#i never mentioned it before i think but that too has the spirit/essence of a lesser demon or spirit or something within it. he draws power

[hjemve]

:V ..... just now realizing that The Vagrant, having been one of the kings advisors // military/tactical what have yous.............that means, in that time period, its very likely that the vagrant was a noble, yes, but ?? its likely he was also like. an actual fucking knight ??

[mosneakers]

Granite Falls, 6 Months After Election Night

Alex Hart, Lead Documentarian: You’ve just been through so much these past few months. Your strength… it’s really moving. Sorry—I’m getting a bit emotional here, as you can probably tell, heh.

Coraleye: [giggles softly, attempting to lighten the mood] I bet it’s just the charm of the great outdoors! Camping has a way of casting a spell on you, doesn’t it? Makes all your senses feel so heightened!

Cameron Rai, Camera Technician: [Squinting against the sun] Great segue— now can we keep it pushing before the sunset wrecks our lighting?

Alex: Right. While we're on the subject, could you please explain how we managed to interview Erwin for this film, given the horrific incident that happened six months ago? Coraleye: Oh, since you asked like such a perfect gentleman, I can do you one better—how 'bout I show you instead?

Coraleye smiles gently at Erwin and begins her spell. "Goodbye for now, buddy.” she whispers, brushing away an emerging tear from her eye before it has the chance to fall. “Until next time.” In a whirlwind of sparkles and light, Erwin's image fades away right before their eyes.

Alex: [Shakes head in bewilderment] Incredible. So that wasn't the real Erwin, right?

Coraleye: [Chuckles] Nope, not really! I’ve put my own little twist on a classic untamed magic spell —Duplicato.

Alex: I'm only clarifying because in the time I've gotten to know you, you've mentioned that you're an experienced medium, as well. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we weren't speaking to Erwin's spirit or anything, right?

Coraleye: No... we did attempt a séance once and sadly, it seems he may have died too far away for any of us to be able to connect to his spirit. [Face reddening, eyes beginning to well with tears] Although I'd like to think I captured the essence of his spirit pretty accurately. But this spell is essentially just a magical hologram created from my memories of him.

Alex: We really appreciate you sharing him with us today, it's truly such an honor. Just to reiterate for our viewers, are you still completely comfortable with this? Your comfort is very important to us. I can imagine this must be extremely challenging for you.

Coraleye's shoulders slumped, and a frown clouded her expression, as she battled the urge to cry. The thought of Tycho watching this documentary strengthened her resolve—she refused to let him have the satisfaction of seeing her cry again.

Coraleye: No worries, I promise. I think it'll be good for the movie. I want people to see Erwin the way we did. Sure, it can be emotionally taxing, but I don’t do this spell often—and when I do, I actually find it to be so healing. [Smiles after long pause] — But yeah, anyway, thanks for the support, Alex... you've been really great.

Alex: [Softly] You’re really something else, Coraleye. I can’t imagine how hard this must be, but you’re handling it with so much grace. You know, it’s okay to feel whatever you’re feeling. If you need a moment… [Opens his arms slightly]

Coraleye laughs and accepts his subtle invitation for an embrace, easing herself into Alex's arms. Not expecting that familiar flutter that she's been dodging for months now to come creeping its way back into the pit of her stomach, she buries it deep down for now. But Coraleye knows she's a Darling, and when it comes to love, that's one curse that never stays dead.

Cam: Yeah, cool, I think we got the shot now.

[chaoticly-shy-dragon]

so I am working - dragging my feet - through natla (1 episode left) and I thought I would share some of my thoughts and commentary:

Iroh: You must use your tact, your empathy-

Season 1 Zuko: [looks back at him]

*

Canon s1 ep3 Zuko: You... are working with Zhao. Willingly.

Show s1 ep3 Zuko: Yes? What's the problem? He is annoying but that's mostly it.

Canon!Zuko: UNCLE! DID YOU PUT SPIRIT MUSHROOMS IN MY TEA AGAIN?! I'M HAVING LUCID NIGHTMARES!!

Other random thoughts:

[Suki proceeds to defy gravity with her fan to impress Sokka]

Me, exasperation incarnate: Suki, I didn't know you were an airbender!

and

[Previous incarnation avatar bashing sesh]

Me: [...] But I love Zuko-Iroh interactions

[The one scene. Zuko is shouting how they can't just ask around. Iroh is offering advice until he gets distracted by street food.]

Me: The fact Zuko stood there for a few seconds trying to figure what this proverb means before he realizes its very much not a proverb - cackling

Second-hand long-suffering friend, who is at the end of her wits after hearing me talk about the butchering of Kyoshi's character for 20 minutes: XDDDD He legit thought rice had sth to do with it XD

there is more but it's more of

Oh no, he is hot.

And oh no he is also hot

Why is every extremist hot?!

Bumi is very bitter. Very.... Jaded.

Aang has no situational awareness: He did not just ask Zhao (Zuko too) to let him go so he can go save other enemies of the Fire Nation. He didn't.

Also. Why the firebender this, firebender that. Are the Fire Nation non-benders saints or something??

Mai casually says Ozai sucks for not thinking Azula is perfect <- Me: I mean she is absolutely right but she would not say that.

Azula's whole. Thing. I felt the narrative was trying very desperately to make her seem competent and clever but the fact that Iroh's thoughts insinuated the frontal attack on the Northern Water Tribe was her idea left me in stitches

But yeah. They nerfed Azula

Zuko - feral, bloodthirsty, a loser. <- Me: Oh my god they captured his essence! Minus the honor thing!

ZUKO NOT SAYING HONOR

THE TRAVESTY OF SOKKA NOT WEARING A DRESS

I WANT SOKKA IN KYOSHI WARRIOR UNIFORM

Katara not having any emotions ::: Aang walks all over her saying he can't support her in her fight against the patriarchy that is actually just Pakku and Yugoda or whatever was happening in the 7th episode: Katara doesn't blow up at him. Sokka calling her a little girl and never actually apologizing about the whole Jet accusation especially when he did the same with the Mechanist. : Katara doesn't blow up at him

Me: sounds fake but okay

At this point when Toph comes along Katara will let her not be a part of the Team (no Gaang just Team Avatar) and not contribute and not bond and NO FOUND FAMILY TROPE

Aang teaching Katara waterbending, Aang not goofing off, No Kataraang (not even a smidge) - something in me shriveled up and died.

Why is Azula soft??????

And why is Ty Lee assertive and forthcoming??? Just?? Why????

And finally, my second favorite:

Azula, trying very hard not to mention Zuko's ludicrous tenacity: Commander Zhao is a great asset... Maybe he needs better resources to showcase his true potential.

Zhao who barely passed his exams according to Jee the gossip queen: Yes, I do need the best resources. Give me all the 'sources.

[onesapphireeye]

in your warmth

Aegon reveals that he has been going to counseling and is committed to getting better and being a better father and husband. You, as always, forgive and forget too easily.

modern!aegon x reader + "you have a pretty face when you aren't yelling at me."

warnings: use of she/her for reader. angst that turns happy. metaphoric mentions of murder. aegon is/was an alcoholic. mentions of separation.

nori says: why is my brain like this?????? how did i get this from that prompt? lmao idk, but warmth by bastille was on repeat. i tried to make the reader a softer personality than usual. not beta read, as always!! you know how we do around here! xoxo.

word count: 2,000~

If your life was a movie, its genre would be a crime documentary. They'd portray you as the kind of person who lit up a room, whose once-brilliant smile had been dulled by years of living with a man who robbed everything from you. Someone whose great ambition in life lay in shreds, mangled by the ghosts of her former hopes.

No, Aegon hadn't killed you, but he had stolen your essence.

You sunk into despair as you reflected on how he'd taken away your vibrant spirit and quieted your voice. Conversations were now limited to cold, bureaucratic texts, and you felt like a shadow of your former self.

You just knew audiences would weep at their screens and feel their hearts break for the pretty wife. They'd ask why justice had not been served? Wonder if her husband's family had powerful connections?

You didn't want to be seen as a deer led to slaughter.

As much as you wanted to be courageous like Amy Dunne from Gone Girl and make a break for freedom, you never could think of a good plan. 

How would you go about faking your own death?

Where would you go afterwards?

You didn't want to get away; instead, you desperately wished for a way to turn back the hands of time. Aegon had been your first love and you still cherished him in your heart. 

Pain lanced through you at the thought of your twins. As much as they completed you, you missed the days before their births when life was so much simpler. You felt like a disgusting mother for even thinking it, but Aegon had been so untroubled then. Becoming a father had made him so terrified of repeating his own father's mistakes that he chose to ignore his worries instead. 

Your conversations seemed always fraught with tension and fear, though he would put on a forced smile to comfort you and convince you that everything was alright. He would tell you how happy he was, but each word was coated in the need for alcohol, a way of dulling the pain of his struggle.

What finally prompted you into action, was when you had come home after a spin class to a house filled with the stench of booze and your children huddled miserably next to the motionless form of their unconscious father. 

You had tried everything to help him, but he refused to quit drinking and you weren't willing to have your kids suffer like he did as a child. His stubbornness had forced you to separate and take a job outside the home in order to support them.

You wanted full custody and felt like Aegon had abandoned you in your time of need.

Aegon had not been picking up your calls, and you found out through his sister that his solution to the struggle of parenting two children was to find another woman to do the job—his mother.

She had been taking them overnight, shielding you from the truth in order to "spare your feelings". You knew enough about their family to know that her intentions were really to keep up appearances for Aegon, yet it tore you apart all the same. 

How could your opinion of him decrease any further? You felt broken and alone, with no one to turn to.

OUTGOING: I know it's late and this is pretty last minute but do you think I can drop by to get you to sign some forms? I wouldn't bother you with this, but they need a wet signature for legality.

AEGON: I'm in the middle of something right now

AEGON: Can we meet up tomorrow evening? There are some things I need to tell you about

AEGON: Do you want to meet at Visenya's? My treat for your time

OUTGOING: 6pm works for me?

AEGON: It's a date

OUTGOING: It's not a date, Aegon. Just a friendly dinner.

As you drove into the parking lot of Visenya's, your heart raced and your breath caught in your throat. You were here to meet Aegon and the combination of anticipation and nerves was hard to manage.

It was a familiar place for the both of you, and the memories came flooding back. You could still taste the red wine on your lips from the night you accepted his marriage proposal here and the sweet chocolate cake from your first date left a bitter aftertaste. Looking up at its doors, you wondered why he chose this venue.  

Your attention was drawn to Aegon's beloved Sunfrye, a 1962 Ferrari 250 California SWB Spider by Scaglietti, custom painted an aged gold gleamed in the darkness, mocking your pain. You knew more about this car than you'd ever wanted, thanks to all the time Aegon spent talking about it. And you sat there every time like a dutiful idiot, happy to share anything with him.

You wanted to rip Sunfyre apart with your bare hands, to feel something other than the sadness overwhelming you, but instead, you bit back a sob. Tears gathered in your eyes as you battled against the urge to key the car out of spite. You could almost picture him on his hands and knees before the vehicle; blubbering in anguish at your destructive creation.

Aegon hadn't even been on time to your wedding, so you were surprised to see he was already here. Your foolish heart wondered if this was a sign. You didn't want to turn one of your rare meetings into a fight because of a burst of vindictive pleasure.

You swallowed your apprehension and walked inside the restaurant, fifteen minutes after the set reservation time.

Giving your name to the hostess at the front, you were guided to the table where Aegon sat. Your face split into a smile at the sight of him. His skin glowed with a vibrant radiance, and his eyes shimmered with life-not from alcohol. His white blonde hair was brushed back, revealing his dazzling features. The usual bags under his eyes were gone, leaving him looking more alive than you had ever seen him before.

Your heart did a flip as you realized how much better he looked, and it filled you with warmth to know he could be happy.

"Hi," you said softly, placing the envelope on the table between you two.

"Hi!" Aegon stood abruptly, gallantly helping you take off your outerwear before pulling out your chair for you. You took a seat, feeling slightly anxious in his presence after so much time apart. As he moved away, his hands grazing your shoulders sent electricity coursing through your body, making you feel slightly more at ease.

He sat back down across from you an gave you an endearing smile, your lips curved in a small smile in response. You could tell that he was just as nervous as you were, but was trying to be brave. It made it easier to relax, knowing that you weren't alone in feeling that way.

You settled into your seat, looking into each others eyes and reveling in the moment.

"You look gorgeous. It's been ages since I've seen you light up like this." He used to be a charmer, until he lost sight of what was most important.

Your gaze flicked down, you were hesitant of looking him in the eye, in case your expression gave away how much you still appreciated compliments from him. "Sometimes I wonder if we would still be together if you had said more nice things." You had to fight your younger self, the person who was so weak and willing to forgive his wrongdoings. "I apologize, I shouldn't have said that. Let's just enjoy this moment and talk like normal people."

You had always been gentle with this man-- you still loved him, despite all of your pain-- asking for a divorce had come as a jolt to everyone. No one knew Aegon's sweet little wife had a will of steel, because you had even been so compliant in his meticulous demolishing of your own spirit.

You didn't know how to start. "You said you had something you wanted to update me on?"

"I've been going to AA meetings." Your eyebrows shot so high they almost disappeared into your hairline, your mouth a gaping maw of disbelief. He continued when you didn't say anything. "I've made mistakes in the past, and I can't promise that I won't make mistakes in the future; but I can promise that I'll learn from them this time."

You could almost sense the hopefulness radiating off of him, he was determined to be better and make things right.

"I'm so proud of you," You whispered softly, "It takes a lot of strength to take a hard look at yourself and try to make a change. Believe me, I know exactly how hard it can be." Your hearts swelled with emotion, overwhelmed by the fact that you two could have such an honest, heartfelt conversation.

"I didn't just do this for myself. I did this for us." His eyes glistened with intense emotion, "I have so much love to give and I just want to give it—the right way. I'm finally ready to learn, but I need you to show me. Please., I want to come home." He was pleading with his entire being.

Your heart was pounding wildly in your chest and before you knew it, your hand had reached out and entwined with his.

You looked him in the eyes, "I love you Aegon, more than I should. And I'm here, ready to learn along with you." His warm hand in yours let you know that this was real, that despite all the struggles and arguments, you both still had feelings for each other. "But you can't just come home, not yet."

You watched his face fall as he nodded in understanding. You hated seeing him look so defeated, but it was important to take things slow. You needed to make sure that this wasn't just a momentary flash of love. 

There was a lot of work to be done before you could tell all your families and the kids that you two were reconciling. It would take time, patience and understanding but if it meant that you two could finally have the happy ending that you both deserved then it was worth it.

As Aegon went on about what he had gone through since the separation, you couldn't help but be astonished at how much he had changed. He opened up to you as if you were a long-lost friend, sharing pieces of himself that he never would have let out before. You embraced every word like it was a token of love from him and hung onto it with all that was left within you.

After a few hours of talking, he seemed exhausted from pouring out so much of himself that needed to be released. You felt something shift between you two; something was healing, something that couldn't come back to its original form: a marriage connected by love. But instead, it could be connected by something more beautiful; honesty, respect, understanding and care.

You both looked down at the envelope that still lay untouched on the table between you two.

His free hand began to reach across the table to grab it, and you stopped him. "Don't worry about those."

He gave you a warm smile and gazed into your eyes; something had stirred within you that had been dormant for far too long. "You know, you have a pretty face when you aren't yelling at me."

"Please don't start making jokes." You squeezed his hand tightly before letting go and both of you sat in silence for a few moments, feeling the tension between you two dissipate as you sipped on your drinks.

norinote: remember you can send me prompts from here or your own ideas! xoxo.

[atla-confessions]

"that 'Iroh the hypocrite' confession is a lot of words to say you don't understand

The whole point of the "Azula needs to be taken down" is it goes against what Iroh is usually about, thats not Iroh being hypocritical, that is the writers highlighting just how dangerous Azula truly is"

Of course, Iroh's 14 year old niece is so dangerous and severly deep into the propaganda of his nation and the parenting of his abusive younger brother that even he, the one who is mature enough to realize all of the topics mentioned above, is spiritually enlightened and is basically always seeing the good in everyone (proof is his weird idolization of his nephew), can't stop for a second and put himself in the shoes of this child, his own family, in order to at least understand why she is like this. That's not at all a writing that betrays the essence and themes of his character(becoming a good person after doing bad things, seeing the spiritual balance of the world and hence being able to see that people can do both good and wrong and forever trying to offer guidance for those he encounters so that they can be able to lean towards that inherent goodness, hopefully), not at all a flaw in his character, that's just him being once again Perfect and anything that opposes this idea, is definitely wrong and evil, right? Thnx for the good laugh you gave me, hopefully, I'll leave you too a bit better with this educational discussion as you did to me.

"And the sending Zuko to fight Azula has nothing to do with a power struggle between siblings, Azula had no real power, Ozai just named her fire lord to continue to manipulate her, thus Zuko fighting her wouldn't been seen the same as Iroh taking down Ozai"

Oh, so a publicly known traitor going back to his country with the intent to usurp the position of power and governance, that was given to his sister, now the publicly known figure and power of authority due to the fact she's been chosen by the ultimate authority, the phoenix king to be the leader of the nation, and is quite literally the only ruling figure staying in the country and tasked with governing it, somehow, this Traitor vs The Leader of the Nation isn't actually a power struggle being painted in action here? Do enlighten me to what it is, if you can, because I seem to have misunderstood all the politics I've studied.

"And imagine thinking Zuko's never done anything good without "the good guys" givinf him chances, as if The Blue Spirit wasn't wanted by the fire nation from before Aang even wakes up."

Of course, the Blue Spirit must've been a noble hero fighting against the Colonizing Entity and doing heroic deeds, right? I mean, the fire nation wants him captured! Of course he must've been doing something good! Two questions came to my head right now, why and for whom did he do these deeds? All I know about this character is that he does things for his own benefit, things that ultimately did serve the world good such as kidnapping the avatar and brought harm too, such as stealing from people. And guess what, all of these actions came from a place of self interest and personal gain, they didn't come from a moral sense of doing it for other people so who's to say that, perhaps, the Blue Spirit being wanted by the Fire Nation is because he would do things that would once again benefit him, such as infiltrating military groups and centers to acquire knowledge that would aid him in his search for the avatar?

"Try thinking about why things are said rather than what is said"

Believe me, I don't share my thoughts unless I'm positively assured of what I didn't and did understand and I'm always welcome, happy and ready to be proven wrong and be taught what's correct and right. Do you do that too?

X

[purpleheartskies]

The Heart of Miyagi-Do - part 2

Before s5 came out, I wrote a post called the The Heart of Miyagi-Do, in which I talked about how the heart/spirit of Miyagi-Do left the Miyagi-Do dojo when Robby left. Robby had essentially taken the essence of Miyagi-Do with him.

In s5, Robby's return to Miyagi-Do was essential for Daniel and for Miyagi-Do to get their heart/spirit back.

It's no surprise that Daniel's Miyagi-Do's spirit is tied to Robby. After all, Robby had helped Daniel revive Miyagi-Do in the first place.

Robby also showed the most interest in Miyagi-Do's foundation than any of Daniel's other students, coming up with his own metaphors and reading up on Miyagi's history.

But what's more is that Robby's heart has always truly been Miyagi-Do. In s5, Robby rejoined Miyagi-Do and didn't join Eagle Fang, despite spending all season fawning around Johnny. As I mentioned in my Robby's rejection of toxic empowerment post, Robby never truly left Miyagi-Do or its principles behind and stuck to his goal of trying to control his anger. Miyagi-Do's principles match who Robby is in many ways.

Hayden once said about Miguel: "You can take Miguel out of Cobra Kai, but you can't take Cobra Kai out of Miguel."

I think this applies to Robby wrt to Miyagi-Do:

You can take Robby out of Miyagi-Do, but you can't take Miyagi-Do out of Robby.

In s2, when Robby told Johnny that he and Daniel could learn a thing or two from each other, I took this as Robby wanting Johnny to learn from Daniel more so than wanting Daniel to learn from Johnny. Before saying this, Robby told Johnny that Miyagi-Do had helped Robby a lot.

Robby wanted Johnny to become Miyagi-Do too and leave behind Cobra Kai (meaning it's principles). Even now, Eagle Fang is just Cobra Kai with "show mercy sometimes", so Johnny is still technically Cobra Kai. In s4, after the avt, Robby told Johnny that Robby had tried to use Cobra Kai and that had made everything worse for Robby. But, in s5, Johnny forced Robby to use a Cobra Kai way to solve Miguel's rivalry with Robby. Johnny of course didn't care about what Robby had told him after the avt or about how Robby felt. Johnny just wanted to achieve his goal of putting his dream "family" together and of feeling better about himself, the latter being Johnny's driving force since s1. Like Robby said in s4e1, Johnny wants a relationship now just to feel better about himself. (Robby fawning in s5 was so that Johnny wouldn't abandon him again. Their dynamic still remains the most complex and frustratingly sad one in the show.) Regardless, Robby still believes in Miyagi-Do ways of dealing with rivalries and later encouraged Kenny to hash things out with Anthony and reminded him that there's still another way (Miyagi-Do). This is in stark contrast to what Johnny had forced Robby to do for Johnny's own benefit.

At the trials, when Johnny looked at Robby's gi and told the Sekai Taikai judge that they're Miyagi-Do, I took this as a good sign.

Johnny still has a monumental amount of work to do without a doubt, as he hasn't even started his redemption yet. (The basics of storytelling make this obvious. Johnny hasn't even had any meaningful growth yet in terms of overcoming his core internal struggle.) But, Johnny's gotten to the point where he's now open to identifying his dojo as Miyagi-Do. Daniel then told the judge that they're also Eagle Fang. I took this as Daniel wanting to maintain Miyagi-Do's legacy and not mix Eagle Fang with it. Something I assume Robby would agree with, given that he chose to join Miyagi-Do over Eagle Fang in s5 and he kept encouraging Kenny of another way (Miyagi-Do).

In s5e5, Sam was surprised to hear that Robby had stopped Kenny when he was beating up Anthony at the avt. But, that's who Robby is.

And Robby had never let go of Miyagi-Do.

Robby - "That's what Miyagi-Do's all about."

Sadly, Sam never gave Robby any real consideration or benefit of the doubt. In s4e1, Sam judged Robby for joining Cobra Kai and said that he was making the "wrong choice" and that he's a "good person". But Robby hadn't even joined Cobra Kai. He was just living there, away from the people, including her, who've hurt him so much.

He joined Cobra Kai, though, after that conversation with her. Later, in his speech to the Cobras, he said that the Miyagi-Dos think that they're better than them. He knows because he used to be one of the Miyagi-Dos, and now he's not going to be. He's joining Cobra Kai because "we all need to look ourselves in the mirror and realize who we really are." Late in the season, when Robby looked at himself in the mirror (when he looked at Kenny during his match), he realized that being Cobra Kai, by following Kreese's teachings at the avt, isn't who he wants to be. Interestingly, by the end of the season, Sam is the one who had adopted more of a Cobra Kai (Eagle Fang) mentality. Sam should realize that you don't have to be in Cobra Kai to become Cobra Kai.

Throughout s4, Robby had barely been Cobra Kai. His plan to take down the "enemy" was to take away the enemy's ability to wage war, which is a Miyagi-Do philosophy that Robby unknowingly adopted. He taught the Cobras Miyagi-Do, and he taught it to them so well that they beat Daniel's students in Miyagi-Do. As a leader to the Cobras, he set a generally good example, the main exception being what they did to Hawk (which I talk about in the toxic empowerment post). During the season, the Miyagi Fangs bullied Kenny, while the Cobras never bullied anyone like they had when Miguel and Hawk had been the leaders in Cobra Kai. Before Robby and the Cobras made their move against Hawk, Robby had tried two things to resolve the tension between the dojos: (1) He went to Johnny and told him to intervene but was ignored, and (2) he agreed to the offer of a fair fight between the dojos but the Miyagi Fangs pranked them instead. Later, Robby's plan to throw their opponents off-balance before the tournament was to show up at prom and do a show-stopping dance, which is pretty on par with his s1 plan of getting a job at LaRusso Auto to get shirt with his name on it to piss of Johnny. And it was Sam, not one of the Cobras, who started the prom fight. In the tournament, none of the Cobras fought dirty, which is the first and only time in the franchise that Cobra Kai students didn't fight dirty in a tournament or official match.

Overall, even if the Cobras may not have been "better" than the Miyagi-Dos in s4, the Cobras were "better" than what the Miyagi-Dos believed them to be. In s2, Daniel had told Robby that the Cobras aren't the enemy, they're just taught the wrong way, and the goal of Miyagi-Do Karate is to teach them a better way, which is what Robby did, even with the examples he set.

In s5, the Cobras became bullies again after Kyler told Kenny that Robby quit so they need a new King Cobra. When Robby quit Cobra Kai, the Miyagi-Do essence that he had brought to Cobra Kai left with him.

At the trials, despite Hawk being in Miyagi-Do since s4 and learning from Daniel, Hawk still wanted to "shut [Kenny] up". Robby used empathy to change Hawk's mind.

In fact, at the s4 avt, Daniel had told Hawk to give it all he's got against Robby, while at the trials Robby told Hawk to go easy on Kenny. In both cases, beating Cobra Kai to stop its expansion was the ultimate goal, but Robby didn't put that goal above Kenny like Daniel had put that goal above Robby.

In s5e9, Robby's speech at the Cobra Kai dojo was a call back to Daniel's words to Robby in s2, that there are no enemies in Cobra Kai, they're all just taught the wrong way, but the goal of Miyagi-Do karate is to teach a better way. Here, Robby told the students that Silver is their enemy but they're not past the point of no return and that there's still another way. Robby's speech was technically Miyagi-Do's first move against Silver that day.

Despite how bad s5 was for Robby, Robby still carried Miyagi-Do's heart/spirit with him throughout the season. As Daniel told Silver when he said that Miyagi-Do would end with Daniel:

"Miyagi-Do existed long before any of us. It'll be around long after we're gone. The roots are strong, so the tree will survive"

(As always, please don't comment or reblog with dismissive comments about the nuance in the story. The nuance is part of the story, and the story is exploring important topics like trauma, bullying, neglect, and dysfunctional relationships.)

[singswan-springswan]

Frozen II justifies Jelsa

okay I feel like I should explain.

First of all, the time period lines up nicely

I don’t think it’s ever explicitly stated what time the Frozen adventures take place, but given by the photograph joke at the end of the second movie, it’s set somewhere around the early 1800s.

Rise of the Guardians also never gives a date for when Jack died, but if it was 300 years before present day, that drops him roughly somewhere in the 1700s or in the colonial era. 

Putting these two together, it seems neat that they come into their spirit forms at relatively the same time, and conveniently Jack is first too.

you could play around with the idea of Jack not quite getting the hang of his duties yet by the time Elsa comes along, based on the inconsistency of seasons (especially winter) that is a motif throughout both Frozen films, even at the very end of the second one

Let’s talk about the wind!

Jack’s wind and Elsa’s wind have the same personality for all intents and purposes.

Both are fun-loving, well-meaning, playful, kind, and always willing to help.

Both are also incredibly fond of their goofy little snow spirits

okay short conversation because I think I’ve made my point 

Frozen II put a lot more emphasis on frost...? like boi was that just you trying to show off your artists or was that actually relevant?

The first movie really only stressed ice and snow as aspects of elsa’s power, but in the second movie, we start to see different things. we see less and less of the snow and ice; in fact, she only really busts those out when in stressful circumstances.

by contrast, she seems to default to frost more and more. everything she touches with her power is more or less laced with frost. she opens the mist around the forest with frost. her dress is covered in frost. she tames Nok and Bruni with frost.

also, in the very end of the second movie, when it’s supposedly winter in the forest, everything is frosted over. the trees, the rocks, the leaves, even the ice has frost on it.

either this is just Elsa discovering a new softer side of her power or. you know. we use this to justify the crackheads.

moving on!

The realm of the spirits is openly acknowledged and tangible to the audience, which is something vital to the story of Guardians

Though never directly mentioned in Guardians, there seems to be a vast number of magical forces throughout the world, relevant to important concepts in society (or nature) like holidays or virtues and stuff like that. The “spirits” featured in the movie mostly derive their power and essence from the belief that people put it them---regardless of whether or not people acknowledge their existence

there are spirits for lots of different little concepts floating around out there. We know at least that the Ground Hog is real because the Easter Bunny has beef with him or somethin. And I’m not sure how many others are “canon” but I think Mother Nature is around, along with plenty of nature spirits and other patrons of holidays. The main thing is that all of them are tied to human beliefs or practices.

In Frozen II, we’re presented with a very classic collection of nature spirits. Most everyone thinks of air, fire, water, and earth as being the fundamental elements of nature, so if we’re following the logic that the beliefs of people give them power then it would make sense that these four elements have powerful spirits to go with them. That Elsa happens to be their ring-leader is probably just a mildly forced convenient piece of writing, which provides her with a hotline to the balance of nature and the spirit realm both.

Things like the trolls would also make sense in the universe if they’re just a physical manifestation of nature’s magic and sentience

plus if there are magical beings just kinda drifting around the world then it seems perfectly reasonable for Jack and Elsa to meet one another---especially since she’s the bridge or however that’s supposed to work idk

Elsa isn’t exactly a winter spirit, per se, but she is a spirit by definition. She’s literally called the “fifth spirit” of nature or somethin. She’s still tangible and visible, because she was born human, but it’s very clear by the end of the second movie that’s she’s no longer quite... mortal... I wanna say. I’m going to headcanon that she’s immortal now. Otherwise she’ll have to be replaced when she dies and like that’s too much effort. I mean it’d make sense if she was “transformed” (to use Olaf’s word) into the fifth spirit. 

Both Jack and Elsa strike that very specific type of winter too. We can obviously tell that winter is her favorite season, and she thrives in the chilly north where it’s always cold at least partly. Her whole aesthetic is built on the promise of winter and i think that’s a cool idea. haha. On top of that, Jack never totally struck me as the heavy snowfall kind of dude; his version of winter always seemed like the brisk flurries you get at the very start of the season. They’re made for each other, your honor. it helps that Frozen II was set in late autumn. like if that’s not a blatant message of “winter is coming!” then what is amiright. They both exude a kind of winter in its youth: something on the precipice of permanence, delicate and lively and strong all at once. Their vibes might be different, but I feel like they share the same direction of the season, if you catch me.

Anyway listen my point is just that I want them to be friends at the very least. We’re all going to pretend the age gap doesn’t exist because they are both unalive for lack of a better term and Chris Pine voiced Jack despite having a very deep manly voice that definitely wasn’t suited for a literal child. I want Elsa to be able to see Jack even though no one else can because she’s the bridge between humanity and nature and I want them to bond over wintertime and I want them to get into snowball fights and to make patterns in the frost and to chase the wind around just for funsies. I want Jack to teach Elsa to fly, which they quickly find is something she does not excel at. I want her to show him his connection to the season and his responsibility to maintaining it because he may have a good heart but he’s got no respect for rules and deadlines. I want her to convince Ana that Jack is real, so that someone else can see him too (up until that point, Elsa was talking about him like he was just Some Guy she met so Ana was going to believe her but then Elsa dropped the whole “winter spirit” bombshell and Ana thought she finally cracked so it took some convincing in the end). I want them all to have game nights on fridays. I want Ana and Kristoff’s kids to grow up always having believed in Jack. I just want Jack to have a nice lil family okay :’) one that tolerates his pranks and mischief and I want Elsa to relax and have some carefree fun moments. I want her to laugh and have crazy, harmless adventures and do goofy things just for the sake of it.

I put way too much thought into this but I saw a KRIFFTON of parallels between these two characters when I watched Frozen II so like,,, y’all get to hear about how I feel you’re welcome

[reginrokkr]

𝐂𝐋𝐗𝐕𝐈. This is a topic I've been wanting to address ever since I finished the Chenyu Vale questline, but never knew what to make of it due to the fact that it was novel... in a way. Before diving in, I want to preface that this will be surrounding the premise: What does pure blood Khaenri'ahn special? So if you see me digressing until I reach to that point, do bear with me. I will.

Something that caught my attention first is the few nods we get throughout the questline as we advance that there were other creatures there before gods came to Liyue, creatures grander or less grander that would be called Adepti which, in essence, is just a title and not something that one is born as. This isn't anything groundbreaking as it is obvious that dragons and their brethren existed before Phanes' arrival to Teyvat, but it was a curious indicator to me nonetheless that other kinds of creatures existed alongside them, pure elemental beings that have other shapes that aren't limited to dragons (Nahida's second quest comes in handy here, a reminder that the form a being takes doesn't matter, what does matter is their essence, their spirit). But to this there is an additional layer when Fujin argues that humans, creatures artificially created by Phanes to dwell Teyvat, have an innocence not so dissimilar from that which these creatures that existed before have.

To put a small parenthesis before continuing, I want to point out that Lingyuan mentions four reasons that the actions of any living creature follow: natural principles, logic, emotions or anyone's orders. And so she poses a question to the traveler and the traveler asks another question in a one for one deal: Those that come from nature will, for some reason, go against nature— against the laws nature originally followed. Will humans also go against humanity, against the principles they initially followed, for certain reasons?

If human activities are part of the laws of nature... How would you [Lingyuan] view humanity?

The answer she provides to this question is precisely what I want to bring to attention: Humans were part of nature in the distant past, but they aren't any longer. This whole questline explained more in depth about the Archon War, about the times that used to be like back then down to the human behavior and coexistence with nature and its creatures. We know at this point that the Archon War took place after the Apocalypse and that it became a turning point in several aspects hard to miss at a worldly level.

As another parenthesis, we know of the existence of the primordial sea from which all life came in a natural manner, that used to be on the surface before the world was altered (possibly when Phanes and the four shining shades won the war against the dragon sovereigns for the first time, as a result of the Apocalypse or both) and that the energy it contains isn't just hydro (raw or broken down to make it simpler, as it was stated in the event that took place in Enkanomiya that elements exist in simpler and more complex forms), but (an)other kind of energy(ies). Neuvillette, as a dragon sovereign and a creature that resides in the realm of light has an affinity for light, but it is interesting to think that upon reclaiming his authority, both pneuma and ousia coexist within him without posing any danger to his health even if there have been various instances in which these elements were described as independent elements but mutually virulent if they interact. Which begs the question: Could it be that within the primordial sea there is ousia energy too? Even better yet: is it possible that there was a time when what we know as the Abyss wasn't toxic to anything of Teyvat, but eventually something turned it so?

On the topic of humans specifically, it was Phanes who created them, but we also know because of Neuvillette that, unless what he did is limited to Oceanids, it is also possible to alter their inner constitution significantly as they live without going through the process of birth and have the resulting humans with the change that was done, following the same principle Phanes did to create humans. To go back to Lingyuan's words that humans used to be part of nature but they aren't anymore, what makes me wonder is if during or after the Apocalypse humans in general underwent a significant change in their constitution that those who later on would come to be pure blood Khaenri'ahns didn't. As for what this change could be, I think it might be related to the elemental energy.

Because we learn from Dottore's study documents of the Eleazar (highly likely tied with abyssal energy) that humans possess elemental levels of energy innately. And he also discovered that the higher these levels are, the more dangerous and aggressive the effects of Eleazar are on said individuals. This could be a result of the abyssal energy consuming elemental energy, and how dangerous it can be of pure elemental energies even from the light realm as vishaps and dragons are. The reason why I think this could be a plausible reason to determine the purity of a Khaenri'ahns blood or lack of thereof is that in the beginning, perhaps these humans were created in a way that they have at least a higher tolerance to the abyssal energy which, as I mentioned earlier, could've been an actual part of Teyvat before and as we currently know it is star-devouring. While I have no doubt that human life was possible in Khaenri'ah due to the studies they must've made of the abyss alongside medicine, fauna and flora there was incompatible with life— so there is a possibility that humans struggled with sicknesses akin to Eleazar unless there is a tolerance that either reduces this vulnerability or erases it completely.

[thethingsnerd]

Spirits below this ended up way longer than I intended. Fic under the cut bc my hand slipped and now my supposed "ficlet" is almost 2,000 words long.

The thing is, cooking is usually fun for Wild. Sometimes, in the long days of traveling before this whole “joint quest” mess, he’d pause at a cooking pot and throw whatever he had the most of in just to see what would happen. It was how he’d figured out carrot cake was delicious. It was how he’d discovered buttered acorns were not. Fun!

Never, even when staring at his most questionable dishes and regretting his life choices, had he felt anger bubble up like this. Not at the cooking pot. Frustration, sure, when he wastes a rare ingredient on something mediocre. Annoyance, when the other boys request something finicky while on the road.

Wild looks at the bottle in his hands. He remembers a joke he made to Riju, that he’d put anything in the pot once.

“What if molduga fins are secretly delicious when crispy?” He’d said with much gravitas. “What if safflina pairs very well with crushed up ruby? The world will never know if we don’t ever try!”

Riju had shaken her head to hide her growing smile. “So long as you don’t put any people in the pot,” she’d replied.

“Not even yiga?” He’d teased.

She’d sounded a little too serious when she declared even Ganon would hate the taste of those morons.

Wild stares and stares at the bottle in his hands, given to him so carelessly, and feels anger at the thought of eating something. Of pouring an ingredient in a pot and coaxing it into a meal good enough to share. He thinks of that moment with Riju years ago and the moment just minutes ago that has filled his veins with static.

“Forgot I still had one of these rattling around in here,” Time had said.

An innocuous comment, really, and Wild had looked over curiously along with several others. Their leader had mentioned drinking them in a pinch. Then, he’d looked right at Wild and asked if he had any recipes involving monster essences.

“Of course I do,” he’d grinned. Kilton was an invaluable resource for such things, and he’d been naively excited to apply those techniques to another era’s monstrous fauna.

“Here.” Time had handed him a bottle with something purple and wispy. “See what you can do with this.”

“What is it called?” Wild had asked, attention already half on his inventory.

Just as he pulled out his favorite ladle, Time answered, “it’s a poe spirit,” and Wild’s heart fell into his stomach.

He wonders if it’s a misunderstanding. If a poe is something different in Time’s era- surely, a hero wouldn’t-

But no, over on the other side of camp, Time is telling the rest of them how the ghosts lurk in the graveyard, and that can’t mean anything else, can it? The bottle in his hands contains a person’s soul.

There are rumors of poes in Wild’s era; he has yet to see one. They’re supposedly lost spirits. Ghosts who never figured out how to move on to the resting place, or who got there but fell back to earth? It’s unclear, honestly, and he’s not the anthropologist.

What he is certain of is that this spirit has been stuck in a bottle for who knows how long, and Wild has been asked to, of all things, cook it.

Static continues to build under his skin. Wild sets the bottle gently down next to him, so as not to shatter the glass, and picks up his ladle instead because he needs something to hold onto.

Maybe he’s taking it too personally, being a dead boy walking himself. Maybe it’s totally normal to eat the ghosts of persons past and the soul moves on regardless. Maybe it’s not as bad as his conscience insists it is.

Wild still can’t bring himself to consider putting it in the pot. There is only one thing he won’t eat, and that’s people- even if it’s their unconscious spirit.

Oh, Naydra’s bite, what if the spirit is still conscious???

He’s going to be sick. He’s going to scream. Static buzzes harshly in his ears.

Wild stands, quick enough to catch attention. Someone starts to ask him what his deal is, but if he opens his mouth he’s going to curse them all to the pit Khoga fell inside. If he lets them ask what’s going on, he’s going to get mean, and he’s already not winning any teamwork awards. No need to make things worse.

So, Wild ignores them. The hand around his ladle is white from the strain of his grip, and a sharp contrast to the delicacy he employs scooping up the bottle.

A voice right behind him stops Wild from getting more than three steps away.

“What is going on?”

Twilight. Concerned, stubborn Twilight, who’s not going to let Wild go into the woods alone without a word.

What is going on?

Rage. Rage and horror to a level he can’t remember ever feeling.

Twi tries to put a hand on his shoulder, but hisses on contact. Confused, he glances behind him in time to catch Twi shaking out his hand, and Wild deduces the static isn’t just his imagination, after all.

“I just need a few minutes to myself,” Wild manages to grit out. Then he sprints.

There are loud noises behind him. He runs until he can’t hear them. He runs and runs and runs-

Wild almost drops the bottle after jumping over a log, and decides it’d be for the best if he stops. He looks at his hands; he still clutches his ladle, so he finally stows it back away in the slate. All he’s got left is the trapped poe.

What if he just… lets it go? Would that make any difference, so far removed from its era and home turf? He doesn’t know. He’ll never forgive himself if he doesn’t try.

Wild kneels- height from the ground surely doesn’t matter, but the situation feels delicate, feels like the kind of occasion he should lower himself for. So he kneels, then he ever so gently uncorks the bottle, and tips it into a slow pour.

The little purple wisp falls out, hovering ever so slightly above the ground. The little wisp has the impression of eyes, but any other feature is lost on Wild.

“Hello,” he whispers. “I’d like to help you, if I can. Do you know if there’s a way I can help you back to the afterlife?”

The little poe bobs in place. Wild gets the impression it is looking at him. Perhaps judging his intentions, perhaps in incomprehension. The little spirit stares and stares, then it makes a low, mourning sound that nearly brings Wild to tears. Wild brings an open hand up slowly, and the poe nestles into his palm in a soft show of trust.

“Can I help you?” He implores again.

Foreign feelings start brushing against his senses.

Fear. He can’t see something is over his eyes he can’t see.

Regret. Will they forgive him if they meet again he hopes to the goddesses that they meet again.

Hatred. Even if he deserves to die he can’t deserve this.

Wild nearly pulls away, but he thinks over the sensations he’s been given, pulls the scattered pieces into a proper picture.

“You were executed. Cruelly? I’m sorry.”

The little spirit shoves disbelief at him, and Wild pats the poe as best he can. “Really,” he coos reassuringly. “What does it matter, what you were like way back then? You’re dead now. I’m sorry that you were afraid at the end.”

He is. He’s spent a lot of time thinking about how his fellow champions must have felt as they were slain, and how the regular people they failed to save might have felt, and how he himself felt at his own end.

Nowadays, the thought of anyone dying afraid makes Wild heartsick.

The poe brushes curiosity at him, then surprise and… something like affection. Appreciation, maybe? Whatever it is, Wild is glad the little ghost is feeling better. Wild tries to push care and sympathy back at it, and then it starts to fade.

“Did you figure out how to move on?”

The shape of a yes brushes his skin. Gratitude and peace and dozen other lovely things linger in his mind as the poe slowly makes its way home.

The poe is gone. Wild takes a deep breath, takes his time to appreciate that he still lives and breathes, that he was blessed with a second chance. When he stands, he realizes the static cling is gone as well.

Making his way back to the chain is awkward. He feels much better, but he has no idea how to explain his episode. Oh, well. He'll figure it out when he gets there. Actually making the meal he'd totally abandoned would probably be a good start.

He walks back into camp quietly. No need to make a fuss, or more of one, really. He shrugs at Twilight before the other boy even says anything, and kneels before the pot over the fire. He removes his ladle from his slate, idly holds it in his left hand, and quietly asks whosoever sits closest what they want.

"I would like an explanation, Wild."

Time. Wild still hasn't figured out what to say.

"Needed a time-out," Wild mutters. "Won't happen again."

"That's nice and all, but I'd like to know why it happened this time?" Time presses. All at once, explaining seems like a lost cause. The fury from before rushes right back in, and it's all he can do to keep from doing something drastic.

"Why? WHY? You asked me to put a person in the cooking pot. You told me that you eat people and acted like that's a normal and fine thing to do! What do you mean why!?"

There's dead silence following his outburst this go around. Time has the audacity to roll his eye.

"Poe spirits aren't people, Wild. They're just monster remnants-"

"That's not what I saw." Wild says darkly. "That's not what I felt from it." Wild can't help but look at Time and see his friends, his fellow champions, dead and trapped being consumed-

It's too much. He surges up, again, but this time he doesn't run. He throws the ladle in his hand down so hard that he hears the wood splinter, hears it shatter, and mentally curses because he's had that ladle since forever and that was his best one and now it's broken.

"I can't do this right now." So much for not causing another scene.

"Some things are worth throwing a fuss over," Flora assured him.

She'd been speaking of his tendency to fuss over which flowers to tie into Nava's mane, but it applied to other things. The boy he used to be fussed not at all, even when he wanted to- even when it would have been the courageous thing to do.

He won't be cowed this time. His traveling companion kept a person's soul in a bottle for so long he'd forgotten he had it. Time doesn't even…

Wild will have to dissuade him of his false notion. Later. Right now, he's too enraged to find any words that aren't awful and vicious, can’t think of any scenario where his teeth don’t end up in Time’s jugular, so he announces that they're on the own for food and climbs a tree.

He forces his eyes closed. Forces his breathing slow and muscles loose. Things will look better after a nap.

Wild falls asleep with static buzzing in his ears.

Mini fic prompt that Wild gets so angry when cooking he throws his stirring spoon on the ground so hard it shatters. If someone makes this, please tell me because I would love to read it.

[god-whispers]

dec 29

the fullness

"that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth - in Him." eph 1:10

what is the fullness of anything?  the word speaks of the fullness of sin, the fullness of sin, the fullness of the gentiles.  whatever context either are used they all point to one thing - the climax of the age.  if creation were to be compared to God's dealing with man, i'd say be are definitely living in the sixth day, the remaining millenium being the seventh.

ah, then there is that glorious eight day, a day beyond the original creation into a new creation, a day where time and subsequently death, will no longer be permitted.  "and above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail." heb 9:5  had paul, or whoever wrote the book of hebrews, been shown a gimpse into the marvelous eight day?  had job?  "and after my skin is destroyed, this i know, that in my flesh I shall see God." job 13:14

perhaps the book of revelation gives us the clearest glimpse one can have.  "'now i saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.  also there was no more sea.  then i, john, saw the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  and i heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people.  God Himself will be with them and be their God.  and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying.  there shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.' then He who sat on the throne said, 'behold, I make all things new.'  and He said to me, 'write, for these words are true and faithful.'" rev 21: 1-4

how many countless billions have gone to their grave not knowing what lies beyond?  how many mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, mourned their loved ones who have died, not knowing whether they would ever see them again?  the eighth day, which is one of the most meaningful yet least understood holy days by mankind, points to the ultimate culmination of God’s plan: the resurrection and judgment of the vast majority of all the human beings who have ever lived.  the destruction of death. the casting away of sadness and mourning.  it is a hope the world desperately needs and it will be fulfilled at the culmination of God’s plan of salvation for mankind.  little by little things that were sealed up are being unsealed.  the extent of our understanding is being expanded.

again i ask, "what is fullness?"  the world would offer up its enticements as what should be most desired. to be filled with power, fame, money or even extension of life itself.  the key point is that if everything you’re searching for remains outside of you, you’ll always be chasing while never being really filled. really satisfied.  enough is never enough.

the word tells us to be filled with the Spirit and in essence being "filled with all the fullness of God." eph 3:19  "these things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full." john 15:11  just think, the joy that Jesus had within Him is now ours to claim as well.  then, whatever may come our way we too, like the saints before us are "counted worthy to suffer shame for His name." acts 5:41

when speaking of "fullness." there is another fullness we can't neglect to mention.  "but when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son." gal 4:4  should we be surprised that the God who created time has a perfect timing.  the "perfect time" is coming again.  "You will arise and have mercy on zion; for the time to favor her, yes, the set time, has come." psa 102:13

dear fellow sojourners in Christ, another "set time" is about to occur.  "so you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near—at the doors!" matt 24:33  let us all always be looking up.  looking up to the hope set before us.  "because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth." rev 3:10

[adventism-atheism-orthodoxy-me]

American Christianity is Terrible at dealing with Sin.

All the emphasis is on enraptured revival. I've mentioned before how much I hate the word, "revival" and what it's come to mean. Protestants assume sin - their whole way of thinking revolves around it - but they never actually deal with it.

The besetting sins - rage, envy, pride, among others… - all of which I am guilty of nurturing in myself when inattentive. Are not dealt with healthfully. Especially when people think of their Christianity as an accessory - like a purse, or shoes, maybe a nice piece of eye-catching jewelry. After confiding to someone about a struggle, a single prayer might be offered in support, maybe even a second one, later.

But if the sin is socially acceptable, people eventually tell you not to worry about it; and if it isn't socially acceptable, people judge your Christianity, your morality, your will-power, and a whole host of other personal failings - all of which you, yourself, may be acutely aware of as you struggle alone. All the while the larger Christian communities will attend Church on their appointed day of Worship, check off a box, and call it a week!

I've heard so many Christians brush off personal sin with 1 Corinthians 15:52. They take it to mean that sin will no longer have a draw on us when that last trumpet sounds, that we will be "changed" in the "twinkling of an eye". That nothing more need be done for our salvation but for us to wait in serene peace.

‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people — robbers, evildoers, adulterers…' -- Luke 18:11

I think that this is delusional.

Too many of us brush past Romans 7:15-20, where Paul breaks down and really addresses the Christian struggle; or think about 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, Hebrews 12:1, Galatians 5:7, or 2 Timothy 4:7 where the Christian struggle is compared to a race - one that can be lost.

My favorite part of the liturgical year is the Bridegroom Matins where the parallels are drawn between Christ coming like a thief in the night to an unprepared world, and where the parable of the virgins makes plain that preparation for the Bridegroom is important.

Christ himself, at the Start of his ministry in Matthew 4:17 preaches - “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

I think the root of all this lies in ontology. Ontology is foreign to the English speaking world - hence the borrowing from the Greek. To my mind, preparation does not mean that we are perfect people who do not sin. Preparation mean attuning oneself to the voice of God through the Holy Spirit. He has offered, through his Spirit, to help us attune ourselves to his energies (which radiate from his essence - who he is - his ontological core), so that our hearts and minds may become compatible with what he is doing here on earth, what he has done, is doing, will do in heaven, and especially, finally, what he will do in the world to come.

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

[gurugirl]

Tales From The Modern Incubus Part 11*

Summary: Aim interrupts Y/n & Harry's as they're in the moment when he learns they are being hunted & brings them to the year 1986 so they can lay low. And then something we've all been waiting for happens to them when they find themselves in the new decade.

A/n:  Remember, this is demon/incubus!Harry so there may be some triggering topics. Please read all warnings in the TFMI Masterlist before continuing.

Warning: Smut, mentions of demons, angels, God, spells, magic

Characters List

Part 10

Part 11*

Being with Harry, it felt right. It felt good. You wanted to soak him into your skin and melt your bodies together as one. Lie in puddles, intertwined, mixing, moving, draining, filling… You wanted to feel nothing but his soul and his essence on you and in you.

Harry’s words hung in the air between you: “I want you. Can I have you? Do you want me? I’m yours.” as you pulled him down to bring your lips back to his. You felt such a pull toward Harry. No matter what you’d promised yourself, he was hard to resist. You hadn’t known him long but there was a kind of bond with him that you’d never felt with anyone else. Perhaps that was due to you both being otherworldly. An unspoken understanding.

Harry put his hands up and cupped your face, tugging you in as close as possible. You grasped at his t-shirt and arched yourself into him and let him lick your mouth. It was like he was tasting you, sizing you up to make a meal. Your head was spinning. Harry’s whole spirit was so alluring and you couldn’t see or think anything beyond him.

Suddenly someone cleared their throat in the room. And that someone was not you, nor was it Harry as his lips were sewn in between yours at that moment. Harry lifted his head but kept you held close to him as he turned to see the perpetrator. You peered around Harry’s shoulder and saw a tall man dressed in a sharp suit, sat in the armchair near Harry’s window. Had he been there the whole time?

When Harry saw who it was his tensed shoulders loosened as did his grip on you, “Aim? Uh… Kind of in the middle of something here…” Harry didn’t sound mad, maybe a little confused, though.

“I see that. Sorry to interrupt, but you two need to come with me immediately. Something is astir and there are rumors of some very powerful demons and a few angels on their way to find Y/n and probably you too, Harry. Tamie has been kidnapped and I don’t know how much she’s revealed but you both are in danger.”

Harry looked down at you with worry and then back to Aim, “Okay. What do we do?”

It happened faster than you could wrap your mind around. Before you’d even been properly introduced to the man you were standing in a large room with two couches and a table, an old television complete with rabbit ears, lamps, an oblong rug sat over marigold shag carpet, and even a green telephone hung on the wall with a long-curled cord. If you didn’t know any better, you’d assume that you were in someone’s home who had neglected to update the interior since the 80s. It even smelled different. It felt different.

But as Aim began tell you about what was going to happen, it dawned on you that you were in a different time. He’d moved you and Harry (and himself for the moment) to another decade. It would be much harder to be found this way. For now. They could all catch up to you eventually. As Aim continued speaking you only became more confused.

“It’s not just her parents, it’s also St. Michael and Lilith too. We don’t know why Michael and Lilith are involved but knowing they are means you need to sit in a different decade for a little while. I didn’t want to take you too far away so you could still enjoy some entertainment, but we can’t risk having you on the same timeline. Given what we know about St. Michael and Lilith, well, I can’t guarantee they won’t come find you here, but this will make it harder for them to pinpoint your location.”

St. Michael? Like the Archangel? And Lilith? You weren’t sure about that one. But you felt it by just her name, that there was a sinister plan in action, and she was the ringleader. Your parents and these other two powerful beings had all came together for a purpose. What was your place in it all?

Aim continued, he could see your brain working hard to take it all in, “You two will be able to move about somewhat freely here. This house will be a good place for the time being. The neighborhood is quiet. Try to lay low if you leave the house. I’ll be keeping an ear to the ground about their progress or lack thereof. I’ll contact you as necessary, but I need to keep it limited because they’ll get tipped off. Lilith is nosy. She’s probably already on watch for anyone associated with Tamie in any way. And it’s very important you do not say the name of your parents and do not use spells or magic. Keep your presence hidden like you have been, that’s a good start. They can uncover it, though, eventually.” He looked at you as he spoke the last bit.

Before Aim left Harry and you alone he mentioned that you would have no way to contact him other than through using a specific ritual, that he advised against. He would contact you. The ritual might tip off Lilith, or any of them. Aim seems most worried about Lilith. So were you.

You asked Harry a million questions. Why would St. Michael and Lilith be involved? Who is Lilith? Why have high angels and high demons come together to find you? Why were you involved in this mess at all to begin with?

He only had few answers, but the ones he could answer were helpful, “Lilith is the empress of hell. She’s the original Eve. She tempted men and women and made a deal with Lucifer, who was once the Morning Star. They joined forces against God and that was the beginning. She’s a seductress and she’s very powerful, has bore many children to many demons and humans even. Her heirs are all over the world and throughout all the realms. And, well, technically, she’s married to your father. She hates him, though, most of the time. But for some reason they are involved in this thing and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to be honest. I don’t know what St. Michael’s place is in all this. He’s like the right hand of The Almighty. Quite the stick in the mud as far as I remember.”

“Wait! So, Lilith is married to my real father?” You were just trying to wrap your head around all the new information you were being given.

“Oh, well, marriage is different among the other realms. On Earth it’s usually more sacred than it is elsewhere. It probably means very little to them. Just a minor detail really.”

There wasn’t much Harry could answer otherwise. He was just as in the dark as you. You both looked through the house to get used to your surroundings. There was plenty of food in the fridge and cupboards, one bathroom, two bedrooms, a backyard... You looked to be somewhere suburbia America. You learned you were in the year 1986.

When things settled and you’d looked through all the closets and messed with the TV to bring up a channel Harry was right next to you looking over your shoulder. He seemed protective over you but you could also tell how he just wanted to be near you. When you stood up from working the knobs on the old box TV he was there, a few feet from you. He couldn’t hide what was going on his mind. You could hear it and feel it. You could smell it. Taste it even.

Looking back on all the times growing up when you’d smell things no one else could, it was like a light went off in you these last few days. So much began to make sense. Your senses were very delicate compared to anyone else you ever knew. Picking up scents and what you’d called vibes back then, well now you knew.

“Harry?” You walked toward the lanky demon. His handsome face already set on yours. His smile only creeped up to one side of his face but it created that adorable dent you loved so much. He didn’t open his mouth to respond, he only lifted his brows at you.

“How do you feel? I mean… like, with you know… what I helped you with.” You were referring to the ache and the need he has for sex. You were curious about that but you both were also interrupted before Aim came to save you. You had intended on having sex with him before you were disrupted. Give him your virginity. You wanted it. Now you had no reason to hold off anymore. You wanted to have sex and you wanted it to be with Harry.

Harry’s smile grew a little wider and he licked his pink lips before he spoke, “I’m… well, I’m fine. But being around you makes it harder. And I know you probably aren’t ready to have sex, so…”

“Who said?” You took another step toward him and raised your brows in question. His seafoam eyes were growing darker with the way he was turned on. God, what a horndog he is, you thought to yourself and smiled. Though, you couldn’t say that being near him didn’t do things to you as well. You looked him over and just imagined his strong limbs wrapping around you, feeling him inside of you for the first time. You wondered how he’d do it.

“Well, you said. You told me you wanted to wait for marriage.” Harry looked confused, his dark curls were falling into his face as you stepped in closer and lifted your hand to move them from his forehead. You liked the way his hair looked, his deep hairline was even attractive, and the way his hair was just a little longer at the top so his chocolate strands would fall over his forehead from time to time.

You laughed, “I did say that. But that’s before I knew what I was. Who I am. I still don’t know exactly about who I am but now I know things I didn’t know then. I was lied to.” You searched his face and watched as his mouth parted and he didn’t speak for a moment as he digested what you’d just said. You saw his adam’s apple bob and he licked his lips again. He let out a breath and suddenly his hands were at your ears, drawing you in to his lips.

Your lips were once again moving together like it was meant to be, like this is who you belonged to. Like he belonged to you. And you didn’t even want to think about him being with anyone else. You wanted to be the only one.

Harry kissed you between panted breaths. Then he began speaking as he kissed your lips, small pecks in between breaths and words spoken against your lips, “What does that mean?... You want me?... I want you… Only you… I’m so sorry… for everything… please…” Harry’s words were dripping out between the press of his lips and hot breath.

He could convince you easily. You were weak for him. You felt so powerful but also so confused at the same time, but the one thing you were sure of was how much you liked Harry and how you couldn’t find it in yourself to be mad at him or deny him anymore. Or to deny yourself. Your body buzzed and floated when he touched you, you couldn’t imagine how it would feel when he moved inside of you.

You pushed at him to create a small distance and so you could speak but Harry just moved down and continued kissing at your jaw and submandibular. His warm lips on you nearly had you forgetting your words. You closed your eyes and placed your hands under his shirt to feel his skin on your palms. The way his lips felt on your neck and your skin made you tingle and lose all sense of direction and function. He had you right where he wanted you, he just didn’t know it.

When his lips sponged lower down your neck over your trapezius you moaned and found your voice once again, “Yeah. I do… want you. I want it to be you, Harry.” Your words were breathy and soft and you felt your lips wet at the way your salivary glands were working extra hard due to the hunger you had for something carnal. The thought had you excited, had your tummy sinking and pulling and rising in expectation within you.

Harry moved back and looked at your face, “With me? Now?” His expression was what you’d call, flabbergasted? Maybe disbelief? As if you’d somehow been pulling his leg, like you’d been joking and he was about to hear you laugh and tell him no.

But that wasn’t the case. Your body and your mind were ready, and his presence, his deep voice, his lips, his eyes, his body… all of it, you wanted it.

You nodded and smiled as you plucked at the fabric of his shirt in suggestion of him removing it. You wanted to see his skin, the tattoos, the hair that scattered on his chest, his muscles that formed underneath it all… You wanted to see him.

Harry pulled his shirt off and then brought his long fingers down to the hem of your shirt and kept his eyes on you as he lifted it over your head. He was shaking as he pulled the material off of you. He couldn’t believe this was happening. He still didn’t quite believe it.

He ducked down and kissed your bra. You’d worn a soft and thin bra that was meant for nighttime, since you hadn’t planned on seeing him (or anyone) when you put it on. Everything happened so fast from the moment you met your mother and saw her with Tamie, to driving to Harry, and then meeting Aim… And now here you were, with Harry, his lips attached to the fabric that lie over your already pebbled nipple. He wet the material and palmed you softly in his hand and then moved to the other side, wetting the material over your tits.

You wanted it off. You pushed at him and slid your bra off. This bra didn’t have a clasp. It was more like a sports bra but with very little support.

Harry almost cried. To see your soft tits bounce away from the elastic, hard nipples peaked and open, the curve of your waist, your shoulders and your belly button… He did tear up a little.

You watched his face morph from disbelief to awe. You removed your jeans and Harry kept his eyes on your hands and your hips as he quickly pulled his own down.

Harry was already poking out from the top of his elastic band. His briefs could not contain the monster that lie underneath the fabric. You could see a good bit of his shaft and all of his head, a shade darker than his lips. The bulk of him stretched at the fabric and you couldn’t resist when you put your hand over him to feel. Warm and hard under his briefs. You slid your fingers upward and touched his head and that had done it.

Harry picked you up and forced your thighs to wrap around his waist as he brought you to one of the bedrooms and put you on the bed, your hair fanning out all around. He watched as your breasts parted and swayed from the movement and he let his lips work over them again. He paid close attention to all of the quadrants of your supple tissue. The soft flesh that he squeezed and licked and sucked, to the areola, the nipple, and the underside of your breasts. He nipped at each and drunk them in. He wanted you bruised and left with his signature all over your body.

He tongued and kissed down your torso slowly toward your belly button where he dipped his wet muscle in and lapped at you. His hands moved down your sides and he squeezed, lowering himself.

You could only see the brown curls at the top of his head as he made his way lower and lower. When his hands met your hips he finally looked up at you and whimpered when he saw you smiling down at him. He was waiting for you to tell him to stop or tell him you were joking, or something. He felt this couldn’t be happening. He was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. But the whimper he let out was involuntary and it told you everything about how he was feeling. You liked having him like this. The sexiest man you’d ever seen and he was whimpering for you. Begging you with his eyes and his lips.

You nodded and he lowered his mouth to your fabric covered mound. He licked over your panties and kept his eyes on yours. He saw your pupils dilate and he smelled your arousal. You did want him. Your face and your eyes were his answer.

When he’d gotten your panties all wet with his saliva and then began to suck on your arousal that had seeped through you spread your legs for him and he held your inner thighs down. He continued to look up at you as he worked his mouth over the fabric of your panties and drank the arousal that had gathered at the crotch and you huffed. You wanted more.

“Take them off!” You quickly spoke and Harry wasted no time in sitting back and looping his fingers into your thoroughly wetted panties, tossing them to the floor. He returned to his position of praise with his face between your legs and promptly put his mouth over your slick pussy. You were a divine being and you even tasted like it. He knew you were special when he first smelled you and then your flavor? Oh god… he’d die for you, he’d do anything for you. You were worth the problems that would follow him. Having high angels and demons after him would be worth it. For as long as you wanted him. He hoped it would be for eternity. He couldn’t imagine feeling like this for any other being.

And you felt it all. All his want and all his need, his heart, and the way he worshiped you with his tongue. It was hard to find words in the moment. Having Harry on you like this was heaven. His soft gasps for breath and the way he was so expertly licking into you and over you. His tongue gliding up and down your slit, the way he pressed his nose into your clitoris.

When he began sucking on you and moaning as he swallowed you down your eyes met his. You had your hands violently attached to his hair, pulling and pushing him the way you liked. You gyrated your hips as much as you were able, but Harry’s hold on you was strong and his fingers were burning into your hips and his grip on you ached. You’d bruise for sure.

He knew how to make you come. He did it well. Your back arched and the way your pussy clenched around nothing (he hadn’t even stuck a finger inside of you) as your orgasm took over, was brutal. It could be life ending or saving… it felt like sorcery. You didn’t hold back your sounds and your moans. You were loud and you felt yourself shake forcefully under the weight of your orgasm, under the force of Harry’s tongue.

It was beautiful, Harry thought. The way he could make you come, and tremble, and cry out. How you’d moan around his name and you’d fill him with your slick. It was beautiful. He didn’t know how he was going to handle it once he could be inside of you. He was already on the verge of coming when you finally had your release.

You sat up and pushed at Harry’s head, “Enough. Oh my god.” You laughed.  Harry sat back and put his palms flat on the mattress, still leaning over you. His face was set in a serious gaze, his face wet and pink.

The look on him, though, caught you. No smile, nor insecurity could be seen. He was a man (well, a demon) who wanted you in every way. He was a man who would give himself to you in every way.

“Want me to give you a blow job?” You thought maybe he’d like that, but then you suddenly were being positioned under him, his hands on your thighs and then your hips as he hovered over you. He kissed your mouth and it tasted like lemons and sex.

“Can’t. I’ll come too fast. Are you?” He leaned back to look at you, “Do you want to still? Or?” He was asking if you wanted to have sex still. He was just barely holding it together and knew if he let you suck on him at all he’d blow too fast. Though, he would easily be able to get hard again in record time. For you he could. Well, also because he’s an incubus and he’s made for it.

You bit your lip and smiled at him. He still wasn’t sure you were serious. But you were. Of course you were serious. He was delicious looking and the way he treated your body… well, you wanted it.

��I do want to. Still.” You feathered your fingertips over the tops his muscled thighs as he stayed in between your legs in wait for your answer. He kneed up and pulled his briefs down and let out a sigh of relief as he moved the material off his body. His big cock was begging for aid. You could almost hear it as if it were its own living entity. It practically was.

He wrapped his fingers around your ankles and lifted your legs a little as he looked between your thighs, glistening, ready, open. He gently plunged two fingers into your opening and listened to you panting. Your wet gasps and slick folds were his for the taking. He wanted it all.

You suddenly remembered a very important detail and sat up onto your elbows, “I don’t want to get pregnant, though. Not right now. Just… don’t get me pregnant.”

It didn’t matter anymore to Harry. Getting someone pregnant. He was in this with you and he’d wait for as long as you needed, and if you never wanted to get pregnant? Well, he’d just defy his arrangement. The only major physical need for him was sex and if you wanted it with him, he’d never go anywhere else for it. Getting someone pregnant was for the balance of the realms, but things had changed and now he was being hunted and there was a subtle realization that the realms were not balanced anymore, probably hadn’t been for some time. So the deal, from his perspective, was off.

“S’okay. I won’t get you pregnant. Even my sperm won’t get you pregnant if I don’t want it to. We get to choose when it happens, or if...” His smile was genuine and he looked so soft in that moment. You didn’t understand it all, but you didn’t worry much because you trusted him. You’d let him show you what it felt like and give you the full experience. You wanted it. You wanted him.

“Okay. Good.” Your breath picked up in anticipation and Harry pulled his fingers from you. You’d take him just fine. If you were a hybrid then you’d take a big incubus cock with little issue. It’d still be big for you, but you’d like it. He knew it.

But you were still a virgin and he was still feeling concerned for you. As much as you seemed to be taking the news of your origin in stride, he wanted to take it easy with you.

And you were just ready for him to slip inside. You wanted to feel it and be done with it. Know what it could be like when you’d come on a big dick. On Harry’s dick. He’d do it right for you. You knew that much.

When Harry spread your legs apart he was gentle with his hands on your inner thighs. He watched your soft pussy shine and clench. You were certainly ready to be fucked. He held his dick in hand and put his tip at your folds and slowly wet himself with you. He watched your face carefully and you smiled at him when you felt your labia spread apart from his blunt tip as he brushed it up and down through your crease.

“Do it, Harry. Please.” You spoke in a whisper as you looked down to where he was holding himself up to you. Harry swallowed hard and tried to suspend his nerves and his disbelief of the moment. This was happening. Like, actually.

When you wiggled yourself over him Harry watched the very tip of him disappear into your opening. He pulled back quickly and looked up at you with worry. You let out a frustrated groan.

“What’s wrong, Harry?”

Harry was trying to calm himself down. He was so excited and so filled with anticipation he was worried he was going to burst.

You laughed, “If you come too fast you can just keep going. Keep doing it. I can tell you’re going to stay nice and hard for me, Harry.”

Harry let out a laugh and shook his head. Of course you could hear his worry. It was probably oozing out of his pores.

So, he took one more deep breath and felt your hands reach out to his hips as he tilted his cock toward you. This time pushing in a little and watched himself slowly move inward. You held your breath.

You could feel him alright. He hadn’t gone in all the way but he was a lot. His face was what kept you grounded. He looked at your face and then back down to where you were joined together. He didn’t want to push in to fast because he could see how your pussy was already stretching around him. He drew back and saw his shaft shiny with you as he plunged back in. Your mouth dropped open, still silent as you adjusted to the way it felt being split in two with his incubus cock.

Harry’s motions became smoother as he inched his way deeper. His length was coated in you and the way it looked… god he would come in under a minute like this.

And he did. His thrusts were even and steady but he was trembling as soon as he felt your insides expand to take his length all the way and you peeped out a little noise when he hit that spot that only incubi could. And you loved it. You fucking delighted in it.

You had your legs bent at the knee, feet flat on the mattress when Harry grabbed at your left thigh and pulled your leg over his hip. He slid in deep and it made you see stars.

“Guh… oh!” Was all you could get out. Your chest was burning hot and flames were coming from your fingertips and your toes it felt.

And Harry came inside of you in under a minute just like he knew he would. He grunted and closed his eyes, shook his head at the embarrassment for how fast you had him coming, and clenched his jaw when he pumped his load into you. And it filled you with warmth and a sensation of total closeness. He was yours now. His stuttering hips and wet lips were evidence to his being yours. His soft eyes on you, his twisted face, his flared nostrils. It was yours.

“You’re mine…” you whispered into his ear when he lowered his body over you as he calmed from his quick release. He was still breathing heavy when he heard you say it and he smiled into your cheek and nodded.

“I am.” He was becoming emotional at the feeling. It was the quickest he’d ever come in all his life but that’s because it was you. He nuzzled his face into your neck and inhaled and became invigorated again. He was still hard inside of you. Your leg was still hitched over his hip and you were rubbing his back. As if he was the one who’d just lost his virginity. It felt like he had. This felt like the first time.

When he pushed himself up and looked down at you, you saw the shine in his eyes. He’d gotten emotional, but you were already emotional too. You heart bloomed and you had a new responsibility here. He was yours, to take care of and to keep safe. You didn’t know why that feeling had overcome you but it did.

He began to move inside of you again, his cock still a bit sensitive but still hard and he was ready to prove his worth. He rolled his hips into you and the bed creaked as he began to find the rhythm that felt the best.

He didn’t want to look away from your angelic face. You pinked up with exertion and your lips curled around coos and moans. He felt phenomenal inside of you.

“Does it?... Feel good?...” He spoke between labored breaths.

A tear fell from the edge of your eye and rolled down your cheek. How would you tell him the way it felt?

You breathed heavy and it came out in a crack before you could pull words together for an answer, “Better than… anything. I love… love it.”

Your head spun. You were about to tell him you loved him. You felt it. You could barely stop the emotion and the feeling he inspired in you. Intense and full, and warm, and he was yours. You loved him but you couldn’t admit it just in that moment. It was already nearly too much, your sudden passion and the way you found yourself caring for him. Just from having him inside of you. Feeling his come inside of you. The physical manifesting the spiritual.

Harry whined again and pushed his wet mouth onto yours as he continued long strokes inside of your perfect cunt. Because it was perfect. He’d never felt anything like you. It had his heart breaking and rebuilding over and over again.

You could feel his tears leaking onto your face as your own rolled down your cheeks into your hair. Harry’s thick organ was a force of nature inside you. It increased your existence. Suddenly you were on earth and there was a greater purpose for you. The way he moved inside of you revealed your magic and your love and your power.

“Oh! Wow! Oh fuck!” Harry lifted his mouth from yours when he felt it, felt your spirit wrap around his. Your gazes locked and he continued thrusts upward, not backing out anymore, just upward thrusts to get in as deep as possible, and it was fucking deep.

“Did you… feel that?” You sucked in a sharp breath as his thigh muscles pushed to work himself deep into your body.

He nodded and you brought your other thigh up to hitch over his hip, wrapping your legs around him and crossing your ankles over his bum. His eyes suddenly changed. His dilated pupils not only covered his iris but his entire eye and he saw it in yours, the same. You both moaned when you felt a powerful shift. Something was happening and you’d never seen Harry’s eyes look like that but you knew yours looked the same. You could feel it.

“I feel you. Your spirit. Fuck. I’m gonna come again, okay? Can I?” He was whimpering and you could feel him twitching inside of your pussy and you nodded at him.

“I’m coming now too, Harry!” It was too much. You wanted to hold onto that feeling forever but it was so divine, so powerful, so hot you could feel flames around your body and his. You pulled him down to bring his mouth to yours as you gushed around his cock. Harry cried out, his mouth on yours and he tried to keep his lips pressed on you and kissing you. He loved it. He loved you. He belonged to you from now on. For all eternity.

It lasted and lasted. He came deep inside of you and you pulsed around him and drank up his life force. He kept his lengthy dick deep in you as you let the intensity of your orgasm merge your souls.

And when you felt the silence, and the energy became still you knew it wasn’t just Harry that belonged to you. You were his too. But you had more responsibility to bear than he did, though it wasn’t clear yet what that meant.

So when you told him, decided it was time and it was good and he deserved it, you knew he felt the same, “Harry… I love you. I’m yours.”

Harry lifted his face from your clavicle and with wet, black eyes smiled down at you, “I love you, Y/n. I’m yours forever.”

It felt like the best thing that had ever happened to you. To any outsider it was just sex, but not for you. Not for Harry. This meant more. It meant everything and you were now one. But the way it felt so magical and so intense had you wondering out loud, “Was that magic? Did we do something that could have called on someone? That felt too powerful to not be something.”

Harry’s brow furrowed and he shook his head, “I don’t know. Maybe.”

And he didn’t know. It had never happened before. Not to him. But it was a force and nature had been altered and there was nothing to be done about it now but wait for Aim to contact you.

You ran your fingers through his hair and felt him still wide and hard inside of your body. His lips were so pink and you couldn’t help to kiss him, pull him down to you by his hair.

And when Harry began to rock his hips and you felt him glide through your walls again, the whole process had begun again just like that. The power and the magic, the existence of your souls merging into one. It couldn’t be stopped.

Part 12*

Thank you for reading! I’d appreciate any support you can give! Whether a comment, reblog, or buying me a coffee- it’s all appreciated.

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[battlelaine]

"O-oh! I-I'm not really... Umm..." The compliment catches her off guard instinctually she tries to shut it down. It's not right. Cool? She wasn't cool. Her sisters were cool, they were strong, capable and simply amazing. She was... Well she was simply Evelyn. And nice? She didn't see that. She was just saying what she thought. She didn't want Silva getting any ideas about her that weren't correct. But she also knew not to be too disagreeable. After all being disagreeable had always been such a nasty habit of hers.

"W-well.. I think they just don't take the time to think about things like that. I mean everyone has a lot going on in their lives so..." She tries to make an excuse for everyone else. A reason for why others who were better then her hadn't thought about it when she'd come to realize it. A deflection from the pleasantries Silva was offering. "I wouldn't have thought about it if you hadn't mentioned it..."

Yet she'd always thought there were spirits in everything around her. Not ghosts exactly. But a type of life itself. Cognition to the world that those outside their essence couldn't fully see. Her family in Kanto had always told her there was life in everything. So it only made sense that rocks too were alive and that there were those who could converse with them.

Silva wasn't a ghost, Evelyn was pretty sure about that. Ninety percent maybe eighty... But perhaps she had a strong spiritual sense that allowed her to connect with more of the world around her. It would explain a lot.

"Huh... Maybe... Because not many know that it's possible?" Ignorance felt like a decent reason to Evelyn. It was certainly why she'd never tried before. Though now she'd be listening closer and trying to talk more with where she tread. "Learning another language is incredibly hard. Especially a language you have little to no familiarity with and I don't think there are many resources on speaking with rocks. So it might seem daunting to learn... How did you learn to talk to rocks? Maybe you could help others learn."

silva was used to people being skeptical about the whole rock talking thing. it used to make her angry, like how dare someone say that something wasn't alive when she could hear them so clearly in her ears? she used to yell at people for it, used to slip into kalosion, used to have her words slur together into something felt like a language, something closer to what a pokemon sounded like than a person. as if she were baring her fangs and growling, hissing and prepared to attack.

...but now she just shrugged it off for people being dumb. that wasn't all that surprising either, most humans were dumb. silva would usually just laugh and say something about how they were wrong, but they were just too stupid to really understand. they'd usually get mad instead!! it was funny to her.

then evelyn responded with understanding and silva couldn't help but to have a brief oh! sort of expression, before she nodded and smiled.

" exactly!! i'm glad yu understand, nut a lut uf peuple du!! and that's why they're stupid and yu're super cul!! and nice!! "

a memory, remembering that she was supposed to act on her hearing rocks thing before she left. before she went on her adventure--her 'family break.' she didn't really know all the details, she never did, but occasionally silva thought back to it. she wondered if she had just stayed a little longer to do that, then ran away. then came, if she had stayed longer...would she have needed to run? maybe this whole running away thing was just making it worse, making her worse.

silva made sure none of those thoughts made their way onto her face, instead just letting out another laugh, unblinking eye shimmering amber.

" it is kind uf weird...must pukemun can't hear them either. i dun't knuw many uthers that can, it makes me sad, sumetimes. i mean, huw cume unly a cuple uf us can even try tu understand? "

[kashimos-hajime]

the colour yellow | jjk

summary: “You once said love manifests the most twisted curses. I never thought of it that way before, but I’m starting to think you’re right.”

WARNINGS: ANGST!! hanahaki disease but not an au, HOSPITALS, DEATH, DESCRIPTIONS OF DISEASE, UNHEALTHY WEIGHT LOSS, pining, unrequited love, complicated feelings, its just sad. there are some light-hearted moments, and happier/softer aspects in the ending but it is generally sad in the ‘what could have been’ department pairing: gojo satoru x fem!reader, past geto suguru x fem!reader, mentions of satosugu word count: 29.9k lmao

a/n: i just needed to get the hanahaki out of my system. it did not work. i took liberties w the timeline because idc about actual jjk canon in this fic thanks. 

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crossposted on ao3 x

Your Innate Technique always gave you a green thumb. Meaning, similarly enough to Yaga, you could plant cursed energy into objects.

Where it deviated, Satoru knows, is the type of object. Plants—trees, leaves, flowers. 

Ironic, he thinks numbly as he walks through the hospital. Shoko had told him that at this point it was palliative care until you died—nothing else would work. Cursed energy only fed your sickness, and even her technique could not heal the damage fast enough. Stupid. Idiotic. Cruel.

Cruel. That was the word.

He hadn’t seen it himself but from how his old friend had described it, it could only be cruel. 

His footsteps tap along the linoleum floors, urgent, but not too fast. A part of him dreads what he will see—his mind swirls with the possibilities, and of guilt.

Why didn’t he just come sooner? Why did he think it was okay to wait, to dismiss Itadori when he said you’d been checked in for your coughing fits?

“She’s strong. She’ll be fine,” he had said. Itadori’s small frown. “A little feather in her throat isn’t going to knock her down.”

Why? Why? Why? Why did he say that?

Because it had to be serious to put you in the hospital. For fuck’s sake, you were still that teenage girl who stood outside his dorm window in the middle of a thunderstorm to bring Fushiguro a birthday present before you left for a curse expedition a thousand years ago, and the woman who welcomed him into your home unprompted on December 24th, your cheeks dry, lips pressed in a brave smile.

You had held him tight enough he could not see the blood, scrubbed him in a bathtub, ran your fingers through his hair until the sweat and grime was gone. You took care of him because he knows the belief that no one should be left behind to suffer alone has been engrained in you since the day he’s met you.

He should’ve known. A girl abandoned for being cursed had turned into woman with a saviour complex who’d barely even think about telling him you were dying. 

Dying, of all things, from a disease no one knows how to cure. And you’re a sorcerer.

He could’ve laughed. The irony is enough to make him smile.

Your room’s in a tiny corner of the hospital, down the hall from a nurse’s station, and as he walks through, he can see the grey sunlight streaming through the window, glaring against his glasses. He lifts them to rub the heel of his hand into his eye.

He doesn’t want you to worry when you see him, and mostly, he needs to stall. His heart is in knots in his chest, and he spots a chair beside the door with your name in the plastic slate, so he sits down. His knees feel gummy and he leans forward, the visitor’s pass clipped to the front of his shirt hanging. 

Satoru tugs the glasses off his face, fits his palm over his brow and squeezes his eyes shut. It’s chilling in this dead end, and he swallows tightly. Everything tastes so dry as he looks up and shoves his hand underneath the sanitizer dispenser, rubbing it all over his hands just so he has something to do.

After a few minutes, he gets up and sets a hand on the knob. 

It can’t be as bad as he’s imagining. At most, you’re a bit sick, but you’ll still be spritely, warm in the lips and with arms outstretched and, “Satoru, finally!”

He opens the door. 

You’re sitting hunched over in bed. Silhouette outlined by the white-grey sunlight from outside your hospital room, you’re trembling as you hold onto a receptacle. An IV is hooked to your arm, a hospital gown is barely hiding anything, and it feels immoral to even look so Satoru doesn’t. Instead, he pauses by the doorframe and closes his eyes for a moment as your gaze flashes to him. 

He feels it, to be honest. The heat of your stare until it is wrenched away by a violent cough you instinctually muffle by your palm, blood splattering over your hand, soft, velveteen purple petals falling from your lips and into the receptacle in your lap. 

You’re supposed to have a green thumb.

Vines bend to your will if you command it, you can summon forth thorns to impale your opponents, send thick creeping ivy to barricade a doorway. It doesn’t matter if there is no greenery in your immediate area. At the sweep of your hand, the ground could rumble with the sound of trees twisting their gnarled roots into feet to march at your command.

Just as long as they’re within range and you’ve touched them in the past few hours, they’re yours.

So, why can’t you stop this?

Plants are supposed to listen to you, right? As he stares at your shaking body on the bed, curved over the plastic tub, thick globs of bloodied spit drip from your lips and soaked purple blossom petals entwine with your life essence. His heart plummets to his chest. You retch, spit, choke, and every sound stabs him in the chest as he takes a weak step forward, hand stretched out limply.

Your name flutters, barely leaves his lips before you’re looking at him again, a bit of a mortifying image but nonetheless.

Even so, you smile, despite the blood painting your face, the exhaustion morphing your body. You look like you haven’t slept in weeks, and your hands shake around the receptacle. You look battered, bruised along the arms where the needles keeping you filled with antibiotics, medicine you need, had punctured you.

And still, you’re beaming at him. He thinks he’s going to be sick.

“Hi, Satoru.”

His hand falls. Eyes wide, he cannot take another step. You wipe at your lips, tossing the tissue into the trash before pushing the plastic receptacle onto the table and swinging your legs off the bed.

“Don’t—“ he croaks but you don’t listen, sliding your feet into slippers and grabbing your IV stand to take a step towards him. Your knees nearly give in but you stick out a hand before he can rush to catch you. Then, you’re pushing yourself up and walking over to him. It’s more of a shuffle, but Gojo finds he can’t care as you land on his chest, hands pressing into his back.

You’re a bit cold in his arms, and he wraps himself around you, trying to rub the heat back into your skin as you shudder, but your heart is still racing as it always does around him, and you…

You’re the type of person who can shift how the air feels and looks to his Six Eyes with your smile or your tears or your frown, and in that moment, the air bleeds yellow with your joy. It’s so bright in his soul that it makes his heart skip as you shift on your feet against him, hands sliding down so your arms can circle his waist and haul him closer. 

“Gojo Satoru turning off his infinity for little ole me,” you murmur, voice raspy, as he closes his eyes, cradling your head. Without another word, he sinks into you. “Talk about the world ending.”

Why didn’t you just call him? Why did you let him stay away for so long? He doesn’t want to ask why it’s happening, or how. He already knows you’ll just lie. But he wants to know if you think so lowly of him that you thought you didn’t matter to him.

After Suguru…

How could you think that? He’s screaming inside his mind as he touches your back, feels the faint protruding ridges along your skin when he pushes down. It makes your spine a bit more pronounced along the knobs, your shoulder blades a bit bumpy, but otherwise, it’s almost normal. One wouldn’t even be able to tell without touching you and actively searching for it. How could you think I don’t care?

This isn’t the work of a cursed spirit, that much he knows. It seems much more seductive, sneaking yet unhurried in its nature. This is agony in effigy. There’s something rotten inside you, but he can’t tell what it is. The energy is everywhere.

You pull back to look up at him with a soft smile, then tap his nose and tell him to join you before turning around and climbing back into bed with energy that betrays your earlier fits. You grab your robe that you’ve left on your bed before getting up again and walking around, shrugging the fabric back onto your shoulders.

He sits down in a visitor’s chair that is still cold.

“It comes and goes,” you explain first with your new, croaky voice, stretching your arms above your head and rubbing your neck. It doesn’t look painful, but you clear your throat a lot to see if it helps. So far, nothing. “So, it’s just like a really bad coughing fit, to be honest.”

“How long has it been going on?” Your hip cracks and you let out a relieved sigh. Satoru arches an eyebrow as you animatedly stretch your face. “What are you doing, silly?”

“It got worse a few weeks ago, enough that Nanami insisted I check myself in around two weeks ago?” you say, after counting on your fingers. Satoru’s heart plummets. “But it’s levelled out since I’ve been moved here and off-campus. And I’m stretching. When I get back out there, I have to remember how to emote.” You flash him a bedazzling grin and a bit of the weight lifts off his shoulders as you swallow down another cough. This time, it’s successful and you only let out a short, raspy breath before shaking it out.

You aren’t even doing that bad. 

The blood, the flowers, that must’ve been just a bad bout, but otherwise, you seem quite normal.

That’s what he tells himself, and he believes it.

With relief, he stretches out his legs, leaning his head back on his hands. Your room’s pretty nice—much nicer than an average hospital room. Plants on the windowsills, some get-well-soon cards and a desk in the corner filled books that you look like you haven’t even begun to read, some paintings hanging off the walls. 

You wave a hand to grab his attention again.

“Don’t look,” you chastise, tying the robe around your waist. “Some of these are works in progress.”

“So Itadori and Shoko were just exaggerating,” he assumes. You look up at him, quirking an eyebrow. “If you’re attempting to paint, I know all that’s happened is that you’ve lost your mind.”

“Shut up.”

“Well, they made it out as if you were dying. If it’s just a lung issue, they could probably just fix it and we can get back to exorcising curses and making fun of Fushiguro’s teen angst,” he says, crossing his legs at the ankles. You step over them to go to the window and examine your plants, and he eyes you in his peripheral, watching you inspect one of the leaves before looking next at some blooming flowers. You don’t answer, and the grey light makes you look melancholy until you shrug.

“The doctors say I need to rest, save my strength and all that,” you finally say vaguely. “And don’t make fun of Fushiguro.”

“I’d never do that.”

You tilt your head and arch an eyebrow skeptically before flicking his forehead with a sharp donk. “I’m not above slapping the shit out of you.” He opens his mouth to argue and you hold up a finger, shutting him up. “And you can’t hit back as revenge. Ill hospital patient rights.”

“You can’t take the moral stand. Vengeance has no gender bias,” he exclaims, sitting up but you merely smirk, leaning over and shoving your face into his space before turning your head to present your cheek. His eyes widen as you poke your own face tauntingly.

“Do it, then.”

Gawking for a moment, Satoru stares but you only wink and he pushes you away lightly. You stumble a bit and he jumps to his feet to catch you but you manage to right yourself up, shooting him a foul glare. He glares back in response.

“Well, obviously, I wasn’t going to actually slap you,” he says, indignant.

“So you pushed me instead? Gojo, in your words, you are the strongest. You never know how to control the strength you push out.”

“Yes, I do!”

“One time, you patted Megumi on the back and you sent him into the pavement.”

“He was nine.”

“It still happened!” you cry, although an impish smile is already curling at your lips and it isn’t long before it spreads to Satoru, warm bright yellow and enough that it absolves any of the remaining pain in his body as you straighten up, holding onto your IV stand for support. The metal rattles a bit as the wheels roll. Your feet brush the ground. You lift your head up wretchedly.

It’s almost like that weakness sobers you.

The expression that overtakes you frightens Satoru to fucking death. 

His face feels like it numbs, staring at the darkness that seeps the light away. You stare at the metal pole your fingers are wrapped so tightly around, and then you look at the bag hanging there, clear and round and soft to your touch as you straighten up.

“Satoru,” you say softly.

“Yeah?” His voice is so quiet he’s not sure he even speaks. He can’t remember the last time you had looked so dispassionate at anything in his life. Even death had left its mark—black frowns, long streaks underneath your eyes.

Your apathy is dark purple, an endless void colour. 

“When I die, make sure Shoko’s the one who cuts me open to find out what’s wrong with me.”

Something prickles at his fingertips. He touches your shoulder and half-thinks his fingers will go right through you.

“You’re not going to die,” he insists firmly. “It’s just a bad cough.” You look up at him and blink. Then you touch your lips and shudder down another cough.

“We all die.”

“It’s not your time, yet.” His fingers dig into your shoulder. You don’t even wince even though you’re clenching his jaw but he can’t find it in himself to loosen his hold. It feels like the Jaws of Death. A crocodile’s bite.

So much for not being able to control his own power.

“It’s just a bad cough.” He ignores everything Shoko had said. Sometimes she’s wrong—sometimes, it’s not even that bad. He’d just seen it, hadn’t he? You were stretching, jumping onto your bed, acting like nothing was wrong.

Palliative care? As if you needed it—

You blink, then, and look at him. Stare at him as if you’d never said those words, and he had never reached out. 

You jerk your shoulder out of his grip. It stings more than it should.

“Right. But I’m just saying. You know how you always say I’ve got a few screws loose. It just makes sense someone will wanna crack me open to see what was going on up there and I want it to be her.” 

You smile, and the yellow cancels out the purple. 

Colour theory. 

But Satoru doesn’t smile back.

“What about the flowers?” he asks after a while. You’ve climbed back onto bed and he’s sat back down. You’re blowing into a spirometer, and every time, without fail, the ball shoots up to the top, clattering against the plastic. He watches, hoping that the next time, it’ll do the same thing again.

You stop and look at him. “What about them?”

“Is it some optical illusion? Why are they in your throat?”

“That’s a harder nut to crack,” you muse. “I don’t really know. It’s like when you’ve got food in your esophagus and you’re trying to cough it up so it doesn’t feel stuck anymore except it keeps building up. That only started a few days ago, though, so maybe, someone drugged me or something.” He doesn’t laugh and you frown. “Not funny?”

He shakes his head. “It’s freaky.”

.

He sits on the bench on campus. 

He’s cancelled classes because he didn’t come up with a standard lesson plan and his students are glad to have a Monday afternoon off, even if they’d never say it to his face. In truth, he’d spent the whole weekend at the hospital until he reeked of antiseptic and pollen. 

You coughed up five petals, and without fail, a nurse would come in hourly intervals to collect them. Shoko came once, to check up on you and to collect the samples. If she was surprised Satoru was sitting in the corner on his phone, she didn’t voice it.

“She’s not even doing that bad,” he says to the air, more accusatory than anything. The woman standing by him doesn’t answer and sits down beside him uninvited. Turning to look at her, his eyes narrow behind his blindfold. “You said she needed palliative care until she died. The doctor said she could leave tonight.”

“Those aren’t mutually exclusive concepts,” she informs, not looking at him. Shoko looks a bit out of place in the warm colours of the garden. Half a corpse herself. Waif-like. “The doctor’s letting her relax in the comfort of her own home before she dies. That’s all.”

“She’s not going to die.”

She snorts. “Denial isn’t a good colour on you.” The words could’ve been delivered colder. Satoru is grateful that they weren’t. 

Shoko rests her hands on her knees, tilts her head up, and sighs. Her long hair is like warm chocolate in the sunlight, spilling down her arched back from the knot she tied. “If you have any idea on how to fix this, I’m listening with both ears.”

“I don’t even know what it is,” he says. “Coughing and flowers? I’ve never heard of a sickness like that before.”

“Nanami pointed out that it could be a curse someone placed on her. I don’t know why, but it’d be an explanation.” Satoru spreads his legs, plants an elbow on his knee and leans forward to look at the ants travelling along the cobblestone before his shoe. “It manifested on some negative emotion lingering inside her and it’s growing every day, but she won’t budge.” Shoko sighs. Her purple eye bags look worse in the sunlight, but he would never tell her that. “Maybe you’d have a better chance digging into her. With Geto gone, there’s no one else to ask, is there?”

“What about you? What happened to girls and their little secrets?” he jokes, trying to ignore the ache that begins to bloom in his chest. Shoko eyes him wryly.

“I have suspicions, but there are some things girls don��t ask other girls,” she retorts. “It’s never been my business anyway. My job is to treat her, and I’ve given her options. It’s up to her to take them. Grief is a birthing ground for curses, and if she’s letting them feed on her freely, you know what fate is waiting for her.”

With that, she gets up and leaves as quickly as she arrived. Satoru swallows the smell of flowers and feels sick.

.

Monday night, Satoru pulls up his laptop and looks through, searching up words he can string together in a coherent sense to get the answers he wants. As rare as it probably is, some research wouldn’t hurt, would it? Some curses had a trademark affliction—maybe this one does, too.

So he searches up flower coughing to see if there has ever been a record of strange deaths that have made the news. If not, he’ll go to the jujutsu databases, but for now, maybe some publicity could put some answers to this question.

He is surprised when one of the first results is flower coughing disease. 

When he hits enter, the white screen blasts into blue irises with numerous results all repeating the same two words.

HANAHAKI DISEASE

And Satoru reads, and reads, and reads. He reads two weeks to three months, he reads unrequited love, and removal, and disappearance of romantic feelings and capacity for romantic love.

He reads fictional disease and wonders how much of it really is fictional. 

His phone pings with a text, and he grabs at it, tilts it just enough to get a glimpse of the screen. It’s from you, and he hasn’t read a text from you in so long he almost doesn’t recognize who it’s from except he does because… who else could it be?

[Greenbean] 11:02 PM

hey!!! guess whos finally fucking free oh my god

ugh out of the hospital and forgot how actual air smelled like lol bitch im so hungry i could eat a zoo

Letting his phone clatter, he sighs and rubs his face roughy, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment before snapping his laptop shut and getting up. His phone buzzes again and he reaches for it blindly, the screen lighting up as he goes to bed.

[Greenbean] 11:03 PM

we should get smth to eat!! i wanna go to that new ramen place in ikebukoro

[Satoru] 11:03 PM

fine but you good???? who picked you up from the hospital? still insulted you didnt let me tbh

also what did the doctor say???

[Greenbean] 11:04 PM

bc ur a menace who doesnt know how to drive 

he said itd get worse before itd get better so still gotta go for checkups but yeah dont worry and nanami came bc he didnt trust me not to try and walk home lol but he did buy me dinner

wasnt enough though!!!

…

[Greenbean] 11:06 PM

ok but fr does he think im insane

clearly id flash some skin and hitch a ride duh

…

[Greenbean] 11:10 PM

youre just gonna leave me on read? yikes

[Satoru] 11:12 PM

i was getting ready to sleep silly

and yeah ill come pick you up on saturday for lunch?

[Greenbean] 11:15 PM

sorry making instant noodles rn but yeah that sounds fine

wait youre sleeping so early lmfao

[Satoru] 11:16 PM

im old :/

  [Greenbean] 11:18 PM

u sure are

(image sent)

look!!! my babies are still alive!!! idk how but miracles do exist im tellin ya

[Satoru] 11:24 PM

inumaki, maki, and fushiguro broke into ur home to water them but dont tell them i told u

[Greenbean] 11:24 PM

wtf

[Satoru] 11:25 PM

yeah idk when but i think u teaching inumaki how to pick locks has opened up too many possibilities but also its really funny thanks

now go to sleep u need to rest

[Greenbean] 11:28 PM

whos gonna make me lol youre not my dad

[Satoru] 11:29 PM

lol 

remember how i can teleport 

lol so cool

[Greenbean] 11:30 PM

dude

wtf

fine 

goodnight hoe </3

[Satoru] 11:31 PM

goodnight knock off poison ivy <3

.

“You’ve looked better,” Shoko says. Satoru raises his head wearily as he pushes off the wall. Shoko’s holding a cup of coffee, her lab coat fresh on her shoulders and eye bags looking more printed on rather than natural swelling. Satoru can’t help but feel the same exhaustion. “Definitely looked worse. What do you want? It’s early.”

“Have you ever heard of Hanahaki disease?” he asks. She shakes her head, and he pulls up the page on his phone and hands it to her. She takes it from him and her eyes scan the screen as he continues, “It’s this fictional disease, something that stems from unrequited love, and I think it could be related to whatever she’s experiencing.”

“I thought you were set on willing her to survive,” she replies dryly, shooting him a quick look and adjusting the coffee in her hand. “But this is definitely one of your stranger theories.”

Satoru ignores that last part. “It’d make sense. With her Cursed Technique, maybe it manifested in a way that links to it.”

She pushes into the office, setting the coffee on her desk and sitting down. Satoru sits down on the exam table closest and leans forward eagerly as she continues to read the page, scrolling down occasionally before scrolling back up and sighing. “This is a stretch. The timeline doesn’t match up to what this is saying.”

“This is a curse. It doesn’t have to follow fiction.” His body feels sore, janky even, everywhere. He barely got a wink of sleep last night and he knows he’s paying for it, now. “Hell knows life rarely does, anyway. But the symptoms matches too well, doesn’t it? The flowers—you’ve done scans, haven’t you?”

She deliberates his words carefully as she looks to the file cabinet and pulls out a binder. Satoru catches a flash of your name on the spine before she moves her coffee and his phone out of the way to flip it open.

“The scans we’ve taken have only just begun to show small growths in her trachea,” she allows, “and we don’t fully understand how cursed energy affects our bodies, so I suppose it could be something like Hanahaki, if the negative energy stemming from December 24th was what brought this on or if these symptoms started when we were still students, but she’s been experiencing shortness of breath a few months before Christmas.” Satoru’s lungs squeeze the last of the air out of them at that, and a cold sweat drops down his spine as she hands his phone back to him. “It only started getting worse Suguru’s death, which meant there had to have been a trigger before that.”

In the back of his head, he hears your voice, light and yellow, saying a few weeks. It got worse a few weeks ago. 

“Worse?”

“The first petal fell some time after Christmas. It’s been a slow, but steady progression since then. Sometimes, it’s two or three. When it’s not a good day, there can be as many as seven to ten.” Shoko switches on the lamp on the corner of her desk and adjusting the direction of the white light before flipping the page. “But if we can find the original trigger and alleviate that pressure it’s putting on her, we could buy her more time.”

“So it’s been nearly six months since the first petal,” he says. Shoko nods. Satoru is grateful for the blindfold—she can’t see how blank everything looks on his face. “It said sometimes, the disease can last for eighteen months.”

“As you said, this isn’t a fairytale.” She half-spins on her chair to face him and leans back into it, crossing one leg over the other and jiggling her knee. “I saw that one of the solutions is excise the growths at the cost of the attachment. That was one of the options I gave her when the growths first appeared. She said she wanted more time before she could decide.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“Because she’s smart, and likes to push her damned limits. And if this is truly the basis of the curse”—she gestures to Satoru’s phone. Her expression flickers—“those flowers are feeding off cursed energy. Cutting them out would remove those negative emotions, but at a cost of something else. Maybe whatever feelings she has regarding the trigger.”

Satoru looks down at his phone. It feels heavier than a thousand cinderblocks in his clammy hands. His fingers are numb as his screen dims and finally locks itself. Pressing the button, it illuminates again to reveal a picture of a cactus you gave him for his birthday years ago, blooming with delicate purple petals. 

His heart rends. That cactus is long dead now.

“But, Suguru’s dead.” 

“That’s why I asked you to ask her,” Shoko mutters. 

Turning to her binder again, she picks up a pen and clicks it, lowering it to the paper before pausing, and Satoru looks up as she stares at whatever words are printed into the page distantly. A strange affliction is on her face, almost tormented, and Satoru is not-so-kindly reminded that before Suguru and Satoru, Shoko was your best friend first. 

“Tell her how idiotic she’s being,” she enforces quietly. “The longer it lives, the more permanent damage is inflicted. With the unpredictable nature of curses, that won’t take long and by then, it’ll be too late to consider removing it.”

.

Saturday comes too fast, yet not fast enough. By the end of the week, Satoru is all but finished with teaching, and is waiting outside your apartment, leaning against the car as he scrolls through his phone. He’s done a bit more research on this Hanahaki disease, but even the word makes him shiver with the implications. 

“Satoru!” Turning, he catches you loping easily towards him. You’re dressed in billowy, wide-legged dark mint green pants and a pretty white top that makes you look more nymph than human, with a canvas tote bag hanging off your shoulder. You flash him a smile as you fiddle with the fabric tie at the waistband of your pants nervously. “Hi.”

“Hey. Hope you don’t mind I brought Ijichi along for the ride since someone claims I can’t drive.”

“You don’t have your license, sir,” Ijichi says wearily as you bend over to wave through the window. "It would be illegal for you to be on the road in any capacity—oh, hello, ma’am. It’s nice to see you doing so well.”

“Thanks, Ijichi. I think I’m doing better after getting out of there,” you say as Satoru opens the car door for you and he smirks, eyes crinkling behind his sunglasses. You straighten up, looking at him before poking his chest and it’s almost just like the good ole days as you break out into a grin that crinkles your entire face. “What’s with you being a gentleman? It better not be because I was in the hospital.”

“Of course not,” he admonishes. “I wouldn’t dare dream of being polite to you of all people.” Still, he sidesteps and sweeps his arm, gesturing for you to climb in first which you do, exhaling a bit shakily as you settle in and slide over. By the time he’s settled in beside you, you have a fist over your lips and you’re clearing your throat testily.

A worm of unease wriggles into his stomach as he clips in his seatbelt, pulling the lapels of his unbuttoned green shirt free from the strap. Legs spreading, he lets his hands fold in his lap as Ijichi begins to drive them to their destination. You’ve lowered your hand by now, looking out the window, and it’s not bright enough that Satoru can read your expression on the glass.

It’s clear you don’t want to talk about it, but still, that nagging feeling bites at him as he rolls the divider up between the backseat and the front—a mock of privacy.

“The place we’re going to gives me the same vibe as that family-owned restaurant we went to when we were students. The one in Kagurazaka,” you say after a while, turning back to look at him. You’re wearing a bracelet that jangles when you move your hand to adjust the seatbelt across your chest. “I think you’ll like it.”

“Have you been?”

“One time, before I checked in,” you tell him, smiling still. “It was really good. The perfect last meal.” Satoru does well enough to hide his frown at your choice of words as you meet his eyes. “You know, you can ask. I’m not fragile.”

“I don’t have anything to ask,” he lies. “I’m just glad you’re out of the hospital.”

“Me, too. I’ve missed so much and it drove me insane. Yaga-sensei insists that I don’t work until I’m sure I’m feeling better,” you add. “But to be honest, there’s nothing much that can be done to make me feel better.”

“I see. So you’re still coughing up flowers?”

“Petals,” you correct, “and a bit. Don’t worry. It’ll get better soon.” You wave a hand and turn to look out the window and Satoru’s appetite all but vanishes. He doesn’t know why you’re so intent on lying to him about the severity of your condition, but as your knee jiggles relentlessly the whole car ride with unbridled excitement, he wonders if you’re even aware of how sick you could be. 

His Six Eyes scan your body for signs of a curse. Normally, those plagued have their little burdens hanging off their shoulders, prying their head open, biting into an arm or leg, but he finds yours lives inside your chest, just barely hidden by the yellow light brimming from your body as you reach forward to lower the divider and talk to Ijichi.

They reach Ikebukuro before they’re dropped off after Satoru insists on walking the rest of the way.

“Give us some privacy, Ijichi! We both know you’ll just eavesdrop for the juicy details,” he exclaims loudly, leading to the man to blush furiously, stuttering that he’d do no such thing, and earning Satoru a smack on the back of his head, knocking his sunglasses askew.

“Thanks for the ride, Ijichi,” you say warmly as if you hadn’t slapped a concussion into Satoru. The Assistant Director dips his head. “See you later!” With that, he drives off and the two sorcerers are left in the busy street. Satoru looks around curiously, but you tug him along up the main road of the district and immediately turn right into one of the smaller streets. A few cyclists race past, as well as cars, but the traffic seems relatively slow despite it being the weekend. There are people walking along the white lines separating the lanes, chatting merrily as you lead him to the restaurant.

“I forgot how actual sunlight felt,” you sigh, stretching your arms high above your head as if to touch the wind breezing through. Inhaling deeply, you close your eyes. Satoru waits for you to begin to cough, and you hold it in, throat tensing a bit. 

He looks away, and pretends he doesn’t hear your sharp exhale, the soft cough you try to muffle with your hand. Instead, he looks at their surroundings, traces the green roads, watches a man park his bicycle and take the plastic bags out of the basket before rushing into a store. The air smells faintly of smoke, and Satoru waves in front of his face to see if it’ll help dispel the scent, but it’s so engrained with the hint of meat, honey, sweets, and flowers, that he can’t.

“I saw Suguru here once,” you tell him suddenly. He blinks, head snapping to you, and you’re already regarding him with a faint smile, eyes a bit dimmer. The warm yellow energy has faded to a burnt orange as you look ahead. “A year or two after he left. It’s why I moved closer a few years ago. I guess I had this weird hope that I’d see him again, but I never really did.” A faint grin graces your lips again, as if you’re not even aware you’re smiling. Fondness overtakes you. “I think about him a lot these days.”

“Me, too.”

“Of course,” you chuckle a bit, rubbing at the back of your neck. “I’m being insensitive.” 

“No, you’re not. He meant a lot to you, too. I don’t own him, or his memory.”

“I know, but he was still your best friend.” Unbidden, a voice in Satoru’s voice finishes it for you. My one and only. 

“Did you guys talk about anything?”

“Not really anything important,” you say, shrugging, but by the way your eyes shift in the light, glimmer differently, he knows you’re lying. He knows it’s none of his business, but a part of him hungers for new parts of Suguru and it’s powerful enough to take control of his tongue.

“Nothing’s not important. He was a wanted criminal.”

“I think we both know somehow that part never mattered to us.” You look at him, and run a thumb under the strap of your bag. “To any of us. But…” You tilt your head to him and your smile grows tender. “…since you asked, we talked about us. He told me about what he wanted, the kind of world he was determined to create. He paid for my dinner, kissed me goodnight like it was normal, and then he was gone. Never saw him again until last December.”

It shouldn’t sting as much as it does. 

He remembers that day ten years ago in Shinjuku. The coldness in which Suguru had looked at him. He can’t imagine that same poison directed at you. He couldn’t even imagine Suguru looking at him like that in the first place until he did.

“Are you the strongest because you’re Gojo Satoru or are you Gojo Satoru because you’re the strongest?”

“I used to have nightmares about it,” you continue distantly. “Because I could’ve left with him, but I didn’t. And I could’ve killed him, but I didn’t do that either.”

“If you want to kill me, kill me. There’s meaning in that, too.”

Satoru’s chest tightens. His heart feels rotten to the core. “I didn’t, either, until I did.” You smile a bit more, at the irony. “Would you? Have gone with him, that is.”

“I didn’t, so what’s the point in debating it?” you ask before shrugging thoughtlessly and answering anyway. “I think tackling curses at the source is important. I just didn’t like the way he was doing it. If I thought I could somehow change his mind, just a bit, on his methods, maybe, but by then, he was too far gone.” 

Your eyes, chips of glinting sunstone, mellow as a cyclist trills at them with a bell to get out of the way. You step out of the way, away from Satoru for a moment, before returning to him, and when the back of his hand brushes yours, he’s startled at how cold your skin is. 

Satoru is quiet as he absorbs all of this. He doesn’t really know what to say, and you don’t prod him for a reaction as they turn the corner again. 

“It’s just over there,” you say, pointing to a small restaurant, people milling by the door. There’s a sign hanging over the door, off-white with black kanji painted on and your arm falls. “There’s a line. Huh.”

“We can wait,” Satoru says when they stop at the edge of the crowd. “I don’t mind.”

“Okay. I’ll go put our names in then come back.” You disappear into the crowd for a moment before resurfacing and joining his side again, something in your hand. “It should be, like, fifteen minutes. I said the bar was okay.”

“That’s fine.” Shoving his sunglasses up into his hair, he cracks his knuckles and migrates to the wall. You follow, and he slouches against the concrete pillar. You adjust the tote bag against your body and lean against the other side just around the corner. Their elbows brush, and you tilt your head to look at him, smiling. Your face has caught the sun perfectly, and Satoru can’t help but smile back.

He wonders how to bring up this Hanahaki disease theory. You look so perfect, so happy in this moment where their eyes meet, that he can’t bring it up. Maybe it’s selfish, but it feels like it’s been so long since the two of them even managed to see each other for more than an hour. With how overworked jujutsu sorcerers are, it’s hard to recall the last time they both had downtime at the same time that wasn’t spent catching up on sleep.

You look away, shoulders shaking, as if that’s enough to hide your coughing, and he thinks, Later. There’ll be time for that later.

“Here’s the menu,” you tell him once you’ve calmed down, extending your hand. He takes the paper, unfolding it as you cross your arms and tilt your head back on the concrete. Reading down the list, he keeps an eye on you out of the corner of his vision, and your fingers play at your lips as you swallow. Reaching into your bag, you twist the cap of a water bottle and chug half of it down.

“Do you have any medicine? For your coughing?” he asks casually. You hit your chest with a firm fist, clearing your throat and looking at him in surprise. The water bottle returns to your bag.

“Oh, uh, no. It doesn’t work. Just gotta keep hydrated and avoid any possible triggers,” you inform. You turn up the street as you speak, crossing your legs at the ankles and sinking against the concrete. 

“And what are those triggers?”

“And you say Ijichi is the one digging for gossip,” you snort with short, choked huff. Satoru rolls his eyes, but keeps looking at the menu. “Don’t worry about it. I’m avoiding them.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“If I wanted your dry wit, I would’ve gone to the original.”

“I don’t copy off Shoko. I take bits of everyone’s personality and twist it to make it my own.”

You shake your head. “Whatever you say.”

Your name is called a few minutes later and the pair push off the concrete pillar, heading through the crowd and into the small restaurant. It’s not too dimly lit, a bunch of natural light from the street streaming in through the open windows, and the air is rich with the smells of the kitchen as they sit down at the bar.

It’s not long before they’ve ordered, and Satoru has gone through his first bowl and is well into pouring his second into what remains of his broth before he remembers to even check up on how you’re doing. You’d been right—he loves this place. The atmosphere isn’t overly loud, but the mumbling of nearby patrons is enough to make him feel like he isn’t quite alone. It’s sheltered away from the world, and although he’s used to girls staring, no one has gone up to him which is giving him time to his own thoughts and food. Everyone here seems to mind their business—everyone likes to stay in their own bubble. 

Here, he isn’t the strongest, or quite so special. It honestly feels kind of nice.

You’re sipping on your broth, tilting the spoon towards your mouth and your lips are pulled into the warmest smile he’s seen since they were kids. The light’s hitting you just perfect again, more cool than warm, but it’s got you on the cheekbone, illuminated your lips. Satoru wonders if you know how to manipulate light, or if that’s just your natural blessing as you tilt your head towards him, eyes squinting from your own joy.

For a moment, another image flashes in his head. Him along the end of their group of four—you and Shoko, Suguru and Satoru. It’s almost poetry how much of a glimpse he can see in your smile. You would always be laughing, and Suguru’s cheeks would always be red, and Shoko would charm the guy over the counter to hand over a bottle of shochu. Satoru would tease his stupid best friend, and pay for their meal because “I’m friends with a bunch of goddamn freeloaders.”

But that moment ends as quickly as it came, and it’s so fucking heartbreaking that Satoru never thought their last meal together would be their last meal together. He would’ve cherished it more—done anything to make them stay in that ramen shop in Kagurazaka.

“Do you like it here?” you ask. 

He blinks. You’re studying him behind that smile of yours. Watching. Always watching. “It reminds me of when we were kids,” he replies. When he realizes that didn’t answer the question, he adds, “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

You grin, delighted. “If I knew how stupid you’d look sucking up these noodles, I would’ve brought my camera like when we were students. I still have it, you know.”

“Next time, then.”

“Yeah, next time.”

Satoru pays. He insists despite your protests, and snatches the bill from you anyway, swiping his card as quickly as he can. 

After, they walk slowly around the district, looking at the other restaurants and stores for desserts or souvenirs to bring back, and it makes him so nostalgic, his heart wilts a bit in his chest. 

He is saying something about buying some soymilk for Megumi when you stop suddenly, deviating to the side of the road to cough. It grows so intense so quickly that your eyes widen as if you’re surprised, too, and you place a palm flat against your chest as he comes to your side. You wave him back, and he frowns, running a hand down your back as you finally manage to dislodge the petals in your throat and spit them into your palm.

Satoru sighs, staring at the cursed things. The energy emitted from the petals are raw, potent, and his nose wrinkles at the stench that comes from powerful curses as he softly asks, “Do you know what Hanahaki is?”

“Flower vomiting?” you whisper through your raw vocal cords. You shake your head, slamming your sternum with a tight fist and flinging the drenched petals to the ground with a wet slap. “Itadori… said something about it, once. Never really paid attention, I—”

Satoru squeezes the back of your neck gently. “Whatever this curse is, it could be something like that.“

“You don’t want to open that can of worms, Gojo, of what is causing this.” Straightening up, your eyes widen and your cheeks puff up as you choke down another bout. Wobbly, you spit out, “It’s under control. I swear.”

“Are you sure?” His fingers brush your chin to turn your face towards him so he can look at it more clearly, and the instant their eyes meet, you lurch over, slapping his hand away and succumbing to the wracking. Hands shooting out to grab your elbows, Satoru barely eases you to the ground as your legs give in.

You collapse to your knees, hard. A hand is slapped over your mouth but your whole body shakes with the seizing of your lungs. Eyes widening, your cheeks puff up as Satoru grabs your shoulders, falling to his knees beside you.

“Hey! Hey, breathe!” His fingers dig into your shoulders and your nostrils flare, trying to follow his instructions. Bloodshot eyes and blueing lips, your inhales are shaking and incomplete, gasps for air that do not take in any oxygen before you’re kneeling over, hand falling from your lips. Blood splattered over your palm, you let out a low noise of pain. Satoru’s hand glides down your spine, rubbing in soothing circles as red spit falls to the pavement in thick globs. 

People all around stop to stare, eyes masked with concern, but he can’t care less at that moment despite the burning scrutiny. He shoves a hand into his pocket, speed-dialling one of the top numbers of his list.

“Ijichi, I need you to take us to the hospital, now!” Letting his phone drop with a clatter, he scoops you close but you slam your bloody hand against his chest, pushing him away. You throw yourself away, hands twisted tight in the fabric of your white shirt and Satoru looks down at the red handprint on his tee before blinking. “What are you doing? We need to get—“

“I’m—I’m fine!” Your voice, broken, is drenched with ice as you continue to wheeze, grasping at your chest as if you could reach and tear out the growths with your own hand. “Gojo, I’m fine!”

“No, you’re not!” Grabbing his phone, he hears a loud car horn, and looks up to see Ijichi leaning out of the driver’s seat, waving his arm frantically. Without another thought, he scoops you up and runs out into the street, ignoring the tires screeching, the cars horns blaring at him and the angry shouts as he jumps into the car and slam the door shut. 

Ijichi sets off at a drive, no directions needed. Satoru is sure he’s breaking as many laws as he can as he pushes you back against the seat to buckle you in. Blood dribbles down your lips in bubbles as a thick, gurgling sound begins to grow in your throat and he wipes at your chin with his sleeve, clicking the buckle into place just as you pitch forward. He jerks back just in time as you retch, and, slowly, torturously, you gag out three petals, one after another. Your fingers claw at your own throat, panicking and desperate as you struggle to breathe.

The petals fall in wet pools between your feet, landing on the carpet, and he spares them not even a glance before forcing your head between your knees. You’re still hyperventilating and as Satoru sweeps a hand down your back and up to your neck, his fingers come into contact with something sticky. 

Sweat. It drenches through your shirt so suddenly that Satoru reels at the wet marks spreading through your shirt, making the fabric translucent. Your heart is racing, tripping over itself. When you finally stop coughing, you breathe in harsh pants as he keeps your head between your knees.

Your fingers lace at the back of your head and he grabs them firmly, reassuring that he’s still beside you. 

.

“She’s stable,” Shoko announces to the waiting Satoru and six students. The latter came when their teacher had told them of what happened, and Itadori still clings to Fushiguro’s arm by an iron hand, fingers clawlike into his friend’s bicep. Kugisaki chews on her thumbnail, a bit paler than usual and there are crescent indents along her forearm where she had dug her nails in. Maki’s hand rests on her shoulder. Inumaki’s on the phone with Panda, and he turns the screen around so he can see the Strongest Sorcerer who does not feel quite so strong.

Satoru’s assurances that you would be fine had done nothing but send them into a quiet that scared even him. 

“Is she okay? When can she get out?” the kids demand suddenly.

“We’re waiting for the updates on her scans from the doctors, but she’ll need to stay here under observation.”

Satoru runs a hand through his hair, smiling in a way that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Guess that means she gets a few more days off while the rest of us are working our asses off,” he teases. Maki shoots him a glare and his eyes close in a way he hopes arranges his expression in one of joy as he shrugs helplessly. “Well, that means I have another girl I have to spoil.”

“Aren’t you too busy with the four already blowing up your phone?” Kugisaki mutters sourly. Satoru pretends not to hear. His phone has been silent without your texts, and it’s cold and heavy in his pocket.

“Can we see her?” Fushiguro asks. Shoko nods, but holds up a hand and the kids skid to a stop.

“She’s resting. I’m unsure if you know, but certain topics of conversation or trains of thought can lead to more attacks, so stick to talking about your curriculum. Topics you think are safe.” The woman shifts on her feet, a wisp of brown hair swaying in front of her eye. “It’s unavoidable, but use your judgement.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The students walk off down to the dead-end hallway, and Satoru turns to Shoko who has her arms crossed over her chest. She steps up, scanning him like he’s got contraband, and he raises his eyebrows innocently.

“What?”

“It’s getting worse. I hope you managed to get answers,” she says. At once, Satoru’s facade drops, and a sober sensation overtakes his face.

“No, I didn’t. She’s heard of the disease, at least. We talked about Suguru, but it wasn’t like it was under lock and key.” The brunette shakes her head at his words, gesturing for him to sit down beside her. Doing so, he leans back into the uncomfortable chair as she crosses a leg over the other. “She said she thinks about him a lot.”

“She still loves him,” Shoko says bluntly. “She gets that far-off look when she talks about him. You two should trade secrets some time.” A shake of her head, and she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “I healed what damage I could, but I can tell those growths inside are expanding. The attack only seems to have agitated and prompted them to take root.”

“How…” It’s hard to formulate the question. Luckily, Shoko knows him well enough.

“Without seeing the scans, I won’t know. Based on her last ones, I thought at least four months. Now?” Her lips press into a thin line. “She’ll be lucky if she gets two.” Shoko’s eyes flicker down Satoru’s front, and her lips press into a wry line. “And change you shirt. You look like a murder suspect.”

Glancing down, he looks at your dried bloody hand print, stark against white, and he gets up abruptly. Shoko doesn’t stop him.

He walks down to the dead-end hall. He can hear Itadori through your open door cracking jokes, Kugisaki relaying every detail of her shopping trips, and you’re wheezing your laughter despite Maki scolding you to save your strength. Satoru stops just outside your door, out of sight, and rests his head against the frame, content to just listen.

“Tuna mayo.”

“Is that right?” you ask Inumaki. “Lay it on me.” 

You sound exhausted, beaten to the bone, but still, when Fushiguro says something too quiet for him to make out, you still have the strength to tease him for worrying.

.

The night is warm, and he sets the last plant back into its place on your window sill before cracking the window a bit at your request. He’s busied himself making this place as homely as possible as quickly as possible, and in the process, had walked in on you staring at your own scans on the lightscreen mounted on your wall.

“Thanks, Satoru,” you say over your shoulder. He joins you by your side to stare at the scans. Granted, Satoru didn’t cheat his way through medschool like others have, so he doesn’t understand much, but he can tell what is and what isn’t supposed to be there. The floral-like growths situated right where the main bronchi meet the trachea, for one.

The roots spreading across your chest like cracks in concrete, for another.

“The doctors want to monitor this,” you explain, pointing at the roots, “to see whether or not it’ll grow around my lungs or continue outward, around the ribs and spine. If it’s the former, I’ll slowly suffocate and die. If it’s the latter, I’ll slowly suffocate, become paralyzed, and die.” You smile grimly. “Not quite a win-win.”

“Exactly the opposite.” He inspects the growths and through the blue-white-black imaging, he spots the tiny stems emerging from the main growth, sprouting into your lungs. He guesses, with time, those will grow into flowers of equal size before sprouting more shoots.

He wonders…

As if sensing his hesitance, you scratch your collarbone and look at the scans with a new glint.

“The doctors say if I avoid another attack like today, I’ll probably have two months, three if I’m blessed, but because of how big the growths have gotten already and its volatile nature, it’ll be impossible, so we’re looking at a month. Maybe a month-and-a-half?” You smile at him, throat bobbing. “Guess it’s good to have a number,” you add shakily, a short puff coming at the end of each breath as you struggle to fight the cough. “Being a sorcerer, too much uncertainty, I think.”

“You should tell Nanami that. Maybe this time, it’ll convince him to stay away,” he retorts, turning away from the scans. They’re burning his eyes and he doesn’t want to look at the real thing for much longer. You turn with him, walking back towards bed and climbing in. “Are you sure you don’t want the operation? Shoko could do it so fast you wouldn’t feel a thing.”

“No, not yet. There are some complications that’ll definitely occur and I don’t want that to happen.”

“But it would save your life,” he argues. “What risks are frightening enough that you’d even consider not having it?” Your gaze flickers as you take another wheezing breath. The strength seems sapped from your limbs—you’re a scarecrow hanging off its pole as you swallow tightly. Satoru leans against your window sill and crosses his arms over his chest so you can’t see the frustrated fists he wants to make. “If this is about Suguru…”

Resolutely: “It isn’t.”

“You’re going to die if you keep going down this road. I don’t understand why you’re hesitating.” In the back of his mind, klaxons begin to scream.

“Satoru, some things are just beyond logical reason.” He jerks his gaze away, pushing his glasses up his nose pointedly. You sigh. “I know it’s hard, but this is my choice. I just want you to be here so you know it’s okay.” 

Your hand stretches out. Blue eyes flash to your outstretched fingers and he takes it before he can stop himself. Your fingers curl over his palm, tugging him closer and he lets you, sneakers dragging over the tile until he’s sliding into the chair by your bed. It squeaks against the tile.

“Please don’t be angry with me.” That’s all. That’s all I ask.

A hard, heavy sigh, this time from his end. He tightens his hold on you as you sit there, smiling hopefully. His heart thunders in his chest. “I’m not angry.”

You perk up a bit, and his index finger unfurls to rub your wrist. It feels colder than normal. “Promise?”

He wishes he could lie half as well as you. Either way, he tries his hardest: “Promise.”

By the time it’s quarter past nine, you’re already getting ready to sleep. You have enough pillows to surround your entire body, and he fluffs them up, helps you arrange them until you’re sighing against the white sheets, burrowing in with a sedated smile on your face.

Satoru sits down again on his visitor’s chair and you watch him lazily through the dim orange light stemming from behind your bed.

“You don’t have to stay here and watch me, creep,” you mumble, turning your face away to stare at the ceiling. You cough dryly, but it subsides moments later. Your voice is nothing but a croak as you let out a tired groan, and Satoru smiles to himself, cheek to his fist. 

“I feel robbed of our afternoon together. Making up for it now.”

You look at him again incredulously. “We’re not even doing anything.”

“I don’t know when you were told that every second of us being together had to be us doing something,” he huffs. “I like being in here. Isn’t that enough?”

“It’s too much. You’re annoying me.” Even so, your voice turns fond as you roll onto your side, away from him to settle in to sleep and Satoru’s warm gaze lands on your shoulder gently rising and falling as you slowly drift off. 

He already knows you’re gone by the time he’s standing up and gathering his jacket. Walking around the bed, he glances at the bathroom to check the light’s off and catches a glimpse of his shirt. A coil wraps around his gut at the muddy red handprint pressed into the fabric and he turns away to look at you instead.

Your face is in perfect peace, half-buried into a pillow you’re hugging into your chest, and he only soaks in those features. His hand twitches, and his infinity wavers as he raises his hand as if to touch you. Your eyelids flutter and he freezes, fearing he might’ve woken you up, but you only mumble incoherently and turn into your pillow.

Satoru watches on silently just as a breeze sweeps into the room and he looks up where the window he had cracked open. The breeze takes hold of the plants, uplifts them until they sway like a tender dance. 

His chest begins to hurt. The smell of the antiseptic is starting to sting, so he moves his hand to the light switch instead. Flicking it off, he turns to leave.

.

Every time Satoru walks down to the end of the hallway, a different memory will play in his head until he’s playing a movie over and over every single day. Of the first time he met you, although that one is blurry. Your sixteenth birthday when the four of them had piled into your dorm room to drink themselves stupid.

One-and-a-half weeks go by before he realizes that he only replays the moments where you feature. Like his brain is preparing him, reminding him. For what, he doesn’t know. 

He can’t come every day—considering the low number of sorcerers has been taken down by one more, it means besides teaching, he still has to work for the Higher Ups as well as his own personal agenda—but when he does make it, he always makes sure that he soaks in every second. Even the horrible parts. Maybe, especially the horrible parts.

You have scans taken every other day to monitor your progress, so when he arrives at an empty room, he isn’t surprised. It’s when there’s movement in the bathroom that sends his nerves prickling until he catches a slab of golden hair and reading glasses flashing in the sunlight.

“Nanami,” he greets.

“Good afternoon.” His jacket’s off and his sleeves are rolled up. With a quick sweep of the room, Satoru notes that the windows are cracked open and the aforementioned jacket is folded over a chair sat in a square of sunlight.

“Do we need to be so formal?” he complains, bypassing the bathroom and searching for another chair. The one Nanami’s taken by the plants is still warm and Satoru isn’t keen on the idea of sweating so soon. During his search, he stops by the windowsill and his eyebrows rise curiously at the new plants and trash bin pressed up right underneath. “What’s happening here?”

“We were planting new seeds when she had to be taken for her scans. She insisted I finish potting the plants.” Noting the empty terracotta, Satoru bends over and prods at the moist dirt. “I have to go soon, though. I had hoped it wouldn’t take as long as it did and she would be back by now.”

“They started taking MRI scans when the branches continued to grow outward rather than inward,” Satoru informs. “It takes around forty-five minutes, on top of the CT scans they’re taking, too. That’s if she doesn’t start coughing in the middle of it.” 

“I’m guessing she does.” Nanami adjusts the glasses on his nose, wiping at his hands free of the last of whatever dirt might’ve been clinging to his hands.

“Yup.”

“I see.” Satoru looks at the plants again. The blond man across the room throws the towel into the dirty clothes basket.“Has she… spoken to you of what to do with her effects?”

Gaze hardening, he doesn’t move at the question. Of course, he’s thought about it, but those bouts of weakness have never been longer than a few minutes. There’s no use in wasting time on a reality that won’t come until it does.

Hopefully, it never does.

“I’m so sick of everyone talking like she’s signed a death sentence,” Satoru murmurs, turning around to look at the blond man at the door to the washroom. “She still has time. Not a lot. It’s not convenient, but it should be enough.”

“She’s already considered the benefits of taking the surgery, and yet she actively decides to postpone it. You know she’s stalling,” comes the steady reply.

“And what about you?” Satoru asks. His words are biting, icy, but Nanami seems unfazed as he begins to loop the tie around his neck. “Would you do it?” Blue eyes meet a stoic face, and the coldness seeps into Satoru’s body. Nanami sighs.

A part of Satoru wonders why he even bothered asking. He already knows the answer—

“No.” Eyebrows shoot up. His mouth drops open and a strangled noise escapes his throat. Nanami merely continues on, quiet as death. “Perhaps it’s because I’m willing to accept my death, but, to be honest, I don’t know how to let any part of Haibara go. I’ve accepted it, but he’s still in my heart and my head.” Lips parting, Satoru takes a step forward as Nanami slants his body away, continuing to fold the fabric into a tie. He looks statuesque, unmovable, and something tightens in Satoru’s throat at the stone-like mask taking over his face. “I’m unwilling to do anything to taint that memory.”

Wordlessly, the blond walks over to Satoru to take his jacket from the chair, rolling down his sleeves and slapping his watch back onto his wrist. Standing less than two feet apart, the two men finally meet eyes.

“Gojo,” Nanami murmurs. “I can’t say I understand your burden, but I am by your side. I do not always agree with your choices, but I still respect them. As your kouhai and as your colleague.” His lips pull in a facsimile of a wry smile and there’s an understanding Satoru doesn’t understand haunting his handsome face. “However, she is your friend before mine. I think your opinion matters much more than mine. Don’t abuse that power.”

Satoru’s eyes nearly reflect in the lenses of Nanami’s glasses. He wishes his friend would take the damn pair off. 

In truth, the reason he’s so irritated is because he knows. If he insists enough, begs enough, there will always be a chance that he can convince you. That you will give in, not because you are selfless, but maybe because you’re too selfish to let him stay mad at you.

An unstoppable force meets an immovable object, and sometimes, the force wins.

But he’d promised, hadn’t he? To not be angry with the choices you’ve made?

“Jeez, it’s somber in here. Who died?” you tease as Shoko pushes the wheelchair in after you. Both men look away from each other. You’re still walking steadily, but an IV is hooked into your chest now, and it’s so obvious you’ve lost unhealthy weight that looking at you is hard sometimes. Satoru does, anyway. 

Noting Nanami, you straighten up. Surprised, but pleased: “You’re still here.”

“I was just leaving,” he says. You frown, but don’t protest. A jujutsu sorcerer’s work is never finished until one stops breathing. “I finished planting the seeds you asked me to, and watered them.”

“Thank you.” He dips his head to you, then to Shoko, before departing, and you watch him go for a moment before your eyes land on Satoru and you smile. The air around you shifts immediately to a vibrant yellow. 

“You’re early, Satoru.” You head towards the bed as Shoko parks the wheelchair by the door. “It took way longer than I thought.”

“That’s because you threw up pistils today,” Shoko replies dryly. Satoru straightens up and looks at Shoko more carefully. Placid lookimg—usual for his mortician friend in the jujutsu world—but there’s a blanching in her knuckles that isn’t usual. “The CT wasn’t good. You know that.”

“Well, it’s still more time than I could’ve asked for, you know.” Shoko shakes her head, and meets his eyes before leaving the room, presumably to talk to your doctors. “Party pooper.”

“First day knowing Shoko?”

You laugh sarcastically, adjusting the hospital gown on your body before climbing into bed slowly, as if your joints ache. Satoru’s feet shift on the tile when he realizes his body moves to help and he freezes. You’re breathing audibly by the time you settle in and you meet his eyes, wondering if he’s noticed.

Of course he has, he wants to tell you. He notices everything about you.

Then, you sigh, and the yellow energy around you flickers into something darker, something grey, something that reminds him of summer thunderstorms.

“The roots have reached the edge of my rib cage and are encroaching on my stomach now,” you inform bluntly. “I probably won’t be able to keep food down in the next couple of days so they’re going to up the ante on this thing.” You gesture to the catheter by your clavicle. “So that’s not really fun. And, they want to start taking scans every single day because the growth is increasing exponentially. The doctors think something triggered the flowers to begin blooming in earnest. Like spring has come to my body, and I’m having the worst fucking time of my life.”

Despite your admission, your smile only falters in that it no longer reaches your eyes. Satoru shoves his hands in his pockets because he doesn’t know what else to do.

The word Hanahaki still burns, whispers coyly in his ear. It teases the tip of his tongue as he watches you look to your windowsill where your new plants are and get up, walking over to inspect your friend’s work.

He wonders if he can bring it up again. If he can insist that there’s a way to save you—

But Nanami’s words linger, too, and he bites his tongue until he tastes iron. 

“Oh, look.” He blinks at your voice, turning to look. Your fingers sink into one of the pots and before he can ask, blue energy flares up around your hand and into the soil and a shoot breaks through the dirt, unfurling as it grows higher and higher into the air.

“What is it?” Petals are beginning to form, the shade of a warm, gentle red that fades in shade as it reaches the stem. Satoru comes up next to you as the first flower blooms and his eyebrows rise. “Tulips. Huh.”

“I used to love them,” you tell him, picking it off and extending it to him. Eyebrows furrowing in surprise, he takes it as you sink your fingers deeper into the soil, sending more cursed energy into the seeds. More stems to replace the one you had picked continue to grow and you pull your hand out, wiping at your fingers with a towel.

Satoru tilts the flower towards his nose, taking a whiff.

“Used to?” he repeats, and you nod.

“Trees and flowers have their own language.” Your eyes do not meet his as you watch the plant continue to grow. Your muscles go slack, and your fingers touch the petals, mind not quite aware of how you’re moving. “Red tulips mean eternal love, and fame.”

Blinking, he looks down at his own bloom. 

Suguru. He hears you say his name, even in the silence, and remembers years ago, walking through Tokyo. A neighbourhood he doesn’t remember, his best friend looking at the florist’s shop and immediately perking up to head inside and buy a bouquet after something had caught his eye.

“For a girl,” he had admitted sheepishly. 

“Only one?” Satoru asked, horrified. “You can’t settle down! We’re meant for so many more women than just one!”

A sharp nudge to the ribs. Raucous laughter. “Shut up!”

Quietly, Satoru’s fingers tighten around the stalk as you tilt your head to the sun, inspecting something he won’t understand. He doesn’t have a green thumb, and although you say you aren’t the smartest, he’s seen you grow the college’s gardens in a way that has amplified the beauty already lingering on the grounds. You had dismissed it as a little side project, but seeing you water your plants dutifully, spread feed and root out weeds, makes him wonder if you know how to put half-efforts into anything.

When you garden, you never take the easy route. You labour for the satisfaction, and pour sweat and tears into the soil.

When you love, you love with all of yourself and more. 

It’s what makes whatever he wants impossible.

Because he is the same, and they will never change.

When Satoru goes home, he places the tulip in a vase and the cursed energy prickles at his fingertips.

.

You get worse and worse with every visit. 

Each day brings him another raw wound, salt on blood. You slowly grow more and more ragged, even though you stay in the hospital, confined to your room. 

There are days Satoru walks into your room to you hunched over the toilet, spitting blood and flowers into the bowl and vomiting all you ate the night or day or hour before and he already knows what he has to do. A cold, damp rag to your forehead, a crouching stance beside you as your grip on the toilet seat becomes rigid like steel.

Other days, you’re still asleep because the night before, you’d been hacking up half a lung and half a bouquet. Sometimes, you’re curled around a plastic receptacle already full of your half-attempts to dislodge the pressure building in your chest. 

Or, you’re crying into your hands, breath coming in rapid bursts as you try to force your head between your knees to stop the world from spinning and Satoru holds you when you beg him to, and stands in the corner of the room when you push him away.

Afterwards, you always grab onto his sleeves, his arms, and sink against him, shivering. For hours after, he’ll curl around you on your hospital bed, no matter how much his body cramps, until you insist you’re fine.

“It’s a little like touching death,” you told him once, voice raw and fatigued. “When it’s a pretty bad day, and I think I’m going to die alone, it happens, so all I have to do is not think about it.”

There’s a flawed logic there, but Satoru was too busy pressing his nose into your hair and feeling the warmth of your body to reply any more than, “I’ll be there. I promise.”

Two weeks pass (fourteen sets of scans, a different pair hanging from the lightscreen every day tell him that) and Satoru watches as the branches spread through your body, past the reaches of your ribs, and the flowers have spread to your lungs so quickly he’s sure the time for you to decide is running out. 

You’re near-passed out against him on the bathroom floor one evening, and although it’s not closet-sized, it doens’t make the arrangement any less awkward. He’s up against the bathtub, legs sprawled all around you as he holds you in his arms. On the edge of the tub, there is a bar of bodysoap and a bottle of lotion he recognizes as the same one Shoko used to buy when they still had time. Your sink counter is filled with your toothbrush and cup, handsoap and a microfibre towel hanging off the edge smeared with lipstick, foundation, and black streaks of who knows what.

Shoko must have spent the night while he was out hunting a curse in Sendai. Good. He doesn’t like the nights when you’re alone and he can’t be there.

His fingers brush over your shoulder blade, and he travels over something rigid cloaked by your skin. Your eyes are closed, and you’re nearly asleep as you curl deeper against him. Looking down at you, he presses curious fingers into your shoulder blade only for you to let out a soft groan.

“Did that hurt?”

“No. It just feels like you pressed down on a big sore muscle,” you mumble slowly. He trails his fingers over, feels the bumps of the roots curling around your bones before following it towards your spine. It disappears the closer it reaches the trail of knobs that go down your back, and he moves back to your shoulder again. “Doesn’t hurt, though.”

“Does anything?”

“Mostly my stomach,” you tell him. “I’m so hungry all the time, but I can’t eat.” He glances at the IV stand, the only other witness to the events in this bathroom. It leads down through your gown and past your clavicle. Monitored every day in case the growths dislodge it, it’s one of the only things keeping you alive. “And my throat. It feels like I’ve scratched it out until it’s bleeding.”

He tilts his head. His lips barely brush your sweaty scalp despite how cold you feel in his arms “No surgery?”

You shake your head, what remains of your strength slowly coming back. “They say the flowers and roots have taken up sixty-five percent of my chest cavity. It’s not only inhibiting my lungs, but my heart and stomach, too, so it’d be kind of hard to get rid of it all. Not impossible, but it’s really risky. That, on top of the already-present consequences—”

“So let’s say we start with the lungs,” he cuts off, trying to not sound too desperate but these past few weeks have worn him down to the bone. Although he thinks he’s managed to hide it from his students, Shoko has offered multiple times to prescribe him sleeping pills just so he can shut his mind down.

He said no every time.

Your legs draw up and he squeezes your shoulder carefully, looking down. “Are you ready to get up?”

You nod. “I think so.” He wipes at your lips with the rag he left on the counter and you roll your eyes as he makes sure no blood is left on your face before throwing it back up and carefully adjusting you against him.

“Do you want my help?”

“My answer does not matter to you,” you shoot back teasingly and he lets you pull away from him before reaching up with one hand to push yourself up. Your arm wobbles, your feet kicking back underneath you and slowly finding theirselves on the floor. Satoru withdraws, ducking underneath and back up so he can stand, hands floating around your body as you draw the IV stand towards yourself and grab on. When he’s sure your knees might give in, he grabs your elbow, but you shake your head. “I think I’m okay.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay,” you breathe, raising your head to look at him. Your lips curl in a soft smile, and you clasp his shoulder. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t even do anything this time,” he says.

“Not everyone stays for the pathetic girl on the floor of the bathroom floor,” you quip. Turning around, you begin to head back to bed and he trails behind you carefully.

“If the girl’s you, then I think exceptions can be made.”

“Hospital bonus.”

“It adds that you’re in the hospital, too,” he agrees. “My morals are just.”

“Isn’t that a relief?” 

It is. It is a relief that you still have the strength to joke with him. 

You climb back into bed. Satoru returns to the bathroom to make sure the bathroom is flushed and it’s clean before returning and perching on the edge of your bed. Pulling out his phone, he shuffles his shoes off and tucks his legs to his chest, leaning against the foot of your bed and scrolling through his messages.

Not much to miss, to be honest. 

“There’s supposed to be a lunar eclipse on the morning of the 28th,” you say suddenly. Satoru looks up. You’re leaning back on the mountain of pillows, exhaling and inhaling measuredly in a way he now knows is your way of fighting off another bout. Squinting against the orange glow of the sunset, there’s a longing in your gaze. “I want to see it. Outside and everything.”

“You’re not supposed to leave the hospital.”

You don’t miss a beat. “Oh, we’re abiding by rules, now?”

“If it keeps you around, yes, we are.”

“When did my best friend turn into such a party pooper?” Looking at him, an impish glint lives in your eyes. He balks.

“Don’t you dare insinuate that I’m not fun.”

“Then… take me to see the eclipse.”

“No. There’s nothing to even see.”

“I want to see the moon disappear, Gojo,” you declare. “And if you won’t take me, I will definitely sneak out.” 

It paints a pretty pathetic picture, and he can’t help but arch his eyebrows at your determination. The air purifier drones on. The nurse turned it on after dinner, he guesses, and he has the strange urge to kick it as you fix him with a fierce stare. 

“You probably won’t be able to walk by then,” he says.

“That won’t stop me.” He knows it won’t. The corner of his lips pulls into a slight smile as you continue, “I just want to go outside one last time. Is that really too much to ask?” Your words are tinged with a fine dusting of humour, and he shakes his head.

“You’re incorrigible.”

“Big word for you, Satoru.”

“I still mean it.”

“And I learned that from you.”

He rolls his eyes and sighs. “Fine,” he caves. Your face lights up, and he sets down his phone, legs unfolding to brush the floor as he leans over to flick your forehead. Your eyes squeeze shut at the contact and you slap his arm away sluggishly before he soothes the smarting spot over with a smear of his thumb. “I’ll come by, and we’ll sneak out.”

You beam and he slips his feet back into his shoes and pockets his phone so he can focus his attention on you. 

When visiting hours end, the nurses offer to set up the cot for him like they always do. You pretend not to look at him out of the corner of his eye, awaiting his answer behind your laptop screen, and he spares you a quick glance before saying yes.

“She likes you,” you tell him after one particular nurse with dyed purple hair who always wears a fishtail bids them goodnight. Satoru fluffs up his pillow ceremoniously, having shed his jacket and taken off his jeans to hide underneath the blankets. The fabric is cold against his bare chest, and he pulls his glasses off, sets them on the stand right behind him.

The black frame holding up his mattress rattles a bit as he punches his pillow one last time and lies down. He turns on his side and looks at you. You’re turned on your side, too, and your brow is furrowed as you fight the sleepiness.

“Is that so?” he asks carefully. “What do you think about it?”

“I think if you wanted someone with a hectic schedule, you could pick someone else,” you say vaguely.

He raises an eyebrow. “Does she have a bad attitude or something?”

“I dunno.” There’s a subtle fire igniting in your words. You look a bit more awake, and your eyes are shifting the air into a smouldering red. He squints up. Your face is shadowed, but you’re still silhouetted by the orange light behind your bed as your shoulders rise and fall greatly in staggering, weighty breaths. “She wouldn’t understand. I guess.”

He hums. “So I should find someone who understands me but can’t be there for me? Sounds like the set up to every tragic love story ever.”

You laugh, and it’s the saddest sound in the world.

.

Friday, July 27th arrives in clouds.

Satoru scouted a spot before where they can watch the eclipse. He settles on one of the highest buildings on campus with a balcony where they can sit against the railing and watch the moon disappear. You can’t eat, but he still buys your favourite food from all over Japan, travelling to different prefectures in hopes that they still have your favourite dessert or drink that you mentioned once—he even gets you a new polaroid camera. He doesn’t know exactly how well the eclipse will show up on it, but, memories, right?

Maki makes a dry remark about how much he’s running around lately, probably to make amends to a girl he’s scorned. Satoru deflects and says he’s actually trying to impress one this time.

It’s been a five days since his promise to bring you. You lost your ability to walk steadily two days ago and to speak effortlessly only yesterday. The roots have extended through your body, pushing the muscle of your back and shoulders, and it’s made even moving painful, so he intends to carry you everywhere he can, holding your IV bags if he needs to. 

The doctors say eighty-five percent of your chest is now occupied with foreign growth. Satoru wishes they’d just tell it how it is—you’ll probably be dead by next week.

He arrives at the hospital and walks the path he’s walked so often over the past few weeks that he is sure he could do it with his eyes closed. The nurse’s station, and there’ll be the purple-haired one and the one with a double helix piercing on call at this time. Then, twenty-five steps to the end of the hall where the window often lets a lot of natural light in. Today, it’s grey and not much, but it’s enough to cast his shadow long and blurry.

He stops in front of your door to sanitize his hands when he hears voices within and hesitates.

Your door is closed, which means you don’t want people to interrupt, and he moves away from the rectangular window, back pressing against the tiny slab of wall between the frame and the corner of the hallway. Glasses slipping down his nose, he tries not to listen but he can’t help of himself.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” you say weakly. You sound awful. Satoru wonders if he’s missed one of your panic attacks and curses himself. “If I don’t sound sure, it’s because I’m dying… and sounding like a fragile piece of shit… comes with the territory.” Your words are coarse, and a harsh anger grates his ears as you cough violently, a terrible retching sound ending with a splat following right after. 

“I wasn’t doubting you,” Nanami replies calmly. “But this could be done in so many other ways.”

“Look, Nanami. I’m not… brave enough to say any of it. Now, sit down. Your standing… it’s making me nervous… Thank you.” Satoru’s legs feel numb as he sinks down to the floor, tilting his head just enough to listen clearer through the sliver underneath the door. Resting his elbows on his knees, he runs a hand through shaggy white hair. It feels dry and lifeless. 

He can’t remember the last time he took a shower that was longer than ten minutes and more than ice-cold bordering on just beginning to warm.

“Take care of him for me,” you croak and his fingers tighten against his scalp. Nanami doesn’t answer, and you let out a sound that can only be described as pure agony as another bout grasps you tightly. You’re wheezing by the end of it, gasping painfully for air, and the monitors start beeping rapidly, a dinging that echoes in his head as Nanami’s low voice soothes you, tells you gently to calm down. “I’m—I’m sorry.”

“Breathe with me,” Nanami orders, and everything falls silent. Satoru stares at his lap. His head is beginning to pulse with the monitors when the beeping finally starts to fade. “Good. No sense to waste your strength.” 

Wobbly, spitting: “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” A pause. “It’s not your fault.”

You laugh, as if Nanami’s cracked a funny joke, and it’s gut-wrenching. “Remember how… we can curse each other? Ourselves? True curses.”

Faintly amused, immeasurably strained: “I thought it was still a hypothesis regarding those who don’t have the correct bloodline and the ability to curse through their own will.”

“No…Not a hypothesis. Real, Nanami. Real. No one knows how cursed energy affects us. Not really. Since, in my opinion, it’s entirely based on how we process things… it’s so difficult to say but when you know someone…” You break off to clear your throat. “The curse of adulthood… some of us got that too early… but we can survive that and even if it’s not a curse by… definition, we still feel it, right?” 

Satoru clasps his hands together just so he doesn’t rip the door open at the hinges.

“Right.”

“And… knowledge… can be a curse. Even if we can’t see it.” A ragged breath. Then, another laugh too loud for the grey light outside, too bright, a spark before it fizzles into, again, pained choking. “Nanami, remember last year… the job out in Yama… Yamaguchi?”

“Yes.”

“And we came back… Okkotsu was beginning his first year at the college… what I—what I told you?”

“…Yes.” A beat passes. A chair shifts on the linoleum floor and Nanami clears his throat. “I see.”

“I don’t want him to be so alone. I know I was never the strongest or the smartest or the most talented but I liked to think he let me in because I was there. Not because I understood. Maybe… Maybe because I didn’t. Nanami, please… he always try to stay so far away from the people he thinks he can’t love. Tell him… tell him—“

You break off and Nanami assures you with a steadfastness Satoru has counted on so many times before: “I will.” 

“…thank you.”

Eyes shutting tight, Satoru rests his brow against the heel of his hand. His head is aching, and a hard fist grabs his chest, squeezes his heart until it feels like it’ll burst. So this is how you’re really feeling. When you’re not smiling, this is what you are. Angry at the world, and heartbroken.

So terribly heartbroken.

And you couldn’t trust him with it? Because you thought he couldn’t handle it? 

He can take it. It’ll be okay because he’s the strongest. He has to be. 

I’m the strongest. I should be okay. I’m the strongest.

I’m the Strongest.

The headache gets worse so he gets up from that corner in the dead-end hallway, all the while three words replay in his head like a goddamn gramophone.

Nanami doesn’t come out of the room for a while. When he does, Satoru walks down the hall with takeout and a smile plastered on his face as if he had heard nothing at all.

.

At just past one-thirty AM, Satoru sits up from his cot and rubs at his eyes. After dinner, the both of them had forced themselves to go to sleep in order to have enough energy for their little late night excursion. He glances at you, a slumbering shape on the bed, and gets up, slowly sliding on the lights. They burn a dim orange, glowing on your face, and your eyebrows furrow as he touches your cheek.

“What?” you mumble, vexed, and he smiles.

“Are you ready?” he asks. A backpack is situated at the end of his bedframe and he reaches for it, unzipping it carefully as you crack your eyes open. “We’re going to go see the eclipse, remember?” Pulling out clothes he robbed from your room in the staff facility from when you used to work full time, he grabs your shoulder and shakes you gently. The gnarled roots under your skin feel strange against his fingers as you groan weakly. “Do you want five more minutes, Sleeping Beauty?”

You don’t answer, burying your face into your pillow and he shakes his head to himself. It’s going to be all right, he thinks. I planned for this setback.

Slipping into a dark long-sleeve, he parts the black-out curtains to let light come in. He checks his reflection in the bathroom mirror before running a hand through his hair and washing his hands with a cold stream of water. By the time he leaves the bathroom, you’re sitting up already, heel of your hand rubbing against your brow as you groan. In your other hand in your lap, there’s a splash of blood and a lone petal, and he rushes to your side instantly.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t even hear—“

“It came out easy,” you assure as he grabs a tissue to pick it off your hand and throw it into the receptacle at the table just beyond the foot of your bed. Wiping at your mouth roughly, he hears your complaints and your hand shoves against his shoulder to tell him to quit it. “Ah, I can do it myself!”

“Shh! Do you want every nurse storming in here while we conduct our super secret getaway?” he whispers, and your eyes fix on his. Dark circles mark your face like bruises, but that light is still the same—glimmering, bright, like twin suns and just as warm. Making sure your hands are clean, he wipes the invisible streaks of blood just to be sure before grabbing your clothes and setting them at the end of the bed.

You glance around the place sluggishly, at the paintings you never got to finish, and the books you haven’t finished reading, before settling on him. “What are we going to do about the… about the machines? And my IV…” 

“Oh, trust me. I may have bribed a nurse or two,” he confesses and you send him a scandalized look. He shrugs. “What? You told me a woman liked me and I couldn’t help but turn on my natural charm.”

“You’re awful,” you say without meaning it and he smiles as he moves your bed into a sitting position. You cough lightly, but sit up straighter as he carefully unhooks the huge bag and pump from your stand and gently slides it into the pocket in the backpack, resisting the urge to squish the pouch a bit. Strapping the pump in, he makes sure it’s secure as you peer around him to catch what he’s doing. “Is this… safe for me, you—you know, medically-speaking?”

“Nope.” He adjusts the tubing to avoid any kinks. “But, Purple gave me this backpack and she will come as soon as we come back to make sure you aren’t dying. And, if anything goes wrong, I promised her I’d come back as soon as possible.”

“Promised her?” you echo “I see. So that’s what Purple… was doing before my afternoon nap. I thought you guys traded suspicious looks.”

“Yeah. I’m pulling big strings. Now, c’mon, silly. Let’s get you dressed.”

You roll your eyes with a whistling breath. “Watch the tube… and c’mere, then, Gojo.”

He grabs the jacket first and does exactly as you order. Wrapping it around you, he helps you thread your arms through before zipping you up carefully as your shoulders begin to shake. Bending over, you reach blindly for the receptacle at the end of the bed and he hands it over to you.

A wad of saliva mixed with blood slips between your lips and you let out a low noise before forcing yourself to cough harshly again and again. Satoru watches. No matter how many times he sees you rip your throat up just to breathe with a bit less pressure in your chest, it doesn’t get any easier.

You manage to get up a whole magenta blossom. It blooms from your mouth like something out of a horror movie and lands in the receptacle before he’s wiping your mouth.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.”

They continue on.

Coat, next, zipped up, and a scarf, then he’s scooping up your legs to help you twist on the mattress until your feet are dangling off the edge. He weaves your legs through the sweat pants, careful not to let his gaze avert from his task even as the hospital gown trails up your legs. You shiver at the exposed skin and gooseflesh pimples your thighs as you lift up your hips to help with the effort. He pulls the hospital gown free from the waistband and lets it fall over the hem so you’re completely covered before falling back.

In a crouch, he pats your knees and makes the mistake of looking up only to find your eyes already on him, searching, nearly mystified. Satoru’s throat tightens. The faint light streaming from the window catches half of your face, as if half-divine. There’s a curiosity there, lingering, and the way you look at him makes him freeze in his spot.

Is this how Suguru saw you a thousand times before, a thousand lifetimes ago? Is this what he felt? 

Did he see the way your pupils dilate, the flare of your nostrils as you exhaled so quietly that it felt like a feather against his lips despite the distance between them? Did he see galaxies in your irises, home in the softness of your stare? Is that why he kissed you the last time he saw you? To memorialize their love for himself, to remember what it looked like when you loved him?  

Did he feel like he could fight dragons, crush demons, rip their world apart at the seams and rebuild it again with bloodied nails if it meant you would never cry again? Is that part of why he did it? So you would never be lonely again? 

Because if so, Satoru understands. 

Because if so, Satoru would do the same.

Because he always saw you as just pretty, because you had always been just his friend, and then his best friend’s girlfriend, and then his best friend, so there were always lines drawn in salt, scuffed and distorted over the years, but…

But in the light, tired and lost in his gaze, you’re nearly ethereal. The only reason he knows you’re not a goddess is because he’s still touching your knees, and your breath quivers, as if you’re just as disconnected from the world as he is in this moment.

Lips pressing together, he looks away, and the moment’s gone. 

He glances at the clock. 

How long has it been since he moved? It feels like hours.

Twenty-seven seconds.

Twenty-seven seconds of temptation, and then Satoru turned away. 

He slants to grab a pair of thick woolly socks to give himself something to do. You’re still watching him, head tilted down just so, and he carefully takes hold of your ankle.

He focuses on the little things: the iciness of your skin, the way you pick at the fabric of your sweatpants absently as you watch him work, the way you shiver a bit when he touches you.

He rubs heat back into the arch of your foot as you reach into your jacket slowly to carefully remove the nodes monitoring your vitals. You seem stiff to the bone, and your fingers are rigid with anticipated pain as you peel off the stickers. In the back of his mind, he remembers the days that feel like yesterday when you weren’t hooked up to so many machines to assure both you and him that you’re still alive.

Removing the cap for the oximeter from your finger, you shake yourself out a bit, clearing your throat. He slides one sock on, and then the other.

“How’re you feeling?” he finally utters.

It takes you a moment to answer. “Bottom half feels tingly. Usual these days. My body feels like a big giant bruise,” you inform quietly. Your voice is nothing more than a rasp. “Very warm and toasty, though… Thank you.”

“Just gotta get the shoes on and then we’ll teleport there.”

“Okay.” He helps you slip your feet in, something straight out of Cinderella, and then he stands up to take your hands. Your fingers slip into his palms, and he holds you so tightly as you slide off the bed. The instant your feet hit the floor, your grip intensifies and your head snaps down to the floor. You find your footing after a moment, and he lets go to crack open your window. Moving your plants aside, he climbs out to glance around. 

The air is crisp and cold, but not too bad for him. Even so, he’ll probably slip on a hoodie before they leave and he ducks back in to your room to do so, tugging it down his waist before grabbing the backpack.

“Arms through,” he instructs, slipping the backpack onto your shoulders. Guiding you closer, he helps you shuffle as close as possible towards him before turning around and bending over. “Alright, climb on. We’re going.” 

Your arms touch his shoulders, his hands shoot out behind him, and you fall.

Fingers hooking on your thighs, he boosts you up and your arms wrap around him, your own fingers wrapped so tightly around his collar that it nearly chokes him. Haphazardly stepping through the windows, his fingers sink into the fabric of your sweats. Your breath is warm against the shell of his ear, and he can feel your heart pulsing against his back as he turns to look at you. 

He smiles. “How’s it feel?”

“I’m still not sure if you’re going to let me die.” You press your face closer to his head and your arms tighten. “But the wind feels so good. So, so good.”

“That’d be too undignified,” he teases, and then he jumps. Time seems to slow as it always does when he’s about to teleport. He imagines the staff facility on the campus, quiet as a cemetery at this time of night, and his heart lurches forward. For a moment, his senses leave him all at once. He can’t taste or feel or see anything for a fraction of a second, then it comes to him in blinding speed. His hearing, as always, is first, then his eyes, smell and then touch and smell.

His foot lands on stone, as if he’s just finished a small skip, and he grins as he sweeps the courtyard. No one, as planned. The building’s to his immediate right, and he climbs the steps, using your knee to nudge the door open.

“That was fun,” you comment. “Convenient, too. Blink of an eye, and you’re somewhere else.”

“You can’t even begin to imagine how many lines I’ve skipped because of it,” he comments. The lights are all off, and he heads for the kitchen immediately to grab all the food he’s bought. Setting you down on the kitchen counter, he takes out another canvas bag and stuffs all of the food in.

Daifuku with of all kinds of fillings in the fridge, fresh dorayaki, canned coffee and aloe drinks, sweet soymilk and other wagashi they used to feast on when they were younger. Mostly because Satoru would buy enough to feed a kingdom so he always had something on hand for his overactive brain. You watch him with wide eyes as he moves around with such purpose one could think he was preparing to fight an army, but as soon as he finishes, he flashes you a smile.

“I think you’re going to like where we’re going a lot, silly.”

“Didn’t have to buy stuff,” you mutter, fingers playing with the tube leading into your backpack for a moment.

“You haven’t eaten in weeks. I thought maybe we could at least try. Maybe not now, but at the end of the night, before we go back. Just in case.”

“I can’t eat, though.”

“Don’t know until I stuff it down your throat,” he replies cheerily, and you smile at him so brightly it’s almost like you aren’t sick. Then, that smile turns into a cough, a fist in front of your lips, and your expression is frozen into one of exasperation before it flickers into strained. He sets down his bag, already knowing what comes next.

You make a hacking sound, deep in your throat, and he shifts you closer to the sink so you can lean over and throw up. Gagging, it comes in red and clear torrents, the cursed energy spilling out of your body nearly making it incinerating to even touch you as you clutch the edge of the sink basin. 

You fall to your elbows, and Satoru eases you off the counter so he can hold you up instead of the cramping body contortion you sink into. Cupping the juncture of your shoulder and neck, his thumb sweeps soothingly over your root-invested spine, tossing the ends of the scarf over your shoulder and out of the way.

Settling a hand on your hip, he presses you against the countertop so you don’t fall, and hopes your legs can hold you up long enough for him to reach for the hand towel. You spit just as he manages to grab it, snapping back into position and peering over your shoulder to inspect how much you’ve coughed up. You shudder and a tortured moan wrenches out of your throat as you sink, forehead against the cool metal.

You’re scorching to touch, but he tightens his hold on you anyway, setting the towel aside for just a moment. Carefully, he pulls you back up and you let out an drained whine, but he shushes you quietly, turning you around and guiding your head over his shoulder so you don’t stare at the rot any longer.

Satoru knows you would, even if you pretend like you aren’t plagued with morbid, self-destructive curiosity.

Looking into the sink, he counts a few petals and three whole flowers, and you’re quivering against him as he wraps his arm around you. 

“Alright, lean back for me,” he whispers into your ear, and you obey. His arm around you crooks so he supports your head, the other grabbing the towel again. Exhaustion seems to have sluiced through you, and your eyes are nearly unfocused as he dabs at your mouth carefully. His blue eyes focus on the gentle curve of your lips, and your cheeks puff up before you swallow tightly and let out a shaking breath.

“You’re really close,” you mumble in that exhale. He tilts your chin to the light to make sure he hasn’t missed a spot, and your eyelids flutter as the corners of his lips quirk up. His Six Eyes pick up a muted yellow emanating from you, and it’s so warm against his skin that he can’t help but relish in the feeling. “You smell nice.”

“Good. I took a shower before I came today. Well, yesterday,” he amends softly. “Alright, let’s go before you hack up your other lung.”

“Funny.” Nonetheless, he scoops you back up onto his back and he rinses down the sink as you rest your head against his. He feels you breathing steadily, much easier now than before. Red swirls down the drains, and he watches the magenta petals slowly reveal their true colours. There’s a flash of white in the center of each one, and he wonders silently what flower it is and what it means.

Maybe he’ll find out some day.

When the kitchen’s back to the state they entered, he grabs the bag of food and holds onto your legs tightly as your arms around his neck shift and pull him closer. 

This time, when he teleports, it’s not as jarring. Walking around the balcony, he makes sure no one’s in the area before checking that the door to the roof is locked and heading back out into the night air, towards where they can see the moon clearest.

“Hey, open your eyes,” he whispers over his ear, and your head shifts.

“Hm? Oh!” He feels you wriggle, but he doesn’t let you go as he walks closer to the spot he’s set up. Near the railing, a blanket surrounded by pillows is laid out surrounded by a few space heaters. The moon is hanging perfectly in front of them, and the light illuminates the forests in silver as a gentle wind whistles through. Tranquil, the only sound is his footsteps on wood as you manage to pull your legs free with a harsh twist of your torso. Your hand slaps against the railing and he whirls around to hold you up but you grit your teeth. “I can do it.”

Breathing in deeply, you pull yourself past him using mostly your arms. Your feet drag as if they’re not really attached to a living body but you still move steady onward, and he walks ahead to turn on the heaters and set the food down as far away as he can so it doesn’t spoil too quickly.

“Satoru,” you breathe as if for the first time,” it’s so fucking beautiful up here.” Looking up, his heartstrings twinge. Your face is bathed almost entirely in silver, and it drapes down your body like silk, illuminating the cord of your throat he can see above the scarf, the strength of your hands. A smile brighter than even the most blinding sun rays comes across your face and he finds that the moon pales in comparison as your knees begin to give.

Reaching forward, he helps you sink down slowly, and then sit down, legs hanging off the edge and then you’re leaning to rest your elbows on the middle bar of the wooden railing. You can’t stop staring at the moon, and Satoru can’t stop staring at you as he opens the box of daifuku and pops one into his mouth. 

“The eclipse should be starting in a few minutes,” he says, checking his watch. 2:10. Four minutes to go. You finally tear your eyes away from the moon to look at him.

“I forgot…” you muse. “I forgot how bright… the moon was.”  

He settles in beside you and offers a canned coffee, but you shake your head. He cracks it open for himself. 

“We’re about to watch the moon change,” he notes. “But I read that it’ll last six hours.”

“Really?” Excited, you look up at the moon again. The lunar rays outline your already-pronounced eye bags but it also makes you look more beatific. “That’s just proof… our time here on Earth is so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. It really makes you—makes you think how much we really matter. Which doesn’t seem like a lot, compared to things like a… fucking lunar eclipse.”

The moon’s opinion doesn’t matter more than mine, he thinks. “Well, while we’re waiting for your next epiphany to hit you,” he says instead, “you never answered my question.”

You smile, intrigued. “What’s that?”

“What if we removed the flowers bit by bit, rather than all at once?” he asks. Your gaze snaps to him, but he only regards you honestly. “That gives you a fighting chance.” Your eyes widen imperceptibly, and he grabs another mochi ball and takes a bite.

“The roots and flowers are too entangled in my chest to be removed safely. It’s either they remove my lungs completely, or not at all, and finding a… match for one lung is hard enough, much less two perfect lungs…” You trail off and shrug. “Well, that’d take forever… and I wouldn’t get much… longer, anyway. I’m a sorcerer. I always knew… I was going to die, so why not die on my own t-terms?”

He frowns. “Why not try?”

“Give me your phone.”

He does so, and watches you type in a query you must’ve typed before with how quick your lethargic fingers fly over the screen before you’re shoving it back towards him and leaning forward on the railing, chin to your forearms. You don’t even look at him, as if you don’t want to watch him crumble.

He reads: The first year after the transplant is the most critical period wrought with surgical complications, chances of rejection, and infection… Although there are some reports of some people living for 20 years post-transplant, many people do not make it past 10 years and only half make it past 5…

His stomach curdles. “Five years is better than nothing.”

“Five years worrying when my lungs are going to… kick it,” you correct. “Besides, my ribs are mangled by the roots. And my heart. My stomach. My spine. I’m undernourished, exhausted, and everything in here”—you gesture slowly around your abdomen—“is doing overtime. My body’s too weak to handle any kind of surgery that wouldn’t heal me… immediately.” 

Your eyes find his, and it’s as if lightning strikes through him like a spear—piercing cold and electrifying. You’re beginning to blue in the lips like you’re freezing to death, but he’s sweating under the blast of the heaters. 

Pulling off his hoodie, he drapes it around your shoulders. You don’t react anymore than: “Sucks, but that’s how it is.”

A few more minutes pass by in silence. Their knees knock into one another, and Satoru can’t stop looking at you as you breathe in the home you left months ago, head lifted to the inky universe.

“You know I can tell when you’re—when you’re angry with me,” you utter, not looking at him. “No matter how much you smile at me, you’re still too passive aggressive to cover it up.”

The words spill out of his mouth as you lower your gaze to him. “I’m sorry.” No sense in lying. 

“That’s okay.” You smile for a moment, like he hasn’t said something worth ruining a night over, but when you look up at the stars, it fades. Wistful, you cock your head at the moon that hasn’t gone away just yet and lower your chin to your arms again. “It’s not really something that was… fair of me to ask anyway.” 

.

Just as the moon turns yellow, he remembers something. Bending back to root through your backpack, he excuses himself. You frown. “What are you—“

“I got a camera for this occasion,” he announces, withdrawing the camera and a plastic bag, leaning back to snap a quick picture of you. You squint at the flash, mouth opened in an incredulous smile and face half-turned away, before the photo rolls out. “Like the one you used to carry around.”

“Some memories to hold on to, huh.” You reach for the camera and your fingers wrap around it, aiming it right at him. A flash and two peace signs later, another image joins the one of you Satoru slides into the plastic zip bag. “Hold on. I want to take another one.”

“We should do one of both of us.”

“Ugh, fine… I don’t look good at all, though.“

“Too late.” He snatches the camera from you and sticks out his hand, dragging an arm around your shoulders and you lean into him, temple against his cheek as he snaps another photo, and then another of him making a stupid face. Another of you mid-laugh. You’re wheezing for air as he keeps grabbing the polaroids as fast as he can with the arm that’s around your shoulder, leading to a bunch of jostling that has you in stitches at his frantic panic whenever the new photo chugs out of the slit.

When he’s had his fill of making you laugh, Satoru leaves you alone to look at the moon. He can’t stop grinning stupidly with every photo and while you watch the moon slowly descent into the earth’s shadow, he shuffles through the photos he just took of them together, trying to brand them to memory.

The way he looks at you in these photos makes him believe in something. In something that could’ve been there if they had more time, and he could convince you to open your heart up to a new possibility.

.

Another hour passes. The moon hangs a strange transition between black and blood red and a paler peach orange. A glimmering yellow dot sparkles below it, and he wonders if that’s Mars.

The forests seem almost hauntingly quiet, and no one has spoken in the darkness. You regard the moon, so enraptured, and more photos have joined the zip bag, but they’re mostly of you. He’s managed to sneak them in by turning off the flash and upping the brightness settings so it’d still be visible, and he hopes you never realize that he’s got them. 

Satoru has never been interested in astronomy, but the stars in your eyes are changing his mind.

He’s dug his hand into the bag of dorayaki already. He remembers it’s supposed to be for you, too, but his hands are too empty without the camera, his brain going a mile a minute and the air absolutely quiet with nothing. 

Twenty minutes ago, you asked him to help you take off your coat so you can pull on his hoodie, and haven’t moved since zipping yourself back up. The air smells only of canned coffee and the stinging wind carrying the scent of cedar. Feet swinging, he drapes his arms over the railing and looks up at the red moon.

It is pretty. Magnificent, and ominous, almost. The night is so much darker without the moon. Sheesh, colder, too. I wonder if you’re feeling okay. Maybe I should check, but you don’t seem to be shaking. Worst comes to worst, I could up the level on the space heaters…

“I don’t think I ever got to hear his last words,” you muse quietly, voice cracking, rousing him from his monologue. His head swings to you. Your eyes are barely open as you rest your cheek against your forearm, and you don’t look at Satoru despite your head turned towards him. Instead, he can watch the pieces of you fall apart without your scrutiny. “I used to think… that I didn’t care.”

“Do you want me to tell you?” he asks slowly as you continue to stare blankly over his ear. Your chest stutters in its inhale and the exhale is just as shaky as you smile a bit to yourself. He takes that as answer, and as he speaks, he sees Suguru’s smile—bright against the darkness of the alleyway, and a reminder of a simpler time. Satoru’s heart quickens from the memory “‘At least curse me a little at the very end.’”

You’re quiet for a moment, as if soaking that in. Then, you draw yourself up and sigh. “That sounds like him.”

You say it fighting off a laugh, even though it wracks your body with such intense pain you can barely breathe. You begin to wheeze not even a second in, and still, your face is cracked into an agonizing smile as you blink, tears slipping down your cheeks. Your eyes squeeze shut and your body goes stiff as you cough, hands flying over your lips. Your shoulders shake so uncontrollably it’s like an earthquake in your body, but Satoru cannot find it in him to calm you down as you hunch over yourself.

It comes in its own course, until you’re nothing but a gasping body, crying into bloodied palms cupping purple flowers, and the low sobs that spill and stutter out of your throat makes Satoru wish he never told you.

“‘At least curse me a little at the very end,’” you repeat to yourself, voice raw and iron-like, and your eyes finally rise to meet his. Nothing but hollow purple pierces through him once more. “Yeah… Yeah, that sounds like him.” 

An apology bubbles at his lips, but you continue before he can even begin. Your hands fall to to your laps, and you look at the decaying flowers, thumbs stroking the petals. “I could never make him truly happy… could I? Just like he said… nothing would’ve been good enough for him while we lived in this kind of world. No matter how many times I sat by him while he swallowed… swallowed those curses, held his hand, held him, I would have never been… enough to make him laugh from his heart.” Your tears cast dark shadows. “I held him, Satoru, with all my might… and I still felt him slip away between my fingers.”

That’s how Satoru learns you were there that day, December 24th, not a snowflake in sight. Just a few metres away, you stood for only a moment before you walked away from the man you loved so he could die without any regret, at the cost of your own guilt eating you alive.

No one speaks after that. Satoru cleans your hands slowly, carefully, giving attention to each finger, before swiping your lips, and then he wipes your tears away but you’re not crying anymore.

You just look up at the moon emptily and he scoots closer in hopes to keep your returning trembling at bay.

“Ten years is a very… long time to love someone.” You break the silence. He doesn’t know how long it’s been. Fifteen, thirty minutes? He looks at you, and your lips press into a thin smile. He lifts his arm so you can scoot up close next to him. Your eyes never leave his face, regarding him with new clarity. “I just… realized.”

“Ten years is a very long time for anything,” he replies quietly, their faces very close. Their noses brush, and a warmth spreads through his cheeks as he presses the tip of your nose against his. You don’t pull away. Instead, you almost lean closer. Your nose is cold against his hot face, and he rubs it slowly with his own, trying to send heat back into your skin.

“A very long time to… wait.” Your eyes flutter shut, and your breath is warm over his lips as you slowly tilt your head so their foreheads meet. His hand squeezes your waist. You smell like the hospital, but there’s still the fragrance of the fresh-cut grass and herbs clinging to your skin as he moves his head just to the side so his nose presses into your frozen cheek. Your arm moves as if dragging through honey until it’s wrapped around his neck, palm flat against his shoulder, just as their brows press against one another. 

Something ignites inside his chest, incinerating the rot that seems to grow inside his own chest—it’s his dread, he realizes a moment later. An ugly knot of dread for what’s to come, the guilt, the cold grief that’s just out of reach. 

It’ll unfurl soon, he knows, but for now, he welcomes the relief you bring him.

In this moment, you are his, and he is yours, and that is all that matters.

His eyes close. His cheeks are burning hotter than the heaters surrounding them, and he feels a smile pulling at his lips as your fingers curl against the back of his neck.

“When will people… stop waiting?” you ask him, hushed like a secret.

Eyes opening, he answers you in the same soft voice, “Probably when they die.”

Your eyes crack open once more and he catches a sliver between your heavy lids. You’re so close he sees every detail of your irises, the pores of your eye bags, the way memories flicker through your pupils like fish in a river.

Your exhausted smile grows more genuine—something inside you seems to rear its bright little head, but it’s sad, and he realizes, then, what you must’ve been thinking. Words fumble at his mouth, but he doesn’t let anything slip as you lift your face away to rest your head against his shoulder.

.

You’re dozing against him. Satoru is staring up at the moon in your stead. It’s nearly fully that famous shade of dark blood red, but not quite. He can’t hear anything except the buzz of the space heaters and your breathing. His arm is still wrapped tight around you, holding you flush against him. He’s wished he’d done it so many times before that now, he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself.

You’re dying. Even as you rest against him, he feels it. The weakness in your body, the way you’ve turned ghost-like. The strength of your Cursed Energy has become more prominent now that you don’t have the energy to channel it properly, and it’s centred so strongly in your chest that he can feel it poking curiously at him, leaving little marks, a souvenir for when you’re gone.

His fingers dig into your side. You let out a noise, head shifting, and he rips his gaze away away from the sky as your hand falls away from where it had rested around his neck into his lap.

“Satoru?” you whisper brokenly, and he nods, smiling. He pulls you closer, but their bodies are so pressed against each other that it only serves to make you huff a bit.

“Hey. You’re still with us, don’t worry,”

“Not worried,” you mumble, lifting your head with difficulty. “Just glad you’re here.” You tilt your face to the moon. “It’s still… red, huh…” You shake, your hand at the hem of his shirt twisting tightly. He reaches to squeeze your arm and hopes it’ll be enough now. “Pretty.” Throat dry, he does not answer. His white hair falls into his eyes as you look up at him, and he decays at the vulnerability in your gaze. “Aren’t you glad… that we saw the eclipse?”

Jaw clenching, he nods and tries his best to smile. Your hand lets go of his shirt and you shuffle up close enough that your other arm sneaks around his waist. Touching his chin with trembling fingers, your eyes glitter in the darkness of his shadow.

“I’m going to miss this. The moon, stars, how… fucking short… ’n’ beautiful life is,” you finally whisper, throat tight. “Makes shit worth living for. Maybe… won’t miss it… the most… but, top three.”

“Top three?” he echoes. “Top three sounds pretty good to me.”

“And, y’know what, Satoru?” you continue in the same low, husky tone, as if you’re about to change his world one more time.

He drops to the lowest, quietest voice he can manage and moves his head closer. Their noses nearly bump into each other again, and you smile as he quirks an eyebrow. “What’s that?”

“You’re… going to miss me… more.” 

Your hand on his waist travels up his shoulder and he feels the last of your strength in your muscles as you pull him towards you. Letting you, his arms wrap around your waist as your other arm shoots around his neck, clinging on so hard that he’s sure his spine might break. 

Flattening his palms against your uneven back, he closes his eyes and slides a hand to cradle your head close.

“And promise… me something,” you breathe into his ear. Your lips brush the shell of his ear, and a shiver shoots down his spine.

“Anything.”

“When I kick it,” you whisper, “take my body, and bury me… yourself.”

Throat swelling shut, Satoru’s glad you can’t see the way the blood drains from his face as he nods and holds you tighter. “I will.”

.

“One more photo for the road?” he asks. You lift your head from his chest, and he looks as you reach to sweep his lips with cold, trembling fingers. He smiles, his hand on your thigh squeezing meaningfully even though you can barely feel it now. Your arms are bundled between your chest and his, and he hauls your legs on his thighs more securely up his lap, arm tightening around your torso.

“Satoru,” you murmur, tilting your head to him. His eyes never move from yours as he picks up the camera, and your hand falls from his lips. “I’m glad… that it was you.”

He snaps the shot and the only sound that fills the silence is the camera chugging out the polaroid. Your eyes are dark, murky and unfocused, and he feels your stammering inhale in his very lungs as he presses his forehead against yours.

“I’m happy it was you, too,” he whispers. You search his gaze for only a moment, and then turn your head to the moon once more. 

Lowering the camera to the floor, he sneaks his other arm around you and rests his chin atop of your head, eyes sliding shut.

.

Nanami, Yaga, and Ijichi approach, dress shoes tapping against linoleum floors. Satoru and Shoko say nothing to them as they join in watching through the glass doors.

Satoru doesn’t like the room they’ve moved you to. It’s too full of machines, too open to passersby who could just look in if the curtains aren’t drawn, and even then…

It smells too clinical here. Too full of artificial light. The ICU is a mechanical sort of silence than the quiet peace of the dead-end hallway. There is no warmth, no books, no paintings. Your plants have been removed, and Nanami has taken all of them into his apartment except the red tulips which rest on the dinner table in Satoru’s kitchen.

You stopped being able to breathe on your own only a day after the eclipse. That was two days ago, and the ventilator is doing nothing more than prolonging your agony. Soon, the growths will block your lungs entirely, suffocating you from the inside out. 

The doctors have stopped taking scans.

“It’s only a matter of time, now,” Shoko had said. “Her directive says we let her go as soon as she can’t come back.” Quieter: “Her pulse ox has been dropping. It won’t be long.”

Ijichi’s face is stony. Satoru doesn’t know why he focuses on him out of everyone. Leaning against the nurse’s station, he stares blankly at the Assistant Director’s. Maybe because he thought he’d be a wreck. Out of all of them, Ijichi’s the most emotional, but his lips are set firm from where he stands between Nanami and their principal.

Maybe Satoru’s just looking for permission to fall apart, but that’d be stupid. 

I’m the strongest. I’ll be fine.

“I’m going to go in,” he announces. No one protests. Nanami sits down and crosses one leg over the other, fingers steepled and eyes indecipherable. Shoko sits beside him. There’s the faint scent of smoke clinging to her lab coat. 

Ijichi dips his head, but doesn’t sit and Yaga excuses himself to talk to the nurse about your condition.

Satoru sanitizes his hands, approaches the door, and pulls it open before stepping in and sliding it shut behind him. 

Click. Hiss. 

The sound of the ventilator is the only thing that occupies the room. That and the monitors. It’s very dark, despite it being the middle of the day. Mostly because you can’t open your eyes wide enough to withstand the sun anymore, so Satoru had asked the nurses to bring the same blackout curtains from your room here. The lights are dimmed until it’s only an orange glow right behind your bed. 

Click. Hiss.

Sitting down, he doesn’t take hold of your hand just in case you’re sleeping. The intubation tube rests on a pile of towels on your chest, and it takes a long time before your eyes open and your head tilts just enough to look. Your hand twists on top of the covers until your palm is tilted open.

He slips fingers in, takes hold. The feel of your skin making everything worse. You’re colder than you should be—it’s sweltering in this room, enough that Satoru is already beginning to sweat even through his short-sleeve—and your fingers just barely twitch against the back of his hand, tracing strange shapes.

You blink, tapping his knuckle, and he frowns.

“What’s up?” Withdrawing, he feels your nail scrape against his flesh and he looks down. Curiously, he takes your hand and places it on top of his so your fingers can touch the lines of his palm. “Are you spelling something out?” he asks, amused, glancing up again.

Another blink, slower this time.

He leans forward on his elbow to touch your cheek before resting his cheek against his fist.

“Alright, give it your best shot.” 

Your eyelids flutter, lips trembling in a weak smile. Your index finger begins to trace shapes, kanji, into his palm. Your chest rises and fall slowly, pumped full of air by a machine hooked to your lungs, forcing breath into you as your writing grows sloppy by the passing second but you still persist.

ANGRY?

“Angry?” he repeats, and you blink slowly again, fingers insistent on grabbing his palm. Folding his fingers over yours, he arches his eyebrows. “If I was angry at a terminally ill patient, that’d make me the asshole here.” Your eyes squeeze shut, eyebrows rearranging in what he recognizes as your laugh in silence. More seriously, his hold on you tightens and he lifts his head to brush his fingers over your brow. You tilt your head more to him, gaze murky warm. “How’re you feeling?”

It takes a while, but he feels your hand shuffle back to trace your answer on his hand.

BETTER

“Better. Yeah?”

Another lethargic blink. Yes.

“It’s because of me, right? I knew it. I knew it. We should tell Shoko—I’m the newest medical innovation in town,” he proclaims, and his smile begs to slip off his face but he only forces it back on, shoves it into place. Your eyebrows move again, like you’re struggling to hold back your laugh. Your eyes slip shut and do not open again. 

Your face goes lax a moment later, and your fingers loosen a bit, but he doesn’t let go. He just wants to touch your face and trace the lines into his memory. 

Satoru stretches his thumb along the swell of your bottom lip while carefully avoiding the tube. He runs his knuckles down your cheek. His fingers brush your pulse point along your neck, and he feels the slow, weak beat.

Click. Hiss.

He thinks you’re asleep for a while, until your finger drags over the flesh of his palm and he looks down, hand lifting from your face. 

“Hey, I’m still here,” he whispers, and your face turns towards him slightly, the tube in your mouth shuffling. He reaches forward, cupping your face and holding you still. “Hey. Don’t move. Your lungs are weaker than the rest of you and I’m not about to watch you die.” Something grabs onto the front of his shirt near his stomach and he looks down to see your fingers hooking on the cotton of his tee, twisting it weakly. “Oh, sorry.”

He draws back and slips his palm back into yours. Your index finger taps against the heel of his hand before your nail drags deliberately. One stroke. Then another, and another. Gojo wishes your eyes were open, because then he would be able to determine what the rest of the sentence could spell out before you’re done, but he’s patient. 

HERE

“Here?” You tap on his hand. Yes. “What’s here?”

YOU AND ME

“You and me,” he repeats thoughtfully. “Yeah, I get that. At least… now you can see Suguru again, right?” Your hand goes still and he looks at your face, reaching to touch your cheek again. You’re placid—doll-like, eyes shut, living dead. “I’m a bit jealous of that, but you should rest easy. It’s been a hard few months, hasn’t it?”

Another weak twitch of your finger on his hand.

“No matter what happens, don’t think I’m angry at you, or the choices you’ve made,” he continues. “As long as you let me stay here, I won’t waste a single second of it, okay?” Tap. He squeezes your hand so tightly your eyebrows twitch, even as you slip away from him. “For all your saying that you’re weaker than me, I never thought that. Not really.” Satoru raises your hand to his lips and he closes his eyes. “Being the strongest is pretty lonely. Used to be so fucking cocky about it, huh. Thought no one could touch me or the people I cared about because everyone would be too scared.”

Your fingers curl against his palm and he lowers his head to press your knuckles against his brow.

“I was wrong. I’d give anything to have you both back, but I can’t, and I hate it. You’re supposed to be with me at the top. I don’t want to be alone again.” His eyes are burning from the strain of keeping them open, but he refuses to miss a second of you being alive when the time is trickling like sand in an hourglass. He feels it like a heavy stare on his back, wondering if this next breath will be the last one before your brain finally decides to shut down. Your organs have been shutting down for nearly weeks now. He knows it’s out of pure selfishness that they’re dragging precious moments into agonizing hours. 

He knows you’re exhausted. 

Resting his chin on your fingers, he swallows. “I don’t know how to let you go. I wished I’d come sooner. I was careless. I know that. We could’ve had more time…”

Your fingers squeeze his as tight as you can before letting go. Somehow, he hears your voice in his ear. Something about being grateful for the time they did have.

“You were right, silly.” He chuckles to himself, bitter, anguished, and lowers your hand back to the bed, not letting go yet. “Ten years is a long time to wait. I let you down, but I’ll make sure you go easy. I promise.”

Satoru lays his head down on his forearm and he swears he catches your lips pull into the faintest smile. He stays there for hours, watching your face, stretching up to touch your unmoving face. The only sound is his steady breaths, the beep of your monitors and the click-hiss of your ventilator. 

It’s 1:04 PM when he falls asleep to the sleepy circles you trace into his wrist

It’s 6:22 PM when only one of them wakes up.

.

At 11:00 AM the next morning, during one of the hourly tests, they declare you brain-dead. With the announcement of your directive being honoured by your chosen proxy, Satoru himself, classes are cancelled and they are scheduled to take you off life support at six.

Ijichi brings them lunch and dinner. Satoru doesn’t eat. Only sits by your side, leaned back into the chair and looking at you while he still can until the clock ticks and ticks and ticks towards doomsday. The kids come to say final goodbyes while he watches on. Inumaki, as always, brings Panda through his phone, and Satoru wishes there could’ve been some way to sneak Panda into a high-class hospital just so their last moments together aren’t cheapened by a screen.

Shoko enters five minutes before it’s time, hand finding his shoulder and he looks up just long enough to catch her blank stare resting on your face.

She doesn’t say anything, only moves to the other side of the bed and sits down in the other chair.

The doctor pumps you full of sedation drugs, so you won’t feel any of the pain, unhooks the machines, and extubates you, explaining all the while what he’s doing just to fill the silence. As he pulls the tube from your throat, something in Satoru turns icy when a purple petal is plastered to the side of the plastic, but the doctor does not acknowledge it any more than murmuring that he will give them privacy.

Your rattling breaths echo in his ears as he watches the numbers slowly drop, but even your inhales fade to nothing more than soft, slight wheezes. The tape has left a strange mark around your mouth, and you’re unmoving otherwise. Shoko gently reaches and touches the eye bags that are, for once, worse than hers before shaking her head and pulling back. Everyone else waits outside.

Hours pass by in torturous years. 

Satoru wears the same stony expression the whole while, finally surrendering into his desire to hold your hand. 

His heart hardens. He goes completely still. Shoko talks but he can’t really hear anything except the slow beeps of your monitor once you pass certain thresholds. 

There are nurses waiting outside. They’ve grown used to the company, he thinks. He thinks one or two are crying. Soon enough, they’ll come in to turn off the machines tracking your vitals so the sounds don’t drive them crazy, banging in home that you’re dead, dead, dead.

After a while, Satoru realizes you aren’t quite breathing, although your chest moves. Sometimes, there’s a gasping sound, like someone surprised the breath out of you and you’re inhaling sharply to replace it, and he imagines your fingers twitching against his hand one last time.

It’s very slow. Much slower than he imagined it to be. Maybe you’re still fighting. Maybe you don’t want to go.

Satoru can’t imagine why. Where you’re going, there’s no pain, or exhaustion, or blood. Where you’re going, Suguru waits.

He leans against his hand, elbow on the slight incline of your bed. Letting go of your hand, he touches your face, feels the soft puff of your breath, the curve of your jaw. You’ve lost so much weight from the sickness you barely look like yourself, but you’re still you. The cursed energy is still yours. His Six Eyes sees it. His soul feels it.

It tangles with his own where he touches you, and a wave of exhaustion washes over him. 

He wants to sleep, let time pass, and wake up to you dead.

It seems a much better alternative to watching you slip away, but he’s always been selfish when it came to personal affairs.

.

You die two hours later.

Shoko closes her eyes and leans back into her chair as the nurse comes in to turn off the droning monitor. Her face is dry and she takes long, measured breaths as if trying to temper something swirling inside her. Satoru’s hard heart cracks as he squeezes your hand to see if you’ll wake up. It doesn’t quite sink in, even though he can hear someone crying outside, and when your limp hand doesn’t react at all, he shakes his head and gets up, pulling his sunglasses off the collar of his shirt and sliding them back onto his face.

He shoves his hands into his pockets and rakes his face over your body, your face.

He’s seen a dozen dead bodies before, maybe more. You look just like he did on December 24th. At peace, younger. Like you’re glad the suffering is over, and Satoru turns his face away sharply and leaves the room. He doesn’t know what to say and he’s not sure if his voice is still here. 

Everything feels dry and dull and grey.

“Sensei,” Itadori whispers wetly, reaching out a hand, making him stop. The students are all sitting in a small area, but they stand upon seeing him leave the room, and he gives them a plastic smile that makes all of them flinch. Maki is scowling furiously at the ground as Inumaki takes hold of her bicep but she flings the hand off and stalks away, hiding her red face.

“It’s going to be okay,” he tells them as Kugisaki runs after Maki. He watches the two go before turning his attention back on the students. “The important thing is that she didn’t suffer. Arrangements will be made, but there won’t be any rush, alright?” The words feel lacking, but he still manages to smile. “It’s been a long day. Go home. Rest, shower, eat. Let’s remember that she doesn’t want us to be here, slumping around looking like idiots. She wants you to all to take care of yourselves.” He arches his eyebrows insistently at his students, but they don’t seem to hear him.

They’re only looking through the glass doors at your coolling corpse, at Shoko who stands, and speaks to the doctor when he comes back in.

Fushiguro is the only one really looking at him, and the teenager has a silent question in his stare. 

Satoru shakes his head, and Megumi nods.

“Classes are cancelled for the rest of the week,” Yaga adds. “Ijichi will drive you all back to the college in thirty minutes. Make sure you tell the girls.” He directs this to Inumaki, who nods.

“Salmon.”

Later, Megumi finds him smoking a cigarette leaning against Shoko’s car. Satoru’s never liked the taste of the stuff so he doesn’t really know why he’s smoking other than the fact he doesn’t know what to do. 

Up is down, left is right, and you’re dead. 

Nothing seems right, but Megumi gives him a good excuse to stop. Flinging the cig to the ground, he stomps out the ember and re-arranges his expression into that shielded smile of his, but it feels a bit weaker. Sharp, janky, wrong.

“Why haven’t you gone home yet? Ijichi should’ve taken you all back by now,” Satoru says wearily as Fushiguro stops before him, hands shoved in his pockets.

“I stayed behind to look for you,” informs Megumi. He looks a bit fractured, but the boy’s never been one to wear his heart on his sleeve. Satoru makes a mental note to dig into his psyche at a later date, and stretches an arm out to wrangle the boy into a hug against his side.

For all of his complaints and mumbles and scowls, Megumi’s body still relaxes a bit against his, and even though he doesn’t hug him back, when he tells him, “You should go home and get some sleep, too. These past few months haven’t been easy on you, either,” Satoru feels a part of his old self raise its bloody head. 

Glancing down at a head of spiky hair, he knocks his knuckles into his student’s skull. “Have you been keeping an eye on me?”

Megumi crosses his arms, glares over Satoru’s elbow, but even his voice is quieter. “You need to take care of yourself.”

Satoru smiles again. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “But you’re not worried about me, are you, Fushiguro?”

Megumi ducks his head and doesn’t answer any more than, “Someone has to pick up the slack, now.”

.

“Thanks, Ijichi,” Satoru says with a huff, digging the shovel into the ground and stepping on the metal edge. “Not every day you help me carry a dead body and dig a grave, huh.”

“No, sir,” Ijichi replies. He sounds a bit hoarse and tired as he wipes at his brow.

It’s been two days since you’ve died. The college grounds feels a lot less lively. He took a walk in the gardens yesterday, and saw Yaga planting new flowers. He had strode past and ignored the tears on his sensei’s face, and absently wonders now why he hasn’t cried yet as he grabs the shovel and yanks it out of the dirt, tossing it to Ijichi.

It feels kind of stupid, but despite how eviscerated everything inside him feels, he just can’t.

Either way, he’ll deal with it when it becomes a problem.

Satoru wipes at his brow, too, with a heavy sigh, and heads to where a cloth-covered shape is resting on the ground. Your corpse is light in his arms as he bridal carries you to the hole he’s just dug into the grass. It looks suspicious as hell, but it’d probably be even worse if he’d been walking around with a dead body over his shoulder, stitched back together after an autopsy by your best friend. 

Good thing they’re only in the forests outside the college campus. There won’t be any civilians for miles.

“You can go,” he says over his shoulder, setting you down by the hole they’ve dug. He takes in a deep breath to calm himself and Ijichi’s footsteps hesitate before beginning and fading away moments later. Falling to his knees, Satoru begins to carefully unfold the cloth just enough that he can see your face and chest. 

He squints behind his blindfold at the ripples of energy still seeping from the stitches along your chest. Sinking his hands into the lush, cold grass, he twists the blades with rigid fingers at the stench of rot coming from the curse before he draws back.

Hands on his lap, he stares at your face. You look frozen in time, eyes closed, skin clean, and there’s that unnatural stillness about you that only comes with the dead. It’s strange. He probably couldn’t have imagined someone so vivacious could be so motionless if he hadn’t seen it first with Suguru.

He had asked not to hear the results of your autopsy. Not now, maybe not ever. It’d be fresh lemon juice in a weeping wound. All he knows is that the curse clings to your corpse, and Shoko could only remove the growths that were no longer being fed for examination.

“Weird that this is where we’ve found ourselves,” he begins humourlessly. “With how we were living, Suguru always said I’d die first. Doing something stupid, being too cocky.” He slides a hand into his pocket and withdraws something he’d snipped this morning from the last plant you had grown with your Technique. A red tulip with a short stem that’s a bit crushed, and beginning to decay, but… everything can’t be perfect.

“I never thought I’d outlive you.”

Reaching forward, he places the tulip gently on your chest, takes your cold arms that are just beginning to loosen up again from rigor mortis, and folds your hands over the stem.

“Eternal love, and fame,” he repeats to himself. The energy nearly swallows up the tulip, but as it radiates from your chest, flickers in the slight breeze, Satoru sees flashes of red and green, much brighter than everything else around him, and knows that it won’t be consumed. Sitting down, he hugs his legs to his chest and stares at your dead body blankly, chin on his knees.

He had had a plan. He was going to just… put the flower there, exorcise the curse inside you, and bury you so you could finally rest. He wouldn’t hesitate because this is something you entrusted him to do.

But this is the first time in months he hasn’t had a cloud hanging over his head, and his body feels so much ligher without the burden of your disease hanging off his shoulders, that he can’t help but relish in it. Speak to you without worrying about saying the wrong thing, of people overhearing. He’s finally… free. 

It feels fucking awful.

“You were right, by the way.” His voice is dull, resonating deep in his chest. There is no August sun breaking through the trees above, only from behind him, and the golden beams touch your chin, down your throat and chest. It sets the red of the tulip on fire. “I miss you. And I wish I could’ve said so many things, but we ran out of time.” A faint smile. “No matter what you think, Suguru loved you. It’s why he came to see you one last time. I knew him better than I knew myself, and I know he was happiest knowing you were at his side.” Closing his eyes, the ache in his heart swells as he utters out, “So was I.”

Burying his his face in his forearms, a cup inside him seems to tip over and everything feels too hot for him to breathe in. Ripping his blindfold off and tossing it away from him blindly, his eyes snap open wide as he tries to breathe. His ribs constrict his lungs, and he presses his eyes into his arms, hands shaking as he sinks his nails into his biceps. 

Harsh pants puff against his face as he tries to reign in his shuddering, but he can’t. The knot in his heart twists until he thinks he might die, and distantly, he hears soft footsteps so faint he’s not sure if he imagines it. Gritting his teeth, he stifles the bruising feeling welling up in his throat.

Gentle hands brush down his shoulders soothingly, sending a wave of nausea through his body, and he jerks away.

“Damn it, Ijichi, leave me alone!” Wrenching his head up, his eyes widen at the figure crouched in front of him.

Arms falling lax to the grass and his knees widening, his jaw drops as a thumb teases his parted lips. You step between his legs and crouch down, limber and strong. You look healthy again, bright eyes and full cheeks, young like spring, and when you smile, it fills him utterly with light. In your hands is his blindfold, and you ruffle his hair, tilting your head curiously.

“I’m not Ijichi, but… do you really want me to go so soon?” you ask as he rakes his gaze up and down your body. There is still a purple shell encasing your legs, but as you shift your weight on your feet, it falls like fragile eggshells to the ground and sinks into the dirt, disappearing for good. Peering around you, his eyes widen when he sees shards of a purple shell in shatters all over your corpse.

He’d only seen this once before, eight months ago, with a certain student of his and the cursed spirit of the girl he loved and who loved him.

Face burning, his gaze snaps back to you as you poke his cheek and continue to grin. Leaning back on his hands, he tries to stop the intense shattering of his walls by clenching his jaw, but the shudders overtake his body, his chest, his throat until he’s letting out an ugly sound and blinking hard as if that’ll hide it away from you. Something devastatingly warm immediately shoots down his cheeks. Covering his mouth with the crook of his elbow, he turns his face away but your warm hands cradle him carefully, thumbs brushing underneath his eyes.

“Yuuta, you’re right. Rika isn’t cursing you.”

“No,” he whispers, arm falling. His fingers sink into his shoulder as if that would be enough to wake him from this nightmare. “No. I can’t—Did I—Did I kill you?” You squint studiously, not letting go of his face as he lifts the hand from his shoulder and reaches to touch you. It shakes, and he snaps it into a fist to stop it, looking at his fingers that have done so much harm—shed so much blood. “Did I do this to you?”

“You cursed Rika.”

You chuckle fondly, like he’s said something silly, and set a hand on his fist, pushing it down firmly. “You can’t control how other people react to your words, Satoru.” Your voice changes, and your eyebrows draw together in something bittersweet. “And you can’t change something you didn’t know. The chances of you cursing me and me cursing myself are irrelevant. It doesn’t change anything about where we are, now.”

Satoru watches you, lips parted, as you tie the blindfold around his neck. You feel so real, so close, and as you slide your hands down his shoulders, to his chest, he jerks his head down to stare at your shoes in the grass. 

So he did. 

“I see,” he murmurs.

That’s it, then.

“Satoru, please look at me,” you whisper, fingers stretching to his chin. With the gentlest of pressures, you prompt him up and he finds your face, your smile, where all colours begin and end. For a moment, the world seems to inhale all of its life back into its core—the leaves whistle, the sun is warm and golden, and he lifts his hand to touch you again, but you pull back before he can. 

“I can only thank you for being my friend. For staying with me until the very end.” You laugh quietly to yourself and lift your hand from his face. “I would make a joke about a curse, but I know it still hurts, so I’ll save it for when I see you on the other side, okay? When it heals a bit more.”

“It’s never going to hurt less,” he croaks. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know how much you mean to me.”

Your smile softens. Satoru tries to eternalize that expression forever. “I’m honoured, but, I hope it does heal. I don’t want you to learn how to carry so much pain around. I don’t want you to be numb.” You touch his cheek again, as if you’re trying to soak in as much of him as you can, too. 

“Do you have any last words?” he manages to ask raspily, and you chuckle, tilting your head and running your hand through his hair again. His eyes flutter shut at the scratch, the sensation of your nails against his scalp, and then there’s your hand at his jaw, holding him all together. He wants to hold you so badly he thinks his muscles might cramp into stone at the desire.

“What does it matter?” you ask curiously. “You already know how I feel. That will never change. And if you ever want to know what I think, or what I’d do, you can just ask Shoko and think about it yourself. You know me well enough to not need me nagging about it.”

“But, it won’t be enough.”

“It never will be,” you agree. “But isn’t it wonderful that we even got to know each other at all?” You lean forward, and his eyes flutter shut as you hold him to your chest. He can’t hear your heartbeat anymore, but your warmth is almost the same. The echo of your voice rumbles in his head as you speak, and maybe that is enough. “If you want my last words, you already have them.”

You draw him back, and give him one last smile. The air shifts golden yellow to his Six Eyes, for the last time. 

“Until we meet again, my Satoru.” 

You fade without giving him a chance to answer, taking all the colour with you. 

Staring at the empty air where you had been just a moment before with wide, burning blues, he whispers your name brokenly before burying his hands in the dirt, squeezing his eyes shut, and letting boiling tears scald his face red.

.

“If you want my last words, you already have them.”

Spinning the key ring on his finger, Satoru looks dully at the door knob he had just unlocked. There’s no one in the hall, and he debates whether or not he should turn around, but Shoko had insisted. There’d been something left for him in your old apartment, and according to her, it would be spoiled soon if he didn’t go.

“Oh, what the hell,” he mutters, catching the key in his palm and shoving it into his long coat. Tugging it tighter around himself, he twists the knob and pushes it open. He can’t remember the last time he was in here. Maybe five or six months ago, when they both had a day off that didn’t need to be spent at the college.

There aren’t any plants anymore. He supposes Nanami, Ijichi, maybe even Yaga have taken them. He swears he’s seen a few in the gardens lately, but who is he to say? Toeing off his shoes, he makes his way down the hall. 

 Everything is just as you left it, with clean counters and empty tables. The curtains are spread, letting in so much September sunlight. It hits random display pedestals of different sizes, all the surfaces big enough to fit a pot on. Your watering can sits by the sink. There are photos hanging on the walls, propped up on the desk, on your shelves, polaroids taped to the walls. 

Reminders that someone did live here. That there is a whole life unknown to strangers but evidence enough that whoever used to be here, they had people who would miss them.

Walking up to the counter, he drags his fingers along the surface, feeling the dust collect up to a square of pale light. A clean circle is all that’s left as a clue that there used to be something there, and his heart twists.

Who knew he could miss fucking plants of all things?

Sweeping his gaze around, he brushes off the dust on his jacket and hooks a thumb on his blindfold, sweeping the area with an eccentric eye. The TV is off, your bookshelves are in their usual untidy state, but even the reaching vines of the bean plant is gone from the highest shelf.

 “They really scooped this place dry,” he muses dryly to no one. He can still hear the music you’d play for late nights, the smell of dumpling soup. He walks down the hall and still remembers how many steps it takes to reach the bathroom that guests would use. 

He had hunched over that bath on December 25th, and let water soak through his hair as strong fingers worked the sweat from his scalp and skin.

Four more steps to the guest best room on the right, and another three to the end of the hall where a door leads to your room. It’s already open, and he steps in easily, tugging his blindfold all the way down off his face. Hair falling over his eyes, he sweeps it aside and surveys the room. The walls are still that pretty shade of cream, and your bed is made carefully, dark olive blankets resting atop your white sheets. He smiles to himself, despite the twang in his chest.

Walking deeper, he approaches the cabinet by your bathroom, and picks up the photo you have by your jewelry stand.

A smile curls his mouth. He remembers this one. First year, their first September. All four of them had gone together to Sapporo for the autumn festival. 

He sets the photo back down and looks into the bathroom. Your toiletries are all lined up, waiting for their next use, and he swallows as he raises his gaze up to the mirror. His blue eyes look a big too big on his face from the past month alone, and there are red-purple half moons printed onto his face that have only just started to fade. He swears it only looks worse because of how much pale light is streaming in from the windows, and he tugs at his collar uncomfortably, clearing his throat.

Turning around, he looks at the offenders for making him look so awful, and finds a medium-sized pot sitting on the window seat. It’s the only thing sitting on the flat, wooden surface, in partial shade and almost unfurling before his very eyes.

Satoru frowns, walking around your bed to inspect the plant. 

The flowers are a warm magenta colour, and his eyes widen at the flash of white he can see leading to the center of each bloom. Brushing a thumb over the petals, his jaw sets as he tilts his head to get a better look at the plant. So this is what was growing inside of you. Huh.

There’s another slip of white near the dirt, and his eyebrows furrow, fingers seeking the thing. It crinkles when he touches it, and his frown deepens as he manages to grasp it, pulling it free underneath the leaves and stems of the plants. Sitting down beside the pot, he dusts off the dirt clinging to the paper, and reads his name along the front in your print before flipping the envelope around. There’s something sticking out of it, a sloping shape that’s hard but not too big.

Curiosity peaked, he tears the envelope open carefully and peers inside. A binder clip is inside, holding something together, and he flips it upside down, letting everything fall. The letter slides out first, followed by whatever the binder clip is holding together and he squeezes his thighs together so it doesn’t fall to the floor.

Setting the letter aside, he picks the bundle up. 

Polaroids.

They’re polaroids of different sizes that have him smiling despite the heavy sorrow twisting his entire chest.

Various pictures of Satoru, Suguru, Shoko, and you together, and he finds most of them are of him and you. Pictures of him hiding behind plants of various sizes, a picture of him drinking soju, because Suguru liked it the most and insisted he try, while leaning against Shoko who was knocking back a shot of tequila. There is a shot of Suguru, wet with mud and smiling like sunshine, while a drenched Satoru was in the background, flipping the camera off in the middle of a storm. 

More and more pictures, enough to spill out of his lap, and he picks up each one, desperate to remember when or where you took them.

And, sometimes, he can’t. Sometimes, they are just moments that he’s lost because he never thought they’d be important, and now moments he’d give anything to remember.

There are pictures of a fern he had named their first year, little annotations on the bottom of some others. Dates, but with no context otherwise. Names scribbled in black ink. 

You’re in a lot of them, your smile timeless, your joy infectious even through film.

Arms slung around Suguru, face smushed against his, artfully blurry perhaps on accident, and annotated with scrawl that read: I call this masterpiece “Dumb Sweethearts” by Gojo Satoru :)

A picture of him and Shoko and Suguru, of them in one of Tokyo’s night markets, you behind the camera, the lights flashing and warm and pink, making them all look like they’ve transported to some other kind of cyberpunk world. 

You and Shoko lounging in the gardens, having a tiny picnic at your insistence, and in Suguru’s handwriting in black: JUST GIRLS BEING PALS

Satoru stares at Suguru’s writing the longest, not even at his words, just the strokes of his pen. This is a new part of him Satoru thought had been destroyed, and he starves for it. It’s like his one and only lives and breathes in the ink, in those snapshots of him caught in eternal youth. When they’d been happy and unaware and not innocent, but cocky enough to think they could rule the world. 

It’s hungry, the way he goes through each photo, searching for another glimpse of you, of him, of them together, until Satoru is all out of moments to feed on, and still, he feels empty, flicking through the last few photos.

You in a pool, arms wrapped around Shoko and beaming like the sun.

A shot of Satoru and Suguru climbing trees shot from below, your eyes and skeptically raised eyebrows in frame, captioned big dumb monkeys

And the last one…

He holds it to the sunlight and his gaze softens.

A selfie of you kissing Suguru on the cheek. It’s mostly dark, but they were definitely in the bathroom, and the flash made Suguru’s outstretched arm look pale as a ghost, but even so, there’s no mistaking the happiness captured there. He was sticking out his tongue, winking, and red as a beet so he was either drunk or you had said something or both. Your arms were wrapped around his neck, nose squished against his cheek, eyes squeezed tight as he took the shot.

Turning it over, Satoru’s heart plummets into his chest. In Suguru’s clean, blocky writing:

THE GIRL IM GOING TO MARRY ONE DAY <3

And crossed out is your reply followed by a little note:

dummy doesnt have the nerve to propose SHHH!!!! ONE DAY C:

One day.

It sounds so much emptier now.

He lowers the photo back to his lap, and glances around him, at all these scattered moments captured forever. Gathering them up again, he relives them all over again, looking at each photo for longer to see if he’s missed anything, but mostly his stare lingers on your face, and on Suguru’s, and his own, too, because he can’t remember what it felt like back then, but he is sure it feels so much better than now.

The polaroids come together a neat stack and he is careful not to scratch any of them when he clips them together. The top photo is of you with your arms wrangled around Suguru and Satoru, your face split in a maniacal laugh, their mouths open in shock, eyes bulging in how you must’ve scared them witless. 

Shoko’s messy writing at the bottom, for it must’ve been her who had taken the photo: BREAKING NEWS: Japan’s Strongest Conquered by a Woman.

A smile cracks his weary face and he runs a thumb over their faces before sliding the photos back into the envelope for safe-keeping. 

Then, he grabs the letter. His name is written again on the first flap, and he reads it three times over before unfolding the paper, not quite ready but also not sure if he ever will be.

Immediately, a faint, herbal-like scent slashed with antiseptic flows from the page and his stomach curdles as your script pours down the page. 

Swallowing, Satoru shifts and leans against the wall, hiking a foot up onto the seat and holding your inked characters to the light. There’s a date inscribed at the top.

Thursday. 

The first Thursday after you had been released from the hospital. Your last Thursday before you were back in for good.

“Shit.”

He folds the letter again and tilts his head back against the wall, staring at the ceiling.

Does he want to read this? Does he really want to fucking read this? 

Taking a deep breath, he clears his throat and lowers his gaze to stare determinedly ahead of him. The purple flowers greet him warmly and he shakes the shiver out of his body before tightening his grip on your letter and unfolding it again, forcing his eyes on the page.

My Satoru,

I sent all the pictures I had of Shoko to her, and she has some of Suguru, too. Now that I’m gone, there’s no use if I keep them. Maybe you two could share some time, laugh it up over these old memories. I know she says she can’t stand you, but to be honest, who else is there that will remember us now? Who else is there to remember Suguru for more than his bloody hands and me as more than that girl too sick to do anything but die? 

Some legacy we said we’d leave, huh.

I don’t think I told you this, but with this disease catching up to me, it’s hard not to form hypotheses on why it’s happening or how. I have quite a few theories, and, unfortunately, none of them are pleasant or unriddled with angst. By now, you’ve probably figured out it’s a curse, and if you’re smart enough to ignore how much I’ll probably deny it, that it’s some love bullshit. If you didn’t know, now you do.

I know it’s weird. Suguru is dead. It shouldn’t be happening, right?

That’s what I thought, too

You once said love manifests the most twisted curses. I never thought of it that way before, but I’m starting to think you’re right. I don’t want to curse you by dying, but I can’t help but wonder if we can control who we curse. If I hadn’t heard you say that, would I still be here? Healthy? Okay? 

I don’t know. I can’t predict alternate timelines, because I got to live one life, and that’s more than most people get. But, because I know you, you want me to entertain you. I’m sighing as I write this.

Look, I know the pain would still be there. I know I still wouldn’t be able to forgive myself for what I did, even if it was what had to be done. I know I would still miss him. I know that I would still long for the day I didn’t feel guilty for loving someone else.

If you didn’t curse me, I cursed myself. It drives me crazy that this is how the die was cast, even now, even after months where I could’ve accepted this, but at least this physical manifestation almost makes me… calm. Like seeing what this life has done to me makes me brave enough to fight it. If anything at all, the curse brought me a greater understanding of how powerful our world is in comparison to people who… are normal. The people we have to protect.

I’m sorry. Reading this back, it sounds like I’m the one cursing you now; telling you all this knowledge that can only bring you more anguish. I promise, this isn’t what it is. I just want you to understand. You couldn’t have saved me, Satoru. I couldn’t have given you the absolution you wanted, and if that’s how it is, then I just hope that one day you can look back on this and it won’t hurt anymore.

It’s always been so complicated between us, after what happened to Suguru, and after what he did, even ten years ago. What we couldn’t stop and what we had to do that day. There was always a line that I thought I couldn’t cross, or a line you didn’t want to cross, and it was shaped a lot like him. I don’t know if it was just in my head, but there was something holding us back, and I was fine dancing around it because I saw how you felt about him and I understood. Your eyes always changed when you looked at him. When you spoke of him. Even after.

Always after.

Don’t think I’m angry. I’m not blind. I know how much you two meant to each other, and I could never be angry that Suguru is so cherished. Missed. It makes everything so much harder, so much more painful.

Look, in the end, I loved him, and you did, too. And if we both still do, that’s okay. He deserved love. 

I guess it just feels like a stab in the back that it wasn’t enough. 

But life isn’t a fairytale. None of it really matters. To be honest, I wouldn’t trade any of it for a second, and I hope you wouldn’t either. 

Maybe life isn’t supposed to be lived happily, but lived contently. And I did. I am satisfied with what I’ve done, even if I wanted to do so much more. 

I’m so grateful to have known you, to have had you by my side. I hope you can say the same. 

Don’t regret my death. Remember how much fun we had when we were stupid kids, and smile. Because I don’t want you to think your best years are behind you. I want you to be happy, even if I can’t be there to see it. I want you to be excited for your future, even if I can’t be in it.

I’ll always be watching over you, so smile for me every once in a while. Even if it seems like you’ll never feel anything again. One day, I promise you will, and it won’t feel so bad.

Yours forever and ever and ever,

(Name)

.

Throat crushed, he reads one line over and over the most. He’s memorized your letter heart, but he still carries it around with him, anyway.

“I know that I would still long for the day I didn’t feel guilty for loving someone else.”

Sometimes, he just wants to imagine your hand whispering over the page, the pen tapping against your chin, your face as you wrote, the sigh that you said you heaved. Because he’ll never hear you laugh again, see your smile. Your voice will never tease his ear, your fingers will never touch his face. There is no more laugh-wrinkles set in a face always perfectly hit by sunlight, and this is all he has left. His memory, and what you’ve left behind.

It makes him laugh how almost lovestruck stupid he’s being, but… he doubts anyone blames him. As long as he’s still doing his job, as long as he’s still the Strongest, what does it matter if he carries a dead woman’s letter in his pocket everywhere?

“Warm weather, even in the evenings. That’s a bit unusual,” Nanami observes, startling Satoru and he looks up at the blond who stops by him in the gardens. The man is wearing his grey suit, as always, and his watch glimmers in the fading gold light. “How are you?”

Satoru’s fingers tighten around the letter in his hands. As usual, the urge to crumple it up, throw it into the garbage to never see it again, has reared its head after his latest re-read, but he’ll stave it off. He always manages to.

“Fine,” he replies, glancing at the startling blood red and burnt orange leaves casually. Colours seem a bit brighter, and Satoru still squints a bit against them, despite the soft light of the sunset. He doesn’t know when his Six Eyes got so sensitive to that kind of stuff, but it almost feels good to be distracted by something so trivial as sensitive eyesight. “It is a bit warm for October.” 

Nanami hums. “How are your plants doing?”

“Mine are doing good,” he says, smiling. “The tulips have gone dormant, so nothing to worry about there. The one with purple flowers, though. It’s a tough one. It took me a while to figure out what it liked, but it didn’t go dormant or anything as long as I gave it enough water and paid attention to it.”

“That’s good.” Nanami adjusts his green lenses and sighs like he’s bracing himself for something difficult. “Gojo,” he begins, but Satoru merely folds your letter up and slides it into his breast pocket, holding up a hand.

“Whatever you’re going to say, Nanami, I don’t need to hear it.”

“Are you sure?” he asks skeptically, gaze following as Satoru stands, patting his jacket. Adjusting the lapel, he turns to his friend and when he grins, it feels like it reaches his eyes behind his sunglasses for the first time in two months.

“I’ve done this before, Nanami. I’ll be fine.” He waves it away. Nanami frowns. “I’m gonna get some dinner, though. Care to join? There’s a real good ramen place in Ikebukuro that you have to try.” The blond man observes him for a moment, before shaking his head, saying he had dinner already. “Suit yourself. Next time, I’m treating you, though.” 

Lips puckered in a whistle, Satoru turns around and begins to walk away. 

A breeze sweeps through the gardens, rustling the leaves in a discordant harmony, and sneaking into his jacket, sending a slight shiver up his spine as Nanami’s voice follows after him.

“The flower she left you is the sakurasou.” Satoru stops, hands in his pockets, but he doesn’t turn around as Nanami continues, “I wasn’t certain if if you knew.”

“Nope, I didn’t. Thanks for the info.” Lifting a hand, he barely looks over his shoulder before saluting with two fingers and smiling cheekily. It’s not as forced as it used to be. In fact, it comes quite easy as he reaches into his pocket for his phone. He knows what he has to find out now. “See ya later, Nanami.”

“Good evening,” he replies, and in a blink of an eye, Satoru is gone.

On the windowsill of his empty apartment, the sakurasou soaks in the last remnants of the day before wilting against two photos.

One of four students, arms entangled, and faces framed in eternal youth.

And another immortalizing what could’ve been longer than a few shaky months if someone had been just a bit braver.

a/n: satoru’s google search result: the meaning of sakurasou - desire and long-lasting love. 

and yes, there was an actual lunar eclipse on july 27th, 2018 (28th in japan time). it was very pretty. i researched a bit about both the lunar eclipse and the medical stuff, but excuse any inaccuracies! tis but a work of fiction <3 also, fun fact: the polaroid camera is supposed to be the instax mini 90 but ive never used it so excuse those inaccuracies as well SKNDALSDKN

ngl i did wanna write an alternative ending, but i can’t see this ending any other way. this is it. this is the canon, and we got a bit of happy feelies at the end as a treat. thank you for reading!

[juste-une-etudiante]

Here goes my analysis of the last chapter

I'll leave the emotional growth of Garou, Bang and Tareo for the people who are better versed for such matters, although I must say that I'm really happy that the manga took a rather wholesome turn compared to what happened in the webcomic, and I may briefly mention some stuff to prove a couple of points

So, without further ado, let's begin

Garou has mommy issues

We all suspected that his parents weren't particularly supportive before this happened, seeing how they acted when his son was bullied at school, but this detail really emphasises their neglect towards Garou -they never took responsibility for what his child did, and it doesn't look like they will anytime soon- which confirms the aforementioned theory

However, there is hope for the future, for Bang seems determined to mend his mistakes, and finally try to connect with his disciples instead of giving them a stoic -rather cold- treatment. Considering that Garou was inclined to dealing with problems on his own due to his family situation, having someone to rely on may be crucial to break through his insecurities, thus embrace who he has always been: a kind spirit who only wishes to protect those who can't stand up for themselves

Bang's approach to establish a proper relationship with his (adopted son) student is, as expected from an alcohol enthusiastic Casanova, to enquire about his love life (as if homeboy hadn't spent the past months on the run not being able to take a shower and then making up for it by sitting under a waterfall for God knows how much time), since Garou isn't legally allowed to drink yet

Garou's response to this is very funny, he (naturally) gets all awkward and nervous, and isn't quite thrilled to having to talk about it. Perhaps it's my bi ass projecting, but I kinda saw myself reflected here, as it's always slightly uncomfortable when my relatives ask me if there's a special lad too hahahaha... Even though it could be argued that this is a bit biased, I think there's room to interpret this situation under this light as well

Regarding Garou's answer, there's a big red flag that I think some are wishfully ignoring in order to celebrate that the guy may be straight: the girl is from a TV show

We all know too well how prone the boy is to idealising these sorts of programs, breaking them down to their essence and then trying (failing) to apply their simple rules to a nuanced reality. It doesn't end up well

Having the actress being similar to his mother, yet differing in the most important characteristic that affects Garou -kindness- speaks volumes about the nature of his feelings. He's simply looking for a figure that shall give him the love his parents failed to provide, and people reading this as an "usual" crush is imo low-key off-putting

My personal opinion on this (besides it being a poor and bizarre attempt at pulling out a "no homo"), is that a possible reason behind Garou's self-worth problems and perception of the world has been revealed to us: he has mommy issues

It has been discussed that people who have daddy issues might suffer sadness or depression while people who have mommy issues become sociopaths. Nevertheless, I am no psychologist, and so my knowledge of this subject is limited. I don't intend to sound like an authority, and everyone is free to disagree with this idea

In spite of there being many (myself included) who would like to have more information on Garou's childhood, I think we've been shown enough to properly understand his character, and what's left to see is his future growth now that he's slowly building a supportive network

[ahkaahshi]

steadfast [miya osamu x reader]

pairing: miya osamu x fem reader + miya atsumu x reader x suna rintarou

genre: smut (18+)

warning(s): explicit sexual content, group sex (threesome), cuckolding, dirty talk, swearing, praise, daddy kink, deep throating, squirting, brief mentions of jealousy, and just a lil bit of that competitive spirit ya know?

word count: 4.3k

overview: after years of witnessing suna and atsumu shamelessly flirting with his girlfriend, he decides to give them one chance to change her mind knowing damn well she won’t.

By nature, Osamu is observant. Few things escape his attention, whether it’s trace amounts of ice cream disappearing from his tub in the freezer or the longing look you always give him moments before you press your lips against his in an affectionate kiss. Though he wants to pay full attention to the intense game of Super Smash Bros.a few of his former teammates are playing, he can’t help but let his eyes wander to your form as you shuffle into the kitchen to grab another beer. It’s not for you, but for his twin brother who places a lingering touch against the small of your back upon accepting it.

To the untrained eye, the action would appear as a gesture of appreciation and nothing more. But Osamu understood his brother well enough to know that he’d always had a habit--or intention, rather--of being handsy with you. His dark, stone-colored gaze quickly flicks back to the game on the television, however, when you saunter over to him to lean down and place a gentle kiss against his temple.

“Need anything, babe?” you ask, (e/c) eyes tracing over the handsome features of your boyfriend’s face.

He shakes his head and assures you, “Just ‘cause this is our place, don’t mean ya hafta play hostess, y’know.”

“I know,” is your cheerfully spoken response before you turn your attention to the chaos unfolding on-screen. “Damn, who knew Kita-san was good at video games?”

Aran, who overhears your comment, laments, “Not me. This guy acts like it’s his first time holdin’ a controller ‘nd then proceeds to give us an ass-beatin’!” That deceptively sweet smile you’d seen many times before soon spreads across Kita’s lips as he casts it in your direction. Moments later, you notice his chosen character catapult Aran’s off the side of the screen, making the man sigh and hand his controller over to a somewhat unsettled-looking Ren.

The exchange makes you laugh, and your amusement quickly spreads to Osamu, who smiles as he pecks your cheek. “Why don’tcha come sit down, honey?” he suggests, patting his knee and slowly pulling you closer by giving your hand a gentle tug.

“Later. I’m gonna go talk to Rin real quick.”

Giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze, you back away and dart past the television to where Suna’s standing on the balcony outside. Osamu doesn’t miss the lazy grin that tugs at the corners of his friend’s mouth when you greet him and seat yourself on the chair beside him. Though he’s noticed how much of your attention Suna must’ve been aiming to steal away the entire evening, he doesn’t comment or intervene. Instead, he sends a sideways glance at Atsumu, who plops down on the couch beside him, pops another sliver of pickled plum into his mouth that Kita brought with him, and returns his attention to the game onscreen.

It’s not until later that he decides to speak on the issue, when everyone’s left the informal team reunion but Atsumu and Suna. As you’re scanning the apartment for any trash that may have been forgotten—though there’s not much to find since Kita and Aran scolded anyone who so much as left their drink unattended—you find yourself tripping over the rug sprawled across the wooden floor. Atsumu, who’s seated on the couch nearby, avoiding any tasks associated with cleaning up while tapping through his own Instagram story, quickly extends his arms towards you to steady you as you stumble towards him.

Feeling his hands on your hips and hearing him say, “Careful, there, girly,” brings a rush of heat to your neck and face.

“Thanks, ‘Tsumu!” you chirp quickly, pushing yourself away from the couch with haste.

“Anytime, hon,” is his nonchalant response. Normally, you wouldn’t think much of it because he’d developed a habit of giving you affectionate names over the years you’d known him, but, in this situation, his reply has you glancing over your shoulder at Osamu. Though he remains silent and focused on the task at hand, that quiet but dominating presence of his is intense. You know his brother’s actions are hardly going unnoticed, so you hustle into the kitchen to start cleaning the dishes Kita had neatly piled in your sink—which you’d had to practically beg him not to clean for you by insisting that he was your guest.

Osamu’s dark gaze narrows at his brother in a silent warning once you’re occupied again. Atsumu, being competitive and provocative as ever, simply raises an eyebrow at him as a challenge. However, both their attention soon snaps to you when they hear you and Suna snickering about something that must’ve been just hilarious while he helps take care of the dishes. Jealousy isn’t an emotion Osamu’s entirely used to, seeing as he’s always been secure in his relationship with you, but knowing the types of things his friend and his brother have said about you in confidence before the two of you started dating makes a flicker of it burn within him.

Finally, he speaks, not even attempting to hide the curtness to his tone when he questions, “Why don’t the two of ya just fuck ‘er already?”

The silence that befalls the house following his outburst is deafening, and you freeze in your act of handing Suna another plate to stick in the dishwasher. The three of you collectively turn your gazes to him, though theirs clearly portray an intrigue to learn more about what he means.

“What’re ya sayin’ that for, ‘Samu?” Atsumu asks rather coyly, leaning forward and placing his elbows on his knees.

However, your boyfriend isn’t having any of his twin’s attitude tonight, since he retorts, “Don’t fuckin’ act like ya don’t know what I’m talkin’ about. I know you’ve been wantin’ her for years now. I see the way you both fawn over her whenever I bring ‘er around.”

“Baby…” you coo softly and dry your hands so you can approach him.

The daggers he sends sticking into you with a sharp glance in your direction stops you in your tracks, though, as do his words. “What? It’s not like yer doin’ anythin’ to stop it.”

You swallow thickly, your eyes sinking to the floor as shame wells up inside of you at the truth his statement holds. You had never intentionally flirted with either of them, but you hadn’t done anything to put an end to their advances. Even though Atsumu and Suna were close friends of yours—and had been since high school, when you’d first met them along with Osamu—you knew they’d both harbored feelings for you at some point over the years. Part of you didn’t stop them because you hadn’t wanted to think the worst, which was that they still had any remnants of desire for you when you were clearly in a committed relationship with Osamu.

However, as you look around and find yourself the subject of not one but three hungry sets of eyes, you realize that they’ve still been hunting you regardless of the fact. “’Samu, I—”

“Do ya wanna let ‘em fuck you?” he interrupts. The fire you can sense burning behind his ash-colored eyes robs you of a response, so he adds, in a softer tone, “’S okay if ya do.”

Atsumu chuckles, “Might not wanna give ‘er the chance since she might rethink her decision about who she chose.”

Without thinking, you shake your head diligently and argue, “I would never leave him.”

“So, is that a yes, then?”

As you take a moment to ponder his inquiry, you notice Osamu moving closer to you before he takes your face in his hands. Tenderly, he kisses your cheek and leans towards your ear so he can murmur, “Why don’tcha let ‘em live out their li’l pipe dream for one night, (f/n)? You’ve got nothin’ ta lose, since I’m the one who suggested it in the first place.” A slow, shuddering breath escapes your lips when he adds, “In fact, I want you to do it. Show ‘em a good time; hell, enjoy yourself too.” He lets his finger run over the gentle curves of your neck, sending tingles down your spine. “I hope they make you feel good—or at least try to, since I know there’s no way they’ll be able ta make you squirt like I can, pretty baby.”

His words quickly fill your core with heat, and you’re consenting with an enthusiastic nod without so much as another thought. A small smile ghosts across his lips for a moment before he gives you a gentle nudge in the direction of the hallway leading to your bedroom, silently telling you to lead the way. Even though your body’s abuzz with excitement at what you’ve willingly gotten yourself into, you can’t help but feel somewhat sheepish at being the subject of three intense gazes. Having them follow you down the narrow hallway makes it somewhat hard for you to breathe, but it’s not long before they’re finding more physical ways of taking your breath away.

Upon entering your bedroom, Atsumu’s the first to paw at your shirt, taking the soft fabric in his grip so he can pull it over your head. Your bra is unclasped moments later and tossed aside haphazardly before you’re pushed onto the bed. The suddenness of your body hitting the mattress makes you squeal, eliciting a low chuckle from Atsumu as he leans over you and captures your lips in a surprisingly tender kiss. While your eyes are closed, you can feel one set of fingers trailing lightly along your sternum while another pair of hands tugs at your pants before removing them, along with your embarrassingly wet panties.

“Mm,” Suna hums gently, pressing his lips to the inside of your thigh, “Soaked already?”

“Lemme feel.” The fingertips grazing the expanse of skin between your breasts soon travel down closer to your core, plunging inside and emerging coated in your essence. A soft whine escapes your mouth at the fleeting sensation of being somewhat filled, and you watch with half-lidded, (e/c) eyes as Atsumu slides his fingers into his mouth. “Just as sweet as I expected,” he comments before placing another passionate kiss against your lips so he can swipe his tongue along yours to give you a taste. “What did ‘Samu say that gotcha all worked up, honey?”

From where he’s sitting on a chair across from the bed, Osamu grunts, “None of yer damn business. And don’t call ‘er honey.”

Suna understands why Atsumu’s attempts at using this pet name for you are futile when he sees the way you clench around nothing at hearing it leave Osamu’s mouth. “’Samu,” you whimper softly and look in his direction. In spite of the way Suna and Atsumu’s hands feel against your skin, you’re still pining for the familiarity of your boyfriend’s touch. Eager to bring you back to the matter at hand, Atsumu turns your face back towards him and occupies your lips once more.

Meanwhile, Suna sets himself to running his fingers through your glistening folds and pleasuring your sensitive spot, making you moan into Atsumu’s mouth. When his digits venture inside of you, your hips instinctively buck against them, desperate for the thumb you know he’s intentionally keeping away from your clit. “Keep making those pretty sounds, baby,” Suna coaxes, using his free hand to palm his erection through his pants. Between him thrusting his long fingers into your core and Atsumu pinching your nipples with his, it’s not long before you feel the knot in your stomach threatening to come undone.

What pushes you closer to the edge is the smooth, wetness of Suna’s tongue dragging over your slit. “Rin!” you squeal, grinding your hips against his face to get as much contact with his mouth as you can. He squeezes your thighs gently, holding them in place over his shoulders where he kneels on the floor at the side of the bed. At hearing his name leave your mouth between kisses from Atsumu, he rewards your behavior by flattening his tongue against your clit and licking in broad stripes. Suddenly, a wave of ecstasy crashes over you, reducing you to a moaning mess as you cling onto Atsumu’s arms and squeeze Suna’s head between your thighs.

Your wanton cries have all three men in the room mesmerized. However, their awe quickly transforms into something more animalistic, and, in your ecstasy-induced haze, your body is nothing more than putty in their hands as they maneuver you into a different location and position on the bed. You’re vaguely aware of your own hands reaching for Atsumu’s shirt to remove it before unzipping his pants so his erection can spring free.

As you move closer to him to take his cock in your mouth, Atsumu grabs a fistful of your (h/l), (h/c) hair to keep you from doing so. “Oh, sweetheart, I love how eager you are to suck me off, but I’m dyin’ ta see whose cock you like better: mine or ‘Samu’s.” Osamu growls with irritation at this comment but feels his dick throb painfully at knowing what he’s about to witness. With that said, he relinquishes his grip on your strands of hair so that he can readjust your position, bringing you face to face with the tent in Suna’s pants.

This time, it’s him who’s threading his fingers amongst your locks, but with a much gentler and more affectionate grip than Atsumu’s, and his sandy-colored irises fasten on you as you work on unzipping his fly to give him some relief. If anything, knowing he’d just brought you to an orgasm with his mouth spurs you on to use yours so you can do the same for him. The way you eye his erection hungrily once you’ve freed it from the confines of his pants has him tugging your hair backwards to tilt your chin up towards him. He’s always wondered what it’s like to kiss those delicate lips of yours, and they look far too delectable—slightly swollen from Atsumu’s bruising kisses and glistening with the saliva he can see dripping off your tongue—for him to show any restraint now that he’s been given a free pass to do so.

“Are you gonna be good and take all of it?” he wonders, his mouth brushing against yours with each word. Your diligent nod earns you a deep kiss, and you moan into his mouth at the feeling of his tongue trailing along yours, carrying the taste of you. “Gonna drool all over my dick for me with that pretty, little mouth of yours?”

You’re barely able to let out a breathless, “Yes,” before his lips are over yours once more. But, just as quickly as his onslaught of kisses started, he’s pulling away and moving your head down south. Saliva collects in your mouth at the sheer size of him, and you cast him a demure glance up at him through your eyelashes as you lick a long trail from the base to the tip, causing a low groan to rumble in his throat.

At feeling the head of Atsumu’s cock teasing your sensitive clit, a whimper rolls off your tongue. “I’m gonna fuck this sweet, little pussy of yours so good, (f/n),” your boyfriend’s twin murmurs, his hands moving your hips so he can push the tip inside of you, “so you’d better take it like a good girl.”

“Don’t hurt ‘er, dumbass,” Osamu barks, the hand he has shoved down his sweatpants coming to a halt at the thought of your comfort being compromised by his brother’s greed and desire to show off. “She’s sensitive.”

“Oh?” Atsumu challenges as he inches more of his cock inside of you, making you remove your mouth from Suna’s dick to mewl loudly and drop your head towards the comforter. “It’s ‘cause yer not used to bein’ filled up are ya, sweetheart?” Another lascivious cry from you is stifled by the thick duvet when he snaps his hips against yours, sending himself deeper into your clenched core. “Don’t worry; I’ll take care of ya in all the ways ‘Samu can’t.”

Osamu’s face burns ever so slightly with humiliation and anger, but he finds he can’t tear his gaze away from the scene before him. He watches in silence as Atsumu’s fingers dig into the supple skin on your rear and snake around your hips, pulling you closer to him as he sheathes more of his cock in your greedy cunt. Then, his eyes are darting to where your pretty lips are wrapped around Suna’s dick, eyes gazing upwards at him in an affectionate manner that he thought was only reserved for himself.

He feels as if he should be enraged by the whole situation—by the way he’s being forced to sit and watch while his brother and his friend fuck your pussy and your mouth, respectively—but he isn’t. In spite of being excluded and having derogatory remarks thrown his way by Atsumu like daggers, he loves it. He loves every moan of their names that leaves your mouth because of how good they’re making you feel, as well as the hungry looks in their eyes at how good you’re making them feel. Because no matter what his twin says about how he’s “gonna make ya feel better than ‘Samu ever will,” he knows he’s wrong. In a scenario where Osamu should be the one feeling inferior, his ability not to lose sight of what he knows is the truth is what keeps the warmth burning in his stomach.

No matter how much you drool all over Suna’s cock while he thrusts deeply into your mouth, batting your eyelashes at him each time he sends a compliment your way, he knows whose pants you’re pulling down after he’s had a long day at work. Even as Atsumu’s hips snapping against yours reap a myriad of mewls or moans from your mouth that bring a self-satisfied smirk to his face, he’s confident that you’ll always be louder for him. Nobody knows how to treat you quite like Osamu does, and nobody knows how to fuck you like he does either.

So, as he slowly strokes himself off to the sight before him, he’s able to ignore the sting of every off-handed comment thrown his way and the sound of you begging Atsumu for more in the moments when Suna’s dick isn’t down your throat. He might as well let them have all the fun they want with you, seeing as it’ll be their last time doing so. He only intended to give them a taste of how good you are as a way of getting back at them for all of their shameless advances towards you in the first place. What’s better revenge than giving them something amazing that they can only remember, but never recreate? Nothing, he thinks.

“Lemme cum inside ya, pretty girl,” Atsumu coos, though his voice is raspy from his heavy breathing as he slams into you. Removing your mouth from Suna’s dick with a loud pop, you shake your head, making them both look at you with raised eyebrows. “Why not?” he asks.

Osamu nearly finishes on the spot when you whine, “Only ‘Samu can.”

Atsumu shoots his brother a withering look that he beats down with a smirk but obeys your wishes anyway. “Whatever ya want, princess,” he murmurs, placing a gentle kiss against your spine before continuing to thrust into you at a breakneck pace that has you crying out with ecstasy in no time.

Your breathy moans sending vibrations along Suna’s dick have him finishing inside of your mouth, and you swallow his seed as you sink into the bed once more. Atsumu’s hands keep your hips flush against his as he plunges into your spasming core until he can hardly take the sensations your body’s offering him anymore. Once it gets too much for him to handle, he obediently pulls out of you and cums on your back, spreading warmth along your skin and eliciting another whimper from you.

As you come down from your highs, you feel Suna’s long fingers stroke the side of your face affectionately, as if trying to communicate the praises he can’t find the words for. Meanwhile, Atsumu takes one last look at your back coated in his release before grabbing a tissue and cleaning you up. “So,” he mentions, interrupting himself to place a gentle kiss against the nape of your neck, “whaddya think? Did we change your mind?”

There’s not even a moment of hesitation before you shake your head and reiterate, “I’ll never leave him.” The soreness you feel settling into your body does nothing to quell the warmth in your belly, especially with the way Osamu’s gazing at you hungrily from his seat at the other end of the room. It’s almost as if your body moves by itself as you get up from the bed and shuffle over to him so you can seat yourself in his lap. “I want you, baby,” you breathe as your arms instinctively wrap around his neck.

A shit-eating grin appears on his lips as he places his hands on your waist, pulling you closer to him. You moan softly at the bulge in his pants pressing against your sensitive entrance as he mentions, loudly enough for the other men in the room to hear, “How cute. Even after getting’ fucked by them two, ya still only wanna be stuffed full of my cum, huh?”

“Please.” Your plea escapes you in a soft whine when he bestows a fleeting kiss against your lips. He hums into the tender skin on your neck, eyeing Suna and Atsumu over your shoulder while he does so as if to clearly convey to them who’s won this challenge. However, his silent gloating is soon put to an end when you wriggle your hips against his, move your face closer to his ear and beg, “Please, daddy.”

In an instant, he’s barking at Suna and Atsumu to get off the bed so he can push you down onto it. “So good for me, honey.” Osamu’s loving words have you clenching around nothing as he shoves off his sweatpants and positions himself at your entrance. “Shoulda never doubted ya. I know how much you love me, don’tcha, baby girl?” he muses, flooding you with heat once more.

“Mm!” you chirp enthusiastically, “I love you so much, ‘Samu.”

His smooth voice becomes ever so slightly strained as he pulls your hips towards him, slides his cock into your warm, velvety core, and replies, “I love you too, (f/n).” Having him inside you once more brings you a pleasant sensation of comfort that you felt as if you’d been missing earlier, and you reach for one of his hands. Sensing your desire to be more connected with him, he wraps his fingers around yours and presses the back of your hand against the mattress beside your head.

You moan softly at being filled once more when he bottoms out inside of you. Glancing over at where Suna and Atsumu are sitting nearby, he comments, “Ya feel so good, honey,” and increases the volume of his voice before adding, “it’s like yer sweet, li’l pussy was made for me, wasn’t it?”

“Just for you, daddy,” you agree with a small smile, eliciting a low groan from him and spurring him to start thrusting into you with long, deep strokes. From where he’s standing at the edge of the bed, he’s able to lift your hips upwards to drive himself even deeper into you than he’s sure Atsumu could reach. Any overstimulation you felt initially has since been replaced by pleasure once more as he showers you with kisses accompanied by compliments that you confirm enthusiastically, earning you more of what you want.

“Why don’tcha tell ‘em whose cock ya love the most, baby girl?”

You cry out his name once.

“Who’s making ya feel so good right now?”

Twice.

“Who’s gonna make ya cum harder ‘nd faster?”

Thrice.

He leans down towards you to press those slow, passionate kisses against your lips that you’d missed so much, spreading your legs further and pounding into you with more speed. It’s clear he knows the map of your body that he’s made through experience like the back of his hand, since he’s able to hit that sweet spot within you time after time with more accuracy and precision than anyone else could. “Right there!” you cry, fingers dragging along the muscles rippling beneath the skin on his arms as your toes curl.

A few more thrusts send you over the edge again, and the strength of your orgasm is felt by every man in the room. Atsumu and Suna realize your cries are much louder than they were before, and Osamu smiles when he feels you squirt as your walls clench tightly around him. He doesn’t mind that you’re getting his clothes and the comforter covered in your essence—he only cares that he’s delivered the promise he’d made for you earlier. It’s not long before he reaches his high and fills you up with stuttering snaps of his hips and labored breaths. You moan breathlessly at the sensation of warmth inside your core, and let your head come to rest against the bed while he finishes inside of you.

As much as you want nothing more than to crawl under the sheets with him and rest, you’re reminded of your guests when Osamu casts his dark gaze in their direction. “Ya got whatcha wanted. Go home,” he announces, eyes narrowing at his twin brother who, along with Suna, are clearly still in awe at what they’ve witnessed. 

Turning back to you and planting a tender kiss against your collarbone while they rise to their feet and head for the door, Osamu adds deviously, “So much for rethinkin’ her decision, huh? Now ya know why she won’t.”

treat me to a coffee! ⭐︎ kinktober masterlist

taglists (see pinned post on my blog for form)

general: @dinablossom, @newfriendjen​, @devlovesramen, @ohbyunhunn, @aftcrlust, @mister-future, @kyleclxin​

osamu: @pretty-setters​, @misora-msby​, @why-aminot-dead​, @atsunakaashi​, @heyhinata​, @why-aminot-dead​