this, come on, show me how much you fucking like it,” and you did. Fuck, he was mean, but you liked it, you liked it so much.

For somebody who very openly prefers to remain completely stationary (and horizontal, if he can help it), Yoongi sure has a fuckton of stamina. So… score.

Second, due to said stamina and your resulting exhaustion following round two, you ended up staying over at Yoongi’s apartment last night. Which was not the plan originally, but both you and Yoongi were unconvinced that you could safely make the journey down the hall back to your own apartment. When the opportunity to crash on a purple mattress presented itself so enticingly, you were powerless to resist.

You both fell asleep very tired and very unclothed, the latter of which probably would’ve resulted in even more sex come morning—sex you were very much looking forward to—if you hadn’t awoken to approximately seven trillion notifications on your phone from Rina, scaring the absolute piss out of you and forcing you to leave a very confused Yoongi to deal with his morning wood all by his lonesome.

It’s around eleven in the morning, the latest you’ve slept in months, when you roll into your own apartment, sleep-mussed and fucked out.

Which brings you to the third thing.

Rina is here. Like, here. In your apartment. Not in Paris.

Breaking the sound barrier with her excitement as she looks you up and down, in all of your walk-of-shame glory.

“What are you doing here?” you ask, your voice still scratchy with sleep. You toss your keys on the closest flat surface to give Rina a very confused hug. You missed her, of course. Terribly so, and that outweighs anything else. But also, what?

“What weren’t you doing here?” Rina quips, squeezing you tight in return. “And please tell me the answer is Yoongi.”

It dawns on you that you and Rina haven’t really spoken since you actually went through with everything, being in different time zones and all. ‘Yoongi invited me to his studio where he produces music and then made me come with his tongue so hard I almost died’ didn’t seem like an announcement to be made over text.

“I don’t think that makes sense,” you mumble into her shoulder before pulling away, sheepish. “But yes, I was at Yoongi’s.”

“Slut,” Rina squeals, her hands latching onto your shoulders and shaking you. “I need to meet him.”

Oh, fuck.

Your eyes widen instantly, slight panic overtaking you as you glance back at your door. You know Rina, and you know that she is not above striding over to Yoongi’s apartment right now and getting a good eyeful for herself.

“Oh my god, Rina, no.” You grab Rina’s hands firmly, pleading. “He’s barely even awake. I promise I’ll tell you every last detail if you don’t do that, holy shit.”

She laughs, pulling her hands away to cross her arms, raising an expectant eyebrow at you. “I’m waiting.”

You sigh, trudging into your kitchen to start a pot of coffee, since you’re clearly going to need it.

“Tell me why you’re in my apartment first,” you say, fishing two mugs out of a cabinet and setting them on the counter. “Not that I mind, but… Paris?”

After the coffee is brewed and doled out, you both move to your couch for a much-needed debriefing of the past few weeks.

Over your steaming mugs, Rina explains to you that she has come to the liberating realization that the show will in fact go on without her.

Her stint in Paris, as fun and fabulous as it was, also made her lonely, and once she was confident the theatre company she was collaborating with would do her work justice without her helicoptering over them, Rina immediately booked the first flight to you.

She plans to stick around for an undetermined period of time, as long as you’ll have her, if you’re okay with that—duh, you tell her with a flick to the forehead—and then go home to her boyfriend for a much-needed hiatus from theatre.

Rina tells you everything about Paris: the sightseeing, the shopping. Her show, the reaction it garnered. In return, you give her all of the gory details about Yoongi. All of them, because she’ll sense it if you leave anything out.

You tell her about the night in his studio, how you deliberated and deliberated until you finally gave in, and how you were rewarded with Yoongi’s head between your thighs, eating you out like a man starved.

You tell her about the horribly inappropriate and ridiculously hot sexting that took place in your open floor plan office, how he described in detail what he was going to do to you when he finally got the chance. You hand your phone over without a fight when she demands to read the messages herself, staring down into your mug as she screeches with delight while reading.

You tell her about last night, how Yoongi made good on all of his promises and then some. How he took his time learning the cues of your body. And about the kimchijeon, because it’s really unfair that Yoongi seems to be good at everything.

Rina whistles lowly, raising an eyebrow at you as she takes a long sip of her coffee.

“Okay, I really need to meet him now,” she says.

“There was a weird moment,” you lament, sinking into the couch. “I might be overthinking��”

“Most likely—”

“But, there was definitely a moment,” you continue, firm. You know what you saw. “I got this killer opportunity at work to write about this producer, and Yoongi knows him, so I asked him to put in a good word for me, and he, like, froze up for a second. I don’t know.”

“Was that before or after he fucked your brains out?”

You snort, mumbling into your coffee as you go for a sip. “Between.”

“Okay, so, he’s probably over it if he went back for seconds,” Rina reasons, shrugging. “Why don’t you just ask him about it?”

You shake your head. “If he’s moved past it, I don’t want to bring it up again and risk popping the sex bubble we’re in,” you say. “You’re right, I’m probably overthinking. Yoongi’s Yoongi. He would’ve said no if he really wasn’t cool with it.”

Rina hums, nodding sagely. “Don’t pop the sex bubble,” she agrees. “It’s your job, anyway. Using your connections. I’m sure he’s dealt with reporters before, being who he is. He probably gets it.”

Your phone buzzes, and you set your mug down to fish it out from between the couch cushions. “Yeah.”

Speak of the devil.

Once you grab hold of your phone, you’re greeted with a text from Yoongi. It seems he’s been busy since your abrupt departure.

[11:58] Yoongi: Spoke to Yijeong. He’s going to be at a label party tonight and he’s down to meet you if you’ll go. I’ll take you.

And then, another.

[11:58] Yoongi: Kind of a fancy thing, though. Cocktail attire. Lmk.

Normally you’d dread everything he’s proposing—uncomfortable shoes at a party where you don’t know a soul wouldn’t be your first choice for a Saturday night—but you find yourself biting your lip to mask the stupid grin forming on your face. You’re getting your interview and there’s a high possibility you’ll get to see Yoongi in a suit? Everything’s coming up Y/N.

You lift your gaze from your phone to Rina, who looks at you expectantly.

“Bring any dresses back with you from Paris?”

★ ★ ★

When Yoongi swings by to pick you up hours later, you’re more than a little grateful you share a dress size with your best friend.

Rina did, in fact, bring dresses back with her from Paris, and the second this particular one slipped onto your body she had no choice but to declare that it was yours.

It’s just your style—black, simple, form-fitting enough that you look fucking good in it, but long enough to wear to what is essentially a work event. Lace detailing on the bodice. A teasing slit up the side. And it’s from Paris, and while you don’t particularly love the French for much, they can make a damn garment. Yeah, you want to be buried in this dress.

Yoongi leans against the door jamb, not the slightest bit subtle as his eyes rake over you. You smirk to yourself as you bend down to get your heels on.

“Pretty dress,” he says, though his tone does little to mask what he’s really thinking. Fuck the party. Under any other circumstances, you’d agree, but duty calls.

“It’s hers,” you say, standing upright and jerking your chin back in Rina’s direction. Rina, who is lingering in your kitchen, very obviously exercising all of her restraint not to crowd Yoongi right now and inspect him like a toy.

“It’s yours,” she corrects, gritting the words out. Good thing you made her promise to be normal.

You take a moment to look at Yoongi, who, to your delight, is wearing a suit. Black, like your dress. What a pair the two of you make.

“You clean up nice,” you say, drinking in the sight of him just as shamelessly as he did to you. Letting your eyes speak for you.

The suit is simple, also like your dress, but the long lines accentuate his legs, making him look taller. Crisp white shirt. Black tie. Hair styled out of his face. He looks good, and he knows it. You can tell in the way he’s carrying himself.

Yoongi hums, smirking. “So I’ve heard.” He glances behind you, at Rina, and then back at you. “The playwright? Rina?”

You nod, surprised that he was able to recall her name.

He looks back at Rina, smiling at her. “How was Paris?”

The memory on this man.

“Great,” Rina says tightly. You’re almost proud of her.

“I’m Yoongi,” he says, eyebrow raising at the weird tension wafting from your kitchen.

“I’ve heard so much about you,” she says emphatically, and you snort.

“Ah.” You note that the tips of Yoongi’s ears are pink. Yours would be too, if you were in a room with two people who discussed the way you fuck in-depth. “Good things, I hope.”

“Ready to go?” you chirp as you grab your bag, taking pity on Rina. Any more and she’ll snap, you’re sure of it.

Yoongi nods and steps back into the hallway, allowing you to slip out the door.

“Nice to meet you,” he calls to Rina as you shut the door, and then you’re both moving.

★ ★ ★

The ride to the party itself is uneventful. Although you’re giddy at the confirmation that the sex bubble has indeed remained unpopped, the second you’re seated in Yoongi’s car you shift into work mode.

The tiny notepad you’d stuffed in your bag is now clutched in your hand, and the near silence in the car is only interrupted with the occasional question or clarification on something you’ve jotted down in your research on Yijeong. Yoongi answers to the best of his knowledge, supplementing where he can, but it’s clear you’ve done your due diligence. You’re ready.

Yoongi’s car comes to a crawl, and you peer out the window at the outrageous mansion he’s brought you to. You’d barely been paying attention when he’d stopped at the gate to give his name for entry, but now that you’re here, you’re struck by the luxury that awaits you on the other side of the passenger door.

A huge, freshly manicured lawn. Equally manicured shrubbery. A neon-lit fountain in the middle of the driveway, right in front of the imposing entryway to the biggest house you’ve ever seen in person. Modern, sleek architecture composing the monolith before you.

Yoongi hops out of the car to walk around to the passenger side and open the door for you. He helps you out, steadying you as your heels connect with the gravel beneath you.

The house is clearly bustling with people, music seeping out into the night as partygoers filter in and out, as others gather on the balconies (plural!) for cigarettes.

“Whose party is this?” you ask, amazed as Yoongi hands his keys off to the valet—a valet, at somebody’s home.

“Bang Si-Hyuk,” Yoongi says as he watches his car depart without him, clearly not sharing your amazement. Right, you remind yourself. He’s used to this kind of thing. You, however, feel horribly out of your element, even in your Parisian dress.

He offers you his arm and you take it, staring down at your feet as you walk through the gravel so as not to twist your ankle. You can do this. Networking opportunities galore.

The doors to Bang Si-Hyuk’s mansion are opened for the both of you by the two men flanking it, revealing the party unfolding inside. You gawk, clutching your bag and the notebook inside of it, as Yoongi takes your free hand. He gives it a small squeeze before guiding you past the foyer, past clusters of celebrities and executives, caterers balancing trays of tiny hors d'oeuvres, all the way to the bar.

When prompted, Yoongi, predictably, orders an old fashioned. You opt for a vodka martini, something to quell the nerves mounting inside of you. You’ve come a long way from plastic cups of cheap beer at a Western bar, it seems.

The bartender procures your drinks, sliding them over to the both of you on cocktail napkins, and Yoongi clinks his glass against yours.

“You look like you’re going to shit yourself,” he says, grinning into his glass and taking a swig.

“I hate you,” you mumble in kind, letting the vodka warm your throat as you take a sip of your own. “Remind me again why you live in our apartment complex?”

“Because I’m not Bang Si-Hyuk,” he says simply, setting his drink down as a woman with long, sleek hair in a slinky dress approaches the both of you, though her eyes are focused on Yoongi.

She’s gorgeous. You recognize her, but your memory fails you as you come up short on her name.

“Min Yoongi, as I live and breathe,” she says with a dazzling grin as Yoongi extends his arm out to clasp her hand. She takes hold of his easily and doesn’t let go as she continues speaking in a familiar tone. Hm. “What a surprise.”

“Noona,” Yoongi says, mouth quirking up at the corners as he turns his head to you, his hand still clasped in hers. “Y/N, this is Shin Suran.”

Suran like the singer, your brain helpfully pieces together. You’ve heard her songs on the radio before, read about her in Look Here long before you started. She had a single years back that charted like crazy, a single that you personally own. She’s done a song with Dean before. And she seems to know Yoongi very well, based on the way she’s still touching him. Something stirs in your gut.

Suran’s attention finally turns towards you, her hand leaving Yoongi’s at last as she reaches out to shake yours. You set your glass down on the bar behind you, wipe the condensation off on your dress as discreetly as you can.

“Y/N,” she says, tilting her head at you as you take her offered hand and shake. “It’s lovely to meet you.”

“You as well. I loved ‘Wine,’” you respond, politely extricating your hand to pick up your glass and take another sip of your drink. It’s true, you did love ‘Wine’ when it came out, and despite your distaste for this interaction in general, Suran is supremely talented, there’s no denying it. Not to mention a potential connection for you, thanks to Yoongi.

Suran laughs, her eyes crinkling in the corners. “I appreciate that,” she says warmly before glancing at Yoongi. “Although, that song wouldn’t have existed if it weren’t for Yoongi-yah.”

…Huh?

It clicks then, your brain coming online in an instant.

Yoongi, your Yoongi—the one who lives down the hall from you, who sends you cat videos while you’re at work, who calls you baby when he fucks you—is Suga. 2017 Hot Trend Award winner Suga. Over one hundred KOMCA credits to his name Suga. That he’s not just your Yoongi, but very likely one of the most famous people in this room. That he might’ve been Suran’s Yoongi, too, at one point.

You’d known that he was famous, sure. You’d been to his studio, seen the awards on the wall, although you’d been to preoccupied with wanting to fuck him to actually read them. His studio setup alone told you that he had money, not to mention the paid driver he sent you, the small flashes of luxury in his otherwise humble apartment. But this…

You realize, to add insult to injury, that the song filtering through the speakers right now is his.

“Noona,” Yoongi says, his eyes locked on you as he speaks, although you sure as hell aren’t his noona. “We’ll catch up with you later.”

You barely catch their goodbyes, picking up your martini to stare into as Suran departs.

“Y/N,” Yoongi says softly.

“You didn’t tell me you were Suga.”

The name feels weighty on your tongue. You don’t know why it bothers you so much, that you didn’t know. That he didn’t tell you outright. But it does.

Yoongi shifts from one foot to the other awkwardly, his body stiff next to yours.

“You didn’t ask,” he mumbles. “It’s not like I was hiding it from you.”

“Seems like the kind of thing to lead with,” you mumble back, taking a long swig, letting the alcohol burn on its way down.

“Yeah, I don’t make a habit of doing that,” he says. You lift your head to look at him at the bitter tone in his voice, trying to decipher the look on his face, but you’re at a loss. You’re beginning to realize just how little you know about your neighbor. Your friend. Your… Well, he’s more than that now, isn’t he?

How many details about Yoongi have you let slip from your memory, while he seems to hold on to every little thing he learns about you?

He polishes off his drink and sets his glass down, pulling his phone from his back pocket to send off a text, not looking up from the screen as he speaks. “Ready to meet Yijeong?”

You sigh, suddenly right back where you were last night when you asked him about Yijeong in the first place, but you nod. “Yeah.”

At the responding buzz, Yoongi pockets his phone and wordlessly leads you through the party. You ignore the way your hand in his feels more like a necessary evil this time around.

★ ★ ★

Jang Yijeong is remarkably handsome, tall and lithe in his suit as he puffs on a cigarette. Meeting him isn’t nearly as nerve wracking as you’d thought, although you’re sure you have Yoongi to thank for that.

As soon as you step foot on the balcony, your brain shifts back into work mode with little effort. You watch as Yoongi and Yijeong greet each other with a hug, which you didn’t expect, and they immediately fall into a rapport that can only come from years of familiarity. Yoongi said he knew Yijeong, but he conveniently left out the fact that they’re, like, besties or something. They’re getting a little annoying, these omissions of Yoongi’s.

Mercifully, Yoongi seems eager to get out of your way as soon as possible. According to Yijeong, he and Yoongi have been working closely for the past month, so he’s kind of sick of looking at his face anyway.

After a muttered, almost fond ‘go fuck yourself’ from Yoongi, he’s leaving you in Yijeong’s care, both of you sitting on the patio furniture kindly provided by Bang Si-Hyuk on the balcony.

“So,” your interviewee starts, taking a drag from his cigarette. “You must be pretty special, getting Yoongi-yah to make an appearance at one of these things.” He gestures at the fanfare through the balcony doors with his free hand.

“I’m not here to talk about me,” you say shyly, balancing your notepad on your knee as you set your phone to record and slide it onto the table between you, next to an ornate ashtray. “I’m here to talk about you.”

“Very nice,” Yijeong hums, amused. “I’m serious, though. I’ve been going to these since I debuted. Album release parties, award ceremonies, anything I could get an invite to. But I haven’t seen Yoongi at one in years. He hates this shit.”

“When I made the switch to producing, I practically begged him to come out of hiding and be my plus-one. He’s been producing for way longer. He knows the people at these things, knows how to work them if he has to,” he continues. “Yoongi and I have been friends for a long time. He’s practically my brother. But I couldn’t get him to say yes.”

Nothing about that tracks. Yoongi and Yijeong, if your math is mathing correctly, have known each other for the better part of a decade. You’ve only known Yoongi for a month and a half. If he’s as much of a hermit as Yijeong insists, why would he do this for you if Yijeong couldn’t get him to budge?

You think about Suran and how surprised she seemed to see Yoongi. You think about the text you got this afternoon, how he didn’t give any indication that going to this party was outside of his comfort zone. Another omission, except this time you don’t feel annoyance, but something else entirely. Something you don’t dare name. You shift in your seat.

“I’m just saying,” he says warmly, ashing his cigarette in the tray between you, meeting your eyes. “You must be special.”

You don’t know what to say in response, and you know it shows. Yijeong laughs at whatever expression he finds on your face, warmth blooming in your cheeks as your eyes burn holes in the notepad on your knee.

“Okay, okay,” he says, grinning and raising his hands up in surrender. “Do your worst. It’s been a few years since I’ve done this, so I might be a little rusty. But for you, mystery girl, I’m an open book.”

Yijeong speaks to you like an old friend. He tells you about how he fell in love with singing in the fourth grade, when he sang ‘Azalea’ by Maya in front of the eommas and appas of his peers and got a taste of what it’s like to sing for an audience. He opens up to you about losing control of his own voice during his career as an idol, how he didn’t know what was wrong, was wracked with fear over it.

He tells you about becoming friends with Yoongi, about being taken under his wing to learn a whole new skill and take a new direction with his career. How Yoongi opened a door for him that he didn’t even know existed. You learn that Yijeong has been collaborating with Yoongi for years now without drawing too much attention to it, but now that he can stand alone, he’s ready to step back into the limelight as EL CAPITXN.

You get so enraptured in the conversation, dutifully scribbling notes and asking follow-up questions, that you barely notice that over half an hour has passed by.

“Y/N,” Yijeong says, smiling at you as he wraps up his answer to your last question. You don’t know how to explain it, but it makes so much sense to you that this man is Yoongi’s friend. Maybe it’s the warmth in his voice. “You should probably go rescue Yoongi-yah from those leeches inside.”

“Yeah,” you agree, biting back a smile at the thought of Yoongi braving rookie idols and sleazy executives, trying to find a wall to hug while he waits. For you. He’s doing this for your career, for you. “It was lovely to meet you, Yijeong.”

“The pleasure was all mine,” Yijeong insists, watching you knowingly as you pack up your notepad and pen, moving to stand. “Y/N-ah,” he calls, making you pause at the balcony door. “Treat him well, okay?”

Something that you’ve been ignoring for a long time unfurls in your chest.

“I will,” you promise softly.

You push the balcony door open, your heartbeat thrumming in your ears as you make your way back to the bar. You will rescue Yoongi, want nothing more than to be with him again, but you need the liquid courage now more than ever.

Here’s what you know: You have spent the last three years terrified of falling. Starving yourself from the full breadth of friendship, of intimacy, of love, because of what happened the last time you let yourself have it. You’ve convinced yourself that any man that claims interest in you would do the same in the long run, that being career-driven is a deterrent to love and nobody will ever accept you for who you are.

But you also know this: Yoongi sees you. He understands you. Unlike your ex, he doesn’t feel hurt when you disappear for days on end, lost in your work, because he’s very likely doing the same. And yet he still finds time to read everything that gets published under your name. He offers his studio as a safe haven for you to write when the words stop flowing in your own office. He goes to parties he’d normally rather die than attend just so you can get an interview, because it’s important to you.

You don’t want to starve anymore. Min Yoongi has been staring you in the face for the past month and a half, offering you everything you’ve been scared of since your ex left you three years ago, all alone in a strange city. Offering you all of his support and kindness and closeness like a filling meal. And for the first time in a very long time, you want to try and take a bite.

Terrifyingly, you really, really fucking like him. Not just as a friend.

You finish your martini quickly before weaving through the crowd to find Yoongi. And you do, leaning against the furthest wall. Drink in hand, just like the night you met.

When you approach, he lifts his head and your heart soars when your eyes meet.

“Ready to go?” he asks, none the wiser to your sudden change of heart.

“Yeah,” you breathe. “Yeah, let’s go.”

★ ★ ★

You barely make it into your shared hallway before you’re on Yoongi, your body pressing against his and your arms looped around his neck as you pull him into a searing kiss. He tastes like whiskey, and normally you’d hate that, but it tastes all the more sweet because it’s on Yoongi’s lips.

It’s so different, now that you’re allowing yourself to really feel it. You fit together so perfectly. His lips feel so right on yours. How could you have been so blind before?

You expect Yoongi to press you against the wall, or slide his hands up the skirt of your dress, or groan your name into your mouth like he can’t get enough of you. You know you can’t get enough of him. In his suit, waiting to be unwrapped like a present.

You want Yoongi to do those things, desperately. You want to pay attention properly this time, you want not to shy away from the intimacy of it all. You want whispered praise in your ear, eye contact while he fucks you, his lips on yours and his stilted moan as he spills inside of you. You want the softness that comes after, for him to clean you up with care and wrap you in his arms. You want to sleep in his bed for a reason other than exhaustion.

But instead, Yoongi pulls away, grasping your shoulders gently as he creates distance between you. You look up at him, confused.

“Rina’s probably waiting for you,” he says.

“I promise you, she’s not,” you snort. Rina knows better than to expect you home before morning at the earliest. You surge forward, leaning up to chase his lips again, but he remains out of reach.

“Y/N…” Conflicted.

Right. Of course, duh! You’re getting ahead of yourself.

You forgot, in the haze of your epiphany, that your last conversation with Yoongi didn’t exactly bode well for your sex bubble. You need to set the record straight, then.

“Yoongi, if this is about earlier… the Suga thing,” you start, leaning in to pepper kisses down his neck, your fingers coming up to fiddle with his tie, loosening it. “I’m not mad, okay?”

Yoongi shakes his head, running his hand through his hair. “No, I just…” He trails off, sighing. “Maybe this wasn’t a good idea, Y/N. The friends with benefits thing.”

You freeze.

Dread fills you instantly, replacing all of the warmth that had been inhabiting your body just moments before.

Why now? What’s changed? You know what’s changed for you, but it can’t be the same for him if he’s pulling away from you like this.

Yoongi gently removes your hand from his tie, takes a step back from you. Crushes all of your hope with his next words.

“I just don’t know if I can do this with you.”

With you.

“Oh,” you breathe. You feel like you’re going to cry. The beginnings of tears are already welling up in your eyes, and you do your best to blink them away.

“I’m sorry.”

You shake your head. “Don’t be,” you say, forcing your expression to remain neutral. “I appreciate your honesty.”

“I still want to be your friend, Y/N,” Yoongi says, his voice pained, like he can see right through you. You wish he’d stop. “Please.”

“Yeah,” you say, your own voice breaking just a little. You don’t want to cry in front of him. Fuck that. “I’m gonna go home. See you.”

Before he has a chance to say anything else, you’re speedwalking to your apartment, fishing your keys out hurriedly to unlock it and rush in.

Once you’re inside, you lean back against the door, sliding down until you’re sitting on the floor. It feels so similar to the night you met him—running away from him in the hallway, feeling like you can’t breathe once you’re on the other side of the door. Too bad it’s so, so different.

At the sound of the door, Rina comes out from your bedroom, Pepper in tow.

“Y/N? Is that you? I thought for sure you’d be getting dicked down right about n—” You watch her stop in her tracks at the sight of you, her expression laden with concern. “Y/N? What’s wrong?”

“There are strings,” you sniffle, looking up at your best friend with watery eyes. “And it’s my fault.”

“Oh, Y/N,” Rina breathes, setting Pepper down and immediately joining you on the floor, wrapping her arms around you.

Your mind flashes back to three years ago, in a position not all that different from this one. But that was for a relationship, one that lasted years. One that you foolishly assumed was heading for marriage. Why does this hurt just as much? Why did Yoongi nestle himself into the softest, most vulnerable parts of you just to rip himself away at the last second?

You finally allow yourself to cry.

✧ shoot me a reply or an ask if you enjoyed this chapter! feedback is always appreciated <3 join my taglist if you want to be tagged in future chapters!

@dollfaceksj @jajabro @coffeedepressionsoup @butterymin @pitchblack0309 @sugar-snap

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bullet-prooflove · 5 months ago

Text

Firewood: Lee Dutton x Reader

Tagging: @kmc1989 @queenslandlover-93 @newyorkrican922 @bryandechartisasmolbean @lovethis-lovethat @goblinenby @foxfables @solar-raccoon

Companion piece to

Wild Bloom

A Boy from Bozeman

The Worry Doll

Wild Fire

Experiance (NSFW)

Blind Date

Lee’s chopping wood when you pull up outside the farmhouse. He’s wearing those old Levi’s that fit just right and a white wifebeater that clings to his chest. His powerful muscles ripple as he swings the axe down, splitting the wood with one strike before he replaces the log with another and begins the process all over again. It does a little something for you seeing him in action. It always has.

It’s the expression on his face that betrays him, his jaw is clenched, his brow furrowed, his eyes bright and fierce. It’s a sign that something isn’t right in Lee’s world and the last time that happened…

You’d ended up heading off to California alone.

He pauses when you step out of the car, wiping the back of his wrist across his forehead and you hold up a brown paper bag from the bakery in town.

“We didn’t get to have breakfast the other morning.” You say as you close the car door behind you. “I thought maybe we could fix that.”

He smiles then and that smile, it lights up your entire world. It’s been this way with him ever since the moment you met. You’ve had other partners over the years but none of them have ever compared to Lee. He’s always been the love of your life.

“Alright honey.” He says, his voice a little husky as he sets the axe down. “Give me a minute to clean up and I’m all yours.”

All yours…

You can’t express how much you want that.

You’re already have the coffee brewing on the stove when he returns from the bathroom. He wraps his arms around your waist, cradling you against his body as he buries his face into the curve of your throat. You’ve only been back in his life a couple of days but Lee already knows he can’t live without you. Having you here in his kitchen, it reminds him of everything that could have been, that should have been.

“Do you want to tell me what’s gotten you all torn up inside?” You ask him and he huffs his response against your skin because he is still absolutely furious at his father for playing this card, for forcing him into a position he does not want to be in.

He’d had three calls this morning before turning off his phone. Each one from another ranch trying to solidify their alliances with the Yellowstone by describing their daughters to him as if they were cattle. Lee can not abide it.

He knows it’s going to get worse once word starts to spread, because marrying Lee means becoming part of a dynasty and who wouldn’t want that in an era where their livelihood is under threat.

He pulls away, busying himself by taking out plates and unpacking the pastries while you finish up with the coffee. This is not something he wants to discuss with you because it thrusts you right back into the small town politics you left way back when. However he doesn’t want you to be blindsided either because this news, it’s to be all anyone can talk about when it breaks.

When you set the coffee down on the table in front of him, he can’t help but draw you down into his lap. You laugh at the abruptness of the motion, your hands threading through his hair, tugging just a little and Lee moans at the sensation, his hips arching up to meet yours.

“I love that I can do that to you.” You whisper against his lips. “That you’re still mine after all these years.”

“I’ve always been yours.” He tells you. “Since the very moment I laid eyes on you, I knew there would never be anybody else.”

You kiss him then and breakfast is forgotten as he carries you to bed and makes love to you with a ferocity and passion that echoes over the pastures through the open windows of the farmhouse.

It’s in the aftermath when the two of you are lying tangled up in one another that he tells you what his father has done. His thumb ghosts over the apple of your cheek as he explains the implications, that he now has a slew of suitors jamming up his voice mail because every single one of them wants a piece of Yellowstone.

“It’s happening again.” You say withdrawing from him and Lee sighs as you slip out from underneath his sheets. “I can’t believe he’s doing it to us again.”

“No baby he’s not.” Lee tells you, his hand capturing yours, drawing you back down onto the bed. “There’s only one woman I’m going to marry and she’s the one right here in front of me.”

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#lee dutton #lee dutton x reader #yellowstone

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intoanotherworld23 · 11 months ago

Text

Grinding In The Garden

Pairing: Reader x Oliver Quick

Warnings: NSFW 18+ MDNI, there is sex in this and that’s it, minor fingering, minor spanking, unprotected sex, sex in a garden, public sex, dirty talk

Summary: Oliver wants to take you for a stroll around the garden, and of course he’s got another idea in mind

Authors Note: Please be sure to reblog and comment if you enjoy it would mean a lot, and keeps me motivated to keep writing! Tag list is always open so feel free to ask and I’ll be happy to add you! Thanks so much everyone! XOXO

Hall Of Hunks

"Ollie what if someone walks by?"

Whimpering to Oliver as he tugged your pants down to your ankles. The cool air breezing over your exposed core. It felt like your heart was racing a million beats per second. Your stomach was in knots at the thought of getting caught.

"Then we give them a real show." He jokingly said his focus solely on your naked lower half.

Tugging on himself as he licked his fingers and rubbed them over your folds. Body jolting at how cold his fingers were, and goosebumps appearing on your skin. His touch was gentle but boy did it have an affect on you.

The thought of maybe Felix or Venetia walking by and seeing what's happening did kind of turn you on a little bit. If anything it's what you and Oliver secretly wanted to happen.

"Someone seems to like that idea." It was like he was reading your mind.

"I can see that cunt glistening for me." Licking his lips at how wet you really were.

Pushing two of his fingers inside of you making you gasp as you turned your head to the side to catch a better look at him. Bending your back a little more as you spread your legs as far as they could go. The sounds of your wetness every time he plunged his fingers back in echoing in your ears.

"Ollie please." Begging him to hurry up so you could feel him.

"Look at you so desperate. About to be fucked in the gardens like the greedy little whore you are." His words sounded cruel but he said them with such sensuality.

Oliver wanted to take you on a walk through the gardens at the Saltburn estate, and you should have figured he would also have something else in mind. Randomly confessing to you that he's always wanted to do it where anybody could see. He could never keep his hands off you.

"Are you ready for me sweetheart?" Cocking his head at you as he curled his fingers up your core clenching tight around his digits.

"Yes."

A hand coming down on your cheek making you jolt in surprise realizing those weren't the exact words he wanted to hear. He had a certain way he wanted you to address him sometimes.

"Yes, sir."

"That's a good girl for me." Pulling his fingers out your juices coating them feeling the wetness on your hip as he gripped your flesh. "Always a good girl for me."

Bending his knees as he spread your cheeks apart so he could push his cock towards your entrance. Your hands gripping onto the tree that you were currently bent over. Parting your mouth as you felt him slowly slide inside of you. Stretching you out as your cunt swallowed him whole.

"Oh fuck this feels too good."

Groaning to himself as he clenched his jaw to refrain from cumming too soon. Feeling your slowly stretch around his length. He wanted to enjoy this.

"Keepin that cunt nice and tight for me."

"Ollie please move." Whining as you wiggled your hips back and forth hoping he caught the silent demand.

"Anything for my girl." Pulling his cock almost all the way out before slamming back in you loud moans leaving your lips.

"Like that sweetheart?"

"Mhm fuck yes." Mumbled through your teeth biting your bottom lip.

Oliver was amazed at how well you could take him. Watching the way that your walls gripped him almost like you didn't want him to leave. His cock disappearing as you swallowed him whole.

"God look at you." He teased as he watched you back your hips to meet his thrusts. "Taking my cock like this when anyone could see."

Nails digging into the tree bark as his cock was so deep inside you could feel him in your stomach. Your lower stomach bulging leaning your head down just barely enough to see his cock pounding into you. Closing your eyes as your body moved back and forth from the powerful force of his thrusting.

It was eerily silent where you two were except every once in a while you heard crickets chirping or something. The only sounds you could really hear was your moaning and yours and Oliver's skin slapping against one another.

"You're doin so good for me darling." His voice a gentle praise of acknowledgment.

Oliver could tell you were getting closer the tighter you were squeezing his cock. He wasn't far behind you, and wanted to feel his sweet release when you did. Strained groans and grunts slipping past his lips as he looked from where you two were connected to trying to get a glimpse of your face.

"Oh god I'm there Ollie." Backing your hips into his thrusts to feel more.

"Fuck let me feel that tight little cunt cum around my cock." Pushing deep inside you with a sharp thrust a scream leaving your mouth.

That familiar coil forming in the pit of your stomach as you blinked away a tear. Oliver leaned forward to kiss your shoulder tenderly then nibbling softly on your skin as you whimpered at the sensation.

Oliver's face was spanked red as sweat dripped down the side of his face. Hands grasping your cheeks squeezing the flesh between his fingers so badly wanting to take a bite. Oliver was obsessed with how you felt around him, and he could live inside you if he had the choice.

"Fuck me that's it." Oliver growled into your ear like a wild animal.

That clearly set you off as your body tightened and legs nearly gave out. The air had left your lungs for a brief second taking a huge inhale then exhaling. Thank god Oliver was holding you otherwise you would have collapsed to the dirt ground.

"Mmmm my god." Crying out into the air as your walls squeezed him like a vine.

Your orgasm smacking you in the face as your entire body felt like it was on fire. Squeezing your eyes shut as your body trembled, and your head was spinning so fast you felt like you were floating in the air.

Oliver groaning and panting above you as his cock twitched feeling warmth spreading inside of you. If it wasn't for him holding onto you your body would have collapsed to the ground.

Your arms shaking as you tried to steadily catch your breath. Taking small breaths as you tried to come down from such an intense orgasm.

"We gotta go on walks like that more often." Oliver joked as he smacked your ass a genuine laugh bellowing out of your stomach.

#oliver quick #Barry keoghan #oliver quick smut #Barry keoghan smut #oliver quick x reader #Barry keoghan x reader #oliver quick fic #barry keoghan fic #oliver quick imagines #barry keoghan imagines #oliver quick fanfiction #oliver quick saltburn #barry keoghan fanfiction #Saltburn smut #Saltburn imagines

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caparrucia · 4 months ago

Note

I read your post about the Dead Dove Do Not Eat tag, and how you think people should take more responsibility for their own experience in the fandom sphere, and I very much agree with the points you raised. I just have a question regarding this one:

" "But what if I read something that wasn't tagged X?" Well, that's very unfortunate for you, but if it is genuinely that upsetting, you have a responsibility to yourself to only browse things explicitly tagged to not include X."

So, when I'm writing fanfics, and putting them on Ao3, should I tag their lack of things they don't include? Like, none of my fics include self harm, because I'm not willing to read it and even less willing to write it, should I put "#no self harm" in there, for people who have a worse reaction to it than I do and are following your advice?

Not asking "is it a moral imperative" because I know it isn't, but is it something you think would actually help anybody?

So, let's talk about context, because like all great spats in Fandom, this is about context.

Tags are contextual. They're flags that are trying to bring a specific demographic to your fic. Or, conversely, keep a certain demographic away from your fic. Tags are also never comprehensive. It is impossible to tag a fic comprehensively, because there will always be more tags. You can tag for the food that appears, the clothes, the political framework taken for granted. You can tag for gender or sexuality of the characters, even if the story is not about that per se. (See the large number of people annoyed when you write trans characters in stories and don't advertise it widely, despite their genital configuration having anything to do with the story at hand. Hi, Pokemon fandom. No, I will never forgive you the harassment and transphobia.)

The wording in the post, I acknowledge, might appear very dramatic at first glance. But that's because it's responding to a very dramatic, very aggressive statement. The way that certain people weaponize their trauma to try and shut down art they do not like. "This triggered me!" Is a really shitty comment to get, as a writer. Because it's usually a trap. If you extend sympathy, you will quickly find that the person yelling at you about this doesn't want platitudes or commiseration or actual resources to manage their triggers. They want you to take your fic down and remove it from the world, because "it triggered them." They want to treat your fic like a dog with rabbies: putting it down is the only conceivable solution, and no amount of polite rebukes (or, let's face it, annoyed snarking) will get you anywhere. They are not having a conversation with you. They have deemed you responsible for doing them harm (your work triggered them, therefore you, personally, set out to trigger them) and they're not willing to take anything less but the obliteration of your work as restitution.

The response "lol, that's a you problem, if it's so bad, you have a personal responsibility to not read anything that isn't explicitly stated to not include the thing that triggers you" is very mean. I acknowledge that. But it's not a response that comes from community, it's a response that aims to communicate clearly and concisely that you're not available to entertain any kind of overwrought nonsense and that you're not available to be emotionally blackmailed into removing your work from circulation.

Triggers are like allergies. The people that have them have to manage them to their best of their ability, and the people who don't have those triggers could stand to do more to be accommodating, for sure. Current tag culture is in fact the result of years upon years of the Wild West Internet that us old farts are constantly talking about. See, in the old internet, there was no social expectation for tagging. You got a title, you got a rating (not always!), sometimes you got a pairing. Anything else was a roulette. Like literally anything. I used to be in FMA fandom way back before AO3 and tag culture was a thing and let me tell you, the amount of times I ended up mid-incest fic because the initial premise sounded like a cute brothers bonding scenario? More than once. There was no tag for incest. Someone threw a fic into an IRC channel with a generic "this one was good!" and it could be ANYTHING. Literally anything!

Here's where I disagree with a lot of The Olds who whine about The Old Days: the Old Days way of doing fic? Awful. Shitty. Traumatizing, legitimately. I love tag culture. I think tag culture is one of the nicest, most amazing things we as a fandom have come together to do. It gives so much freedom for the author to choose how much they want to spoil/warn form, and it also gives readers so much freedom of choice! It's a great system! Not a perfect one. No system is perfect. But it's a great compromise. I don't think people understand how utterly revolutionary the Archive Warnings are, in AO3. Just narrowing it down to those four! (Underage, Non-Con, Graphic Violence and Character death, for those uninitiated, as well as the opt out of Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings.) This system allows the most widespread triggers and preferences to be respected. If you don't like fic about people under 18 doing anything relationship related? Slap that Underage and the Choose Not To Warn archive warning in your exclude options and you're good. Same for non-con. Or Character death! The way the Archive is setup, this guarantees you will not see fic with that.

That's revolutionary! It's great! We should hype it more.

This is one of the reasons why I'm so testy about the Dead Dove tag. I know the ship has sailed, the tag has changed meaning and it is a completely different function now, than when it started. (This is also why I don't respond to the handful of people who insist that my history is wrong and the tag is useful actually! They're missing the point of the post and also I was there when the tag first came about. I'm in the reblogs of the original post.) The problem with Dead Dove is not itself, but that its a symptom of people - most commonly antis, but really, this isn't a group-specific behavior, stupidity is policy neutral - using tags not to find fic to read or to filter out fic they don't want to read, and instead using them to find people to harass. That endangers the whole system, because people stop using understandable, straightforward tags for their stuff and instead start making convoluted spaghetti tags that only make sense in-group to try and avoid getting caught in the harassment campaign. And that sucks! That kind of behavior should be publicized and blacklisted in fandom. Ostracize people who try to misuse categorization tools as weapons of abuse, and endanger the entire system in the process. Fuck them.

To your point, should you add "no self-harm" to your fic? I don't know! I don't know your fic. Does it make sense for you to add it? Do the rest of the tags in your fic paint a picture that might require that clarification? I think the underlying conversation is that people who fearmonger about their triggers and try to use their trauma to bully strangers on the internet are really very stupid. Most stories don't include a tag about self-harm because most stories don't include any self-harm at all. Same with sexual acts. Or crimes. Tags highlight content that might be expected based on the culture the fic is coming from. If you write fic for the alien incest show (Trigun) and your fic somehow doesn't have any aliens or incest in it, it would be worthwhile to tag it for it. Just because people might expect it! Or if you're writing about depression and spiraling and mental health crisis for a character but very specifically not about self-harm? Yeah, that'd make sense to highlight that.

Ultimately, as the author, you get to choose the tags you put in, and in doing so, you choose the audience you're targeting. This is where the triggers as allergies metaphor breaks though. Fanfic is not a necessity. It's a privilege. It's a gift writers give their fandom and no one in their fandom is entitled to it. That's why tags are optional. That's why you can still rawdog fic the way we used to, and read through "Chose not to warn" And all the stories that have a fandom and a pairing and a rating, and then nothing else. No one's life is being endangered, if they don't get to read any given fic. Does it suck to be excluded in a community space? Sure! But it's not life or death and treating it like such is the source of much of the headaches around this.

Fanfic is a gift. If you have very bad triggers, you have a responsibility to yourself to only accept gifts that are explicitly for you (tagged around your personal triggers). You can always ask, but an author is always entitled to decline to tag their work. And they're not being an asshole for it. Social media has poisoned people into seeing any interaction as a you vs them situation, but the truth is people are just trying to vibe.

#rie answers #lynburnlegagy123

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pomegranate-pen · 24 days ago

Text

The Aeon's Gaze.Veritas Ratio x GN!Reader.

summary: when outer space was quiet and your small ship was filled with a cacophony of tears and sad songs. Where once stood an excited traveler ready to see the world, now was a crying wanderer experiencing their first heartbreak, vowing to never call another planet ‘home’ ever again,

You remember asking yourself, Akivil, how have you ran this path? How can the express experience friendship and comradery and even love like no other in the world, and then so easily leave it all behind? Why can’t you do the same? Why must you feel so lost?

Why must you feel so alone?

you're trapped in a haze of dreams. Yet, through the mists of autumn leaves, blizzard snow and a space station bustling with researchers, in each and every illusionary minute of your dream, an indigo haired man is present. Like he’s in the back of your mind, stuck in like glue through every thought and theory that passes by you. and soon, as you stop acting in your dreams, as reality and illusion becomes one and you realize you’re in a fake, made-up world of your psyche, you stare into his golden eyes curiously, one question lurking echoing through your mind.

why wasn't Dr.Ratio a genius?

tags: uhh kind of slowburn? reader is a magic professor. reader is gender neutral. father figure screwlum. I have been writing this post two million times now I cannot for the life of me tag send help.fluff, future fluff. toothrotting fluff. BUT also angst.lots of angst. lots of nerdy talks because it's dr.ratio guys ofc there's gonna be nerdy rambles. this entire fic can be seen as a love letter to ratio and a character exploration of him ngl.

Word count: over 16k.yes.yeah.mhm.send help.

chapter1. the unreasonable reason for magic

Dr.Ratio has always been…difficult to get along with, to say the least.

It’s not like you despise him- nor do you wish any ill will towards him. But it’s common knowledge between everyone that knows even the slightest bit about him that Ratio is known to uphold his own opinion to the highest of status, he sees his ideas as superior to the ‘simple-minded’ (his words, not yours). You’ve heard his students, as you’ve met them once or twice during your months as a professor, call him the very definition of a researcher. What other academic and overwhelmingly strict professors would want a researcher to be. Bold, confident and utterly obsessed with knowledge. Ratio holds his opinion in high regard not because of pride or confidence-though they certainly have a play in it- he does it because his opinions all derive from knowledge itself. He doesn’t like when people speak of things they have little knowledge about, and so, he himself constantly strives to store the most knowledge he can in his peculiar mind.

You don’t think you’ll ever get along with him as a friend, let alone a colleague. Hell, you’re not sure if he’ll see you as a person worthy of speaking to, because you see- Ratio is an honest man, blatantly so. He says what he thinks and wholeheartedly shows a person if he thinks they’re worthy to hold-up a conversation with or not. One of those blatant methods is his mask, one where you’ve always found yourself smiling at. The sheer absurdity of it, the stern and reactionless block of delicately sculptured stone leaves you holding back giggles for no reason whatsoever. You’ve heard fellow colleagues call it unnerving-uncanny even, yet you find it the complete opposite. It’s amusing, it’s delightful to look at. It’s a full treat to glance at him and see him intensely conversing with someone with the mask still on, his voice high on emotions while his face unmoving as ever.

Colleagues who have spoken to him are confusing as well— some find him to be respectable, a determined and highly intelligent person whose conversation always activates the gears in your brain- other’s find him to be too prideful, a snob who thinks he knows more than anybody else, understands things better than others do, “mean-spirited.”your co-worker Rina called him. “mean-spirited and somewhat elitist- but rather than his elitism being laced within status and power, he is attached to knowledge. If he thinks you’re simple-minded or do not have the same IQ or higher than his, you are deemed unworthy to even glance at, let alone speak to.”

“I think he’s nice.” your other colleague, Byron adds, while Rina glares at him.“you only say that because you think he’s hot!”

“Perhaps, but can you blame me?” Byron gushes. “ he’s too gorgeous to handle. You may all think that he wears the mask as a statement, but I believe he wears it because he knows he’s beautiful. so he wears that ridiculous thing just to make sure the students don’t get distracted!”

“Oh please! He’s not that hot. Sure his eyes are mesmerising and he somehow can pull off purple…and his voice certainly does add to his attractiveness…and his abs-“

“ ooook— this conversation is getting out of control.” You’d quickly cut in, leaving the now embarrassed colleague trying to explain their reasoning while the other one laughs. Safe to say, the reputation of the ever so famous Dr.Ratio, amongst other employees of the intellegencia is varied, and it depends on whom you ask. There can be no label put into him other than ‘popular’. But this reputation does not hold a candle to how your students like to describe him. to them, he’s the strangest and harshest teacher they ever had, but he’s also what pushes them to improve and show their value in the university. Whenever they come back from his class to yours(whether if it’s from another day or merely a few hours,) you find them to be mentally exhausted, sleepless and even malnourished. Five minutes of your class is spent on letting them rant about their troubles with him- though, they never say whom they’re speaking about exactly. The teacher is left as ‘that one stern teacher before your class’ and he has become a ‘he who shall not be named’ sort of rule amongst your students. A ‘voldemort’, some nerd (you) might be keen to say. The horror stories you’ve heard about his teaching methods and assignments makes you feel bad for wanting to do a surprise pop quiz that day as well. but unfortunately, you have a class too, and it’s your responsibility as a teacher to teach however much you can in the small duration you have in each class. After all, magic is an important and impossibly difficult subject, and though you understand that the subject Ratio teaches must be of a difficult and utmost importance, you cannot let the students see yours as something to yawn at.

You’re no genius, and even if being amongst the intellegencia professors makes you one in others' perspective, it is still something you’d completely deny if directly asked. The only reason you’re a professor here is because of your extensive knowledge and passionate love for magic. Magic of any kind, whether cursed or blessed, inherited or physical trait, from aeons or from the wonders of space- any sort of magic is fascinating to you. you’ve spent most of your years being a wanderer, traveling between worlds and planets mastering all kinds of magic, to the point where most people just started seeing you as a researcher rather than adventurer. You’d spend days in a planet's library cherishing every and each book with even the word magic in it, any friend you spoke to you’ve talked their ear off about magic with. Passion has become talent, and talent has become knowledge. That is how you found yourself being offered the role of professor, and it’s a job you’ve started to cherish, because it’s basically them paying you to info-dump however much you want about the only subject you found pure love for.

‘genius’ is a highly inadequate title for you, you’d much prefer just the term ‘researcher’ because in truth— that is still who you are. You’re a researcher- more precisely- you’re a wanderer. Soon, you’ll get bored of this teaching gig and then fly off to visit another planet in the vast-less galaxies and learn more about magic- maybe even discover an undocumented one which you can write extensively about and make it into a book. When one is only great in one particular subject, can they really be called a genius?

This— in truth, is the main reason on why you don’t speak to Ratio. You’ve heard of his statement-his extreme low-tolerance of people he do not seem worthy of his time- and so, you’ve already came to the conclusion that he might not fancy a conversation with you, let alone a discussion regarding the different methods of teaching yo both have, because truly, from what you’ve heard from your students, it’s obvious that you two are like sun and moon, your methods are total contrasts. Where he enjoys bringing students up individually to the front to analyze their solving skills on the board, you don’t put time on that, rather you quiz them and give them ‘group projects’ so they could master a collection of spells together, all while also giving you a group essay about a certain magic that hasn’t been documented well-enough yet and can help them broaden their scope on the limitless and infinite forms magic can have. If someone fails to meet his expectations, he quickly sends scolds them and explains to the rest why that person’s methods were horribly false. But you prioritize helping the person you’re questioning learn their problem first before turning back to their seats. He deems exams and pop quizzes the very buildings of his grading for someone- while you believe the person’s activity in class is far more of importance. He gives no second chances, you either fail or survive his class, but you always can’t help but feel bad for the ones failing- giving them a chance to give you essays and reports that can somehow enhance their grades. He’s the stern teacher while you’re the kind one. You’re too different, you believe. You’re the high acceptance rated class while this is, horrifyingly, only three percent.

“I-I’m not saying I think he’s hot!” when your mind goes back to the conversation at hand, you see your two colleagues still bickering. This time, the embarrassed friend seems much more frustrated, while the other much more amused. “I’d rather die than to date that guy. His personality is hard to endure and his reputation far worse.”

you give a soft smile. “I’m glad I at least don’t have such a shaky reputation. It’s only been a few months and I’m already overwhelmed with work.” You gave a chuckle, yet, silence overtakes the place. For a moment, you think they’re probably busy just sipping their drinks, yet as the seconds pass and no comment is added, you look back up to them confused.

They look at you concerningly, shocked even. As if they couldn’t believe the words that left you. you felt your nerves shake.

“what? What is it?”

The two give a glance to each other, unsure on how to break the news to you. speaking in some sort of glance-language, the previously amused friend forces the other to speak. He groans, looking at you with a guilty plea. “ uh…well,” he falters a bit. “h-haven't you noticed?”

The question makes your heart drop for a moment. “notice what?”

“ aeons , you seriously didn’t see anyone’s ugly stare at you?” the other asks, all while she looks at you with disbelief.. Shit, you have noticed those.

“..I just thought they did that because I was new?” you replied confused.

“Well- it is but—“ he sighs, unsure of how to explain it in the kindest way possible. “…it also has to do with how you got here.”

You look at them confused, mind clanking together to piece together their broken words. Then, in a moment of brilliance, your eyes widen and you feel breathless.

“ They think I’m a nepobaby ?!” the ends of your hair stand straight. The shame and embarrassment of the entire weeks of working here now coursing through you. The wall of ignorance, the wall of bliss some might call it, has now broken, and you’re left to witness the typhoon of horrid rumours drown you, the cold shrieking wetness leaving you shaken, the warm coffee in your hand now feeling cold.

“Worse,” she adds, hissing at the severity of what she will add. “ They think you’re a sugarbaby.”

It’s like the mythical Kraken beast from your home planet has come to attack and swallow you whole.forcing you to drown deeper in the dark waters as you look at the two friends with a painful expression, disgusted by the very idea of it all.

It was true that it was by Genius Society's member seventy six’ recommendation that you were considered for the position, yet that hadn’t changed the rigorous meetings, interviews, past studies and travel checkings you had to go through to get accepted for it. this is the intelligencia guild,after all. Although you are known for your research and scholarly skills in magic, so are many others, and it was through the filled basket of candidates that they soon landed on you.

“That's…I….” you didn’t know what to say. Even the very image of you and Screwllum dating leaves you astonished. To you, Screwllum was merely a good friend, a father figure even. He used to be your motivator when you felt utterly helpless in your pursuit of magic, the one who saved you one or three times in the Herta space station when they were under attack, just as you saved him. He was a comrade, an old robot who reeked of wisdom and kindness. One might argue the most normal of the geniuses. All feelings you ever had of him were platonic and for the longest times, you thought people have also perceived your relationship as such. Apparently not. “I need to go.” Was the only thing you could huff out before leaving the scene immediately, using your class that would start in a few minutes as the excuse.

-----

Late in the nights where only a few guards remain, there are only two teachers obsessed enough with their work as a teacher that they stay for longer hours in the place. That would be you and the alabaster headed genius. Late at night when you’d feel the bones in your neck cracking from exhaustion, you make your way to the office lounge for a break, you glance in, seeing that the statue head is on the counter and you quickly scurry away. it feels wrong- to see the true face of the man so keen on hiding it amongst most people. Sure, you find his reasoning to be ridiculous, but you’re not one to overstep others’ boundaries. If he sees fit to scare and intimidate people he claims are ‘simpletons’, then so be it. it’s a silent agreement to not bother each other one bit, even if you both need the lounge at the same time. The other just has to wait five more minutes before they get their coffee.

As your mind is hazy and sleepy as ever, you intend to repeat the infamous routine. However, time is everlasting, yet also constantly in change. Or, this is just your flimsy excuse on the situation at hand.

With the night-light in your office being your only source of comfort, you find yourself unable to check even one paper. Mind boggled with the supposed ‘rumours’ that have been circling around you since the moment you’ve stepped in here. you felt guilt, you felt embarrassment and most of all, you felt offended.

You spent years of your life suffering for magic, living for magic. Breathing magic. You;ve abandoned everything, your home on earth, your friends, your sense of normalcy and sanity for the sake of reaching the unfathomable, reaching the power that was never granted to your own world. Though you do still stand strong on the belief that you are no genius, that doesn’t mean that you’re not a scholar. It doesn’t mean you’re not a scientist in your own right. a seeker of knowledge, to solve the unsolvable, to travel the unending galaxies to answer a question that remains unknown even to you. What is magic? What’s its true purpose?

It’s bitter, really. How one influential man’s name can change the course odf everything you’ve worked for. Not that you blame Screwllum— you’re certain that he got this job for you out of concern for your well-being. Especially since your last hang-out, where you got drunk out of your mind with him on the cold tiles of your bedroom in the Herta space station, sobbing into his shoulders about the infinite loneliness you feel as a wanderer of space—

You quickly shook your head. Your mind needs to focus on work, not meddling memories of the past nor unimportant rumours. With a sigh, you get back up from your seat, taste buds already craving the utter bitterness of coffee, all while your mind begs for a quick nap, which you’re sure would be an eight hour sleep instead.

You dismiss it, trying to distract your desperate body with ideas for your next lessons instead. As your mind comes up with new ways to explain curse-based magic and exorcism spells, your hand wanders off to the door knob. You were so distracted by your new ideas that before you knew it- you were inside the lounge with golden eyes piercing through you.

Eyes full of wit and intellect, judging you a bit before his gaze softens for a moment- then his brows furrowed and it looks as judgmental as ever once more. hadn’t he been wearing his common greek-like wardrobe, you would’ve mistaken him for a complete stranger trespassing the building.

“Are you just going to stand there?” his voice startles you. you hadn’t even realized you were standing frozen. In instinct, you gaze at the table a few feet away from you, noticing the alabaster head placed on it. shit. If only you weren;t so dazed, you would’ve avoided such a strange interaction.

“sorry.” You could feel your nervousness seeping into your voice a bit, you berate yourself for it in your mind. “…I won’t bother you too much. I just need to make some coffee.”

He stays quiet, only taking a few steps to the left, giving you a clear way to the coffee pot. With a mumbled thanks, you start making the coffee. Silence overtaking the atmosphere and making things even more awkward. Aeons, you should’ve waited five minutes, you should’ve been careful.

Perhaps you can make conversation with him? The very thought leaves your mind as soon as it comes. What in the world were you going to ask him? How was his day? Who is he? You already know that, and from what you know about him, or more precisely, heard about him, he seems like the type to dislike short meaningless conversations.

But then again, what others heard about you are the complete opposite of who you truly are— so maybe it’s best you give it a shot?

“Dr.Ratio, is it?” you turn your head to him. “ I’m L/n, I teach-“

“I already know who you are,” he huffs. . For a moment, you’re left speechless and (though you’ll never mention it to a soul) charmed by his accent .“there’s no need for such feeble introductions.” He walks around you slowly, eyeing you as your gaze follows his confused, unsure of what he’s exactly inspecting. He stops, right next to your side with the coffee pot almost near finished with its hard work, the room is silent. You decided to focus on his face a bit, eyeing the red-like pupils of his that make his eyes pop. Truly, your work-friends weren’t lying, he is kind of pretty. His gaze goes up-and-down on your figure, right then, he gives a scoff and takes a few steps back, giving space between the now offended you and him. Seriously, what’s up with this guy? Was he a prick just like everyone else said?

You try to ignore the interaction, quickly taking out a mug from the cabinets so you could pour your coffee and leave in peace. Unfortunately, he speaks up.

“magic is an incredibly difficult subject to teach.” He starts off, arms crossed and his gaze away from yours. “ Its very meaning still alludes to many geniuses, with every research of them leaving more questions than answers. its comprehension is far worse for simpletons and a nightmare for imbeciles…wouldn’t you agree?”

The mug is soon left forgotten as you process his words. The atmosphere becomes tense as you realize that he’s interrogating you now, wanting to know the truth for himself. Your posture straightens, desperate to show an ounce of confidence as you answer honestly.

“it’s true that magic is unexplainable for geniuses. But there's a reason for it. geniuses want everything to make sense, they seek logic. Magic is pure chaos, it’s illogical. Once you finally accept that magic is completely illogical, the easier it would be to learn it. “

He hums at that, a finger on his chin as his eyes close in thought. “…a reasonable answer.” He mumbles to himself, leaving you to be left even more confused than before. His eyes snap open one more, eyes brimming with more curiosity. “Then let me ask this— L/n,” you’re getting a bit sick of him not using ‘professor’ or at the very least a formal title before addressing you. insecurity suddenly strikes you. Perhaps you deserve such treatment with all the rumours floating around?

“You say that mastering magic means accepting it as the way it is— then, how about understanding? From your words, it can be easily deduced that understanding this subject is beyond impossible and something that’s best to not question— if that is the case, then why are you here ?”

There's something almost blinding in his eyes, as if he’s reached the boiling point of the case, has finally set out the perfect trap that no fraud can escape. You realize that in this moment, it’s not only your professionality and position that is being questioned here, but it’s also your dedication for what you do and if you’re doing your job right. if you were granted the position of a professor this quickly, are you even worth it?

With a deep breath and clear mind, you look him dead in the eyes. “you sure do like twisting words, Dr .Ratio” unlike him, you have respect for such things. And it seems that your use of his title intrigued him a bit, as he raised a brow. “ which is unlike what people say about you. you seemed more like a man of logic to me.” for first impressions, he’s been hitting all the marks for a prick. as he hears your words, his expression falters only a bit before it goes back to monotone. Not even a bit offended or at the very least somehow affected by your words. You find that even more infuriating, yet decide to not show any more of your agitation with his sudden interrogation in the middle of the night. “I said it’s difficult, yes. But what I meant by impossible is clear. If one wants to master it, they must accept it and try not to understand it. but if one wants to understand it, then for a much easier path, they must master it first. They must accept its chaos and then try their best to comprehend it. That is what held back a lot of geniuses from understanding it. That is why I’m here.”

“I may not be a genius, yes.” His eyes squint at your words. “but I am still a scholar, and now, a teacher. I’ll do my duties to the best of my capabilities.”

A moment of silence passes by, your eyes staring intensely into his, waiting for an answer. He hums a bit in thought, a small smile etching his lips as he un-crosses his arms and walks to the table to grab his alabaster head.

“the best of your capabilities, you say.” He turns back to you once more. “ Well then, we must see if this ‘very best’ of your work truly does fit the standard, don’t we?”

The mischief in his eyes leaves you confused. “…what are you implying, exactly?” had your mind been in the gutter and you wouldn’t have seen him as a total douchebag, this line of his would have had an entirely other meaning. Especially with how his eyes bore so intensely into yours now, as if he’s analyzing your very being in nanoseconds.

“yes, that will do.” he hums, ignoring your question. He walks away, near the edge of the door before he stops again- giving you one more glance.

“wait - what ?” This was too much implied fiasco in one night, a truly abysmal situation you’d rather not engage in. Even so, you’re not sure if you can convince someone as steadfast and stubborn as him to leave you be, not unless you want more suspicion on you. With a sigh and a pinch of your temple, you ask tiringly, “ when will you be visiting?”

“Wanderer or scholar, it doesn’t matter to me. Your words are confident, but you lack evidence. I’ll be the judge of your work, L/n.”

Ratio merely shrugs, leaving you alone in the lounge with a now cold coffee on the counter, and a head full of thoughts to dwell on.

----

You were always a night owl, but never to this extent.

That, is the first thought you have as you finally get a grip on reality. All with the help of a red-pin stinging your finger as you tried to hastily take it out of your board.

Scraps of paper littered from the ground floor to the very walls, red lines linking everything together as if it’s a clue board for an unsolved murder, at last, the words of the ever-so-peculiar Veritas Ratio has left you rewriting every single one of your study plans in the night, all un fear of somehow,someday, in one way or another your teaching and skills will be questioned, and if the very debate against you is by none other than the world’s most stubborn scholar than you’d rather take the shovel out of his hands and dig the bloody grave they set for you all by yourself. But that’s quite the pathetic sight, isn't it? and in any case, you’d hate to see the smug smile of the bastards who've been spreading rumours about you all these months like a bunch of teenagers as you’re crushed. You’d be damned to let them play as Nanook for a day, even if it is for only a few hours.

Therefore, here you are, with eyes bloodshot as ever, taking a quick picture of your board and sending it to the group chat. Asking the two colleagues of yours that were all awake for much different reasons than yours- (one was gaming all night and the other binge-watching their favorite melodrama for the 100th time)- on how good of a study plan it is.

RatioSimp: dude.

RatioSimp: please go to sleep.

Y/n : that does not answer my question.

RatioSimp: if I tell you it’s good would you finally go to bed? We’re the ones with the cancelled classes tomorrow, not you.

RatioSimp: wait.

RatioSimp: WHO CHANGED MY USERNAME?!!!! AND WHY CAN’T I CHANGE IT?!

Y/N : rip but it’s true tho

RatioSimp :I would’ve blocked you rn if you didn’t help me with checking the exams papers yesterday.

Y/N: Whatever you say Ratio simp.

RatioSimp: *RatioSimp has attached an image of a google search bar, ‘how to hack and change someone’s username’*

RatioSimp: revenge shall be mine soon.

Y/N: good luck coming up with a funny username by then

RatioSimp: Are you calling me unfunny??

*Y/n has left the chat*

RatioSimp: IS THAT A YES??!!

Your nerves eased down a bit, yet the pit of acid in your stomach was still bubbling to an abnormal degree. You can’t help but imagine a disastrous scenario where the duke might find your teaching methods horribly relaxed- they might find it to be far too soft for such a harsh school and reprimand you for such, possibly even fire you as a result. Though, truthfully, you do not care about the status of your employment, what you’re more worried about is possibly being forced to be harsh on your students, and even if they did fire you, the substitute being far harsher or worse, unable to teach such a subject.

Magic is confusing, magic is difficult. It’s not meant to be fully understood, so you cannot teach it by the textbook’s definition of it. magic is always changing, always becoming more than it once was. With limitless power comes limitless knowledge, and magic is something no one can call themself an expert at, not even you. hell , if you’re the best professor they could find at the moment, someone who does not even have the confidence to call themself a genius, let alone let others do so, then who in the world(s) would they choose next?

you sighed, feeling the very weight of this workload affect you right now at this moment. Glancing at your phone and ignoring the abnormal amount of messages, you glance at the clock and note the time. Holy shit . Your work starts in two hours .

With an exhausted sigh, you feel your eyes starting to waver a bit, begging for some shut-in. Though the very idea of sleeping for only two hours leaves a sour taste in your mouth, it is far better than showing up to your class tweaking and ticking like a time-bomb from all the caffeine you would’ve been desperate to consume.

You take a glance around your room, tching a bit from seeing the mess it has become. Something far from aesthetic and beauty that the internet fools you to believe in, in which all the colors of all the books match and the handwriting between the scribbles of neat yet a tin bit crumble up paper is all cursive and pleasant to look at. Oh, and who could forget the pretty mugs all tied in together, one of them laced with a motivational or sarcastic quote that just screams ‘I’m a scholar’. No no, it was nothing like that. For that aesthetic, though pleasant and calming to look at, like all other aesthetics and pictures are based on fiction, on lies. They are a representation of what people wish being a scholar was like. Happy, enlightening, calming and riveting. Yet, it’s nothing like that at all.knowledge can make someone go mad, it can make them lose sleep and sanity. It makes you forget that this house isn’t truly yours, it’s just a small apartment you’ve rented that barely had a thing in it other than a bed, bathroom and a tiny kitchen. No decorations, barely any lights and not even a pillow for the supposed be you got (which was incredibly fragile and creaky, always making you fear that it’d break on you in the middle of the night). Yet now, the empty, cold and lifeless room has become more fit to be a crime scene. From asylum to murder. How fitting! it’s like the very papers you’ve ripped apart and torn out or messed with just explain the story themselves. A lonely human free from the asylum’s care finally basks into the world again, finally tastes the true meaning of freedom. Only to find themself frozen, a heart with a sinkhole, that just keeps getting deeper and deeper the more time passes and the more that their isolation consumes them. The very house they got, the very fresh start they found has now become their new source of madness, their new asylum. They may have left the asylum, but the curse of loneliness and fear of abandonment has never left them. It is chained to their very being now- changed to their hands like in a vice, tight grim that makes their very fingers shake as they write out their sanity, as they write with pure insanity.

You clear your throat, feeling an itch in it that has never been felt. Aeons, is the lack of sleep getting to you now? you can barely even think straight anymore- let alone try to comprehend the carousel of thoughts that are going through your head.

With a sigh, you shrug off all the litters of paper, pencil and pens off of your bed and crawl into the sheets as the bed creaks with even an inch of your movements. The constant shrieks and creaks makes you wince in annoyance until your ears get used to it, and your mind succumbs to dream land as your head hits the pillow.

You feel like you're safe now, between the softness of your new bed sheets you bought a week ago and the little blue lamp giving you comfort through the eerie night. Yet, as your poor body thinks that this is finally it, you will finally get the rest you so desperately need, a certain, mischievous and evil mind of yours starts asking its dark questions of the day, ones that literally keep you up at night.

How long has it been since you’ve made a room yours ?

During your travels, there was rarely any time or, frankly at the start, any money for booking inns and hotels. So most of the time you were left camping or sleeping in empty rooms a few employers of yours offered for your services. In your time as a student, you’d often sleep in bunk beds with others and so decorating a room was usually unnecessary. After all, why try to make it yours when you’ll be only staying for only a few months or weeks? Why put on such time and effort for something that is meant to last for years?

And yet— these clusters of paper, you buying bed sheets with your favorite designs and hell-even the goddamn board you bought and installed in this room- these are all signs that someone lives in this building, someone lives in this room. someone is a part of this world, alive and important to the city around them.

Your other rooms were always left untouched, not even a pot or table moved one inch to the right or left. Your suitcase was always packed, your fridge was constantly empty. Yet now, in this room there are signs that you live, that you are no mere viewer of this world now, but a part of the play they’re all acting in. an actor who doesn’t even know their lines, let alone the play they’re in.

With a now heavy heart that matches your mind that was swimming with heavy memories- you grab your pillow, take a deep breath and scream into it with all your might, hoping, begging and even praying it will make the pain go away, that it will help your mind shut up and for your heart to stop throbbing in pain.

You tried to ignore the little teardrop marks that spotted your pillow as you finally drifted off to sleep.

-----

You craved something stronger than coffee.

The exhaustion that coursed through your veins was phenomenally high, your cup of sad black and half-assedly brewed coffee was becoming stale on your tongue. No matter how much you drank, you didn’t feel one bit awake.

“huh?— P- Professor L/n ?!”

The sudden voice of a student merely walking by stopped you in your tracks. Aeons, did you look that bad? Never in your life have you heard a tone so exasperated and shocked by your appearance. The student, along with a group of their friends approached you with worry, all giving different surprised reactions at the state you’re in. it took you a moment to realize exactly who they were-but when you did, you couldn’t help but sigh.

“oh…Dimitri.” You greet the first boy who noticed you. a student of yours who sat in the front row seats and was constantly writing down notes. He was a good kid, though at times his constant parade of questions were annoying- nevertheless, he had a golden heart, and his friends never shied away from teasing him about his nerd-like nature. Speaking of…

“You look like shit, prof.” the boy in the red jacket spoke, grinning.his clothing instantly reminded you of who he was. It was Caleb, the kid who sits in the back of the class. He never paid attention to class, not unless the magic you were speaking about involved pyrotechnics.His amused look quickly shifted to one of annoyance as another kid with glasses hit him in the head.

“watch your language, dumbass .” Glasses kid spoke. His voice instantly reminded you of who he was. Tulio. Always first in and first out, an incredibly punctual kid with a strong love for illusion magic.

“since when did you care?—“

“since you once called the craziest professor around here a ‘ shit-faced greek stone’ right in front of him —“

“both of you, stop.” Dimitri hit both of them in the head. His attention quickly turns back to you. “are you alright professor? You look like you’re going through one of- ehh…” Dimitri looks around for a second before leaning in. “ one of ‘you know who’s exams.”

You couldn’t help but let out a laugh, which, in hindsight, perhaps sounded like a cry for help.

“I’m fine, don’t worry about it.” was you reply. “ Just make sure to have your notebooks on hand. Today’s session is a wacky one.”

It seems like your tone was not convincing enough for Dimitri. His eyes only looked at you with more concern. However, they quickly lit up with hope as he started rummaging in his bag.

“Well, now you’re starting to scare me, prof.” Caleb continued the conversation. “I was hoping you’d have us test out spells again at the lab.”

“eh…well, maybe next time, Caleb.”

“..can’t it be today?”

Your brow rose . “ Why should it be today?”

Caleb and Tulio glanced at each other for a moment with an indescribable expression, as if they were trying to communicate something with mere blinks and breaths. Before you could question further- Dimitri excitedly takes out the energy inside his bottomless bag (it seems like the bottomless/teleportation spell you’ve taught the kids are getting far different uses then what the dukes and fellow colleagues might expect).

“Here ya go prof! I drink this anytime I need a pump of energy in me!”

You take it, giving it a good look and grimacing about how tall the drink is. You turn it around to check its description, only to become pale at the percentage of sugar and caffeine.

“uh…is this-..is this healthy?”

“not at all.” Dimitir laughed. “but it’s always helped me go through hellish exams.”

Exams. Right. This is just like an exam. And unfortunately for you, the voldemort of the university is the judge of it all. He's the one designing the questions, the one who set the date to ‘I don’t know ill I just pop in one day and say exam time asshole!! And ruin your entire fucking week or maybe, horrifyingly even, month now by haunting your dreams every night about this god awful shitty disgustingly bad and outrageous fucking exa-“

You quickly open the can and gulp down the entire thing.

You could hear Dimitri choking on the rest of his rambles, all while Caleb laughs in astonishment and Tulio hisses in second-hand regret.

You take a deep breath, letting the strawberry gas filled taste invade your mouth with its insane sugar and spice. “…uh.thank you, Dimitri. I’ll pay you back tomorrow.”

“y-you sure you’re okay prof? you can cancel today’s session if you want-“

“no no. I’m fine. I think. Maybe not.Maybe yes. Maybe-“ shit, not even a minute and the caffeine is already making you feel hyper. “just uhh- just get to class in time and have your notes ready. Today’s session is gonna be a long one. “

“you…already said that…”

“d-did I?...” yep, this seals it. Screwlum was right, caffeine would be your downfall.“ ….I’ll see you kids later.”

----------

You swear you just saw Qlipoth watching you by the window.

Your heart is in a strange state. Not in disarray, yet so close to its edge. You're holding yourself back from talking outloud and doing every tricky movement imaginable, unable to mask it all. Yet, you try to, desperately. Trying your best to not weird out the students that are pouring in, awaiting the class to fill and for the chatter to end.

You take a glance at the room. there seems to be no sign of an alabaster head. Which means that for another day, you’ve survived. And for another night, you will be tortured.with a sigh and deep breath, you close your phone and tap the board, bringing the class into motion

Today’s session was all about emotion-based magic-commonly love spells and such- but also consisting of different varies emotions that one can casts spells of, yet, it’s a complicated process, and is in need of an experience and course in a multitude of topics such as neuroscience and psychology. You’ve mostly covered the history at first, explaining which aeon it came from and which planets are the most successful at generating this sort of magic without any need of these specific sciences, but for average magic users, such as the students in your class, it was needed to understand at least the slightest bit of them so they wouldn’t screw up the spell and cause horrid damages to the brains of their subjects, truly, it’s one of the more delicate magics, one where you’ve repeatedly warned them not to use at their current intermediate level, best to leave it for another year, decade even, because this magic was even a hellish thing for you to learn- you still remember when your teacher at the time cast one of the spells on you and you ended up crying for five straight hours, ranting and rambling about all the things in your life frustrating you most- even reaching the point where you confessed that you thought you were unlovable-that in all this time of your travels, you have failed to find enough love for another that you’d decide to stay, or even someone loving you so much that they’d want you to.

You quickly shake your head- taking a quick sip of water as the students gingerly take down notes. You pick up the marker to write down another spell on the board once more- yet falter as you see a porcelain white head poke out between the rows of students.

There he stood, in all his prideful glory, with crossed arms and a statue for a head that has become a nuisance for you now- being unable to see his expression and honest reaction to your teachings. Students , whom must've noticed his arrival much sooner than you, only share small glances to the ‘he who shall not be named’ professor and then each other. You stare for a moment, unable to process anything at that point. Heart in a complete panic and anxious thoughts consuming your mind. You close your eyes, decide to imagine this as pure hallucination and continue your teaching as if no strange man is there. no, the stern teacher your students always talk shit about is definitely not inspecting your class right now. He totally just didn’t see you info-dump about your hyperfixation like a child. absolutely not. Nope nope. This is still a completely normal class, a completely normal day and your bloodstream is completely normal and not now,as you’re guessing, slowly starting up a timer for full-shut down mode in the next three hours. Maybe two.maybe one. Maybe even just five minutes -

No no don’t even guess!! You’re certain your body is as happy as a clam!! Your arms are most certainly not begging for a break right now!!! your mind is definitely not shutting down as we speak!!!and this? This is a very normal class. That’s all it is. A class about magic. Specifically- psychological/emotion-based magic - the one which doctor fucking Ratio is now inspecting-

You take a deep breath midway lesson- calming down a considerably small amount of your stress and continue as if it was nothing important, ignoring the man whose eyes never left your form.

----

“ you did great professor .L/n !” one of your students whispered before leaving. Others gave the same anecdotes or just thumbs ups and smiles. Yet, it did nothing to comfort your panicked mind. Sweet? Yes, but very unhelpful, because the man himself was still quietly sitting at one of the row seats, his fingers grasping his chin in thought.

If you weren’t in such a nervous state, you’d giggle at the scene you’re seeing right now, the stone head still amusing you to no end. With a quick amount of confidence and motivation, and by seeing how he’s still unmoving from his seat, perhaps wanting to stay and think a bit more, you approach the stairs leading up to him and with each step closer, you could feel your neck suck in more breath and hear your heart beating faster. You cleared your throat, hoping your stress wouldn’t be evident enough through your voice.

“so…you’ve finally visited.”

He doesn’t glance up to you, nor does he respond. You can hear your mind berating you to the galaxies and back for thinking with your heart and not logic- not assuming that he might've wanted some quiet time instead.

You reach out your hand, hoping for a handshake or at the very least his attention. “It's been some time since we last met, hasn’t it?”

Still, no response.

Okay, fuck this guy. the least he could do was say hello back- or maybe you’re the prick here now? Aeons, you really need to leave—

“you mentioned something about happiness spells, about how they generate more chaos than they do ‘happiness’ in a person.” He finally speaks.” Could you elaborate?” His voice is smooth, yet it still shows his confidence and pride clearly, though, it should be said that since he’s curious, his voice should sound more confused and in need of clarification, yet here, it’s like he’s truly taming his task seriously, his inspecting you and your knowledge of the subject you teach personally now. And so, you decide to answer it as clearly as you could- as if you were teaching a new lesson.

“ The spells will enhance one’s serotonin and their outlook on life becomes incredibly positive at that moment, so much so that this positivity they have slowly descends to toxic positivity the more they’re influenced by the spell. Enhancing any kind of emotion can cause multiple behavioral problems, because the patient in question’s mind all other emotions they feel is simply ignored for the one that’s been enhanced. “

“hm, good. So you weren’t just bluffing over there.”

You’d feel offended, yet your mind reasons that his action is not necessarily out of disrespect, rather it’s from caution.

“it’s foolish how people resort to magical drugs to somehow fix their life rather than proper therapy.” He then scoffed. “ But perhaps, they do this because they fear facing the truth about themselves. That maybe, if the problem hasn’t been solved in a day or so, they’re the very root of the problem.”

Something about the conclusion made you feel iffy, it felt somewhat wrong. And so, you bit the bullet and countered, “ well, I don’t think it can be that simplified.”

He tilts his head, you see it as confirmation to continue.

“ Though yes, you could argue that the problem could be from them entirely- there’s also the possibility that the problem could be another person. It’s hard to convince yourself you’re the problem, but it’s much more difficult to convince someone else that they are. There’s also the aspect of the person whose problem being a loved one- if that’s the case then one could feel horrible for even mentioning the idea of them being in the wrong.”

Ration then snaps his fingers. “aha, well that’s where you prove that I’m right. ” He then turns around to the board that’s far away from you. whether it’s for dramatic effect or if he’s truly in thought, you’re not sure.

“If the person themself can’t find the courage to face others and confront them about the issue, then they’re the problem. They need to face their fears directly, if not, the problem will only worsen, and they will soon be left with quick and temporary solutions that’ll never solve the wider problem at hand.” He turns around to face you once more. “they need to have confidence, in their own abilities and knowledge, they also need to have trust.” This is starting to feel somewhat personal now. “ in themself and others. if one is on the run all the time, there will soon be no home to go back to.”

“…are we still talking about psychology spells?” you gulped, feeling like someone intruded into your privacy without your consent or awareness of it.

To your luck, he doesn’t add anything else to that topic, only humming in what you can only describe as amusement. For what? You're unsure of, and would rather not know anyway. Ignorance is bliss, as they say. He then leaves, without bidding goodbye, yet as much as you want to feel annoyed by that, you find it to be in character for him. As you’ve said before, you’re no genius, and perhaps, he’s sensed that in you from the moment you started arguing back with him.

You’re about to just leave the classroom, taking your phone and other belongings with you, yet you pause for a moment, frozen at the door as you’re reminded by something horrid.

You didn’t ask his opinion on your class yet.

Another fearful thought hits you.

What if he thought you were terrible?

With a new pit of anxiety, you leave the classroom wanting to scream your head off. If the aeons were kind enough, which from what you’ve studied they’re often not, they’d give you the sweet release of death already.

-----

You couldn’t focus.

The dimly lit office room that was once your oasis to work at has now become a nuisance. Your essay was coming to a complete halt— your mind going nowhere but the meeting you had with Ratio a few days ago. Thankfully, nothing of importance has really happened. You hadn’t had anyone call you in for a questioning or anything of that embarrassing sort, yet, a part of you has become selfish. Especially since you heard your companions speak about how the kind yet notefull criticism they got from their inspectors was exceptionally helpful. In that moment, you realized that you wanted to know if you’re doing well too.though you don’t really agree with all of his views, you still consider them valuable, you’re eager to improve, especially since you might not even work here for long, considering that your wandering and urge to adventure slowly but surely building back up.

Or, maybe, you just wanted to see Ratio again.

You shake your head and huff in annoyance. No, that couldn’t be the case. It shouldn’t be. You’ve only met Ratio once, and from the get-go he seemed like the type you’d best stay far away from. Grouchy, overly-confident and full of insults. You were certain that had you been wrong somewhere or faltered for even one moment in your answer, you’d be facing the nastiest of insults and wishing you would’ve never met him.

Nevertheless, your mind was your enemy. The constant curiosity brewing within you, the questions and insecurities you now have of your work ethics and your brief, yet thoughtful conversation with the alabaster headed man has left you unable to complete your work and in need of the freshest, cheapest and saddest coffee the office lounge had to offer.

With a tired sigh, you get out of your seat and office, walking down the cold halls and basking the vastless stars that shine brightly within the windowsills. Memories of traversing alongside the endless bundles of light left you in memoryland; where the space was quiet and your small ship was filled with a cacophony of tears and sad songs. Where once stood an excited traveller ready to see the world, now was a crying wanderer experiencing their first heartbreak. Vowing to never call another planet ‘home’ ever again.

Why must you feel so alone?

The bitter thoughts soon fade when you find yourself at the office lounge’s door.

This time, the place is empty.avoid of any mathematicians and alabaster heads. The only thing you are met with is the same old coffee pots and empty chairs.

Something behind you cuts the silence.

“..haven’t you had enough coffee for the day?” the accent, the sarcasm and the underlying curiosity, that was Ratio alright. “you were one cup away from a stroke when I saw you earlier today.”

“...I’m making tea.” You huffed, now embarrassed by your lack of sanity today.

“Tea has the same amount of caffeine as coffee.” His tone was so stern, you almost felt like one of his students. Someone who turned in a paper late and is now facing punishment.

“What do you suggest I have to keep me awake? Water ?” you grumbled, finally turning around to see him. your eyes widen for a moment- realizing that he doesn’t have his alabaster head on once again. Yet you quickly shake away the thought, not wanting to look flabbergasted in the face of a man who's been torturing you the entire week.

“ Perhaps you shouldn’t stay awake in the first place .”

You stayed quiet at that, knowing fully well that he’s in the right. you really do need sleep.now more than ever.

“It's not by choice.” He rebottled.

“said the man who is also awake.” To that, he scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“Then we’re in the same situation, Doctor.” You huffed, filling up the kettle with water and setting it on the electric tea-stationary. A peaceful silence fills the room for a moment, only the rumbles of the kettle being heard as its heating the water to its boiling point. In this quiet moment, you wonder if you should ask the golden question. If you should seek the answer to all your doubts. Perhaps it was out of stupidity, perhaps it was out of exhaustion and lack of self-awareness, but you dared to jump into the lion’s den, then berated yourself in your mind for comparing this task so unbelievably horrifying, and finally asked the question that's been on your mind the entire day.

“….did you like my class?....”

Ratio rose a brow, curiosity gleaming from his eyes as he crossed his arms. “oh? What value does my opinion have on this subject?”

“I-I don’t know.” you shrugged, feeling uncomfortable and embarrassed now. you weren’t one for interrogation, especially when you’re the target. There’s something about ratio’s eyes that make you feel like a test subject, as if you’re an intriguing piece of gemstones that he’s been tasked with knowing every inch of. “you were the one who visited out of nowhere.”

“And that didn’t strike you as odd?” he countered.

You huffed, eyebrows furrowed as you felt a headache coming. “I’m…assuming you were sent by the intellegencia guild’s heads?”

“So you do possess basic deduction skills.” His sarcastic and slightly coy-tinged voice irked you for a moment, but you didn’t let your annoyance show. Instead, you merely sighed and crossed your arms as well, looking at him with the same amount of fierceness he was giving you.

“Are you going to keep on dodging the question?”

He scoffed, closing his eyes for a moment and opening them up to judge you. “ Are you that desperate for other people’s approval?”

“hello??? You’re the one who interrogated my classroom??” was all you could say as you looked at him in disbelief.

He merely hummed at that, before adding “well, I had to. after all, they asked me to do so.”

“and?....” you anxiously whispered. He looked at you blankly.

“Well you didn’t receive a letter promptly firing you now, did you?” gosh, why does he never give a clear answer? Must he always speak in riddles?

Nevertheless, you knew what his words meant. You’re safe. For now, at least.

“Still,” you pouted. “that doesn’t answer my question professor Ratio. What did you think of my class?”

“Why does it matter what I think?”

“well it mattered for the intellegencia guilt heads, hadn't it?”

“they did not specifically seek for me.” He argues back, then gives you a scrutinizing glare. “you’re lucky I was in that meeting. Had I not volunteered, you’d be fired by now.”

Your heart dropped, the kettle was forgotten and only his words remained. “..w-what do you mean?”

“Your reputation here is far worse than you think.” He speaks as if he’s scolding you for a mistake, as if he’s warning you. “the intellegencia guild isn’t as sophisticated as you think it is- nor is it filled with geniuses .” He glared at you, and you’re honestly wondering what he’s so offended by. You did say you don’t regard yourself as a genius, didn’t you? “There are rumours about you. true or not, it doesn’t matter. They’re spreading like wildfire, and you only have a handful of options on how to react to this situation.”

You could feel your heartbeat racing, you really just don’t know what to say at this point. You’re feeling a mix of incomprehensible emotions, and your eyes are filled with distress and caution as you try to steady your breathing.

It seems like he’s done speaking, and as he turns around and walks to the door, your instincts flare up, and you say something out of your own control. A slip of the tongue.

“Then what do you want me to do?!” you ask in desperation. The lack of sleep, the stressful days, depressing thoughts and every bullshit in-between finally getting a toll on you.the kettle howls with you, finally reaching the boiling point and switching itself off. “what must I do to get their approval?!”

“Who said anything about gaining their approval?” he questioned. “ Surely, you can think of other ways to prove your worth in this place.”

Ratio stills in his walk, his back turned against you, yet his frozen form is enough to let you know he’s in shock, in disbelief. And when he turns around to meet your gaze, your deduction is supported by the look of disbelief and slight disappointment that he gives you.

“…what other way could there be?” you let out a tired sigh you didn’t know you were holding in. “you’re not suggesting I fight with them now, are you?” you then grimaced. “ I’d never stoop low into doing anything that relates to public humiliation for them either.”

Ratio sighed, a hand coming up to rub his temples. “…quite the stubborn one…” he mumbles to no one in particular, and you can’t help but give an exasperated huff. “If you really want my input, I’d say a few of them deserve a proper humiliation just to knock some sense into their empty minds. But this is your matter, not mine.”

“you’re right. and so I won’t be humiliating them.”

Ratio’s eyes widen only for a moment, as he gazes into your determined eyes with some sense of deep understanding. But….an understanding of what , exactly? You weren’t sure. And no matter how much you were analyzing his every tick and move, you couldn’t pinpoint it.

“…..then I wish you the best, wanderer. ” And with that, he leaves the office. Leaving you alone with a cold kettle.

-----

Perhaps humiliation was the right call.

“Aeons, you look like shit.” The exasperated gasp of one of your only friends, the one you love to tease (bully) so much catches your attention.

Because as you sit here on the lounge, with the fellow co-workers now pouring in one-by-one, you really aren’t sure how you can gain their approval, while also keeping your pride intact. Because after all, there is no way you’ll grant them favors by doing their research or grading their papers. Not only will it make you their scapegoat for work, but it’s also vehemently against the intellgencia guild rules, and that could easily worsen your reputation if not treated with the utmost care.

“Morning to you too, Ratio simp .” You yawn, bringing the coffee closer to your lips, yet the bitter aroma makes you gag, and you learn the cup away from you instead and give a disgruntled sigh.

Byron rolls his eyes, sitting down beside you. “Seriously, when was the last time you slept?”

“…you won’t like the answer to that.”

He looks at you with a mix of pity and disappointment,and as soon as Rina joins you both at the table, he looks at her with a pleading stare. “knock some sense into them.”

“you think I haven’t tried?” she scoffed, taking a sip of her own coffee. “they’re the utter definition of stubborn as a bull.”

“We know.” they both say in harsh unison, and though you know their angered voice is all out of concern for you, a bit of your heart breaks at such reactions. Great, now even your only friends hate you.

“I’m right here you know.”

You rest your head at the table for a moment, taking a deep breath and clearing your sad thoughts before sitting straight again. “I need your help with something.”

“Does it relate to fixing your sleep schedule?”

“No.”

“Then we’re not interested.”

You huff in annoyance, clicking your tongue and looking at them with plead. “it relates to my reputation here.” to that, they look at you with pity and intrigue. Aeons, you always disliked it when people look at you with pity. What is there to be sad about? You’re totally fine. Your life is absolutely normal, right?

“you two have been here longer than I have. What do I have to do here to gain respect?”

“well…most people who join the guild already have some respect and admiration latched to their name..and others started out in a neutral social placement before achieving high respect here for their accomplishments…” Byron tapped the table, his head in deep thought.

“…but I’m at rock bottom.” You concluded, feeling your shoulders slouch.

“Exactly,” Rina nodded. “ We never had a case like yours before.”

“Actually,” Byron’s eyes suddenly lit up, looking at Rina. “ We did have one. Remember?”

“hm?” she hummed in confusion at first, before her eyes lit up as well. you looked at both of them with befuddlement.

“...what is it?” you questioned with a bit too much enthusiasm, no matter how hard you were trying to hold it back.

“ well…before you, we had another magic professor. Professor Malbin. He lost his position as a professor due to urging students to do unauthorized experimentation revolving around toxin magic.”…toxin magic? ..you’ve mastered toxin magic years ago, and your master has told you about its unresearched capabilities and the dangers it can bring to someone. Producing toxin out of thin air is hard to achieve, but trying to make specific toxins is even worse. It forces you to tamper with reality, to tamper with science and even at timed your own body. Plucking out small atoms from the world itself to create something utterly new and poisonous. A true danger for newbies indeed, and something you should always heed carefully when learning. You remember your own first time when dabbling in toxin magic. It was not fun at all. the dizziness, the state of uncertainty, the heightened senses and the feel of your magic, your very essence of becoming faltered and uneasy was painful, to say the least.

“they couldn’t find the students who were involved, but they did find Malbin’s private files about this research, and that’s why they fired him. But guess what? His research on this has garnered a lot of praise. So his reputation hasn’t dwindled, rather, it went up.”

“that….explains everything.” You frowned. No wonder the malic and rumors towards you are so penitent. They think it was unfair for Malbin to be fired. They see him as a far more worthy person to be called a professor rather than you. some wanderer the guild picked up from Screwlum’s advice. “so…I must conduct a research that is just as good- or hopefully even- better than what Malbin has done?”

They both give a glance at each other and then look back at you with not-so-motivating shrugs. “probably, yeah.” Rina replied, while Byron hummed.

A sigh sipped past your lips, a headache slowly forming into your mind as you drink-up the coffee in your hand while withholding your gag and exhaustion from the constant bitter taste. You really need to start eating something sweet with it lest you want to throw up. “…research it is, then.”

--------------

The room is dark, cold. You stand in the black void in utter confusion, and…discomfort. You can feel fear and nausea course through your veins like blood. You can’t speak, only feel. You look around you for anything, something in this dark, shapeless void.

“You left me.” a shaky, broken and horrifying familiar voice echoes inside the room. you don’t dare to turn around, afraid of what you might see.

A horrid silence takes over the room. you could feel him staring at you. you could feel his piercing, hatred-filled gaze. Your mouth opens, shaking and barely holding it together.

“…you were mara-struck.” You utter, tears forming in your eyes.

“And whose fault was that?” he scoffed. Aeons. You missed his voice. yet you want him to just stop talking. To just stop hating you. to just stop telling the truth-

No.no.remember what Screwlum said. Echo his words. It was not your fault.it was not your fault. It….

“…there was nothing I could do.” your voice was barely a whisper, barely a breath.

“you and I both know that’s not true.” His words were like a dagger to your heart, piercing your very being and making your knees shake, buckle and fall to the ground. Your hands coming up to your ear instinctively, holding your hair in a deathly clutch. You see drops of water forming in the ground…and you realize that they’re in fact your tears. You’re crying. your heart feels like it’s getting stabbed into millions of pieces. Echoes and memories, his giggles, his soft smile, his blood-curdling scream all crash into your head like a wave. You wanted to scream, yet your lungs wouldn’t let you even breathe.

you plead for mercy, head down near the ground as you see his shoes now, he’s peering down at you. you don't want to look up, afraid of what you might see. The yellow leaves cascading down are already too much.

“Was it worth it? is it still worth it, Y/n ?” you missed how he called your name. you hated the fact that this is how you hear it.

“It's all your fault wanderer.” His sharp claws reach out and grab your hair. You let out a screech of pain as you’re forced to look up and see his face.

Papers fall everywhere as your body lurches awake. Sweat and tears cascading down your face. The office is dimly lit, your computer being the only source of light. Your breaths go from quick and ragged to calm and steady as you gulp.

Water. You need water. You look around the room for your mug, and as you finally find and quickly grab it, you curse at its empty contents. Great, now you have to get up and go to the office lounge. What time is it, even?

You peer at the clock on top of your door. Shit, it’s midnight. You’ve overstayed, again . Perhaps brainstorming immediately rather than seeking sleep wasn’t the best idea. Your body has seemingly forcibly shut itself down mid-way through your work and made you fall asleep.

You slowly get up, trying to shake the mental image of his mara-struck face out of your mind. Tiredly so, you walk out the office and on a familiar path to the lounge. You hope that you’re alone, that no one gets to see you this worn out,as if you’ve just walked out of a storm.

However, fate loves to torment its favorite punching, and as you slightly open the door, you’re met with locks of purple hair and the most intriguing of eyes. furrowed brows screaming of intellect and deep thought, a face so ethereal that you’d almost mistake him for a god. You’ll have to, unfortunately, admit that he is quite handsome. Still, it doesn’t really defend him regarding the case of his attitude.

Horrifyingly enough, his expression falters. “ I can hear you.” His words leave you jolting, sleepiness now fading away and being left with absolute shame and embarrassment at your own horrid and cringe-fail behaviour. “ It's obvious that you haven’t had a proper sleep yet.” The sigh he gives leaves you even delving into more self-deprecation in your mind, all while you slowly walk-up to the counter and prepare your own set of caffeine-induced bitterness.

“Sorry.“ for a moment, you wonder if you should mention your last comment that happened merely seconds ago before the eerie silence, but you soon decide against it, wanting to ignore it with every fiber of your being and hoping to aeons that he’d do too. Instead, maybe small talk would do. “…so what’s keeping you up at this time?”

“ Pop quiz preparations.”

You gave a joking wince. “you’re gonna surprise them tomorrow, eh?”

“next week, actually.”

“…and you’re preparing now?”

“There'll be multiple quizzes, on each day of the week.”

You look at him with disbelief, a concern for the students etched on your face. To that, his brows furrowed and he huffs in defense.

“It's essential to their learning.” He defends. “ I must make sure these lessons stick to their minds and don't fade away with time.”

“…I can see your reasoning behind it.” you mumble. “but…”

“but?”

“..won’t it crush their grades and spirit?”

“grades don’t matter. It’s what you learn that does.” He said with a firm tone.

He stays silent at that, and you take this as an opportunity to drink up the water your body so desperately needs.

“while that is true, that is not how the guild would think now, is it?” you open the fuacet, pouring water into your mug as you continue. “It's just like you said, the guild is quite flawed. And so, they’ll only care about the number on the paper, not the student’s own skill.”

“…one pop quiz it is, then.” You’re actually quite shocked by this outcome, as you look at him with disbelief.

His brows scrunch up in slight annoyance. “What is it now? surely you’re not suggesting for me to not do a pop quiz at all?”

“no..no..it’s just that…” you peer away from his gaze, a little overwhelmed by its intensity. He always looks like he’s studying you. like he’s trying to decipher your being. You’re certain it’s out of habit for him. a born genius, always thirsting for knowledge. “ …I didn’t think you’d be so easily convinced.”

“And why would you have such a belief, might I ask?”

“Well….” you tap your foot a bit in stress. Shoulders tensing up. “rumor has it that you’re quite difficult to reason with…”

“…guess we’re both victims of untrue rumors.” You reply, your finger swirling the rim of your mug.

“ah, well,” his voice had a sort of lilt to it, a lightened, slightly condescending tone. “ not all rumors around here are true, are they now?...or perhaps you’re suggesting otherwise?” oh, sneaky. And Unfortunately, he;s right.

“that we are, L/n.”

A silence takes over the room. you finally take a sip of your water, relishing its refreshing taste and your body soaring in victory since you finally drank something healthy for once this week. You forgot how good water tasted,how heavenly its cooling effects were for the mortal body.

You wonder if he’ll ask you the same question. and to no one’s surprise, he doesn’t. you don’t pay any mind to it, treating the silence as a peaceful one rather than awkward as you walk up to the windows to view the stars.

Stargazing has always been a favorite activity of yours, even if you’ve travelled all thw galaxies. There’s something about these glimmering dots up on the sky that leaves you in a blissful daze, deep in thought with no grief or heartache polluting your mind. They bring you a sense of clarity, of peace.

A frustrated groan gets you out of your daze as you slightly flinch, giving a small glance back at Ratio. He seemed stuck in his own mind, glaring at the pristine looking book he had in his hands as he seemingly scribbled out something from it with a disgruntled look. Soon, the discontempt expression becomes one of scholarly intrigue once again, and he taps his pencil on the book as he thinks.

His eyebrows furrowed again. “must you be so insistent on your gawking?”

You could feel shame and embarrassment course through you like a large hammer striking your head. You immediately jolt your head back, away from his gaze as you huff in embarrassment. “ sorry…sorry….” Aeons, how many times have you apologized for your strange behaviour tonight? Why is it so hard for you to hide your intrigue for him? What's so interesting about him that keeps dragging your mind deeper into analyzing his every move?...”I…I don’t know what’s gotten into me..sorry.” you pray to Nanook to just come and strike you down now where you stand. You’d rather embrace death than to revisit this awkward moment in your life time and time again at three in the morning when you can’t sleep. You’re certain it’ll be added to the collection, a collection which your bring will excitedly choose from, like a child in a candy store.

He closes his book, sits down on a chair and crosses his legs, his hands resting on his head. “Is there something you’d like to ask me, L/n?”

You hesitate on answering, wondering if there truly is something you wanted to ask him, which would explain the strange intrigue you had on him. with a nervous nod, you reply. “…what’s...gotten you so frustrated just now?”

His eyes light up a bit, his once furrowed brows losing a bit of their intensity. “ah, for a moment there I thought you were going to ask me my thoughts about your class again…it’s good that you can take no for an answer.” He hummed. “ Though, this current question of yours isn’t of any value either. for what purpose would I want to explain my current issue to you?”

“well..perhaps I can help?”

“Do you have expertise in the area of physics?”

“No.”

“then you cannot help me.” he quickly concluded with a pep in his tone, crossing his arms. “It'll merely be a waste of time for me to tell you.”

“well..hey now…” you suddenly felt defensive, as if you had something to prove, as if you wanted to prove your worth. Not only to him, but the entirety of the guild as well. “I’m certain I can still help in some way. Even if I’m not an expert at physics, that doesn’t mean I can’t give my insight as a magic expert.”

“magic is in everything .” You replied. “ it is the unsolvable, and non-understandable science. It is the things we cannot properly explain, but they still exist around us. so I’m certain that one way or another, any problem can have magic involved in it. Just like how science is in every step we take, magic is too. Science is the peace, while magic is the chaos, and together they create life itself within this realm.” You were too into your ramble now, too deeply focused to notice the intrigue in his eyes shining brighter, and his frown slowly dissolving. “ Hell, think about our creators, the aeons. Can we truly only explain them in a scientific way? Must we not speak of magic and the unexplained phenomenons they produce as well? magic is in science, and science is in magic. the solved and the unsolvable. It’s that simple.”

“How are you so sure your magic expertise can help?”

How could you not hear of the land of dreams? The land where all wishes come true, where all your worries fade away. the place where you wanted to isolate yourself in, the perfect escapism, the perfect place for shutting down the world,pain and grief around you as you wither away. a place which Screwlum delayed your departure for, then quickly assgined you to this professor gig so you’d never run away from reality. You tense up a bit as you hear it’s name again, but nod away.

“That simple…huh?...” Ratio mumbled, tilting his head. “ Well then, enlighten me, L/n. Here is my problem,” he opens his book, and suddenly, the notes and scribbles float up in a glitch-like blue font before turning into a holographic blue screen. Physic equations, circles and archives about neuroscience and dreamscapes litter the holographic board in a series of what you can only describe as genius cacophony. “ I assume you heard of Penacony, yes?”

“well, the intellegencia guild has been researching its dream-related abilities for a while now,” he continued. “and I have tasked myself with researching its dream-bubbles.”

He suddenly brings up a video in the holographic screen, which was showcasing a person touching the bubble and suddenly getting pulled into it. “it’s a new, unknown teleporter that transports people into specific personal moments in their life, often blissful ones. The bubble seems to produce a visual space inside its circle that only the people inside the bubble can see. “

“so…kind of like a virtual world?...”

“You could say that. But, the physicality and contents of this bubble are completely unknown to us..moreover, it’s not a creation of the family at all. it just suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and more of it is producing out of thin air. I want to know how it’s made, and how it appears.”

“Well, the answer is obvious.”

“Is it now?” he looks at you incredulously. “What is it, pray tell?”

“It's magic.” you shrugged, and he gave a disgruntled groan in response.

His face became deadpan, a frown on his face once more. “ things cannot be that simplified, wanderer.”

“I disagree, Doctor.” You mutter. “ It's just that simple. Penacony is the prime source of a magic utterly and completely rare in our universe. Dream magic. These bubbles are obviously a by-product of it.”

“..dream magic…” he tutted in thought, hand firmly placed under his chin. “…so how are they made then? What happens within dream magic that creates these bubbles?”

“I…don’t know.” you shrugged. “I’ll have to see the bubble in person to determine that.” And from what you can guess, they’re in penacony. So, no, you really can’t help him, not unless you miraculously book a space ticket to that place and somehow manage to get there in time before tomorrow’s class.

Ratio stares at you a bit, nods and quickly gets up, walking away to the exit. And for a moment, you think that��s it. That's the end of your conversation, and the end of your lackluster aid to help him. that is, until he stops his tracks and looks at you expectedly.

“well?”

You froze for a moment, looking back at him confused. He gives an exasperated huff as his brows furrow. “Are you coming or not?”

“h-huh? To where?” you then huffed. “surely you don’t mean penacony-“

“ah yes, because I can most certainly teleport us there in an instant.” He said sarcastically. “I mean to my office, L/n. I have a preserved dream bubble there.”

“I see…” you cleared your throat, now a bit embarrassed by your own reaction. Truly, what is up with your deduction skills today? “lead the way please.”

------

The bubble shined with the wisps of light blue and gold, tantalizing its bottled illusions.

You were in a daze of its glory, the whispers and giggles it produced, perhaps from a sweet bottled dream, called out to you like a siren fooling a lonely pirate. It is in this moment that you realize why Screwlum stiffened in what you can guess was horror when you told him about your leave for penacony. Penacony was made for the lonely seamen of space, the siren of the damned. and you, were the most cursed being Screwlum has ever met.

“ well ?” Ratio snaps you out of your trance, and you shook your head and slid down the stressed up bundle of bile that was stuck in your throat. You take a few steps closer to the bubble trapped inside the glass podium, eyes scanning every whisp of magic and sensing its power.

“May we take it out of the case?” you asked him, and he looked at you with stern brows.

“any contact with it may cause you to see the confined illusions within it.” He steps closer. “If I am to open this, I must make sure that you will proceed with caution,wanderer.”

“I will…I mean, what can be so harmful about a tiny bubble?” Ratio gave a disgruntled hum to that question, giving you an earnest stare that you could only guess was demanding for you to be a bit more serious about the situation at hand. You cleared your throat. “uh..yes yes, I’ll be careful,Doctor.”

Carefully, ration clicks a button, and the glass podium starts deconstructing itself right before your eyes. The bubble’s once confined energy pollutes the entire place, overwhelming you with the intensity of its power. You take a deep breath, reaching out your hand to reconnect with its atoms somehow. To speak to the magic inside it.

“there’s so much magic…how can you look so…relaxed under its influence?” you huffed out the question as you glanced at him, seeing his unbothered figure. He looks at you in deep thought, eyeing your overwhelmed form as you are busy controlling colors and wisps of the air.

“….it seems that the magic affects you more than it does me.” he hums. “perhaps you are an expert at your field…but tell me, why do most skilled magicians always find themselves more influenced by the magical auras around them? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?...shouldn’t they be immune to it?”

“It's not a question of immunity, Doctor. Rather, it’s a question of how much you can speak to it.”

Ratio gives you an incredulous look. “ pardon ?” His eyes were filled with intrigue and bafflement. “Did you just say ‘ speak’ ?”

“…in my eyes, magic is a person in of itself.” You paused for a moment, trying to hear the whispers wishes and unspoken stories of the magic within. “The most skilled people I know in this field are ones who treat magic as anything but an object. Some treat it like their god, others their enemy. The truth is magic is a living being of its own right, in a cosmological field outside of our mortal perspective…magic has lived as long as aeons have been around, and for some, magic is considered an aeon in their own right.”

“..and you, L/n ... .what do you see magic as?” he asked through the whispers, fierce eyes stuck on your expression as you try to pay your utmost attention to the task at hand.

“…a friend.” You mumbled, the wisps of flown magic going around your arm like ribbons, the whispers getting louder and clearer as they entered your ears and spoke of the unspoken. The illusion laid within the confines of water.

“…so you were correct.” Ratio cut through the silence, finger under his chin in thought, looking back at the bubble again. “…the bubble’s confines can be understood by researching its magic capabilities…”

“I’m not done yet, Doctor Ratio.”

“ oh ? Is your dear friend spilling secrets to you?” you couldn’t help but crack a smile at his reply, glancing back at him before reverting your attention back to your friend.

“Jealous much, doctor?”

“of you or the magic?”

“you tell me.”

“hah, as if.” He turned his head away from you, but you were keen enough to notice his small smile.

“that didn’t answer my question.”

“Not all questions need answers, Wanderer.”

“suit yourself.” You sighed. “But since I’m much kinder than you, I will answer yours—“ you gave him a cheeky smile, and he rolled his eyes at it, further fueling your newfound enthusiasm. “ You see, magic is quite the cheeky being. They don’t like giving answers that are straight to the point. Rather, they like to speak in riddles only aeons could fully comprehend. But, that doesn’t mean understanding it is impossible...it merely makes it harder.”

“and? What have they whispered in your ear exactly?”

“echoes.” You replied. “Echoes of memories deep within the bubble…some familiar…some unknown…I can’t really link any of them together…and all I can guess right now is that the bubble uses its illusionary powers to create a dream sequence solely indulged into the fantasies and dreams of the people that are nearest to it…to prove this…I need a few answers. who else has touched this bubble that you know of?”

“hm…many people have but…the last person who did besides me was the student who bumped into it…I believe it was…” he then tched, as if the very name of the person gives him a headache. “ Caleb Stones…” he sighed. “..the most troublesome student I’ve ever faced…” he mumbled.

You quickly get to work, speaking to the magic that was now within your mind, checking your dreams and desires. Wisps of your own magic appear, and inside your conscious, you kindly ask to see Caleb’s dreams, to see his deepest desires laced within a dream. For a moment, you think to yourself if this could be considered as crossing a personal boundary or not…is it ok to look through someone’s deepest wishes without their consent? Especially if they’re your student? Nevertheless, you’ve gone too far in, and the magic is more than eager to show you the illusionary powers it was capable of.

Sounds of claps echo through your mind, cheers buzzing in your ears and ‘congratulations’ being muddled within your area of hearing. You see yourself in graduation garb, and soon, you can feel the strange sense of pride, enthusiasm and joy of course within you. you see a bunch of your coworkers, you included,looking at you with prideful smiles, a piece of firm paper right in your hands. You take a deep breath, looking at the paper with buzzing excitement, as a familiar voice echoes a speech.

“Caleb Stones…” as the voice echoes, you see a familiar face in the crowd. One that you wished to never see again. fall leaves, withered body, mara-struck eyes. “We thank you for your incredible contribution to the research of---“ Your breath hitches, heart dropping to your stomach as your hands slip and the framed paper slips into the ground and shatters.

You gasp, falling back from the sudden influx of magic as Veritas calls out your name in worry. You take a deep breath, trying to dissociate illusion from reality. Trying to forget the autumn smell and poisoned immortality.

“…I know you have like two hundred phds and all, but there’s no need for a check-up, doc.” You try to wheeze out the joke with an exhausted smile, heart still in a bundle of disarray. Ratio’s brows furrowed, grumbling in annoyed disappointment.

“…are you alright?” you didn’t even notice that Ratio kneeled down beside you, hand on your shoulder as he checked your pulse. “…are you feeling any sort of pain?”

“ eight . They’re only eight PHDs.” He clicked his tongue.

“you act as if it’s a completely normal accomplishment.”

“it is to me—“ he then quickly huffs. “ aeons sake, why are we even talking about this right now? do not try to avoid the situation at hand L/n.”

“I’m not. I told you I’m fine.”

“You got blasted into my office’s wall.”

“Well, that’s just a Tuesday for me. just like how collecting PHDS is a normal task for you.”

“ for how long are you gonna—“ he pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing and letting his frustration out through the huff. “ Has the sudden blow to the head messed up your mind? Why on earth do you keep bringing this up?”

You shrugged, giving him a sheepish smile. “joking helps me cope, I guess.”

A flash of understanding sweeps through his gaze before reverting back into the same scrutinising and analytical glare. “I see.” He pauses for a moment before asking, “ what have you witnessed within the bubble?”

It takes you a moment to collect your thoughts and answer. “....Caleb’s dream. The dream magic was just a bit more than what I expected I could handle, that’s all.” you lied through your teeth, feeling the guilt set into you. yet your mind warned you of the consequences of showing your heart to another. never again will you let anyone see your fear, your heart, your humanity in its rawest form.

Ratio hums in thought, tapping his finger under his chin as he gazes back to the bubble. “….an incredible influx of dream magic that can sense your deepest desires and create its illusions…..” he then gives an exhausted sigh, a small glimmer of weakness from a man who always seemed in power. “…perhaps it truly wasn’t related to its physics at all.”

You felt a bit guilty, knowing what it's like to be faced with failure when you desired success. “….the strongest weapon of a researcher is their power to admit they were wrong about something.” You tried to comfort him. “ if we were to just be stubborn in our ways, we would’ve never prospered to the point we are now.”

He stays quiet for a bit, his smart mind in a deep thought that you could only assume was speaking in an ancient scientific language or hell, maybe computer codes laced with socrates and shakespeare-esque writing. Whatever it was, it seems like your words left him in a silenced splunder. You merely hoped the silence was because your words rang true, and not that he realized you’re a complete dumbass who doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

To your luck, he finally speaks. “….then a new research must begin.” He gets up, coating off the minimum amount of dust off his robes, and you realize how awfully squeaky clean his office floor is compared to others. you can see your reflection on the ground, and you wonder if this is what people truly mean when they say the floor is clean enough to eat on it. you think to yourself, does he scrub the ground himself, or does he hire a maid? And if so, is it a weekly,monthly, or daily wash? Your ridiculous trails of thoughts vanish the moment he outstretches a hand for you, and as you take it, you feel a buzzing comfort within your heart. It was strange, because now you’ve realized that you’ve….never really held anyone’s hands before. Only one person ever had that privilege, and he used to take your scarred hands into his soft, often cold ones as you walk around the aurum alley in search of vendors to binge-eat snacks from. Ratio’s hands, however, were the complete opposite. Despite being soft to the touch, it was far more muscular and meaty than yours. You could almost sense the years of training he had just by the weight of his palm holding yours. His hands were warm, deeply warm. As if the blood that runs through him is lava, a contrast to his cold and brooding nature. And once again, like the wanderer you are, you wonder, what does his heart feel like then? Is it as warm as his hands? Or as chilly as his attitude? Or are you just alluding yourself with these rambling thoughts all to avoid the reminiscence of the bitter past? Of the cold hands and cheeky smile, of the soft texture that were never meant to fight, never meant to shed blood or break. “ tell me, wanderer, do you have any plans for this term?”

You looked at him a bit perplexed, unsure of how to answer. Yes?..no?....“not…really?” yep, that’s the best way to put it.

“good. Well, sad and disappointing for you, but good for me.” he hums nonchalantly,only adding more to your grimace.

“did you really have to put it that way?”

“—would you like to join me in this research?” he ignores your question, adding further insult to injury. his words were like a bathtub full of salt, one you’d fear a wounded,emotionally sensitive person to fall into.”I could use your expertise in the magic field. “

You hesitate for a moment, eyes wandering away to the bubble once more, fearing the surging power within it, yet also, craving the chaos it contains. You’ve always been like this when it comes to magic. Screwlum has often called you a ‘magic-addict’, with Herta once adding, “it’s like you breathe magic to live.’ A burning curiosity blazes within you, desperately wanting to become the dead cat they always hum about, desiring the satisfaction that will revive you, the understanding of the world beyond you. therefore, with a nod, you give Ratio a reply. “…it’d be quite a pleasure, Dr.Ratio.”

Ratio looks deep within your gaze, searching for something, what that thing is, only aeons would know, and how desperately did you wish you could speak to them. He then lets out a sigh, eyes as steel and inquisitive as ever. As pretty as ever. “….just Ratio will do, wanderer.”

------

Ratiosimp :……..

Rina :……

Y/n : what?

Y/n : why are you two so quiet???

Ratiosimp :…….

Y/n : the fuck is ‘…..’ supposed to mean????

Y/n : pls reply with something other than dramatic pause in the group chat. I did NOT just spend hours texting in such excruciating detail just for you two to be dramatically silent.

Rina :…I….

Y/n : you are not helping.

RatioSimp : LMMMMFAOOOOOOOOOOOOOO YOU FUCKING DUMBASSS

Rina: the REAL Ratio simp. Hell one could say you’re a future Ratio fucker.

Y/n: I hate both of you.

Y/n: I am deleting this group chat and blocking you both.

RatioSimp: YOU DUM-DUM

Y/n: STOP

RatioSimp : YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO FIND A NEW RESEARCH TOPIC FOR YOURSELF

Y/n : ENOUGH

RatioSimp: NOT GO HELP THE OTHER WEIRDO WITH ONE

*Y/n has removed RatioSimp from the group chat*

Rina : So when's the date? Or do you guys wanna skip that and get freaky in his office instead?

Y/n: goodbye.

You grumble in utter embarrassment as you turn off your phone and dramatically throw it to your bed, grabbing a pillow and screaming into it for dear life as you knew it.

Unfortunately for you, Byron was right. you were supposed to find a new research topic with this 3rd all-nighter in a row, not stupidly aid and accept the offer to help someone else with theirs. In fact, you should’ve told Ratio you are, despite others’ belief, busy with your own research. You just– didn’t know what exactly the research was yet!!

Yet here you are, now tangled with the man of utter mystery himself, the face of stone and marble with such a distinctive look on the world that you still find yourself trying to comprehend.

With a sigh and a hand through your hair, you lay your head on the soft pillows, the nerves in your brain all rejoicing at the prospect of you finally resting for once in these hellish hours. as your thoughts aimlessly drift by with whines and grumbles about everything, you find yourself fast asleep, trapped in a haze of dreams. Yet, through the mists of autumn leaves, blizzard snow and a space station bustling with researchers, in each and every illusionary minute of your dream, an indigo haired man is present. Like he’s in the back of your mind, stuck in like glue through every thought and theory that passes by you. and soon, as you stop acting in your dreams, as reality and illusion becomes one and you realize you’re in a fake, made-up world of your psyche, you stare into his golden eyes curiously, one question lurking echoing through your mind.

Why wasn’t Dr.Ratio a genius?

--------A.N----------

GUESS WHOSE BACK WITH ANOTHER FANFIC SHE’LL ONLY RELEASE ONE CHAPTER OF AND THEN FEEL OVERWHELMED AND LEAVE??? *points to herself* THISS GUYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

But no seriously if this gets enough attention I may actually have the motivation to continue it. The main reason I falter in continuing fics is usually burn out, terrible and horrid attention span due to my adhd (yes I’ve been officially diagnosed. But honestly look at my fics man how did you expect me to be neurotypical) and TERRIBLE TERRIBLE perfectionist mindset. And I mean TERRIBLE.i swear to you, each and every fic of mine has like—a poor draft filled with over 10k words that im too scared to continue and too nit-picky about it because I keep feeling like I’m utterly deeply incompetent and that my writing is ass. So I tend to give up before I cook, because I’m so utterly scared of failure lmao. I’m hoping by scratching this from being a oneshot to a full-blown few chapters fic, I can break this cycle and finally finish writing ALL the fics I’ve published without the fear of perfectionism. I think a main part that helps me get through it is seeing people actually enjoy my writing tbh. Like if people enjoy it and express that joy to me, my perfectionist urge dies down a bit and I feel more confident in myself. But since I’ve been writing for either unpopular characters orrr for characters so deeply popular your fic can easily get lost in the sea of fics out there, I’ve not received the attention my perfectionist mindset so desperately craves, and so I’ve been lacking in confidence in my own work. Im hoping with this fic it can all change T_T

Anyways if you want this fic to continue PLEASE RAMBLE PLEASE COMMENT RAHHHHH it truly gives me the motivation I need to continue this. Kudos/likes/votes ain’t enough folks i need to hear ALL your thoughts elfknwrnblskbwr

#dr ratio #veritas ratio #dr ratio x reader #drratio #drratioxreader #veritasratioxreader #hsrxreader #hsr #x reader #reader insert #fanfiction #ratioxreader #hsrratioxreader #hsrdrratioxreader

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