#i really like these. not obtrusive at all

[la-principessa-nuova]

first off i want to say that everything you’re describing here are all very much thoughts that went through my head at some point, and not just say that they will get better, but to give you the additional datapoint that i had all these same thoughts and yet for me it has gotten better.

I ended up writing a lot so i guess read whatever you feel like (as always) and i’ll put it after the fold so it doesn’t take up too much space on people’s dashboards:

that creeping sense of doubt of what if it’s all wrong or what if i can’t do it can be so hard to go through, and I’m sorry that you’re so deep in that right now. it did get better for me with time. it still comes into my head from time to time, especially when i’m around people who are deadnaming/misgendering me a lot or in an environment where i’m not out, but it definitely gets easier to deal with, a little bit just over time but especially as people around you start respecting your name and pronouns and treating you like a woman (either bc they change or bc you change your surroundings but either way).

for me, the thing that has helped the most in combatting the doubt, and you mentioned this already, is that counterpoint that when you think about going back, about having to pretend to be a man again, it feels so bad to think about. Because once we’ve had a taste of self-actualization, the pain of hiding and being someone else is just so much more noticeable with the context and the language/mental model to describe it. But that feeling is such a clear and present form of gender dysphoria that always reminds me why I’m doing this.

When I question if I could really be a woman because it seems so uncomfortable to push through all the conditioning that I’m not allowed to be, I think about being a man and it seems so foreign and so wrong that it helps me distinguish the feeling of truly not being a gender from the fear of the unknown and the fear of putting myself and my femininity out there to be rejected.

And when I fear that I will never pass and be read as a woman, I think about all the years that I was failing to pass as a man. All the rooms full of men (and boys earlier on) who tried treating me as one of the guys and it felt so wrong, and when I would use one of their phrases to fit in and it felt so gross coming out of my mouth. Never fitting in, never being truly part of things. Physical features are actually way easier to change than how we think and feel.

And when I think about the same situations with women, while there was a discomfort, introspecting on that made me realize that what I was feeling was that I wasn’t allowed to be there. I feared rejection from the group I wanted so badly to be part of and yet had been conditioned to believe I could never be. I felt like my presence in those settings was obtrusive, offensive, and threatening. These were all things I needed to work on (and still do to an extent) that clouded my sense of belonging within those groups.

i think it might help to show that this stuff gets better if i share a bit of my own story.

i first realized that the feelings i’d had about being more feminine and not like one of the guys meant that i was trans when i was 19, sitting in my dorm. it was the first time i had been away from home with peace and time to myself to think enough to do some deep introspection. i processed a lot of what i’ve mentioned and a lot of what you’ve mentioned at that time, and it was so overwhelming.

i didn’t think i could ever even tell my parents, and they handled all of my medical appointments and things still, so there was no way i felt like i could “medically transition” (whatever i thought that meant at the time). so after initially figuring things out, I just stopped thinking about it. I got busy with school and getting a job and I let that stuff keep me distracted, and every now and then when I had some time alone I would think about the fact that I’m trans and my gender and just feel this huge sense of cognitive dissonance as i continued to tell myself it’s not an option.

I convinced myself that even though I was technically trans, I didn’t need to transition, I could just get through life knowing for myself and hopefully one day I can find a partner who will be respectful enough about trans stuff that I can be open with it about her and that will be enough. But I was lying to myself, and eventually that all caught up with me when I moved out of my parents’ house and had some free time to introspect again and privacy to not be embarrassed reading about and watching videos by trans people explaining everything.

And then finally after 8 years I had a moment where it really sank in that I had to transition. I realized that while I could maybe keep myself alive and go to work and find some little joys along the way, I could not live until I transitioned. I realized that I could never relate to a partner who is expecting me to be a guy, and that at best I could hope to make it to old age and die sad and alone with no real friends and no partner. I realized that my creative pursuits were suffering because I wasn’t experiencing life. And I finally realized how many things that, even knowing I was trans, I hadn’t realized were manifestations of gender dysphoria.

And even after that, I still had doubts, and for the first 6 months or so after that they were so strong that I was afraid to come out to anyone irl because I didn’t want to pass the point of no return where I couldn’t just quietly throw away all my feminine things and go back to before. Even now they come and they go, but I know how to get through them without letting them send me so far into a spiral.

And when I started transitioning, I felt like there was zero hope of it working. I felt like I looked so masculine and like I could never be read as a woman, let alone completely “pass”. I thought I’d get laughed out of the room if I ever told anyone I was a woman and asked them to call me a different name and use she/her pronouns, especially my parents. I thought I’d pass so poorly nobody would ever see me as woman. But already, only 9 months into HRT, people do, and people have even earlier on.

But in some environments, people who know me from before still see me as a man in a wig, and it hurts, but it’s getting better with time. My conservative dad who had said severely transphobic things over the last few years, just a couple weeks ago, called me Sabrina for the first time. And in the conversation afterwards referred to me as his daughter. It gets better.

You will learn how to handle these struggles and avoid spiraling with time, and even if you never pass, the world will become more accepting in the long run.

As for your fears about the difficulties of transitioning, they are very valid, but while stressful and difficult, I have found them much easier to handle than the moments/contexts where I’ve had to boymode a lot and started to get sucked back into the before-times.

I’ve also come to realize that I was overestimating a lot of the difficulty and that fear was the hardest part both to experience and to overcome (although context: I have OCD and that definitely played a role, and also I live in a very blue state). The biggest step that reduced the most stress for me around transitioning was finally actually accepting that it was my life to ruin as I wanted. That I can disappoint my parents and that’s fine actually. That I can dress in ways that clash or don’t quite work and that’s fine. That I can not quite perfectly cover my stubble or make my body shape conform to feminine standards and most people won’t notice or care or think that means I’m trans even.

And also that outside of your family, people tend to care a lot less and get used to change a lot quicker, and if they don’t, you’re not stuck with them. The one exception I’ll say is possibly school, if you’re still largely with a cohort of people you’ve known for a long time (idk how common that is with like some in sixth form and some at college if i understand the uk school system correctly).

So for me there was a lot of like accepting that I can do it wrong and adjust and eventually I’ll get there. And that I have to woman badly to learn how to woman well. Like I have to actually put on makeup if I want to get better at doing it. I have to talk to cis women about things I still feel like I’m not allowed to in order to get comfortable with it. And learning to separate out those insecurities to know how to deal with them one by one.

idk i kind of rambled for a bit but hopefully some of this makes you feel less alone and maybe gives some advice on dealing with things. (and oh god i’ve been writing for 2 hours??? why can’t i do that for my book like i do for tumblr posts?)

i think im starting to accept that im a girl and. im just heartbroken

i feel robbed, i couldve been so much happier and im grateful that ill get to be, but its all so much more complicated. its not fair

i shouldnt feel as calm as i do. it seems so up here but i feel like its just stress masquerading as quiet. i just dont have the words anymore

they should get to work on that button

[tremendouskoalachild]

dialogue references to the original trilogy :)

[blujayonthewing]

god I wish bag of holding was real so FUCKING bad

[celiaelise]

I simply think loudly proclaiming autistic pride and advocacy and then watching Bluey at full volume on your phone in the shared break room are actions that are at odds with each other.

[maruflix]

MEA CULPA #oneshot #squidgame #therecruiter #thesalesman

The Salesman knows that love is truly the most dangerous game of all, and there is penance in yearning for someone who can never be yours. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa.

feat. the salesman / the recruiter　　⎯⎯　wc. 2.4k

cw: female reader, recruiter!reader, cheater!reader, language, the salesman is probably ooc, unreciprocated crush, one sided love, friends with benefits, cheating, kissing, choking, face-fucking, hair pulling, unprotected sex, slight frontman x reader, no beta we die like gi-hun’s mom

I.

Busan is so hot this time around.

You plop down with a sigh. Thankfully, having met your daily quota, you can go home early tonight. There are lots of desperate people nowadays, so finding ten people to join a game with a prize of 45.6 billion won isn’t really that difficult.

The clacking of shoes snaps you from your trance.

Without having to look up, you immediately figure out who it is. The scent of expensive cologne comes first, followed by the rustling. You grumble and slam your briefcase down, using it as a wall to separate the two of you. “Hey, not-so-friendly reminder: you’re on my turf.”

The Salesman blinks at you, feigning surprise. “Oh? I was under the impression that this was a team effort.”

His innocent tone makes you want to hurl, so you choose to ignore him completely. Instead, you stare at him in annoyance and wonder how he’s able to look so perfect in that cashmere suit of his. Not a single hair out of place, his tie straight and his shoes laced.

“You’re done for the day, aren’t you?” Your colleague tilts his head to look at you, a smile adorning his features, “Let’s play a game.”

You scoff.

He ignores your obvious displeasure and inches his whole body to face you, one arm shooting forward to grip the side of your bench. “Say, should we play ddakji? I’m in a good mood today.”

“Don’t you ever get tired of smacking paper squares?” It’s hard to keep a straight face when his handsome face keeps getting closer to you, “Get your ugly face away from me.”

The Salesman doesn’t budge. “Not until you say yes.”

He has a certain charm to him, you had to admit— he is so assertive, with just the right amount of pushy but not to the point of being obtrusive.

“Fine,” you exhale, “what do I get?”

II.

When you agreed to play a game with your fellow Recruiter (specifically, the totally unhinged one you’ve grown to dub as ‘The Salesman’), you didn’t expect this to happen.

Your colleague’s body pressed on top of yours, both your suit jackets thrown away somewhere in his fancy condo—he doesn’t even bother to wait for you to finish unbuttoning your shirt before he captures your hands and pins them on top of your head.

“Fuck,” you rasp out when he pushes himself into you agonizingly slow, savoring the way you tighten around him, “s-slow down—”

He chuckles breathily. “Darling, I’m barely moving. Besides,” eyes clouded with lust, he revels in how defenseless you look under him, “you lost our game, so you’re in no position to tell me what to do.”

With that, he sloowly drags himself out before slamming his full length into you, causing you to moan loudly. Greedily, he drinks in the sight of you, sprawled on his bed, legs open, taking all of him like a good, good girl.

“Who knew you were hiding all this underneath that suit of yours?” He teases, running a hand over your breasts, “I should’ve done this sooner.”

“I can, ngh,” Pushing yourself up on one elbow, you use your other hand to grip his chin, yanking him closer to you, “say the same about you.”

His smirk widens. “Always has to get the last word.”

He grips your throat, pushing you back down to the bed as he picks up his pace, thrusting in and out of you mercilessly while you mewl in pleasure.

“F-fuck-” you struggle, clawing on the hand that lodges itself around your throat like a serpent, “ngh,”

Your panic excites him like no other. “What’s wrong, darling? Having trouble breathing?” straightening his back, he keeps his hand securely wrapped around your neck, eyeing you down as he continues drilling into you, “Do you realize how wet you are?”

You wanted to look away, but his strong hand firmly keeps you in place. It’s not like you can hide yourself away, not when the sounds of plap! plap! plap! keeps echoing around the room—a testament of how much your cunt is drooling, soaking the bedsheets. His constant pace feels so good, and the way he gazes at you makes you feel lightheaded.

“You’re- haah, so tight,” he feels how you’re spasming around him and groans, “enjoying yourself, aren’t you?” he’s all out of breath now—you feel so good when you clamp down on him like that, so right, like the two of you are made for each other.

“Fuck! Yes!” You whine, your nails digging into his back, delicious jolts of electricity running along your spine when his girthy cock hits your sweet spot over and over, “Don’t stop, I’m, ugh, close-”

He doesn’t miss the way your legs wrap around his waist, preventing him from pulling away. Raising an eyebrow, he loosens his grip on your neck to bend down to your eye level, “What’s this? You want me to fill you up?”

His thrusts never decelerates and you’re too fucked out to even muster a reply, your moans nearly drowned out by the sloppy sounds of skin slapping against skin.

“You want that, huh?” Although his voice drips with arrogance, he’s also reaching his limit—the sight of you with your cheeks flushed and mouth hanging open drives him to the edge of insanity. He throws his head back, groaning, shooting his load deep into your womb.

You’re still shaking when he lets go of your neck, falling on top of you. Before you can think about the consequences of your actions, the fatigue catches up with you. Your body feels heavy, like it’s being pulled to the center of the earth—and your world goes dark.

Sensing that you’re not moving, The Salesman takes a glance at you and finds out that he’s quite literally fucked you unconscious. “Hey.” he shakes your shoulders a bit, but you’re unresponsive, your chest heaving up and down.

He huffs and rolls down to your side, studying your sleeping figure with a smirk. You look so beautiful in your afterglow, your hair framing your face like a halo. Like a man possessed, he moves to your ear, mumbling—

“I like you.”

III.

You groan loudly when the scent of your colleague’s cologne invades your nostrils again, ignoring the weird looks you got from strangers boarding the oncoming train.

The Salesman bats his eyelashes at you innocently.

“No, I don’t want to play with you again.”

“Aw,” he straightens his tie, “even though you told me that you had such a good time?”

At a loss for words, you can only stare at him.

The motherfucker has the audacity to cross his arms over his chest, gasping, “Stop ogling me!”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“Come on,” He scoots closer to rub the back of your hand sensually, “I know you want me.”

It’s always a game with him. You just don’t know what kind of game it is right now, and why he’s so hell-bent on having you as player two.

“Nah, I’m good. I have two bags of groceries to carry home, so good bye.”

The Salesman keeps a trained smile on his face, but his heart clenches—he doesn’t know when he started to view you differently. It was fun to pick on you at first, but he’s slowly started to feel weird around you.

Like watching an oncoming crash, he can’t bring himself to stop.

“Wait! Let me help!”

IV.

Looking back, you probably should’ve stood your ground. But it’s hard to say no to his stupidly handsome face.

Your groceries are forgotten, your apartment still dark. You probably should start cooking dinner, but instead you’re on your knees, your back pressed against the wall.

“Open up,” his eyes are as cold as ever, his lips pulled up to form a victorious smirk as he guides his leaking cock to rest on your mouth.

You find yourself obeying, allowing him to fill your mouth full of his cock. He doesn’t wait for you to adjust to his size, already thrusting his hips, making you gag almost immediately.

“Just like that, baby,” he takes hold of the hands that’s trying to push him away and pins them against the wall, quickening, smirking down at you as you struggle to wrap your mouth around him, “You feel so good.”

Meanwhile, you’ve finally adjusted to his throbbing length. In an act of protest, you hollow your cheeks, deciding that it was your turn to dominate this man. You move your head to his pace and even quicker, your eyelashes wet with tears when you look up to glare at him.

He feels like he’s going to explode—your adorable defiance is so cute and your crying face—oh, don’t get him started on your crying face.

“Mmngh?!”

He jerks his hips sharply, moaning at how good it feels when the muscles of your cheeks tightens at the wide stretch of his cock. Oh, he loves you, he loves you, he loves you—

“Mmfh—?!”

Your muffled exclaim makes him halt and he looks down at your shocked face. Only now does the realization dawns on him that he’s accidentally said his thoughts out loud.

IV.

You no longer look up when you sense a presence sitting down next to you.

“This was a mistake.”

He’s silent, so you turn to look at him. The Salesman has a poker face on, but you can tell that he’s thinking. Contemplating.

“Honestly, stop it. I... I can’t.”

“Why can’t you?”

You sigh in frustration. “Look, I..” squirming in your seat, you finally confess, “I’m already in a relationship.”

“So?”

The genuine confusion in his tone makes you look at him in incredulousness. He doesn’t back down, raising an eyebrow. “I’m not asking you to love me, I’m asking you to let me love you. I don’t care if you’re married—hell, I don’t care if you have kids.”

“Wha-” You flinch away from his touch, shocked, “W-well, I care!”

“Do you?” He shoots back, his gaze sardonic, you felt like you might crumble underneath it. “Is that why you begged me to cum inside you?”

“I-”

“I know you want me.” His smile is confident, “so stop acting. You suck at it.”

You tremble, but lets him guide you away.

V.

You’re whimpering, your hands shakily unbuttoning his dress shirt. In front of you, he chuckles, bringing his hands up to grip your waist and pushing them up and down.

“Wait, fuck,”

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” he murmurs, rocking you back and forth, “a purely physical relationship?”

The Salesman keeps his grudges, and right now he’s punishing you by rutting into you, sending you gasping and moaning, but he’s unrelenting—one of his arm circles your waist as he pulls you closer, his thumb starting to circle the nub of your clit.

“Fuck, please, please-”

“You want to cum?” He stops touching you and you whine in despair, leaning on his broad chest.

“Yes, yes, touch me-” you grab his hand and aligns it to your sopping wet hole, but he easily yanks his hand away.

“Say it.”

You’re close to crying now—your nerves are ablaze, but he refuses to let you reach your climax. “W-what?”

“Say you love me.” his hand hovers above your clit, “Say it.”

You know what you’re doing is wrong—but right now, all you wanted was release.

“I love you, fuck-” your body quivers when he instantly rewards you by a sharp thrust followed by his finger deliciously circling your sensitive nub, “I love you, I love you-”

He’s moaning with you now, shutting you up by kissing you sloppily on the lips, his free hand reaching to grab your hair, pulling it. You gasp and he takes the opportunity to slip his tongue inside, tasting you fervently.

“‘m gonna-” Before you can finish, your orgasm shakes your whole body. You can feel your walls clenching and unclenching around his length, trying to milk him dry. He groans in response and buries his face on your neck, pushing his hips up and down to chase his own high. He fucks you through your orgasm, making you scream, pounding into you raw until he shoots his load. It trickles down your pussy onto his own shaft, coating it with a thin layer of cum.

He kisses the top of your head and lays you down on the bed, your body shuddering in his arms. “Now, was that so hard?”

You look away as he wraps an arm over your naked body, pulling you close to him.

The first ray of sunlight peeks through the curtains and you realize that you only have about four hours to sleep.

VI.

It’s unusual, but you were a special case: recruiters work on the outside world so there’s really no need for them to visit the game venue, but you’ve received a special invitation.

Your heels clicked against the hardwood floors as you pass by the guards. The Salesman follows you closely, ignoring the stares that he got.

“Ah, you’re finally here.”

The Salesman stops in his tracks when he sees a man in a black mask standing several steps away. The masked man puts away his mask to reveal his face and his heart drops.

“Oh, you’re here too. Have you come to watch 456 play?”

The Salesman stays silent when you smile and walk away from him to the direction of his boss, thinking— ‘so you weren’t lying after all.’

The Front Man instinctively wraps his arms around your waist, his lips claiming yours. “Long time no see,” your lover smiles as you rest your head on his chest. “I’ve been busy, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” you mumble. You miss having him by your side—so much so that you let another man hold you in his absence.

“Come on, the games are going to start.” None the wiser to your actions, he guides you away, taking one last look at his other subordinate, “Don’t stick around too long, the VIP’s are going to arrive soon.”

The Salesman smiles and nods, watching as you disappear behind the double doors with your lover in tow. His heart feels like it’s being stabbed and ripped to shreds—deep inside, he has held out hope that you’re lying; making up excuses to ignore the obvious chemistry between the two of you.

Now, when he closes his eyes, all he can see is the image of you kissing another man—but can he blame you? You told him the truth, he was the one who chose to keep loving you like a fool; dancing to the beat of your rhythm, losing himself in the process—

You are not to blame, he is. He’s the one at fault; he’s the one to blame.

As he turns away and walks to the direction of the exit, all he can think about is this: Your lover may have you now, but when the games are over—oh, his turn will come.

Patience. Patience. Your turn will come. He repeats it like a mantra.

Patience.

note: ok this is probably the most self indulgent fic i’ve written. first time writing smut i hope i did okay 😭 anyway english is not my first language so please be gentle with me 😭

[moonstruckme]

Are you going to continue the roomate James series? I’m actually in love with it😍

Yes! Thank you for reading <3

part 1 │ part 2 │ part 3 │ part 4 │part 5 │ part 6 │ part 7 │ part 8 │ part 9 │ part 10 │ part 11 │ part 12 │ part 13

roommate!James x shy!reader ♡ 804 words

“Honey, I’m home!” 

A smile tugs at your lips, even as you roll your eyes to yourself. James has become more and more fond of these pet names, and of announcing his comings and goings like he’s worried you’ll miss him. (He’s never gone long enough for that, though you might actually miss him if he were.) If you don’t respond in some way or another, he’ll—

“Hey.” He pokes his head through your cracked door. “You alive in here?” 

You pause in folding your laundry to give him a deadpan look. “I could have been in my underwear.” 

He looks mildly horrified. “I’d hope if you were, you’d close the door all the way.” 

“You know, I did manage to stay alive even before you moved in.” 

James leans on your doorframe, giving you the sort of lazy grin you have to pretend doesn’t scare butterflies into flight in your stomach. You really hope that wears off soon. “See, but now I’m convinced if I don’t check on you, you really will die and it’ll be my fault.” 

“How would it be your fault?” 

“Classic case of roommate neglect. I smell the rotting coming from inside your room, the police come, they ask How did you not know your roommate was dead for a month? I reply, Well, officer, she said she could be galavanting in her underwear at any moment. They put me in handcuffs and I spend the next five to fifteen years having Sirius bring me cigarettes I don’t want so that I can trade them for ramen noodles in the yard.” 

You scoff, fighting a smile. “As if you would ever eat ramen.” 

“That’s what I’m saying, sweetheart. You’d be forcing me upon desperate times. But hey,” he raises his hands in a show of surrender, “I didn’t come in here to discuss prison currency. Would it be alright with you if I had friends over tonight?” 

“Of course,” you say, looking back down to match a pair of socks. “You don’t need to ask every time, it’s always alright.” 

“Thanks,” he says warmly, “but it makes me feel better to ask. What do you want on your pizza?” 

You blink. “Me?” 

“Yes, you.” He smiles. Butterflies all over again. “You don’t have to hang out with us to eat it—though we’d love to have you—but I’m not just going to order pizza to your own apartment without having any for you.” 

“It’s your apartment, too,” you remind him. “That’d be a very normal thing to do.” 

“Irregardless.” James waves you off. You wrinkle your nose at the word choice. “What do you want?” 

You swallow a sigh. There are some things, you’ve found, James is nearly impossible to argue with about. If you really dig your heels in, sometimes you can make him move first, but you don’t feel like it right now. 

You do the next best thing you can think of: choosing the least obtrusive option. “Cheese is good with me, thanks.” 

His eyes narrow like he knows what you’re doing, but he says, “Got it. I’ll let you know when it’s here.” 

“Thanks.” You turn your attention back to your laundry. James lingers in the doorway. 

A month ago, you would have kept ignoring him, working on the (unfounded) hope that he’d go away. Now, you look up. 

“Do you think you might come downstairs and hang out?” he asks. He has a strange look on his face, one you can’t quite decipher. “You know you’re always invited.” 

You give James a terse sort of smile. He’s not stopped inviting you to do things since the day he moved in. Your open invitation has been made very clear, and you’ve been accepting it more often lately. James is someone who makes it easy to feel close to him. He tosses pet names at you like they’re nothing, comes to check on you when he gets home, pretends he needs to go grocery shopping just because you need a ride to the store. Last week, you’d sat down to watch a movie with him and woken up to a black screen, your cheek smushed into his shoulder and his head resting atop yours. 

Somehow, you’ve let him spill into your life without meaning to, and now you have these childish, crush-like reactions whenever he smiles a certain way or calls you pet names with that familiar bent to his voice. You know you just need time to sort these feelings out. It’d probably be ideal to keep yourself from spilling into his life as much as possible in the meantime. 

But it’s hard to deny James anything when he’s so sweet to you. And he’s nice. His friends seem nice. 

“I might,” you say. 

“I’ll take the win,” James replies, smiling. These butterflies are seriously inconvenient.

[txttletale]

hey what DO you watch on youtube? seems like you'd have some neat recommendations :3

i really loathe the like super-highly edited sound effect post-mrbeast slop most of youtube is now so i mostly like stuff that's like... calm and sedate. stuff i've been watching lately in no particular order:

northernlion vods and clips. he's an OG. i especially like his react court series, i must have watched all of them like five times.

speaking of OGs i've been watching zero puncutation (now fully ramblomatic) for like ten years and if anything it's only gotten better. best game review content on the internet. been really enjoying his more recent, slightly longer and more thoughtful 'extra punctuation/semi-ramblomatic' series too.

any austin's skyrim unemployment rate videos. instant classics to me, it's just a guy going around in skyrim trying to figure out the unemployment rate in every town. it's a very dry kind of humour, he plays it admirably straight, and it's weirdly calming.

kitten arcader's foot the bill videos. in a kind of similar vein, he watches the saw movies and then produces an itemized bill for everything jigsaw needed to buy to make his traps. it's kind of like... if cinemasins was fundamentally curious instead of fundamentally incurious, it scratches a similar sort of nitpicky detail-oriented quantifying itch but without inimical to the concept of art.

shuffle up and play. it's a magic the gathering play series that has enough editing that the gamestate is actually legible but not enough editing (or at least, not enough obtrusive in-your-face editing) that its annoying. i also like that they reguilarly play non-edh formats like cube and pauper.

spice8rack. i'm pretty picky about video essays but spice8rack has very obviously actually read books and has interesting things to say about the topics it discusses (mostly magic: the gathering). sometimes it has a kind of grating Theater Kid Energy but the fact that it actually meaningfully structures essays and analysis to earn the silly long runtimes is a rare delight from a video essayist.

jenny nicholson is a long-time favourite and another permanent fixture in my rotation. she's just extremely, remarkably funny which makes her the only 'basically just summarizing a thing' youtuber i think is worth the time of day.

i watch some sketch comedy, mainly wizards with guns and aunty donna, who both consistently put out really funny stuff that's kind of ITYSL-adjacent in its barefaced absurdism and contenmpt for concepts like "stopping a joke at the logical punchline". i also really like alasdair beckett-king and binging the old clickhole backlog for short-form comedy on youtube.

wolfeyvgc is right on the edge of the level of editing i find tolerable but as a long-time fan of multiple esports he Has It, he's absolutelyt fantastic at t elling the narrative of a tournament, explaining plays clearly, and generally making competitive pokemon esports thrilling and interesting ti someone (me) who#s never played it and doesn't care about pkoemon that much

i religously watch every elliespectacular/dathings YTP, the absolute best in the game right now, top tier snetence mixing and really good at actually setting up and paying off jokes in a way it feels like a lot of ytp doesn't. verytallbart is also pretty good.

trapperdapper is a channel i recently binged, it's a really fucking funny parody of minecraft challenge content that veers slowly from obvious angles of parody into pure absurdism with tons of blink-and-you'll miss it subtle visual gags.

too much future is a great youtube series where the two guys from just king things/homestuck made this world play through every fallout game and analyze them in that context. extremely funny and also just top-tier very sharp analysis. really good

another one of the rare good video essayists is jan misali. they're really funny and will go into topics that kind of seem narrow or strange to begin with in such depth and make them so interesting that it's consistently astonishing.

oh and finally sarah z makes pretty good videos. 'the narcissist scare' is an absolutely brilliant deconstruction of one of the most annoying pop-psych phenomena of the last couple years. and remarkably well script supervised i think did anyone else watch it and think 'wow the script supervisor on this must have been, a mind geniuse'

ok i think that's all i've been watching lately. hope you like whcihever of these recs you check out :)

[hitlikehammers]

💫FINALLY✨ The One Where Wayne Munson Has to Carefully Try Not To Eavesdrop 100% COMMIT TO THE EAVESDROPPING When 💕HIS NEPHEW'S BOYFRIEND💕 Comes By To FACE THE MUSIC Reveal What That Coffee Date ☕ Was REALLY All About

(well: at least Wayne's just a willful fool about all this, rather than a witless one) ——(3/3)

<<< part two

~or~

<<< back to the beginning

Wayne’s the one who lets Steve in the next morning.

It’s his day off, and he only managed to get to bed for a couple hours anyway, so he’s just shaking off sleep when the knock comes.

And of course Steve’s as polite as ever, takes his shoes off like the upper crust kid he’ll always be but not with any of the snootiness Wayne’d expected in the beginning, just an ingrained—and eventually, grew to be downright upsetting—need to not be obtrusive, to step on no possible toes. Wayne’d been wishing for a while he’d go ahead and stomp on whatever toes he’d like to, save that today—

Today’s-Steve looks about ready to blow a gasket, and goddamn but Wayne hurts for him. He hurts more for his own boy, if what he fears despite his own good sense is what’s about to happen. But at the very same time he can’t wholly ignore the equal truth that Steve?

Steve’s grown to be his boy, too.

Wayne offers a cup from the coffee he’s about to brew but Steve turns him down with a tight smile, barely even worth being called such, which is telling for itself and more for rejecting the coffee—Steve only really does that when something’s wrong.

But Steve’s barely got to craning his neck around to look for Eddie when the man himself pops out from his room, all dimples and the kind of joy you can feel fill a room. Wayne aches for how it might be lookin’ to get dimmed, sniffed out at worst, if things are about to go sideways.

But Steve, who’s looked like he was ‘bout to be ill since he came in, takes a full breath and sheds the slightest sliver of the tension in him, just for meeting Eddie’s eyes across the way, and then Eddie’s closing the gap, arms out wide and grabbing Steve in tight and Steve’s grabbing right back, and they look for all intents like they’re trying real hard to pull so close they’ll break bones and mesh into one person, and Wayne tries to find comfort in the way people don’t do that sorta thing if they’re lookin’ to hurt one another.

They might well do that sorta thing as a kind of goodbye, though.

Eddie’s pulling them to the couch as Wayne stews over the thoughts he’s got, all at odds with each other and his own gut feeling too at that, because he’s up against the evidence he has against it turning out alright, versus the way he does believe he knows Steve to be a good man; the coffee’s burbling and draws his attention as a kindness until he hears voices from the living room:

“Eds,” and Steve’s leaning in to Eddie on the sofa and Wayne has to strain to hear and that alone should be enough to stop him. To make the more’n obvious point that he’s in the mess he’s in at all because he didn’t keep his ears to himself.

He don’t know if it makes it better or worse, that he’s not a witless fool, just a wilful one, to hold still where he’s got the dishes in hand to dry in the kitchen, so he can have a clean cup for his coffee. When he should move to the porch, have a smoke, take a walk.

“I gotta talk to you,” and Steve sounds grave with it, and Wayne tenses—he wants so bad to be wrong, because he can’t believe that Steve would do the things all the little clues add up to so easy. Not that sweet boy beat around by circumstance beneath the surface; and not done to his boy, neither.

Because Steve looks at his Eddie not so different from the moony cow-eyes his nephew don’t even try to tame.

But it’s…he sounds like there’s a death in the family he’s come to convey. He sounds like the world’s maybe ending.

Wayne don’t know if he holds his breath just to hear better, or because everything feels fragile. Maybe both things at once.

“What’s up, Stevie?” Eddie speaks so low, so sweet like he cherishes so damn much. “Are you okay, is everything—”

“Everything’s fine,” and Steve, hell: he sounds just the same, like there’s love coming out his ears. “Good, even, great, possibly,” but that sounds stilted, or maybe anxious, and Wayne don’t quite know what to make of it; “if you…”

And even Wayne can hear the labor in the breathe Steve’s taking, so he ain’t surprised when Eddie goes in all gentle and half whispers to his boy:

“Hey, Stevie.”

And Wayne don’t look, he’s pouring his coffee now, can’t take the chance of burnin’ himself and risk missing out hours for it, ‘course that’s why.

He don’t look, but he hears exactly what Ed’s words do to Steve when the reply comes out with the kind of relief you can feel with a weight in it, for what it sloughs off and makes light again:

“Hey.”

He can catch the way Eddie rubs hands up Steve’s arms, back and forth and back, foreheads leaned in together, and they sit there long enough for Wayne to lean in comfortable enough against the counter and test the heat of his drink.

“Whatcha got to talk to me about?” And it’s Eddie who broaches the elephant in the room, the soured thing at the base of Wayne’s throat churning for the past day and change. Wayne expects Steve to hold off, tiptoe a little.

He doesn’t, though; not even a little.

“I got the job.”

And that…that ain’t what Wayne was fearing at all, is it.

“Steve,” and Eddie does sound like it’s a good thing, a great thing, truly he does; “baby, that’s amazing!” And then the springs of the couch are creaking and Steve’s making a punched-out sorta sound that means only one thing: Eddie’s tackled him whole-body to the other side of the sofa.

“Fuck I’m so proud of you, sweetheart, holy shit,” Ed’s sayin’ a little breathy, punctuated by loud wet kissy sounds that Wayne usually takes as his cue to skedaddle but…he needs a minute to reconcile what he’d been thinking without believing it could be true, and the reality that it seems he’d been right deep-down about who Steve Harrington was.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Steve’s protesting through laughter, but once they both seem to catch back their breaths he likewise leans back to something serious, and Wayne sees into the living room how Eddie’s stretched on top of Steve, with Steve reaching up and holding him by the cheeks:

“I won’t take it if you,” and Steve’s clearin’ his throat, something Wayne’s noticed is like a squaring of shoulders, whether that part’s there at the same time or not; “I won’t take it, not if it means,” and it’s a painful thing the way Steve swallows, the click of it somethin’ Wayne can hear all the way in to kitchen:

“I won’t take it, and not be with you.”

And that…that Wayne don’t quite get, and he feels wrong-footed for more than just listening in, as if that weren’t enough on its own, plus the cause of the problems he’d been wrestling to start, but then: “What?”

Ed seems just as puzzled, which makes Wayne feel a little less bamboozled, but still not…still not settled with whatever’s causin’ any of it, because now that Wayne’s got real context, he thinks back a-ways, to how Steve had mentioned a promotion, but was then looking at something better all around, regional-sort of stuff; now that he’s got context, he thinks back to the morning-last, and tries to pick apart what he’d heard without an invitation, if it weren’t about the lady friend. Steve had still been so worried, with the banging of the head on the table—and how could he think Eddie’d be anything but as thrilled as he clearly is right now for his boy? Wayne’s never seen Eddie as proud of anyone or anything, so much as he is for Steve just breathing in the world at all—and damn it all if the sentiment hasn’t rubbed off a little, and sure Wayne knows Steve’s history’s made him gun-shy to celebrate the bright spots but…

“It’s in Indy,” Steve’s spelling out, and Wayne remembers that being tossed about, and well: regional. That’d make sense.

“And you,” Steve pauses, and the breath he takes in next is a shaky-echoing thing; “for now you’re here, but not for long, because you want to go and try doing music, right, and that means New York or L.A. or somewhere big, not the armpit of fucking Indiana, and—”

“Breathe, Stevie,” Eddie cuts in quick, adoring; coaches with such patience, the care in it—the love in it a tangible thing; “in, and out,” and all of a sudden from nowhere, save from everywhere and every moment leading into this—

Suddenly Wayne blinks, and out the clear blue he’s witnessing the man Eddie’s grown into.

Talk about bein’ proud.

“One more,” Eddie coaxes a gentle, and Steve listens, Wayne hears as he gulps in the air carefully and deep, sees them move in the corner of his eye as Eddie sits up proper now and folds forward into Steve’s chest where he muffles what he says, less for hiding and more maybe to press it firm into Steve’s chest so it can’t be denied, because it’ll be on the inside and settled there sure:

“Fuck, I love you.”

And Wayne has that feelin’ again like he ain’t supposed to be party to the particular degree of intimacy in the moment; maybe he lets the plates on the counter clank a little more’n necessary to remind them casually that they ain’t alone.

But discretion’s not what follows, more like the wet slip of mouths against each other and oh, well then: if the boys don’t seem to view Wayne’s presence in the next room as a deterrent then Wayne’s just gonna keep at feelin’ embarrassed, rather’n guilty to boot.

“Steve,” and Ed’s voice goes warm and low and Wayne tries to not feel bad for hearing, more focuses on bein’ happy, and grateful, for this thing his boy found in maybe the most unlikely of places, through the hardest round out of hell he could have met: he gets a thing here that Wayne wasn’t sure he still believed could even be, not with so much hate in the world as there is.

“Me and the boys, we’re good, but we’re not,” and Eddie huffs, a light thing that feels gentle and almost joyful, like he’s celebratin’ a thing that’s not inside the same words he speaks at all:

“We’re not that good.”

“Bullshit,” Steve’s quick to counter, like it means more than it reads on the label somehow, too, and still it’s said with his whole throat, at that: and at that, Wayne can’t help but grin a little himself.

He knew he wasn’t wrong about the heart of Steve Harrington. About how much this young man loves his boy.

“Steve,” and Wayne watches, don’t even make a secret of it now: watches over the lip of his mug because he’d only dared to hope for this kinda thing idly, and always feeling foolish for it, for his Eddie to find something even a smidgen close to what he’s got here; what they’ve got here as Ed reaches and tips Steve chin just a touch.

“I don’t want to waste years trying to fit a mold even by being a freak, trying to sell my brand of weird and hoping people get it,” Eddie tells him, clear-eyed like Wayne’s not sure he’s ever heard him. “I don’t want to put that much of my life into a maybe,” and then he’s tracing Steve’s jaw with a tenderness he was never taught, so it’s just something natural and pure inside him, brought out just so by this one man in his arms as he whispers so soft-hearted and with more love than feels possible even just to watch:

“Not when I’ve got what my whole heart wants most.”

And Wayne sees Steve’s jaw work under Eddie’s touch as he asks so low, and far too timid for a man Wayne’s seen live up to the monster-slaying he’s heard tell of.

“More than music?”

And it’s asked like he could never believe it; like he couldn’t expect it.

But Eddie’s back to the clear-eyed sureness, then. He has no doubts.

“More than fame,” is what he answers, flipping hands through Steve’s hair as he leans just to whisper:

“You’re the music,” and Wayne watches Steve still, his face scrunch like it does when he thinks he feels too much; “my music,” and Steve would be embarrassed to know Wayne hears the tiny little whimper that he gives when Eddie presses a kiss to the space between his eyebrows, and there’s part of him that’s embarrassed for himself in it, to have heard what’s not his, but if he’s honest he’s still stuck in that gratitude, that relief for this way it’s all shaken out, not to mention how Wayne’s little family that he never intended to start’s now feeling complete where he didn’t think there was anything left to add, to grow.

“And I have music with you as much as anywhere,” Eddie’s explaining with a wobbly little grin; “plus with you, even the music’s sweeter.”

Then he’s cupping Steve cheeks again and pressing forehead into forehead so that Wayne can only hear the barest whisper:

“Lead the way, baby, and I’ll follow with fucking bells on.”

And Steve, he’s quiet, leans back into the cushions a little and Wayne watches unabashed about it now as Steve studies Eddie, takes him in less like he’s weighing anything and more like he’s committing to memory a moment worth knowing everything about in full, and then he’s the one framing Eddie’s face in his hands and asking with a certainty he didn’t have before, and that fits him so much better:

“Move in with me? Leave here, and leave all the shit they say and the way they look at you and how they fucking treat you,” Steve damn near growls and Wayne feels all the more why he trusts Steve Harrington, and should never have even considered doubting, no matter if the mere suggestion was something he knew was pressing up against his better judgement from the start, because this is the man who loves his boy enough to take on the world, and tear it to shreds when the need rears its ugly head.

“Come with me?”

And that’s maybe a little more of the hesitance, and again, it sounds wrong as a rule, but Eddie’s quick as anything:

“It’ll take me less than a hour to pack.”

And he’s on his feet in a second and Wayne has to bite back a snort because that’ll give him away more’n anything else, but Steve’s pulling Eddie back to the sofa again in a heartbeat:

“Not that fast,” he laughs, a breathy little chuckle that’s got so much more to it even to Wayne’s ears, that’s disbelief and a little wondering joy and everything this boy deserves and has done his whole goddamn life, and heaven help his parents if Wayne ever sees them again face to face for all they ever did to make their son feel less; “got a couple months, I’ll drive up for training while the other guy’s wrapping up, then,” and he shrugs, Wayne hears it shuffle against the upholstery, then he sees Steve looking up from guarded lashes, just that little bit of uncertainty left—

“Then,” Eddie prods, meets him in that moment of waffling, of fear in trusting to feel all that they do, so visible you don’t even have to search it out. It just shines through, couldn’t deny it if you tried, and sure as hell not for how giddy, how overfull Eddie sounds then with…promise.

Ain’t no other word for it.

Ain’t no other thing Steve could latch to like he does, wholehearted and unfettered where before he was still fighting old chains.

Not no more.

“There’s a record store that needs a new manager,” Steve starts off; “a tattoo shop that’s taking apprentices, and they also need someone to watch the books,” and it’s a list, he’s listing opportunities, he’s counting out the promise; “a music store, like for instruments and stuff, that needs someone who can work but also maybe teach, because they want to start giving lessons, apparently people keep asking for them, and then there’s—”

Steve’s cut clear off, and Wayne don’t have to be in the room to know it’s for being kissed within an inch of his life.

“I love you,” Eddie’s saying again because it’s more’n a given, but it’s sounding like it’s shaping into something a little different, a little deeper, somehow a something that’s more.

“I love you so much, Steve Harrington,” and Eddie’s voice is rough with it, and Wayne ain’t gonna lie to himself that his eyes sting to hear it, even if no one can see and hold him to bein’ honest about it.

“You looked for jobs for me?” Eddie asks small, the first thing here that’s maybe overwhelmed him good and true, and in the best of all ways.

“Yeah?” Steve says it like it’s obvious, then goes back bashful nearly:

“For if you said yes.”

And then the springs of the couch are doin’ the heavy lifting again as Steve huffs and Eddie pounces.

“I fucking,” and there a pause that sounds a lot like more kissin’, which tracks along right, yeah: “I fuckin’ love you.”

And Steve chuckles, and Wayne just shakes his head, smiles down at his coffee while Eddie’s tone sobers, while he asks a little small:

“You thought there was a chance in hell that I’d say no?”

“I,” and Steve sounds chagrined, in that way that Wayne’s come to recognize means there’s an old hurt he’s covering, but one that might have a shot at makin’ a scab finally to close for good. “Robin thought I was being dumb, but I,” and he blows out a long breath, and Wayne glances to watch Eddie rub up and down Steve’s arms, waiting and being right there and oh, true as anything.

That’s the man his boy’s grown into.

“People don’t really,” Steve says slow, but measured, like he’s planning every letter out to land just so: ”people haven’t…stuck around, y’know?”

And Wayne can’t help but look to see how Eddie’s hands stop at Steve’s wrists, grounding and holding and keeping, sort of, or not sort of: absolutely that without room to misinterpret or think any bit less; same as Wayne won’t try to pretend away the bitterness at the back of his own throat that a boy as good as the one he’s learned Steve Harrington to be could think that of himself not just in passing, but as a preordained thing, an inflexible rule for always.

Makes him sick; makes him angrier than he tries to ever be these days, but good goddamn if this don’t warrant it.

“So asking someone to come with, to not just not leave but to chose to go, with m—”

And Steve’s saying things, and Eddie lets him but only to a point, and Wayne doesn’t see how he stops him, but he knows full well he’d stop still in the middle of a sound himself if the tone that comes out his boy were leveled his way: unshakable. Granite-strong, diamond-hard.

“Listen to me,” and oh, but for all the way it lands intense, the love in it’s a thing to behold and marvel at just to hear; he feels like it could undo a man to be under the gaze that tone comes alone with it, like Steve has to be sitting just now: “listen to me so fucking close right now.”

And maybe Wayne leans in, too, whether it’s meant for him or not:

“I will choose, with my whole goddamn chest, with every piece of me there is in the whole fucking world,” Eddie says, puts emphasis and feeling on each and every word; “to go anywhere, if it’s with you.”

And it’s silent for a minute, but then Wayne only just hears the sound of mouths parting and sharp intakes of breath ringing through the sill and Eddie hisses, a little hoarse, a little broken, entirely with all that he is, just like he said:

“Always.”

Then the couch goes about protestin’ again, but it’s Eddie who Wayne makes out for groaning on impact, and it makes sense that it’s Steve’s voice now breathing harsh through the vow of what comes next:

“Love you,” and there’s the kissing again; “love you so goddamn much.”

And Wayne figures he’s had more’n enough of overhearing what’s not quite his to hear, but here’s the thing.

These boys are gonna be at this for a bit, he reckons, and the coffee’s already half-gone and lukewarm besides. They’ve got money to be a little indulgent with these days, courtesy of Uncle Sam, plus Mary at the plant said the rhododendrons actually like coffee anyway.

So he figures he can justify brewing another pot, if for no other reason than to start the day off better than he’d been expecting by one helluva country mile and then some.

♥️

✨also on ao3

For @thefreakandthehair, who requested 'Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.' at my HOBBIT-STYLE BIRTHDAY MONTH PROMPT FEST

✨permanent tag list: OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @ajeff855 @askitwithflours @awkwardgravity1 @bookworm0690 @bumblebeecuttlefishes @captain--low @depressed-freak13 @dragoon-ze-great @dreamercec @dreamwatch @estrellami-1 @finntheehumaneater @goodolefashionedloverboi @grtwdsmwhr @gunsknivesandplaid @hiei-harringtonmunson @hbyrde36 @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @kimsnooks @live-laugh-love-dietrich @mensch-anthropos-human @nerdyglassescheeseychick @notaqueenakhaleesi @ollyxar @pearynice @perseus-notjackson @pretend-theres-a-name-here @pukner @ravenfrog @sadisticaltarts @samsoble @sanctumdemunson @shrimply-a-menace @slashify @stealthysteveharrington @swimmingbirdrunningrock @theheadlessphilosopher @theintrovertedintrovert @themoonagainstmers @theohohmoment @tillystealeaves @tinyloonyteacups @tinyplanet95 @warlordess @wheneverfeasible @wordynerdygurl @wxrmland @yourmom-isgay @1-tehe-1

divider credit here

[luxlightly]

Simon in the new Fionna and Cake show really feels to me like he embodies the feeling of having been extremely mentally ill, then getting significantly better, but still struggling with mental illness, just in a quieter and less obtrusive way. Especially being an artist whose most beloved work was from that time.

You're well enough that people expect you to be able to cope, but you're not and people don't understand. People who knew you before don't extend the same amount of help they did before because they don't realize you need it. Your suffering is so much quieter and easier to overlook. Now you're the one responsible for keeping up appearances, for keeping it hidden.

People who didn't know you before see snippits of how you were and will tell you to your face that that version of you was preferable because of the things you did or created. You're "boring" to them. They might even think you were happier before, because of your manic moments. Then act like you're selfish for still expressing any symptoms.

You can't relate to the healthy people around you but you can't relate to the art you created when you were sick, anymore, either. People trying to praise the work you did before just sends you right back to that bad time in your life, but they can't help the fact it was meaningful and inspiring to them as much as it is painful and triggering for you. They want you to be the person who made the thing that makes them so inspired.

And part of you does, too. Because the memory of the constant underlying pain of that time you were so sick starts to fade and blend in with the suffering of now and starts to feel comparable. And at least back then you weren't constantly trying to hide it. At least then people noticed. At least then you had something to offer people, even if it was a manifestation of your suffering. At least then there were moments of joy. Because anything seems better than the monotony of being stuck in this place, too sick and too well, simultaneously.

All with the constant repeating mantra of "aren't I so much better now?" Because you are.

Aren't you?

[jujutsukaisenwriting]

JJK Characters Realizing They Start Falling for You [Pt.2]

Bonus: manga character in the end!

Choso:

Being one of the Death Paintings, he never experienced such feelings before. At first, he tries identifying it but fails. It’s more than friendship and more than simple protectiveness. After some time, he goes to Yuji and reluctantly asks for advice.

Grumpy and aloof by nature, Choso starts with tiny steps: sitting a bit closer to you than usually, talking to you more often or even doing small acts of service like holding the door for you.

He actually has lots of passion, emotions and affection inside and with you around, he feels more in touch with these emotions than ever.

Is very sweet and once opening up, will blow you away with his wit and humor.

Will surely take some time to mentally prepare for asking you out since a) he doesn't believe he has a chance and b) has super low self esteem in terms of being a romantic partner.

Takes you to a quiet place where he can gather his thoughts. Is surprisingly straightforward though and just admits he likes you and would like to get to know you more.

INSTANT SMILE OF RELIEF

Cups your face and stares in your eyes with a huge goofy smile, not quite comprehending what just happened.

Yuta:

Since he had a history with Rika, at first he brushes off any thoughts of potential love interests.

However, you make it hard for him not to pay attention to the way you laugh, carry yourself, or spar.

Opens up with you more, replacing his shy facade with his true, ingenious and passionate self.

He finds it fascinating how easy it is to talk to you and just be around you, with no need to pretend or stay alert.

Is actually a very protective type and it will show almost instantly. He will always make sure you are safe and comfortable but he won't be obtrusive at all.

One day just asks you to join him and spend some time in an amusement park. While walking, will casually drop the "I quite like you" line and will smile softly, talking your hand.

From the start, he never doubted in your answer and now smiles in quiet confidence.

Toji:

Needless to say, the man is super reserved so at first, he will just act as his usual self: keeping the distance and occasionally glancing at your side with a frown.

Is annoyed at himself because he never thought he’d be interested in another person again. Apparently, you found your way under his skin.

Toji knows how to be a husband but has forgotten how to be a boyfriend so he’ll have hard time figuring out where to start.

Are flowers okay? What do people even do these days? Should he take you out somewhere?

His rage surprisingly dissolves in your presence and he cherishes this feeling though never admits it out loud.

Will take you to a secluded and quiet restaurant and will simply state that yes, he’d love to… try this whole…relationship thing with you.

Geto:

Usually has no trouble asking someone out or simply flirting but finds himself at loss of words in your presence.

It’s weird and he both likes it and feels a bit embarrassed.

Is a type to observe you from the distance and make mental notes on your behavior and habits. He doesn’t stalk though: he is just hesitant to approach you yet.

Is amused by the way you laugh or fix your hair and smiles softly and admires you quietly

Loves to touch you, be it holding your hand occasionally or brushing a strand of hair from your face.

Will probably ask you out while you two share a quiet and cozy evening. Something like stargazing together sounds like a perfect start for your blooming relationship.

“I’m not used to needing someone as much as I need you, but I’ll be honored if you decide to give it a try and become my partner”

Higuruma:

Not really a romance type of guy and has never been pursuing a relationship, prioritising work.

Is caught off guard by the sight of you. His eyes open widely and his whole expression changes as if the veil, that’s been hiding his features, was finally lifted.

Tries to rationalise his feelings and emotions. Like, he should control them, right? Logic should be above it all?

In your presence, acts in a rather sharp manner, trying to hide nervousness.

Old-school romance is his style. One day, he will just show up with a huge bouquet of flowers, assembled specifically to your liking.

Will be brutally honest like “I don’t know why I’m feeling this way but I’d rather spend evening with you than by myself”

Will actually open up and as it turns out, has a wonderful sense of humor and lots of witty stories that he will gladly share.

Note though that he is a perfect listener. This man is genuinely interested in your day, your mood and your thoughts.

He wants to become part of your life and is willing to work on any complexities that might arise.

[vixstarria]

Kinktober Day 23 - Body Swapping

For every day of the month of October I will be posting a little snippet following prompts listed in this post. Most of these will not be full fics, but rather short snippets, set-ups, and, in a few cases, copied bits and pieces of fics I have already published. But, if there is a lot of interest and feedback on any of the snippets, they might just evolve into full fics, so keep that in mind.

Disclaimer: Tell me this isn't exactly how this would go, I fkn dare you.

“We’ll have about an hour. Are you ready?”

The scroll had cost a small fortune on the black market, came with no guarantees, and was illegal to possess to begin with. The vendor claimed it would fully swap their bodies. Not just provide illusionary images of one another - completely switch them, sensations, abilities, weaknesses and all.

“Do it.”

Asmodea braced herself and used the scroll before she could change her mind.

She was immediately struck by the heightened richness of her senses - she already had perfect half-elven eyesight before, but now everything she laid her eyes on was clearer to a degree she had never realised was possible. She could make out the most minute sounds from afar. Her sense of smell seemed to have gained a new dimension.

It worked! By the gods, the scroll actually worked…

After a few dazed seconds, she realised that her mouth had been gaping in awe, and she shut it. A fang immediately snagged on her inner lip, piercing it. Asmodea yelped in surprise, tonguing the cut. Within seconds, it healed completely. She carefully opened and shut her mouth again - the fangs feeling unnatural and obtrusive in her mouth.

“Godth,” she lisped, trying to get the hang of working her mouth despite the fangs. “How long did it take to get used to thith?” No answer followed, and she looked questioningly at Astarion, who was wearing her body.

He had stayed completely still, barely breathing, hardly blinking. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her, she realised.

Oh. Right.

“Come now, you’ve seen your mirror images,” she said, softly. “This shouldn’t be a shock.”

“They didn’t quite convey the… the finer details,” Astarion said, absentmindedly, continuing to stare.

Asmodea quelled her urge to cringe at the sound of her own voice, and instead did a little spin with a flourish, and flashed him her best imitation of his devilish grin.

“And what do you think?”

“I think you have excellent taste, darling” Astarion smiled, before finally tearing his eyes away from his own image. “Anyway. Let’s not waste time.”

Their clothes were quickly discarded.

“Do you want me to touch you..?”

“Not yet, just let me see for myself first… Gods, you may as well be half-deaf and blind, but I need to gorge myself on blood before my skin gets even close to this level of sensation…”

Astarion was careful and methodical, almost scientific in the way he glided his fingers over his female flesh, repeating the motions he’d performed on her countless times - no doubt making mental notes of the sensations and filing them away for later use.

Meanwhile, Asmodea was gyrating her hips, trying to get her penis to spin like the sails of a windmill.

“You need to be more aroused to get a proper idea of how that feels,” she said, watching him.

“In due course,” he murmured. “…And will you stop that?”

“In due course,” she mimicked him, looking him square in the eyes, the penis continuing to fly.

He sighed and resumed his efforts, his fingers slipping inside, probing and searching. He frowned in concentration.

“You really can’t reach it yourself,” he said thoughtfully.

“Yes, I’ve told you that,” she rolled her eyes. “But while we’re err… exploring uncharted territories and all… Can you finger my ass real quick?” she asked, turning her back to him.

“Finger your own ass,” he muttered, “I’m busy.”

She half-turned to look back at him over her shoulder, conjuring up the saddest, roundest eyes she could manage. Astarion swore under his breath as soon as he looked up at her.

“I had no idea it was that effective,” he muttered. “Fine! I’ll scratch yours, if you scratch mine... Is there any oil anywhere..?”

My Kinktober masterlist and prompts post

[katuschka]

Pierrot Sleeps

Josh Kiszka x f!OC/reader

/friends to lovers/

8.036 words

I dedicate this one to everyone who needs some healing...

Pierrot sleeps, silently He’s dreaming next to me Painted black tear, on his soft face And the sweetest lips; they never speak to me My Pierrot sleeps (Barbora Mochowa – Pierrot)

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, intended for adult readers. Any resemblance to real persons is purely coincidental. Also, if you're under 18, go find some other entertainment elsewhere.

Warnings (are spoilers): heartbreak, unrequitted love, pining for a friend, breakup, friends to lovers, slow burn, sweet Josh, kissing, fluff, smut: petting, oral sex, vag. sex, a few allusions to a suicise of a minor character (in the past), briefly mentioned attempted suicide (retrospective), depressive thoughts, expressive language, bad weather

You can also view my Masterlist, join the Taglist or listen to Pierrot Sleeps Playlist 🎶

At least it stopped raining… eventually.

Josh had expected there would be morning fog, so the fact that the world around them was shrouded in a thick blanket of clouds did not surprise him. Not only was it just as the forecast predicted, but he had been even looking forward to it. Foggy woods looked dreamy at this time of year. They’d have the best time, surely, and he could take a lot of pictures... 

He however did not expect to be woken up by heavy rain drumming on the roof above them, and – on top of that – a whole half an hour before the alarm clock was supposed to rouse them. Too early to be happy about being awake, and too little time left to go back to sleep. Had it been the fall morning sun shining right into his face, he wouldn’t say a word. But rainfall? That didn’t go according to the plan. 

He had been warned though, and despite his own nature, he chose to believe the technology instead. 

The initial rhythmic patter only grew in intensity and it soon sounded as if the cabin was built right under a waterfall. That, together with the obtrusive light coming from the screen of his phone, finally woke her too. She didn’t make herself known at first. She listened silently for several seconds to the downpour growing stronger and waiting for his reaction with malicious glee. She was rewarded pretty soon, and his loud, annoyed grunt made her chuckle. 

“Told you…,” she mumbled from under the cozy blanket sleepily, suddenly hopeful that they’d just stay inside, sipping sahlep in front of the fireplace. She would eat almond truffles and he could have his dried apple chips, or whatever. Maybe they could even try to play a game of chess. Josh had been telling her that he didn’t have the right brain for that, but she was adamant; and determined to teach him. His annoyed face, illuminated by the light blue light, however told that it probably wasn’t the best day for that. Again. 

They had been both really looking forward to the trip, so she wasn’t even sure why she suddenly felt almost glad that their hiking plans might be ruined. The prospect of getting wet and numb with cold didn’t appeal to her at all, but it usually didn’t stop her. And when it did (When the heavens literally opened just like that morning), she’d be pretty pissed off for being forced to stay inside. Not this time though. Not when she was enveloped with the warmth and the scent of him. And that was something she had been looking forward to even more.

They shared the bed, just like many times before, just like friends often do. The cabin had two separate bedrooms, but it didn’t even occur to them to part their ways for the night. Not when the whole point of this trip was not to be alone. That would be silly. 

And just like many mornings before, she closed her eyes again in a pretense of having fallen back to sleep just to revel in the morning smell of his body close to her for a little bit longer. But he wouldn’t be fooled by her closed eyes; being already quite familiar with her breathing patterns. 

“Yeah, you did, weather girl, but let’s not get discouraged, yeah? The…the app says it’ll be over in an hour. So, we’re still on schedule. AND it also says there might be some sunlight by midday, and so does the radar… Hey, hey, wake up! Tea?” 

“Coffee!” she huffed in exasperation. After all that time, he still kept trying. Coffee’s bad for you, blah blah blah… And maybe he was right. Just look at him! Fit and bubbly, filled with sunshine and energy right from the moment his eyes opened to greet the new day. Even when he was hurting, he always mustered enough energy to fill every room with light and love. As long as there were other people willing to share the moment with him, he was ok. Meanwhile, she felt like Gollum, torn between love and hate for the things that kept her (barely) functioning. Not just coffee… him, too. Her precious. She kept pursuing him, seeking his presence, while hoping that one day, she would be free, while not really wanting to. It was always the worst on mornings like this one, when she almost had him in her grasp, and then he always slipped out, because he was never hers. 

She watched him fumbling for his clothes in semi darkness, pondering. Sleeping just in his briefs right next to her never seemed to faze him, and the thought always made her heart sink. Maybe he didn’t like the way she looked, so he never considered those moments to be overly intimate. That’s fine. But didn’t it ever occur to him how much she loved his body? Probably not. They were such good friends, after all. Right? Truth be told, she really tried her best to hide the truth from him. There were so many things to say, but she never did. 

‘Come back to bed.’ What a simple request; one that people often say in situations like this one. ‘Come back to bed and just be with me. The world can wait…’ Yet she couldn't. She had no privilege to ask that. 

Such good friends. That’s what everyone kept saying: ‘You two are such good friends.’ Everyone except Jake; that nosy, observant asshole. He mentioned his suspicion just once, and then abandoned the topic forever after she made it VERY clear that she didn’t want to discuss it and threatened to cut his balls off if he ever mentioned that to Josh.

They had been so close from the very start – she and Josh – despite the fact that they were from two seemingly different worlds. Or maybe because of that, because he seemed to deliberately seek the company of the people who didn’t care what he was. He didn’t have to pretend anything in front of her; she just let him be himself, even when it was not always nice or flattering. She loved all of him. 

Yeah, she did. She loved him. And she knew she would from the moment she first saw him, when he ran into the coffee shop she worked in to hide from the rain... 

The bell chimed, and she looked up, together with several other people, all of them surprised by the sudden commotion that disrupted the serenity of that lazy afternoon. He literally fell through the door, giggling awkwardly before he looked around, beaming and taking everything in, like a child in a toy store.  

Are you familiar with those cheeky and extremely cliche movie scenes when the hero sees the object of their desire for the very first time and everything suddenly turns to slow motion? So melodramatic and stupid, very stupid indeed; so stupid they use it mostly in parodies these days. And yet, it’s also exactly what happened to her when her eyes first fell on the dampened halo of his messy curls. What a tiny, beautiful, ethereal man. He looked like an angel on vacation, dressed in pale jeans and a simple white long-sleeved shirt. Quite ordinary. It was the long string of beads around his neck, almost like a rosary, that made him look out of this world. But nothing could prepare her for the feeling that swept through her and he finally looked at her. 

When she was very little, maybe two or three, she had a very strange dream once. The sun fell from the sky, landed on their street right next to their house and she watched, quite mesmerized, how it rolled behind their windows like a huge fiery balloon. She was too small to know that the sun was literally just a ball of fire, and yet that’s exactly how it appeared to her in the dream, except “her” sun didn’t have more than two meters in diameter and it didn’t scorch anything. That strange and bizarre dream left such an imprint on her young and expanding mind that it eventually became one of her core memories. Then, as years went by and adulthood hit her with brutal force, she almost forgot about it. 

Until he appeared. 

He introduced himself as Josh without even being asked, ordered matcha tea and then he took a barstool by the counter right opposite to her, because she was the only person in the whole room willing to talk to him; everyone else was staring at their phones or laptops and just minding their own business. 

And it was SO easy talking to him, despite the fact that she was completely and utterly smitten with him, which usually tied her tongue in similar situations. Not with Josh. They talked for only half an hour about nothing important, but it was enough for him to unknowingly etch himself in her brain and gut. 

Then he finally picked Josh up, just when the rain stopped, and they left together, seemingly forever. 

Her mind was still full with the images of him when she went to bed that day, and he even materialized again as a drunken memory in her dreams. Her conviction that she wasn’t destined to have people like him in her life made the apparition both sweet and distant, but destiny never prevented anyone from having dreams about it, right? His existence seemed almost unreal the morning after. He became a vision – and an illusion – of a better world where people were actually nice to one another. Like a character from a favorite comfort book: someone who never really existed, but it was still nice to imagine.

Then, five days later, Josh came back. 

He stayed for three long hours, as if he had no responsibilities in this world except for filling it with his contagious laughter. He ordered a whole pot of oolong and charmingly voiced his desire to pester her for the rest of the afternoon. When she asked why, his answer was simply ‘why not.’ That’s what the places like the one she worked in were for, and she shouldn’t get excluded, he said.

So they talked again, pausing only when other people came to take their order. They talked about poetry and cartoons and favorite sweets (she loved almond truffles!). She told him about her early childhood and a grandmother who could bake heavenly pastries, and he shared funny stories about his brothers and praised the wit and beauty of his sister. 

There were times when such stories would make her feel miserable, but his own tales filled her with hopefulness. He exuded so much love and light no doubt because those people he talked about had always been there for him. If only she hadn’t failed to be there for her sister when she needed her the most. People kept telling her that it wasn’t her fault, but their words fell flat. Convinced that she should have known, she almost followed the same footsteps. They just found her in time…

Back then she told him that she was an only child. 

The next time, Josh came back with a small bag full of almond truffles, which he traded for her number. And so they slowly became regular friends, with their lives gradually intertwining even outside of that coffee shop. 

Days went by, then weeks. Slowly, she learned all about his passions and dreams, and nothing about his job. Then one day, just before Christmas, a group of people asked for a picture and he had to come clear afterwards. Nothing shocking in Nashville, It just made her admire him even more, and he couldn’t get mad when she finally told him her truth. Months passed by and finally there were no more secrets, even though her initial childish idea that he must have fallen from the sky was crushed. 

At least she wasn’t surprised when he disappeared for months. 

He often said ‘I love you’ and sometimes she imagined how it would feel if one day he’d mean it in a way that would make her skin tingle and cheeks burn. But that was not to be. The meaning was reserved for someone else, because he belonged to someone else. Plain and simple. They were so in love. Even through the veil of her jealousy, she could see the pure miracle of it. Everything Josh did seemed miraculous. It kept breaking her heart in the most peculiar and strangely addictive way. 

He was always there for her as a dear friend, but never as someone who could keep her warm at night. He was unavailable. 

Until he wasn’t. And yet…

He called her around two am that night, crying so hard he couldn’t even talk coherently. She wasted no time; having thrown just a long cardigan over her pajamas, she ran out the door, jumped in the car and headed straight to their… to his house. 

They snuggled together in his bed, and she kept holding him tight until he finally relaxed and fell asleep. And when she woke up a few hours later, feeling his limbs wrapped around her body and his hot breath on the exposed skin of her shoulder, she looked up at the ceiling and her heart broke in a thousand little pieces once again. So this was how it felt… and she was destined to experience it only when they both felt like that, only not for each other… His touches during waking hours kept whispering ‘I’m glad’, but never ‘I yearn’. 

He mewled suddenly, no doubt tormented by some disturbing dream, and grip around her only tightened. She turned to her side and hugged him back, watching his peaceful, doll-like face and listening to his light snores that made his parted lips quiver ever so slightly.  

“Why didn’t you call one of your brothers?” she asked once he finally opened his eyes and, seeing her face right in front of his, greeted her with his sweet smile, even though it was short lived. 

“You don’t judge me…,” he mumbled after a while.

“Your brothers don’t judge you either, silly! I know that, and so do you.”

“Yeah, but…I guess I needed a hug, and not just having my shoulder squeezed. Besides, they…they have their own people and, uh… other creatures to take care of...”

Ouch…

The truth is, he had tried to set her up with other people in the past, oblivious to the fact that the only one she wanted was him. So she kept lying to him, making up reasons why the dates and hook-ups never did work out. Even when she ended up in bed with them – and some of them were really good – it never made her want to see them more than just a couple times. 

She had been like that even before she met him, to be honest. Men and women had come and gone, and her heart had remained closed, save for a few youthful infatuations. Her resolve not to commit to anyone only strengthened after what happened to Shania. Then one day, Josh appeared with a golden key, forced it in the lock and occupied the tiny space ever since, unaware of what he really did. 

And the reason why she always tried to hide it the best way she (physically) could was because she was too grateful for what she already had in him. Such good friends… The risk of ruining it all was too great and too foolish. Because, by being there for her as a friend, he had already helped her more than she could possibly imagine. He had danced into the darkness of her dreary life and brought sunshine into it. She had a wonderful friend in him. The fact that she loved him romantically was just a minor snag. Maybe, just maybe, if she had known him sooner, she wouldn’t have to keep hiding the scarry reminder of forecast days on her wrists. But for everything there is a season…

… and fall is perfect for hiking. 

So was the summer after he left, and so they – Josh and her – took advantage of every opportunity to spend it together in nature… or at least in his garden. Because, in spite of all the bad things happening, one could always rely on nature to be beautiful and welcoming, at least for now. 

Josh’s busy schedule and constant traveling blessed him with the mercy of having his mind occupied, so that he wouldn’t have to think about the breakup so much, but everytime he got home – even when it was just for a few days – he kept seeking her company as well as her hugs, because his house suddenly seemed too big and silent and scary, and his brothers naturally wanted to spend the valuable time with their own significant others. 

After that first, painful night, falling asleep in each other’s embrace became at first a frequent occurrence, and later almost a habit. Their movie nights, Sunday outdoor trips or late night garden picnics often ended that way. Lying on a blanket under a cloudless sky and pretending they could actually see any stars, they cuddled more often than not as the temperature dropped. He cried a few more times in early June, but after a while it just became a pleasant habit. Josh was never the person to shy away from physical contact, so it felt completely natural to him. It was always innocent, too, with their hands never wandering to any inappropriate places. A few times she could feel his lips brush against her locks – feather-like kisses that never touched the skin – but that was it. It always left her hungry for more, and the hunger kept growing… 

The smell of coffee and vanilla coming from the kitchen put an end to her reminiscing, as it made her stomach rumble and pulled her mind back into the physical reality of the cabin. She finally managed to drag her lazy body out of bed and, after a short stop in the bathroom, followed the smell and the sound and the light, like a curious cat. 

Josh was not a fruit loop guy and she was not allowed to eat that shit either, at least not under his watch. In consequence, their days spent together also meant that she was eating properly for a while. 

She found him standing by the stove, making oatmeal with raisins and swaying to some unknown tune he was humming. She caught just a few words, something about bed and needing to touch again, and immediately wanted to go back, because damn! He was reading her mind. 

Her footsteps made him stop and turn around, greeting her with his radiant smile. Snap. Another beautiful picture for the photo album of her mind. Having been blessed with an excellent memory, she often used it as an internal polaroid, taking snapshots of the beauty of the world to browse through when old. She, however, cheated with her stills of Josh, replaying them in her mind every time she was alone in her own bed. 

“Finally! I thought I’d have to drag… you’re doing it again!”

“Doing what?” She couldn’t help but to reciprocate the toothy smile. 

“You know what!” He threatened to pat her head playfully with the stirring spoon, making her duck down so as not to have chunks of hot oatmeal in her hair. “Save some space in that fancy brain of yours for the wonders of nature. Today’s gonna be EPIC!” He swung the spoon epicly towards the milky blue nothingness outside the window. 

“It’s still raining, Josh.”

“Mmmm, not for long, I’m tellin’ya. Now grab that mug before that bitter shit gets cold.” He nearly overturned the cup of coffee with the large spoon and she snatched it out of his reach just in time to save the valuable fragrant liquid. He turned back to the stove, chuckling. “Gonna serve this heavenly manna in a sec, so take a seat, mademoiselle,” he added playfully in a low voice. “Cinnamon?” 

“Yeah, why not. Just a pinch.”

“As you wisssssssh… Here comes the sun, little daaaarling, here comes the su-un, and Iiiiii saaay…”

Moments like these often made her mind and body dissociate. The body was drawn to him, yearning to hug him from behind and bite at his exposed earlobe, while the mind knew her place was at the table, where she was told to patiently wait for the breakfast to be served, while admiring his beauty from a respectable distance. The mind always won. Their new-found closeness, however exciting and really borderline intimate sometimes, had its boundaries. 

He was right. The rain stopped eventually, so they packed their bags with all the necessities they might need for the whole day outside, and together they entered the misty world of barren bony branches, orange leaves and hidden horizons. It was already almost 8 am when they left the warm confines of their rented cabin, but the landscape remained shrouded in early November murkiness. They walked for at least an hour without speaking, the ubiquitous mist still unwilling to dissipate. 

“It’s almost like a completely different planet, isn’t in,” she finally broke the silence. 

“M-hm,” was the only response she got. She honestly often preferred it that way, being able to get lost in her own thoughts and daydreams, but that very rarely happened when Josh kept her company. His need to share everything that was on his mind – which was usually a LOT – could often be quite overwhelming. It also never failed to entertain everyone around him, because the vastness of his mind could compete with the plains on Mars, and it was just as untamed.

The fact that he was suddenly so unusually taciturn made her a bit uneasy. Something was wrong. She already noticed it the night before, and thought it was only understandable, given the recent events. She was devastated as well, thinking about Shania again, and how it would break her heart if she hadn’t chosen to make it stop beating willingly. 

But then they talked quite openly about that and he returned back to his normal, radiant self as soon as they climbed in their shared bed. Now she had that nagging feeling once again… as if he was hiding something from her. Something was different. 

“Are you still sad?” she asked tentatively. 

“About what?” His tone was wary, making her uncertain whether she should even continue or just let it be. Alas, her nosy nature prevailed.

“The breakup.”

It took him a few seconds to respond, clearing his throat and kicking a few pebbles first. She’d swear she could sense a brand new kind of tension in the air, but she couldn’t really  put her finger on it. It was almost just a split second.

“No, not anymore. Sometimes at night, when the house is quiet, I feel a sense of melancholy, you know? I guess I’m just not used to being alone. But I welcome the feeling, really. I think I wrote my best lyrics feeling just like that. And…” And he kept on talking. On and on and on.  She asked a simple question and he could have provided a simple answer, but after three minutes of babbling, just when his mind somehow wandered to Sam’s ravioli, she suddenly stopped in her tracks and started laughing. The bitch was back, as he himself would say, although that was not really it. He sensed her worry and just wanted to do anything he could to disperse it. 

“What?” He really tried to frown at her accusingly, but failed miserably, the corners of his mouth twitching. 

“It’s just… you could have just said ‘no’, but I admire the lengths you go to prove that you’re not.”

“Keep mocking my eloquence, love, and you’ll regret it, I tell ya!” Already a few steps ahead of her, he started walking backwards, pointing his finger at her menacingly. 

“Josh, be care…”

“FUUU…ouch!”

“...ful… Moron!”

 Of course he stumbled over an exposed tree root and fell right on his butt. Thankfully, he managed to land in the middle of a small heap of wet foliage instead of stones or worse – down the steep slope adjacent to the path they were on. She offered him her hand with an exasperated sigh and helped him get back on his feet, feigning anger – anything to hide how much that one word reverberated inside her ribcage. Love…   

“C’mon! Don’t be mad. My ass is damp and freezing now, so it’s fun, yeah?” Once back on his feet, he grabbed her shoulder for support in order to regain balance and smiled reassuringly to wipe that frown off her face. To no avail. No, it wasn’t exactly fun, and seeing his beautiful eyes so close only made it worse. She stared back into those dark beads before her gaze slid down to his lips that he licked just a moment ago, and the chilly mist filling her lungs suddenly felt like water, together with a totally unwelcome wave of arousal that swept through her body. She was genuinely mad all of the sudden, but only at herself. 

“You’re an idiot, Josh.” She let go and stormed up the path, forcing him to speed up to catch up with her. 

“Y/N, hang on… why are you so angry?”

“You were literally just a few feet from breaking your leg… or something else!” she spat in response and with her eyes set on the path ahead.

“No, I wasn’t. And nothing happened!” Josh raised his voice just a notch, his own anger growing. They were side to side again and he finally forced her to turn back to him. She tried to fight it, she really did, but in spite of her efforts to behave reasonably, she could feel her eyes prickle again, threatening to betray her. 

“It’s been almost five years since she jumped… in November…just…stop scaring me like that, ok?” Her voice quivered under the burden of her sudden deliberate machinations. What she said was true, but it wasn’t the real reason why she felt so upset at that very moment and she felt bad instantly for using it as an excuse. That was completely unfair to both of them. 

Josh’s features immediately softened and he pulled her in for a tight hug. “I know… sorry,” he whispered, and she melted into his touch, no longer caring how she “deserved” it. They remained like that for almost a minute before he commanded that it was time to move if they didn’t want to return back after dark. 

The rest of the morning was spent more or less in silence once again, interspersed with occasional casual chit chat. As the path grew steeper and more stony, pale patches of light cerulean blue began to show up through thinning low clouds, making them both hopeful. The air temperature grew gradually milder, too. “The inversion season’s finally here! Yay!” he exclaimed with childish enthusiasm – one of many things that kept people drawn to him like moths to a flame. It seemed just impossible not to love him. 

They reached the ridge – their final destination – just around midday, and just in time to step out of the clouds that still hung low in the surrounding valleys. It felt like reaching the sky, with the ridge and a few surrounding rounded peaks looking like floating islands in the midst of a foamy ocean.

“Aaaah, this is beautiful!” She tilted her head back, letting the sun warm up her damp cheeks. 

“Told ya,” he smiled softly and she expected him to continue teasing her, but he seemed unnaturally quiet and serene once again. Pulling his camera from the bag, he took a few snapshots of the misty sea below them. They watched the clouds roll by slowly for a while before he spoke. “I used to dream about telling stories through pictures...” 

She knew all about his old passion, but she also thought he was exceptional at what fate chose for him eventually. “You do tell stories Josh. You help people paint their own internal landscapes.” 

“Do I…”

“Of course you do!”

“So I believed. Pictures, words, soundwaves, doesn’t really matter, that’s not my point. I mean,.. I wasn’t really telling the… the truth yesterday. I am scared…I mean, not for myself, not really, but…I don’t…I guess, sometimes things are just destined to remain broken no matter how hard you try, you know…I’m mostly heartbroken, really.”

She wasn’t really sure where this was going. Having been familiar with his insecurities for quite some time, she knew too well that he was sometimes too humble for his own good, but he hardly ever sounded that defeated. “Well, you know…how was that line…’Take your broken heart and make it into art.”

“But what’s the point?”

And just like that, with a snap of a finger, the temperature dropped, making her shiver. Speaking to the world through art was the core of his whole existence and she’d rather die than watch him doubt the importance of it. 

“Josh!”

“Y/N!”

His feeble attempt to mock her sudden urgent tone annoyed her, but definitely not enough to stop her from trying to prevent him from going down that gloomy path. “Listen, asshole! Stop with the bullshit, ok? You believed we’d have sun today. And look! I absolutely needed this, and would have missed it if it weren’t for you. And MANY people feel the same, because you inspire them, so cut that defeatist crap or else I’ll smack it out of you!”

He looked at her as if she had already really slapped him in the face, but his shocked and astonished expression slowly morphed into a soft and grateful smile. “Thank you, Y/N.” 

“WELL YOU’RE WELCOME!” she responded with an unnecessary theatricality, unwilling to abandon the angry pose just yet, just in case. “Now give me this, because I think you need to see what I see.” She snatched the camera out of his hand and took a step back so that the viewfinder showed exactly what she wanted to capture. He, however, started fumbling for a phone in his jacket, completely ruining the shot. 

“No, let’s take a selfie,” he said when he finally found and unlocked it.

“Selfie? You? Since when have you been taking selfies?”

“I DO from time to time.” He looked almost offended, pouting at her like a defiant child. Sighing exasperatedly, she finally agreed to it, stepping closer to him, letting him wrap his arm around her shoulder.

“But you need to look into the lens Jo…” On the display, she could see him looking sideways at her, his eyes slowly tracing the contours of her profile. His jaw clenched and she could no longer finish the sentence. Instead, she slowly turned her own face to meet his gaze. He lowered his arm, snaked it around her and she held her breath, barely conscious of his other hand slowly finding its way to cup the nape of her head just below her ponytail. Dreamily, she watched his lips growing closer to hers until they met and she could swear her heart stopped. 

He tasted like apples. 

It was soft and tender at first, his pouty lips just brushing over hers like the wings of a butterfly. She leaned into it and invited him in, and soon they could taste each other properly, with their tongues entangling and dancing around languidly. She turned deaf and blind, but acutely aware of every cell of his body she could reach and taste and caress and devour, and getting high on it, her head spinning more and more with each passing second. 

When they finally parted and her sight returned, they looked at each other and even though neither said a word, they could both see the same question in each other’s eyes. 

What now…

The entire walk back into the cabin was spent in silent anticipation. The way he held her hand was completely innocent, even with their fingers intertwined… 

The contents of their minds, not so much. They didn’t dare to speak about it just yet, in fear that they might jinx it. She kept replaying it in her head, over and over again. The feeling of his soft lips on hers still lingered and her insides twisted and turned with the primal need for him to do it again. It was just as strong as thirst, and much more overwhelming. 

As the hour grew late, even the valleys were now sun-soaked. The world joined them in their silence and only the rustling of gravel and foliage under their feet disturbed the unearthly peace. Having kept her eyes on the ground, she looked up when they left the shadows of trees behind them and set foot on the vast clearing that separated them from their cabin… the fireplace… the bed… The road to it was blinding, as the late afternoon sun turned the distant horizon into silver ribbons, making them squint. She squeezed his hand involuntarily as her heart freaked out again, and he responded by stroking her knuckles with the tip of his thumb. The lust was palpable, making them both alert like lonely puppies just before hearing the door knob turn. 

Having avoided the topic for a few long hours, the tension between them only grew when they reached the cabin, only to be replaced with a sense of panic and uncertainty when they stepped inside. 

“So…”

“Are you hungry?” She interrupted him, before he could say more. Please say yes, so that I can cook us dinner and... 

“Not really, no.”

“Me neither.” She was fidgety, biting her lip, scratching her arm nervously, looking up at him and then averting her gaze repeatedly. 

“Y/N… we don’t have to…”

“I want to!” she blurted out and then sank her teeth in her lower lip again. 

Ok… calm down baby, let me…follow me…” he offered her his hand and slowly led her into the bathroom. 

They stripped each other slowly and then they kissed again. He turned on the shower and she bashfully stepped under the streaming water next to him. He pulled her closer and kissed her some more, while tracing the outline of her shoulders with his fingertips. Only then he dared to venture lower. 

His fingers brushed over her left nipple before he cupped the whole breast gently in his palm and she could swear it felt like he was cradling her very own heart in it instead, making her hold her breath. His eyes were lowered the whole time, watching his own actions intently and attentively, almost apprehensively, waiting for her reactions and receiving none. She was frozen with illogical fear. He looked up suddenly, making her head spin. “Tell me what you like,” he whispered. 

“Everything.” His brows shot up in question, so she clarified: “I like everything about this, Josh.” 

She meant it as encouragement, but it wasn’t helpful at all. He cleared his throat nervously and stroked her arm gently, from her shoulder all the way down to her elbow. His eyes once again followed the motions of his hand. “I wanna know everything about you.” This time he wasn’t talking about her life or soul. He already knew almost everything about that, after all those hours and hours spent talking and daydreaming together. Her body, however, was an unknown instrument, and he was desperate to learn how to play it well. 

Feeling wanted, and with all the newfound courage she could muster, she cupped his cheeks and kissed him with long suppressed passion, pausing only briefly to ask him back. “Can I learn everything about you, too?” 

“Please! You must,” he whispered against her lips, while she wrapped her fingers around his full-blown erection and started stroking him tentatively, making him moan in her mouth. Encouraged, she tightened her grip and quickened her pace. He gasped, breaking the kiss and pressing his forehead against hers instead. “You learn quickly, baby,” he whimpered, leaning with his outstretched arm against the tiled wall behind her. She kissed his flexed bicep in response and slid down on her knees in front of him, but he only shook his head and pulled her back up. 

“You don’t want that?” she asked, confused. There was a hint of hurt in her voice, so he pulled her in an embrace and kissed her wet hair as the water kept pouring down on them. 

“Just the idea of your lips wrapped around my dick tells me it’d be very quick… and I don’t want that. Let’s take this slow, yeah? Let me…” 

She let him take the lead and his lips went on a journey. They traced the edge of her jaw when he shampooed her hair and she tilted her head in delight. This new intimacy could only be described as ecstatic. Everything turned into a blur. She was just barely aware of him wrapping her in a bath towel, and she couldn’t remember how they got in bed. It was his tongue licking a stripe up her inner thigh that made her acutely aware of her surroundings once again. She gasped in surprise when she felt his hot breath on her wet pussy. Looking at her daringly, he hovered just an inch above it, the tip of his tongue resting on his upper lip tellingly. “May I?”

She swallowed harshly to relieve her parched throat. “I want you fuck me, Josh. Please.”

“And I will… but let me make you fly first.” Without any further ado, he darted his tongue between her folds and she arched her back as if struck by electricity. After a few more teasing licks, he wrapped his lips around her clit and started sucking gently, with his velvet tongue drawing slow circles on the underside before it started fluttering rapidly over the whole bud. Soon he sent her into orbit, just as he promised. She was still shaking and gasping for air when he swiftly climbed up her body and positioned himself in between her legs. 

Once inside her, he could no longer keep it slow. He let out a deep guttural groan and, as if a bolt of electricity shot through him, started thrusting into her with newfound virility. She wrapped both her arms and legs around him and pulled him even closer to her, almost afraid that he would float away and dissolve in midair if she stopped holding him tight enough, just like he always had done in her dreams. Even her own mind never allowed her to feel like this, so how could this possibly be real? After all that time. It felt too good to be real. His hands cradling her head, his own loud moans so close to her ear, urgent and melodic and almost lewd, all in one. With his elbows on each side of her head, and his lips brushing against her earlobe, she felt enshrined under him. It was overwhelming, it made her head spin as if high on oxygen…which she probably was. Unable to control her wildly beating heart and her quickened breath, she was barely conscious of that pleasant feeling he was stirring deep inside her. It didn’t even matter. She arched her back again and shivered as his singing grew louder. She could come just from listening to him. 

The skin on his back under her wandering hands, warm and velvety at first, soon turned damp and sticky from exertion, as his movements grew even more frantic and wild. She tilted her head back and cried out when he hit her cervix particularly hard… and he stopped. 

“What…” she asked dreamily. 

“You’re so tender and soft, I don’t wanna hurt you.” His face was hovering mere inches above her, as he was searching for more cues. Still inside her to the hilt, the blissful feeling of her velvety walls caressing his cock still lingered and it took all his will to keep himself from moving momentarily. His hips jerked involuntarily and she responded by deliberately tightening around him, making him hiss. 

“You’re not hurting me,” she mumbled, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder. “I don’t even know if I ever felt this good. I’ve been waiting for this for so long…” Her own words made her freeze. She opened her eyes again and looked at him, frightened. His own expression was somber and almost unreadable. Oh god, you stupid cow, why did you say that? 

“How long, Y/N?”

Please, don’t make me ruin this even more, Josh. Just go on, just let me feel this at least once… 

His eyes never looked more beautiful. He kept looking down at her, searching for the answer. She knew she should say something, but the sudden lump in her throat made her only gasp for air as she tried to fight off the tears. Stupid, unstable bitch!

It seemed that he took mercy on her. Instead of pushing the subject, he leaned down and pressed his lips on the pulsing point under the skin of her neck. She closed her eyes and sighed in delight, waiting for him to resume the previous pace and make her mind go blank once more, letting her dream about her sun before the real one would come. 

He remained still though. His dick twitched inside her, making it known that he too wanted more, but he wasn’t merciful enough. And he wouldn’t let it go. 

“How long, Y/N?” Josh whispered once again against her skin. Each syllable was like a kiss, soothing. He left a physical trace of his words along her jugular, smoothing the gravity of that question mark with the tip of his nose. There was a new kind of urgency in his voice. At last, as if really reading her mind, he finally moved inside her once again, rolling his hips slowly as if to say ‘I’m not going anywhere’, encouraging her. 

“Since the first matcha tea,” she sobbed and he tried to soothe her nerves with yet another slow and deep thrust. But it was no use, the dam that had been holding her pent up emotions broke. He pulled out and lied down beside her. She missed him instantly but had enough dignity not to beg. She expected him to get up and leave. Instead, he pulled her closer and patiently waited for her to calm down. Only then he spoke.

“Y/N, he left because he…he thought that I liked you a bit too much. And, uh, after I called you and you came to me that night, I realized he might have been right…”

Josh was crying, he was yelling, he even tried to beg eventually, as the warm spring breeze coming from the open window suddenly felt like a winter gale on his exposed skin. He kept repeating ‘what does it mean, what do you mean…’, only to be told that it was up to him to figure it out. ‘But I love you!’ Josh cried some more, and it was met with silence for the first time.  ‘I can no longer say it back,’ he broke that silence after a while, and Josh’s hopeful eyes veiled with even more tears. ‘I wanted to be the only one. I’m not an idiot, so I beg you to stop treating me like one. Goodbye, Josh.’ 

And once again, Josh’s words were met with silence. The only difference was that she wanted to scream it back. “I’m so sorry,” she said instead after a long minute. “I didn’t want to be the reason for his leaving.”

“Y/N…” he inched closer and buried his face in her still damp hair. “You weren’t. I was. Didn’t you hear me?” 

She did, but her self destructive mind chose to ignore it. His cryptic might-have-beens couldn’t penetrate the armor that she had spent long years building. Thankfully, he knew her well enough to realize his mistake. Enough of all this beating around the bush. 

“I love you,” he whispered in her ear and this time it made her skin tingle and her toes curl. 

His caressing hand traveled from her shoulder down the middle of her chest, where he could feel the fast rhythm of her wildly beating heart. Her eyes were closer and she lay unmoving, except for her hand that wrapped around his fingers, stopping them momentarily. “I’m sorry babe, I just had to say it,” he continued. “And since you…”

“I love you more than life.” Her own words startled her, as if something fell down with a crash. Without waiting for him to make another move, she pulled his hand down to her wet pussy and his middle finger slid inside with ease. 

It quickly made him hard again. She spread her legs, inviting him back in. He shifted just a bit, with his head still resting next to hers on the pillow. She turned towards him, threw her leg around him and he entered her again just as their mouths reconnected again in a hungry, sloppy kiss. 

It was slow this time, but no less intense, with their senses heightened by the recent revelations. They were making love. She kept her eyes open, watching how his own rolled up and he moaned loudly with his tongue still swirling around hers, their parted lips barely touching. She could feel a second orgasm building soon and her breathing quickened, turning her own moans into short, high pitched gasps, making him hiss when her fingernails dug deep into his skin. 

Suddenly, he shifted and straightened, sliding his knees under her legs and grabbing her hips possessively. “That’s it baby, one more, go on, let go,” he urged and started thrusting into her with a new force that made her thighs tremble. She looked up and her jaw slackened at the sight. Her sweet and radiant Josh looked almost demonic in the twilight. He was watching her too, with his jaw clenched and his brows furrowed and glistening with sweat. 

“Harder,” she cried out and he obeyed, hissing and baring his teeth as he tried to hold on a little longer. Then suddenly, she could feel it snap and her whole body tensed, making him groan as she squeezed him inside her. A few more deep strokes before she could feel him falter. “Fill me up,” she whispered and her eyes widened. He placed his hand between her breasts, bent his head down and let out a long, high pitched whine, his body jerking erratically as he spilled inside her. Then he collapsed on top of her, panting. 

Josh

She looked like an injured doe, you know? So lonely and abandoned behind that counter. The room was full of people of all sorts, but – as it often happens – nobody paid attention to the things that desperately needed all the attention in the world. So I stayed a while – even though I didn’t really have to – watching her face brighten up, growing more and more beautiful with every passing second. I knew she had it in her.

Someone ordered an irish coffee and she had to grab a bottle of whisky from the upper shelf. That’s when I saw the scars on her wrists, and the shadows behind her deep blue eyes suddenly made perfect sense. 

There are millions of people on this planet who are hurting and I’ve always believed that nothing happens without a reason. When I was younger, I wished I could have saved everyone, but that’s impossible. There’s only so much burden one can bear. But I believe that every wounded soul has their person somewhere. A sibling, a parent, a friend, a lover… Someone willing to share the load. Sometimes they don’t find each other in time, otherwise the world wouldn’t be full of tragedies and tears. Sometimes you don’t choose it. It just happens. And sometimes, you fuck up in the process. Colossally, even. I’m painfully aware of the fact that I did, too. But everything happens for a reason. 

I just had to go back…

I can't imagine how it is To be forbidden from loving (ah, ah) 'Cause when you walked into my life I could feel my life begin And then I learned the truth How everything good in life seems to lead back to you And every single time I run into your arms I feel like I exist for love Only for love (Aurora – Exist For Love)

@thewritingbeforesunrise @fleet-of-fiction @writingcold @lvnterninthenight @its-interesting-van-kleep   @takenbythemadness   @edgingthedarkness @myownparadise96 @gvfstuddedmajesty @jazzyfigz @sanguinebats @josh-iamyour-mama @lyndz2names @wetkleenex-gvf @peaceloveunitygvf @cheersdannyx2 @fleetingjake @lizzys-sunflower @emojakekiszka @gvfmarge @Dayumclarizzel @lipstickitty @clownstarr @gretasfallingsky @musicislove3389 @i-love-gvf @psychedelectable

[nametakensff]

✨F/F NSFW snz fantasy incoming✨

Absolutely nothing original from me but I was thinking about a mean female boss calling me into her office to get her off, as she often has me do, but she either has really bad hayfever or a terrible cold and cannot stop sneezing. They're extremely loud, aggressive sounding sneezes that sound almost masculine; as angry and obtrusive as she is in her day to day life. Of course, because she's an inconsiderate asshole, she makes no attempt to cover and sprays all over me as I spend my entire lunch break making her come in various different ways. She doesn't particularly like me but she likes the way I'm absolutely crazy for her body; the desperation of the way I start grabbing at her always does a lot for her already hugely inflated ego.

I'm an absolute mess when she's done with me, hands and face having been buried in her cunt, and ofc evidence of her sneezes staining my shirt, front and back. She stops me from eating her out again by simply pushing me back with a foot on my chest. She then makes me lick her clean before plainly pulling up her underwear and leaning back in her chair. She doesn't bother to say thank you or even acknowledge me now that she's done cumming, just lights a cigarette (absolutely against building policy) and waves me away to clean up in her little en suite, where I immediately start masturbating. I end up cumming to the sound of one of her intensely violent sneezing fits. I want to keep going but she impatiently shouts at me to hurry up and that she doesn't pay me to get off on company time

(More general + snz fantasy stuff under readmore!)

If I want to really makes this insanely horny, everybody in the office knows about this arrangement and she makes no efforts to disguise it. Every now and then, someone who wasn't aware I was in there servicing her at the time will knock on the door, enter her office and find her right on the brink of orgasm as I'm on my knees in front of her. Nobody is even phased by this sight anymore - they know how insatiable and shameless she is. Almost all of her employees have heard her cum, and a handful have seen her do so with her thighs squeezing around my head.

I really love the idea of somebody walking in when I'm just getting started with her, and they start talking business, ignoring my presence and the obscene licking and sucking sounds I'm making. Every now and then the conversation goes on long enough that I make her cum during, and the other employee has to patiently wait for her to finish.

Combining this scenario with sneezing, during this conversation where I continue to eat her out, she's sneezing all over me and this other employee, as well as the papers they're showing her. They are, again, so used to her rudeness they barely even flinch as her sneezes spray all over them. They bless her even though she never says thank you because she expects it either way. After a particularly violent, messy couple of sneezes, she reaches out for their tie and proceeds to scrub her itchy, damp nostrils with it, leaving it totally ruined. The employee lets it happen. Maybe everyone in this office is a total freak who loves being disrespected by her. Maybe the job just pays enough that nobody cares to complain.

[gamma-radio]

I hate when people play phone audio out loud in public spaces. The screechy quality of phone speakers, the disregard for literally anyone's auditory comfort, my poor autistic ears — I rage mode.

I know I'm not alone, so I am going to share my flawless embarrassment-free technique to get them to stop.

1) Carry a pair of earbuds on you. Not required, but it helps give you the confidence to actually confront them

2) walk up to them and be as nice as possible, no matter how mad you are. However, do not explain yourself or apologize, just make a simple request: "Hi, would you mind using earbuds for that?" (You're not asking them to stop, just change their method)

3a) 90% of the time they will shamefully put their phone away, and because you were so nice, they aren't even mad at you!! Then you can thank them for being so thoughtful, and maybe compliment their shirt or something! Everybody loves compliments.

3b) Alternatively, they might say, "I don't have earbuds." Normally, this would put you in an awkward situation, but You aren't normal. You are Prepared.

OFFER THE EARBUDS: "That's okay," you say, "you can borrow mine!" dazzling smile, you are so nice and thoughtful, what a great guy you are

Don't worry about losing your earbuds (or if you don't actually have earbuds), because they won't accept your offer. THEN they will put their phone away of their own free will. You never even had to ask.

If you want a detailed explanation of why this works (for the autistic besties, I see u):

People don't like it when you tell them what to do, especially if that request is to stop doing their activity in any shape or form. It pisses them off, and rightfully so! No one wants to be controlled.

That's why this method is so good: you never asked them to stop their activity, you asked them to make a small change to how they are doing the activity, which is far less obtrusive.

This works for lots of things, and lots of people. Imagine being a kid, goofing around, and someone says, "Stop doing that." Upsetting! Compared to: "Would you mind being quieter?" Because really, the issue is not that you are goofing around, the issue is that you are being loud and disruptive about it.

Same goes for the stranger on their phone in public. It's totally fine that they're watching a video, the problem is that they're being disruptive, and chances are they know that being disruptive is rude.

The second half of why this works is offering the earbuds.

When you ask them to change how they're doing their activity, you are placing a burden on them. If they have a pair already, it is a very tiny burden. If they don't have a pair, it is suddenly an insurmountable burden, and that's very uncomfortable. In fact, it's so uncomfortable that by making the request, you might become the bad guy in the situation (according to them) even if you're being nice, and even if they're in the wrong.

That's why you offer the earbuds. Now you are actively helping them by alleviating the burden. You are being kind and thoughtful instead of demanding!

Sure, they might think you're a little weird, because it's not part of the social script, but they've got no ground to be mad at you.

Which brings up the last point: offering to lend your earbuds isn't part of the social script. It's surprising, and so their default reaction is to avoid that path: they will decline your offer. So, you don't have to worry about a stranger wearing your earbuds with their gross stranger ears.

So that's the whole idea behind the method. Confrontation that is respectful and thoughtful of their autonomy and your comfort all at the same time. ~social engineering for good~

[kinardsheart]

so i literally couldn’t get @epiphainie’s guardian angel au oit of my head. here’s their very short introduction!!

——————

If you had told Tommy from 5 hours ago that the explanation for everything in his life going wrong would come in the form of a beautiful stranger with teary big blue eyes staring at him like he just watched 8 puppies get kicked down stairs, he probably would’ve raised an eyebrow and chuckled. Might as well happen, with everything else. He would take any reason for why his life was such a fucked up mess.

Now that he was actually here… he wasn’t so sure.

The stranger stepped past him, into his apartment, and he was so taken back by the claim that had just come out of the other that no objection was made to the sudden obtrusion of his privacy. Nothing in this shitty apartment was worth anything anyways.

“Sorry? What’d you just say?”

The door slammed shut behind them.

A huff escaped through the man’s lips, forming into a pout that Tommy would’ve thought was endearing, if he hadn’t just been jumped with the possible explanation to all of his problems.

“I said that- Ugh. I’ll just start again.” He sits as if he’s never sat on a couch before, so upright it seemed as if one tap could send him flying over. “My name’s Evan Buckley. I’m your guardian angel- well.. was,” Big hands begin to fiddle with eachother, face sheepish as he continued, “Basically, I messed up. I’m really really sorry. Your files just got lost under one of my cabinets and I only just found it. I’m sorry again, I swear it wasn’t on purpose! You can punch me, I get it, I’m basically the reason your life sucks. Sorry.”

A deep breath, and those eyes were on him again.

“Yeah, so uh, my bosses saw. To say they aren’t happy is an understatement… I’m down here for a while. They want me to make up for your life being a trainwreck, which is again, totally my fault. My bad. I’m sorry.” There was a long pause. “Also, is this a cat?”

He looked down to see Biscuit, his rescue, nuzzling against the stranger’s frozen frame.

What the fuck.

[dashielldeveron]

soulmate trope | dabi

Dabi’s route of soulmate trope.

"post-canon dabi? canon isn't even finished as of when this was posted on 30 july 2023!" to you. i know he's doing just fine. and obviously i will be wrong about some things. warnings: female reader. manga spoilers up to chapter 390: specifically about touya's body but vaguely about ~all of that~. sexual content. food mention/discussion. injury descriptions (burns) that aren't reader's. weeb slander. a note: part of the plot revolves around...analysing anime. i use hunter x hunter here, and if you are not into that, i have, to the best of my knowledge, included neither spoilers (aside from early story arc names) nor information that cannot be understood via context clues. additionally, there is a brief pokemon metaphor that also can hopefully be understood with context clues as well.

~27.7k

You’re being watched.

Or rather, you had the eerily intense inkling that you were being watched, or as if you were some sort of recently awakened sleeper agent—as if you were somehow the key to someone’s spying into U.A., even though the most secretive thing going on right now in 3-A’s common area was that Hagakure’s facial features were somewhat revealed by the drying face mask.

“Jirou,” you said, bookmarking your place, “Would you mind checking for—I don’t know, any kind of outside surveillance devices in here?”

Jirou bit the stem of the carnation she’d been about to weave into Yaoyorozu’s hair and shifted all the strands of the braid into one hand, and she tilted her head to jab the arm of the couch with her earjack. After a few moments, she unsheathed it, the hole in the couch sealing itself, and shook her head. “Nothing out of the ordinary. What’s up?”

Furrowing your brow, you shoved your book between the cushion and arm of your chair. “I’m not sure. It’s—I have this weird feeling that someone’s looking at me. Or through me, really. Both? I don’t know how to describe it, but it feels like someone else is seeing what I’m seeing.”

“Do your eyes hurt, ribbit?” Asui asked from her spot on the floor, where she was sorting her m&ms by colour.

“No. More like I’m hyperaware of them,” you said, “But I can’t shake the feeling that someone’s watching all of this because of me.”

“What’s there to watch? It’s nothing but a Girls and Todoroki Night. There’s nothing worth seeing and or any big secrets being spilled. Well, spoilers for the New Year’s episode of Kamisama Kiss, but it’s been out for years already,” said Mina, gesturing towards the television, and Uraraka snatched Mina’s hand out of the air and laid it flat on the coffee table again, because she’s not done painting her nails, damn it. Mina sighed dreamily at the sheep whose wool fluffed enough to take up the entire screen. “What I wouldn’t give for my hair to have that much volume.”

“I guess you’re right,” you said, settling down into your chair, pulling Shinsou’s blue-pineappled blanket up to your neck (he was out on his bike, so he wasn’t attending this Girls and Todoroki Night [Shinsou and Todoroki were the only boys allowed, since their presence wasn’t obtrusive or contrary to the vibe. Additionally, Shinsou thought it was funnier if his name weren’t included in the title of these events]). “Y’know, in the manga, the New Year avatar isn’t a sheep. It’s a dragon.”

Mina blew on her hands as Uraraka rebottled the nail polish brush. “Whaaaaat?

“It was changed to a sheep to align with the year the episode was released,” said Todoroki, his thumb and index finger pinching his lower lip with his eyes glued to the screen, “I understand the change on a narrative scale, but I believe the dragon had more of a character arc than the sheep. The dragon didn’t think it was as appealing as other years’ avatars, and it had to learn to accept itself and accept others’ love for it. It was rooted in misunderstanding.”

For some reason, when you looked at Todoroki, you were doused with regret. Sharp and cold, followed by a splash of something more muddled: envy, maybe? Gratitude?

These…these feelings weren’t yours.

***

“I can’t believe I missed a Girls and Todoroki Night,” said Shinsou, grinning, his legs dangling off the dorm’s kitchen counter, “but alas! The night was calling, and I had to go out in it.”

“We will not spoil Kamisama Kiss for you,” said Todoroki. He was crouched in front of the oven, hands clasped as he stared through the tinted window at the browning potato wedges. “You will have to watch that episode on your own.”

“You should really read the manga,” you were saying as you scanned the inside of the refrigerator, looking for anything that might go well with the potatoes—ah, Aoyama’s got some bougie-looking sauce. Savoury, by the looks of it. “It goes farther than the anime covers, and it’s so sweet. The worldbuilding gets better, too.” You took out the bottle and gave it an experimental shake.

“Really?” Shinsou wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know; that villain guy isn’t very fun. Feels like too much time is wasted on him.”

Todoroki’s head snapped towards Shinsou at the same time you slammed the refrigerator shut. “No,” the both of you said at the same time, and you continued. “The anime hasn’t been quite as accurate in tone regarding that character, but he’s really wonderful, eventually. You really feel for what happened to him and for his past relationship to the main characters. Simple but effective job of deconstructing his villainy and granting him humanity.”

“Huh.” Shinsou propped his cheek on his fist, his ankle resting on his opposite knee. “I wonder how much nuance I’m missing because I’m only watching the anime.”

For a second, you felt as groggy as if you’d just woken up, your eyes focusing a bit more precisely, blurring the kitchen tiles for a moment before re-focusing, and it crept in again: the feeling that someone was watching you, that someone else was here.

“Hey, Shinsou, Todoroki,” you said, blinking several times, Aoyama’s brown sauce clutched in both hands, “Do my eyes look any different?”

Both of them looked you over. Shinsou shook his head. “Are you hurt?”

“No, I’ve got—” You nodded towards Todoroki. “I have that same feeling from last night. Like someone’s watching. But Jirou said nothing was wrong.” Shrugging, you tossed the sauce to Shinsou and sat in front of the oven with Todoroki. “I guess Kamisama Kiss must bring out the voyeur in me. Or being voyeur-ed. Watched.” You crossed your legs at the same time Todoroki jolted because of a crushed peppercorn popping in the oven. “Maybe we should start reading manga alongside the anime so that we can judge how accurate they are. See how much character nuance is lost or preserved.”

Todoroki’s eyes bulged. “You have no idea how much that appeals to me. I desperately need to discuss the differences between the Hunter x Hunter 1999 anime, the 2011 anime, and the manga. Sero refuses to watch the 1999 version.”

Amusement. Condescension. Bubbling to the top of your consciousness.

Distinctly not yours.

Why would you be feeling these things in the face of something that sounded so wonderfully, uselessly pedantic? A project like Todoroki’s just proposed sounded like an absolutely ideal waste of time that would allow you to be more accurate than the vast majority of people when it came to plot, lore, and characterisation. Why would emotions you’d associate with making fun of someone pop up now? You didn’t want to make fun of Todoroki; you were enthusiastic about joining him in this pointless endeavour.

The timer on Shinsou’s phone blared, and he tapped it off, patting his pockets (?) for the oven mitt, which he spotted on the counter next to him. “Why would Sero refuse to watch the older version?”

Todoroki helped you stand and guided the both of you away from the oven. “To be fair, in the 1999 anime, the animators did take liberties with panel composition and brought in new angles and lines sporadically. Colours are also odd and inaccurate, and those are corrected, for the most part, in the 2011 version. More of the manga is covered, and the animation is smoother in the 2011 version as well.”

Why did you feel the distant sensation of laughing? Nothing about this has been funny, per se, but the…what was going on?

“Okay, I’ll bite,” you said, strangely heavy and hyperaware and surveying the tray of steaming potato wedges as Shinsou shuffled it to the stove, “I’ll do it with you, all this manga accuracy checking.”

“Me, too,” said Shinsou, shaking the over mitt off, “My suggestion is that we keep it to just the three of us, to prevent exhausting arguments, like we’d have in a big group the size of Girls and Todoroki Nights.”

“I can lend you the first few volumes,” said Todoroki, opening a cabinet to search for Aoyama’s sauce bowls, “After that, I have a link to high-quality scans I can send you.”

“Sounds perfect,” you said, reaching for a potato wedge that did not sizzle and screech as much as the others, “Should we watch the first episode tomorrow night?” When you retracted your hand at the burn, you felt your own pain and someone else’s sense of nostalgia.

***

You’d already been on the precipice of falling asleep during Present Mic’s lesson, but when a concentrated shot of fatigue pierced you, you set down your pen and reluctantly resolved to get the subsequent notes from Iida. God, couldn’t this wait until you were out of class? No one needed to see how terrible your own notes were. No one needed to see your drawings in the margins.

Burying your face in your hands, you dug the heels of your palms into your eyes, rubbing them as the lethargy kicked in, and you braced yourself for the uncanny sensation of being your own worst voyeur.

When you opened them, after the lightheaded dots blinked away, you weren’t in the classroom, instead entrenched in darkness. Well, wait—you groped around on your desk: physically, you still were upright in your desk at U.A., able to grasp your pen, set it down, able to faintly hear Present Mic, as if he’s in the next room over.

Blindly, you tapped Mina’s desk behind you, turning your head over your shoulder. “Do my eyes look weird to you?”

“No. Should they?” she whispered back—or maybe she said it at a normal volume, and the classroom had been so far removed the distance silenced her.

Biting the inside of your cheek, you faced the front again. Looks like you have to figure this out yourself, or else you’ll be sitting in pitch black for who knows how long.

A minute passed. Your eyes adjusted to the darkness, shapes appearing—you’re inside. In a room with the lights off. Sideways, for some reason. One of the shapes was so rigidly rectangular that it had to be a shoji divider, and you were just trying to estimate its size when all of your mental facilities halted at a loud, rumbling groan.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” a scratchy, masculine voice said, “Must be my turn, huh?”

He flipped over, and barely cracked venetian blinds behind dark curtains just barely illuminated part of the scene: you were seeing this sideways because he was lying in bed, an out-of-place, opulent, Western-style bed in what you assumed was an Eastern-style room, judging what you could make out of traditional wallpaper and tatami flooring.

“Well, you’re not getting anything out of me,” he said, reaching for one of the many strewn pillows and hugging it—you lost half of your sight when his face sank into it (too dark for you to get a good look at his hands or arms), “Sucks for you, but I’m going back to sleep. Don’t care how curious you are. Not sharin’ anything with someone who can’t cook potato wedges right.”

No, get up. Get up. Say more right now. Who was he? It’s—it’s the middle of the day, anyhow; what is he doing asleep?

“Hah. You’re angry with me.” His laugh sounded more like a hiss, somehow. “Get used to it.”

He shut his eyes. After about a minute, the darkness faded, and Present Mic’s voice hit you at full volume, and you winced, clamping a hand down on your notes when the classroom came into view.

***

“You are not dropping out of school the semester you’re supposed to graduate,” said Aizawa, pinching the bridge of his nose, elbow digging into the puffy leather chair by Nezu’s desk.

“From my perspective, it does not appear you are a liability to U.A.’s security.” Nezu steepled his paws together, his pink toe beans preventing him from pressing them completely flat. “Simply seeing through each other’s eyes and feeling some of his emotions are no cause for the drastic security measures you are proposing. I believe that so long as you have some sort of indicator that either situation is happening, faculty can prepare for your temporary debility.”

“Don’t even think about abusing it to get out of class,” said Aizawa, propping his chin on his fist.

“You think I would? Shocked! Shocked and offended,” you said, “I’m gonna be in class; I don’t trust anyone else’s notes. I want my own interpretations of lectures.” You slumped down in your seat, tilting your head back to stare at the ceiling. “Principal Nezu, do you have an idea of why this is happening to me?”

“I do.” Nezu opened the top drawer in his desk to retrieve a stack of yellow-green papers, torn from a legal pad and crimped because of whatever was spilled on it. “Recovery Girl and Midnight have been analysing the results of Tainted Love’s quirk for some time now. The female rehabilitation centre with which Midnight works, Sakura Grove, has uncovered evidence of two other incidents that caused a soulmate bond with similar qualities to form.”

“What? No,” you said, letting a whine creep into your voice, “That means my soulmate’s a jerk. He was rude to me. He insulted my potato wedge recipe.”

Aizawa raised an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth twitching upward as he crossed his arms. “You can’t expect there to be love at first sight, can you? Love is a choice. You work at it every day. You have to keep choosing it.”

“Yaoyorozu and Jirou were already dating when they got assigned soulmates,” you said, listing on your fingers, “Midoriya and Uraraka had been pining after each other for years—”

Aizawa scowled. “Stop that.”

“So, do you want me to report anything? Do you want me to duck out of class when he—checks in?”

“If you feel unsafe, let us know. Otherwise, it is of my opinion that you will be just fine,” said Nezu, and he reached for his paw-sized coffee cup to remove the melting stroopwaffle cookie off the top. “Report what you perceive as dangerous, but you deserve privacy. When you decide on your signal that the bond is active, please send an email to faculty members. Whether or not you inform your peers is at your discretion.”

***

So, of course, you told everyone.

Meaning no one batted an eye the next time the soulmate bond activated, which was in class. Feeling the exhaustion and the slight buzz from your soulmate popping in to watch through you, you made the phone call symbol, grabbed a marker from the whiteboard, and headed out into the hall, no questions asked.

“Hey,” you were saying, shoving your forearm against the concrete-block wall and popping the marker cap off with your mouth, “Good to hear from you. Didn’t know I could see through you, too. Excited to see how we’ll deal with that. This is my phone number.” You scrawled it across your arm, along with your given name above it. “If you can’t memorise it now, that’s fine. I’ll write it down next time, too, so you could prepare to have something nearby to record it with. I look forward to getting to know you.”

No strong emotions on his part. But he was there.

“Okay,” you said, and you turned to sink down against the wall to sit in the deserted hallway. “Some basic stuff: I’m a student at U.A., in my last year. I’m in that��uh, I’m in the class that’s gotten into a bit of trouble over the past few years. Midoriya, Bakugou, and all of them, if you watch the news. I’ve just ducked out of class with everyone.” You kept looking at your arm so that he could memorise it. “I don’t really wanna talk about my quirk, since that seems like such a boring, capital-A adult question, but I can tell you about it later, if you really want to know. Oh! I do not suck at making potato wedges. It was just a recipe that none of us had made before, and they were fine. They were good. I—”

And he’s gone, link severed.

Crossing your arms, you slumped against the wall. Did he choose to end it? Could he? He didn’t seem very receptive, so you wouldn’t put it past him.

***

You woke up from a nap watching through him play a video game, some non-discernible, first-person shooter. Again in the dark, but perhaps not in the same room. The windows weren’t open enough to let in enough light to tell.

Your soulmate never acknowledged you were there by gesture or word. Just played his stupid fucking game. You were trying to send him foul vibes of frustration and indignation, but he ignored you.

After a mere six minutes of the world’s worst Let’s Play, you decided you could be a little bitch as well.

***

“Oh! He’s here. Excuse me,” you said to Shinsou and Jirou, making the phone call gesture as you pushed yourself up from the lunch table, “I’ll be back in a moment. Please guard my gummies from Monoma.”

A flash of curiosity, finally, from your soulmate as he got the image of Shinsou and Jirou smirking to themselves and waving you off.

Once you were alone outside in the courtyard, you pulled out and unfolded the piece of pink construction paper, at this point every inch covered by doodles of flowers and increasingly shitty bulbasaurs. You tapped at the writing in the centre. “This is called a telephone number,” you said, “This one belongs to me. If you dial this number into a phone to call it, you will reach me. Then, we could have a conversation and arrange to meet up, instead of this unreliable, one-sided bond.”

You flattened your hand to smooth out the creases, halting midway when it struck you. “I’ve just realised you may be confused by this situation. Don’t worry; I am as well. But be assured, due to a quirk incident, we’ve been assigned soulmates. Yeah, I know they’re fake, but with this villain Tainted Love’s quirk, soulmates are real.”

He evidently was feeling like he wanted to walk straight into the ocean.

“I’m assuming you’re not a U.A. student, so—do you remember breathing in some sort of pink dust? Within about the past—I don’t know, two and a half years? That’s how long Tainted Love was active. She only got arrested about a month or so ago.” You couldn’t garner anything from him except for exasperation, so you continued. “And not, like, snorting a line of pink dust. It would’ve been in a dust cloud. A bit like fog. You would’ve noticed it.”

Staring at your phone number the whole time, you allowed him silence to think. Whatever he was feeling was very subdued, so you couldn’t really surmise what it was, but ten seconds before the bond broke, a livid, fiery ire consumed your whole body in the heat of recognition.

***

Shinsou, Todoroki, and you were all crowded around a laptop in Shinsou’s dorm to watch the beginning episodes of Hunter x Hunter the next time your soulmate spoke to you. He’d gone a couple of times ignoring you in silence, once outside on a walk during the day on a path uptown you didn’t recognise, and the other on some rooftop while playing on his phone and watching a meteor shower. Completely disregarding your attempts to give him your number or talk to him in real time.

It just figured that he bothered to spare you any information when you were trying to see what the next phase of the Hunter Exam was, so Todoroki and Shinsou paused the show for you and waited. With a stab of affection for your friends, you moved to the corner, waiting for your soulmate to say something.

And he was. Your soulmate knew more combinations of swear words and general filth than you’ve ever cared to consider, and you were almost impressed with the creativity of his vulgarity. Outside under the night sky, he was furiously ripping open some medium-sized, cardboard box as he stomped towards a carefully cultivated, lilypad-covered, manmade pond towards the back of a highly organised, traditional garden.

Eventually, non-profanity was added. “Goddamn fucking shit-ass fish and goddamn fucking shit-ass crusty motherfucking doctor can’t take care of his own goddamn fucking pet project.” Tips of his house slippers stopping at the pond only by way of running into the stone wall, he stumbled, growling in frustration, before regaining his balance and yanking out the plastic bag inside the remnants of the box. “Wants a goddamn gift for fucking Mom but can’t be arsed to do it him-fucking-self. Deserves every fish fucked into his respiratory system, clogging up his arteries to give himself a goddamn heart attack. And then I can’t be blamed for—” The plastic stretched, and he ended up tearing it in half above the water, pieces falling atop waterlilies. “Shit on a cuntbag. What the fuck. I don’t deserve this.”

He stretched to reach the waterlilies, cupping his hands to sweep the fish food off and into the water. And—the moonlight struck the gently rippling water, enough for you to see a flash of an orange koi tail break the surface tension, but not enough to see whatever was going on with his hands—not that he was doing anything strange with them (just picking shreds of plastic out of the water), but they somehow were strange. They moved stiffly and had some sort of bumps on them, but—does this guy live in darkness? You couldn’t tell anything about what his hands looked like aside from the shadowed bumps, which could be anything.

“I deserve a lot, but I sure as hell don’t deserve this.” He rounded the pond and punched a few buttons on a small, hidden, monitor, checking the pH of the pool and water levels. “Not my fucking job. Not my fucking job. Why do they think—why am I the one to do this shit. How come I can get in trouble with my fucking brother for him not taking care of his project.” He swatted at his wet bathrobe sleeve, pissed, and shook out some of the water. “Hey, you. I know you’re there.”

Back in the dorm, you jolted in your seat. In the distance, you could hear Shinsou ask what was wrong. “Nothing,” you said, sounding distant yourself, “He acknowledged me is all. Hasn’t done that for a while, so it felt like a fourth wall break.”

Your soulmate sat down on the edge of the pond, glaring out at the rest of the garden (wisteria heavy, vines swaying in the night wind). “Are you hot?”

You’d never wanted to be able to transfer direct words or actions to him so much, because he needed to be strangled.

“I’m not kidding.” He crossed his arms, covered by a dark bathrobe, sticking his hands in his armpits. “Are you hot? I don’t like the idea of being connected to some hideous fuckwad.”

Never mind. Now you have never wanted to be—

“This quirk shit isn’t gonna last long, but if you’re hot, you need to get on my dick before it goes away. I wanna see how it looks giving me a blowjob from your perspective.”

Kill. Destroy. Maim. Eviscerate, even.

“Ooh, watch out. We’ve got an uptight, prudish bitch over here,” he said, and he laughed—again, sounding more like a hiss than anything else. “Well, then. If you’re not gonna put out, then I’ve got no use for you. Don’t need anyone, especially not some goddamn lunatic who claims to be my soulmate. Too many people are interfering in my life, anyway. And to be honest, it seems like you’re dumb and irritating. I don’t like people like you.”

Maybe you’re soulmates because you’re destined to kill him on sight. Your soul, calling out for his to suffer extreme violence. He’d deserve it.

May all his potato wedges burn.

***

Monoma was at the next Hunter x Hunter anime viewing, because he’d been dying to know why you were wearing an actual and literal clown costume, wig and enormous foam nose included.

“I’m liking the new hero outfit,” Monoma said, flipping his hair back with a flourish, “but why are you wearing it during our off-hours?”

“Shove off,” you said, grinning as Shinsou tossed you a pillow to hold, “Did you bring your peach gummies?”

“I did,” said Monoma, sitting next to you on Todoroki’s tatami mats, and he pulled a massive bag of white peach gummies from inside his jacket, handing it to you to open. “May I ask if it’s seriously part of your new uniform, or—”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Monoma,” you said, ripping open the bag at the notch, “I’m making a point.”

“Her soulmate,” Shinsou supplied, pulling up the next episode, “He wants to know what she looks like. So, she’s been dressing up in horrible, gawdy shit so that he can never really tell, even around mirrors.”

“He’s pissed,” you said, beaming, digging into the bag and popping a gummy into your mouth, “He wants me to stop playing around, but he was mean to me. Mean to me, unprovoked, and in a way that wasn’t hot. Tomorrow, I’m wearing a sheet and running around like a ghost. I will say nothing to him but boo.”

“I suppose that explains the influx of regular face masks you’ve taken to wearing during class.” Monoma scoffed, his incredulous, open mouth stretching into a grin. “You are impossible. If your humourless soulmate is worth his salt, then he should at least value the effort you’re putting into it.”

“Sero has sent me a message,” interrupted Todoroki, thumb swiping his phone screen, “He says that he has changed his mind and would like to join us. He’s started rereading the series and likes it more this time around.” Todoroki looked up and around his room, lips pursed. “There is not much space for five people. It is getter harder to see the laptop.”

***

The five of you started the Heaven’s Arena arc of Hunter x Hunter in Aizawa’s dorm apartment, seeing as he had the best television setup: for one, having an actual television instead of simply relying on his computer. His sound system held up, too, though you suspected Present Mic had something to do with that, instead of Aizawa’s own preferences.

You, Shinsou, Todoroki, Monoma, and Sero were scattered across Aizawa’s living room, all cosied under blankets and pillows and pointed towards his wall-mounted television, sitting on his cat-hair covered couch and armchairs, mugs and snacks on his coffee table, socked feet loose, and house slippers at the edge of the shag rug. The cats, Dango and Konpeito, chose to snuggle up towards Todoroki and you (beat that, Shinsou!), so you were careful not to disturb them from their slumber on your lap. No sudden movements, even when the tired dizziness of your bitch soulmate faded in.

“Spoilers for Hunter x Hunter, I suppose, even though it’s been out for decades,” you said under your breath, raising your hand to signal to the others that your soulmate was looking in. At your movement, Dango raised her head from her cocoon in your lap to yawn, her face nearly turning inside out, and she flinched, her pupils dilating, at the creak of the door.

Laden with groceries, Aizawa stepped into his own apartment, his brow furrowing at the sight of his students in his living room. “You have ten seconds to tell me what you’re doing here.”

“The fuck?” Sero whipped his head towards Shinsou and back at Aizawa. “Shinsou told us you were okay with it.”

“I said that he wouldn’t mind, which he can’t if he doesn’t catch us,” said Shinsou, bracing himself when Aizawa tugged at his capture weapon around his neck, “It’s my fault, Aizawa-sensei. Please don’t get angry at anyone else.”

Your soulmate seemed pleased that you were getting in trouble. Bastard.

Aizawa set his cloth bags on his kitchen counter, the insides shifting with the weight of the groceries. “Is this appropriate for Eri to watch?”

“Well, in general—”

A character onscreen chose that moment to seductively moan another character’s name, over and over again.

Aizawa winced, scrunching his eyes shut tightly. “Turn that shit off. Find another place to watch it.” Shaking his head, he unbagged the first of his groceries. “Shinsou, never bring anyone, including yourself, into my personal space again with express permission.”

“Damn it,” you said, reaching for the remote. You pressed the power button, watching the screen fade from the vibrant colours of Heaven’s Arena to black, with Aizawa’s living room reflecting back at you. Forlornly, you scratched the back of Dango’s neck, watching her mirrored reaction, before you realised what you were doing: giving your bitch-ass soulmate a clear view of your bare face. Eyes bulging, you gasped and bent over to hide your face, with Dango scurrying away at being disturbed.

The connection cut at the faint suggestion of intrigue.

***

YOU

hey i know we said we’d keep it small but. i think midoriya would really enjoy the battle analysis that the hxh characters are doing

YOU

bc they be doing some QUICK analytic work based on their opponents’ personalities

TODOROKI 💅🎏

Midoriya has been asking more questions than usual during our sparring sessions.

SERO 🧃🍊

ffs why isn’t he already in the group? should’ve thought of him

SHINSOU 💜🍡

want me to add him?

YOU

would that be okay, todoroki?

TODOROKI 💅🎏

There’s more than enough room at our new venue. We should invite him.

SHINSOU 💜🍡

why don’t you text him then? it’s at your place

MONOMA 🔇🎭

Midoriya CANNOT sit next to me

MONOMA 🔇🎭

I’d like to hear the onscreen dialogue instead of whatever he’s saying under his breath

MONOMA 🔇🎭

He CANNOT shut up

YOU

WHOMST won’t shut up??????

SERO 🧃🍊

don’t worry no one will sit next to you

MONOMA 🔇🎭

Good

MONOMA 🔇🎭

Wait

TODOROKI 💅🎏

Midoriya can attend! He’ll be a little late today, but I think we should wait for him, since it’s his first time joining us.

Startled by the waiter, you put your phone down on your notebook and accepted your coffee graciously. You shifted your laptop and notebook over so that you could cup the mug in front of you, its warmth seeping through the sides, and you took a tentative slurp. Interesting. You’ll finish it, but you won’t order this again.

You were killing time that Saturday by getting ahead on your work for Put Your Hands Up Radio: editing and fact-checking news segments that Yamada would read between songs towards the evening. Electing to get some sunshine on your skin before hunkering down with the group again to analyse some anime, you’d chosen to edit the articles outside at a café you’d discovered recently, one at which you hadn’t decided on a regular order yet and were shopping around the menu each time you came. Plus, if you’d stayed on campus, no doubt Shinsou or Monoma would’ve found you to distract you.

The café’s patio with scorching, cast-iron furniture and haphazard parasol installation led to most of its customers sitting inside, but that meant you had space to think, even with the hot groves of your seat imprinting patterns into your skin.

Your soulmate was probably being rude because he was scared, or perhaps he didn’t believe that Tainted Love’s quirk was legitimate. You’d have to assure him that it was, as you’d run through Nezu’s report with Midnight and Recovery Girl, fact-checking that. Either way. Some frustrated guy—living at home, apparently, and pissed about it—was paired out of the blue with some student at U.A. He might be scared that you were a creep.

Tainted Love’s team’s notes on her quirk that Midnight had confiscated explained that each soulmate bond, somehow, was moulded around the pair’s personalities and would fulfil a lifelong need. A lot of responsibility, it seemed, but if it were true—and other pairs proved it true—you would fulfil it naturally, and so would he.

So, even though your soulmate had been rude, you’d give him a chance. The soulmate bond existed for a reason. Plus, he might be a real-life tsundere, and wouldn’t that be fun to crack? To be the only one a rude, evil person was soft for was the ideal, wasn’t it? Someone so naturally cruel and heartless but learning to be kind for you—

Get a hold of yourself. He’s a real guy who will be in your life forever, not just someone you can throw away, like a celebrity/pro-hero crush. Treat him seriously.

“I’m…being serious,” you said to yourself, pouting into your coffee. You hunched in your seat to drink from the mug without lifting it, and you slorped away the neck of the latte art swan the barista had so carefully poured. “He’s probably not even be a sexy sort of cold-hearted. He’s just a type of bitchiness I haven’t learnt how to handle yet.”

Those boys in the anime analysis group? You could play their types of bitchiness like the world’s smallest fiddle. They were all so easy to handle (especially Monoma because of his predictability; Todoroki gave you the most trouble due to his complete non sequiturs), and it was fun bouncing off the petty parts of their personalities. Your soulmate spun things differently, but you’d learn his inclinations in time. If not, it’s not worth your time trying to “fix” someone who has no redeeming vulnerability.

You sighed. Now that you’ve lost your editing groove, you might as well do some last-minute reading before watching the next few episodes tonight. Closing your laptop, you reached down into your bag to get the next volume of Todoroki’s manga, and your vision blurred over, dizziness incoming. Well, at least you’re sitting down.

You held the manga volume in your lap and waited for your soulmate’s line of sight to appear. If he were in a darkened room yet again, you could buy yourself a little treat. The café’s display case had some sort of new chess square that you’d been eyeing. And—shit, sunlight was coming through. No little treat for you.

Well, maybe you’ll get one, anyway. You slumped farther down in your seat, blinking as dappled, sunlight-covered pavement and an empty terrace outside a business across a busy street came into view—your soulmate jumped back off the road when a car whooshed by, and after that, he jaywalked, horns blaring in his wake.

He did a little hop to get on the opposite sidewalk, hands in his pockets, and peered past the iron fence into the window of the shop—a packed coffee shop; maybe you could at least learn his coffee order, because then you’d have some shred of information about him. But no, he unlatched the iron gate and wove his way through the cast-iron patio chairs and tables, and—

You’re staring right at you: sitting, legs crossed, not taking up space, stuff spread out over your table, and he’s gaining on you. You flinched, watched yourself flinch, and your gaze darted around until you were able to meet his (your) eyes (your head making minor, nervous movements you wouldn’t have noticed if you hadn’t seen them), expression cautious, curling in on yourself on impulse. When you saw how, through an outsider, that made you look small, you made the effort to sit up and roll your shoulders back, elbows on the table. You watched yourself recoil at the heat of the iron, and you had to use his perspective to know where your notebook was so that you could rest your arms on it.

He brushed past your table’s open chair, instead yanking the table by the edge away from your lap so that he could stand closer to you and grabbing your face. He first cupped your jaw with his whole hand, pale skin and leather of a fingerless glove cold to the touch, and then, when he seemed sure you weren’t going to protest (his vision turned slightly to the left—he must have tilted his head), he narrowed his grip in little jerks of his hand, sliding erratically from gripping your jaw to just tilting your chin upwards towards him. He turned your head to the left and to the right before returning to centre to stare you down (you’d been pliant under his control, because the doubling of you watching you do things was throwing off your senses of balance and direction).

“Not as hard as you fucking made it out to be, huh?” His thumb rubbed over your chin. His nail was cracked. “Now, are you gonna stop acting like a little bitch, or are we gonna keep playing your stupid game?”

“First of all,” you said, fascinated by the way your lips curled in under your teeth to shape the consonants, and judging by where your soulmate was looking, he was, too. “It’s not an act. I am a little bitch.”

“No more of that hiding shit.” He tapped your cheek a little harder than he needed to with his middle two fingers. “Don’t know why you’d wanna hide this, anyway.”

You wouldn’t’ve said you winced at his rough touch, but you noticed enough of an aggravated microexpression around your eyes that you could tell you didn’t like it. “You’re doing the same. Hiding what you look like from me.”

“And I’m gonna keep doing it. You get nothing. There is no us. Soulmates don’t exist, and even if some hack fraud’s quirk has paired us off, I don’t need anybody, least of all you.”

“Well, maybe you don’t need anyone,” you said, your eyes dipping to see more of his hand (hot damn, we forgot we can’t see through our own eyes that quickly?) and then raising them to look directly into your soulmate’s—hyperaware of the way your eyelashes fluttered against your skin, of the slight pinch of your eyebrows, of the way the sun struck your cheeks, “but you could want someone.”

A sliver of a cool breeze wove its way through the patio, some of your hair swaying with it.

“I won’t pressure you to do anything you don’t want,” you said, lying, “but at the very least, we could communicate enough for this to be easy for us. Please let me give you my phone number, and please save it this time.”

His thumb inched up to press into your lower lip.

“Please,” you said, eyes dark but slightly glassy, letting your tongue tap the tip of his thumb, so lightly wetting it that it was as if you hadn’t touched it at all.

Your soulmate tilted his head again, lurching to the side as he shifted his weight to lean on the table. He knocked your pen onto the ground, and when you made the slightest movement to grab it, he pressed his thumb harder against you to still you, and he shook his head.

Your throat ran dry. Your (his) eyes honed in on the bead of sweat dripping down it and into your blouse. “Give me your name, then. A name, if you hate me that much.”

“It’s Touya,” he grumbled, and he closed his eyes in the moment before he kissed you, cold lips open before even touching yours (both rough, but his lower lip was much rougher for some reason). Blind, you startled back at the initial touch, but he held your chin firmly near his, sliding his gloved hand to your cheek as his tongue did into your mouth, pressing against the roof of your mouth and along your gums, alternating pressure where he pleased, not seeming to care what you did with your tongue—not that you were doing much at all due to surprise, but you at least had the mind to press your lips back, because while yes, his style was unorthodox, it still felt good. He laughed through his nose, once, when you slid your tongue against his, but when you raised a hand to cup his cheek, he pulled away before you could do more than graze him.

“Touya,” you said, and now that he was looking at you again, you—well, you looked kissed out, leaning towards him to chase that feeling, to encourage him to touch you again, and you looked fucking hot (the hell? It took a lot for you to think of yourself that way, and today hadn’t even been a good day for you, but now, freshly kissed, saying your soulmate’s name, you found yourself thinking you were pretty. Uh. Could this be what he was thinking instead of you? You couldn’t tell; it felt like it was coming from somewhere deep in your gut). “Touya. Let me write—”

You watched yourself grapple for your pen for a while. He huffed, crossed his arms, and bothered to look down where your pen was for you, and when he did, you finally grabbed it.

“Touya,” you said, uncapping the pen and hovering over your notebook, and you paused after the first stroke. “Touya spelled like that Todoroki Touya who released that Endeavor video during the war?”

The ink bled through the sheet of paper from being pressed in one spot for too long.

“Yeah,” he said eventually, voice rasping, “Spelled just like his.”

“Okay,” you said, bending over your paper and writing based on muscle memory, and under his name, you wrote your phone number for him again, with your name written beneath it, just to hammer it in. You ripped the page out of your notebook with some difficulty before passing it to him.

Touya scanned it and rubbed his thumb over your name, the leather of his fingerless glove catching on the uneven tear.

Cute. Nerd. “Do the gloves have something to do with your quirk?”

“What? No,” he said, crumpling the paper and stowing it in his pocket, and he kept his hands there, hiding them, “I don’t have a quirk.”

Okay, so Touya spoke in a rush and concealed evidence. Sounds like a lie. Monoma took that route on occasion, so the obvious thing for you to say was “Oh, so you wear them because of Naruto? Do you run like him, too?”

“Fuck off,” he spat, and you watched yourself grin: you’ve got him. “As if I had time to be a fuckin’ otaku.”

“Good to know,” you said, “So, all the manga re-analysis I’ve been doing with my friends is new to you? I hope you’re not planning on reading or watching any of the works that we’re covering, then. Unless you wanted to read along with us?”

“I don’t need that shit to scorch my brain.” For some reason, he winced, scrunching his eyes shut for a moment, and you waited in the dark for him.

“You have enough going on?”

He pried his eyes open, blinking blearily at you, still grinning, still smug. “Yeah,” he said, and he dug his left hand out to stare at the back of it, leather shining in the sunlight while he wiggled his fingers. He bent across the table to grab your coffee, fingers spidering over the rim to grip it, and he brought it to his mouth. “This is fucking awful; what’s wrong with you?” he asked after an audible swallow.

“It’s not my usual order.” Closing your notebook, you crossed your arms, staring down at you and feeling more and more like you’re in a dream. “You can either tell me what your quirk is, because I know you’re lying, or you could stay? For coffee? I’ll buy you something better.”

(You would have asked what’s up with his appearance that he didn’t want you to see or feel, but considering how early in your first official meeting it was, the question may be too insensitive, especially if he were born with it.)

Touya glanced over his shoulder, saw something you couldn’t, and set your mug on the iron table with a quiet clink. “I’ve got to go,” he said, and he spun around, taking the first step away.

You slammed a hand on the table purely on guesswork based on where he left your mug, and the sound of shaking iron and tinkling porcelain resounded, distant when you heard it through his ears, yet feeling the vibrations travel through your own arms. “Tell me your goddamn quirk, you daft fucker.”

Touya paused, and he turned back to you. “That’s more like it.” He sat on your table, at the place over your lap, and he reached out towards your face. You saw yourself lean back, eyes wide, but he simply dug his fingers into your hair at your hairline, scratching your scalp and digging his nails in enough to hear the movement.

(You saw yourself frown the moment you noticed his skin was colder than the glove.)

“Barking at me like that is how information is usually torn out of me. Makes me feel at home,” he said, a bit too cheerfully for your liking, “You can be trained to be a bitch towards me yet.”

“Touya,” you said, raising your head to embolden more of his touch, “Who’s—who’s been treating you like that? You don’t deserve it.”

“Shut up.” Touya laid his hand flat atop your head, the weight of it pushing down on you. “Sure, I lied. Said I didn’t have a quirk. Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters.” Your tongue swiped over your lower lip, and Touya’s gaze darted to it. “I want any scrap of you I can get. Everything I’ve already learnt I’ve filed away in my heart: your name, the way you speak, your hatred of your brother’s fish and living at home—”

The hand on your hand slipped to slap over your mouth. “Jesus Christ, stop noticing things about me. Freak. Goddamn.” Touya lifted his hand off of you, and based on his perspective, he ran it through his own hair. “So that you don’t go making your own intrusive observations, I’ll tell you about my quirk: I effectively don’t have one anymore. I used it a lot, and it fucked me up. So, for my own self-preservation, which I’ve been told I should value, I can’t use it anymore. Good enough for you?”

“Great enough for me,” you said, “I’ll take care not to talk about my quirk or hero course stuff too much. I don’t want you to feel left out.”

“Holy shit,” said Touya, and he broke eye contact with you to stare at his boots (scuffed, black, but new, so the scuffing must be intentional), blinking rapidly before pressing—probably—his thumb and forefinger against his eyelids.

Something was deeply wrong with this man. You needed him to kiss you again. You opened your mouth to ask him to, but wooziness and your dry throat called; the ripped page of your notebook you’d been staring at dripped back into your own perspective at a glacial pace. You heard the scuffle of his shuffling off the iron table and the grit of his boot against the concrete, and when you grappled for him in the dark, your hand clenched around nothing.

You rubbed your eyes until the vertigo passed, and when you opened them, Touya was gone.

***

Later that afternoon, you were scrolling through your phone on the end cushion of one of Todoroki’s couches in the living room in a poor effort not to gawk at everything. You expected some of it could be excused, since it’s your first time at his house, but good God, rich people were insane. This was the biggest, traditionally-styled building (estate?) you’ve been in since you toured a castle preserved from the Edo period—but it was apt, you supposed, since Endeavor had been acting as a sort of daimyo of his own.

Dormer gables. Hip-and-gable roofs, with golden shachihoko shibi cupping the corners—though instead of the customary sea monsters, if your eyes weren’t deceiving you, they appeared to be made for flame-swimming instead of in water. A recessed entryway, its wooden flooring tiles hand-cut in tiny designs to make you aware of the space, with brand-new guest slippers already provided before you could ask. Todoroki’s house (estate?) screamed business, or at the very least, don’t touch anything.

At least the living room in which you sat stiffly had a touch of clear modernity—and so it seemed that the inner rooms actually revealed that they were living in the modern age, but the barrier of traditional architecture to get to actual living space heaved a hyperawareness of outsider onto your shoulders.

Todoroki himself, bless him, moved around like the elegant austerity didn’t even occur to him. Waiting for Midoriya with the rest of you, he’d helped everyone spread out their notes and manga over the short table and floor, gathering blankets for everyone when it occurred to him that not everyone’s body tolerated temperature like he did (since the house was kept oddly cold), and, instead of offering tea, like he’d said his sister would expect him to do, he provided a peculiar but pleasant combination of snacks: cheap-ass cup noodles, strawberry chardonnay-flavoured cheese on soup crackers, old mooncakes that had been in the fridge for a month but he declared were still good, and gummy worms for Monoma.

The bitch even bought everyone a fancy little drink according to personal preferences—and no one had even requested them or informed him what to get, but he’d gotten everything right, regardless (you suspected he’d asked Shinsou for help).

“Thank you,” you said, turning over in your hands the poshest bottle of pink lemonade you’ve ever seen, “You’re a very gracious host, Todoroki.”

He slurped his own caramel frappe. “I’m very excited to have so many friends over at once.”

“Of course,” you said, your weight jostling on the couch cushion as Todoroki sat next to you, “I can’t believe we didn’t think of going off-campus to watch this shit earlier. There’s way more privacy here.”

“Our doors are always open nowadays,” he said, and when Sero tapped Todoroki on his shoulder to help open another package of cheese, he held up a finger to pause your conversation.

Smiling softly, you twisted off the bottlecap of your lemonade, holding it up to your nose to inhale that pressurised burst of lemon scent, and—oh, hey, you felt a little lightheaded as you did so. Two times in one day? That’s new. At least it was from your perspective this time, so you didn’t have to worry about knocking anyone’s drink over.

“Hey,” you said, snuggling down into the couch, your palm atop the opening of your drink (when Monoma shot you a questioning look with the phone call hand signal, you nodded, and he relaxed and leaned towards you, his teeth cutting into his lower lip as he grinned). “Funny how we keep meeting like this, yeah?” you asked, feeling soft and full of love for this fucker, and you reached towards the coffee table to set down your drink and grab a flower-shaped mooncake. “I guess I can stop hiding from my reflection now, sweet boy.” You made eye contact with yourself in the reflection of the Torodokis’ enormous flatscreen, and you held your mooncake up in a toast before biting into it. “Hope you’re well. You seemed stressed earlier. I’m currently—”

Your phone rang in your lap, and you narrowed your eyes at the unknown number before answering it. “Hello?”

“Where the hell are you right now?”

“Wow,” you said, chewing, “No greeting, even? No mention of how much that you miss my voice or my lips now that you’ve—”

“Just tell me where the fuck you are,” said Touya, at the same time that Monoma’s eyebrows shot to his hairline at the kissing implication, and he thumped Shinsou in the chest for him to look up from his phone.

“Does it matter?”

“I told you my quirk shit when I didn’t want to, so fucking tell me,” said Touya, sounding muffled and, again, like he stood near traffic.

Swallowing mooncake in a rush and choking a bit, you cleared your throat and said, “Fine. I don’t know why it matters that much to you, but I’m at a friend’s house. Our anime analysis group has gotten too big for the dorms, so we’re trying out his place.”

You had to ensure the call hadn’t dropped due to his long response time. “What friend?” he asked.

You raised a brow, though he couldn’t see you. “I doubt you would know—shit!”

Struggling to tear the plastic covering the cheese, Todoroki had accidentally slammed his elbow into your collarbone.

“Geez.” You winced at Todoroki and rubbed the spot. “No, no, I’m fine,” you said when he reached towards your collarbone, his fingertips already icing over, “You may want to go get a knife to open that, though.”

Nodding soberly, Todoroki lowered his thawing hand and rose from the couch, tossing the cheese to himself. “I’ll do that. Anyone need anything from the kitchen while I’m up?”

While the others answered, you spoke into your phone again, hand on your chest. “Sorry about that. I guess if you paid attention to the news last year, you’d know him: one of Endeavor’s kids, Todoroki Shouto.”

The soulmate connection started to trickle away, but Touya stayed on the phone. “Do you not have any other friends who have a place?” Plastic crinkled on his end, along with a car horn in the background. “Hell, the library downtown rents out portable TVs—”

“Why should I be at another friend’s house?” Touya wouldn’t be able to see the reflection of your self-satisfied smirk now, but surely he could hear it in your voice. “Jealous that I’m at the house of another man?”

Touya gagged into the speaker. “Someone’s full of herself. Don’t wait up for me,” he said, and he hung up.

You pulled your phone away from your ear, pouting at the call screen before creating a new contact.

“You didn’t tell us you’d met your soulmate,” said Shinsou.

“It only happened this afternoon,” you said, saving his number under Touya 🐠🚷 (the fish for the koi pond he hated, and the no pedestrians sign for his apparent propensity to jaywalk), “and I’m not sure what to make of him. I was hoping to form my own opinion before telling all of you.”

Todoroki perked up and tilted his ear skyward at the sound of the front door opening. “I’ll get it,” he said, standing, “I bet that’s my brother. He’s back four hours late from physical therapy; I hope everything’s okay.”

Your eye twitched.

(Todoroki had warned everyone before coming over that his family would probably be in and out. Less so Fuyumi and Natsuo, because Fuyumi had recently moved in with her significant other and Natsuo had his own place near campus, but more of his parents and Dabi. Well. Touya, now, but you had your own Touya to worry about.

You’d met Dabi. Twice, during freshman year. When he’d been a villain, instead of whatever was happening with him in recovery. Rather formulative experiences for you, ones you only permitted yourself to think about in the hollowness of lonely nights—but you didn’t need those memories anymore, because you had your Touya now.

Remember? You have your own Touya. You don’t need another.)

“Do you want me to carry that for you?”

Todoroki’s voice trailed behind boot scuffing and a sliding door, and in Dabi/Touya shuffled—hoodie yanked up (layered over a longer coat?), strings pulled firmly around his face, plastic bags from the convenience store down the street on his wrist, very determinedly staring at the floor as he strode past behind the couch instead of at the four of you strewn across his living room, ducking into the kitchen as soon as possible.

You’d barely seen him for five seconds, and your heart was going to beat out of your chest. Or maybe that was just the bruise forming on your collarbone.

Todoroki nodded after his brother, standing behind your place at the couch. “There’s no ceremonial introduction, I assume. That’s my brother, Touya. You’ve all,” said Todoroki, scratching the back of his neck, “met him before. But! If you’re nervous, we will not be seeing much of him. He doesn’t spend much time in the main house; he lives in the old-fashioned teahouse towards the back of the garden. Privacy, you know, even though we’ve got to keep him close.” Todoroki wetted his lips as he looked towards the emptied shrine on the far wall. “He shouldn’t be any trouble, but I may have to zip out on occasion to help him. Not all of his skin grafts are taking.”

The doorbell rang, and Todoroki started towards it. “That must be Midoriya. Sero, would you please pull up the next episode?”

When Todoroki stepped into the entryway to greet him, you couldn’t suppress your curiosity. “I’m gonna go pour this over ice,” you said, gesturing with your pink lemonade bottle, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Shinsou—the only one whom you’ve told about what happened with Dabi back then—shot you a crooked grin, but he distracted Monoma from noticing exactly what you were doing while you sneaked away down the hall.

His back was to you. Water flowed out of the kitchen faucet while he yanked his hoodie over his head and tossed it over the back of a chair, and he did the same with a longer, black coat—similar in shape to the coat he’d worn as a villain but not the same one. Maybe he’d grown accustomed to having the weight of it on his body, so what he wore now was a type of security blanket. While he ran a spoon under the faucet, he fumbled behind himself for his plastic, convenience store bag and fished out a pudding cup.

Backtracking a little, you purposely made your footsteps audible so that you wouldn’t startle him, and you entered the kitchen, shaking your lemonade for more noise to alert him of your presence.

His white brows pinched when he saw you, and he hastily shut the water off and scooted off to the edge of the counter while he put his stuff away, his movements rigid and close to his chest.

“Hi,” you said (oh, my God, you were talking to Dabi; holy shit), “Where do the cups live?”

Dabi blinked slowly, unable to look at you, and he peeled the lid off of his pudding cup. He glanced towards the door and back towards his stuff on the table, and he pointed towards a cabinet, his finger returning to his fist in a rush to get back what he was doing.

“Thank you,” you said, opening the one he’d pointed to. Oh. Fancy. Lots of choices. “I hope we’re not bothering you. We can—we can always leave, if you need us to. Or you could join us, if you like.” You turned around in time to see the flat of his tongue lick pudding off of the lid, stitches showing at the back of his tongue, and in the moment where he ducked his head, the tiny, unblemished part of his skin near the corners of his eyes blazing pink, your brain short-circuited.

(Dabi had been your first kiss.

During freshman year, in the week of that first round of internships, you’d been planted in Hosu City, around the time Stain closed his fist around the public consciousness. On a night patrol, your mentor had slipped into a restaurant that the yakuza frequented and stationed you in a nearby alley to watch for other yakuza incoming from the employees’ entrance.

An official sidekick had caught up with you—late forties, spandex, unrecognisable. You’d been terse in your replies, since he’d been essentially blowing your cover, but he couldn’t take a hint.

It’d only occurred to you that he’d been hitting on you when he’d propped an arm on the brick wall above your head to dominate your personal space, and an all-consuming dread had erupted in your stomach when he’d said, moving to take your chin in hand, “You know, you remind me a lot of my daughter.”

Before he’d been able to touch you, something rabid and ravenous about the size of a labrador had tackled him to the ground, the force knocking him almost two whole meters away, and the thing ripped into the sidekick’s chest, blood spewing—and somehow having the sense to cover his mouth to stifle the shouts.

In the moment you’d moved to get a better look at what was, in retrospect, a nomu, another figure had stepped between you and the sidekick, his own arm resting on the wall to keep you from getting closer.

“Hey,” Dabi had said, an easy grin stretching across his face, “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about anything. Just testing some shit out for someone. So long as you don’t go making any noise, I’ll let you walk away.”

Dabi hadn’t made his villain debut back then, but even so, it hadn’t seemed like it was just testing something out for someone; this guy had seemed his own brand of dangerous. Your gaze had started to creep towards the source of crunching, but he’d tapped your cheek, making you look at him. “Nuh-uh. Keep your eyes on me. If you don’t know anything, I don’t have to kill you, do I?”

“I, I’m—” You’d steeled yourself somewhat, your hands clenching into fists at your sides. “I’m not just gonna let you kill a hero while I stand here.”

Again, Dabi had stopped you before you could take a full step, this time by gripping your jaw, letting it rest in his palm while his fingers dug into your cheeks. “Can’t call him a hero. Was comparing you to his daughter—didn’t you hear? And it looked like he was gonna assault you. Some guys aren’t meant to be fathers.” His syrupy gaze had fallen to your neck, and he’d squeezed your face. “Jesus, your heart is beating like crazy.”

“I don’t normally calm myself down to the sounds of someone getting maimed,” you’d said, blood splattering in the air behind him, “Oh! Fuck.” You’d scrunched your eyes shut and curled in on yourself, trying to block out the sound of bones snapping.

“Some hero you are.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you’d said, “You’re more of one than I am, tonight. Thanks—?”

“Dabi,” he’d said, and at the time, it had just been a name. When you’d pried open your eyes, he’d been smiling, mouth closed, head tilted at being called a hero. You’d smiled back, but at an enormously strident crack from behind him, you’d had a full-body jolt. “Fucking hell, calm down,” he’d said, his arm sliding from the wall to your upper arm, “For once, you’re safe with me.” Seeing you try to look over his shoulder again, Dabi had dragged you forward by the jaw to kiss you, closed-mouthed but hot, leaning into you, his mouth overwhelming you with hardly any effort on his end, and he’d kept kissing you, stroking your cheek with the back of his hand, until the nomu slinked into silence.

Dabi had broken off when the nomu scuttled farther down the alley. “Right.” He’d taken a deep breath. “You gonna tell anyone about me?”

You’d shaken your head, confused as to why he seemed more concerned about descriptions of him rather than descriptions of the murder. But he’d been nice to you. Had given you a hell of a first kiss. “I can say someone in the yakuza killed him.”

He’d roughly patted your cheek and dropped away from you, stowing his hands in the deep pockets of his coat. “His death isn’t worth reporting, but I’ll take it.” He’d spun on his heel, raising a lazy hand in a wave as he disappeared into the night. “You’d better hope you never see me again.”)

And now, here he was, hunched over shitty gas station snacks in his family kitchen, a spoon hanging out of his mouth while he stowed things away. His naturally white hair showed now, and…he seemed terribly shy. Dabi, shy. Fucking ridiculous. But, you supposed, there’s guilt and shame around, uh, doing what he did. And—and his body was horribly, horribly mangled and mottled. He might not think anyone should look at him.

Todoroki (Shouto, you supposed you should think of him as, since Dabi was a Todoroki, too) had mentioned not all of Dabi’s skin grafts were taking. It was obvious. He’d burnt up during the war, and while you’d heard Recovery Girl and Eri had worked on him, despite outside protests that he wasn’t worth it, he still was very clearly cobbled together.

He still had a lot of staples, though faded stitches filled in new gaps, and those that remained had been replaced with medical-grade staples that wouldn’t get infected. Patches of successful grafts left a waning diamond pattern, particularly around his neck. Very little purple, overall, but going by the scars, you could still tell where it had been. Based on his appearance, he shouldn’t be alive, let alone able to walk around.

But he scooted with such speed out of your way when you got ice out of the freezer. “But really, you could stick around with us, if you wanted to. No pressure, though, if you want to be alone.” Calmly. You were calmly popping ice out of a tray and letting them clatter into your glass. “We’re watching Hunter x Hunter right now, if you’re interested. Have you read or watched it before, either the 1999 or 2011 version? Do you have a favourite character?”

Dabi clutched his snacks and discarded clothes to his chest, almost at the door, with his eyes darting all around the kitchen except on you.

Yeah. Must be shy. You were one of the U.A. students who fought in the war, after all, even though you didn’t personally fight him in the end. Probably feels guilty about the whole thing. Shy could be refreshing, after those bitches in the living room and your cunning soulmate.

Finally, tentatively, Dabi shifted his belongings to his right arm, and he raised his left to pat his throat, swallowing so that his Adam’s apple bobbed.

“Oh,” you said, ice melting in your hand, “I’m sorry. Are you on vocal rest? Vocal cords messed up somehow?”

After a moment, Dabi nodded. He edged towards the hallway.

“Okay. I hope you feel better soon,” you said, and you poured your lemonade over the ice. “I’ve kept you long enough. Please go rest; I hope we don’t disturb you further.”

Before you finished, he’d already skibbled off, his house shoes slipping on the wood.

***

(The second time you’d met Dabi hadn’t been as hands-on, but it’d still left an odd impression.

It’d been in an urban jungle-type battle, after knowing his involvement the League but before his backstory reveal, and you and some classmates had been fighting a handful of PLF-aligned villains.

You’d slithered underneath a lean-to created by a partially collapsed building to catch your breath, along with shielding yourself from an explosion Bakugou had been building up. You hadn’t even known Dabi was in the group you were chasing, but he’d slinked underneath the same, protective ruins as you had, barely slipping underneath the cover before Bakugou’s explosion had shaken it.

Dabi had braced himself on the crumbling entrance, scrunching his face away from the explosion, and once it’d stopped, he’d noticed you were barely two paces away from him, sweat dribbling down your face the same as it’d been down his.

You still didn’t know if his startled, constipated expression had been of recognition or simple surprise to see someone else taking cover under something that could collapse and kill them. He’d taken in your U.A. gym uniform—your personal hero costume had been in repairs that week—and there’d been a couple of heavy seconds where neither of you had done anything besides pant and let sweat drip onto the rubble.

He'd slipped out first, since he’d been blocking the entrance, and you’d left soon after. You hadn’t been five steps out of the lean-to before someone on the PLF side had destroyed it, and in the privacy of your heart, you liked to think that Dabi had waited until you were out to raze it.)

***

You made it a habit to call Touya whenever the soulmate bond activated. Though he never initiated a call, he answered most of yours. What else was he going to do, if it were on your side, besides sit there in the dark? He continued to be hold information about himself like a miser clutching coins, but you found it refreshing to have a charismatic grouch of a pseudo-pen pal.

You’d closed the door of a library study room behind you as you called him this time, setting your stack of books on the table.

“You’re finally reading something besides manga? I thought your brain was gonna rot,” he said upon picking up.

You slung the strap of your purse over a chair. “No greeting? No admittance of missing the melodious sound of my voice?”

“Why in the hell would I do that,” he said over the screech of pulling out your chair.

“Because you missed the melodious sound of my voice?” You pulled out your notebook, flipped it to a new page, and fossicked around for a pen. Clicking the one you found, you reached for the first book in your stack, a rudimentary sign language dictionary, and you jotted down a list of common words as they came to you, such as thank you, help, and, of course, the all-important cat.

Touya clicked his tongue. “Are you seriously gonna make me study with you?”

You made the final stroke in the word pudding. “I don’t expect you to absorb the information. If you rather I read manga, I can go to that section for a while. Pick out a shoujo.”

“Get fucked with that otaku shit,” said Touya, and—he must have had his phone on speaker, because a couple of people were speaking to each other nearby about what must be the latest Assassins’ Creed, and the sound changed after some scrapes, with Touya sounding closer. “Why study sign language?”

“There’s someone in my life who recently became unable to talk all of the time,” you said, “and I’d like to help give him some way to communicate.”

“Just text him,” said Touya, “Well—never mind. Who’d wanna text you, anyway?”

“Sometimes, people put away their phones, Touya. Have you heard of it?” You drew a line down the half of your paper to make a new column, one sorting the words in groups—places, family members, requests, and the like.

“What are you getting out of it?” Touya must have scratched somewhere on his face, the sound coming over the phone. “You makin’ fun of him? Making him feel bad? If he wants to talk to you, he can just write shit down.”

“I think he might hate it because of how slow it is. And what if I luck out, and he knows sign already? Then half of my work is done for me,” you said, listing off all of the terms for family members, “Text-to-speech may be okay, but I don’t know. Still slow.”

“He probably doesn’t even want to talk to you,” said Touya, “let alone learn something for you. That’s a lot to ask for someone you ain’t fuckin’.”

You hummed and ignored him. You titled a new column Body, and the first word under it was burns. Followed by healing, surgery, hands, skin, hurt, and rest. For the first time in a while, Touya’s emotions were strong enough for you to feel, but you couldn’t name them. More like some pitiful, fearful soup, if anything, and other stuff you couldn’t put your finger on.

His voice still came in confidently derisive, though. “What kind of fucked up guy are you spreading your legs for, since those are what you’re writing down for his body? Seems like you’d be better off as a cocksleeve for someone else actually capable of fucking you.”

“Oh, rude! Rude!” Scowling, you set down your pen. “That’s rude to both me and him. I’m not talking to you anymore. Enjoy studying, asshole.” You flipped to a random page in the dictionary and started memorising, a bit too pissed to be productive for real, and you kept it up—if Touya were going to be here, then he’s not learning productive sign language, either. Try using marble and mare in everyday conversation, jackass.

Later, you caught yourself zoning out while staring at an entry, only shaking yourself out of it when Touya grumbled under his breath for you to turn the page already.

***

Todoroki paused the episode when the pizza arrived.

Moaning way too sensually, Kaminari stretched his arms above his head and arched his back. “My electricity is cooler than Killua’s, right? I have more swag than him?”

“No.”

“In your dreams.”

“Yikes.”

“Wrong,” said Shinsou, pelting him in the face with a popcorn kernel.

Kaminari picked it up off the floor and ate it mournfully. “I’m getting beaten by a fictional twelve year old.”

“I’m going to the bathroom,” you announced, pushing yourself up from your seat between Shinsou and Monoma (which was just as well, since they were comparing scans of the current manga chapter over your lap), and you set off with the intention going to the farthest bathroom to increase your chances of bumping into Dabi.

No such luck, even though you deliberately stomped your slippers as loudly as you could to try to draw him out. Sighing, you backtracked to a tiny bathroom you’ve used before, one that wasn’t as intimidatingly wealthy as the rest of the house and therefore actually felt like it was meant to be used, and you opened the creaking door onto an exhausted, shirtless Dabi trying to rub some sort of cream on the back of his neck, a massive jar open on the sink, blood seeping down his biceps at the strain around his staples.

Both of you froze. He took a quick glance to the gobs of cream on his hands and managed to kick the door shut from his seat on the closed toilet, but your foot caught in the door, which struck your nose and cheekbone, with you yelping and clutching the area.

“Sorry! I’m sorry,” you said through the crack in the door, shakily dragging your bruised foot out of it, “I didn’t know anyone was even in this side of the house. Are you okay? No, wait, sorry again—you’re bleeding; of course you’re not okay. I’m sorry.” You checked your nose for bleeding of your own, but nothing leaked out of your nose. “Can I—may I help with whatever you’re doing?”

No answer. But he hadn’t shut the door.

“Fine,” you said, and you spoke into the crack, only able to make out the granite on the near side of the sink. “I don’t know what’s going on with you nowadays, but I hope you’re doing okay. Or that you’ll be okay soon, at least. I can’t begin to imagine what you’ve been through, and I’m sorry you had to go through it. But I can grasp, I think, that having a bunch of your brother’s friends over can be intimidating and isolating. If nothing else, I’d like to get to know you better—or you could just get to know me better, if you don’t feel like sharing—so that having all of us over isn’t as terrible. I’m sorry we’re bursting into your life when you’re working out a lot of stuff in recovery—”

Dabi yanked open the door, brow furrowed, and instead of looking at you, he clamped his slimy hands on the sink and stood on his toes to arch towards the mirror, opening his mouth wide to breathe hot air onto it, teeth bared, as if he were roaring. In its fleeting fog, he traced out kanji, streaked with lotion and hidden by his left hand as he wrote, and he blew over it a final time before stepping back and jabbing at the message.

Stop apologising.

“Ah—oh,” you said, while Dabi squatted and rooted through the cabinet under the sink, “Okay. I’ll try. Thank you for saying so.” How do you talk to someone who was formerly 1) an S-tier villain and, more importantly, 2) your longest-running crush?

Dabi plopped a meagre first-aid kit on the counter and pointed to the source of bleeding on one of his arms, the inside bicep where two staples had come loose.

“I don’t know shit about first-aid,” you said, reaching for the kit anyway, “I know you have to keep pressure on it, and stuff, but—”

And so the first time Dabi looked you in the eyes was to shoot you an incredulous, suspicious glare that accompanied his snatching the kit back from you, clutching it out of your reach. Relaxing once it was in his hands, he hesitated a moment, shifting his jaw, before nudging the open jar of lotion with his knuckle, reverting to his fixed gaze on his feet.

“I can do that,” you said, heart racing, “You wanna—why don’t you sit back down?”

Not lotion, you noted, as Dabi pulled out disinfectant wipes and a roll of gauze near its end, burn cream. Aw. You dipped your first three fingers into it (heavy, roll-around slimy, like holding a frog) and hoped to God that your soulmate didn’t tune in during this. Touya didn’t like a lot of things you did, but he’d probably loathe your gawking over the scarred back of someone who wasn’t him.

Yeah, Touya would probably hate how you would hone in, laser-sharp, each time Dabi’s muscles flexed as he wrapped his wound, how the space between his shoulder blades with the tiny dent along his spine (well, his spine indented at the top of his back, where he was broader and still held muscle, and poked out towards his lower back as he bent over) held your focus far too long to be impersonal—and you got to touch it. You kept the contact to your fingertips, because as much as you wanted to flatten your hands to feel every moving tendon, you didn’t want to scare him. He’s probably not used to outside touch, and you shouldn’t come on too strongly, especially when someone else’s soul was fucking bound to yours.

But as your fingers smoothed over the marks around his shoulders where burns used to be, skin cold to the touch, as Dabi turned his head to the side just barely so that he could watch you out of his periphery, you found it hard to remind yourself that you already had a Touya. Can’t have two.

“I know it’s none of my business, but, uh, if you’re on vocal rest this often, I could—I could help you learn some sign language?” You scratched underneath your eye in a nervous gesture and smeared some of the burn cream on your cheek. “Nothing intensive. Only simple, everyday stuff, like—well. I don’t know what frequents your vocabulary. You don’t have to, but I’m offering. Just in case.”

In the mirror, Dabi halted in tying the gauze to glare up at you, his lip curling up in flash of a sneer.

“Okay, that’s cool. That’s fine. I can—I can leave a sign language book with your brother, if you—if you ever change your mind.” You nodded, just to have some sort of reaction he could see, and he tucked away the disinfectant wipes and tossed the empty roll of gauze into the trash bin. “Hey,” you said, noting how he’d only bled at his left arm, which was covered with mottled patches of skin, staples, and stitches, along with the faint diamond-pattern of skin grafts, while his right arm needed no medical attention, pale and unblemished without any sign of damage, “What’s up with—if you’re comfortable with sharing, why doesn’t your right arm have any scars? Was Recovery Girl able to heal that more effectively, or something?”

Holding your gaze in the mirror, Dabi raised his eyebrows, nearly vanishing under the drooping, white spikes of his hair, and he reached over with his left hand to rub his thumb over his right shoulder and curving down into his armpit.

He actually laughed (a laugh through his nose, yes, and one without the humming sort of vocalisation usually accompanying a laugh through a nose, but a laugh nevertheless) at how hard you jumped when he popped off what was apparently a prosthetic.

***

“If you hate gardening this much, why keep doing it?” you asked, once again trapped in Touya’s perspective late at night while he tended to a traditional, Japanese garden. You lay flat on your back in bed, hands and phone resting on your chest (laptop closed to the side. Your essay was due at eight o’clock in the morning. Would Present Mic accept late work due to soulmate interference?).

“Lots of dumb fucking reasons that all fold in together,” said Touya, shovelling gravel out of a wheelbarrow and into the man-made brook he was trying to shape, “One: my stupid fucking family has decided that doing this earthy shit would calm me down. Zen gardening, or whatever.”

“Oh, do you have issues controlling your anger, Touya?”

“Stop that. Two.” Gravel pittered off the shovel blade, falling into the trickling water with a series of tiny plops. “One of my brothers brought up how Mom always liked the garden but was stopped from taking care of it herself, and since I did some shit to—it’s not like I could’ve helped it; they were keeping stuff from her, too. Anyway, Mom’s fucking sad nowadays. Better, but sad.” Touya sank the shovel into the gravel to lean on it, tracking the flow of the water for a moment, twisting through the previous path currently being overtaken by moss and fallen stone. “And my brother thinks the garden being fancy again will make our mom happy, especially if I’m the one to do it. Dick. Saying if we hired people to do it, it wouldn’t be the same. Started with just the damn fish, but now the whole fucking thing’s my job. It’s fucking shit. It’s blackmail and family obligation and rent all at once. It’s a fuckin’ nasty trick.”

Touya dug into the wheelbarrow again. “And my fa—that guy had the nerve to suggest that I needed something to do during the day. As if I’m not busy enough.”

“During the day? Touya, I’ve only seen you garden at night.”

“Because it’s too damn hot outside all the time. And I don’t want anyone watching me. I’m no one’s business. But I bet they’d like staring out of a window at me, while I break my fucking body again moving all of these shitty rocks and shaping Mom’s fucking evergreens.” He shovelled with deep malice. “Did you fucking know that there’s goddamn symbolism in these shitty gardens? That you can’t just put things anywhere without it meaning something? Somehow ponds are supposed to be oceans. Rocks are supposed to be mountains. Forced perspective shit, paired with tenets of Zen and Shinto, and it’s the pettiest, most unnecessary bullshit I’ve ever had to deal with, and I dealt with a friend’s abominable driving for years. Never got any better at it, even though I got fucking motion sick.”

He knelt, and when two, fat glops of Touya’s sweat dripped onto the stone at the impact, you rather enjoyed the gentle wafting about your dorm room at the blades of your ceiling fan.

He must have felt your appreciation. “Stop that. I’m making a point. Look at this shit,” he said, gesturing to the brook and then up at the three-quarter moon, “I’ve gotta change the course of the water, because it’s better to face towards the moon to capture its reflection, and I’ve gotta make it somehow cascade or waterfall at some point over there.” He pointed far across the garden towards a flickering pair of stone lanterns. “How am I supposed to do that? I can’t even make it flow through gravel right. I might have to move some of the stepping stones again. I fucking hate those things. They’re too heavy for one person, and I’ve already had to rearrange them because some of them weren’t fucking weathered or natural-looking enough.”

“Sure. Death to aesthetics,” you said, blindly feeling around for a pack of gum you kept in your bedside table, “I’d come help you if I could, but somebody—”

“You’re not getting a location out of me, princess.”

You paused, hand on the knob of the first drawer, and a wide, smug smile broke across your face (Princess, Touya? You’re gonna call me princess? You sure you don’t care about me?).

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“I could feel it,” said Touya, flexing his fingers on his knees, “so shut up.”

Gloved hands clenched into fists, he glared at the brook, the gravel, up at the moon, and back into the water.

“You know, it looks like if you moved most of the gravel to one side, the water might flow the direction you need it to.”

“Who’s the one busting their ass here, me or you?” But he plunged his hands into the water, grabbed heaping fistfuls of rocks, and patted them onto the far side of the stone bed.

“Touya,” you said, feeling around in your drawer for the pack of gum, “Take your gloves off! You’re gonna ruin the leather.”

“Like I care.” He dragged more gravel underwater. “If I took ’em off, you’d see my hands.”

“Come off of it, Touya. I bet they’re perfectly fine,” you said, successfully grabbing gum and sliding your drawer shut, “Hands are often the most attractive part of a man.”

He paused, water flowing around his arms up to his elbows (he wouldn’t roll up his sleeves, either. Stubborn boy. He must hate whatever’s going on with him). “Not the dick?” He sounded like he was grinning.

“Not always. Some of them look like sad, sea creatures,” you said, unwrapping your gum into your phone’s speaker to annoy him, “It takes talent to have a pretty cock. Hands, however, can easily be lusted over because of what they’re capable of. Or what you know they’ve done.”

(Hee hoo hah, like burn down a city. You’re so normal about it.)

“Not how they look?”

“Appearance can help, but it’s not the whole cow,” you said, chewing while the flavour faded fast.

Touya scoffed, his fingers sinking into gravel. “You makin’ fun of me?”

What? “Of course not. Why?”

“Don’t say shit like that to get on my good side. I’m more than aware I ain’t got anything besides my shitty personality goin’ for me.” He cleared his throat. “That sign language guy got anything I don’t?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You sure seem obsessed with him,” said Touya, leaning more deeply into the water, soaking his hoodie even more, “even though he sounds pathetic. You tryin’ to fix him to make yourself look good?”

“Of course not. I know no one can fix anyone else. He has to choose to do that himself,” you said, “Not that there’s anything about him that merits fixing.”

Laughing (oh? hot), Touya scooped a handful of gravel out of the wheelbarrow to add it to the far side. “Yeah, you’re fucking obsessed with him. Am I not your soulmate?”

You rolled your eyes, even though he couldn’t see it (and…you…couldn’t see it). “You haven’t given me anything to obsess over, unless you want me to research gardening tips or how to breed carp.”

“I would love for you to be obsessed with breeding, sweet—”

“Oh, my God, you have to ease into that sort of thing, Touya.”

He pulled his hands out of the brook, drenched sleeves gushing water back into it. “D’you want me to start with how much I wanna suck on your perfect tits?”

“Touya,” you said carefully, shoving the gum to one cheek, “Is everything okay? You’re acting—strange.”

“What do you—”

“Where’s the blind hatred for me? Where’s the disdain?”

Sitting back on his knees, Touya shoved his leather-wet-dripping hands into the damp, double pocket of his hoodie with a muted slosh. “You think I hate you?”

“You’re that rude to people you don’t hate?”

Water seeped through the pocket and through his jeans, visibly darker in the moonlight and soaking his thighs. “Fuck off. I mean—what I mean is that I’m not used to people like you. Who don’t talk like me. Who aren’t mean to me back. Or who don’t seem to want anything from me. Didn’t know you really thought I was rude.”

You screwed up your face. “Who have you been hanging out with? What the hell is wrong with you? Spend time with people who like you, please?”

“No one likes me—”

“Get your head out of your ass, edgelord,” you said, sitting up in bed and holding the phone up to your mouth, “Newsflash, dipshit, it sounds like lots of people like you. Your brother, who wants to help you make your mom happy, in an easy, physical way that you’re more than capable of. Your mom, who sounds like she’s happier now that you’re back in her life. The rest of your goddamn family, who want you close by so that they can help you if you ever fucking accepted it. Your stupid friends who are into Assassins’ Creed.”

“Stop fucking noticing things about—”

“And me. I like you, dipshit. Get over yourself. You’re digging yourself your own lonely, self-deprecating hole, where I guess you’re at your most comfortable. But tonight alone you’ve shown in your garden that you fucking hate digging holes. They mean unnecessary work.”

Inhaling sharply, you threw your phone into the bedspread, but all that came through was a distant deer scare, bamboo hitting rock.

“Since when do you like me?” he asked, pushing on his knees to stand.

The artificial-yellow light from your lamp starting creeping in around the rim of your vision, blotting out parts of Touya’s silhouette in the moonlight. “I talk to you, don’t I? I wouldn’t even acknowledge the bond if I weren’t open to—we’ve been hanging out. You didn’t know?”

“Like I would know what that looks like,” said Touya, the walls of your room coming into view while Touya pulled his own phone out of his inner pocket, tapping the screen to see how long the call has lasted, “Like I would know how someone like you would behave when they like me.”

“Stay on the goddamn phone,” you said in the moment his thumb hovered over the end call button, the last thing you made out before fully sinking back into your dorm room, “If you don’t know what I—well, what does your love look like, Touya? What do you do when you like someone?”

“Sexually? Romantically?”

“Not necessarily,” you said, pissed to have the connection severed and sliding off of the bed to turn off the lights, “Just when you care for someone at all.”

“Gimme a minute,” came Touya’s voice, and after you flipped the lights and the ceiling fan off, you wandered over to your window, switched your phone off speaker, and held it to your ear as you stared up at the same moon Touya was under, and you waited.

“Right, I don’t know for sure,” he said after a while (but it sounded like he’d stopped dealing with the gravel to think about it), “but this is the only thing that’s coming to mind. Before I was living at home again, me and some friends didn’t have consistent sources of food. Don’t interrupt to say you’re sorry. But. So, whenever I’d, uh, buy stuff. From a store. I’d make sure I got some sort of snack for whoever I was with, even though we were all too proud to ask for shit. Didn’t really think about doing it on purpose. But I guess I did.”

“You are deliciously, delightfully, tender as fuck,” you said, clenching a fist over your heart, your boob jostling with the fervent impact (and it pleased you knowing that Touya would’ve laughed if he’d seen), and you kept talking over his sounds of disapproval. “And I am gonna cook for you. I am going to set you a table so vast that you’re gonna be eating off it for a long, long time. You’re never gonna be fucking hungry ever again, Touya.”

When he didn’t answer, you worried you said the wrong thing, but you stayed on the line, listening. Two minutes later, he hung up, and you could have sworn he cut off in the middle of a wet sniffle.

***

What can you cook? What were you good at cooking that actually constituted a filling meal?

Start small, you supposed.

Fuyumi kept the Todoroki kitchen much more well-stocked than the kitchen to which you had access, and so, with welcome permission, you headed over to the estate earlier than the scheduled viewing time to prepare, with Shinsou and Todoroki hanging out in the kitchen with you.

“Jirou says she can attend,” said Todoroki, thumb swiping across his phone screen, “Turns out her tipping point was stating the merits of studying Melody’s music powers. She’s asking if Yaoyorozu may attend as well?”

“It’s your house.” Shinsou was folding his napkin into an origami frog. “If there’s a need for excuses, you can always say Yao might like—I forget his name, but he’s that character in the Phantom Troupe whose hair looks like a mop? She might like analysing how his power lets him copy anything, even though it doesn’t have the same limitations like her quirk.”

“I will mention that,” said Todoroki, nodding sagely.

The plan was simple: with a captive audience of anime nerds, you could get feedback on your cooking until it was good enough for Touya (a small part of you still cringed thinking about how he reacted to your potato wedges). You would lure your friends into a state of complacency with your smaller dishes—baked goods, and the like—until there was no escape when you served them something more filling, like soups.

Today, you were making teeny little lemon ricotta pancakes (the recipe called for them to be regular-sized, but if you made them around the size of a potato chip, it would be more accessible to eat with fingers in the living room) that gave you the air of being fancy but were actually mindless to make, it turned out, and right now, you were stirring the stewing blueberry syrup that you’d decided would be a dipping sauce rather than drizzled over—the Todorokis had an excess of white furniture, and you would like to be invited to use their kitchen again.

“I think,” you said, once the syrup was behaving like syrup when you let it dribble out of the ladle back into the pot, “I’m gonna take some to your brother. I don’t want him feeling left out, if he comes through. He’s home right now, yeah?”

“He’s in his teahouse. It’s towards the back of the garden.” Todoroki got up from the table. “Do you want me to show you?”

“I’m sure I can find it, since it’s the only building not connected to the main one,” you said, but you did accept his help finding a tray and sauce cup for the syrup, and once it was set, you picked up the tray and strode with purpose towards the garden.

Walking through its seemingly-natural landscape while balancing food and liquids proved to be miraculously easy. Their hired gardeners must be doing insane upkeep to ensure its deliberate, natural-but-not cosiness. You made a mental note to ask Touya what some of the structures symbolised, like the recurring patterns of three rocks of different heights close together. He’d know, reluctantly, since he did stuff like this, and you considered his work to be superior to this, anyway.

In the blistering sun, you had to narrow your eyes to slits, regretting that both of your hands were full so that you couldn’t shield them from the light, and you found a gated, stone path to the teahouse. Clearly, it had once been slightly dilapidated but had since been worked on; another room had been latched on to the side to double its size, judging by the change in architecture styles, and the roof reflected sunlight a little too well for its polished, stone tiles to be less than a year old.

Bracing the tray, you took the steep step onto the neatly swept, bamboo engawa running around the edge of the teahouse, and you—was the door around to the side? Around the left side of the original part of the tearoom, two shoji panels had been spread to let in sunlight upon an empty room with an actual fucking sunken hearth, unlit, with one of the same fire-fish as on the estate’s roofs for the crank’s lever. Behind what would have been the seat of honour stood a dishevelled tokonoma, devoid of scrolls or incense burners but instead housing an unzipped backpack atop a long coat, its sleeves trailing onto the floor outside the tokonoma, with sticky notes taped to its inner wall. A red-tinted wood dresser had been pushed into the corner, tissues and hand sanitiser atop it and a single stack of books propped next to it.

A pair of boots was tucked inside the open shoji. Maybe he’s asleep.

At your first step inside, you jolted so hard you had to struggle to hold onto the tray—the floor had chirped at you. Dead ringer for a bird call. Tentatively, you took another step, and it chirped again, this time with a bit of a wheeze, more artificial-sounding.

You jumped and stumbled again at another wall sliding open, giving the impression that a flock of birds had flown inside, and Dabi poked his head through the gap (you could make out the gleaming pause screen of a gaming system in the newer room behind him). His face had relaxed when he’d seen it was you, but it pinched into a strange, unnameable expression when he saw what you were carrying.

“Hi,” you said, holding out the tray, “I’ve made too many snacks for the anime group today, so I thought you might like some? I can take it away, if you don’t want any.”

Since he probably didn’t know the amount of people attending nowadays, he probably didn’t recognise your lie. Dabi held up a finger for you to wait while he exhumed a short table and two floor seats from storage in the walls, and he waited for you to sit before he did, slowly, crossing his legs on the cushion, his joints creaking.

“They’re little lemon ricotta pancakes. Todo—Shouto told me you didn’t have any food allergies, so it should be fine. That’s blueberry syrup,” you said when he pointed at it. “I’m—I guess you could say I’m practising recipes for cooking for someone else. If you don’t like it, please let me know. I’ll make it better next time.”

Dabi fiddled with two of the tiny pancakes before selecting one, inspecting it in the sunlight, and dipping it into the syrup (you went a little crazy when it dripped onto his tongue stitches, but you managed to suppress it). As he chewed and swallowed loudly, Dabi’s eyes bulged, brow furrowed, and he, panicked, fumbled around for probably his phone, patting the pockets on his jeans. Hands pausing after slapping the empty pockets on his ass, he sprung up, grabbed a pen off of the dresser, and snatched a sticky note off of the inner wall of the tokonoma. He returned to the table and knelt half on the seat, scribbling furiously, and when he pushed the sticky note to you, under a crossed-out potting soil, sledgehammer, he’d written fuck you marry me NOW.

There’s a moment in which you forgot, a moment in which you laugh, head tilted back, flooded with endorphins at your long-time, pseudo-celebrity crush liking something you made to even joke about being in a relationship with you. You opened your mouth to make some joke about how you’d like to go on a few dates first, to have some sort of courtship, but you stopped at the first word: “Touya.” You cut yourself off, brow pinched. You can’t have two.

Not that…not that Dabi/Touya could ever genuinely like you, who fought against him and now witnessed his debasement, but in the far-flung chance that he could, you should clarify about your Touya.

“Touya,” you said again, this time sober and grim, hands folded on your lap, “I know you were only joking, but I was in a quirk-related incident a while ago, and it assigned me a soulmate. So, even if you could like me, I’ve got someone waiting. Presumptuous of me to say, I know, but. I want to treat you with kindness and not make you wonder, in the case it arises. Funnily enough, his name is Touya, too—”

Your phone rang loudly in your back pocket (you kept it on loud nowadays so you could easily feel around for Touya’s call, but it’d led you to awkward moments like this, too). Dabi scowled when you brought it out to silence it and dipped another pancake in the syrup, letting it absorb what it could to tinge it purple.

“It’s him, actually. Odd timing.” Lying flat in your palm, your phone flashed an incoming call from Touya. Leaning across the table, Dabi grabbed it out of your hands to answer it, put it on speaker, and lay it in the centre of the table while he ate his soggy pancake, shaking his head when you moved to undo all of that.

“Hey,” came a tinny, raspy voice that was very much not your Touya’s, “You’re the soulmate, right?”

Dabi shouldn’t have to hear this. Before you could tap the speaker button again, Dabi swatted your hand out of the way, gesturing for you to answer.

“Uh, yeah,” you said, shifting in your seat, “Who are you? Where’s—”

“Tell Touya he left his phone at my place the next time you see through him.” A repetitive, techno instrumental played in the background (video game music?). “At Shiiiiiiiimura’s place. Yeah.”

“I can do that, Shimura,” you said, unsure if you should hold out the vowel as long as he did, and perhaps you can take advantage of the situation for a brief moment, because Dabi was staring at your phone with a constipated sort of expression as he listened. “I can’t control when the bond activates, but I’ll let him know. Do you know what sort of food he likes?”

Shimura barked out a laugh, filling the room in a wide, cleansing way you wouldn’t expect from someone with his scratchy voice. “I heard your potato wedges are shit.”

You sputtered, “He didn’t even have any—”

Dabi ended the call, frowning, shaking his head, and tipping your phone off the table to gently bounce twice when it hit the tatami. He held up a tiny pancake and made a show of looking at it, at you, and back at it, and he shot you an aggressive thumbs-up.

***

Uraraka spent an entire patrol gushing about how she would fuck the author of Hunter x Hunter if she could, so she showed up to the next get-together, along with Asui, whom everyone already thought would be friends with the story’s protagonist if he were real. When you Aoyama caught you in the act of stealing one of his posh cookbooks, you explained the situation to him, and so he tagged along to taste what you were cooking, along with supplying some of the fancier ingredients you wouldn’t’ve known how to obtain. Then you’d asked Sato for advice on how to make the swirl in a strawberry swirl loaf not go to shit, and then the group had spent a few hours discussing the good relationships with animals that Hunters are inherently supposed to have, so Kouda was summoned for his opinions.

The long of short of it was that there were many more spectators than necessary to when Dabi strode into the viewing room, drenched in sweat from his walk back home, to pelt the back of your head with a two-pack of Sakeru cheese. As you rubbed the back of your head, pulling the cold plastic from between your shirt collar and skin, he at least had the decency to drop the single-wrapped fish bread into your lap.

“Hey, Touya,” you said, grabbing his hand before he could skitter away as usual (his wide eyes couldn’t decide to look at both of your hands or at your face), “I’ve set aside slices of both strawberry swirl bread and garlic bread for you in the kitchen. I recommend heating the garlic bread up so the cheese gets all melty again, but it’s good at room temperature, too. Thank you, by the way. For these.”

Nodding hastily, Dabi tore his hand away from your in two, spasming jerks, and he slithered into the kitchen.

Though the rest were watching the show, Shinsou was turned towards you, his head tilted with an incredulous sort of smile. You stuck your tongue out at him and crinkled open the cheese.

Dabi returned with both slices on a paper towel and stood behind you at the couch for a minute, watching the episode. Shifting his weight, he pulled out his phone. “This is garbage,” came a droning, text-to-speech voice from behind.

He stood behind the couch for three more episodes.

***

Through another moonlit, soulmate connection, Touya was failing to prod stray ducks out of the koi pond with the skimmer.

“They’re tenacious little bastards,” you said, sitting on the counter of the dorm kitchen and praying to God that the oven timer wouldn’t go off while you couldn’t see.

“Why. Won’t they. Move.” Touya nudged a duck with the flat of the skimmer, its width as long as the entire duck, and the duck kept gabbing to its friends. “I have no idea if ducks upset the chemical balance of the water enough to kill koi; I’ve never seen them in here before ten minutes ago. Goddamn.” He waved the skimmer over the water’s surface, filtering some debris, and he flipped it onto a duck, who remained vexingly apathetic at the new source of wet. “Tonight was gonna be easy; I was only gonna put up windchimes; I was gonna get to go to bed early. Now I—no, no, no, don’t—!”

One duck bit at the skimmer net, and having pierced it, the duck led the rest of them to the centre of the pond, where the skimmer couldn’t reach, no matter how Touya strained.

“I fucking hate birds,” said Touya, slamming the skimmer on the ground, “and I fucking hate fish. They’re not even good when they’re alive.” Seeming to have a change of heart, Touya picked the skimmer up and took care to lean it against the stone wall of the pond. “Tell me something good, won’t you?”

Does that imply you don’t have to work on any fish dishes? “You’ll be thrilled to hear that my little anime analysis group is almost through the Hunter x Hunter anime, probably. We got to the end of the 1999 version last night.”

Touya sat and splayed his legs on the koi pond stone, watching the moon’s reflection ripple as koi tails broke surface tension. “That’ll only make your process more streamlined, since you’re not watching two episodes covering the same chapters in conjunction anymore. The Chimera Ant arc takes forever, though. You’re not almost done.”

Groping around for your oven mitts, you smiled. “How do you know that, Touya? Thought you hated—”

“What are you going to watch next?”

Stupid boy. Shy boy. “Well, Sero is pushing for Pokémon since there’s so much of it.”

“God, no,” said Touya, leaning back on his hands, “Iconic, yeah. Fun, not really, because in the games, you’re the one getting to battle and bond with the things. It’s not fun to watch someone else get to do it.”

“I can rely on you for negative reviews of everything.” Oven mitt? Oven mitt. Now, where’s its pair? “You want a pokémon, Touya? Which ones?”

“You are such a fucking child—”

“You want a pikachu, don’t you?”

“Hell, no,” Touya spat, “None of that cliché shit. Pikachu isn’t even that good. I—” Cutting himself off, he hunched forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his gloved hands together. “You’ll shit on me for it. Forget I said anything.”

“Should I let you make fun of me first?” You slipped on the other mitt. “I’m cliché as hell. My top choice is either a certain starter or an eevolution.”

“No, I—”

“All right. How about you tell me your favourite as a kid and the one you would choose now?”

“You’re pushy as hell. When I was a kid, I wanted a Ninetales. I was—my mom had read enough for me to know about traditional kitsune,” said Touya, and he ducked his head to stare between his legs (crotch unfortunately hidden in shadow), “and Ninetales is immune to fire. It can use it and not burn up, and it’s not affected by outside fire attacks.”

The memory of rubbing burn cream across Dabi’s shoulders and how delicate his skin looked surfaced. You wouldn’t wish that on anyone. “You scared of being burned, Touya?”

Touya kicked the stone beneath his boot, scuffing it. “Just seems like it’d be neat.”

“Perfectly reasonable,” you said, wrapping your muppet-y, mitted hands around the oven handle in preparation for whenever it would go off, “and a perfectly logical pokémon to latch onto. It’s fairly popular. I don’t see how I’m supposed to make fun of you for that.”

“Sure.” Touya bent farther to re-tie his bootlaces. “I like my current choice for a dumb as hell reason, though. Shiiiiiiiimura,” said Touya, yanking the laces tightly (and he dragged out Shimura’s name, too. Was that the proper pronunciation?), “was trying to hype us up for something stupid we had to do that some of our friends were scared of. Shimura’s teacher—’scuse me, abusive fucking manipulative shithead of an adoptive father—wanted him to make a speech to show leadership, or some bullshit. Instead, Shimura pulled out his phone and showed us someone’s video of playing one of the early Pokémon games, for the battle at the end to win the game. And to defeat the last boss’s toughest Dragonite, the player used this…this fuckin’ weak-ass, all-around insignificant pokémon picked up from the beginning of the game, and it fuckin’ won. It won against the toughest opponent, and—and Shimura was saying, oh, the Venomoth is us, and we can win against our big-ass enemy, oh, ho, ho—”

“Excuse me. A Venomoth? You only use them temporarily at the beginning of the game, when you don’t have anything cool yet. They fucking suck.”

“See, you’re making fun of me. I’m not going to say anything else.” Touya leant back on his hands again, this time crossing his legs to prop his ankle on his opposite knee.

“No, I’m—I’m sorry. Sorry. First impressions. But you’re convincing me. Go on. I’m listening.”

Touya flicked water towards the ducks. “Are you gonna keep insulting—”

“I won’t! I won’t,” you said, sliding off the kitchen counter to stand directly in front of the oven, “So, Venomoths. I hear they’re fantastic.”

Touya rolled his eyes, and it was cute, you thought, how you had to follow the motion, seeing the moon at the upwards roll and back at its reflection in the pond. “Yeah. I bet Shimura’s forgotten all about it, but it stuck with me. Not immediately—at the time it was stupid, and to be fair, it’s still stupid. But now that I’m back here, living at home, it’s—it’s stupid. It’s, like, if that stupid fucking bug can defeat a goddamn dragon, then I can tend the garden. I can keep that stupid tsukubai clean. I can hang out with my brother. I can fucking—” He cut himself off again, this time striking the water hard enough to splash one of the ducks (it quacked at him with disdain and simply swam a couple of centimetres away).

“Do what, Touya?” The oven timer started beeping, and you tensed. “Hold on; don’t say anything. Don’t say—I have to concentrate; I’m getting stuff out of an oven.”

Touya stirred the pondwater with his ring and middle fingers while you blindly approximated the logistics of getting the tray out of the oven, and by standing at the oven’s side inside of reaching into it from the front, you were eventually able to remove the tray and rest it on the counter above it—you’re not going to bother feeling around for the pot holders.

When you sighed in relief once you’d closed the oven again, Touya asked, “What are you cooking?”

“Strawberry cheesecake muffins,” you said, frowning in the tray’s general direction, “They’re supposed to have a marbling effect, and I’m supposed to be putting on some sort of streusel-type sugar on top right now, but I’m not gonna risk it. I hope they’re done. You have to trust the recipe’s bake time with cheesecakes exactly, so I’m hoping it’s the same for—”

“I am gonna make you come so hard,” Touya was saying in a strained sort of way as he ran his hands down his face, “I am gonna fuck you so hard that you leave in a permanent dent in my mattress. I am gonna hold you and kiss the back of your neck and make you cry out as you gush around my fingers. You’re—you’re so fucking per—I am gonna take care of you back.”

“Cool.” Right, so bake the muffins again at some point. “Do you have any food allergies?”

“I’m allergic to you not saying anything hot in response to what I just said.”

Sure, Touya. “I’m also gonna make you this really sexy tomato soup with what the recipe calls a grilled cheese top. It’s got cheesy bread cut into chunks that coat the surface so that you can’t even see the red, and it melts into the soup—”

“Stop, I can only get so hard—”

“Show me your cock, then.”

“No,” said Touya, deliberately looking at a trio of fish convening near the pond’s surface, their o-shaped mouths blorbing and blobbing underneath the water towards Touya’s waving fingers, “I meant—well, first, you are gonna make that soup, pl—please—but I meant that—I mean.” He twirled his finger under the water, and the koi were fascinated. One of them kissed his finger. You were feeling a similar impulse—and perhaps that’s what prompted Touya to continue. “I came the first time someone stuck their tongue in my mouth.”

It occurred to you that anyone could be walking by the dorm kitchen to overhear. Now that the muffins were out of the oven, you elected to turn off the speaker setting to hold you phone to your ear. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I was sixteen and insane with hormones, and it hadn’t been long since I’d woken up from—well. When someone kissed me with tongue for the first time, I came in my pants. Taken completely by surprise that someone was even kissing me, that someone could even want me when I look like—and then that. We were outside, on a public bridge, during the day. I haven’t seen that fucker since.”

You had been contemplating whether it’d be worth fumbling around for a knife to ease the muffins out of the tray, but all cogs stopped at Touya’s story. “Why are you telling me this?”

“So you’ll tell me something back. I already told you some embarrassing shit about pokémon and shit, so you have to embarrass yourself back. You’re the one who brought up cocks, anyway. So—so you have to share something back,” said Touya, allowing a fish to rub up against his hand in a pseudo-sort of petting it, “Something about when you were young and stupid.”

“And preferably sexual, right? I know what you’re about, you shy, baby boy.”

“Ffffffuck that.I ain’t shy—”

“You won’t show me your face, Touya. You’re scared for me to see it. Shy boy.”

Touya scratched along the side of the koi like it wanted, and another nudged the back of his hand to be scratched, too. “Fuck off.”

“I’ve only told one other person about my first kiss,” you said, moving to sit on the counter again, “Wanna hear that story?”

“Fine,” said Touya, and he pulled his hand out of the pond, flicking water off his fingers and into the open, mournful mouths of the koi he’d been petting. “You had better be about to tell me about seeing through me at that coffee shop.”

“Come off of it, Touya; isn’t it better for me to have outside experience and still choose you regardless? My first kiss was way before that,” you said, hoping how pleased you were at his mild possessiveness was being transferred to his side of the bond, “and I didn’t even know the guy’s name at the time. And it was—it could’ve turned really bad, really quickly. Because my first kiss was with Dabi, before he made his villain debut.”

“Do—huh?” Touya shook his head, causing you to wince and steady yourself at the dizziness. “Beg pardon? Beg your fucking pardon? I didn’t—know that that Dabi guy went around kissing people.”

“He did at least once. It was back in freshman year, and I was out at night during my hero internship.” Getting comfortable on the kitchen counter, you crossed your legs and leant against the cabinets to support your back, exhaustion kicking in. “Some older sidekick hit on me in what was an exceedingly creepy way—he made it pseudo-incestuous by saying I reminded him of his daughter. In retrospect, the interaction could have gone much, much worse, if Dabi hadn’t inadvertently rescued me—scratch that, it may have been intentional, looking back, because he’d said stuff about the sidekick being a shitty father, and now he’s, uh, let us know about his own dad.”

It took Touya a moment. At least he wasn’t shaking his head anymore. “Are you saying Dabi burnt some guy to death in front of you, and you still kissed him?”

You sucked in through your teeth. “Not exactly. I didn’t know it at the time, but he was testing out a nomu, and that ripped the other guy to pieces. And—this is gonna sound wild—I think Dabi may have kissed me to comfort me? I know it was a distraction from the gore and from getting a good look at the nomu, but I think he may have also done it to calm me down. It was—oddly sweet.”

Touya gripped the edge of the stone wall, his fingers dipping into water (but not deep enough to remoisten his leather gloves) and koi swarming. “What did the nomu look like?”

Even though you couldn’t see it, you held your phone away from your ear for a second to shoot it an incredulous look. “Wha—Touya, weren’t you going to ask if he were a good kisser, or something?”

His knuckles popped when he clenched his fingers and asked flatly, “Was he a good—”

“You’re better.”

“Thanks,” he said, not sounding like he cared about that at all, letting a koi drag his hand into the water by biting his finger, “What did the nomu look like?”

“God, I don’t fucking know. That wasn’t important to me. I, uh—it was around the size of a good-sized dog, like a golden retriever or a lab. I don’t—I guess it walked on all fours,” you said, wondering why the fuck—oh, the dizziness must not have come only from Touya shaking his head, because it’s sweeping over you again, waves emanating from the bond. “Now that I’ve seen other nomu, I can recognise that its head looked whacky because its brain was exposed, and I think its skin was more green-tinged than the others who had that navy-black colour going on. Honestly, Touya, I wasn’t—”

Through the phone came such a strident, alarming crack that you halted mid-sentence to listen for it again. It’d come from Touya’s side, clearly, but nothing in his line of vision betrayed its source, although—and you would not have noticed this if you hadn’t been scanning his environment for any hint—something that looked like split glass frosted the inside of Touya’s fist before he unclenched his hand a second later, any illusion of something there melting into the water.

But something was wrong. “Touya?”

“You still see that Dabi guy when you watch anime at Shouto’s house, yeah? Stay on the line,” he said, darkness of the bond fading drabbling at the edges of his vision from your perspective.

“I am,” you said, uncrossing your legs, “I do.”

“What do you think of him? Ugly fucker, isn’t he?” Touya fell still as a duck approached him as it navigated through the water lilies, and Touya’s outstretching his hand to its head was the last thing you saw before the bond gave out. “Still as pathetic as he was in the war? Think he should be in prison?”

“Negative reviews of people, negative reviews of television, negative reviews of potato wedges—so cool, bro. Now say something true and beautiful.”

“Answer me, damn it.” A disgruntled quack.

“You’d better not be strangling that duck.”

“You think so little of me? Do you want me to put the duck on the phone?”

“I don’t think it could sit comfortably,” you said, pushing yourself off the counter and walking to the knife drawer now that you could see, “I see Dabi every once in a while when I’m at Todoroki’s house. He’s shy. I don’t mind. It’s not my place to assume anything, but. I don’t think he’s doing okay, since it seems like he’s spent a good part of his life wanting someone to look at him, to pay attention, and now he’s getting that in a way he probably didn’t anticipate, and I want him to be okay. I think I’d like to help him get there, if he’d let me. But I know I’m nobody important to him, and that’s fine.”

“Sounds a lot like pity,” said Touya, and when you made a noise of protest, he kept going. “Or maybe you’re fucked up enough that you like him? From when he kissed you?”

You couldn’t exactly tell your soulmate that you’ve been suppressing naïve, celebrity-crush-type feelings for someone else. “Well,” you said, grimacing as you slid knife edge between a muffin and the tray and started to remove it, “He’s very babygirl-coded.”

***

TOUYA 🐠🚷

looked it up. definition of babygirl does NOT help

TOUYA 🐠🚷

incidentally

TOUYA 🐠🚷

what should a guy wear to impress someone

YOU

a guy? or you specifically?

YOU

because i am, of course about to suggest the golden standard of rolling up thy sleeves to thy elbows, but you won’t even showing your fucken hands asldkjfa;

TOUYA 🐠🚷

gloves necessary.

TOUYA 🐠🚷

but think formal. formal setting.

YOU

why are YOU going to a formal event?

TOUYA 🐠🚷

have to. blackmail/family obligation/rent.

TOUYA 🐠🚷

open to suggestions. about style more than brand, because if I go too expensive, my dad will think I’m making him pay a lot as sabotage.

YOU

and here i was about to recommend that you go skinny-dipping in a vat of liquid gold

TOUYA 🐠🚷

you just wanna see my cock, don’t cha

YOU

what makes you think I’D be invited to some shitty formal event

TOUYA 🐠🚷

I’m betting you’d hear about it on the news

YOU

i think i’d be more interested in what food is provided

TOUYA 🐠🚷

…

TOUYA 🐠🚷

no, I shan’t say

YOU

is this a cum joke

TOUYA 🐠🚷

but seriously. what should I wear. assume I will do something awful and evil and that you will see the outfit on the news when I get arrested.

YOU

touya, how would i recognise you. idk what YOU even look like. not that it matters, i guess. all that matters is that you wear something that fits you well. you don’t need to impress me; you’ve already won me over

TOUYA 🐠🚷

i what

TOUYA 🐠🚷

wait what do you MEAN it doesn’t matter

YOU

does it help get it through your thick head if i tell you that you are also babygirl-coded? perhaps not even coded but genuinely babygirl??

TOUYA 🐠🚷

it does not.

***

Adjusting your lace shawl, you gripped Shouto’s arm as the both of you furtively sneaked away from the hordes of pro-heroes, industry workers, and flashing press to slink back to the enormous table of hors d'oeuvres to see how many of them you could pack into your purse and his strategically planned inner coat pocket, sewn into the inside of his lapel for the occasion.

When Shouto had invited you to this ghastly awards ceremony for Endeavor, he’d claimed his motivation was that so he could talk to you about how the 2011 Hunter x Hunter anime was wrapping up, since he (flatterer!) said you had the best interpretations of certain characters, unlike some of your classmates, and Shouto tempted you with how you could stake out whatever posh food they had for you to try to recreate later. So, you’d dug out the dress you’d only worn to All Might’s official retirement party and agreed to attend.

Those present were a strange conglomeration of people, since the public opinion of Endeavor has been odd and tenuous lately. Essentially, the handful of attendees you knew were busy ingratiating themselves to people you’ve never seen before but they evidently were acquainted with, so those with whom you could hold an actual conversation with were scattered and few.

However, you didn’t even need to bring a book, because once you and Shouto had settled at a back table with both of your plates stacked with the most variety you could fit on them, he deadass pulled out his anime analysis notebook, which was starting to resemble Midoriya’s quirk analysis notebooks in terms of extensiveness and insanity, with lines crossing several pages to connect ideas. As you discussed where the two of you thought the characters were going, you had your own notebook—a new one, this one for recipes, and whenever either of you thought one of the appetizers was interesting, you wrote it down.

You were chewing on what Shouto had informed you was a water chestnut when the chair on your other side was pulled out with a screech against the tile, and Todoroki Touya plopped into it, his legs hardly having the time to spread before swiping a piece of candied salmon from your plate. The instant he bit down into it, his nose scrunched up.

“It’s fish, Touya,” said Shouto, dipping his own crudité in a tiny bowl of raspberry vinaigrette, and he passed his napkin to him. Touya spat the salmon into it, bunched it up, and edged it underneath the edge of your plate.

On your list, you wrote no fish! at the top, but before you even lifted your pen from the paper, you froze. The list wasn’t for this Touya; it was for your Touya. You crosshatched it out, trying to remember if your Touya had ever said anything about liking fish. He’d said he hadn’t, right? He didn’t like them alive, at the very least.

Shouto chomped down harshly, the crunch of raw celery distinct even through his closed mouth. “What brings you over here, Touya?”

He already had the text-to-speech function pulled up on his phone, and he held a parmesan palmier between his teeth as he typed. “People were asking Natsuo and Fuyumi about what they’re doing with their lives. It was only a matter of time before they got to me. Don’t wanna hear anyone else describe the nothing I’m doing. At least I know you guys are too busy talking about nerd crap to shit on me.”

“Oh, sweet boy,” you said, pursing your lips, “You’re in recovery. That’s enough. You don’t have to do anything to be worthwhile.” Wait. Fuck. You don’t talk to this Touya this way. Reel it back.

Crumbs fell from his mouth to the tablecloth. “The hell is wrong with you?” he typed.

Yeah, reel it way back. You elected not to respond, instead biting with difficulty into a brie/fig/prosciutto crostini and not being able to taste any of it.

“Would you like to discuss some so-called nerd crap with us?” Shouto arranged his notebook father across the table to be more in the middle of the three of you. “I know it’s been a while since you read Hunter x Hunter, but it’s been on hiatus so long that there’s not much new information that you need to know.”

“Hey,” you said, rushing to swallow, “You’ve read this before? How come you haven’t been sitting in to watch stuff with us?”

Touya shot Shouto a dark look, tongued a chunk of palmier into his cheek, and furiously typed on his phone. “I’m not interested in that shit anymore. It’s for kids.”

Shouto looked taken aback. “This is news to me. Do I have permission to take your manga volumes out of the house, then?”

“Fuck you,” Touya had already typed while Shouto was talking.

You bit back a smile. You’ve been borrowing a former, major villain’s manga? Cute. “But if you read it a while back, that means you’ve had more time to think about the characters,” you said, resting your elbow on the back of your chair as you shifted to face him, “Most of us are absorbing the story for the first time. It’d be cool to hear what you think.”

That parmesan palmier had looked good. Trusting this Touya on his taste, you wrote it on your list to investigate later, while he typed his response.

His expression fell flat enough to match the robotic tone. “Do you just want to hear me project my daddy and mommy issues onto the characters in the Zoldyck family?”

“No, Touya,” you said, laughing, “You have valuable things to say across the board, and I want to listen.” You almost nudged his knee with yours, but you had to stop yourself, something dark swirling in your chest. This wasn’t your Touya. You’re not allowed to.

His eyes flicked down towards the movement, but he didn’t comment. Shifting his jaw, he slipped off his white tuxedo jacket to drape it over the back of his chair, and for some reason, his gaze kept darting to you while he rolled the sleeves of his button-down up to his elbows, but he tried to give the appearance of being very focused on whatever skewered meat and pineapple was on the rim of your plate.

You were frowning. Fuck this. Fuck him. Touya was probably one of those guys who knew their effect on women, so he would know about the rolling-sleeves-to-elbows move. And fucking hell, was it effective for him, because the way he’s lost a lot of weight but was currently gaining it back made the tendons in his forearms much more noticeable when they tensed and strained, and the asymmetry of the burns and scars up his left arm in comparison to the smoothness of his prosthetic right only made him even more horribly, horribly attractive, and you were pissed about it, only getting more furious as he wrapped his tongue around the base of the first pineapple chunk and used his teeth to maneuver it off of the stolen skewer, hooded eyes staring you down. This Touya can act like a fucking slut, sure, but your Touya won’t even show you his goddamn hands.

“Hey, watch out.” You scratched your forehead in an attempt to conceal how enraged you were. “I’ve already had one of those. That lump at the end is an overly-breaded coconut shrimp. So—fish—be careful,” you finished lamely.

Touya’s hands and mouth were full with the skewer. Unable to type on his phone, he shifted the skewer to his left hand, flattened his right, and tapped his left wrist with it—the JSL sign for thank you.

You nodded and didn’t think anything of it for a moment, but when it hit you, you seized up and stared at him, chest swelling, proud and confused and frozen. Getting a little lightheaded, actually, but oh, God, who wouldn’t at the sight of Todoroki Touya, quiet and subdued but still suave as fuck, sitting so close to you in a freshly dishevelled white tuxedo that fit like it was custom-made for him, smelling so, so good and smiling with his perfect teeth (how are they that good when he was with the League for so long?), leaning towards you to steal your food and showing that he’d been paying attention to you, that he’d taken the JSL book you’d left with Shouto, that he’d thought about you when you’ve been apart and cared enough to try to learn something new with you, and you were going to kiss him; he deserved it; you were going to grab that stupidly adorable face and—no, that lightheadedness was also stemming from the soulmate bond activating.

Nausea swept through you for more than one reason. If your Touya discovered you were fighting the urge to kiss someone else, let alone the other Touya, then—you didn’t know. You didn’t know how you’d ever recover. Please let this be from your perspective, so he can’t feel your feelings, please.

“I have to go,” you said, pushing up on the table to stand, not even bothering to flash Shouto the soulmate hand signal. You had to get away. No matter if it were from your perspective or his, distance would help you suppress your fucking shameful crush on your friend’s older brother.

Good God, you were crossing the streams, you noted and fumed as you escaped onto a vacant alcove. Because they have the same goddamn name, your brain has been conflating the two of them. Shut up. You’re only allowed to have one Touya. Two would be greedy and dismissive of the soulmate bond in the first place.

Vertigo struck you so severely that you had to brace yourself against the nearest column, but you swopped to the balcony railing because you could grasp it and put most of your weight on it, and because your brain was swimming, you hand to get on your knees to wait for it to pass. “No, you can’t,” you said, trying your hardest to push thought of that Touya out of your head in case your Touya could feel them, “You can’t—that one doesn’t need to be in a romantic relationship right now. He’s working on himself. It’d fuck him up.” And ohhhh, you left your phone at the table, so you couldn’t call your Touya, and fuck, you didn’t want him to feel confused or betrayed because you weren’t calling him—

“Whose future are you deciding, here?”

Your Touya. He was here?

You opened your eyes to the sight of the balcony and the garden below, thank fuck. Okay, you could work with this. You could work with this; he’s not supposed to be able to feel—

His voice came from close behind you, as if he were leaning on another side of the column. “What’s got you feeling this guilty?”

Holy shit holy shit, has the bond evolved? Can feelings be felt from both sides regardless of perspective? “Hey, Touya.”

“Don’t turn around,” he said, even though you’d made no movement to.

“Can you see?”

“Only through you, angel. Otherwise, I’m in the dark.” With the sounds of clothes shifting, Touya must have crouched behind you, joints cracking. A fingerless-gloved hand brushed down your arm, and he moved your lace shawl out of the way to stroke your bare skin. Your mind was already going haywire at your betrayal, and his cold, gentle touch was not helping. “What’s wrong, hm?” He adjusted himself again behind you so that he could wrap his other arm around your waist, pulling you back into him, and his cool, rough lips pressed against the curve of your neck as he rested his head there.

You were going to cry. You’ll do it. For real, this time.

“Did that Todoroki Touya guy bother you? I saw him sitting at your table.”

God, no, he brought up whom you were trying to avoid, and you cringed, hating yourself as Touya’s hand sank down your arms to entwine his fingers with yours, rumpled shirtsleeves grazing your bare skin and leather gloves curbing the maximal skin-to-skin contact.

“He’s so fucked up that I wouldn’t be surprised if you hated him,” Touya was saying into your ear, “I could grind him into a pulp for you. He’d deserve it, wouldn’t he, for what he did to everyone? And I was burning up with jealousy from across the room; someone as pretty as you shouldn’t have such a hideous thing by your side.”

You made a noise from the back of your throat. You didn’t know, and you especially didn’t need the one person you were trying to hide your internal conflict from while you were actively trying to work out the internal conflict. First things first, you supposed. “Touya’s not fucking ugly.”

Your Touya snorted against your neck, hot air washing down the hollow of your throat. “I forgot how twisted you are. But there’s no way you could actually like him, right?”

“I can’t,” you said, releasing the balcony to clench your fists on your knees, “I can’t like him. He needs to discover who he is as an individual before he finds out how he functions in a relationship. He doesn’t need romance—or me, at this point in his life.”

“Interesting,” he said, more clearly now that his mouth wasn’t muffled against your skin, “Sounds like you think something’s wrong with him. Like he’s not whole. And isn’t he broken? You’d have to be, if you pulled the shit he did, burning cities to the ground and murdering—”

“Shut up,” you said, hunching in on yourself, “You’re don’t know. You’re believing what other people have told you about him. You’re just—you’re just like people who talk about that nerd shit you hate without checking the source material. They’ll talk about certain characters in terms of false narratives they’ve crafted, and they’ll talk about them for so long that the false information becomes conflated with the characters, with everyone thinking the wrong stuff is real. I—fuck.” You winced, but he was listening, his free hand winding around your neck to adjust the migrant clasp on your necklace to the back of your throat. “I know my ideas of Touya stem from propaganda, but I want to learn about him from him. Just based on what I’ve seen, there’s so much out there that’s wrong—it’s even subconsciously perpetuated in his own home, since the shrine where his family mourned him is still there. And I hate it. I hate it, because he seems so lovable, but so are you, and I hate myself because I want to love only you, because you’re my soulmate, and I’m so, so, so goddamn terrified that you’re gonna reject me and leave me alone forever now that I’ve betrayed you. By feeling stuff for someone else.”

You were crying. You were crying, nose stopping up, and Touya kissed your throat, over the clasp of your necklace. “Rejection’s a bitch. I know that,” he said under his breath, “So, I’m not gonna do that to you, even if…” He trailed off, instead latching his mouth to your neck again, letting his tongue flick over your skin once, as if it were an afterthought. “You really like him?”

“I’m scared that I do,” you said, taking a corner of your shawl to daub at your tears.

“The only thing to do is feel it out, I guess.” Touya settled at last, shifting weight and moving his legs so that they’d be on either side of you, and his left arm joined the other around your waist to hold you close. “Or let it die, if you want. The soulmate bond doesn’t matter in the end. You don’t have to love him or me.”

“But Touya,” you said, sniffing, dying to look back at him but restraining yourself, “I do.”

***

Later that night, you were researching how to make little cheese balls that were shaped like pumpkins like they’d had at the awards ceremony when you felt the familiar wooziness. Funny. It’s not often that the bond activates twice in one day. You closed your laptop and set your notebook aside, waiting for the slow, drowsy fade into Touya’s eyes.

Tonight, it’s a jarring, instantaneous slam into his perspective, and you felt like you’d been knocked about in the baggage rack of a train. You threw out your hands to balance yourself, even though you hadn’t been physically moved, and the queasiness made it hard to concentrate, blackness blotting at the edges of your periphery.

But the darkness of Touya’s bedroom wasn’t helping, with only partially drawn curtains letting in moonlight, and—and oh, my God, he’s flat on his back in bed, tousled bedsheets, cock out, and it’s so pretty, unfairly pretty, thick as hell but thicker at the head than the base, blushing deep pink, leaking onto the faint lines of re-developing abs and a vaguely red trail of hair, and—

The hand touching it has skin grafts.

“—ugh, darlin’, fuck, you know what I’m gonna—gonna do to you, angel?” Touya was muttering to himself, too caught up to realise you were there. “You don’t—you don’t know what you do to me.”

You’d registered his pubic hair as vaguely red because, now that you were staring, only the very tips of the untouched hair trailing down his stomach were red, with what he’d probably shaved at some point lower on his body snowy against whatever unburnt skin could still grow hair. He’s gripping himself at an angle that doesn’t make him rub against a strand of load-bearing staples on his upper thigh (did someone say load?), connecting a stretch of familiarly burned skin to a healing graft, diamond-speckled and twitching with his cock the closer he drew to orgasm (from the back of your mind surfaced a questioning thought of if he’d advocated for healing his hands first, since staples would hinder smooth masturbation). His prosthetic arm lay unattached at his side.

“Hahh, I wanna,” said Touya, drawing in a ragged breath, “wanna make a mess outta you, y’always too put together, too fuckin’ pretty for y’own damn good, fuck.” He rubbed his thumb over his tip, the skin there giving everso slightly at the pressure, with another bead of precum swelling before it dripped onto his stomach. “Gonna find wha—whatever I can do to make you fuckin’ whine, and I’m gonna, hah, follow that sound for the rest of my goddamn life, and, oh—fuck, fuck, how, how sweet you’d feel wrapped around me, how much I don’t fuckin’ deserve—”

He cut himself off to take a deep, stuttering breath, and you saw the gates of heaven in the way his chest surged forward when he arched his back, lines of burns and scars carved into his skin like a roadmap. And Touya moaned for you, and you didn’t know how much you’d needed to hear both Touyas do that until now, but before he could finish the first syllable of your name, you were lurched out of the bond and back into your room, just as abruptly as it had begun.

Your hands were shaking as you tied your shoelaces, aware of the leak into your underwear when you bent over, and you dashed to the nearest train depot, navigating in fervent, distant buzz all the way to the Todoroki estate. You must have appeared sufficiently crazy, because the only vacant seats on the train were next to you.

(In your heart of hearts, you had known.

If you’d put it into words, consciously, where both Touyas overlapped, it would’ve been too hard to bear if they’d been different people, which was, regardless, the most logical situation. Getting excited for your soulmate to be your former crush and then being disappointed when it wasn’t him felt like a betrayal to your soulmate. You hadn’t wanted to set yourself up for disappointment or betrayal, because you shouldn’t feel guilt when you look at your soulmate. Someone who holds your heart in his hand should never be second best to you. Touya’s had enough of not being enough in his life.

Surely the random chance of a stranger’s quirk wouldn’t be so kind to give you whom you’ve been wanting. You haven’t allowed yourself to hope.)

You didn’t even go in the front door. You clambered over the garden wall and berated yourself for not recognising Touya’s garden earlier, even though you’ve usually been around the kitchen and living room when you’re here. It took you longer than it could’ve to get to his teahouse, because you were deliberately staying on the garden path instead of walking on his hard work, but you didn’t even take off your shoes at the entrance, the nightingale floors chirping out in the night as you surged towards his bedroom door.

Touya lay facing the window in his very Western bed that took up most of the room—and much of his bedroom was like that, with his modern belongings scattered across other outdated furnishings, clean but cluttered, thought it startled you to open the door onto a Naruto poster taped in the space designated for a hanging scroll.

You only had time to absorb poster and lived-in before you saw the face of God in how Touya stretched and groaned in bed, arching his back and holding it until his back popped (a little too fixated on his moonlit nipples, like seeing them would fix you, flip you back to your factory settings). “Natsuo,” he said, coming out of his groan, eyes scrunched shut, “Don’t say you’re here to make me re-hang the windchimes. I spent all day tracking how air flows through the garden.”

You sat at the foot of his bed, mattress dipping slightly, still in your coat and shoes and hesitant to spread dirt, but the need to be near Touya, even if it were through blankets, consumed you. Hands folded behind his head, Touya cracked open an eye at the weight, and he froze.

You hadn’t prepared any confession on the train. You’d been too focused on the memory of his thighs. So, what garbled nonsense that came out of your mouth was “I figured your dick would be pierced.”

Touya appeared to snap back into reality, and he sat up in bed, pulling the blankets up to cover more of his bare chest (mourning for his nipples. Inconsolable about it, even) and quite obviously tried so hard to be chill (the way his leg started jiggling underneath the covers and how he wouldn’t look you in the eyes for more than a couple of seconds gave him away, though). “Is that what they say about me?”

You folded your hands in your lap, bent over for a swift escape in case he wanted you to leave “Jirou conjectures that you have a Jacob’s ladder.”

“Just what I need. More holes in my body.” He ran his tongue over his lower lip—much more scarred than the upper one, clarifying some things about kissing him. “Don’t know how to take that a bunch of kids who resent me talk about the state of my dick. You a part of that crowd?”

“I was shown a picture of what was advertised to be a very realistic dildo,” you said, scooting your ass farther back onto the bed now that he wasn’t going to send you away, “It had many, many piercings. It wasn’t as thick, if that makes you feel better.”

“It does not,” said Touya, brow pinched. He brought his legs up to hug them to his chest, but he must have changed his mind, instead just letting them block your view of him, hiding behind the cover of the lumpy comforter.

You waited for him to elaborate. His tuxedo was thrown over a wicker trunk, bowtie tossed onto a kotatsu, even though it wasn’t cold enough outside, with his gaming controller next to it and an open can of black tea. Two floor seats were haphazardly tucked underneath the kotatsu’s blanket, the one facing the TV flatter and duller than the one nearer the door. His only bookshelf had the illusion that it was constantly being added to, with the first shelf arranged neatly and the rest completely shoved together, the lowest one still mostly empty—your sign language book lay horizontally on it.

He should’ve said something by now, right? Antsy, you shifted your weight, staring down at your shoes. To have something to do, you slowly took them off, lining them up with Touya’s house slippers (with seahorses on them?) next to the bed, and you swallowed your pride to break the ice. “I’m glad it’s you, by the way. Very glad.”

Touya grunted and draped an arm over his knees. “Did you know?”

“I will be generous and say not really,” you said, shuffling off your coat to hang on the bedpost, “I didn’t permit myself to make the connections.”

“Eh.” He shrugged with one shoulder—the left one, the natural one. He’d reattached his prosthetic in the meantime. “There are around one hundred Touyas in Japan, according to the last census.”

“Sounds like a prepared statistic,” you said, holding back that the name frequency has probably plummeted in the last few years, “I’m serious, though. I wanted my Touya—soulmate, you, Touya—to be Todoroki Touya. So badly.”

He covered his mouth, thumbing at his lower lip and simply staring at you. In the moonlight, his eyes were as fucking bright blue as—well. As his flames. More things were clicking into place.

“Really, Touya,” you said, desperate for him to believe you, “I liked you as the stranger in the alley, and I liked you as Dabi, and when my soulmate seemed to share some traits with the other Touya in my life, I didn’t give myself permission to think about it. Because I was growing fond of the you that spoke to me, that I was getting to know, and while my feelings for the other you were being rekindled, too, I wanted to love the soulmate you more, because it's become fucking evident to me that I was made to love you, even without this soulmate stuff. You’ve been scattered throughout my life, anyway. It just happened to speed things up, since it forced you to talk to me. Otherwise, you’d probably still be at the point where you’re the brooding-older-brother figure who isolates himself in his room when his brother’s friends are over.”

Touya was frowning, but you waited it out entirely this time. “You saw…all that,” he eventually said, gesturing down himself, “and you still want me?”

Biting back a smile, you lifted your knees to the bed, moving slowly to gauge his reaction before getting closer to him. “I saw you decapitate someone, and I still want you.”

“You’re insane,” said Touya, tensing up as you neared him but twitching into a nervous grin, eyes falling to your boobs, away to the window, and back to your face.

“Correct,” you said, and you knelt next to him, taking all of your restraint to keep from reaching out the final few centimetres to run your hands down his chest. “Don’t you need someone a little insane, though?”

The comforter fell a few inches down his chest, and you throat ran dry at the long line of fading stitches and staples.

You raised a quivering hand to his face, and it’s strange: both of you flinched in the moment your fingertips felt the tiniest bit of body heat emanating from his cheek, and it’s strange: it’s the first time you’ve felt any heat come from Touya at all, and it’s strange: you could see yourself so clearly waking up next to him every day, putting your chin on his shoulder while he picked out fruits at the grocery store, feeding the koi late at night together while you lured the ducks away, watching his eyes soften in the same way both when he sinks his teeth into something you’ve baked and his cock deep into you while he cradled you closely to his chest, but at the moment, it might be too much for you—and perhaps Touya as well, judging by the nearly incomprehensible, jumbled sort of expression—if you even touched his face.

Perhaps the prospect of romance was too much for him at this point in his life. The last thing Touya should be feeling about that was guilt.

“I don’t mind being on the backburner while you figure things out,” you said, returning your hand to your lap and trying very hard not to look at his nipples, “I’ll wait for whatever you need to do. I’ll—”

“No,” said Touya, shaking himself out of whatever spiralling dive he’d been leaning into, “Hell, no. No fucking—” He snatched the hand you’d almost touched him with and clenched it hard, smushing your fingers together (startled by the physical contact, even though he’d initiated it), and after a flash of frustration at his prosthetic arm, he passed your hand to his left. “You’re fucking sticking around. You—you don’t just look at me; you see me, in such a different fucking way than anyone else, and you did it immedia—it took my family so long to look, and you—you’ve been watching. Been paying attention. It’s all I’ve ever—” He frowned, rolling his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “It’s good to have you around while I dig myself out of this hole,” he said, squeezing your hand harder but glaring outside through the window, “I wish I had known you sooner.”

“I’m here now, and I want to get to know you better. I want to hear more about you, things that are true,” you said, “and don’t start with anything self-deprecating, Touya. The next time the bond lets you see through me, I’m gonna show you what you look like through my eyes. And I’m not lying to you when I say you are so very, very pretty.”

Grunting, Touya fidgeted in bed, the covers slipping down to his stomach, drawing your hand closer to him, with your body leaning in to follow his pull. “Shit,” he said, “Don’t say shit like that right now.”

“Touya, I am gonna tell you how gorgeous you are until you believe it, and that starts now.”

“Not tha—well, yes, that, but I—” He sucked in through his teeth (also sucking in through a tiny hollow in his cheek caused by a loose staple, with a faint, wheezing whistle) and threaded his fingers through yours, pulling your hands towards his shoulder so that you loomed over his chest, “I have a hell of a refractory period now. It’s fuckin’ hard for me to get hard a lot, and you saw me; I just—” Inhaling sharply, he jerked his hand away from yours and frantically started wiping it on the blankets.  The new skin around the tips of his ears bloomed pink. “I haven’t washed my hands.”

“Touya,” you said, “Like I care.” You took the hand he was trying to hide in the folds of the blanket and licked up his palm, holding eye contact and relishing the way the blush spread to the untouched skin around the corners of his eyes. “I want all of you. Both sides you’ve shown me, and more. So long as it’s real. So long as it’s you.”

“All right. First step is getting on top of me,” said Touya, and, palm wet, he took your hand again, and he tugged on it, guiding you into his lap, other hand sliding down the thigh you swung over him. “Makes it easier to talk, y’know. To look at you.”

“Oh? Are we starting with your tragic backstory? If you’re taking requests,” you said, sliding your hand up and over his shoulder to run your fingers over his collarbone (jutting out from under both burnt and new skin), “then I’d like to hear your perspective of when you first kissed me.”

Touya lift his prosthetic hand to your cheek, just as cold and strong as his real one, and he placed his thumb at the corner of your lower lip, tip breaking the seal of your lips to press in just barely. “Actually, I think we’ll start with this pretty mouth of yours.”

***

Iida was shouting and gesturing from the living room that you only had fifteen minutes before the episode viewing was scheduled to start, and Shinsou shut him up by reminding him that Tokoyami had to pick up Ojiro and Hagakure from the floristry across town and that they’d start watching whenever they started watching, so chill out, Iida. Go help Mina pick the bugles out of her hair, or something.

You and Touya crouched together in front of the oven, staring through the glass at the rows of potato wedges—the recipe he claims his mother made when he was five, but surely a woman as sensible as Todoroki Rei wouldn’t put that much fucking cayenne pepper or paprika or chili sauce or—listen, it was a lot.

“C’mon, pretty boy, tell me something else true about you,” you said, nudging his shoulder with yours while you made eye contact with him in the oven’s reflection.

“Hm,” he said, scratching the underside of his chin with a bare hand (the gloves lay folded back on the teahouse dresser), “I hate fish.”

(Here you sighed dramatically, because you obviously already knew this. His loathing was intensified at the moment, though, because he’d had to get up and leave you in the middle of the night last night because the koi pond monitor was blaring at a stupid clog in the filter.)

“Tastes fuckin’ gross dead. Bitch to take care of livin’.”

You pushed on your knees to stand, and you held out a hand to help him up. “Enough with the negativity, dickhead. Tell me more about what you like.”

“Besides you?” He took your hand and grinned, putting all his weight into it as you strained to lift him, and when the oven timer beeped and you’d shot a few choice words his way, he had mercy and stood up by himself. He grabbed the oven mitts and tossed them to you, and while you removed the tray from the oven, he ran his hand through the sharp, white spikes of his hair, inadvertently wiping specks of paprika into it.

You set the tray on a cooling rack. “C’mon, Touya. No need to be so cheesy.”

“I can be worse,” he said, winding his arms around your waist before you could even take off the oven mitts, cradling you close to him, no room in between, and he propped his chin on your shoulder. “I can even incorporate—you call me cheesy; you’re the one who called me pretty boy not a minute ago.”

Blindly, you raised a hand to run it back through Touya’s soft, soft hair, and you gently bumped your cheek against his. “I am not being cheesy by simply stating the truth. You’re gorgeous, Touya.”

“Bet I’d look even better throbbing inside you.”

“Please follow a logical flow in conversation like the rest of us,” you said, and when you couldn’t grasp the spatula you were reaching for, Touya grabbed it for you, scraping up some of the first row, having to release you during the process.

Leaning on the counter to face him, you flinched at the heat before pinching a potato wedge between the tips of your fingers, but Touya held one like it was completely cool. It had almost touched his tongue before he paused and waited for your reaction to his recipe.

His potato wedges were bad. Too crunchy on top because of the odd broil time and not-fully-ground peppercorns and too soggy and soft underneath, especially in the part where it’d stuck to the tin foil and peeled off, and the combination of spices didn’t quite mesh together well. With a sliver of quiet triumph, you swallowed a bite of potato wedge decidedly worse than the ones you made.

But Touya was looking at you, eyes brimming with hope despite his otherwise carefully cultivated cool exterior, watching, waiting for you—and it was Touya, after all; Touya was the one who cooked these—made them for you, deliberately, on purpose—and so that made what words were about to come out of your mouth true and beautiful.

soulmate trope taglist: @bakugouspsycho, @pansexualproblemchild, @doonaandpjs, @sunsetevergreen, @the-coffee-is-on-fire, @liberace2, @ladymidnight77, @nonomesupposedto, @gooooomz, @kissmebakugou, @pachiibatt, @celestair, @tiredkittykat, @cheshireshiya, @90s-belladonna, @infjsnightmare