#i tried to love and accept exactly who they are

[mondaymelon]

₊⊹ … 99% NOT LOVE ! | kinich x gn!reader

— in which two people notice what two people don't .

— i've gone absolutely batshit over him your honour. im going to now start writing for kinich like a crazed man dying of thirst in the desert. let it be known that streamer!au kinich, enemies to lovers with poacher mc and other ideas are coming up (no im not cheating on xiao shush)

mualani notices it.

"hehe."

and you hear it.

"so! there's a little..." she stares at you with the most serious face you've ever seen on the girl, acting suspiciously unlike herself. gesturing at you with exaggerated hand movements, then pointing toward who knows where, she eyes you. mischievously. "something that's 'going on', yea?"

and at first, you have absolutely no clue what she could be referring to. mualani is a sociable person, after all. her definition of "something" could range anywhere between a particularly cute baby saurian to an out-of-control-bonfire turned wildfire.

with the only eventful thing today being a brief morning surf session with sharky, you just sat there, never having felt more lost.

mualani grabs your shoulders in an iron grip, leaning forward to the point she's almost beginning to seem menacing. you can see the moment where she tries to think over something (which she never does quite successfully) before she straight up shouts:

"ah!! i'll just spell it out for you!! you. and kinich. bestie. spill."

.

.

.

ajaw did more than just "notice" it.

"you..! kIINICH, did you seriously have to-"

"noisy."

"selfish assh- ALMIGHTY DRAGONLORD K'UHUL AJAW HAS HAD ENOUGH OF THE DISRESPECT! TIME AND TIME AGAIN, yOU'VE-"

"once again, ajaw. be quiet."

"sure sure, and pretend i didn't see you and that someone do a little smoochy-smooch, huh?! UGH, now you've asked for it- KINICH AND LOVEY DOVEY, SITTIN' IN A TREE, K-I-S-S-I-N-"

ajaw was what you would call a "witness". though, most would use that term in regards to one seeing a crime or heinous event take place — this event was nothing of that nature.

well, as far as kinich was concerned, the matter was simple. you'd ventured all the way to scions of the canopy to give him a gift, (claiming it was for the time he'd helped you after a couple of yumkausarus hadn't enjoyed your fruit offering and instead decided to off you), and he'd refused to accept it. he wasn't one to receive reimbursement for others, and he didn't particularly like talking either — it was a well-known fact, almost law in natlan, that if the malipo ignored your words, all you need do was apologize and continue on.

well, you did exactly the opposite.

"no thanks."

"...sorry?"

"i don't need it."

"haha, so 'malipo' kinich's rumored no-nonsense nature really proved to be true! now come over here so i can give you my fucking gift!"

you were rather adamant about giving it to him. the reason? you'd bought the gift on a whim after seeing it being sold by a passing merchant, advertised as "80% only today if you buy within the next like 4 minutes" and you'd immediately dropped every mora you had. it was the most useless little thing ever, and you didn't want it at this point, but.. the deals. how could you return such an item???

naturally, you handed it off to the man you'd seen for a good two minutes before he flew, or did whatever his thing was, away. the man had remembered furrowing his brows the slightest, listening to ajaw's persistent yellings of "IT'S AN OFFERING TO ME, TAKE IT" and feeling an oncoming headache. "i said i didn't.."

as he turned to walk away, three unfortunate(?) things occured.

a rock under your shoe and a very graceful process of falling to the ground

kinich looking back (his mistake)

a kiss...?

oh, and two extra.

4. ajaw had saw it all. 5. and mualani, who had saw you from a distance and was coming to greet you, was faced with a sight she could not process.

...Now that he thought over it again, was the matter really "simple"? kinich's job was what he considered simple — split 70% to investigation, 10% to final decision, and 10% to execution, well portioned and planned out.

then, this...

.

.

.

"girlie, you've seriously got the wrong idea. i'm telling you, we aren't dating!"

"mmmokay. of course! because not-dating people kiss allll the time!"

you paused for a moment, remembering kinich's even tone, stern gaze, and... ah, a face that deserved a gold medal.

"it's only 99% not love, okay mualani? but if it wasn't..."

.

.

.

"... and it's 99% not love, ajaw."

(a/n) darling im back from jail part 2. daddys home part 2. not funny? ok. HIHIHIHI ive bene really built like a sun dried raisin lately but kinich is the healing holy water that has saved me i will write more for him in the future because i love him a stupid amount its like the first time in a decade I've written for just ONE character and AND AND

I THOUGHT HE WOULDNT OCME HOME BECAUSE I ONLY HAD 68 WISHES OUT OF MY ORIGINAL LIKE 100+ AND RUINED MY CHANCES BECAUSE OF REALLY REALLY WANTING MuALANI (i love her sm) BUT. BUT BRO CAME HOME. ON THE FIRST 10 PULL AND WON THE 50/50 JUST LIKE MUALANI DID (or is it 45/55 now idk) LIVE LAUGH LOVE KINICH !!

[ tags: ] @manager-of-the-pudding-bank, @iamdedinside, @ilyuu-archive, @falors, @swivy123, @scara-is-my-wife, @lupicalbestwolf, @justyoureader,@fiannee, @aether-darling, @aioniela, @avensuersa, @dainsleif-when-playable, @intpessimistic

( dm or comment to be added ! i might miss ur comment so just to be sure, leave a comment on the actual masterlists page on my pinned ^ ^ )

[challenger-fan-club]

fwb Art who's absolutely in love with you and obsessed with you and who asked to be your boyfriend many times and taking you on many dates but you kept rejecting until one day he gets to know that you're going on a date with someone else so he tries to stop thay date from happening and showing you who you belong to by having the most passionate sex and finally convincing you to accept you as your boyfriend

you can say you don't want this to be Stanford Art but it is.

You've turned him down so many times. But you can't stay away from him. The way he kisses you, the way he touches you. You're needy for him but you know that you can't be in a relationship with him. He's not good for you, not good for you to be distracted. You're not exactly the dating type and Art is almost ready to be a husband. All your friends think you're insane, you know that they're ready to settle down but we're too young and you want to be carefree for just a while. Art is also so very nice, and sweet and kind and you don't want to hurt him when you inevitable self destruct. You rationalise it to protect yourself, it would be like torturing a puppy. You don't want to waste his time and effort. You're doing this for him.

But you can't keep yourself away from Art. You always end up at his door at the end of the night, and he's so obsessed with you, he'll never tell you no. He just makes you cups of tea and cuddles you and keeps you warm. Giving you everything that you want, whenever you want it. "We're just friends with benefits." You tell him and repeat to yourself and Art nods his head as if to say "i know." He invites you to the bar with him, says Patrick and his new girlfriend will be there but they always seem to mysteriously cancel. Patrick was either the worst friend or just didn't exist. "This is not a date Art." He gets you both drinks. He gives you the "i know" nod, slightly hurt, given you a face, slightly like you've stood on a puppys paw. Art asks to be your boyfriend a lot. And you know that you should cut him off and let him go but you can't help yourself. It's like you and Art are magnets or somehow cosmetically intertwined.

Art walks up to you and your friends standing talking. It kills him because he wants to wrap his hands around you like he did in his bed last night. But because you're just fuck buddies, he can't kiss you. He's not even sure if your friends know that you've been seeing each other for the last while. You try to ignore him as you're continuing the conversation as one of your friends starts speaking to him. "Do you know where youre going? and more importantly, what are you wearing?"

Art's ears perk up at the conversation and you try and ignore him again. "I think we're just going for drinks, nothing special." You say softly. "and then back to his? I'm so jealous, he's so fucking hot. I can't believe he just asked you out." You tried to hold back a wince when she said it. You didn't mean for Art to find out about it, at all. Definitely didn't want him to find out like this. He didn't say anything. You didn't want to look at him and you didn't know when he was looking at you. "You should wear that black dress you wore a few weeks ago... and those boots, you'd look so hot!" Your friend continued but you had already withdrawn from the conversation. You knew that outfit worked because Art wanted to take you to the nearest empty room when he saw you wearing it. "I'll text you later, let you know how it goes." You left the conversation. Art stood, making small talk with your friends.

It was around half past 8 when you were getting ready. You were stupidly nervous. You didn't really go on dates, especially with people you didn't know. And you hadn't heard from Art all day long which made you nervous. You didn't want to hurt Art, you didn't know if Art was hurt. He was sensitive so you could only assume that he was sulking in his room. There was a knock at your door as finished fixing your make up. You looked at yourself in the mirror before answering the door. "Hi Art, what are you doing here?" He looked at your face for a moment before letting your eyes gaze over your body. Your curvy hips and cleavage was on show, dress hitting just above your thighs. Art thought you looked perfect. "Are you not going to invite me in?" Art smiled at you. "uhh... actually I'm just getting ready to go out." You were confused. Had he not heard the conversation earlier? You watched him as he followed you into your room. "Yeah, I know... I just thought I could convince you to stay here." He was being very confident, somewhat dominant which he normally isn't it. "Art, cmon." He sat on the bed as he watched you putting your earring in. "Cmon what?" You stood in front of him as he ran his hands on the outside of your thigh. "tell me, you don't want to cancel on him and stay here with me." You were biting your lip as he touched your thighs. "Art..." His hands rubbed up your body to your hips as he pulled you closer, separating his legs, allowing you to stand in between them.

He starts by kissing your stomach. He looks up at you as he pulls your dress up your thighs slowly, his kiss moving slowly down your body. "You know he can't make you feel as good as I can..." he continued to kiss down your body before placing his kiss on your underwear. Your hands were in his hair, rubbing his head, encouragingly. He started to pull you down your underwear as he guided you to the bed. "Art, he's going to be here soon." He just smiled as he started kissing your neck and his hands started rubbing your clit, dipping his fingers into you as you moan against him. "Good, he can hear how good I make you feel." He started to bite at your collar bone, trying to leave a mark. "Artttt..." you almost moaned. "Thats it, say my name, say who you belong to." He moved his fingers faster until you were begging for him to fuck you. Art was really playing a very good game, making you moan, making you a mess underneath him. "You're so good." He swiftly moved his boxers down and allowed his cock to bounce free as he rubbed it against your wetness. He started to push himself inside of you, inch by inch as you moaned. He kissed your mouth, passionately before moving his kiss back to your neck, down to your chest where he pulled your dress down so your breasts were exposed. He started sucking, licking and biting on your nipples as he slammed into you. "Art, fuck I'm gonna cum." You moaned as he quickened his pace. "That's it, good girl, cum on my cock, cum for me, you're all mines." He moaned as he switched between kissing you and playing with your nipples. "you're so good, fuck, you feel so good." He couldn't stop as he started to fill you the second you let your orgasm go. He continued to kiss you and move the hair out of your face. "You're literally so gorgeous." He whispered in your ear as he held his cock inside of you. "when are you finally going to admit that you were made for me?" he kissed your neck. You sighed. "Art, you know..." Art kissed you again. "Don't do this, whatever your worries are about me, we can do it, together. I want you. All of you and you want me, very clearly." He kept your gaze as he held you. "It's all of me or none of me, I'm not playing seconds." The words hurt you and you got a brief moment to think about this being the last time, that the other option was no Art in your life. "I'm happy to wait." He pulled himself away and walked to the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.

You were alone for just a moment. You didn't want you and Art to be over. But you thought you knew how you felt, what you wanted but everything Art said and did, just made your heart hurt. You wanted him. You needed him. When you thought he was mad at you, you felt weak and now he's here. Saying it's him or nothing. You thought you had the power, always telling him no to a relationship but being faced without Art, you didn't want to do it. The thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. Shit. Your date. This was your sink of swim moment.

Art popped his head out of the bathroom. "should i hide in the bathroom or tell him to go away?" Art was topless looking down at you with just his boxer shorts on. "Tell him to go away, then take your shorts back off?" His face almost lit up. "So you're finally gonna be my girl?" You smirked at him and rolled your eyes. "I'm all yours Donaldson."

[linkspooky]

SUKUNA, YOU ARE ME

Now that we're in the last few chapters of Jujutsu Kaisen it's time to do a deep dive into Yuji and Sukuna's relationship. Is what Yuji showing Sukuna here truly empathy? Does Sukuna's death and Yuji's attempt to reach out mean Sukuna was human all along? We'll discuss that, the parallels between this and Mahito, and what Sukuna's exit means for both himself and Yuji as characters underneath the cut.

I AM YOU

While this post is about the connection between Yuji and Sukuna, I'm going to say the majority of this post will be about Yuji. I stated this in a previous post, I don't believe Yuji's showing Sukuna empathy here. While his offer to let Sukuna live inside of him may be genuine, it doesn't come from a place of genuine understanding. Sukuna himself isn't written as a character to be understood or empathized with.

Look at the words Yuji said. "You are me." He's not saying he's like Sukuna, he's saying Sukuna is like him. He is projecting himself onto Sukuna. Everyone in the story does, even Kashimo and Gojo who both considers themselves the strongest of their time and who naturally should have been able to understand the isolation of being someone as incomprehensibly strong as Sukuna were just projecting their own personal experiences on them in the end.

Of course we could dig a little deeper on the topic.

How much can one person truly understand another? It doesn't have to be a curser, or a borderline incomprehensible deity like Sukuna. How much do you understand your own best friend?

Gojo mentions that he felt loved by everyone, but also that he was so beyond their understanding that they may as well have been plants in comparison to him.

Of course, Shoko herself says that Shoko was always right there next to Gojo trying to offer him support and Gojo just chose to keep her at an arm's length. Gojo also believed that only someone as equally as powerful as him like Sukuna could understand him. Only to find that Sukuna didn't care about Gojo's feelings of isolation at all, nor was he troubled by love in the least.

Gojo makes himself out to be someone so superior to other human beings that he's beyond their comprehension, but that's Sukuna. Gojo did feel understood once, by Geto in his youth. The thing was that Gojo assumed that Geto could understand him because they were both euqal in power level. However, years after the fact when Gojo has long surpassed Geto, their friendship remains exactly the same.

The one that Gojo pictures patting him on the back is adult Geto, not teenage Geto. The one who Gojo truly would have been satisfied by in the end was Geto, not Sukuna.

So maybe what makes Sukuna so impossible to understand by others is that same reason why Shoko can't be close to Geto. Sukuna can't be understood by others because he doesn't care to be understood by them.

Perhaps, understanding isn't the end all be all of human connection. Gojo accepted Geto, and he didn't accept Shoko. Maybe Shoko would have been able to understand Gojo if Gojo ever tried to be emotionally open with her the ever way he was with Geto then he might have felt understood.

Then there's Ryomen Sukuna who rejects love and every notion of humanity along with it.

Therefore empathy means nothing to Sukuna. Yuji's empathy in particular. No, Yuji's attempt to save Sukuna is more about himself than Sukuna. It's a reflection of a change of Yuji's state of mind that he's willing to accept living with a curse like Sukuna. That he'd even try to understand Sukuna. Curses that Yuji previously dismissed as not even being worth understanding.

The first time Yuji said these words was when Yuji tried to make an offer to Sukuna to let him take control of his body in order to heal Junpei, in order to be laughed at by Sukuna. It was the last time Yuji ever asked anything of Sukuna.

Remember, in the very beginning of the manga Sukuna seemed like a standard inner demon character like the nine tails, or hollow ichigo. Yuji even thinks he can use Sukuna to switch out to help fight for him like against the special grade cursed spirit. However, we and the audience quickly learns that not only is Sukuna not just some evil half of Yuji, or a convenient power up, he's an actively malevolent entity with a will that will do anything to escape.

When Yuji realizes that Mahito and Sukuna are both curses, he starts to see Sukuna as an enemy trapped within him. Something he's reminded of again and again, especially after the Shibuya Massacre. From that moment Sukuna and Mahito become like villainous foils to Yuji, the dark to his light, the enemy for him to kill.

Yuji defines Mahito and Sukuna as his opposites and his enemies By killing them, he also gives himself a role. It's Sukuna and Mahito's actions in taunting is the first time Yuji uses the language "kill" when dealing with curses.

Mahito compared himself to Yuji and by saying as a curse he mindlessly kills humans. The same way that Yuji as a sorcerer, mindlessly kills curses. They are on the opposite side of the same cycle with no end in sight.

Yuji decides to embrace this violent cycle because it at least gives him a role to play. If curses are the shadow of humanity, if they're a reflection of humanity then what exactly is you saying here?

Yuji says he is Mahito, and then immediately that he's going to kill Mahito. It's not a statement of self acceptance, or accepting your shadow, but rather a statement of self destruction. Even though Mahito is a chaotic evil curse who enjoys killing humans, Yuji's decision to throw away his humanity just for the sake of killing him isn't a healthy way.

When Mahito said "You are me" he was attempting to drag Yuji down to his level. Yuji then willfully descends to Mahito's level as long as it gives him the strength to kill Mahito. It's character regression on his part. Yuji once said he didn't want to kill because then the value of life might become vague to him.

In a way it did, because Yuji began to devalue his own life. Yuji wasn't able to see any meaning in his life besides a "role' that someone else assigned him. Not only was he willing to throw it away at the drop of a hat, but he also didn't feel like he had permission to live.

Unlike Yuta who actively sought affirmation from others, Yuji rejected that affirmation and tried to push everyone including people like Megumi and Choso away. They were right next to him, but Yuji became unable to accept their love and support.

Yuji is a strange paradox because he presents himself as an all-loving hero who just wants to save as many people as possible, but then you read his dialogue and he's like "I'm just a cog in the machine, I will continue to kill curses until one day I die. Then I'll just be replaced by another cog. There's no meaning at all to this sequence. Life is an endless nightmare."

I'm exaggerating, but underneath Yuji's sweet nature and goofing around, there's this very bleak attitude that his life means nothing except for the labor that he produces, and one day he'll be tossed aside and that's fine because it's what he deserves.

If Yuta seeks self-affirmation, then Yuji is seeking self-destruction. His self-loathing leads him to practically lay his head down on the chopping block and offer his neck up for execution by Higuruma's domain during the fight with Higuruma, even when Higuruma himself points out that Yuji isn't the one at fault because he wans't in control of his own body. Yuji will still take the blame, anything to punish himself further.

So, the words Yuji uses in his triumph against Mahito also signify the destruction of his own ego. That is what Yuji does when he adapts his cog mentality, he denies his own sense of self.

What Yuji experiences is basically a prolonged ego-death.

Ego death is a "complete loss of subjective self-identity".[1] The term is used in various intertwined contexts, with related meanings. The 19th-century philosopher and psychologist William James uses the synonymous term "self-surrender" and Jungian psychology uses the synonymous term psychic death, referring to a fundamental transformation of the psyche.

I brung up Ego-Death in the Jungian context, but in Yuji's case, resigning himself to being a cog is also an act of self-surrender. Yuji basically moves away from all of his previous ideals. He only sees himself as a tool to kill curses. Saving others, or helping guide others to a natural death, those things get put on the back burner as a tool doesn't need ideals.

He's abandoned all kinds of idealism and higher reasoning. In fact that is what Mahito wanted him to do, to abandon the higher reasoning that belongs to human beings and act on instinct like a curse. Mahito successfully pushed Yuji to abandon human reason and become an unthinking cog.

Jung defines the Ego-Death as the stripping away of everything else to revert to your natural self. According to Ventegodt and Merrick, the Jungian term "psychic death" is a synonym for "ego death":

In order to radically improve global quality of life, it seems necessary to have a fundamental transformation of the psyche. Such a shift in personality has been labeled an "ego death" in Buddhism or a psychic death by Jung, because it implies a shift back to the existential position of the natural self, i.e., living the true purpose of life. 

Megumi also experiences an ego-death over the course of the manga that mirrors Yuji's own when Sukuna takes over his body, soaks his soul to bring Megumi near evil, and then kills Tsumiki. At this point both Yuji and Megumi both lose what were their reasons for fighting. The so-called "dignity obtained by human reason" is lost. After having those reasons stripped away from them and experiencing their ego-deaths both of them surrender control. Megumi becomes helpless and stops trying to fight Sukuna. While Yuji may not seem like he's given up on anything since he keeps trucking along, he too has given up on thinking for himself. Yuji has essentially given up as much as Megumi has, there's just less plot consequences for it.

Either way they are both brought to their lowest point by ego-death, in order to bring them to their lowest point, and make them experience a rebirth of sorts.

The persona in Jung is the face you show the outside world. it's one part of personality, with the other being the shadow. The shadow is the repressed part of peresonality. Just like curses are made up of repressed human emotions that leak out from our collective subconscious. Curses serve as the shadow of humanity collectively, especially Mahito who is made up of everything humans hate and fear about other humans. The physical embodiment of human cruelty.

However, a person can't live without their shadow. There's no such thing as a human without flaws after all, and you don't become a better person just by ignoring your own flaws. The kinds of people who are unaware of their own flaws tend to unconsciously repeat the same mistakes again and again and again.

Yuji despises curses as inhuman monsters that he can slaughter like they're enemies in a video game, but they're like... made of human vices. They are the product of humanity's emotions. Yuji's habit of only looking at the good makes him unaware of both his own shadow, his own shortcomings, and also the darker shades of grey in the world around him.

Megumi and Yuji both are characters who, need to be dragged down to the darkest point of the shadow and forced to confront their own flaws in order to learn about themselves. It's not a coincidence thaT Yuji who puts humanity on such a pedestal is a human and curse hybrid. That his older brother who's shown to be a source of overflowing unconditional love is also a human / curse hybrid, and who Yuji nearly killed because he blindly, obediently decided to kill curses. That Yuji killed two of his other curse / human hybrid brothers in spite of noticing they were different from other curses and had a family bond with each other.

It's not a coincidence that Yuji who puts humanity on such a pedestal devoured the corpses of all of his other brothers the same way that Sukuna ate his own twin in the womb to gain the power to defeat Sukuna.

Yuiji lacks a lot of self-awareness. That's why I've always said he doesn't quite live up to the "all-loving hero" he sees himself as. Savior is just a role that Yuji has adopted in order to give himself a purpose in life, but he falls short of that. The reason that he falls short is ironically that Yuji tries so hard to be superhuman, that he can't forgive himself for having basic human flaws.

It's why "Being a child is not a sin" is such a meaningful line coming from Nanami. In Yuji's eyes being a child is a sin. He constantly blames himself for not being able to hold the weight of the world on his shoulders, for not being able to save everyone by himself even though he's only been a jujutsu sorcerer for a few months.

It's why Yuji gets excited for a moment when Kusakabe mentions that Yuji is developing very fast by sorcerer standards, because he wants to be someone monstrously talented like Higuruma or Gojo - and why he immediately looks so disappointed when Kusakabe says it's not because Yuji is talented it's just because of Sukuna.

Yuji feels an overwhelming amount of responsibility and wants to be a special person who is strong enough to actually carry all that responsibility on his shoulders. That's why I say Yuji isn't a true all-loving hero, because it's more about Yuji's own feelings than the act of saving others. His guilt complex over Sukuna.

His desires to be someone special and meaningful. Yuji wants to be a good person who saves others because it gives YUJI and purpose and it gives YUJI a sense of fulfillment. If you've read Tokyo Ghoul it's like Kaneki's reason for participating in the Anteiku Raid. Not because he genuinely wanted to save others, but because he "was tired of not being able to do a thing."

(I'm keeping the meme panel because it's funny)-

Yuji wants to be strong and wants to be a savior because Yuji feels insecure in himself and loathes himself for his own weakness. However, this pushes Yuji farther away from his goal of saving others and making connections with other people so he can die surrounded by people BECAUSE people empathize with each other over their weaknesses.

Yuji wants to become someone strong and unbreakable who will never falter, never feel pain, and most of all never lose. He basically wants to become Satoru Gojo, but if Yuji were to ever rise to Gojo's level like that just by getting rid of all of his weaknesses he'd fundamentally lose his ability to connect with people the way Gojo and Sukuna have.

Yuji defines himself in strength, and suffering, and always overcoming, but then what is his heart for? He strives to become someone stronger than Gojo or Sukuna to protect his friends, but if he loses his heart that loves and cherishes those friends in the process then what even is the point?

Yuji walks a dangerous road from the culling games up until the Shinjuku incident, into nearly becoming like Mahito or Sukuna in his attempts to be stronger than them. I don't think he was ever in danger of going on a murder spree, but I do think he was risking becoming someone like Gojo.

Gojo made himself a tool for Jujutsu Society for the greater good and look what happened to him in the end. Not only did he die in the line of duty, his corpse was turned into a puppet to use as a weapon against the enemy. He made himself into a monster even when people like Yuta were begging Gojo not to. Yuji was on a similiar path of cutting off all the people who loved him and just becoming a person exploited in both life and death for the greater good.

So what stopped him?

Megumi.

YOU ARE ME.

A few people said that Yuji's abandoning the cog mentality suddenly happened too fast, or felt unearned but I think if you look at the culling games arc from higiruma's fight onwards as a whole it's actually a natural progression.

It all starts with Higuruma and Yuji's conversation:

Higuruma: "You're innocent. You didn't commit that crime." Yuji: "Even so, it's my fault." Higuruma: "Why?" Yuji: "...I see. Itaodri, there still may be a lot of people who are weak like you."

Yuji is someone who loevs humans, but puts humanity as a whole on a pedestal. He loves humanity but hates human weakness, especially his own weakness. Ironic because Higuruma is also someone who became jaded by having to work in the corrupt justice system and was forced to look at human ugliness day after day after day even though he wanted to be someone who valued people for their weaknesses.

Yuji doesn't learn to empathize with human weakness until Megumi's weaknesses are the one he's forced to confront. He doesn't abandon his notion of roles until he's robbed of his roles by Sukuna when Megumi becomes the possessed one instead of him.

Yuji is fine with being a sacrifice for the greater good, but he is not fine with sacrificing Megumi. By knowing exactly what Megumi is going through and wanting to save Megumi from Sukuna's possession, Yuji is in an odd way forced to empathize with himself. Like, it's a double standard on his part that's being challenged. Yuji blames himself for all the people he hurt as Sukuna, but he'd never blame Megumi for letting Sukuna kill tsumuki while possessing his body.

In his refusal to sacrifice Megumi for the greater good, even when Megumi is begging him to do so he rejects the common Ethos that sorcerer's are expendable cogs who are expected to sacrifice themselves and their comrades in the eternal fight against curses for the sake of public safety.

Yuji carries with him this grandiose notion of saving as many people as possible. However, when the option comes to make a sacrifice that would save hundreds of thousands of people from the merger by fighting to kill Megumi instead of save him from Sukuna's clutches Yuji can't do it. Even though Megumi at that point would be a completely willing sacrifice.

Yuji has to abandon his cog mentality to save Megumi, because an unthinking cog wouldn't put Megumi's life over the lives of everyone in Shibuya. A cog, especially a sorcerer would kill that one kid in order to save thousands of lives. Heck, Kusakabe more conservative sorcerer even brings up that argument that everything would have been avoided if Yuji was executed to begin with.

In order to save Megumi, Yuji must also reclaim his own humanity. There's a reason that Nanami, and Nobara, die right before Yuji adopts his cog mentality. Nanami, the most ethical of the first grade sorcerers who tried to teach Yuji to value his own life because he was a child, and Nobara the only kid in the main trio who was a normal person are both representatives of Yuji's humanity.

After losing both Yuji becomes reckless, he stops valuing his own life. As I said far, far bove, Yuji never listened to the advice Nanami gave him that it wasn't a sin to be a child. Yuji has this entire time thought it was a sin just to be weak, just to need the help of other people, just to not be able to accomplish everything on his own.

After Yuji starts reconciling with his own humanity though, he regains his connections to both Nanami and Nobara. Nanami comes back symbolically in the form of Higuruma, someone Yuji tries to encourage to live instead of taking the same suicidal path that Yuji was bent on. Whereas, Nobara herself actually comes back from the dead in time to land the final blow, the same way she reminded Yuji of her presence and that she wasn't alone in the Mahito fight.

Yuji also regains these connections when he's processed the grief for both people. He remembers Nanami and what Nanami left him in a more positive light. In my interpretation the line "I am a sorcerer" refers to Yuji developing a more healthy version of being a sorcerer. That instead of Yuji seeing sorcerers as slaves who have to sacrifice themselves for the greater good like Geto did, Yuji can see the camraderie between sorcerers who fight and put their lives on the line together.

Either way, I think the moment Yuji truly reconciled with the grief of death is sadly enough with Choso's death. If you want proof that Yuji's revelation wasn't rushed, that he didn't skip from point a to point b, then it's right here.

Choso apologizes to Yuji for leaving him ahead of time, and Yuji tells him not to, because Choso was always by his side when he was at his lowest point and that brief time they had together was enough for him.

Yuji's relationships so far have been defined by his fear of losing people. He wants to have a natural death, he wants the other people around him to have good deaths, he doesn't want people to die too early. By focusing on the fear of losing people, he hasn't yet been able to enjoy the time that they were around. However, in this moment he realizes how much Choso meant to him, even if their relationship was brief, and even if it came to an end. Yuji learned you can still love someone even if you inevitably lose them.

This is when Yuji finally accepts mortality and fragility as a part of life.

This is also what Sukuna can't accept. That life is fragile. That life is weak. That life comes to an end. Sukuna's entire goal is to maximize pleasure and live as long as possible, and therefore he's rejected all of the unpleasant parts of reality. Sukuna doesn't want to live in the real world like a human being, he wants to exist only in the world of Jujutsu where he's a god.

This is what Yuji represents to Sukuna, The human vulnerability, and mundanity that he threw away, by literally cannabilizing his own twin and throwing away part of his soul. The part of his soul that Sukuna threw away was taken by Kenjaku, and used as a science experiment to create Yuji. Technically, Sukuna is Yuji's uncle but symbolically Yuji is the twin that Sukuna cast aside. Especially since in this world cursed energy treats identical twins like they are the same person.

Yuji for the longest time tried to do what Sukuna did. Tried to throw his own humanity away so he could be as strong as Sukuna. He literally even ate the corpses of his own brothers.

Yuji and Sukuna are symbolically twins, but Yuji learns to embrace the things that Sukuna threw away. Sukuna threw away his own soul's twin in order to grow strong. He became all powerful in the jujutsu world because he ate his twin and gained an extra pair of arms and a mouth. He's like if Maki chose to kill Mai instead of Mai sacrificing herself for Maki's sake.

Yuji chose companionship with others over power. Sukuna doesn't need others people to satisfy him, and Yuji begs Megumi to come back from the dead because his life would be lonely without him. Yuji doesn't have some noble reason for going this far for Megumi's sake. He's not saving Megumi for the greater good, but because his connection to Megumi is important to him. Because he doesn't want to go through life without Megumi.

Yuji loathes weakness like Sukuna. Yuji desires to be someone special like Sukuna. Yuji has a grandiose sense of self importance like Sukuna. Yuji desires power like Sukuna. Yuji looks down on weak people like Sukuna does, he just condescendingly wants to save them instead of Sukuna who just wants to stomp on them like ants.

Yuji is also literally Sukuna. He was created by an offshoot of his soul. The same way that Sukuna was born with a body perfect for Jujutsu, Yuji was born stronger than anyone his age, and develops at an extreme rate as a sorcerer BECAUSE he was Kenjaku's science project to make the perfect vessel for Sukuna.

They are totally twinsies in so many ways, the only difference in the end is that Yuji learns to value human connection. In Sukuna's book there is no meaning to life, except for the pleasures he pursues as an individual. Therefore Sukuna is the only real person that matters or even exists. The narrator says as much he alone is the honored one, all that exists is his pleasures and displeasures.

In Buberian terms Sukuna only experiences existence and I and It relationships.

Buber's main proposition is that we may address existence in two ways:

The attitude of the "I" towards an "It", towards an object that is separate in itself, which we either use or experience.

The attitude of the "I" towards "Thou", in a relationship in which the other is not separated by discrete bounds.

Sukuna is the "i" and everyone else is an "it." Sukuna is the only real person who exists, and everyone else is just an object for their amusement.

Whereas, Yuji experiences "I" and "Thou" relationships. Yuji learns to see other people as different from himself. Yuji appreciates people as separate entities. While Sukuna gets amusement from his life by treating other people like toys, for Yuji the value in his life comes from the people who have entered into his life in some form. He appreciates the relationships he's formed with people and the memories they've left behind, no matter how brief the time they spent together was.

This is why Yuji's words reach Megumi, because he respects that Megumi feels differently than he does. He doesn't tell Megumi to just suck it up and keep fighting because that's what Yuji would do. He understands that he's a different person than Megumi, and he can't say he understands the grief and pain Megumi is going through right now.

That's Yuji's big revelation, in just a few short months as a sorcerer he's met so many people who left an impact on him. Some of those relationships came to an end early, but that painful ending doesn't negate what they meant to him.

The few months he spent with Choso have value even if it's not the same as the one hudnred and fifty years Choso spent with the rest of his brothers, because Choso supported Yuji when he was at his lowest point. Yuji finally sees that what gave his life meaning was the memories he made with other people while they were alive together. Not the way that they died.

So Yuji is finally willing to let himself exist outside of a role.

That's what he's offering to Sukuna as well. Maybe not empathy or understanding, because if Yuji had truly learned empathy maybe Sukuna might have accepted his offer. No, Yuji is simply willing to offer Sukuna the chance to live alongside him.

Sukuna rejects bonds of all kinds and Yuji is now embracing them. Yuji no longer seeks to annihilate curses because they're a fundamental part of life. Yuji wants to live on with his curses and burdens. He's also willing to give Sukuna a chance to keep living too.

Even Yuji points out that both of them are totally twinsies. Sukuna was born as a curse because he devoured his twin brother in the womb. Yuji was born as a curse because he was created to be Sukuna's vessel. The only way that Yuji is the way that he is is because he was raised as a normal child by his grandfather. If Yuji hadn't then he would have turned out entirely different. It's the same way that Choso became human because of his love for his brothers, even though he was born as a curse human hybrid and tossed aside by Kenjaku as a failed experience.

Yuji acknowledges both his capacity to have turned out like Sukuna if not for his grandfather's sake. This time when he says You are me, he's not saying it to threaten and destroy the person he sees as his shadow. This time Yuji is trying to reconcile with his shadow. He's looking at the person who represents the absolute worst of humanity, and the things he hates about himself and is still willing to give them the chance to keep on living together with him.

When Yuji says "I am you, so I'll kill you" to Mahito, that signals his first step on the road to self destruction.

When Yuji says, "I am you, so I'll save you" to Sukuna, that signals his first step on the road to self-acceptance.

It's Yuji allowing himself for the first time to just exist as a normal person not as the hero of some epic story. He even gave Sukuna that chance too, to just continue living alongisde him, but sukuna rejected it to keep on living as a curse until the end.

So, while Yuji saying "You are me" to Sukuna isn't true empathy, it is Yuji learning to accept himself and his flaws. . Because if Yuji is willing to forgive someone like Sukuna, then perhaps he might just learn to forgive himself.

[fenniefrost]

I think one of the hardest things in my life is having so much love and respect to others to the best of my ability. And knowing, through painstaking hardship and abuse, that for certain people, no amount of love, care, understanding, or respect towards them will ever make them treat you the same in return. No amount of love or attempts at understanding will be enough for certain people to heal, grow, or change their ways.

There are some people who exist, that no matter how much you give them unconditional love and respect, will still believe they should have the right to hurt you or take your rights away. And honestly, I will never understand. Their attempts to turn me into someone hateful/fearful like them never broke me, and I still believe in the hope that love exists. The only thing that changed was that I love myself enough now to not tolerate them hurting me anymore. And I hope anyone else with a kind heart also finds peace knowing you weren't the problem. You tried your best. And you deserve to be treated with kindness too.

[pepprs]

my depression is getting really really bad. like it’s been bad before but this is like… consistently really bad. like a long unending stretch for several weeks (and tbh months) now. to the point where no inoculation actually sticks (and im isolating myself from most of my inoculations anyway and feel unable to stop doing it even though i know it’s self destructive). im either helplessly unbearably miserable or numbing out on video games. i just don’t feel like it’s going to get better for me and i KNOW that is factually untrue but the feeling is louder than the knowledge and it’s just utterly immobilizing. ive been sinking in quicksand for 2 years.

[toytulini]

thinking about my oc Bytte. and. her gender is Aro. her Aromanticism is inextricable from her gender experience.

[lith-myathar]

.

[infizero]

shut UPPPPPPPPPPP someone just put the clip of tiny manticore telling betty "maybe you're going after someone who doesn't exist anymore" with simon trying to bring back betty back ohhhh i feel sick

[agoddamnrayofsunshine]

I’m sure someone has talked about this before but one thing I absolutely love about tbosas is how Snow’s descent into villainy is never once presented as something that was inevitable

So many villain origin stories portray this idea of a person who tries incredibly hard to be a good person, who takes every opportunity to be kind and to better themselves, but are ultimately doomed to fail by the narrative. Their environment and their circumstances make it impossible for them to be a good person, and while this is effective from a storytelling point of view it’s not exactly accurate to real life

In real life there is always a point where a bad person makes the decision to do something bad, they make the decision to prioritise themselves, their own power, money or desires over someone else. That’s how real life dictators are made, they are presented with every opportunity to be good, and they purposefully choose to not take it

This makes Snow’s storyline so effective because he is given so many opportunities to do the right thing and yet, at every single turn, he chooses to serve himself instead, exactly like how real dictators are made

Snow, unlike most people we see in the capitol, is in a unique position where he could genuinely have the chance to understand and relate to the people from the districts. He, unlike his classmates, is poor and spends most nights going hungry, he witnessed firsthand the cruelty of the capitol when Clemensia was bitten by the snakes for nothing more than lying about doing her homework, when his sister was forced to sell herself on the streets in order to feed the both of them

Throughout his book, the three people he is closest to are Tigris (who dislikes the hunger games, is a rebel, and a victim of the capitol forced to turn to prostitution), Sejanus (who is originally from district 2, dislikes the capitol and knows he will never be accepted there, and also a rebel) and Lucy Gray (who is a victim of the hunger games, from district 12, and is also treated horribly by the capitol). These are all people who gave him an opportunity to realise the cruelty of the system he was in, a chance to directly confront his prejudices and see that people from the districts are just the same as him, and yet he still refuses to take the chance to change

He is given every opportunity, he’s sent away from the capitol to be a peacekeeper in the districts, he forms personal connections with people from the districts, he helps Sejanus perform funeral rites, and yet at every moral crossroads he comes to he makes the wrong decision. He didn’t have to become a villain, and yet he made the choice to do so anyway, despite every chance he was given

I think it’s a really effective portrayal of Snow as a character, and it’s a very effective villain origin story for the type of villain that Snow is. It never once excuses him from his actions because it highlights just how accountable he was for his actions

[heavenbarnes]

the obedience that came with your older bf!simon hadn’t started out as inherently kinky. it actually stemmed from a rather vulnerable admission, one that happened to come about as you were riding him.

“i need to follow orders”

it’d caught you off guard, but you’d been quick and accepting with it as your pressed your palms against his broad chest. you’d nodded, panting slightly as you tried your best.

“i want you to hold me down and really fuck me, si”

and that was it, he was gripping tight on your hips and jackhammering his own up into you until your head was tipping back and a fucking squeal was being torn out of you.

the rest was history.

simon explained it as he’d built a career off of following orders, he’d kept himself alive by doing what he was told- being in the right place at the right time.

if you wanted to see him at his best you had to tell him exactly what you wanted him to do.

after a particularly soft evening on the couch, one that would never leave the four walls of your home, where simon was cuddled into your front with your arms wrapped around him- he told you he felt safest when he had explicit instructions.

part of it was just easier that way, like when he didn’t really get the hype about sexting but you told him what you wanted and then you’d both be happy.

the other part of it was that security, he had someone who loved him enough to put him in the right place at the right time and eliminate as many variables as possible.

that didn’t mean spontaneity was out of the question, he could surprise you and you could do the same to him- but once you really got into things, he wanted you to tell him in graphic detail what you wanted him to do.

“just like that, don’t move your hand at all”

“cum inside me, please”

“bend me over, want you to use me”

“look me in the eyes, want to see you when you cum for me”

“lick my cunt, simon”

there was also something in there for him about you, sweet little you, looking this big man right in the eye and ordering him around.

made him weak in the fucking knees.

[a-b-riddle]

Part 7

Can't stop thinking about how the 141 met reader

(she's a long one. not entirely happy with it either so may edit later)

No harm done yet.

You never saw Simon actually hurt anyone. Johnny and Kyle would share stories about poor recruits who fucked around and eventually found out that Simon had no issue beating them within an inch of their life.

You knew he had a reputation and, like the rest of them, had blood on his hands. But it never bothered you. Didn't make you think twice about loving him or seeing him as the protector he had always been to you. To be frank, you could never actually picture any of them being violent.

But his voice... Fuck. His voice. It fucking rattled you. You actually feared for those fucking idiots now. Sure, they deserved to have their asses kicked, but an ass-kicking was probably going to be a welcomed after thought to whatever Simon would do.

You rinsed off, not bothering to wash your hair, but needing to wash up before getting in the bed. Hoping the scalding hot water washed away the uneasiness on your skin that had began to settle into your bones.

Even feeling fresh and laying in clean sheets, you still found yourself tossing and turning wondering exactly what did Simon do?

Did he walk away? Realizing you weren't worth the trouble, did he just tell them to knock it off?

You had stupidly expected Simon to check in. To check if you made it home alright or at least to let you know he was okay. So you waited... And you waited. You had half a mind to call him yourself before remembering it wasn't your place anymore to care. You had cared enough for the five of you.

It was well past two in the morning before you finally called it a night.

The next morning, still nothing from Mr. Riley. Not a 'did you home alright?' or 'are you okay?' text. Nada. Zilch.

Whatever.

Fuck him.

You had to open up shop, but luckily your Saturday mornings were much more relaxed. The shop wouldn't be open until 10, so you had the time to sleep in and enjoy the morning.

By noon, Mere had sent you several texts reminding you that you had promised to go out. You had tried to dissuade her. The encounter with those men last night had brought back sour memories. One involving handsome men coming to your rescue when it was most certainly needed.

You had tried to bail. Giving her any excuse you could: Last night put you on edge. You no longer wanted to go out. After last weekend, you just needed some down time.

Eventually you had realized she was not taking no for an answer after she had shown up to your apartment, already ready for a night out.

"You're not wearing that, are you?" Mere asked. Mere was in her usual Saturday femme-fatal attire. The black leather pants that accentuated her curves and red corset paired well with her freshly box dyed color black hair.

She looked more like a dominatrix than someone who worked at an attorney's office. Even if both professions included bending someone over and fucking them for all their worth. You wondered who would charge more by the hour....

You had pulled out a off white lace square neck top and a pair of high waisted medium washed baggy jeans. A perfectly cute outfit for a night out. Which was your defense when she had suggested you needed to change.

Tab had arrived later than expected (something about a system being down at work), but made up for it by bringing a pre-game snack. Yes, you had officially reached the age where you no longer starved yourself hours before going out to get more drunk quicker and cheaper. No you had to eat carbs or else you wouldn't be able to leave your room the next day as you pathetically nurse a hangover.

Tab wore a denim skirt. If you could even call it that. It paired well with the white tank top that you could make out the shape of her nipple piercing.

But they looked hot. Really hot.

"This is a perfectly acceptable outfit."

"For a day at market, not for trying to get laid."

"I don't want to get laid." You said, rummaging through your closet, yet again. "Getting laid is what got me in this mess in the first place."

A little over two years ago

"Fuck him." Tabitha wrapped her arms around your shaking body as you continued to sob. "He was a prick who didn't fucking deserve you."

"He couldn't even get you to cum." Mere felt the need to remind you as if that would somehow lessen the blow of your heartbreaking into a million shards. The shrapnel feeling like it would kill you.

"I loved him," your voice is small. "I fucking loved him." You had been dating for almost three years. You had his grandmother's ring on your fucking hand for God's sake. "I'm so stupid."

"You are not stupid." Tabitha gave you a squeeze. "He was a liar and a fucking coward." Meredith rubbed her thumb on you bare leg, offering physical reassure. Letting you know even if she wasn't the hugger Tabs was, she was still here.

"You can't keep locked up in this apartment." She was unfortunately right. You had not only barricaded yourself in your apartment for two weeks, but you hadn't returned to your bedroom. The scene of the crime. "You need to get out."

"Yeah," Tabitha rubbed your arm as if trying to coax you out your metaphorical shell. "Get some fresh air. We can go grab a treat. Maybe go out for some coffee." It didn't surprise you that Tabitha was offering a treat to entice you to leaving your sanctuary.

"I was thinking going to a bar." It also didn't surprise you that Mere offered her way of coping. Getting so drunk that you forgot what you even sad about. Or going out and finding someone to fuck the sadness out of her.

"Because getting alcohol in her system in this state is just what she needs." Tabitha was the mom of the group whereas Mere was the fun drunk aunt. They balanced one another out.

"Actually," you said, giving a pathetic sniffle. "Going out would be nice." Getting away from the apartment is what you need. And going out would be the excuse you would need to get yourself all dolled up.

What you hadn't planned for was getting so pissed that you had manage to breakaway from your friends. Searching for them in teh crowd of people. Failing and when you pulled out your phone were met with a completely black screen.

Dead. Perfect.

The same moment you swore the night couldn't get any worse, it did.

He looked the same. Same as he been four months ago when he asked you to become his wife. Same as he had been two weeks ago when you had caught him fucking another girl. The girl he told you not to worry about. The girl he insisted was just one of the guys. A girl you had told him time and time again would fuck him the moment she had the chance.

It wasn't always great to be right.

When your eyes connected, your body had went into immediate flight mode. Every neuron in your body was shooting out signals of RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN. So that's exactly what you did.

You fucking bolted.

Or felt like you bolted. But you could only scurry so fast in chunky heels while simultaneously pulling down your skirt that had decided to ride up. Aching to show your ass for all of London to see.

You had made it a quarter of the way back to your apartment. Your feet aching. Toes pinched together from the strap digging into them.

"Baby, please!" You heard him before you felt his arm clamp down on your shoulder. Hard. When did his touch become something heavy? Something that practically burned you.

You turned. Eyes brimming with unshed tears as you hissed at him to leave you the fuck alone. The begging came, but you turned around. Determined to go home. He didn't deserve the chance to explain himself and he could most certainly shove his apology up his ass.

He wouldn't shut up. Insisting it was a mistake. A one time thing her fault. How she seduced him. As if he were the victim in all of this. You weren't buying it. Not for one moment. One doesn't accidentally invite some slut over and fall balls deep into her while they are in the same bed he shares with his fiancée.

It wasn't until you were in a more dimly lit area that he had gotten the nerve to grab you. His grip was firm on your arms as he held you in place. "Listen to me!" His voice was panicked.

The feeling of anger slowly began to dim as something else began to rise.

Fear.

You were afraid.

You were in a part of town not many people were out and about in at this time of night. No bystanders to really take note of the scene, or at least not any caring enough to stand by and watch; even for entertainment.

Your friends didn't know where you were at and you were tipsy. And alone.

"Cardan," you swallowed, trying to steady your voice. "Please let me go."

"Not until you talk to me," his fingers dug into you. "We can work this out, okay? It was one mistake." He tried to argue, his voice rising, soaked in desperation. "What's one mistake compared to three years?"

"Cardan," you tried to pull away, his grip only tightening. "You're hurting me." It came out as a pathetic whimper. You were so close to crying, too afraid to scream.

"Hey!" A voice barked from behind you. It caused your whole body to stiffen."Get your fucking hands off her. Someone noticed. Someone was here. Someone was here. Someone was here.

"We are having a conversation." Cardan's eyes left you, looking at whoever stood behind you.

"The lass said to leave her be." Another voice. Someone else. Two (three if you counted yourself, but in that moment you couldn't) people against one. There was no a possibility of you getting the fuck out of this situation.

Cardan stood firm. His eyes looking past you. A silent refusal to back down.

"Either you let her go," another voice. Another accent different that the first two. "Or we fucking make you."

"One against four. Odds aren't in your favor, mate." Four. Four men stood behind you. Faceless strangers there to help you.

"This doesn't concern you." Cardan bit out.

"Aye," Scottish. The second guy was definitely Scottish. "I think it does if she's tellin' ye' to piss off and yer bein' a bawbag about it."

"So what'll it be?" The third voice, deep and threatening, yet still so... calming. As if the vibrations from his deep, rich pitch washed over you.

Cardan looked back at you, his eyes not as manic. He realized he didn't have a chance. This was a fight he had to walk away from or else he wouldn't be walking away from it at all. "I'll swing by tomorrow, okay?" He asked.

You couldn't do anything, but nod. Agree that you could talk tomorrow in the safety of the sunlight. Eventually he walked across the street before fading out into the night. Blending in with the shadows.

You turned around to meet your would-be saviors.

Four men. All slightly older than you and so handsome you felt foolish for gawking at them as if this were your first time seeing a man. Hell, maybe it was. At least specimens like this. All of them tall and broad. Towering over you.

No wonder Cardan got the fuck out of there. Tabs was right. He was a coward.

"You alright?" The one who first spoke up asked. You could place his voice. Now just needed to place the other three. He had a hearty mustache and mutton chops. A look on any one else would make you immediately get the ick. But for a moment you wondered if that mustache would tickle... "Do you need us to call anyone?"

You felt your cheeks flush with heat.

"I just want to go home." You said. "Thank you for stepping in. I don't know what would have-" You stopped. Too afraid to think about the possibilities. There was a time you would never believe that Cardan had the ability to hurt you.

There was also a time you believed he would never cheat. You weren't really sure what to believe anymore. "Anyway," you continued. "Thank you again." You turned on your heel before continuing your stride.

You had only made it several feet before you were stopped again. "Which way? One of us can walk you home." You weren't entirely sure. But with a dead cellphone and a unhinged ex probably lurking in the shadows, there was little time to weigh the pros and cons before giving them a general direction of where you lived.

Which just so happened to be the direction in which two of the four lived. The Scot and one of the two who had yet to speak. The first one, who had still yet to introduce himself instructed the two of them to drop you off and let him know you had made it home alright.

You had hoped that the rest of your night would be met with silence, but the Scot couldn't seem to help himself. "I'm Johnny." He introduced. "And the spooky, silent type is Simon." He gave a playful wink. You gave him your name, not wanting to be rude.

"Not my place to ask," he began. "But what was the deal with that fucker? Ex-boyfriend?"

"Johnny." Simon's tone held warning. You appreciated the defense, but frankly didn't care. These were strangers. Who cared what they thought.

"Ex-fiancée," you clarified. "One who decided to fuck another girl in my bed. Not even our bed. My bed."

"Jesus fucking Christ," the Scot swore. "I was right. He was a fucking bawbag." For whatever reason, that made you laugh. For the first time in two weeks you fucking laughed. And it felt like you were breathing again.

Simon was quiet, not contributing to the conversation and just letting Johnny babble. Talking your ear off in a short trek as if it were an olympic sport.

You were so distracted with his voice you hadn't realized how far you had made it until the sound of your keys clattering onto your kitchen counter brought you back.

Back to a situation you didn't know how the fuck you landed in.

Two men (who you don't know) are in your apartment. Your friends don't know where you are. You are a little bit too inebriated to plan and exit strategy. Doesn't exactly help your confidence in fighting them off since they are built like fucking brick houses.

"He won't come sniffin' around here botherin' ya, will he?" Simon asks, speaking for only the second time since he had threatened Cardan. You shake your head.

"No," you said. "I have him blocked on everything. So I think when he saw me tonight it was just kind of an opportunity, I suppose?" You offer. Cardan had showed up to your place one time with a random assortment of flowers and a useless apology you had to hear through the door as you covered your mouth. Concealing your cries. Too afraid to let him know you were there.

Too afraid that some part of you would be weak enough to take him back.

"We'll leave ye' be." Johnny said, nodding his head toward the door. "But if he comes bein' a shite to ye again, you can give us a call."

"Phones dead." You explain, holding up your phone as if you needed to prove yourself. Johnny offered the brilliant, yet simple solution of giving him your number. He sent off a text, knowing it would be there when you turned back on and promising to check in later.

They both gave subtle nods of goodbye before turning away.

And just like that, they left. The door clicking softly shut behind them. You stood, frozen for several beats before walking over and locking the door.

You plugged your phone into the charging cable, waiting until it lit back to life before shooting off a text in your group chat with Tab and Mere.

Sorry I took off. Ran into Cardan and fucking made a dash for it. Sorry if I worried you. I'm at home. I'm okay. Grab lunch tomorrow and we can talk about it? My treat?

You signed off the text with a heart emoji and turned your phone on do not disturb. Too afraid of your friends going all Mama Bear on you for running away while drunk. Even if your reasons were valid.

You had texted Johnny again. Not because Cardan dared to bother you again, but to thank him. Acknowledging that not many men would have done for you what he and his friend did. Johnny assured you it wasn't anything.

Before you knew it, the two of you were hanging out with Simon always tagging along. It took you a while to realize he did actually like you, but his stoic nature was just who he was. You had met Kyle and John, both as charming and respectful as Johnny and Simon.

John had been the first two mention wanting to take you on a date. It didn't go well with the other three. They all had the same intention and a rock, paper, scissors tournament seemed to juvenile to figure out who got the privilege in courting you. Eventually, they had decided to ask you.

Putting you on the spot to answer the question that had begun to tear them apart: which one of them will it be?

Johnny made you laugh. He was the first person you thought about calling when your day was a bit grey. He saw the positive in everything and was the one who made you feel like even the bad days weren't so terrible.

Then there was Simon. The one who you felt like was your safe place in body and mind. You would babble all day talking to him, thankful when he would let you rant. Your mind was able to go on auto-pilot in terms of safety because you knew Simon would handle it. He also gave the best hugs.

John was the one who instilled the confidence in you that you needed. Your bookstore, your writing, whatever aspirations you had, no matter how wild, John would support it. Nothing was too big. After you all started dating, he was the first person you ever let read your book. He gave you praise as well as critique, pointing out multiple plot holes and helping you craft it better. And never once taking credit for it, even when it was due.

Kyle was the most thoughtful one. He was the one who knew you liked trying knew things so he made an effort to always make date nights interesting. A new restaurant, a new activity or experience. He was the biggest giver of the group.

So when they did ask you, you answered honestly.

"I can't choose." They insisted that you didn't need to spare their feelings, but you stood firm in your decision. "No. I can't choose. I'm interested in all of you." When they pressed on why the fuck you didn't say anything earlier, you told them to avoid this kind of situation. Where you had to choose. You were fine continuing on as just friends if that meant you got to keep all of them.

Mere and Tabs were great friends, but they are the ones who helped pull you out of the slump. The ones who made you feel lovable. The ones who made you feel like a woman again.

"Helloooooo." Mere's hand waved in your face while another held something she had found in your closet. "So are you going to change or not?" Your eyes darted to the skimpy glittery black dress. The same one for your first date with them. Your stomach twisted as you took the sparkly dark fabric in your hand.

You nodded as if trying to shake the memory out of your mind. "I'll change and we can go." Better just to get it over with.

The place that Mere had dragged you to was a club that played music that you would only listen to while encapsulated in the aroma of cheap liquor and sweat. Your outfit form-fitting. The material too stiff to be comfortable, but it was cute. The hem of your dress coming to rest just below your ass cheeks. Hugging your body in a way that made you feel self conscious the moment you stepped out of your building.

Mere had run into some work colleagues. Names you couldn't and wouldn't remember. There had been a high profile divorce going on. Very messy. She had been so encapsulated by the gossip that she hadn't notice you and Tabitha had slipped off toward the bar.

Tabitha insisted on shots and you needed something to get your mind off the less than exciting night. Your expectations weren't high, but fuck. You would have been much more comfortable wearing the jeans. You felt like a piece of fucking meat. It would have been so bad if someone were gonna buy you a dr-

"This seat taken?" It was a cliche introduction attached to a slightly better than average face. Decent enough where it didn't hurt to look at him, but not attractive enough to be a seat.

"By all means," you said turning back to Tabitha who looked at the guy now sitting to your left and raising her eyebrows. Fucking hell. Not her too.

"It's pretty packed tonight." He commented, attempted to make small talk. You hated small talk. At least unless it came to Johnny who would get into discussion on politics, religion and why on the side was the best way to fuck because it gave him 'a perfect view of the front and back of ye.'

"You come here often?" You asked, not wanting to be a total bitch, but having absolutely zero desire to be entertaining him.

"When I can." He said. "I prefer the Artifact a couple of blocks down. Not many people heard of it. A bit of a hole-in-the-wall place." Oh cool. A fucking hipster who liked to act superior at knowing a place that is underground. You could feel any possibility of getting your pussy wet, dry at the thought of this man actually wanting to come onto you.

Jesus, when did you become so harsh.

I blame Simon.

"Oh," you say, no longer interested in entertaining the conversation. "Sounds lovely. My friend and I just came out for a bit of girl-" you turn to look at Tabitha who had somehow miraculously disappeared in the 45 fucking seconds that your back was turned....

Little bitch.

"Bathroom, I suppose." He laughed. It was the sincerity in his voice that irked you. God, why was he pissing you off just trying to start a conversation?

"I suppose." You gave a soft smile back, turning once the bartender had come over to grab your order. Which the stranger next to you had insisted buying. Nothing quite as arousing as obligated conversation.

"There's no need for that-"

"Percival." He introduced. "But my friends call me Percy." Your immediate thought was who the fuck names there kid Percival. The second was to offer him a fake name. Real enough to be believable, but fake enough where if he tried to search you up on any social media, you could just deny having any.

"I hate to be brash," he started. Then don't. "But I can't imagine a girl like you being single."

"Not really looking for anything romantic at the moment." You say, the first time you've been truthful this entire conversation. Percival leaned in closer, before asking in a low voice that he was doubt trying to convey as sexy, "Are you sure?"

And there it was. The final ick that nailed the coffin shut.

You offered in a soft smile before swallowing hard. "Percival,"

"My friends call me-"

"I'm going to be frank." Your voice is soft, as if explaining to a small child why we don't always get the things we want. "I just got of a very long and deep and meaningful relationship and the idea of being near another man in any intimate or emotional capacity wants me to cause very serious bodily harm to said man."

His expression fell.

"I appreciate your confidence in coming over here and making small talk, but if you're wanting to fuck me or even attempt to be friends, I must inform you that is no only not in the cards, but not in your best interest." You turned, downing the rest of your cocktail.

"Time for a trip to the bathroom myself, I suppose." You stood from your seat, having to readjust your dress.. "Have a good night."

You were washing your hands when a red-faced Mere walked into the bathroom. Tabitha on her heels with a concerned expression.

"What did you do?" Mere asked.

"What are you talking about?" You asked. You had half a mind to ask them why the fuck they pulled a disappearing act after insisting you go out.

"You told Percy you would castrate him?" You looked as if you had been slapped. The pieces falling into place to reveal a totally fucked up puzzle.

"You fucking tried to set me up." You seethed, a finger pointing accusingly.

"Well, fuck, what did you expect me to do?" She asked. "You were sulking."

"Listen to me!" You cried. "I want you to listen to me. I was with them for two years. It hasn't even been two weeks and you're going behind my fucking back and trying to set me up with fucking Percival? How the fuck do you even know him? Do you even know him?" She ignored your last question. How convenient.

"I thought it would be good to get it out of your system." She tried to defend, her pissyness now matching yours. "You always do this. I was just trying to help."

"What do you mean 'I always do this'?" Your eyes turned into slits.

"Why don't we just calm down and-" Tabitha tried to stop the escalation. Mere, very obviously, ignored that cue.

"You get so hung up on a guy, or in this case guys, it takes you fucking weeks to recover." You stare at her. Unsure if she was really comprehending the bullshit that had come out of her mouth.

"I'm certain you aren't trying to make me feel bad for grieving a relationship that I was in for over three years to a man I was engaged to. To find him fucking in my apartment, in my bed the same week I was going to get my wedding dress."

"It's not just Cardan," she went on. "Issac in our second year of school?" You gave a humorless chuckle.

"Oh yes," you said condescendingly, "the boy I had dated from 14-years old- until I was 19. The boy I gave my virginity two months before he told me he was not only not interested in me, but women in general." As if that somehow lessened the blow. "Absolutely shouldn't have bothered me a bit."

"You only went out for classes and food for two months!" She said as if you had hit a pedestrian with your car. As if you were a fool for being so distracted by a breakup you couldn't be bothered to carry on with life as normal.

"I'm sorry that I actually take the time to grieve my relationships." You said. "I forgot that it may be hard for either of you to comprehend what a relationship is like considering the only relationship either of you have is with your work or with each of us."

"Hey!" Tabitha said. "I understand your pissed, but there isn't need to attack us like this."

"Attack you?" You asked. "Attack you? This isn't me attacking you. This is me responding to an uncomfortable situation that you put me in. I told you I didn't want to even think about me. I didn't want to fuck someone else and you go and do this?"

"He seems like a decent guy." You roll your eyes.

"Probably why he's not your type, right?" Mere crossed her arms over chest. Eyebrow arched as if she were hoping the words enticed you to realize that you had a history of going after the wrong guys.

Unfortunately, it did not.

You sucked on your teeth, carefully choosing your words before World War III broke out in a nearly vacant bathroom in South London. You took a deep breath. Calming yourself as best as you could.

Before saying fuck it and letting it loose.

"Just because your idea of coping is getting drunk and fucking someone you plan on never speaking to again, quite literally discarding them like trash, doesn't mean the rest of us cope the same way." You hoped it hurt. You hope it stung the same way she had tried to sting you.

You had hoped that your word would be the final blow before both sides called a treaty.

"You mean like they did you?"

And just like that, you heart stuttered. A rapid dum dum dum in your chest as it had been tripped up by her words. The truth in them heavy. The shift in the air was almost immediate;.

"Sweetheart-" Tabitha had tried to reach out before you jerked away.

"Enjoy your night." You said, grabbing your purse where you had left it by the sink. "I'm going to go home and wallow in my self pity." You exited the bathroom, hearing your named called again before shifting it into gear and getting the fuck out of there.

Weaving through the sea of bodies like water flowing around rocks.

Who the fuck cares if you want to cry? To grieve? To be angry? To get closure? To move on? Who cares if you don't want to be the girl who gets her heart shattered and not fuck somone else? Who wants to feel the comfort of a familiar body, a touch that feels safe one last time before you go back into a world where you will only be touched by a stranger?

It didn't matter that you were the one to breakup with them, even if the relationship was broken. It's foundation cracked.

What did matter is that the people who should have supported you and in the way you were dealing with your loss in your own way, didn't. And that's the part that they seem to forget. It is a loss. It's mourning someone who hasn't died. Someone who is still living, yet still no longer there.

"Off already?" Percy cut in the way, blocking your escape. You weren't in the mood.

"Listen-" you started before he cut you off.

"Not anything romantic, I know," he raised his hands as if in defense, "but maybe like another drink or a dance?"

You closed your eyes, wanting to hold off starting a scene and tearing him a new asshole. "Like I said, not. interested." How much clearer could you spell it out?

"Come on." He said, his hand coming to rest on your hip. The grip on it weak. You were by no means the type of woman that could take on a man like the ones you still held in a chamber of your heart. But you could most certainly handle your own against Percival. "I'm asking for a dance. After what Meredith told me, I figured you'd be down for at a little more than that."

"I don't follow." Your blood ran cold. Your heart praying that any assumptions that were running through your mind were wrong, they were wrong.

"She mentioned you having a group of like guys you fucked, but stopped fucking." He shrugged, offering a coy smile that you ached to wipe off with the back of your hand. "I don't judge. It's kind of hot honest. Did they run train or-" You felt it then. His hand had traveled from your hip to the curve of your ass.

And you froze. You froze like a coward. Too afraid to speak or scream. Too ashamed to push him away, cause a scene.

But you didn't need to do any of that.

In an instant, Percy's hand was off of you. It took you a moment to realize that a figure dressed in black stood beside you. Your own personal grim reaper.

"Put him go!" You pleaded, breaking out of your trance. You took hold of his arm putting all of your body weight on his arm, trying to break his hold. He didn't falter.

You could handle you own against Percy.

But Simon could fucking kill him without breaking a sweat.

You looked at Simon's face. His eyes were darkened. The soft brown you had once loved staring into were now almost black. You could even make out the dark circles, even in the unsettling flickering of strobe lights in the club.

"You touch her again and I'll slit your fucking throat. Understood?" Pure venom fell from Simon's lips, but you knew he wasn't lying. Simon was the type of man who didn't say something he didn't mean.

You knew that all too well.

Percy choked out an ineligible, gurgled response as Simon's hand held firm on his throat. "He understands, goddammit, no let him down!" You ordered hitting at him as if it would stop him. "Simon, please!"

It was only when you said his name, did Simon loosen his grip. Letting Percy drop to a heap on the floor before he started a having a coughing fit, trying to suck in as much air as he could.

Simon looked down at you and the exit before scooping you up and hauling you over his shoulder like a sack of flower.

You wanted to die. You wanted to crawl in a hole and die and never show your face again.

"Get in the car." He at least had the decency to open the door for you. Simon wasn't a flashy man, by any means, but he was still a man. A men did love their cars.

He stood, waiting for you but you didn't move. You glared up at him. He had carried you out of there in the most humiliating way possible. You had to fight against the hemline of your dress or else everyone would have gotten an eyeful.

Hand still on the door, he leaned down, getting closer and closer to your height. "You get your ass in this car right now," his breath warm against your ear. "Or I'll have you over my fuckin' knee." His tone was sharp. It wasn't seduction in form of a threat. It wasn't even a threat.

It was a promise.

"We're over." You reminded.

"Do you think that'll fuckin' stop me from spankin' some sense into your bratty ass?"

"It doesn't give you the right to fucking do that to people, Simon!" You huffed. "You could have killed in."

"Could have," he agreed. "But didn't. You're welcome." he nodded toward the car. "Now, in you go or I'll do it here. You already know I don't mind an audience."

The heated seats were a bit to warm for your liking against your bare ass. The tension in the air was uncomfortable. Your hands ached to touch the radio. Anything to stop the silence between the two of you.

"I got home fine the other night by the way." You said, looking out the window, hoping to make him feel like shit for not checking in like he should have.

"I know you did."

"What do you mean you know I did?" You asked, turning to look at him. He shrugged as if it wasn't anything out of the ordinary, not stopping.

"Just did." Was his only answer.

"Are you fucking stalking me, Riley?" That made him laugh. You would have felt better if there was at least a sense of humor in it, but, instead, only disbelief.

"Oh, Riley now, is it?" He asked.

"You're not my body guard, Simon." You snapped.

"Not trying to be," he said. "I was never trying to be." You caught it. A very small slip, but it was something... something you couldn't place.

"Then why?" You ask, your tone softening. "For someone who makes it very apparent to be done with me, you sure do show up at convenient times. Hard not to think your keeping tabs on me."

He didn't say anything. No explanation or excuse. Not evena smart ass comeback or remark.

His hands reached forward and turned on the radio, turning the volume just loud enough that if you were to try and continue the conversation, your words would be drowned out.

He pulled up in front of your building, yet you made no move to get out. You turned off the radio, soaking in the silence once more. You wanted to know why? Why was he appearing out of nowhere like a fucking ghost? Why was he helping you?

He sighed before putting the car in park and stepping out. Coming around to your side he opened the door. "Get inside. Go to bed." There he was again. Fucking bossing you around as if he still had a say.

You wanted to cuss him out. To spew hateful words just as he did you.

But you didn't.

You were tired.

So fucking tired. And the idea of going to bed did sound pretty good in that moment. You made it to the door of your building before he spoke again. "And if you need to out at this time at night call a goddamn cab."

"Why?" You asked, turning around. "Getting tired of having to follow me around on foot, Si?"

There was a pregnant pause. Neither of you speaking. His body shifted forward, as if contemplating getting closer to you. As if the pull you once had was still there.

With his eyes trained on you, you felt a chill run down your spine. Twice you had seen that look on Simon's face before. The look that he had given the figures concealed in the shadows last night. The same look he had given Percy.

Only this time, it was directed at you.

One that personified the saying, 'if looks could kill.'

"Because," he growled out, "the next time I find someone else touching you that way, I'll fucking kill them."

[sanarsi]

Man’s Love

no-outbreak!Joel Miller x f!Reader

Summary: Joel is your neighbor who doesn't hide his feelings for you and won't give up on winning your heart despite your rejections. Warnings: +18, MDNI, age gap (reader is 34, Joel is 40), smutttt with soft!dom!Joel (exactly how you like him), friends(?) to lovers trope, fingering, unprotected PIV Wordcount: 3,5k An: So again… I’m just a slut, you’re just a slut, we’re happy about it, enjoy bestie xx Music I worked with: OMG What’s Happening - Ava Max

Masterlist

You were happy.

You were fulfilled.

You lacked nothing.

A small house by the ocean, a stable job, friends.

But your neighbor thought differently.

Joel Miller would randomly run into you on his way home from the store at least once a week. Too bad the store was in a completely different direction. And at least once a week he invited you out for dinner, a glass of wine, a walk, and a million other things.

His intentions were clear. He never hid how much he liked you when he moved here. Oh man, he was crazy about you.

On the first day he came with a bottle of the best wine to get to know you. He was handsome, charming, funny and talkative. He definitely didn't miss anything. He even managed to steal one kiss from you. But he wanted something more. He wanted something permanent.

And you? You didn't need problems.

You thought you were too old for puppy love. Your previous relationships always gave you headaches. So why should it be any different with him?

That's why you refused him every time. Every time you told him that nothing would come of it. That you weren't what he was looking for.

But it didn't discourage him even for a moment.

Every few days you would find fresh flowers under your window, a basket of fruit that grew in his garden or colorful seashells. Every time you accepted his gifts with amusement.

Oh, he fucking fell for you. He was in love like a teenager. Even when you pushed him away he couldn't stop smiling. You looked beautiful when you tried to be mad at him because he came to you like a loyal dog again. But you couldn't and always ended up laughing, amused by his stubbornness.

He loved coming to your house and sitting on the wall watching you do ordinary things. How you hang laundry, how you care for your flowers, even how you read a stupid newspaper while ignoring him.

Despite his advances, your relationship was friendly. You sometimes went shopping together in the city. Joel sometimes fixed something in your house. You sometimes brought him sweet baked goods. You met at parties you organized for friends.

Yeah… Joel was a friend.

Even when he visited you just to convince you to like him more than just a friend. Like today. On Valentine's Day.

He stood before you with a bouquet of red lilies, a bottle of wine, and a small gift bag. He smiled broadly when he saw your surprise when you opened the door. Frowning, you looked at him carefully, scanning every inch of his body.

"Joel..." you started, sighing from exhaustion.

"Before you start saying you don't need a relationship," he interrupted you, holding up a dark bottle. "I brought your favorite wine," he said, smiling like an idiot. You blinked a few times, looking from him to the bottle of wine. He was so proud of himself that you couldn't help but roll your eyes and smile a little. "Come on, sweet girl. You can't say no to me," he encouraged you, and you just burst out laughing, shaking your head in amusement.

"Fine," you nodded and stepped aside. His smile only widened as he approached, pressing a bouquet of fragrant flowers into your hands and pressing a firm kiss to your cheek. With a quiet laugh, you closed the door behind him and followed him deeper into the house.

Joel felt at home here. He immediately started bustling around the kitchen, preparing everything he thought was necessary. Humming to himself the song that was playing quietly on the radio, he pulled out two glasses and began preparing snacks from what he found in the fridge. You put the bouquet in a vase and silently admired their intensely sweet scent. Joel always knew which flowers to choose to bring a smile to your face.

Or simply anything he did would bring a smile to your face.

Just like that.

You managed to put the vase on the table in the living room when he had already prepared everything on the terrace. You watched with amusement as he walked back and forth almost in a dance step.

He needed so little to be happy.

The sight of you was enough.

You went out onto the terrace and after a moment the music on the radio got louder. You shook your head and sat down at a small table. You grabbed one olive and popped it into your mouth the moment Joel left the house holding two glasses and an open bottle of wine.

"That thing you call a corkscrew should have ended up in the trash a long time ago" he said lightly and put everything on the table. You leaned back comfortably in the chair raising your eyebrows with a smile.

"Just because you don't know how to use it doesn't mean it's broken" you replied watching as he poured the golden alcohol into half of each glass.

"If you can use it then you're a witch" he said glancing at you before he put the bottle down and handed you one glass.

"You only noticed now?" you laughed under your breath. Joel plopped down in the chair across the table with a sigh. You took a sip of wine, looking out at the waves crashing against the stones.

“Yeah, that would explain why I am crazy about you,” he said, sipping his wine slowly. You raised an eyebrow at him in amusement. “You know, all those love spells and stuff,” he shrugged. You reached across the table and smacked his arm. Joel laughed under his breath, moving out of your reach.

“Idiot,” you muttered under your breath. You took a sip of wine and he bent down, reaching under the chair. You looked at him as he held out a small gift bag to you. You set your glass on the table and glanced suspiciously at the gift and back at him.

“Joel-“

“Yeah, I know. Just open it,” he interrupted you and nodded encouragingly at the bag.

You took the gift, still not convinced by the whole idea. You took out a small decorative box and your gaze immediately fell on Joel. He nodded again encouragingly and took a sip of wine, watching with a small smile. You rolled your eyes and continued until the glint of a thin bracelet made you stop. You stared at the thin chain with a pendant in the shape of your favorite flower. You felt a lump in your stomach as you tried to swallow. It was beautiful. Perfect for you.

You glanced at Joel who was watching you carefully as you took the bracelet out of the box. You looked at it closely, wondering how much money he had to spend on it. Fuckin’ idiot.

"Joel, I can't-"

"Yeah, I know. Let me put it on you," he interrupted you, already kneeling next to you. He took the jewelry from you and gently fastened it on your wrist. His warm touch sent a wave of shivers through your body. He grabbed your hand and looked at how the ornament looked on you before leaning down, placing a soft kiss on the back of your hand. “It’s bad luck to return gifts,” he said with a wink before returning to his seat. You looked at him, unable to say anything.

You looked at your wrist again with the new trinket and wanted to start cursing him for it. Why did he give you such gifts if you kept rejecting him? He didn't gain anything from it.

But you had to admit that you felt warmth in your heart.

A warmth you didn't want to feel.

You defended yourself from him as much as you could and yet somehow he broke through the walls around you. He made you feel like you were the center of his universe. You felt desired by someone. And you were just a human being with human needs and desires.

Fuckin’ Joel Miller.

"Do you like it?" he asked, breaking the silence that had been prolonged by your thoughts.

You smiled fondly and nodded. You finally looked at him. "Yes. Very much" you said which made butterflies flutter in his stomach.

He felt like a stupid teenager around you. And he wasn't going to let that feeling get lost because of your stubbornness.

Because Joel had already learned everything about you. And he knew that the only reason you refused him was fear. Fear that you would give him your time and end up with nothing.

The best way to avoid a broken heart?

Don't let anyone in.

But unfortunately you came across the most stubborn man in the world.

And it was with this stubborn man that you spent half the night, laughing, drinking another bottle of wine and talking about stupid things. It was with this stubborn man that you danced at sunset to radio songs. It was with this stubborn man that you felt like you were seventeen again.

Standing in his arms you let him lead the slow dance. His wide smile making you smile as he told you yet another stupid story.

"Yeah and then she looked at me like I was an idiot" he said and you threw your head back and started laughing. He loved watching you laugh. You looked so radiant then. His arm tightened around your waist.

"I'm not surprised" you said looking at him again. His gaze was so damn warm when he looked at you.

With love.

With love which you forbade him.

He stared at you like you were a work of art.

And only after a while you notice that you were just standing in the middle of the terrace. His arms wrapped around you and the calm music in the background. You gently tightened your fingers on his arm, feeling that he was walking on thin ice.

“Joel-“

"Have I told you how beautiful you look when you're happy?" he interrupted you. You blinked with your lips parted. But the damn wine made you snort under your breath.

"Yeah, three times this week," you said, amused.

"I like it when you're happy with me," he admitted, looking at you with a tender smile.

"You keep making me happy, so there's no other option," you laughed sweetly, and only when you noticed his gaze did you understand what came out of your mouth. You froze with your lips parted.

"I make you happy?" he raised an eyebrow, teasing you. He loved catching you by your words. In moments like these, he often got things he wanted out of you.

"Did you get me drunk on purpose?" you asked, frowning.

"Are you?" he asked with a smirk. You rolled your eyes with a wide smile.

"No, but that's not-"

"And you're still happy?" he interrupted you. You looked at him and your smile dimmed a bit. He was serious. And he was looking at you seriously. He waited for your answer. He waited for you to understand.

“Joel, we’ve talked about this so many times. Please.”

“Please for what? To stop making you happy?”

He hit the nail on the head.

You fell silent, realizing how hopeless this all seemed.

That you were the problem.

Not him. Not that he was pushing. Not that he was a pain in the ass.

You.

His hand found its way to your cheek, gently stroking your skin. You looked at him with those big, shiny eyes like a startled deer, and he couldn't help but want to finally cross the line.

"Baby, please," he said softly, sliding his fingers down your jaw to your chin. "I just need one chance." He stroked your chin with his thumb, leaning in a little closer. Your heart was pounding in your chest. "I won't ask for more." He ran his thumb over your bottom lip. Your hot breath bounced off his skin. "One chance," he whispered, nuzzling your nose. You could barely breathe as you watched him intently from so close. "I promise." His lips brushed against yours with every word and then you were gone.

Your eyelids fell and your body stopped resisting his closeness. And he felt it immediately. His lips were on yours in less than a second. He started slowly and gently not wanting to scare you away. His arms held tightly to him not allowing any space between you. But when your hands wrapped around his neck, he allowed his tongue to sneak into your mouth.

You didn't push him away.

So he started kissing you harder.

You gasped into his mouth as his tongue began to dominate yours. He kissed like he was hungry.

And he was.

He was hungry for you like a mad man.

You didn't even notice when he pressed you against the wall, his hands gripping your hips. You moaned into his mouth, tangling your fingers in his hair. You clenched your fingers around them, trying to return his intense kisses. But you failed.

So his lips moved to your neck. You threw your head back, panting heavily as his tongue left wet marks on your skin and his teeth, bites. His whole body pressed you against the cold wall as his hands began to slide down your thighs, squeezing every inch of your soft skin. He groaned thirstily into your neck as his hands began to roll up your dress so he could get to your underwear. You did nothing to stop it.

His lips collided with yours again, making you moan. His tongue immediately found yours, just like his fingers the elastic of your panties. And he couldn't wait when he finally had you so close.

His hand dove into your panties and his fingers immediately found your wet slit. You both moaned at the same time before his mouth attacked yours again. You dug your nails into the back of his neck as his fingers began to spread the wetness along the length of your pussy. Your knees trembled beneath you as he teased your clit with every movement.

You panted, trying to kiss him back, and you clung to him tighter as his fingers entered you. He rested his forehead against yours, letting you breathe. He watched you as you both panted against each other's mouths as he fucked you with his fingers.

"You're fucking beautiful," he breathed heavily. You looked up from his lips to his eyes, moaning louder as he curled his fingers inside you.

It had been so long since anyone had touched you that it didn't take much to feel your orgasm approaching. You tightened around his fingers and gripped his neck tighter. His lips began to place slow, wet kisses on yours. His cock was already painfully hard when he had you in front of him like this. Your moans sounded even better than in his dreams.

“Joel…”

Oh and his name on your lips made him shiver in his pants. Your fucking voice alone brought him pleasure. He was like a horny teenager who finally got into someone’s panties. But the difference was that now he knew how to take care of a woman.

That's why when you came on his fingers he felt so damn proud. He kissed every moan that escaped your lips before he pulled his fingers out of you, letting your orgasm begin to soak through your panties.

You were already drunk from his touch when he attacked your lips, starting to drag you into the house. You submitted to everything he did, moaning every time you hit each wall, too absorbed in each other. Joel managed to get rid of his shirt before he started unbuttoning your dress. You hungrily responded to his every kiss as your fingers worked to fasten his pants. Finally your dress fell to the floor.

Joel pressed you against the wall and his hands immediately began to explore your bare skin. He embraced your waist with one hand and his other hand found its way to your breast. You moaned into his mouth when he gently squeezed his fingers and his thumb ran over your nipple which immediately hardened under his touch.

You finally managed to unbutton his pants and you were about to plunge your hand into them but then Joel pushed you back and you landed on the soft mattress. You supported yourself on your elbows, panting heavily as he took off his pants and boxers in one move. You slid down his body thirstily.

You fell back onto the bed with a smile and slid your panties off and threw them at him. Joel laughed under his breath as they bounced off his chest and fell to the ground. You bit your lip in excitement as his body finally walled up above yours.

He hummed in satisfaction at the smile you were trying to hold back. He leaned down connecting your lips in a sweet kiss. You placed your hands on his cheeks holding him close to you. And you had to admit that it felt so damn good.

You felt his tip slide through your wet slit, making you gasp. And when he slowly entered you, you both broke the kiss, moaning into each other's mouths. Joel rested his forehead against yours, panting heavily as he buried his entire cock inside you. It took him a few seconds to wrap his head around the fact that he was finally inside you before he started moving his hips.

You tangled your fingers in his hair as he began to kiss your neck. His cock slowly rubbed against your sweet spot. He groaned as he thrust into you all the way over and over again. His hands slid down to your waist and hips and he gripped them tightly to hold you in place as he began to thrust into you with more energy.

Harder.

Deeper.

Until your legs began to tremble.

You closed your eyes, arching your back as his cock brought you closer to the edge with each thrust. He straightened up, panting heavily, and looked down at you as you arched in pleasure. He ran his eyes down your naked body, feeling like he'd won the fucking lottery. You looked like all of his fantasies came true.

Probably because you were his only fantasy.

His gaze fell on the spot where his cock disappeared inside you.

Oh fuck.

His hips slowed as he began to enjoy the sight of your wet pussy surrounding him perfectly. He growled throatily, stroking his hand over your thighs.

"You look amazing taking my cock like this," he said, making you moan. Not only was he a good fucker, but he also used dirty words. And who was perfect for who here?

His hands gripped your hips again as he sped up his thrusts into you. The air left your lungs and your ragged moans mixed with his soft growls. You clenched around him, feeling the pleasure too intense. And Joel continued to thrust into you like an animal.

“Oh baby I hope you’re close because I don’t know if I’ll be able to hold back,” he breathed, watching your face bathed in pleasure.

"Yes, yes" you almost squealed feeling like you were fighting for an orgasm with every movement he made. Joel smiled with satisfaction and leaned down to connect your lips. But the kiss quickly turned into an exchange of moans.

You dug your nails into his skin not knowing what to do with your hands as his cock hit the sensitive spot in your pussy every time. Until finally you felt a wave of orgasm take over your body. You moaned loudly clenching on him hard barely allowing him to move inside you.

"Oh fuck baby," he groaned feeling your orgasm perfectly along the entire length of his cock. And he didn't stop thrusting hard into you, prolonging your pleasure and chasing his own.

Your cunt creamed his cock so hard that the wet sounds could be heard in the room every time he entered you. Until he began thrusting slowly but so hard that the bed hit the wall as he came, moaning loudly. He thrust into you a few more times, coming deep inside you.

Your wet foreheads rested against each other as you both panted heavily. Your heart pounded in your chest as you felt your body relax from the weight of your orgasm. Joel leaned down connecting your lips in a soft and slow kiss and you wrapped your arms around him, tangling your fingers in his wet hair.

“One chance,” he whispered against your lips, glancing into your eyes. You fell silent, watching him and pursed your lips as a soft smile spread across yours.

“Okay,” you nodded quietly before his lips crushed yours again.

[iceunhie]

— PUSH AND PULL : honkai star rail.

premise. as someone who's always believed in the term “try and try again,” (peak delusion, you know) rooting yourself in their heart has always been your goal, no matter the cold rejections and curt declines you receive. however, even you have your limits; perhaps this little push and pull you two have going isn't worth your time after all... but what happens then, if the chaser becomes the chased? (oh, how the turns have tabled.)

...or, when you play hard to get with them.

— ft. sunday, aventurine, jing yuan.

warnings: angst n fluff, messy messy, these boys are in love but are wayyy too chicken to admit they actually adore you, genderless reader.

a/n. inspired by @/xiaowhore's playing hard to get headcanons! my holy trinity 😇 n MY FAVES RAHHH

NEXT : BACK TO MASTERLIST || ASKBOX

SUNDAY is perplexed. very much aware of his qualities which enlists him as one of the finer (finest) bachelors of Penacony (he was the Robin's one and only blood, and was also the head of one of the main guiding forces of the Family, after all), sunday isn't sure he's ever come across someone as.... tenacious as you.

foolish, to be more precise, for he cannot for the life of him comprehend exactly why you are the way you are with... him.

no matter his respectful declines of your invitations to promenade around Penacony (re: going on dates), you really didn't know how to leave him be. though he hasn't exactly said he hated it, sunday was, admittedly, rather... affronted. your gifts, in particular, were your loud declarations of your affection (that make his wings flutter more rapidly than he'd like); but sunday was rather inconvenienced at the whole thing.

nonetheless, he does still accept them. reluctantly, mind you. not because he was fond of your constant shower of affections, which seemed so permanent that he began to look forward to them got used to it. to your credit, your gifts were very much to his tastes. (Robin once gave him a rather soul-searching look when he found himself wearing the gloves you gifted, light blue and white in color. he still uses it, just not when his sister is in the vicinity.)

in fact, perhaps he may have gotten too comfortable. little by little, your constant intrusions on his time have thawed a way to his heart; making sunday look forward to your jovial greetings and grandeur elaborations on your day, and such a thing makes him feel scared sunday needed to nip this in the bud, and fast.

so he confronts you, abruptly one day as you give him his newest gift—a jewelry box for his earrings. (surely, the rapid thumping of his heart was due to his irritation at your constant persistence, right?) “i'm afraid this can no longer continue. i am flattered by your... fancy for me, but i do not wish to enter a relationship in the near future.”

the utter silence that follows is torture to him—but he endures. he tries not to look at the momentary flash of hurt on your face. you seemed to quickly recover, though. giving him a simple smile (it didn't reach your eyes. it shocks him how his chest ached at the realization) and shaking your head when he returns the gift to you.

“i understand, mr. sunday.” the formal usage of his name instead of your chipper ‘sunday!’ makes his face twitch. “but please, keep the gift. think of this as my last declaration. it... would do me a great comfort, just this last time, if you accepted it instead.”

(if he had grabbed your hand at that moment as you left for the door, would he regret it?)

when you leave, sunday thought it would put the conflicting feelings in his mind at ease—but it doesn't. a week and two days counting, true to your word, sunday receives no flagrant gifts, nor little messages on his phone that tell him to take care of himself, to eat, and to make sure to remember to check up on Robin.

instead, contrary to the feeling of ease, regret follows him instead.

it's at two weeks and five days counting when sunday could no longer stand the sight of papers that stacked atop his desk and the image of you leaving for the door replaying in his head far too many times for him to count, that he contacts Robin.

and she, once hearing about the situation, gives him a very, very enlightening talk. (of course, not without giving her brother a lecture of the lifetime. part of him felt shame to know that his sister knew of his... turbulent love life, but she was the only one who he could trust, anyway).

“absence makes the heart grow fonder,” she says. “but in your case, brother, your heart has already decided it's course, right?”

sunday eyes the smooth velvet of the jewelry box you gifted, ruminating. his earrings lie there, carefully pristine and beautiful, gold and silver intertwined. he has worn them without fail, clean and spotless. (of course it was. such a design so intricate was only chosen by you. the thought makes his ears warm).

the next days are agonizing. vigor renewed and epiphanies well-spent, sunday spends the rest of his time after finishing his duties researching and painstakingly finding the best jeweller he can find (even employing the suggestions of a certain gambler, much to his dislike), and spending a god awful amount of time revisiting and rechecking which spots you like, which places you enjoy, to the point it comes up in Penacony's headlines that sunday is interested in someone.

surely, it should've reached your ears by now, yes? sunday panics. your preferences are well-accounted for, and he's sure the Bloodhound family members that report to him have to tell you that the person he had in mind was you. even Robin, who was your closest friend, has probably told you already.

it's embarrassing to admit, but; to hell with it, the day he meets you after three weeks and sees you having a pleasant chat with aventurine, of all people, sunday thinks his heart had shattered into little pieces and stabbed themselves into his body. not so much as sparing him a glance, moreso.

so when, finally at his wits end, sunday chooses to corner you at the dewlight pavilion and spills out how he has royally screwed up in the worst way possible, no one is surprised. at this rate, you would be swept up in the charms of that wretched gambler, and what sunday lacked in, aventurine more than made up for.

“wait, don't go to that gambler just yet.” he's breathless, he's chaotic—and something in his heart squeezes when you finally look at him. “i... i wish to take up your time now, if that's possible.” (he wishes he would take up your time forever, really, but that was still too early).

you eye his getup. all of your gifts, lined on the man you spent so long chasing after—you see the gloves you gifted, the tie with not so much as a single crease, and the earrings that shine more brightly in the light of the pavilion. (it suits him. like you) it was as if sunday had completely surrendered himself to you, had all but decided to proclaim that he was yours, and this was nothing short of a plea for you to hear him.

“please.” he says. almost begs. “i can't bear not seeing you anymore. allow me to correct such a damning mistake.”

and if you were skeptical, the way sunday looks at you would dispel any doubt you could ever have. (his wings, they were fluttering.)

(months later, after a nerve-ending confession, many days of dinners, shared gifts involving matching jewelry and promenading to your wishes, it dawns on sunday he was absolutely dancing to your tune. did he regret it, though?

....no, most certainly not.)

if AVENTURINE were to be honest with himself, he saw you as a useful “friend” rather than a romantic interest. was it bad of him? of a sort. but risk cutting himself open and letting someone he might grow to care for know about all the ugliness that follows his life? no, he's fine as it is, thanks.

the first thing he notices is that you're kind—though he distrusted most of his colleagues and preferred none to get close to him, aventurine, in some morbid moment of curiosity, instead allowed himself to bask in your attention. instead of curtly disparaging you, he flirts back at your compliments (the way your face heated up in return was far too endearing that he can't help but want to kiss you he finds it amusing) and consistently texts you a “did you get home safe” or a “i bought you this because it reminded me of you”; at this point, it was like you two were dating.

was it leading you on? yes, but he supposes it was a win-win; he could send you those tiny bits of validation that was enough for you to stay respectfully at a distance while he probed at your intentions. unlike others who attempt to garner his favor, you're genuine, and you seriously take the time to know him. because you always text back with hearts, always reassure him, tell him to stay safe and wish him luck at every gamble, every high stakes bet he finds himself in. you even complimented his perfume once (and, if he had to be honest, he could not stop thinking about it all day—because that perfume he commissioned exclusively was based off of your own favorite scents and it was extremely embarrassing that he loved hugging you knowing that you loved the way he smelled and that it felt extremely domestic).

(sometimes, he doesn't reply. for months on end. suddenly the golden-haired man you love goes cold and you know then that aventurine ghosts you and then returns when he's in need of a friend—never a lover. it hurts you, but at the very least, you know he cares in his own way.)

and, if aventurine had to be honest, it was killing him from the inside bit by bit. as if to drive the knife deeper, you never danced around what exactly was going on with you two. you never ask why he ghosts you, then sends you a bundle of gifts all of a sudden and then rapidly spends time with you and repeating the cycle. no, you were consistently by his side, so warm and so caring—so unlike him—that aventurine wonders if it's really all right to open his heart to you.

if, by some chance, he actually wanted to be with you, would you treat him even more sweetly than before? aventurine thinks you would—you were beautiful in your entirety, and he was practically undeserving of you. he imagines himself kissing your hand and having you in his arms—and that feels like ice cold water being dumped onto his head, because you could do so much better and yet, why him?

so when aventurine hears about how a certain doctor was visiting you for some unknown reason, his already fragile sense of security in this little will-they, won't they crumbles.

and when he finds out that you were staying over with ratio? something twisted lodges itself in the little brushes of his heart, coiling and coiling—making him feel green. aventurine is aware you and the doctor are good friends, and ratio was the one who even told you to make a move on him! how could he just—suddenly interrupt?!

(was it dramatic? extremely. but knowing his friend and the person he secretly adores might end up together? you can't really blame him.)

he supposes this can be attributed to him. it was an egregious mistake, a blunder aventurine made—he never gave you a clear sight of whether he truly loved you or not and now you're slipping away from him.

so, he does something very unexpected.

at 3:00 AM in the wee early morning hours, aventurine practically barges into one Dr. veritas ratio's home, demanding what the hell was going on between you. and as if he had expected it, his doctor friend merely gives him a shrug in return.

“perhaps they were simply getting fed up by a certain IPC member—who is clearly head over heels in love with them—giving them mixed signals.” ratio's tone is stern, and aventurine definitely knows that the look he gives him is the one he gives only to fools.

you idiot, the doctor seems to say. yeah, yeah, he is; aventurine ignores the clear pinprick at his dignity.

yes, he supposes he is the fool here. “ah.”

“yes, ‘ah,’ indeed. now, let me propose a question.” the purple-haired man says. “will you react in such a way when i tell you that in order for my friend to stop their anguish, i managed to get them to fraternize with one of my colleagues?”

“...what?”

“they will be having a meet-up seven system hours from now.” ratio shrugs. eyes aventurine, who's looking at him like a gaping, stupid fish. “i can only hope that no one would dare to disrupt.”

...it doesn't take him long to be rid of the gambler by then.

(a few hours later, you stop by the Intelligentsia Guild to see one veritas ratio with a smug smile, eyeing the fur coat draped around your shoulders, and the flushed and happy expression written on your face.

“did it work?” he asks.

you laugh, “splendidly.”

indeed, that gambler was a fool, and there's nothing more than dr. ratio loved than to educate such fools to shape.

“that will teach him.”)

as a quote unquote ‘old man’ who knows that he's well up in his years for a relationship, JING YUAN finds you to be quite amusing.

it doesn't take a detailed analysis to know that you were smitten with him, really. you're a complete open book by his standards—if your heated face and slightly airy voice whenever you were even placed in the same vicinity with the Dozing General was anything to come by. while flattering, he also shares the similar mindset of being too old for any love his way—and he could be mara-struck at any given time, and jing yuan does not wish such a life filled with anguish and pain for the one who may steal his heart. but, worry not, brave suitor of the Arbiter General! unlike the other two above, this man has the experience of millenia, and is open-minded and aware that you truly wish to be perceived as a potential lover.

in fact, jing yuan's recent favorite habit is sneaking off the Seat of Divine Foresight purely to freak you out, watching you scramble up your words, seeing the heat crawl up your nape and bloom all across your face. adorable. you certainly knew how to appeal, that's for sure.

(“heh, it seems i've found a new place to stay in so that the Diviner Fu won't grill me alive when she sees me.”

and when he's rewarded with a bashful and speechless look in return, a smile and your, “i'm glad, general.” it surprisingly lightens up his mood by more than he expected.

that, in turn, gives him a frightening 30% energy boost; fu xuan was utterly shocked to see the languid man actually working and looking like he enjoyed it, for once.

“did something good happen today, jing yuan? why so enthusiastic?”

“i just felt like working more than usual, diviner Fu. i seem to have my energy levels at a high.”)

now, jing yuan is considerate and perceptive first and foremost, so there's a high chance that out of all the men here, he is the most open to giving you the chance to pursue him. he does inform you beforehand that he has no plans of accepting your confessions in the future, and that is where the ‘hard to get’ part comes in.

it's like playing a confusing romance visual novel with a fickle love interest—you never really know what you're doing, whether it's something jing yuan would like or not, and you don't know if he even thinks your attempts are moving his heart. (tldr: he friend zones you).

he maintains the same distance no matter his banters with you, no matter how many times you tell him that you'd help yanqing out with sword lessons. it's like he was just... treating you as he would a friend, and that you were basically stuck in the friend-zone forever.

(he keeps it to himself, but something warm stirs in his chest when he sees yanqing sleeping on your shoulder after training practice, with your arm protectively around the boy's side.

your sleeping face didn't make it easy to look away either; it's one of the few moments in which jing yuan shows just the slightest bit of reciprocating your pursuits; he brushes back the stray hairs covering your face, and drapes a blanket over the two of you.

of course, perhaps to tease yanqing, he also takes the calligraphy brush and makes a work out of his face, doodling all over it.

when you wake up, there's a lingering scent of ink and yellowed paper that fills your senses. when you turn to the boy beside you, you almost giggle out loud.)

it's a little disheartening—and while jing yuan did acknowledge that you were slowly, slowly burrowing yourself in his heart, he doesn't act on it fast enough, and instead lets the realization sit in his mind for a while.

it gets to the point where it feels as though he were preparing to distance himself, and even yanqing had asked if he was well. your visits with the Arbiter General also decrease, as he suddenly buried himself in his work even more than before.

he doesn't get to see you all that much afterwards, despite the lingering feeling of missing you filling his heart.

....that's until jing yuan hears word of a recent mara-struck incident involving the Sky-faring Commission; with your name listed among those heavily injured.

when he visits Bailu's clinic after yanqing urges him, jing yuan takes in the sight of you, littered in injuries from head to toe. your life, about to snap. he never even told you that you won; you did manage to steal his heart and for the first time in a long time, jing yuan allows himself to love.

so if, after three weeks later when you're finally healed up and ready to go, jing yuan brings you into his arms and drags you to let him sleep in your lap, you can't really blame him now, can you?

a/n: i love yearner hsr men,,, might do a pt 2 though. thinking of mayb ratio, jiaoqiu and f/heng next time...... sighs dreamily

@ ICEUNHIE: do not repost translate or plagiarize my works.

[wileycap]

Crackfic Idea:

30-year-old Zuko gets randomly flung back in time to his 16-year-old self. For a couple of hours at a time. At the most random times imaginable. Imagine the potential.

Zuko assumes that it's a dream or a vision, but definitely not real. He tries not to freak everybody out too badly, but he's also fully enjoying himself and seeing all of his friends as their young selves.

ZUKO, as he and Aang circle each other at the South Pole: I've spent years preparing for this encounter. Training, meditating. You're just a [Spirit Shwoop Sound] ... baby Aang!

AANG, confused: Well, more like preteen Aang. How do you know my name?

ZUKO, looking around: Wait, where are we?

AANG: Um... this is the-

SOKKA: Don't answer him! He's trying to get information out of you. You can't give away our location!

KATARA: Sokka, he's standing in the middle of our village. I think he knows.

ZUKO: We're here? This is so weird. I was just here for the Annual Penguin Race.

AANG: THERE'S AN ANNUAL PENGUIN RACE?!

ZUKO: Well, yeah, it was your idea... you gave a whole speech about cross-cultural cooperation and friendship, but I know you just wanted to go penguin sledding with a bunch of people...

AANG: Well, I-

SOKKA: Stop giving him more information! He already knows about the penguins!

Everybody else is confused, bewildered and even befuddled except for Iroh, who assumes that it's Spirit Shenanigans™️ and just fully accepts that his nephew likes tea and hugs and Pai Sho sometimes while being his usual shouty surly traumaball self at others.

ZUKO, stepping into the cabin: Hi, Uncle. I brought you some ginseng. How about a game of Pai Sho?

IROH, tearing up a little: I would love that, my nephew.

ZUKO: I wish we could do this more often, but you live so far away...

IROH, mentally calculating that he lives exactly three doors away from Zuko, and nodding sagely: The rat-viper may never climb the mountain that a hog-monkey can, but the monkey does not know what lies underneath it.

ZUKO, sighing sadly: I know, Uncle. I do appreciate my position in life, even if it has disadvantages.

IROH: Hmm. Your move, nephew.

The crew of Zuko's ship is terrified by the fact that whenever it happens, Zuko is somehow even more hyper-competent, seems to be weirdly calm about everything, and most unnervingly of all, he's polite.

SOLDIER: Here is a report on the best teahouses within three days travel of our current location, Sir. And, uh, Commander Zhao sent a messenger hawk.

ZUKO: Excellent. Thank you very much, Sergeant. I think we can ignore whatever Zhao has to say. In reply, I want you to send him a list of the most famous officers in Fire Nation history, and point out that none of them had sideburns. I want to see if he shaves them.

SOLDIER, sweating nervously: O-of course, Sir.

As a matter of fact, the whole fic could just be Zuko trolling Zhao. It would be glorious.

[katszumi]

Studying with bakugo is almost NEVER studying with bakugo. The mf can yell at you to pay attention all he wants but a few seconds of it and you’re already back to yapping about the latest drama. Drawing little doodles on your paper (and a few on his) while you tell him about how kuroiro finally confessed to Komori from class 1b, and although he doesn’t like to admit it he’s paying more attention to your yapping then his studying. (Your the only person who can do that)

i hope i did your ask justice😔 this is the first one i’ve done, but thank you sm for requesting. and gosh, i love silly highschool romance sm REQUEST MORE PLS

sorta linked to this but can def be read as a standalone

“did you hear about kuroiro’s confession today?” you asked. you were laid on bakugou’s room floor, your notebook wide open with a few math equations along with a dozen of doodles.

you just asked him another silly question, one of the countless ones that you’ve already made in a hour.

bakugou already knew that you were a sociable person from the way you find a new person to talk to everyday, but he didn’t expect you to be this talkative.

truth be told, you’ve talked more than you have actually studied. which was the main reason why you had come to his room at nearly eight o’clock at night, close to his bedtime.

he only accepted the late study session was because the other reason for you to come was so he could speak with you privately. this was the best way he could do it secretly without being found out.

bakugou looked up from his textbook, directly at you. “no. not that i even care about that stuff anyway.”

your chin rested in the palm of your hand, silently drumming your fingers against your cheek.

“it’s hilarious though, cmon!” you pleaded with a small smile on your face.

“we’re supposed to be studying, y/n. did you forget that you didn’t exactly ace that test?” he rhetorically asked.

you pursed your lips together in a thin line, looking away from bakugou and back onto your textbook. you were dumb enough to even think you could gossip with bakugou.

he offered to help you study, not to bond more as friends clearly.

you picked up your pencil and began to write the equation that was written in the hardbook next to you.

hearing that there was no response from you, bakugou internally began to slightly panic. it was never like you to just shut up so easily. he couldn’t help but come to the conclusion that he came off too rude.

it’s not that he didn’t want to hear you speak, he just didn’t want to make his crush on you so obvious. he was trying so hard to be his normal self which was much harder towards you than he thought.

bakugou placed his textbook down, leaning back into the palm of his hands behind him. “what did that extra do?”

almost immediately, you released the pencil that was in your hand and made eye contact with the ruby eyed male in front of you. a smile tugged on your lips, one that bakugou couldn’t help but think was so fuckin’ cute.

“he made her a bouquet of mushrooms, because you know, her whole mushroom quirk thing. he tried to give it to her discreetly but someone walked past and made it a whole big deal.” you described. “honestly, i feel bad cause i think they’re both kinda shy. they probably didn’t want that attention.”

bakugou unknowingly listened to every word of yours, feeling himself being drawn into you. what was it about your voice that made it so compelling for him?

if it were anyone else like stupid shitty hair or raccoon eyes, he’d shut it down immediately, not caring about a single word they had to say about it.

but, he found it a little more difficult than usual to refuse when it came to you.

he snickered. “public confession? what a romcom move of him.”

you looked back down, noticing bakugou’s blank paper. out of boredom, you grasped onto his notebook. you started to doodle on the small square in the upper left corner; a couple of hearts, stars, dots to make it less bland.

“i think it was sweet. it’s hard to confess already, but to do it in front of an audience? takes guts honestly.”

bakugou watched you draw on his paper. he felt a little jump in his heart, some part of him liking the fact that you took initiative to add your own touch to something of his.

something so stupid. so small. but he couldn’t help but feel a tad giddy.

bakugou sat upright, gulping nothing but his own saliva. “is that something you would like?”

at first, bakugou curses at himself. why would he ask something like that? something that could definitely give away his small crush on you. but he remained his same stone-cold look.

you looked up at bakugou, noticing his eyes softening slightly before returning to their original position.

you thought about it long before responding. “nah. don’t think that’s something i’d really prefer. i’d like a simple confession with just the two of us.” you described.

it seemed a little weird to you that you were casually speaking of your own relationship preference with bakugou, but you tried your hardest not to think too much about it.

you assumed he was only trying to make small talk.

“good.” again, with bakugou’s one worded response. even though he didn’t add more to his sentence, his eyes lingered with yours. as if he was deciding something or carefully analyzing you. but it was a different look. not a competitive, angry look. but rather a tender look. one you have never seen bakugou wear, ever.

suddenly, he looked away, back onto his textbook. you seemingly didn’t mind considering the small tingle you were receiving in your face.

bakugou looked over his shoulder, begging to anyone even the gods above to remove the deep-set blush that was occurring on his face.

the male cleared his throat. “alright, let’s fuckin’ study. gossipin’ and yappin’ won’t help you get a better damn test score.” he chose the defensive route to move on.

you silently agreed with a nod. but, your mind goes back to the thought that you successfully just gossiped with the katsuki bakugou. the one that’s listed to only care about being the number one hero.

you bit the inside of your cheek to hide a smile as you tapped your pencil against your notebook.

just now, a kaleidoscope of butterflies slipped through the cracks of your stone wall, entering your stomach, and began to harvest a life within that had bakugou’s name branded on it.

[aashi-heartfilia]

The hypocrisy of Jinshi and MaoMao

*light novel spoilers*

I just love how hypocritical MaoMao's nature is. She yells at Jinshi for being a 'Masochist' and yet we see that she's no different. Now, by definition Masochist is a person who drives sexual gratification from their own pain and humiliation, plus it relates to Jinshi's tendency to do self harm (like burning his skin with a brand)

And what is MaoMao's most favourite thing in this world?

POISON

She literally takes pleasure in consuming it and no one can convince me otherwise. Plus she uses dangerous plants and animals and snakes whatnot in the name of her so-called experiments. Her dad may call her a 'mad Scientist' but that is a direct indication of self harm.

And she calls Jinshi a Masochist.

I mean, think about it! The amount of anxiety she gives to Jinshi! She came prepared with a vomit inducing medicine but even she had no idea whether it would work or not. She was just hoping it would work in the salt chapter.

And the same goes for her hand, on which she has conducted countless experiments. One flower even burned her skin and its marks never left her skin. She said it was all for her hobby. What kind of weird hobby is that? Maybe, our little adorable mad scientist is just like that.

One brands his own skin, while the other takes heavenly pleasure in consuming poison.

So my point is, Jinshi and MaoMao are not that different as one might think they are and that's why their dynamic works so well.

Let's look at the excerpts from volume 5:

She didn’t know how long they sat that way. All she knew was that Jinshi was looking down at her with a faintly triumphant expression, as if he saw that the breath had reached every corner of her body now. He wiped away the tears that had sprung to her eyes as she struggled to breathe. It was then that Maomao felt a flash of intense anger. “I said that if you were going to kill me, you should do it with poison,” she told him. “I refuse to let you poison yourself,” Jinshi said, his fingers tracing her lips. “You can’t pretend you didn’t know that you were one of the candidates. As much as I’m sure you’d like to.” He wasn’t done, either: “Who was that man, anyway? I’m sure you’re not a dancer.” So he had been watching them! “I was just paying for my drink,” Maomao said. “It didn’t cost much.” She tried to look away, but with his hand on her head, she really couldn’t.

Jinshi just choked her and yet he refuses to let MaoMao poison herself. A lot of people misinterpret this scene, and don't like it all that much, saying it was just fanservice stuff but this is how I see it: Jinshi wasn't trying to kill MaoMao, he was just trying to make MaoMao submit to him for once (even if the way he did it was very wrong, but guess he's kinky like that). MaoMao is actively trying to harm herself and Jinshi loves MaoMao a lot, he cannot just let her kill herself.

It was more about him trying to exert his dominance in their weirdish - complicated relationship and that also backfires on him as we see in the next volume that MaoMao escapes Jinshi's grasps using Pairin's techniques.

And then they both continue to avoid each other in the entire next volume! Because they both realised that they have crossed boundaries.

They both are hypocrites.

And they both refuse to accept their feelings.

In one of the later volumes, she gives Jinshi a piece of her mind on how he should tell her everything clearly, unequivocally, what he feels, and he literally declares that "he will make her his wife", which is nice and all but look at the wording MaoMao used here....

Excerpts from LN Vol 7, chapter 19 called "A man and a woman play the game"

"You’re forever telling me I need to use my words, Master Jinshi, but are you in any position to criticize? Everything you say to me, everything you do, it’s like it’s calculated to save you from ever having to actually say what you mean! To make me figure it all out! You know, you remind me of someone. You act exactly like a man who used to come by our brothel all the time. He was in love with one of the girls, but he would never just come out and say it. He thought it should be obvious from the way he acted. He was so sure he had a good thing going with this woman that he never sent her so much as a letter. I remember how forlorn he looked when someone else swooped in and snatched her away! He kept coming to the brothel after that—to get drunk and whine to the ladies. Well, in my opinion, he could have avoided all that heartbreak if he’d told the woman how he felt. Clearly, unequivocally, so that she knew where they stood. It was the least he could have done!”

Everything came out in a torrent. She felt like she’d said it all in one breath. It was strange, she thought, to hear so many words come out of her own mouth. She was mystified. Jinshi was no less startled, but the shock soon left his face, replaced by something else. He got up off the bed and stared down at Maomao.

Shit. Now I’ve done it. She’d given him a piece of her mind, and he was about to give her one back.

“So I should be clear, should I? Unequivocal? I should say what I mean? If I did, would you actually listen to me? Is that what you’re telling me? I’m going to hold you to that! Right this minute. I’ll say it all. Don’t plug your ears—listen to me!” He grabbed her hands as she was in the process of trying to put her fingers in her ears. He took a breath. He was looking at Maomao, but somehow he seemed almost embarrassed. Finally he managed, “Now listen to me, y—I mean, Maomao! Listen close! I am going to make you my wife!”

It's one heck of a chapter and I suggest you give it a go! The title of the chapter says "A man and a woman play the game" as if to emphasize the very fact that both Jinshi and MaoMao are playing the game.

Jinshi has never confessed his true feelings before this chapter and only implied that he wanted to make MaoMao his wife.

The implications were heavy though on Jinshi's part, and as smart as MaoMao is, anyone would have guessed that MaoMao was one of the candidates for Jinshi's consort. Even the clothes she received (the ones she wore to the banquet) were also provided by Jinshi along with the hairpin. It is never stated outright but seeing as the hairpin was from Jinshi, the clothes are also implied to be the same.

More or less she's always deliberately ignoring the possibility of having anything to do with him, that is more than professional. Some may call it denial, I call it dense. Maybe, to some extent, she herself is not aware of her feelings because she never lets herself feel anything.

Even Suiren pointed it out pretty early in the manga, that maybe it's MaoMao's way of being reserved. We need to keep in mind that MaoMao is an unreliable narrator and it's more of what she does, rather than what she says that makes a difference.

Even in the chapter that I have quoted above, she had every reason to leave Jinshi, she wasn't working for him after all. But she stayed to make tea for him, even after the fact that she had a long day too. She was almost just as exhausted as Jinshi and yet she was there preparing medicinal tea, so that he could get a better sleep.

Maybe she herself is yet to realise just how deep her feelings run. Till vol 12 she seems to have accepted them, but she still is yet to acknowledge their depth. Maybe it's because of her childhood.

It's not a traumatic backstory but MaoMao had a sad childhood nonetheless....

She was raised by her grand uncle and her real father was eccentric, who scared her. Her mother must also appear to be kind of demonic to her, since she was desperate enough to cut MaoMao's Pinky finger and send it to Lahan. So it's safe to say that MaoMao never received proper parental affection. And adding to the fact that, a brothel is not exactly an ideal place for raising a child.... especially when the birth of MaoMao was the one thing that brought the brothel to its knees...even if being born wasn't her choice.

Plus MaoMao stated it herself that when she was a baby, no one would come to sooth her until their work was finished, implying that even if MaoMao and her brothel sisters are close, they are not that close. A mother's love is different and she never received it. No one can love you more than your mother and MaoMao was deprived of that. She soon realised that no one was coming. Life is hard and she has no choice but to face it!

So, she got interested in poison.

Maybe she doesn't love herself or her life as much as she says / pretends she does. She's always like "yeah, I would very much like my head to be with my body" and "if I stay low profile maybe I can survive here" etc but maybe deep down that's not the case. Maybe that's why she loves poison so much. The implications are crazy.

And to break MaoMao's shell, Jinshi has no choice but to be a bit more forceful at times? At least that's how I interpret that choking scene. Jinshi was angry at MaoMao because she deliberately suggested him to marry consort Rishu and danced with Rikuson.

Even if Jinshi never said it outright, he was giving hints the entire time.

But well the tables turned and MaoMao topped him instead, lol (vol 7) and later we even see that our little stray cat has accepted Jinshi and she's ready to be in a relationship with him (vol 12).

Plus she is intrigued by the process of birth (she wants to eat her baby's placenta, it's kind of uggghhh.... but anyways, that MaoMao we're talking about, she's just weird that way)

Maybe not after too long she'll realise that if she has to give birth, she can only have it with Jinshi and no one else.

~Sunshine