#it's good to let shirayuki suffer a little

[sabraeal]

Friends With Amenities

[Read on AO3]

“I-I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” Shirayuki’s fingers curl against the counter; the only thing keeping her upright as her blood abandons everything below the knee and rushes to her head. “I think there’s been a mistake.”

The concierge points one long nail toward her screen, angled firmly away from the customer side of the counter, eyebrows bumping up against her hairline. “Well, ma’am, it says here that you’re booked for the deluxe king suite, complete with master bath, full kitchenette, and picturesque views of the old quarter.”

“No, I— I’m sure I said two queens.” She’d only made the booking two weeks ago, fingers trembling as she read the number off the department’s travel card, double- and triple-checking that the reservation had been for two adults in two separate beds. “Very sure! I even have the email—”

“Oh yeah, of course.” Nails clatter as the woman waves her hand, unconcerned. Sweat prickles along her spine, and oh, what Shirayuki wouldn’t give to tap into some of the reserve of calm. “But it looks like you were selected for a free upgrade! That means that not only are you welcome to partake in our continental breakfast, but that you also have access to our—”

“But one king is still less than the two beds I asked for.” It’s not as if there’s a problem sharing with Obi— over the past year, she’s probably spent more nights in his bed with him that she’s spent in her own alone the last three— but that’s all…incidental. Something that happens when she agrees to just one more episode, or lets him work on one last slide as she starts in on her bedtime reading. But agreeing to this—

That would be on purpose. A plan to share space. Two bodies beneath the covers touching.

“Can’t you just put me back in my old room?” The bitten ends of her nails carve painful crescents into her palms. “If you upgraded me to a king suite, that means there was a double queen you left empty, doesn’t it?”

The concierge grimaces, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but this conference has got us booked to the gills. If there was a double queen available, it’s been booked out now.”

“But…” Her eyes sting, and ugh— this is a silly thing to to care about. Pedantics, really, when they probably would have ended up curled up on the same bed anyway. But that doesn’t stop the pressure building in her nose, or the hot, helpless tears hanging at the end of her tear ducts. “Why?”

“Ah, I’m not sure of the…er… selection process when it comes to these upgrades, ma’am.” The concierge pointedly looks down at her screen, uselessly wiggling the mouse. “Maybe it was random, or maybe they looked at your reservation and saw something about it that made them think you might have…hm…wanted one bed at a better price point…”

“What would…?” Her teeth snap shut around the question. The double queen was cheaper than a single king; even a couple might look at the price points and decide the extra bed wasn’t a deal breaker. Two people with the same address—

But they didn’t have Obi’s address, or hers. Just the department’s card, and two names, one male, one female.

My point is, you’re in a hotel filled with people who won’t find it intimidating that you can mark a turtle migratory pattern on a map just by looking at its skull. Yuzuri’s shrug is seared onto the back of her eyelids, so casual, like like the logic of work hookups is obvious. What happens at conference stays at conference.

“I’d like to”— speak with your manager perches right at the tip of her tongue, threatening to tip over, to cause a scene, but a deep breath scuttles it before she can founder— “ask if there’s any other rooms available?”

The concierge casts her the sort of side eye Yuzuri could only dream of, but she keys in the request anyway. “The honeymoon suite? That comes with—”

Shirayuki slumps. “I’ll take the deluxe king.”

*

It’s not hard to find Obi— he’s hovering at the edge of the bar, as promised, the entire impossible length of his legs unfurled between seat and floor. There’s the barest hint of tanned skin where his shirt has begun to roll up, and—

And it’s just her luck that Yuzuri’s already there, curled around her drink like her smile’s curls around the straw, watching her watching him.

“There she is!” she calls out, one hand swinging out in invitation. “Suzu’s already searching for swag on the expo floor. I was gonna wait for you, but it looked like things were getting heated down at your end of the counter, so I thought I’d leave you to it.”

There’s an edge of her tongue that could lash out, could cut with a real wry thanks— but it blunts when she considers just what sort of help Yuzuri would have been with one bed on the line.

A dimple furrows itself between Obi’s brow as he sets down his glass, the plastic gator at the bottom bobbling between layers. “Everything all good, Doc? I can go over and cause a problem if you need some—”

There might be no way to guess this cocktail’s composition— some kind of juice, probably, maybe with champagne for bubbles, or vodka for a kick— but whatever it is, it’s certain better than trying to explain all this sober. Shirayuki reaches out with both hands, completely ignoring the suggestion of straw or stirrer, and takes a full gulp.

It’s almost disappointing how little it burns going down. It does taste good though.

Obi lifts a brow. “That bad, huh?”

She takes a breath, running a hand over the back of her mouth before she tells him, “We’ve only got one bed.”

*

“Aw, come on, Doc.” Obi shifts his bag over his shoulder, biceps flexing to redistribute the weight, and haah, it would be nice to get a little warning if he was going to make himself so dangerous to look at. “How bad could it be?”

Her suitcase rolls too close, nipping her heels halfway to the door, but even that can’t keep her from rolling a glare his way. “You know better than to say something like that.”

“I know, I know, but I’m just saying— bed as big as that, we’re practically in different zip codes.” He shrugs, and oh, he might be playing casual, might be pretending that all this hits him like water off a duck’s back, but Shirayuki doesn’t miss the stiffness of those angles, the way tension hampers every twitch. “I could go full starfish and you’d still have to ship international to get to my fingers.”

She snorts. “I think you underestimate just how much limb you have.”

“I think you mean rippling muscle.” He flexes one in demonstration, close enough that she catches the nutmeg and bergamot of his deodorant. “Unending plains of gains. The heartland of hulk. The absolute breadbasket of—”

“I didn’t realize we were talking about Mitsuhide,” she hums, too innocent, swiping her card in front of the door’s scanner.

“Hey—”

The door swings open, and all his planned protests elide into a heartfelt whistle. “Wow, when they say upgrade, they mean upgrade.”

“I guess so…” The double queen had been just a room with beds, two chairs and a table thrown into a corner to give somewhere else to sit— plenty of room for two people who were used to navigating the same space— but this…this is practically an apartment. The stumpy entryway leads right into the living room, small kitchen to the right and bathroom to the left.

Obi saunters past her, dropping his bag on the sectional— a full couch plus chaise— and hooks his hands on his hips. “Damn. This TV is bigger than ours!”

She clucks her tongue on habit, flushing when his grin. “We’re not here to watch TV.”

“Right, we’re here to get some billionaire to sign off on saving turtles,” he says agreeably, even as he flicks it on, scrolling through the guide. “But while we’re not doing that, I bet this thing gets all the channels. I wonder if HBO still plays porn after midnight…”

“We’re here for a conference,” she reminds him, taking the two steps up to a set of folding doors. “And hopefully finding Eisetsu Rugilia among the attendees.”

“Right, but they don’t have lectures and two am, so—”

“Obi.”

He holds up his hands. “You’re right, Doc. Two am is when all these billionaire babies have their parties. I won’t have time for” — he squints at the text stretching across the screen— “Damon’s Seed when I’m already living my own Eyes Wide Shut.”

She stares at him, blank. “You know I don’t get that reference.”

“I know.” One shoulder lifts; the most aggravating of his shrugs. “It’s funnier that way.”

With anyone else she would let it drop— woodland fairy creature she may be, but she didn’t begrudge her childhood a moment of sunshine— but with Obi she huffs, fitting her fists around the door’s knobs, informing him, “One day I’m going to watch all these movies, and then you’ll have to find some other source of entertainment.”

“Believe it when I see it, Doc. Believe it while I see it.”

“You will. After I finish my thesis, I’ll have plenty of time to”— the doors whip open, a more dramatic entry than she planned, and—

And her whole brain narrows onto a single, “Oh.”

“Wow.” Obi’s breath catches far too close to her ear. “Now that’s some bed. I think we might lose you in the pillows.”

Her jaw works, managing a single, “Um.”

“Oh hey!” Obi peers around the jamb. “Look, there’s more room! That’s pretty…”

He slinks past her, all sinew and swagger, and—

And nearly stumbles, all his words peter down to a “Woah.”

*

“A jacuzzi?” Yuzuri groans, head sinking into her hands. “You guys got a jacuzzi?”

“A jacuzzi tub,” Shirayuki corrects numbly, the stem of her Shirley Temple twisting between her fingers. “Not a…a hot tub or anything.”

“Big enough to be one though.” Obi’s hand brushes over his shoulder, contemplative, before settling back on his drink. “Probably could fit the whole lab in there if we didn’t mind getting cozy.”

Izuru tilts her head. “Oh, like…naked?”

As brazen as Obi can be, even he chokes. “The lab tub party would definitely have a bathing suit dress code.”

“Oh.” She sighs, disinterested. “Disappointing.”

“Where’s my free upgrade?” Yuzuri leans back, head tipping over her chair in despair. “I want a jacuzzi.”

“Maybe one of your hookups will have one, if you’re lucky,” Kazaha drawls, flipping through his copy of the conference directory. It’s not quite phone book sized, but it is intimidating, filled cover-to-cover with people not much older than her but far more accomplished. Only a few hours ago, she might have questioned her place here, whether she would ever contribute enough to the field to even get an abstract in the door, but—

But right now she’s still stuck on the full bathroom, visible from the bed. Except, of course, the toilet. That, thankfully, is tucked away in a smaller closet. But still, shower and tub and bed with nothing but a change in flooring to separate them.

Yuzuri can never know. “I don’t want to take a bath in some guy’s tub! Like god, how would that even be relaxing?”

“The sex could be interesting,” Izuru offers. “Just like a hot tub.”

“No, we’ve been over this!” Yuzuri waves a hand, as if that might be enough to shoo the idea away from the table. “You need preparation for water sex. Lube, for one. A plan, for another. Insurance, since at best you’re going to crack your head open, and at worst, you’ll end up at a gynecologist.”

Suzu blink. “Worst?”

“There are things that can happen to a vag that I’d rather be in a coma for.” She gives Shirayuki a pointed— and completely unnecessary— glance. “Trust me.”

Obi simply raises a brow, sipping from his straw. “You didn’t bring lube?”

“That’s not the point.” Yuzuri rolls her eyes, flicking a ribbon of blonde over her shoulder. “If I’m taking a bath, it’s going to be with bubbles and salts and no less than four jets, all alone.”

“But he could wash your hair.” Suzu’s forehead furrows, oddly concerned. “That’s nice isn’t it? I liked it when then did it at the salon…”

“It is nice, Suzu, but it’s also intimate, and if I’m just looking to— ugh.” Her hands fly up in the air. “Never mind. No jacuzzi sex, end of story. Now what are you going to do about the one bed situation?”

“Y-yuzuri!” Shirayuki sputters, hoping her cheeks are only half as red as they feel. “That’s— that’s not important.”

“I think it’s important,” she hums, smirk wrapping around her straw. “Entertaining, at least.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Obi huffs, settling back in his chair. “There’s enough bed for the population of Luxembourg. Me and Doc could both be on that thing and not be within shouting distance.”

Yuzuri swivels in her seat, glaring at Shirayuki across the table. “It’s so unfair you guys got that room and you’re not even going to f—”

Suzu clears his throat. “Not to state the obvious but…doesn’t this room have a couch or something?”

*

“The program says G7,” Shirayuki murmurs, lingering over the letters printed at the head of each aisle. “Which I think should be down over here, if— Obi, are you all right?”

He might have dogged her heels through the doors of the exhibition hall, but Obi’s lagged behind as she navigates through the field of half-empty tables, only a handful of posters properly displayed. He grunts, adjusting the half dozen canisters on his back. “Well, it is kind of a burn to have Suzu have to remind me couches exist. I mean, I would know, wouldn’t I? Done plenty with only two feet of cushion—”

“I meant with the posters,” she sighs, doubling back to lift a few from his shoulders. “I can’t believe they sent us to set up all of them.”

“I can.” Obi smirks, leaning the rest against the table. “It’s our punishment for getting the best room. And for not— how did Yuzuri put it?— using it to its fullest.”

“W-well, you’d think they’d have a little more professional pride in displaying their work.” The caps on the canisters put up a fight— Shidan had said they might after they came off the plane, something about pressurization and vacuums and other physics concepts she only had a casual acquaintance with through undergrad— but Shirayuki’s happy for the excuse to be doing something when she adds, “You can if you want to, you know.”

One of Obi’s posters pops open with all the subtlety of gunshot. “Uh, want to run that by me again, Doc?”

“I just mean if you wanted to brings someone back and…er…take advantage of all the…amenities…?” She strives to be casual, to be cool, like it’s none of her business what he might get up to unattended. Like she hadn’t bitten her nails clear down to quick under the covers when he was out with Haki’s friend, slinking home well after midnight. “Just let me know.”

“Me?” he coughs. “Really? And just what would you do?”

She shrugs her shoulders, striving for the kind of calm Obi exudes on an everyday basis. “I’m sure Yuzuri wouldn’t mind some company.”

One of his eyebrows creeps to a skeptical altitude. “If she isn’t taking advantage of her own amenities.”

“O-oh, well!” She shakes her head, trying to look anywhere but at him. “She won’t take anyone back to her room, so, uh, that might be even better, if you think about it. Someone using it, at least.”

Air hisses out through his teeth with no hint of his usual humor. “Listen, Doc, really, I appreciate the offer, but I’m not really…” He shakes his head, one hand scrubbing at the bristle in back. “I mean, I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I’m not in the market for…”

He hesitates, eyes narrowing. “Ryuu?”

Shirayuki blinks, tracing his gaze under the table, to where Ryuu is curled up, travel pillow under his head. He shrinks further into his pillbug position, managing a bleak, “Hi.”

“Hey there, big guy.” Obi crouches, folding his arms over his knees casually, like people hang out under tables all the time. “Me and Doc were just out here putting up the posters. What’s up with you.”

“Not much.” He shifts, blue eyes searching both their faces before he admits, “They lost my reservation.”

Shirayuki squats down beside him, brow drawn. “Excuse me?”

“They don’t have a record of my transaction in their database,” he murmurs, rubbing his cheek against the soft microfiber of his pillow. “Even the manager tried. But it looks like even th payment didn’t go through. They think it might be because I’m not— well, an adult is supposed to make the reservation, and I was the only one in the room, and with no legal guardian…”

His nose wrinkles, mouth pursing mulishly before he blurts out, “I don’t know what to do.”

“Stay with us.”

It takes a moment for Shirayuki to realize it’s not her voice saying the words, but Obi’s. He glances at her, and anyone else might be looking for permission, but there’s only confidence there, so certain that she was only a slip of the tongue behind him, that they were single in purpose, and—

And it’s stupid it took her until graduation to realize that this is what she’s been wanting.

“Really?” Ryuu perks, head lifting off the pillow.

“Of course.” Shirayuki knows better than to reach out, to try to comfort him through something as offensive as touch, so she just smiles instead, hoping her sincerity shines through. “We’d be happy to have you.”

He glances between the both of them. “You’re— you’re sure it’s okay?”

“Why not?” Obi says, casting her some rueful side eye. “Now that we know we have a couch, we’re made of room.”

Ah, that’s right. The couch. The couch Obi was going to sleep on…

“Guess it’s a good thing that bed could fit a small country,” Obi mutters, getting to his feet— and then freezing. “Can I help you?”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt.” Shirayuki scramble to her feet, but if the voice isn’t familiar, the man who speak with it is even less so. “You’re part of Shidan Weise’s lab, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” She brushes off her skirt, trying to look somewhat presentable. Like a colleague, instead of someone who spends conferences crouching under tables. “We were just setting up for the poster session. Is there something…?”

“Ah, no, no. I’m not here about the posters.” The man smiles, but it never reaches his eyes. “My name is Shuu Grately. I’m here to tender an invitation.”

Obi’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. “Invitation?”

“On behalf of Eisetsu Rugilia.” One corner of his mouth hooks, humorless. “He would like you to come to his dinner tonight.”

[sunglassesd0ggo]

Hi, this is a list of animes I like so you can get to know me even more. (I WILL UPDATE THIS LIST AS I WATCH THE SERIES)

🔴 - Didn't finish and prob won't continue.

🟡 - Didn't finish but prob will continue.

🟢 - Finished!

🤍 - Liked it too much and read the manga.

❤️ - Won my heart forever.

Anime:

Pokémon - 🟢❤️ (First anime ever, didn't even knew it was an anime lol)

Beyblade - 🟢 (I mean why not, I like it haha)

Naruto / Shippuden - 🟢 (When it all started for real, in 2020).

Black Clover - 🔴

Fairy Tail - 🔴

One piece - 🟡

BSD - 🟢🤍 (I really love this, 8/10 bc the manga is better)

JJK - 🟢🤍 (I miss Nanami, Shibuya arc is near, let's suffer again jjk fandom)

TBHK - 🟢🤍 (It was one of my first anime ever, started the manga but stopped)

Tokyo Revengers - 🟢🤍 (Very good, the ending was kinda rushed tho)

Tokyo Ghoul - 🟢

Noragami - 🟢 (Need to start the manga!)

Chainsaw - 🟢🤍 (First anime I've read the manga before the anime)

Owari no Seraph - 🟢🤍 (Def homosexual but ok, need a 3 season)

Tower of God - 🟢🤍

Vinland Saga - 🟡🤍 (Finished S1 before the s2 was there so I started reading the manga, dropped it and didn't watched or read it anymore)

Food wars - 🟢 (Food)

Demon Slayer - 🟡 (I didn't had the time to go past S1 since 2020)

*Updated to 🟢: I finished the anime and I'm gonna read the manga!

Fire force - 🔴

Dororo - 🟢 (Work of art)

TPN - 🟡 (Dropped in the middle of s2)

SAO - 🟢 (I like classics)

Violet Evergarden - 🟡 (I wasn't understanding the story so I need to re-watch it)

BNHA - 🟡

Haikyuu - 🟢❤️ (My family)

TGOH - 🟢🤍

Horimiya - 🟢 (Meh)

Kamisama Hajimemashita - 🟢❤️ (I don't even need to explain)

TSSDK - 🟡

One punch man - 🟡

Assassination Classroom - 🟢 (It gave me depression)

Rokudenashi Majutsu - 🟢

Mahoutsukai no Yome - 🟢❤️ (This kind of women are just✨)

Kuroko no Basket - 🟢

Blue Lock - 🟡🤍 (Started the manga)

Fullmetal - 🟡

Akame Ga kill - 🟢 (I was innocent, I had literally no spoiler, I cried my soul)

Elite classroom - 🟢

Fruits basket - 🟡❤️ (I always stop in S3 so I'm waiting for vacations to finish this masterpiece)

TMDKA - 🟢

Kimi Ni Todoke - 🟢 (Fluffy)

Beastars - 🟡

Ao no Exorcist - 🟢

SK8 - 🟢 (Gay skaters)

Angels of death - 🟢 (Came after Naruto lol)

Inu X Boku - 🟢 (Came after the AOD)

Black butler - 🟢 (Suspicious)

Kaichou was maid-sama - 🟢 (Cute)

Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun - 🟢❤️ (Idk but this anime ost makes me feel sad and nostalgic but happy at the same time)

TYE - 🟡 (I had no courage to get past the 1 EP)

Goblin slayer - 🟡

!WARNING! JUN MAEDA WORKS NEXT💔

Charlotte - 🟢 (Cried)

Angel beats - 🟢 (Cried)

Clannad - 🟢 (Cried)

Ao Haru Ride - 🟢

Akagami no Shirayuki - 🟢❤️ (I love strong women)

Orange - 🟢 (...)

Noblesse - 🟢🤍

Vanitas no Carte - 🟢🤍

Hyouka - 🔴

Free! - 🟢 (Gay)

Ouran High School - 🟢❤️

Akatsuki no Yona - 🟢 (Ah, woman...)

Gakuen Babysitters - 🟢❤️ (So cute pls watch it)

Assassin's pride - 🟢 (Don't watch it)

K-Project - 🟡

Sankarea - 🟢

Fate - 🔴 (I need someone to explain me this thing)

Kemono Jihen - 🟢

AOT - 🟡

Devilman - 🟢 (Yeah no)

Kekkai Sensen - 🟢

86 - 🟡

Munou na nana - 🔴 (I was watching the launch but I dropped it)

Little Witch Academia - 🟢❤️ (Watched on netflix)

TMD - 🟢 (Gays)

Death Parade - 🟡

Yuukoku no Moriarty - 🟢 (Catch me if you can Mr. Holmes~)

Bakuten!! - 🟢

Durarara! - 🟡

Nanbaka - 🟢

Gunjou no Magmel - 🟢 (no idea)

I'm standing on a million lives - 🟢

Lookism - 🟢🤍

Ballroom - 🟢

Tsurune - 🟢 (I love this)

Somali to Mori no kamisama - 🟢

Kiznaiver - 🟢

Buddy Daddies - 🟢 (Def gay)

Trigun Stampede - 🟡 (I just need time)

Cyberpunk - 🟡

Pandora Hearts - 🟡

Number 24 - 🟢

Gangsta. - 🟡

Hakuouki - 🟢 (Cried)

Ao no Hana - 🔴

Tanaka-kun - 🟢 (Cute)

Idolish-7 - 🟢

Hakkenden: Touhou - 🟢🤍 (I really need to find the manga)

Itsudatte Bokura no Koi wa 10cm Datta - 🟢 (I love the ost kikoemasuka)

Mekaku City Actors - 🟢

Sirius - 🟢

Anime (but BL)

Given - 🟢🤍 (I don't think I need to explain anything after this)

Junjou Romantica - 🟢🤍 (Told you)

Super Lovers - 🟢 (I don't like this tho-)

Yuri on ice - 🟢

Banana Fish - 🟢 (I hate this but I love this)

Dakaichi - 🟢 (Do not ask)

Sasaki to Miyano - 🟢🤍

Hitorijime my Hero - 🟢🤍

The night beyond - 🟢🤍

Hatsukoi - 🟢🤍 (I love this one, def stressing but also good)

Umibe no Etranger - 🟢🤍 (This is fluffy)

Doukyuusei - 🟢🤍 (You need to watch it)

Hybrid child - 🟢🤍 (I cried and cried, I just cried)

Monochrome Factor - 🔴 (I have no idea)

No. 6 - 🟢🤍

[kamyru]

Random headcanons about my OCs

Author's note: So, here's more content about my OCs. I hope you'll like it and some of your questions will be answered.

Sua Hanunuma

Sua has light brown curly hair that's slightly longer than her shoulders.

Also, she has dimples on both her cheeks.

She wears little to no make-up.

After being bullied in school, Sua took classes in self-defense.

Her fear of loud noises and storms comes from the incident at the concert. Now she is afraid that after every loud noise, someone will be hurt.

Sua has an Instagram account where she posts cosplays. At least one client has recognized her because of it.

She cosplays Shu's favorite characters from time to time.

It took Sua a lot of time to sing in front of Shu.

She can play piano, and at her last concert with her k-pop group, she played it. Afterward, she didn't touch a piano in years.

Sua used to have a crush on Kuranosuke's brother, even if she interacted with him the least.

Kuranosuke likes her the most out of all the engineers in the company. He respects Noemi a lot for being meticulous in her work. Yet, Sua's friendlier nature won him over.

Sua is the big-chested friend of the group. Shirayuki is jealous of her for this.

She is sure that the most popular female who worked in the company is either Shirayuki or Noemi. But no, it's her.

Sua and Noemi solve physics problems for fun. Shirayuki is the worst at physics, so they like to do it in front of her.

Sua is the only extrovert in their trio. Yet, most people think it is Noemi.

Out of all Shirayuki's friends, she knows JSL the best. Kuranosuke asked her to teach him too.

She is a very fast typer. When Shu has something long to write, he asks her to do it if she is free.

Her parents see Shirayuki and Noemi as their kids and always ask them to spend holidays with them.

Sua used to have a photo of a sleeping Noemi as her phone background.

Sua is known for her kindness, yet she never sugar-coats her words. So, she may come across as rude sometimes.

Shirayuki Kiba

Shirayuki hair wears her hair in a short bob. Also, it's straight and black.

Shirayuki has a lot of trust in her former skating partner (Kaisei) and is sure he will never let her be hurt. During their skating days, he always tried to ease her falls.

Kaisei doesn't think that Kuranosuke is good enough at taking care of Shirayuki as him.

Also, Kaisei once tried to scare Kuranosuke, being taller and heavier than him. No one knows if that worked or not.

Shirayuki is afraid of getting into a car with anyone except Kaisei and Noemi. Even with them, she sometimes asks to stop and leaves the car to walk instead. 

Shirayuki's younger sister - Riyuki - spends holidays with Kuranosuke and Shirayuki.

To annoy Kuranosuke, Shirayuki takes out her hearing aids when he uselessly yells at her.

When Shirayuki found out that Shiori divorced because of her cheating, she started to sing songs about cheating every time they saw each other. The first was "Be alright" by Dean Lewis, which made Shiori cry.

Shirayuki used to be flexible too, yet after the accident, she can't bend her left knee like she used to.

Shirayuki and Kuranosuke's youngest brother compete in who is faster at making Naruto signs every time they meet.

Shirayuki suffers from panic attacks that are triggered by cars and her parents.

She has an enormous collection of mangas. Riyuki was the one who brought the ones that remained at her parents' place. To say that Kuranosuke isn't happy about the space they take is to say nothing.

Shirayuki is the richest of all three of them.

During her skating career, Kaisei was the one to give interviews most of the time because she didn't like talking.

Kuranosuke is her first crush. She had a crush on him when Ansetsu was still alive. The first time she talked to him was to stop him from saying something sarcastic and rude against her because she knew he would regret it later.

She is thinking about covering the scars on her left hand with tattoos.

Shirayuki is afraid she isn't as good of an older sibling as her brother.

Kuranosuke's parents didn't believe him when he told them about his wife. Shirayuki had to explain that they know each other for more than ten years.

From time to time, she wears her skates around the house to remember the feeling of being in them. Of course, she does it with the guards on, overwise who knows what damage it can bring to the floor.

She likes to go on long night walks. Sometimes she asks Noemi and/or Sua to come with her. Yet, she can go alone too. At least once, Kuranosuke was worried out of his mind because she went for a walk at 2 AM.

Noemi Daimon

Just like Shirayuki, she has black hair, yet it's long and with curls at the end.

Noemi used to form a dancing pair with Kuranosuke's younger brother. Shirayuki was the one to introduce them to each other. They did it to perform at events as a part-job. Noemi couldn't dance alone because of the sad memories regarding her parents' death.

Unlike Kaisei and Shirayuki, the youngest Kiba accidentally hurt Noemi a few times. That's the reason he is afraid of Togo. He doesn't want to know what Togo can do when he finds out his wife was hurt.

Noemi's brother - Konan, has a service dog that helps him with panic attacks.

Noemi used to have a t-shirt with "Daimon Togo's fan #1" even before they were married. No one knows if she had a crush on him or not.

Noemi taught Togo how to speak French.

Even after getting married, Noemi used to call Daimon by his last name and talk politely with him. It took her years to start calling him Togo.

Noemi was voted by Shirayuki and Sua as the one they would marry if they were men. Shiori agreed with them.

Kuranosuke's younger brother said that there was only one person good enough to be Noemi's husband - Togo. And he would have never accepted anyone worse than him for her.

Noemi used to have a pole for pole dance in their dorms.

She had a period in life when she slept for three-four hours each day because the rest, she was either studying or working.

Like Togo, she doesn't drink alcohol at parties. Instead, she drinks apple juice.

Noemi can fall asleep everywhere but wakes up easily.

Her nickname "Richard" was given by Shirayuki, who read Richard Feynman's autobiography and said that Noemi was his copy for lacking seriousness in day-to-day life.

She is the best driver in the trio.

She is used as a translator every time Miyoshi Concepts have international clients that speak French or German.

Noemi's siblings like Togo but tease him, saying he's old.

Kuranosuke's brother and Kaisei have some kind of a crush on Togo and always ask Noemi to take good care of him.

She has the best stage presence.

Her voice is very soft, which contrasts with her strong personality.

All three

Shirayuki and Sua were classmates, while Noemi was their junior.

You know the joke that in every group of three, one is responsible, one is always up for everything, and the last one is completely unhinged. So, in their group, it's like this: Shirayuki is responsible, Sua is up for everything, and Noemi is unhinged.

During their university days, all three of them shared an apartment.

In the bathroom of their apartment was a sketch of a penis from 25 points of view, made by Noemi. She had never dated anyone during that time. Now, the painting is in the Daimon family's house.

Kaisei opened a cafe with his wife, where everyone gets together.

For a year, Sua, Shirayuki, and Noemi had a fourth flatmate who studied at the same university. Later, they met again when she was a client of Miyoshi.

They have many videos from the time they were living together. 

From time to time, they meet at each others' houses for girls' night. The only problem is that usually one of their husbands or siblings is there. 

Noemi and Shirayuki have matching ear piercings in their helix. 

Sometimes they perform together dances and songs. Lowkey, their husbands like to see them doing this.

[rosecoloredmuses]

I posted 2,657 times in 2022

That's 2,657 more posts than 2021!

1,723 posts created (65%)

934 posts reblogged (35%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@pegasus-parfait

@rosecoloredmuses

@graceful-cure-swan

@curestardust

@merveiilles

I tagged 2,646 of my posts in 2022

#laini rambles; ooc - 755 posts

#graceful swan; tsubasa mizuno - 309 posts

#play with me; memes - 147 posts

#anon - 135 posts

#here are my friends; promo - 120 posts

#normal karate guy; seiji sagara - 107 posts

#cuties in chara studio; koikatsu pics - 79 posts

#spoiled snow white princess; hime shirayuki - 76 posts

#the power of hot food; yui nagomi - 69 posts

#becoming hope; madoka kaname - 68 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#((while i’m being non-specific about muses i think anyone who has been around me for long enough knows which muse is most likely to do this

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

((I’ve had a while to gather my thoughts about it so… here are my feelings on the Magia Record anime’s ending that nobody asked for. Spoilers, obviously.

Despite Magia Record being associated with Madoka Magica, which is dark already, I feel the deaths in Magia Record’s anime were a bit… much? I don’t know, I just feel the writing was crueler than it needed to be. Sure, Yachiyo has the new group at the Mikazuki Villa and a new group of friends, but why did they have to kill off Momoko and Mifuyu, the last two other members of her old group? Even if you say she’s carrying on the hopes of her deceased friends, I think we could have done without the two additional deaths.

I can live with Alina, Touka, and Nemu dying at least. But Ui? Nope. Iroha spent the entire series looking for her and she just. Dies in the end without actually being reunited with her big sister. It just leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.

And don’t get me started on the implication that Madoka died. The original game was NOT supposed to be one of Homura’s failed timelines, and her time traveling in the end makes things feel a little pointless.

And with the Doppel system presumably gone, it’s a good idea to assume that everybody died/turned into a Witch at the end. Or at least until Madokami comes in. Yaaay…

Had Magia Record not been adapted from a gacha game where all of the characters I mentioned lived, I would be feeling more positively about how things turned out. I guess I’m just like “things could have ended more happily” despite the fact that the anime already had multiple changes from the source material? I hope I’m making sense.))

15 notes - Posted April 8, 2022

#4

((In 2015, I wrote a drabble depicting Red brainwashing Tsubasa, a moment which couldn’t have happened on-screen because the whole brainwashing thing was originally a magic anon that specified she was brainwashed by Red. Said drabble wasn’t very good. So, I’d like to rewrite that to minimize the cringy 2015ness from it and better reflect Tsubasa’s current depiction. Placing this under a cut because this will probably get long!))

The riverbank was quiet. Peaceful. It was the perfect place to sit and read while reflect on things; it was exactly what Tsubasa needed as she sat down on the bench with a book in tow. She wiped some still-fresh tears from her eyes before starting to read.

She would be fine, she told herself. She was a Precure and it was her duty to protect the innocent while keeping her identity a secret from others, she tried reminding herself. It was better to get hurt herself than let others get hurt. Even if she couldn’t reach out for help or explain her injuries to others, it was okay because it was her suffering and nobody else. She kept telling herself this, and yet…

Why was it ringing so hollow today?

A pain clenched her heart that she couldn’t describe. She thought it would go away with time, but the more she tried ignoring it, the more that ache cried out, demanding attention. But even now, Tsubasa threw her focus into her book hoping she’d feel better soon.

“SAIARK!” the cry came from somewhere far away, but it was unmistakable. As soon as it hit Tsubasa’s ears, she shot up from her seated position and closed her book. She reached for her PreChan Mirror-

Are you sure you want to do that? You’ll only get battered and beaten again.

The voice came out of nowhere and it broke Tsubasa’s train of thought. She froze. Scanning the area, she couldn’t find where the voice came from— her only companion appeared to be the hot summer sun.

“Who’s there?!” Tsubasa cried out as her body tensed up. It was clear she wasn’t alone, but who had just spoken? The voice appeared to belong to a man— one she’d never encountered before. Why was he here? Why was he talking to her like this?

You’ve gotten hurt over and over for the sake of people who don’t appreciate it. Even if you were to reach out for help, nobody would notice your pain.

There was a presence behind Tsubasa for the briefest moment. But when Tsubasa spun on her heel, there was still nobody there.

You tell yourself that it’s fine as long as the people around you are safe. That it’s for the best. So you let yourself continue to hurt as everyone continues to smile around you. But… those aren’t your true feelings, are they?

“That’s…!” Tsubasa’s eyes widened in horror as the words caught in her throat. How could she possibly answer something like this— tell this voice that he was wrong about her when she didn’t even know its owner?

You wish desperately for someone to notice you’re hurting and reach out. You want to stop feeling so alone in your battle against everything threatening the peace you so treasure. But nobody will answer your silent call. You will continue to suffer while lying to yourself repeatedly.

Tsubasa’s first instinct was to deny everything this voice was saying about her… but the words wouldn’t come out. Instead, her eyes welled with tears. As she put her hands to her face in confusion, a certain realization came upon her. One that she didn’t want to acknowledge:

On some level, this voice was completely right. She knew she wasn’t okay and wanted someone, anyone to acknowledge her. To tell her that she didn’t need to hurt anymore. That she didn’t need to be so alone anymore. But even such small comfort was beyond her.

You sacrificed your normal life to save your friend, only to be separated across cities. But even on your own, you fought. You thought you were doing a good thing by saving other people as you continued to pay the price. And to add on to your growing misery, there’s another group of heroes in town.

The voice didn’t need to name them; images of the Happiness Charge Precure flashed in her head. They were so pretty and strong… unlike herself.

Every time you look at them, you’re reminded of what you left behind in Tokyo and what you lack. Companionship… strength… support. They are everything you are not and have everything you’re too scared to admit. Seeing their happiness has only served to deepen your own despair.

“St…stop… please… stop…” The difficulty with which those words came out was disturbing. She wanted to run, but her feet stayed rooted in place as her own body was starting to betray her. Every word this voice spoke increased the pain in her heart and caused the tears to overflow even harder.

It’s unfair, is it not?

It’s so unfair!

That thought came spilling out without Tsubasa realizing it. It was undoubtedly her thought, but it was so… foreign. Where did it come from?

Those girls protect the people just like you do, yet they’re smiling while you are left crying all alone.

Why are they happy while I’m not?! Somebody please… look at me instead of them!

Once again, a strange thought forced itself into her mind. It was as if something was trying to invade her body— first it’d frozen her in place and now it was trying to change her thoughts.

Tsubasa whimpered. She knew something was horribly wrong and that the voice was doing something to her, but she was powerless to stop it— whatever this voice was, it was a power far greater than her own. She instead silently prayed that someone would somehow interrupt whatever was happening and save her. 

But help was far away.

You cannot continue like this. If your body doesn’t give out, your heart will. You’ll disappear while the people who never looked your way will continue on with their lives like nothing happened.

The thought of disappearing— dying— without anyone acknowledging her delivered a shock Tsubasa wasn’t anticipating. She… she didn’t want this to happen!

See the full post

15 notes - Posted April 17, 2022

#3

Permanent Starter Call

((I am way too late to the party, but please like this post if you don’t mind me:

yeeting myself and my muses into your inbox without prompting

making starters for you randomly

just overall loving you

24 notes - Posted April 29, 2022

#2

Independent Multimuse feat. Madoka Kaname

rules ❤️❤️ muses

Promo art by @turem!

28 notes - Posted April 10, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

@friendshipstates

Amanogawa High School. On first glance, it would appear that it was just an ordinary Japanese high school with nothing notable about it. But according to the intel the Legion was able to gather, there was a type of hero residing here that did not exist in their native timeline: Kamen Riders. And one of these Kamen Riders was foolishly open with his identity.

Tsubasa stood on a nearby rooftop, watching as the unsuspecting student body went about their day. Her mission was to gather intel on Kamen Rider Fourze’s ability. She was not going to waste any more time.

“Let the future reflected in the mirror turn terrible!” Within seconds, every human that was not otherwise protected was sealed within a dark coffin-shaped mirror. “Show yourself, Saiark!”

As soon as those words were spoken, every human captured within the mirrors was turned into a Saiark, flooding the school grounds with the monsters.

“Now what will you do... Kamen Rider Fourze?!”

34 notes - Posted May 9, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[claudeng80]

Down Feather (Plumage 2)

Obi can only say no to Shirayuki for so long. He can be evasive, but her stubbornness is something that even the strongest knight is unable to resist. Yuzuri just wishes she would pick her battles better. She should be pursuing the man with the promise of kisses, not cleaning products.

So it’s inevitable, the day when he shows up smelling different. Not that Yuzuri makes a habit of sniffing him, her nose is far more interested in certain other people in the pharmacy, but Obi’s definitely smelling a little smoother, less earthy, more- herbal. And his feathers are looking very good, not only because his ragged season seems to have passed but now they’re shinier than ever. “You’ve been using Shirayuki’s soap!”

Obi’s hand hovers in front of her mouth, as if to somehow mitigate her volume. Yuzuri is unmoved. Shirayuki put weeks of effort into that formulation and Yuzuri was there for every supply run, every frustrated rant, and every batch she deemed insufficiently compatible with Obi’s natural chemistry.

Yuzuri has a couple of pointed comments on chemistry she keeps to herself, but at the very least he had better appreciate the soap. “Listen, I was just looking for Ryuu,” he says, long-suffering. “Please tell me you’ve seen him.” His eye catches something over Yuzuri’s shoulder and tracks its motion across the room; without even turning her head she’d wager she knows exactly where to find Shirayuki.

“He’s waiting for you by the front door.” She lets that sink in. If he’d only taken the normal route for once, he wouldn’t be in this situation. His eyes flicker to the side once more, as if against his will, and maybe it’s a choice he makes for other reasons. Well, hopefully the cost of grumpy Ryuu all through lunch is worth it. He grunts and slips out of the room in that silent way of his.

Shirayuki’s just where Yuzuri expected to find her, eyes fixed on the door Obi just left through. The look on her face isn’t longing, though, she doesn’t have the self-awareness for that, it’s almost furtive. She’s hiding something.

Yuzuri can’t keep her wings tucked up tight, she’s so excited as she flits across the room. Shirayuki opens her eyes wide as Yuzuri approaches, but she’s far too honest to feign innocence that way. Innocence is her normal look. This is just suspicious. All Yuzuri has to do is wait.

When Shirayuki sighs, Yuzuri knows she’s won. “I need you to keep a secret,” she starts, and Yuzuri doesn’t even wait for the sentence to end before agreeing. Whatever this is, she wants in.

“I found a feather,” Shirayuki goes on, voice hushed and hand hovering near her pocket. 

Honestly that’s no surprise, feathers are everywhere in here. They clean constantly, and still Yuzuri could pick up ten without moving three steps from where she’s standing. “What kind?”

“I don’t know, that’s the question,” she says, and that right there explains it. The girl cannot walk away from a mystery. It’s a wonder she hasn’t wrung Obi dry of secrets yet. “It’s blue.”

Yuzuri spreads a wing. “Not one of mine?” She’s the only blue-feathered employee in the pharmacy. Shirayuki’s reddish, Ryuu speckled, Suzu cream-colored. All the others are various shades of gold and brown. Shirayuki, at last, reaches into her pocket and pulls out the mystery feather. It’s barely mature, an odd size to see loose, and it’s a solid iridescent blue.

“The shade’s not too far off,” Shirayuki says, although it’s definitely different, “but it’s not barred.” All of Yuzuri’s have black and white markings - it makes for a striking display all together, but it’s true that none of hers are monochromatic. “Do you know if any of the guards are blue? Maybe one of the patients?”

“How long ago?” Yuzuri doesn’t tend to pay a lot of attention to the patients, but she would have noticed someone with blue plumage. They’re rare enough around here.

“About a month.” Together they frown down at the single feather.

“You should check with Ryuu or Obi.” Ryuu’s admitted to having had a serious interest in feather types in his younger days - Yuzuri can only guess he was about five years old at the time - and Obi seems to have traveled a lot. But Shirayuki tucks the feather into her fist, shaking her head.

“It’s silly,” she says.

“It only is if you treat it that way. If it matters to you, you should use your resources.”

Shirayuki hums, but it’s doubtful. “We should get back to work,” she says, and Yuzuri lets it drop for now. But she does see Shirayuki brush the feather across her nose just once before she buries it back away in her pocket.

*

Sunrise in Lilias comes late, arriving only after hours of slow dawn in the shadow of the mountains. Most days it’s a footnote for Shirayuki, realized only by the sudden need for fewer lamps in the reading room.

It’s a luxury to experience the process on her day off, watching the sun light up the mountain side rock by rock, then burst over the edge of the cliffs all at once. Shirayuki lies on the garden bench, stone cool against her cheek, and lets her wings cover her like a blanket. The early sun rays warm her feathers, and she luxuriates in the contrast.

“So lazy, miss.” She opens her eyes just in time to watch Obi alight beside her. His wingbeats are nearly silent, the tap of his boots against the garden walkway barely any louder. “I thought for sure on your day off you’d be right back in the gardens anyway.”

“After lunch,” she answers. “I’ve got plans with Yuzuri. Until then I’m resting.”

“And yet you’re up, dressed, and outside before sunrise.” He waves a hand, fingers curling at the garden around. It’s just a little green space outside her building, not a pinfeather on the Lilias greenhouses and ridiculously icy and treacherous in the winter, but it’s a nice enough place in the warmer months.

She pushes herself up to a seat, scooting to one side of the bench. “And yet here you are too.”

For a second she doesn’t think he’ll take the invitation, but he hops up to crouch on the seat, leaning forward over his knees with his wings thrown back. It puts her far too close to his thighs.

“What are you doing this morning?” There’s a ladybug. She watches it explore the bottom of a leaf, then lift its wings and buzz off.

Obi hums. “I think that’s up to you, my lady.”

Obi’s easy to talk to, so long as the conversation doesn’t turn around to anything touching on his past. So she tries to stay away from questions, no matter how curious she gets. It’s just that it’s such a mystery how he can talk comfortably to anyone from sailors to the king, how so little ever seems to surprise him. She’d love to ask about where he’s been, the things he’s seen. Maybe even get his help with her mystery blue feather - it’s starting to look ragged, but she still keeps it in her pocket. She doesn’t even know why anymore.

“Hope you’re up for a lot of sitting around.”

“Aw, miss. Come fly with me instead? We could go to the lake.”

“What’s at the lake?”

“I don’t know. Water? Fish? Plants? Why don’t we go find out?”

He’s got her there, and he knows it. He coils and leaps, straight up into the air in the way only someone in his shape can. She stands and stretches, much slower, as he circles impatiently overhead. Maybe she really just can’t resist an unsolved mystery. Good thing she can keep him close until she figures it all out.

*

Obi’s plumage suits him, most of the year. When he sneaks around and plays tricks, people can look at him and dismiss it all. “Corvids are just like that,” they say. They wouldn’t trust a crow-kind or a perfectly normal blackbird with tasks of importance, expect anything more than brief competence and a bad joke at their expense. With the exception of Zen and Shirayuki, the deception has served him for years.

He knows better than to give it up, not when he has such a good thing going. He has friends, he has responsibilities (as much as he can handle), and he even has a modicum of respect. He’s not going to risk all of that due to one tiny detail.

These thoughts are too deep for such a sunny summer afternoon, he decides as he lights on the pharmacy upper windowsill. It’s his favorite way in, an easy step off the delicate mountain updrafts and high enough that his shadow doesn’t usually give away his secrets to the atrium below. Leaving fingerprints on the high glass drives Suzu nuts, too, for an added bonus.

Down below is one of his favorite sights, and he settles back on his heels in the window to admire while nobody will notice. Ryuu and Shirayuki perch hip-to-hip and wing-to-wing in the same chair, bent over a book. He can’t see the subject, but when Shirayuki breaks the silence he hears her voice loud and clear. “Ryuu, do you remember if we’ve had any patients here with blue feathers, maybe back in the spring? I found a feather and I’m curious where it came from.”

It takes too long for Ryuu to answer. Even Obi can tell that. “No, no blue patients. Not this spring.”

It’s a good thing Obi hasn’t been there in their professional capacity since last summer. He should make a noise, drop from his perch, something, but he finds he can’t. Ryuu doesn’t lie, so perhaps if she asks the right question-

But what does he think it would change? It meant attention when he was younger, before he realized that it wasn’t worth it. Nobody wanted more from him than a show, and yet how many times did he get labeled a troublemaker and told to move on just for attracting the wrong kind of attention?

It pains him how much he’d like to stop lying to her. But he’s not as brave as his mistress is, not the type to wear uniqueness as a proud banner. He’s learned the cost of turning heads, and there’s more than just himself to think about now. He won’t do that to her or to Master. Down below, Ryuu’s a knot of discomfort so tight his wingtips are quivering. Shirayuki diverts him, pointing at a passage in the book, and the topic of blue feathers is over.

Safe, Obi swings open the glass and lets the hinges squeak, just to see two faces turned up to welcome him home.

[realtacuardach]

Acts of Bravery

Entry 4 for Obiyuki Bingo - Medical Drama AU

...

Zen leaned against the counter as he watched Shirayuki grind at her medicines with a pestle. “Isn’t that a little old school?”

The pharmacist looked up from her work. “Better get off of there before Garrack sees you.” Zen smiled sheepishly and pushed himself away; lead surgeon or not, no one messed with the director of pharmacy. “And it might be old school, but if I’ve got the spare time, I like using it. It makes our ointments and medicines more potent.”

“Always working, even in your spare time,” Zen shook his head grinning. “No wonder my brother says I need to learn from you.”

“Really? I didn’t think he was too wild about me.”

“No, he wasn’t too wild about us dating - big brother’s snobbish.” Zen shrugged. “He never had anything but respect for your skills.”

Shirayuki flushed. “Well, thanks. I think.” She busied herself with the pestle.

Zen reached up to the ceiling, and she could hear his shoulders pop. “I’m taking advantage of the rest while I can. i know the medevac went out not too long ago, so it’s a matter of time before I get paged back in there.”

Right on cue, his phone began vibrating and buzzing on his hip. He undid the clasp holding the phone in place and looked at the screen. His face went pale.

Shirayuki felt her blood run cold. For as dramatic as Zen could get off the clock. While on shift, he was as cool and unflappable as they come. For him to have any sort of visceral reaction was out of character and concerning. “What is it?”

“Medevac’s coming in; the OR just got radioed by Torou.”

“Is it bad?”

“Kids having to get to the hospital by helicopter is never good, but his injuries aren’t too bad.” Zen continued in a level tone. “The other injuries, though -”

“What other injuries?”

The look in Zen’s eyes as they met hers made her heart stop. “It’s not good, Shirayuki.” He sighed, and his voice just barely wavered. “It’s Obi.”

“Obi?”

...

The day had started out so normally - with their colleagues in the hospital cafeteria struggling awake to be alert and ready for the upcoming shift. Shirayuki was rubbing her eyes and yawning as Obi was reaching the end of another story.

“And I leapt out of the window, just out of reach of the flames, and made it to the helicopter in the nick of time!”

Shirayuki turned to Torou, who watched Obi’s storytelling with a resigned detachment. “The window?”

“Don’t ask me,” Torou shrugged, her large earrings clinking softly against her shoulders. “He went inside through the window too, even though there was a perfectly serviceable door not far away.”

“You want me to give the fire more oxygen, Torou?” Obi asked. “The window was open and available, and I saw an injured person. It made sense.”

“Whatever, rogue,” Torou snorted, examining her manicure, “you just like living dangerously.”

“How,” Mitsuhide asked, “did you get the patient through the window? I didn’t see a scratch on him when I assessed him.”

Torou rolled her eyes. “Because we carried him out through the door.”

Mitsuhide groaned and turned back to his perfectly portioned, well-balanced breakfast. Kiki raised an eyebrow over her plain bagel and dark roast. “Can’t do anything the easy way, can you?”

“Nope,” Obi replied cheerfully, taking a big bite of his bacon, “that’s why I don’t fly the helicopter.”

“You don’t fly the helicopter,” Torou countered, slight fire in her eyes, “because you’d crash in two seconds, rogue.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, “I leave the fancy flying to you - lets me get to jump through windows and be all heroic.”

Zen rolled his eyes. “Just try not to get yourself or our patents killed being a hero.”

Shirayuki snorted into her granola and fruit at Obi’s affronted look. “Boss,” he lay a hand on his heart dramatically, “I would never -”

“Don’t worry, boss,” Torou interjected, “I’m also there to keep him in line.”

...

Shirayuki had managed to smother her impulses towards worrying until she and Obi were in the locker room. “Did you really need to go through the window?”

“It made sense at the time, Miss,” Obi closed the locker and looked at her seriously. “I didn’t know if it would be safe to go through the door, and when I saw someone unconscious, the first thing I had to do was check on them.”

That made sense, but Shirayuki still felt uneasy. It must have shown on her face, because Obi took a step forward and placed a hand on her shoulder. “I’m always safe, Miss.”

Shirayuki didn’t say anything, but her eyes strayed to where the pale lines of long-healed scars gleamed past the sleeves of his shirt and above his eye.

“I know my limits.”

Shirayuki sighed. He was good at what he did, despite his bravado there was no doubt about that. But she spent as much time worrying about his stunts as she did being impressed by them. And by his bravery. Maybe she could be brave, too. She opened her mouth to speak, but stopped.

Obi looked puzzled. “Miss?”

Do you maybe want to go to dinner with me? She sighed. Not brave enough yet. “Just be safe, please?”

He grinned at her, making her wish she was braver. “Cross my heart,” he promised, “I’ll always come back to you.” He coughed and blushed, turning away just as Shirayuki to hide the own hopeful burning in her cheeks.

...

Shirayuki was a seasoned professional, and had seen her fair share of blood and injury, even as far removed as the pharmacy was from the OR. But it was with trembling legs that she stepped outside after she could no longer force herself to focus on her medicines. She took a deep breath of air, and felt it burn her lungs as she shut her eyes. There had been so much blood...

“Head wounds always bleed a lot,” she muttered, continuing the mantra that had kept her from storming the OR or breaking down crying. “It might not be as bad as it looked.”

“Here’s hoping.”

Shirayuki gasped and turned to face the source of the sound. Torou sat at one of the picnic tables, a lit cigarette smoldering between her fingers. As Shirayuki looked over, she brought it to her lips and took a deep drag on it. “Hey, Red.”

“What happened?” Shirayuki asked, rushing over to where she sat. 

“Kid was hurt.” Deep drag. “Got himself stuck up a tree. Crying, scared.” Another drag. “I know we should have landed, but that damn fool swore to me that he could make it. I believed him too.” She let out a laugh that sounded like she was close to becoming unravelled. Shirayuki noted her hair, normally somehow contained in its chaos, was in disarray. “Two damn fools. Climbed that tree like a monkey, got the kid to laugh and let go of the trunk. The limb could hold one, but not two. Next thing I knew, he was throwing the kid through the open hatch. And then he was gone.”

She sniffed. “He hit a lot of branches on the way down, so that hopefully slowed him down.” She took another drag, and looked to where Shirayuki was staring at her cigarette. “I know, I know, these are going to kill me one of these days.”

Shirayuki didn’t launch until her typical lecture on the addictiveness of nicotine. She simply reached out a hand. “Give me one, please.”

Torou drew back in surprise. “No chance, Red. Obi would never forgive me if I got you hooked on this stuff.”

Shirayuki had to swallow hard. Torou never referred to Obi by his name, just by a myriad of colorful and occasionally bizarre nicknames. And she never cried, but neither woman could ignore the tears building up in her eyes

The redhead reached forward to place a comforting hand on the pilot’s shoulder, and she was so upset she allowed it.

“He’ll be okay, Torou.”

“Yeah,” she sniffed roughly.

Shirayuki bit her lip. He has to be.

...

She settled back in the uncomfortable chair and stared at where Obi was resting in the hospital bed. It hurt to see him lying so still, when he was usually by energetic and full of life. Only the slight rise and fall of his chest, and the reassuring beeps of the monitor showed he was alive.

Boldness and desperation made her reach forward to take his hand in hers, to feel the warmth and pulse beneath her fingers. Please wake up.

His face was mottled with bruises, his head wrapped snugly with bandages, and the stark white of the casts stuck out beneath his hospital gown. She shuddered and began rubbing her thumb against the back of his hand, whether to comfort him or herself she wasn’t sure.

“I wish I had been in there,” she whispered, “I wish I could have been more help.”

It had been all hands on deck to care for the injured. The child fortunately only suffered a wrist fracture and skilled knees from being flung into the medevac. Obi had taken much longer, and the faces of her friends had been grim when they came out.

“I’m not going to lie to you,” Zen had said with an expression that looked painfully like the one he wore when passing bad news to grieving loved ones. “It was touch and go for a while. But it’s up to him now.

Why did I have to be a pharmacist? She thought bitterly. I could have been in there. I could have helped instead of just waiting and feeling helpless.

A tear dropped. “I’m so useless.”

“Don’t...say...that.”

Shirayuki jumped at the slight pressure on her palm. “Obi?”

“Don’t ever,” he opened his eyes blearily, “ever say that. You could never be useless.”

She held back from hugging him with an effort. “You’re alive!”

He tried to strike a pose in the bed, but winced and coughed. “Mostly.”

Shirayuki could have said a lot of things right then.

Don’t ever do that again, you idiot.

So did, You nearly scared me to death.

And, I love you.

Instead, she settled for - “Do you want to go out for dinner with me? Once you feel better?”

Obi looked puzzled, and then inordinately pleased. His grip tightened almost painfully, but Shirayuki didn’t care. “Yes.”

[rekutopia]

In which Obi lets Shirayuki sleep

A part of the Flatmate AU (one, two, three, in accidental order)

Jesus fucking christ.

At one point in his life, Obi had decided to restrain himself from cursing as soon as he became a professional and started working. It was only to his benefit if he could quit the bad habit before it starts to manifest itself at work. That’s what he thought an exemplary adult should do.

He entered the working world around six years ago. A couple of years of rude patients and whiny co-workers later he revisited the thought and rephrased his intention to stop cursing as soon as he turned thirty – this time for sure. Changing workplace might also help.

Last year he turned thirty. And he had changed his workplace. Twice. Good thing he never told anyone about this particular resolution, seeing that the amount of cursing was, if anything, increasing. Especially in the past one year and three months, ever since he shared his living space with a certain redhead.

Now, Obi had always been a perfect gentleman towards his flatmate. Never did he use dirty words in any form whatsoever whenever Shirayuki was around. Even when he once stubbed his toe on the new washing machine she had installed into their bathroom he managed to merely let out an incomprehensible sound instead of the usual ‘FUCK!’. Boy, did he patted himself proudly on the back after that.

No. Especially at home, that increasing amount of cursing was inaudible, though not less loud inside his head. These were usually directed towards situations he would never believe could happen if he hadn't experienced them himself.

Right now was a perfect example.

Obi was lying on the couch under the colourful blanket Shirayuki’s grandma had quilted for her. The living space was dark and toasty. Through the window, Obi could see the snowflakes slowly piling on the balcony.

There was cheeky accordion music playing in the background. Onto the wall, the projector was beaming the end credit of Amélie, one of Shirayuki’s favourite movies to watch when she was upset (and when she was happy – actually, it’s her all-time favourite movie ever). Shirayuki herself was lying beside him, under the same blanket, sleeping peacefully.

Would that be reason enough for Obi to curse? Well, half a year ago it would. 

In fact, Obi had cursed when Shirayuki had started to sit closer to him so that their knees touched whenever they did their movie nights. He had also cursed when a couple of movie nights later she suddenly suggested they could just lie down for watching. “It’s more comfortable this way”, she had told him, and who was he to say no when it’s true? 

When she next casually tangled their legs together like it’s the most natural thing in the world Obi thought his curses should have finally reached the heavens’ ears since the torture level didn’t step up further after that.

And so Obi thought he was over it. He thought he had hardened up until all that had become quite a normality. He could finally enjoy Shirayuki’s closeness and body heat without having his heart jumping up and down like a happy puppy in his ribcage all the time.

Until tonight. Tonight was the end of it. He must have done something to awaken the heavens’ wrath that they decided to continue his punishment.

Obi glanced down at his sleeping flatmate, whose head was nestling comfortably on his shoulder. Both her arms were encircling his right arm – in fact, her whole tiny body was snuggling up to him. Her right leg was rested rudely on top of his right leg like it belonged there, her knee dangerously close to his crotch. He could feel her breasts where they pressed way too innocently against his arm, rising and falling softly with each breath she took. She was purring lightly, like a tired little kitten.

What the fuck did I do in my previous life to deserve this.

He had been lying entirely still ever since Shirayuki fell asleep, not even five minutes after the movie had started. That was more or less two hours ago. Despite years of practice, neither yoga breathing nor meditation could make him relax his stiff body. This was just a different level of suffering.

Carefully, Obi turned his head to his right while contemplating whether he should just wake up his snoring flatmate. His nose almost brushed the top of her head and he caught a whiff of her shampoo. Correction. His shampoo. Because when a wet, crying, wrapped-only-in-a-towel girl announced angrily that she was out of shampoo and that she was going to use yours, you nod and let her use yours. No questions asked.

Just, what the hell even happened?

When Obi arrived home that night, instead of the usual ‘welcome home’ he was greeted by a sobbing pile of pillows and blanket on the couch. A bit of prodding and shaking didn’t award him with anything much, only that the pile curled further up into a messy ball.

He was about to leave it be when suddenly his flatmate’s head emerged from the heap – red hair sticking out staticky in all directions, eyes puffy and still leaking. She declared her intent to use the shower in a hiccupy voice and stormed into the bathroom.

After she got out – fully clothed, to Obi’s relief – Shirayuki planted herself back onto the couch. She threw her flatmate a somewhat commanding glare while she patted the empty space beside her.

As much as a wannabe-dominant Shirayuki was an amusing view, Obi schooled his expression to neutral and refrain himself from teasing her. Clearly, she was very upset about something and Obi didn’t want to agitate her even further.

And so he took his cue and rolled onto the couch beside her. Wordlessly, Shirayuki started the laptop, the projector, spread the blanket over them, then leaned back and cuddle up to him when the movie started.

They lay like that for a while, as hundreds of questions raced in Obi’s mind.

What on earth happened? Did someone hurt you? Should I call Yuzuri? Or the police? Since when do you hog me like it’s absolutely nothing? Do you have any fucking idea what you’re doing to me? What the hell is going on? Do I even have any say in this?

What he finally settled with was a soft, “Do you wanna talk about it?”

His answer was a little pout on her lips and a small head shake. Then Shirayuki’s gaze shifted back to the screen. She inched closer to him, making herself comfortable and him even more uncomfortable. But Obi didn’t push. He hadn’t known his flatmate for a very long time, but he knew enough that she would talk when she felt like it. So he held his tongue and let her take what she needed.

Which brought him to now.

Closing his eyes, Obi immersed himself in the fragrance – a unique mixture between Shirayuki’s own scent and his shampoo. If more girls knew how sexy it was to smell masculine, all those girly toiletries brands out there might go broke in next to no time. Either that or Obi was just an exception to be so goddamned turned on by it. 

Again, he cursed inwardly as he felt all his blood rushing south, where he noticed a small tent slowly building up. If he knew Shirayuki was going to throw herself to him tonight he would’ve chosen a tighter pair of boxers.

And maybe have a shower first.

Obi gave himself a mental slap on the back of his head. Surely this was not the time to feel aroused when the little miss was feeling miserable for whatever reason. He must get a grip on himself.

As if sensing that he was thinking about her, Shirayuki stirred, and one of her arms slid up to his chest, clutching lightly on his shirt. Obi’s breath hitched. If the other was awake Obi was sure she could feel his rapid heartbeat under her palm. 

She was so close now she was practically using him as a body pillow. He was helplessly trapped with nowhere to move and no one to hear the silent, frustrated screams in his head. Obi lifted his left hand and pressed the bridge of his nose, sinking his head deeper into the pillow.

Why don’t you just fucking kill me already.

Nietzsche said ‘to live is to suffer’, and life with Shirayuki had given suffering a new meaning. Sure, she first appeared as a timid, cute little miss pharmacist who loves plants. While Obi liked plants, he was not sure how to deal with a green army of 50+ potted plants invading his flat. Especially that one big fellow sitting seemingly unobtrusive in the corner while slowly stretching its long branches until it now almost trespassed the screen boundary of the projector.

Only after a short while, his new flatmate emerged as an online-shopper addict for ‘useful’ household stuff. Some are truly useful, for example, that LED night light with motion detector for the corridor, albeit in the shape of a puppy head. Some, like the egg separator, gave Obi reasons to try out his gentle eye-rolling with her. “I’ll teach you how to separate eggs with just your hands”, he had told her as he hid the abomination in the back of the bottom kitchen drawer.

Before Shirayuki Obi had only ten utensils in his kitchen. Despite being half Japanese, he didn’t even own a rice cooker. You can guess three times who introduced one into the kitchen. It’s the same person who brought the juicer, the mixer, the blender and the waffle iron. Yes, her waffles are a delight on Sunday mornings but that’s not the point here.

To be fair, he was honestly thankful for her washing machine, even though it made their mini bathroom even more cramped. At least he didn’t have to go outside of the flat to do laundry anymore. But he still thought the dishwasher was an overkill. Contrary to other people, Obi liked doing dishes. It freed his thoughts, almost like a meditation. “You could still do the big pots by hand,” she tried to reason with him. Yea, well, when they already have a dishwasher, he’d rather have the machine do the big stuff, thank you very much.

Whenever Obi came home from his late shift he often found Shirayuki fast asleep at the dining table with work materials piled and scattered around her. He was quick to learn that in those cases there was nothing he could to do to wake her up. But of course, the physiotherapist inside him would never forgive himself for letting her just sleep there. Which left him no other choices than to carry her to her bed. 

Speaking of suffering, Obi had always wondered why his roommate always behaved so carefree towards him. Granted, he never gave her any reasons to be cautious around him. He did like to tease her a lot, but never to the point that she was seriously uncomfortable with it. Nevertheless, did it never occur to her that he was a MAN, no matter how tame and harmless he seemed in front of her? Never before had Obi met a woman who was as completely unguarded as she was.

Anyway, the suffering has reached a new level today and Obi didn’t want to know what would come next.

Suddenly, a hum. Obi looked down and was met with two sleepy, half-open emerald eyes.

“Mmm...Obi?”

“Yes, sweetie?”

“Have Amélie and Nino met yet?”

“Un.”

“Are they happy now?”

“Un. Like always.”

“Good.”

Then silence followed. Just when Obi thought the dream of Amélie and Nino had claimed Shirayuki back to sleep she murmured further.

“What time is it?”

“A little after midnight.” Obi allowed himself to gently place his chin on her head. “Shall we go to bed?”

A grunt. The tiny woman shook her head, nestled herself impossibly closer still to him and wrapped her arm completely around him.

“Mmm...You’re so warm.”

With that, her breath went back to its steady rhythm as she fell back asleep.

Sighing, Obi awkwardly reached to grab the remote control and turned off the projector. Then he pulled the blanket higher and tried to adjust himself to a more comfortable position for all the tangling limbs. He closed his eyes and gradually resigned to his fate. 

Guess that means no shower for me tonight.

Obi took a deep breath in from his nose and released it slowly through his mouth. 

In and out. 

In and out.

I am the master of my fucking cock.

——————–

Note:

The 10 kitchen utensils Obi owned before Shirayuki came to his life were...

a knife

a cutting board

a pot

a frying pan

a kettle (not an electric one)

a spatula

a ladle

a pair of cooking chopstick

a rice spoon

a grater

...just in case you were wondering >:3

[jhalya]

Top 10 fandoms, let's go!!! (Thank you, @meiniskos and @akai-vampire for the tag, <3)

1. Akagami no Shirayuki-hime, because who can resist this little murder muffin slash best house husband-o :))

2. Pitch Black, because Riddick is sooo much fun to write and Fry will always be awesome, that's just the way it is, I don't accept major character death in canon, yo.

3. Sicario, I mean morally ambiguous pairings are my vibe.

4. The Hobbit, mainly because Thranduil backstory is such a creative opportunity for angst. So much angst!

5. Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers - the shortage of Shane/Niko fics is criminal, but the ones that do exist are... chef's kiss!

6. Stargate SG1 - Sam and Jack? I mean - we have suffered people, but we have suffered good! Some of the best fic writers out there bless this fandom.

7. Percy Jackson - reading Percabeth makes me so happy :)) Also, Percy is so done with everything, it's amazing

8. Pacific Rim - Maleigh is relationship goals and also, the smut is epic!

9. Inuyasha - listen, I am probably the one platonic, found family Sesskag fan in the fandom :)) can you imagine family dinners with this guy? I do, all the time :))

10. Bleach - I had to add this because well, I invested 10 years of my life in this and defended Kubo all the time and, well, my heart is still broken, but hey, what can you do? #indenial

[siderealscribblings]

👀

“Man, you think an all-powerful force of ghost-hunting samurai would know how to install proper air conditioning by now…” 

Rukia’s fingers clutched her pencil even tighter as Ichigo tugged open his haori another inch, fanning his bare chest with a stack of unfiled reports. 

“Soul Society was formed long before we had modern conveniences to make us soft,” Rukia said, clearing her throat as she tried to focus on the stacks of unfinished paperwork in front of her. It was hard to approve time-cards and sign off on monthly quota reports when her lieutenant was pressing a frozen bottle of water against his bare neck. Intelligence briefings weren’t nearly as interesting as the soft moans of relief that slipped out of Ichigo’s mouth as condensation rolled down the bottle and clung to his skin in wet, shimmering patches. 

“I know shinigami get hard over unnecessary suffering in the name of duty, but we can at least get something better than ceiling fans, can’t we?” Ichigo whined, leaning back and letting the sparse air from the rattling fan overhead wash over him. “Hey, captain, while you’re approving all these goddamned requisition orders, can we put in for-” 

“I am not wasting division funds on an air conditioner,” Rukia sighed, trying to ignore the frustrated whine that sounded so good in Ichigo’s voice. 

“Sure, the lady straddling a sword made of ice doesn’t mind a little heat,” Ichigo groused, nodding at Sode no Shirayuki tucked inside her coat. 

“If you’re that unhappy about it, go stick your head in the refridg-” Rukia trailed off as Ichigo wriggled out of his top, stretching his bare arms with a satisfied sigh. “What do you think you’re doing?!” 

“Ancient problems require ancient solutions,” Ichigo sighed, running the water bottle across his bare chest until the condensation mingled with the thin sheen of sweat that had accumulated on his skin. 

[sabraeal]

Rarely Pure & Never Simple, Chapter 8

Written for the first day of the Guilty Project challenge! This one was supposed to come out for Obiyukiweek this year-- the free day, as per usual-- but I just had too busy a schedule in August and September to make it happen, especially when it seemed like this part of the fic would grow out of control once again!

[Read on AO3]

Shirayuki should be sleeping.

She had every intention to after Obi murmured his last goodnight. Her whole body hummed through the hang up, savoring the way his voice raked over the gravel in his chest, but it was hardly the first time. There’d been plenty of nights post-rehearsal where she spent the whole walk home thinking about something he said-- no, the way he’d said it in the dark of the backstage, sitting on that couch, conspicuously not touching. Entire hours where she wondered why her fingers trembled and her brain felt numb, running over the precise pitch he said kid.

Sure, the answer’s obvious now, but still-- she’s used to it passing. The whole time she winds her headphones, finding a safe place to put them on the bedside table, dreams seem only a blink away, all this nebulous tension destined poof into the ether like a cartoon cloud once her head hits the pillow.

Yet as she watches the minutes tick past midnight, and the dull ache that he’d left between her legs blossoms into a soaked, trembling need. For what, Shirayuki won’t even let herself contemplate.

You didn’t come, did you? It wasn’t a purr when he asked, but there’s no use telling her head that, not when every neuron is hell-bent on inventing words to put in his mouth too. You want me to handle that for you?

Shirayuki stifles a groan into poly-fil. Maybe he hadn’t said it, but he would have, if she let him. Which she just-- should have. Sure, it might have been mortifying to contemplate, but sandwiched between Senior Day and sexual frustration, the mortifying ordeal of being known (as horny) is a cheap price to pay for a body that can fall asleep on command.

But now she’s stuck; hoping that this terrible frustration might yield to fatigue sometime before night turns into morning. That instead of laying here, trying to distract herself with brain-ticklers from the Mathlete study guide, she dozes off, doomed to unsatisfying dreams filled with fluttering curtains and nondescript bodies rubbing against each other. Fade to black material, Kihal would tease her, even in your own wet dreams.

It’s the only kind of material she has; all her concrete knowledge of Obi is above the waist, and though he’s done some, um, exciting things beneath her skirt, it’s not like she’s ever seen any of it. At least, nothing that isn’t his eyes, peering up from where fabric’s rucked back, meeting hers as his tongue flicks out to--

Haah, that is-- that’s not helping. Not when she can’t just reach down and get herself off with the way Obi does. Instead she’s on her own, waiting until--

The table rattles, and her phone's display shining bright in the dark. Her heart leaps into her throat-- maybe?-- and sinks when she sees 92˚F Sunny/Clear. Ugh. At least she can be consoled by the nice weather when she’s sleep deprived from lack of-- of jacking off. No, jilling off? It would be nice if someone could give her a glossary, so she can at least explain with precision why she’s failing sexy culinary school.

Her hands clap over her eyes, but it’s no use, she can already hear Obi’s playful lilt, the way he’d almost certainly tell her, you know, if you need some help with technique, I’m happy to observe. Maybe provide some hands-on training. Proctor your exam...

She snorts. Little good that does her now, when he’s in bed, and she’s got to deal with this all on her--

Shirayuki blinks, hands dropping to the mattress. Her phone sits silent, screen dark now, but maybe...maybe...

Maybe she doesn’t.

Her fingers hover mere millimeters away from the screen protector, one curled corner tickling her smallest knuckle. She shouldn’t, really. It’s bad enough that she’s suffering, she doesn’t need to drag Obi into it. He’s going to be behind the wheel tomorrow, which requires things like sleep and concentration and not having stayed up until the wee hours talking your hopeless girlfriend through her perfectly normal sexual arousal. It’s not like he can do anything about how all she has is her own, fumbling hands.

That doesn’t stop her from asking, Are you up?

No answer. Not after two seconds, not after ten. Because unlike her, he’s asleep; wrung out and sated from how she-- she--

God. His moan is too vivid to be just in her head. I would have come for you anytime.

I’m stuck, she adds for good measure. Maybe luck will be on her side, and he’ll get up to pee sometime in the night, and she’ll...

She’ll die from waiting that long. Or at least, it’ll feel like it tomorrow morning, when all she has is two hours of vaguely dissatisfying sleep to go off of.

Options, Shirayuki must admit, are limited. Her fingers pluck at the smooth cotton of her waistband, lifting until she sees the barest shadow of auburn. There are plenty of people who can handle their own sexual needs without the use of a partner or, er, other accoutrements. In theory, she could be one of them.

But that’s not what the data says. Her waistband snaps back into place, leaving the barest flush of red across her belly. Without any natural aptitude, her next most obvious recourse is to bring her problems to google, but, er, well-- even if Kihal finally showed her how to clear her cookies, she’d never live down having this in her search history. Sure, all Grandad knows how to do on a computer is play solitaire, and if Nanna knew about search history then she’d know enough to use bookmarks too, which hasn’t happened no matter how many times Shirayuki has begged but--

She can’t risk it. Not unless she wants to be grounded forever. She’ll just have to figure it out on her own, like climbing trees, or reading. Maybe the data doesn’t favor a positive result, but history has shown: if she wants something bad enough, she’ll get it done.

(”God.” It leaves him on a groan, low enough to rumble straight from his chest into hers. Her lips feel swollen, raw from where his stubble’s scraped them, but that doesn’t stop her from wanting to draw him back. “And you thought you needed someone to teach you how to kiss?”

Her breath stutters, breasts crushed so close against his chest she nearly has cleavage. “Well, you laughed the first time.”

“Because you were braced for mouth-to-mouth warfare.” The ghost of a grin cants his lips-- her thighs clench tight, flexing against the flare of his hips.“But after that...”

One hand cups her cheek, palm hot against her jaw. It’s hard to look at him when he’s this close, the amber of his eyes shining gold as they drop to her lips. “I-I’m a fast learner. And...” Heat flares painfully under her skin, pinching at her ears. “I had a good tutor.”

“Well, sure.” His smile is positively insufferable; a bold move when he’s already hard against her hip, one squiggle away from incoherence. “But there was definitely some natural talent at play, kid.”

His thumb skates across her skin, only stopping at her lips. They tingle, more from anticipation than touch. If Shirayuki’s being honest-- which she always is, except when Nanna asks if everyone is decent when she comes up the stairs-- the rest of her body isn’t doing much better. “A-aah?”

“I think...” The pad of his thumb catches on her bottom lip, drawing her mouth open, loose-- and emptying her head in the process. “You could have gotten those results with anyone. Guess I’m just lucky you knew I’m easy.”

He laughs when he says it, that quick little wounded chuckle he’s so good at hiding behind. It’s as good as a cold shower. Her hands are trapped beneath his shoulder, but she brings them as far north as the can, gripping his ribs. “That’s not true.”

Obi blinks, the smooth molten honey cooling to a confused amber. “Sure it is, kid. I mean, I’m not mad or anything. Worked out just fine in my opinion.”

“No, I didn’t-- I didn’t pick you because you were easy. I mean, because I thought you were easy. Not that I did!” It’s good she’s already got him in her hands, because otherwise he might feel the way they trembled. “I went to you because I trusted you. Zen laughed when we kissed the first time, and I couldn’t-- I knew--” words have always been her most constant companions, but for some reason, she can’t make them come out in order-- “you wouldn’t.”

“Ah...” he huffs, amused, rolling onto his side. “Well, looks like you were wrong about that.”

There’s far too much space between them. “I wasn’t, not really. You laughed, but it wasn’t...at me.”

He stares at her like she’s started spouting Latin. Or Joyce. “Of course not. I was just nervous as fuck. I really wanted...”

It’s obvious what he wanted, now. But even still he can’t say it, only sit there, tense, as his skin flushes darker. Back then she would have missed it, and now she can’t help but wonder if he’d looked just like this then, flushed and wanting while she’d been too blind to see it.

“I also thought...” Her fingers reach out, toying with the button on his henley. “I thought if I was going to ask anyone, it should be someone who was a good kisser. And I, um, knew you would be.”

“Ah right.” His mouth slinks into a smirk. “Because I’m a slut.”

Her mouth pulls thin. “No. I mean because...” If she thought blushing had been painful before, it’s worse now, heat stinging her cheeks like a slap. “Because I had, ah, thought a lot about what it might be like to kiss you.”

His jaw drops. “Me?”

“Ah...yes.” The whole night churned through her head endlessly these past few months, examined from every angle to determine how she went from practice kissing to dry humping to long-term boyfriend, if only to keep from sliding back to friends and then strangers in the same inexplicable fashion.

It took an embarrassing amount of time to conclude it wasn’t about that night. It wasn’t even about Zen’s kiss. Oh no, it was the tech couch, her bare knee rubbing against his jeans as she leaned too close, wondering about where he bought his body wash. It was how she always found a reason to touch him when she thought his shirt looked soft; how she always volunteered to do sound check just to hear him rumble in her ear, the two of them alone on the headsets. It was how with every hook up the crew dragged out of him, his imaginary partner inched a shade closer to red.

“I liked Zen,” she admits, the safest part of this terrible confession. “But I...I really wanted to kiss you. Just once. I think.”

His mouth is so wide that she can nearly see his tonsils. “So, you...?”

“Not-- not on purpose.” She breathes; something it feels like she hasn’t done in forever. “But I think if you hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have even thought to go to anyone else.”

Obi stares at her, uncomprehending. “So you mean to tell me, you tricked me into kissing you?”

“I didn’t know I was!” she yelps, hiding her face. It’s too late, he’s already laughing; she can see it where she peeks through her fingers. “But...I’m pretty sure, yes.”)

Right. A breath huffs determinedly from her lungs. The only way to make good data is to generate more of it.

It’s easy for her hand to slide down the smooth plane of her belly; both summer heat and suffering makes her skin slick, slick enough that her fingers bang knuckle-first into her waistband. It’s not much of a barrier-- just a cotton drawstring that is more decorative than functional, tied into the cutest bow a youtube tutorial could walk her through after it unraveled in the wash. But it’s enough to pull her up short, blunt nails scraping at stretch cotton.

“It’s not a big deal.” Her fingers pluck at the band, letting it slap softly back against her abdomen. “Anyone can do this.”

And she better be able to, otherwise she’ll be spending Senior Day snoozing behind her sunglasses instead of having fun in the sun. Or whatever is they’re supposed to do.

That’s what decides her; one minute she’s dithering, and the next she thinks about Kihal getting curious about the bags under her eyes. What kept you up? she’d ask, unsuspecting. Shirayuki would love to think she could be vague, that somehow she could dress a lie up in the truth’s costume, but-- she knows herself too well. I got stuck would come out as a reflex, and, well...

Her hand slips beneath her shorts. Between her two options, this is sure to be less mortifying.

Last time, hair had crinkled against her palm, tying painful knots around her fingers like kudzu, but now-- now she’s soaked, everything between her thighs coated in a film of slick, and there’s nothing to stop her sliding down, nothing to stop her opening her lips and dragging fingers through them the way Obi tells her she likes. And she does when it’s his fingers, callused and slender, touch just the perfect pressure, but now--

It’s fine. Fingertips skate along her folds, teasing her slit, and it’s-- it’s okay. Not enough to make her forget it’s her hands touching her, that she’s just fumbling through the dark with nothing more than a guttering match and directions written on a napkin.

Fumbling is apropos; she’s wet but too much so, and one slow swipe careens close to her clit, sending her vision into pixels at the edge but not in a good way. How Obi manages, she’ll never know. It’s her own body and she’s hopeless.

She shifts, back hitting the pillows with a huff. It’s no use; there’s nothing exciting about it being her own hands, not like how it is when Obi touches her, every breath and brush a surprise. There must be some secret to forgetting, something everyone else is born able to do and is broken in her, because short of thinking of Obi--

Wait. Her hands still. Could she?

She’s tried before; nebulous fantasies where she shied from faces, even if every partner spoke in his same elastic voice, laughed with his warm rumble-- well, except for the few times they goaded her with a good, Shirayuki, just the way Kiki did that one time in gym class. 

(She nearly apologized the next day, worrying that Obi would think she wasn’t serious, but she never made it past the first breath on that anxiety. Instead she remembers Kiki looming over her backstage, asking her to help with the billion pearl buttons on the back of her costume so she could get to the bathroom, and Kai breathing into her ear, I’d love to help her take off the dress.

His mortification is instant. She may not be able to see him over the headset, but she doesn’t need to to know he was eight shades of red already. Oh, jeeze, don’t-- don’t tell her I said that. I didn’t mean--

It’s okay, ladykiller, Obi drawls, every syllable smug. I think it’s part of the human experience to want to fuck Kiki Seiran. Or be fucked by her, he adds, thoughtful. Whatever floats your boat.)

Anything more than vague human shapes and some, er, illicit voice sampling has seemed too much, so personal, but maybe, maybe if she did--

Well, it would be nice if this overactive imagination was good for something other than providing the angle of her broken neck if she missed a stair. But if that’s the case, well-- she would definitely need some, um, inspiration, as Obi called it.

The phone slides into her palms easy; she takes a moment to look at the home screen-- No New Notifications, it reads, disappointingly-- before flipping right to the gallery.

Just a splash of tan skin on the thumbnail sets her heart to a gallop, chasing the thrill up and down her spine. Full size, she squirms, staring at his bare chest, the casual way he lounges in his chair. His gym shorts are baggy, hanging off his body without showing anything more, but-- but he was hard beneath them. He’d taken this, and then moments later came whimpering into her ear, because he-- he--

He touched himself. Even with her...reservations, there’s a part of her that’s curious, that wants to know what he looks like with his hands wrapped tight around his-- his thing. Penis. Dick? Cock. That sounded better. More, ah, literary.

She could right now-- know, that is, if she could find the courage to ask. I know its late but I was wondering if you might send me a picture of your erect penis.

No. Cock. Or was that too aggressive? It hardly matters, the second she pictures typing it, her mind stalls out, embarrassment wiping the slate clean. What would he even say to something like that.

are you sure?

Yes, that’s right. He would want to-- he’s sent them to other girls before. Not at their school, but before, when he didn’t have xbox but all the time in the world to get into trouble. At least, that’s how he puts it. He’d want to, but she has rules, and, um, a dickphobia, so he wouldn’t just...whip it out.

No, that’s not quite right. Her eyes screw shut, trying to picture it. He’s conscientious, sure, and if she asked him in person, he’d want to have a whole conversation-- or as much as his head could handle, hard as it would make him. But a picture she has control over; she could ask and just...never look. Not if she didn’t want to.

just gimme a min Smugness would radiate from the screen. If there’s one thing Obi is confident in, it’s his body. gotta make it look good u kno what i mean kid 😘

That’s closer to reality; as close as she can come without actually doing it, but it feels-- right. But also not enough, not what she wants.

u want me 2 call?

That isn’t it either. She squirms, that electric feeling trapped too far beneath her skin, net enough to set her slight. She needs more.

how ab a meet n greet 🍆 

It’s too much, even for him, but she doesn’t care, not when all she imagines trembling fingers replying, yes please

5 minutes His own would have to be shaking, too, if he bothered to type the whole word. keep the window open

Ah, if she’d thought she was soaked before, she’s drenched now, hips bucking hard against the slide of her hand. That’s how he’d find her, his name already half on her lips as he climbed through the window. No, don’t stop on my account, kid...

She whines, every stroke of her fingers sending sparks under her skin. It’s still her touching herself, but he’s beside her now, breath tickling her neck. Fuck. His voice is already a wreck, his hand laying over hers, feeling every flick of her tendons as she works. Fuck, kid, you’re so wet.

He’s shirtless now too, t-shirt decorating her floor and gym shorts riding low, doing nothing to hide how hard he is against her hip. If this were real, her stomach would flip, half-fear half-arousal. She likes knowing he wants her, that his attraction to her isn’t just that she’s the first person who showed him a scrap of kindness but also based in quantifiable chemistry, but--

But there’s a part of her that’s convinced one day he’ll get bored of her being prude. That he’ll reach his limit with her ridiculous dickphobia and just whip it out, no warning at all, and she’ll--

Well, she doesn’t know what she’ll do, but she wouldn’t be coming out of it with a boyfriend, that’s for sure.

She doesn’t think about that now. No, not when all she can think of is the choked-off whimper he gave when she told him how she wanted to see him come, how he whined when he took himself in his hands and-- and--

Every inch of her is static, Obi’s phantom touch setting her to writhe beneath her fingers. It wouldn’t be so bad, would it? To touch him? She could take her hand and press it right over filmy material of his shorts, palm raking over the ridges of his cock.

He bucks into her hands, whine tearing from his lips. Kid...

It’d felt good to make him come tonight, to be the one that talked him over the edge. But if she was the one touch him, the one controlling how fast his heart beat in his chest...

Shirayuki doesn’t have any practical knowledge about what a penis feels like, not outside of what she’s felt against her hip as they kissed, but she can imagine. All those pictures on google hadn’t done much for her-- fleshy shafts seemed more ridiculous than arousing-- but it’s Obi. There hasn’t been a single part of him that doesn’t make her salivate, wondering what it would feel like against her. How could this be any different? How could she not want it when he’s panting beside her, name caught in his throat from just the barest touch?

I want to see it, she whines, and Obi wastes no time, yanking down his waistband with a groan that sets thunder rolling in her belly. His cock springs against her hip, and she takes it, looking down--

Only for her mind to go utterly blank. She can’t picture it, not as anything she’s seen in the harsh light of google image search. Her fingers skitter awkwardly, nearly jostling into her clit, but-- but she’s not going to lose this progress, not when she’s so close, when it would take nothing to tip her right over the edge. She screws her eyes shut, focusing on the weight in her hand, the warmth, the way his breath would hiss between his teeth as she moved her hand.

Shirayuki, he groans, hips thrusting up into her palm, don’t stop. Please...

She can’t, not now, not when she’s chasing that elusive height at the apex of her thighs, when she’s made less of flesh and more of nerves firing over and over, so close to her edge--

Please, she breathes. I want you. I want you inside--

It takes her by surprise. One moment he’s curled into her side, hissing in her ear-- you can have me, take me, please, please-- and then she tips over, static sweeping over from her head to her toes and back again, a blinding rush that only Obi’s ever given to her, until--

Until now. Her eyes blink open, fixed on the ceiling. She did it.

It’s not as good as when he touches her; nothing could be. But this...

Well, she’s no longer stuck. But now she’s have to tell Obi, and--

Ooh, kid. The thought of his grin sends a spike of want between her legs, even as she withers under it. How’d that happen?

Shirayuki flops onto her belly and groans. That’s something for Tomorrow-Shirayuki to deal with.

[bubblesthemonsterartist]

Promptathon: Deep Water Prompt #547: "I went back in time five seconds. It was enough." Obi has a special power, and he has, in fact, always known how this story will go.

Prompts are currently closed while I catch up. I will announce when I am open! :)

A/N: A side adventure for The Ten Vows. Or, like, a previous incarnation of Shirayuki when she was more self-aware of just what she is. And what Obi is.

Content warning: Violence, off-screen death

Candlelight caught in crystal, silk drenched in water.

Fire and ashes, the angry growl of men.

These are the things he hears, the things he rememberstime and time again. 

And yet she is still, serene, facing down the same stormshe faced down countless times before. It makes his heart claw at his throat,make his skin beg for blood.

“Mistress,” his voice is rough, hoarse, the cold tileshard beneath his knees. “We have to go.”

She doesn’t move, staring down on the village below. Therain doesn’t let up, her hair becoming like a slick of oil against the white andpink of her gown.

“Please.” The word comes in a plume of fog and his voicebreaks, just this once. He wonders if she hears it, if she knows how thesemoments tear him apart. “Let’s go. Just this one time.”

A sad smile plays across her lips when she peers at himover her shoulder and her face- her face has always been an honest one, eachand every form she takes never hiding her heart for an instant. But tonight,there’s something strange to it, something familiar that terrifies him. Tonightthe whole universe swirls in that depth of violet and he knows- he knows- and yet still he presses hisargument.

“I have to go to them,” she says, so softly, so simply,as if they didn’t cut him to the quick. As if she didn’t flay him raw with a single sentence. “This ismy fault.”

He shakes his head, throat too thick for words, and hepresses his forehead low until it touches cool marble. It’s not. It’s not. He doesn’t care one whit about hervows, not if it means-

Not if it means relearning her absence anew.

“Obi.” He winces at the sound of her voice, the certaintythere. He knows what she’s going to say. “Help me.”

Her bond tugs on him and like a stubborn dog pulling onhis lead, he thrashes against it. “No.”

She comes in from the rain, bare feet slappingagainst the floor. “You know what will happen to them if you don’t.”

Damnation. An eternity of rebirths. Hundreds of creaturesno better than him. Yes, he knows, and he doesn’t care.

Outside, the crowd is growing, their faces dashed withmud and smeared with rain. They scream, hurl insults not meant for his Lady’sears.

She lets him hear it. His Mistress is as cruel as she iskind and the wild, vengeful thing in his chest snarls, lashing out. He doesn’thave to raise his head to know the sudden heat in the room is not his surgingblood, but the flames from candlelight licking at the ceiling. The slow crackling and chime-likeshattering is untouched crystal falling to pieces across the floor.

How easy it would be to dispatch them. How easy would itbe to lay this whole city – this whole countryto waste. The blood would fill the streets and yes, oh yes, the room growshotter and he can remember it. The texture of flesh giving way under his hands;the snap of bones; the way the light goes out, their gaze filled with nothingbut the yellow eyes of a demon.

“Calm down. You’ll hurt yourself.”

Whimpering like a whipped dog, he comes back. Curls into himself. His curse submittingso much more easily to her than it ever did to him.

“Obi.” Her voice is electric, thunder and lightningcracking overhead and he wants- he wants to crawl on his belly before her.Wants to offer her his neck. When she kneels before him, sinking her fingersinto his hair, he leans into it, every piece of him filled with wanting. “It’sthe only way.”

Screwing his eyes shut, he shakes his head, and she- she drawshim up, touching his face so gently that he has to look upon her. At this face. One moretime.

Her eyes glisten with tears she wants to shed. “Why areyou always like this?” she chokes, and- and she’s afraid. Not of death, butthe- the pain. “You know I’ll be back.”

Resting on his knees before her, his eyes skim her features,gathers her voice near to his heart. “But you always leave too soon.”

~ ~ ~

In the end, the Saints are human. And humans have alwaysbeen too easy to break. And come the first flush of dawn, all that is left, all that exists toremember her by, is ash and bone.

He stands helplessly among the remains when the othershave gone, when the storm has cleared, and- Nothinglasts forever, Obi. Not you. Not me. We must only use the time we have to dogood in this world. To relieve their suffering by some small amount-

His fist clench so hard they creek.

“Aye me,” a voice sighs. “How she manages to do thisevery time, I’ll never understand.”

Swallowing, he kneels, gathering up a shard of bone. It’ssmall, though nowhere near the frailty of a birds she so often seemed to be. “Youwere watching.”

“Nothing better to do.”

Tilting his head towards her, he asks, “And your Master?”

Torou looks towards the forest, hand on her hip and afamiliar look of longing etched to her face. “Still… lingering. Somewherebetween the worlds.”

Drawing in a shuddering breath, he almost collapses underthe weight of his mourning. It’s only the bite of her bone cutting into hispalm that keeps him present.

Death was a dream. Life always ended. Isn’t that- isn’t that what she always says?

Gritting his teeth, he stands up. This should be easier.He should be stronger. That is what his Mistress would want- for him to do morewith his time than wait.

“If you don’t have anything better to do,” Torou drawls,skiddling up closer to him. “It would be nice to- have a companion. Just for alittle while.”

Helplessly, he stares at nothing. Turns the words over in his head. And that- that would be nice. But- “Just until one ofthem returns.”

“Of course!” she beams and Torou has always been such astrange devil, her smiles more easier than most, the spark of her eyes moregenuine and he’s always wondered- always been curious- always wanted to ask-

But the question is pulled straight from his lungs. The world shudders, the air breaking all around them, andthe smile drops from her face in shock.

“By the thousand hands,” Torou mutters when it settles. “She came backquick.”

Shaken, he sniffs the air to be sure and catches herscent on the wind; feels the cry of a baby in the pulse of the earth.

They stare at each other for a moment, neither knowingwhat to say. There’s an apology on his lips, the promise of next time eventhough to say it aloud would be a new yet familiar kind of pain.

Torou smiles at him, patting his arm. “You should gogreet her.”

Obi clears his throat, casting one last glance at what remains aroundthem. At the village gone to rest. At the bones not consumed by fire. And stillhe burns with her.

“What’s the purpose?” he grunts. “The story always endsthe same.”

“It changes every time.” Eyes glinting up at him, lipsspread in a cat’s grin, she says, “You just aren’t paying attention.”

[shiguremachi]

コイワズライ / Lovesick (english lyrics)

Artist: Aimer

From the album Sun Dance (April 2019)

泣き虫を笑って nakumushi wo waratte 強がりは気づいて tsuyogari wa kizuite わがままを許して wagamama wo yurushite 気まぐれにつきあって kimagure ni tsukiatte

Laughing at me for being a crybaby Noticing when I’m trying to act tough Forgiving my selfishness and going along with my whims

そばにいたくって soba ni itakutte 寒いのは苦手 samui no wa nigate かじかんだ手と手 kajikanda te to te つないでみせて tsunaide misete

I want to be by your side but I’m not good with the cold Let me show you that my numb hands can hold yours

ねえ　苦しさをわかって nee　kurushisa wo wakatte ずっと続く愛しさをわかって zutto tsuzuku itoshisa wo wakatte そんな心はいつだって sonna kokoro wa itsu datte そっと溜息こぼす sotto tameki kobosu

Hey, please know how much I have suffered Please know how much I’ve liked you since a long time ago Such a heart is always softly letting out a sigh

だから伝えたいことって dakara tsutaetai koto tte いつも伝えられなくって itsumo tsutaerare nakutte 不器用に笑って誤魔化すんだよ bukiyou ni waratte gomakasundayo

That’s why I can never say the things I want to say and they always devolve into awkward laughs, you know

ありふれた会話や仕草を arifureta kaiwa ya shigusa wo 少しも忘れたくはないよ sukoshi mo wasuretaku wa nai yo ゆらり　きらり　白雪の様に yurari　kirari　shirayuki no you ni 溶けてしまわないように tokete shimawanai you ni

I don’t want to forget these everyday conversations and gestures at all Like glistening white snowflakes swaying in the wind, I wish they wouldn’t melt away

嘘つきは嫌いで usotsuki wa kiraide 曖昧を選んで aimai wo erande 会いたいを隠して aitai wo kakushite 笑顔を祈ってる egao wo inotteru

I hated to lie and chose to be vague, hiding how I wanted to meet you and wishing for your smile

ねえ　伝えたいことって nee　tsutaetai koto tte いつも伝えたくなくって itsumo tsutaetaku nakutte すれ違ってばかりで surechigatte bakari de 見逃すんだよ minogasunda yo

Hey, I never want to say all the things I wish to say I always pass you by and miss my chance once again

色づいた街灯の明りが irozuita gaitou no akari ga 少しも優しくなんかないから sukoshi mo yasashiku nanka nai kara 空に　きらり　瞬くように sora　kirari　matataku you ni 涙は踊っていた namida wa odotteita

Because the glow of the streetlamps that have turned amber are not even a little bit kind, in the sky, sparkling, as if they were winking at me, tears are dancing

悲しくなっても　寂しくなっても kanashiku natte mo　samishiku natte mo 泣きたくなってもいいんだよ nakitaku natte mo iinda yo 悲しい時こそ　寂しい時こそ kanashii toki koso　samishii toki koso 大事なことがあるんだよ daiji na koto ga arunda yo

Even if I become sad, even if I become lonely, even if I start wanting to cry, it’ll be alright because it’s when I’m sad, and when I’m lonely, that there must be something important to me

悲しくなっても　泣きたくなっても kanashiku natte mo　nakitaku natte mo 恋しくなってもいいんだよ koishiku natte mo iinda yo

Even if I become sad, even if I start wanting to cry, even if I fall in love, it’ll be alright

明日になっても　大人になっても ashita ni natte mo　otona ni natte mo いつまでたっても itsumade tatte mo

Even when tomorrow comes, even when I become an adult, even when I stand till the end—

色づいた街灯の明りが irozuita gaitou no akari ga 少しも優しくなんかないけど sukoshi mo yasashiku nanka nai kedo 空にきらり　瞬いている sora ni kirari　matataiteiru 星降る夜に願いを hoshi furu yoru ni negai wo

Even though the glow of the streetlamps that have turned amber are not even a little bit kind, as they sparkle and twinkle in the night, I send my wishes to a sky full of stars

ありふれた会話や仕草を arifureta kaiwa ya shigusa wo 少しも忘れたくはないよ sukoshi mo wasuretaku wa nai yo ゆらり　ふわり　白雪の様に yurari　fuwari　shirayuki no you ni 恋が消えたとしても koi ga kieta toshite mo

I don’t want to forget these everyday conversations and gestures Like glistening white snowflakes swaying in the wind, even if this love were to disappear—

寂しくなっても　切なくなっても samishiku natte mo　setsunaku natte mo 恋しくなってもいいんだよ koishiku natte mo iinda yo 寂しい恋こそ　切ない恋こそ sabishii koi koso　setsunai koi koso 大事なものになるんだよ daiji na mono ni narunda yo

Even if I become lonely, even if it starts to hurt, even if I start to miss you, it’ll be alright because it’s when this love is lonely and when this love hurts, that it becomes something precious to me

悲しくなっても　寂しくなっても kanashiku natte mo　samishiku natte mo 泣きたくなってもいいんだよ nakitaku natte mo iinda yo 悲しい時こそ　寂しい時こそ kanashii toki koso　samishii toki koso 大事なことがあるんだよ daiji na koto ga arunda yo

Even if I become sad, even if I become lonely, even if I start wanting to cry, it’ll be alright because it’s when I’m sad, and when I’m lonely, that there must be something important to me

[zukalations]

Relaxing Breeze - Sakihi Miyu

Relaxing Breeze (Fuwari) was a musumeyaku feature published in GRAPH, where an interview would take place at a cafe. It was focused on offstage topics such as how they destress or what they do on days off.

Sakihi’s was published in the February 2017 issue.

Relaxing Breeze - Sakihi Miyu

First, why don’t you order! Ah, what should I pick! Let’s see...the Ice Cafe Chocolat and...what to do...hmmm...right! The “Strawberry Cream Cheese Waffle”! It interested me as soon as I saw the menu.

What else were you considering? I like adzuki-bean paste too, so the adzuki french toast looked interesting. And the buttered waffle is simple but it looks really nice… (Manager calls from the back: ‘It’s not too late to change your mind~’) Nonono! My heart’s set on this! (laughs)

Today we’re doing a photoshoot at this cafe, so… This wood design...since I grew up in Miyagi I was surrounded by trees all the time, so this atmosphere is really calming. It feels like a real day off (laughs)

Your outfit is especially casual today. Since we’re in a cafe, and I like soft color palettes, I settled on this. It’s like ‘OK, where do I want to go today~’ (laughs), the image of something you’d wear on a day off...how to describe it. Nothing constricting...and although it’s warm, it has really nice airflow, I guess? Ahahaha! (laughs)

(laughs). That loose-fitting knit piece is really lovely. I really like knits. I didn’t have any sleeveless knits before, but you see them a lot in magazines lately, right? I bought this one just recently, and I thought ‘this is my chance!’ And it turned out it really matched the atmosphere of this cafe somehow...hahaha. For my hair too, I did it how I might on a day off, with it all curled and just loosely fastened; it’s like I’m letting my head rest a bit too. I also wanted to try a different style from a typical Takarazuka hair arrangement, following mainstream trends that an ordinary woman might like. It seems like loosely fastened styles like this are popular currently, so I tried it out at home thinking I might wear something like that to rehearsals...I think about Takarazuka all the time (laughs). But I like Takarazuka, see! (laughs)

Do you go to cafes by yourself? I doooo~ But only when I’m in a more relaxed mindset. Like the day after a show’s closing performance… Ah, but recently, after the closing performance of One Night of Stars in Tokyo, I felt such a strong sense of loss. Although it’s hard for me to part with any show, that one… I think maybe it was because the part of Sen was so hard, and I struggled with the show so much, but afterwards I felt a mysterious sense of accomplishment.

(The waffle arrives) Wow, it smells so good! (To the manager) Thank you~! It’s so tasty! Ah...it melts in my mouth...I’m so happy…

What do you usually order at a cafe? I get basic things a lot of the time, like simple sweets or handmade cakes, with drinks.I’ll go to pancake or french toast places too, but rather than just blindly following trends, I’m more like “everyone says this thing is so wonderful, I wonder what it’s really like” and shyly go, catching up with the times some time later (laughs). But for me, the main thing about going to a cafe is the conversation. I love talking shop, so I’ll go with other Snow Troupe members, and of course my classmates, but also Sahana [Mako]-san or from other troupes Kagetsu [Miyako]-san, or Shirayuki [Sachika]-san, or Chinami [Karan]-san… Being able to talk to people I respect is just so enriching to me, so I really feel like I need those times.

On your days off, do you prefer spending the day alone, or in a large group? I love...is it okay to say that? Well, I love being alone (laughs). I’ll go shopping alone, of course, or if there’s a movie I’m interested in, I’ll go myself to a really late showing.

What sort of movies have you seen recently? To be honest...I haven’t been able to go very much. The most recent time I saw a movie, which was a little while ago, was Pixar’s Inside Out. I was really interested because I was thinking ‘how will the film actors perform these voice acting roles?’ Ootake Shinobu-san was so amazing! Actually, I make sure to see every Disney movie. I also watch a lot of documentaries like Oceans. I love seeing nature footage on the big screen. But if there’s a closeup of a bug or something I’ll be like… (hiding her face) (laughs). I’m like ‘Okay, I’m fine with just the sound here~’ (laughs)

You don’t like bugs, then? I don’t (laughs). But I love nature, so on my days off sometimes I’ll just sit and space out at a park (laughs). I’ll watch the little kids playing around, or the old grampas fishing in the lake… During rehearsals and performances, I can only get outside during morning and evening, if I can just sit and feel the mid-day sun I’m like ‘Ah~ the time is flowing differently~’. But I’m not suffering from having a full daily schedule. I  think it’s good that I’m not free every day. It’s because it’s only occasional that those times become so happy, I think.

Do you take a lot of leisure time? No...actually, often the senior actresses will tell me ‘make sure you relax on this day off, ok?’... They’ll tell me to make sure I remember to take time for myself. I’m the type who will end up getting totally focused on whatever my goal is.

So, how do you relax? Hm...I’ll listen to music I like, not just music from shows. I really like Hakase Tarou-san. I love the sound of violin and string instruments, so I’ll listen to things like that, or Hisaishi Joe-san’s music. I’ll fling the window open, and let the fresh air flow in, and just let a CD play for ages (laughs). I also like Taylor Swift.

If you had several days’ vacation, what would you like to do? Hm...well, although I wouldn’t be able to decide this just on my own...I’d like to go on a trip with my family! We used to go on vacation a lot, with the whole family, my parents and my little sister. If I think about it now, for my parents, who were both working, those holidays must have been their precious time off, but we would always go out so I came to feel that of course holiday time was family time. But now I understand that it wasn’t so simple, and I want to give back to my parents somehow, so I think all the time that I’d like to take them somewhere.

If you had 3 or 4 days to spend together with the whole family, where would you like to go? Wah~! That would make me so happy~! Well, my parents like skiing. This is like 10 years ago now, but once, my mother said out of the blue ‘It would be so nice to go to the big slopes of Daisen, in Tottori’ and my father said ‘it would!’ but they were never able to go. I want to make that dream come true for them. For the longest time I’ve had that memory: “It’s written as ‘big mountain’ but it’s read ‘Daisen’! Okay! That’s where mom wants to go!” I want to go there while we’re all still in good health. ...Ah~I ended up talking so much today. Thank you so much!

[natsthinkitythinkthinkthonk]

Happy 32nd Birthday Nobuhiko Okamoto!

Personal Note:

I’ve been preparing for a while because I wanted to make this with a lot more thought. Sorry for the length of this post. I spent quite a bit of time on it, but I didn’t realize it would get so long! He is one of my top favourite voice actors (both English and Japanese) ever. To me, he’s a relatable, awesome, and passionate inspiration. He puts his all into every role he does, and he never gives up no matter who tells him to. 

I could probably go on about how much I like many of the roles he’s done, but that would be a whole other essay in itself. I even considered watching Corpse Party (the scaredy cat I am) because I heard he was in it. Yeah, I’m one of those people who gets drawn to anime when I figure out certain studios and voice actors are attached to it. I have watched a few episodes of some really bad anime because I heard he was in it. No regrets! Okay, maybe I have a few... I still haven’t watched them all though! I plan on watching a ton more, and that includes a few bad apples here and there.

Despite all the hurdles and adversity he faces, he overcomes it! He has had so many amazing roles, he sings, he’s good at shogi, and he’s just a good person. I respect him a lot. Honestly, I can’t word stuff too well, but I sincerely hope he continues working, maybe gets married and has kids (since he said he wanted to), and experiences all the happiness he deserves.

Table of Contents:

Top Roles (+ clips)

Trailblazer arrangement

Facts + Q&As

Music Recommendations

Additional Sources + other cool posts

Top Roles:

I watched to include even the ones that I didn’t watch entirely, so I put together a whole list. It’s generally not too strict in order, but I went from his good to his best. If I wanted to put a few words, I just included them in square brackets. In those, there will also be recommended clips if I feel the need to add any in.

* = ones that I haven’t watched completely (or up to its current point)

Rui Tatsumi* - Starmyu

Ivan Karelin* - Tiger and Bunny

Shin-ah - Akatsuki no Yona

[This character didn’t talk much, so he actually got to play a MOB character as well. I found this character kind of charming though.]

Mitsuo - Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou

[He’s the one who dropped the hot dog. Rest in Pieces. This anime made me laugh, and even though this character barely appeared, he made me laugh every time he did. Recommended clip: “Glasses”]

Gladion* - Pokemon Sun & Moon

[He’s actually the perfect choice to play this edgy boi.]

Yumeji Fujiwara* - Yumekui Merry

[RIP the can]

Makoto Kashino* - Yume-iro Pâtissière

[I just started this one]

Mizuki* - Kamisama Hajimemashite

[I watched six episodes of this one.]

Rei Ogami - Code:Breaker

[This wasn’t a very good anime, it’s a mediocre manga, but I still enjoyed it.]

Nikaidou Harunobu* - 3-Gatsu no Lion

[I watched around 6-8 episodes of this one. This character is a pure round boi, and I like the way Nobu portrayed this character. Recommended Clip.]

Io Otonashi* - Acchi Kocchi

[I watched around 5 episodes of this one. His bishounen game is very strong.]

Takeru Fujiwara* - Prince of Stride

[These anime characters run like how I run from my life responsibilities and problems. His bishounen game is also very strong. The strong and silent type is always popular. Sadly, I’m the quiet and extremely frail and weak type.]

Shouta Kisa* - Sekaiichi Hatsukoi

[According to Tumblr, he has never done an R-rated (18+) BLCD, but he has been in some shounen-ai anime.]

Issac Foster - Satsuriku no Tenshi

[My reaction to this anime. Don’t worry, I’m following this to the end.]

Ryousuke Kominato - Diamond no Ace

Ryou Kurokiba* - Shokugeki no Souma

Age - Sakasama no Patema

[Yeah, that’s his actual name. If you name your child something that stupid, I would personally like to have a word with you. This movie was really nice though.]

Accelerator* - Toaru Majutsu no Index

[I had to include his laugh to this]

Jurai Andou - Inobato (Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de)

[And jail is just a building you live in! I can’t remember the context of this line.]

Kiyoharu Hyoudou - Welcome to the Ballroom

Yoichi Saotome* - Owari no Seraph

Eiji Niizuma* - Bakuman

[Recommended Clip]

Obi - Akagami no Shirayuki-hime

[When he looks into the mirror and realizes he’s missing his eyebrows.]

Takumi Usui* - Kaichou wa Maid-sama

Yuu Nishinoya* - Haikyuu

[Recommended Clip: ROLLING THUNDER!]

Rin Okumura - Ao no Exorcist

[He’s such a likeable protagonist. Recommended clip: Rin x Shiemi because they’re adorable]

Mikoto Mikoshiba - Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

[This character made me laugh so much. He and Seo are my favourites. I haven’t seen another amazing anime with both Miyuki Sawashiro and Nobu. They’re my two favourites. I hope to see them acting together eventually (even if Mikorin and Seo never really communicated). Thanks to Nobu, we have a voice to this madly embarassed bishounen. Recommended Clips: Mikorin Clips, Mixer Clip]

Katsuki “Kacchan” Bakugou - Boku no Hero Academia

[Bakugou might not always be my cup of tea as a character, but his voice made me like him somewhat anyway whether he’s an asshole or not. There are a few scenes in season three that hit me with mad feels,, but even during season one and two, Nobu aced this role. This role is what shot him up to one of my favourite voice actors. Recommended Clips: Rage moments, Kacchan vs Deku audio segment (scroll down a little for this Tumblr post), Salty Bakugou S1]

Karma Akabane - Assassination Classroom

[While Bakugou is one type of crazy, Karma is another. Honestly, he’s such a sly, cunning, and mischievous character, but that’s what we all like about him, right?]

Trailblazer Arrangement:

This is my first time transcribing a song and arranging it! I improvised and made up some stuff (mostly guitar solos that just didn’t fit as well logically on piano). I usually don’t like (actually, I kinda hate) transcribing because it’s basically like trying to copy down a book that someone reads aloud (and you can’t look at the text). But it was worth doing this! He’s definitely not my favourite singer, but I’d still listen to him.

I didn't want to go with an original score for this one because I felt like I wanted to improve a lot more as a composer and artist (as if I'm qualified enough to be called those terms). When I make one for him, I want to go all out.

Facts:

I found some other interesting facts online. There are quite a few different sources. I’ll try to list them below all the facts (but I might link them to the actual facts as well. There are a lot, so there’s that.

All [Nat Notes] will be put between square brackets “[these]”.

These are all from THIS POST:

After graduating from secondary school, he entered some voice acting training courses associated with his agency (Pro-Fit) to pursue his dream as a seiyuu.

To be able to pay for his training, he worked at a 7-Eleven and a post office.

His family is very strict and conservative.

He was into video games when he was younger, but his parents were against letting him play video games and ended up limiting him to a one-hour per day time limit [THIS POOR BOI]

[Regarding his gaming] his parents told him, “If you want to play games, you can play shogi.” This ended up being the reason he started playing shogi.

He is a practicing Catholic [ironic since one of his most iconic roles is playing the son of Satan]

He’s a 3rd dan ranked shogi player, and he once aimed to be a professional shogi player.

He has a huge love for sweets. I follow his blog, and a lot of his posts involve sweets.

“His favourite [candy bar] would be Black Thunder chocolate bars (same as Kamiya Hiroshi and Ono Daisuke), and at one point, he always ends up buying Black Thunder by the box, stocking up on it, and eating up to 10 bars in one day, that his agency decided to restrict him into eating just one bar a day.” [let the poor guy eat his chocolate]

He is easily bullied by other seiyuu [check out the original post which has gifs of his mishaps]

“[While recording] …he ran away from the mic, forgetting that he was wearing headphones connected to the mic and ended up messing up the recording room, and the staff had to rearrange everything.”

He’s a big fan of Pokemon [He now plays Gladion in Pokemon Sun & Moon]

These are from “More Nobu Facts”

“As a student, he used to fall asleep on the train and miss his destinations sometimes. He thinks that it’s really comfortable to take a nap there.” [Yeah, you say that until you somehow end up in the middle of nowhere and wonder where you are and why you even exist.]

“He suffers from hay fever in the spring. Said that the symptoms kill him.” [You and me both except mine are year-round and gradually getting worse.]

“He played with Lego bricks when he was a kid.” [If he’s the type of person who left out the bricks and made people experience pain because of it, I will personally leave Lego bricks outside his door. Those things hurt when they’re unexpected.]

“He loves the indoor life.” [don’t we all…]

“He read the Harry Potter series.” [I did too! Not that I remember any of it.]

“His cute, foreign Furby only speaks English. Noburin stated, “English is very hard.”” [HOW DO PEOPLE SLEEP KNOWING THEY OWN ONE OF THOSE? I WOULD BURN IT IF I GOT ONE.]

“In elementary school, the girl he liked gave him chocolate on Valentine’s Day. He said he felt like crying from the shock.” [I haven’t experienced that. Was he happy because it was that girl who gave him chocolate or because he got free chocolate?]

“He was hospitalized before when he was a child due to a bad cold (or maybe the flu).” [Well, that diet sure doesn’t help, and I doubt screaming all the time is good for you. Weirdly, I can’t say anything more than that because I do both too except I scream internally while he does it as his profession.]

He tends to get sick within the first two weeks of October, right before his birthday. [I wish you luck!]

He likes to watch lightning and thinks that it’s cool. [I’M SO SCARED OF THUNDER]

During the summer as a kid, he liked to catch cicadas and dragonflies, and play with water guns. [SAME DUDE]

He was in the badminton club during secondary school.

These are all from his Q&A! [Part 1], [Part 2], [Part 3], [Part 4]:

I’m not going to include quotation marks for this one for the most part. I changed some awkward phrasing. I left out some questions from the original posts as well. Check the sources out!

Nickname: Pikorin

Favourite animal: Dog [Same. I love my dog, Penny. She’s my little sister. I have no shame.]

What are you fond of?: Squirrels [why?]

Description of your personality: Moody [Same.]

Favourite Colour: Black

Health and Beauty Routine: I drink two cups of milk in the morning and do squats two times a day. 

First thing you do in the morning?: Rinse your mouth

First thing you wash in the bath: Face

Amount of sleep you get: 4 hours on the weekdays, 10 hours on the weekend  [I wouldn’t live with that kind of schedule.]

Rain or sunshine: Rain!

What did you play as a child?: I slid down the slide and got many scratches. [I ran up slides a lot in elementary school]

Something you’re proud of: “I have a shiny legendary Pokemon.” [I ALMOST NEVER GET SHINIES. LET ALONE LEGENDARY ONES. THAT’S AN ACCOMPLISHMENT RIGHT THERE. The chances of getting one kinda vary, but it’s less than 0.1% I think.]

Favourite school subject: Math [Can’t relate. I’m dumb.]

Least favourite school subject: Civics

Best school memory?: I won a badminton tournament. [Can’t relate. I’m a blob.]

Previous part-time jobs: [...]post office, fast food, convenience store and then accounting, I’ve done different jobs.

If you could be reborn, would you be a man or woman? A woman!

Who was your first love?: We were in elementary school, in the same class. [Related post]

Any gesture of women unnerving to you?: My heart skips a beat when ousted or “shooed” by hand.  [He gets shooed like a bug XD]

Where would you go for a date?: Tokyo Disney Sea.  [You know you’re at the height of luxury when you can afford to take someone there. I want someone to take me to Disneyland or Disney World, or a Disney Cruise.]

Morning person or night person?: Morning person.  [Can’t relate.]

If you could drive to any time period, what would it be?: Jurassic Period! [If it just so happens you do, *pats* it was nice knowing you (even though he doesn’t know me). He’ll get eaten by a dinosaur.]

If you were stranded on a deserted island, what would you want there with you?: My Nintendo DS or PSP.   [Good luck without a charger or electricity. What games would he bring though?]

Favourite music genre: Anime songs [Me too fam.]

Do you play any instruments? No, playing the F chord on the guitar is my limit. [I like playing and creating music. I’m just not any good at it. XD He should try learning though!]

Favourite sports: swimming and badminton [I’m not good at swimming. I’m not good at badminton. I’m not good at sports.]

Sweets you usually eat: Macarons and chocolate-related sweets [AYE, that’s pretty much my taste too, so we pretty much have similar taste.]

Something you’re self-conscious about: The thickness of my eyebrows. [If his eyebrows were ugly, I would’ve commented on that already. XD (I usually say something along the lines of, “Is that a caterpillar on your face? It’s so thick and bushy! It looks like you took hair from your head and put it on your eyebrow! Maybe you can’t grow facial hair because all of it goes to those eyebrows.”)]

What will you do when and if only you became an invisible man one day?: Secretly observe Sugita Tomokazu-san. [Well, alright then. Fangirls have some competition? More importantly, Nakamura has competition!]

What’s the scariest thing to you?: In a sense, the most intimidating people. [All people are intimidating for me O^O’]

What is the title of the first game you’ve ever played in your life?: “Super Mario World”. [For me, it was Pokemon Pearl]

What would you be if you went into the fantasy world?: A witch. [Nobu, defying gender barriers. He’ll be a fabulous witch. I would similarly want to be a mage.]

What if I want to use a weapon to fight monsters?: Bow, crossbow. [I would want to use magic or a sword!]

Favourite season?: Spring. [I like winter because plants are dead (I have extremely bad allergies), snow, Christmas, my birthday, and New Year’s!]

At what spot do you like to linger around?: Starbucks. [Again, the height of luxury is when you’re able to afford Starbucks regularly.]

How’s your tolerance to alcohol?: I can’t drink much. [I don’t drink]

What good books do you usually read?: Original works that are adapted into anime. [I don’t read a lot. I’m an illiterate fool.]

What do you buy at convenience stores?: Fresh premium caramel roll cake. [I wish they had those in Canada…]

Favourite place in the country?: Okinawa. [I gotta go there someday!]

What countries do you want to go abroad?: Italy. [He recently said he wants to go to Italy for gelato and to be honest, I relate. Europe has good chocolate and cheese from what I hear.]

What are the challenges to your trip destinations like?: Pickpockets like to snatch! [He better watch out for those vans that say “Free Candy!” They might be meant for kids, but he might just stumble in.]

Are you nervous in public?: Recently it’s been okay; still nervous during events. [I’m always nervous in public. I would like to attend an event by the end of my life though.]

What would you tell your past-self (10 years ago)?: “Don’t give up and eat your dinner properly!” [I tell that to myself now XD If I were to send a message to myself, it would be something along the lines of, “What you feel, what you think, and what you believe is important. Listen to yourself. At the end of the day, you will figure out what to do. Don’t be afraid of being alone, and don’t be afraid to wander. Loosen up.”]

What would you message to your future-self (10 years from now)?: “The you in his twenties is having lots of fun. Are you having fun?” [Message for me ten years from now: PLEASE TELL ME YOU AREN’T AS DEEP INTO VOICE ACTORS AND ANIMATION. I BEG YOU, GET A LIFE.]

If the world was going to perish in 24 hours, what would you do? Gather all my friends and family, and have a BBQ party. [I would just write something in case it resurfaces. I would want to write my thoughts, opinions, and experiences along with the people around me.]  

Where do you want to work?: A place where I could grow. [Same!]

What are your thoughts when you look back at 2010? I issued a sex appeal to play [Usui], and worked hard to reach the targets! [From the amount of screaming fangirls, I think you did just fine.]

What is your current aim?: To be more playful and get more out of acting.

Finally, a message to the world: I’ll work hard from now on to make a voice that everyone will not have a hard time to listen to. Thank you for your support! [Thank you Nobu! You inspire a lot of people (including me) everyday!]

Additional Facts! [SOURCES WILL BE LISTED BELOW!]

He likes watching horror movies (especially with his friends Ryouhei Kimura, Kouki Uchiyama, and Yoshimasa Hosoya. Kouki is a scaredy-cat.) When watching a horror movie, he experienced scary unknown noises and used salt to ward away ghosts.

His birthdate is October 24, 1986

He is 168cm tall

He is affiliated with the agency Pro-Fit

He won: - Best New Actor Award at the Third Seiyu Awards for his roles as  Shin Kanzato in Persona: Trinity Soul, Ryuji Kuhoin in Kurenai, and Accelerator in Toaru Majutsu no Index (along with Yuuki Kaji!) - Best Supporting Actor Award at the Fifth Seiyu Awards for his roles as  Takumi Usui in Kaichou wa Maid-Sama, Eiji Niizuma in Bakuman, and Accelerator in Toaru Majutsu no Index II

He loves sweets... a lot: - He’s a qualified patisserie - Where his love of sweets came from [I can also say that is a good portion of his blog]

He tried to be rebellious as a kid but got “clobbered” by his mom.

He would purposefully wear long-sleeves while in the hot recording room for “My Hero Academia” so that he would be agitated enough to play Kacchan!

He adds chocolate to his curry sometimes

He gave Ayane Sakura the nickname “Ayaneru”

He often celebrates fictional characters’ birthdays on his blog for series that he’s involved with!

He was once told to give up on being a voice actor!

Thank you for not giving up Nobu!

Music:

月刊少女野崎君-俺の手でSPARKING!! 御子柴實琴(CV:岡本信彦) - Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun: Mikorin Character Song

Kamisama Hajimemashita: Mizuki Character Song

Welcome to the Ballroom: Kiyoharu Hyoudou Character Song

『 サクラメント』By Okamoto Nobuhiko Ending for Vatican Miracle Examiner

Promise - Kaichou wa Maid-sama: Takumi Usui Character Song

Restoration to 0 - Code:Breaker: Rei Ogami Character Song

Tiger and Bunny: Character Song

スタミュ Starmyu S2 Shadow & Lights 「沈黙のディアローグ」Ver. Tatsumi Rui

Blue Flame - Prince of Stride: Takeru Fujiwara Character Song

99.9% Noisy - To Aru Majutsu no Index: Accelerator character song

Oikaze ni Tsugu - Diamond no Ace: Kominato Ryosuke

Trailblazer - Ao no Exorcist

Kimi wa Hitori Janai

List of Links (Sources and other cool stuff!):

Some of the links were included in the actual facts themselves! If a source and other stuff is missing, they’re included above!

Voice Compilations:

25 Anime Characters That Share The Same Voice Actor as Boku no Hero Academia's Bakugou Katsuki

Voice Compilation [ 1 ], [ 2 ] 

Wikipedia:

Nobuhiko Okamoto

3rd Seiyuu Awards

5th Seiyuu Awards

Haikyuu Stuff:

Haikyuu Awards Basically, they got the fans to nominate for awards like “Who’s the best dressed?” Then the cast got to comment (and maybe get praised by the two female cast members)

“Imagination Game” - Seiyuu Event Long story short: to win a pair of Karasuno boxers, the voice actors must answer all the same character when asked something like, “Out of the Karasuno team, who’s the most likely to [blank]”

Cast Pictures

Drama CD: Why Noya isn’t popular with women (This one is because I fricking relate because I’m too short for this tall world)

“Who’s Best Girl?” - Cast Comments + Nobuhiko’s comments [video with cc]

Nobuhiko Okamoto & Yuuki Kaji being bros [ 1 ], [ 2 ], [ 3 ], [ 4 ], [That time they challenged a Guinness World record], [Nobuhiko’s message for Yuuki Kaji’s 30th birthday]

Nobuhiko’s athletic ability

Kouki Uchiyama, Daiki Yamashita, Nobuhiko Okamoto: [Comic] BNHA Cast Comments

Daiki lending Nobuhiko his jacket (this can potentially fuel Bakudeku fanfics. I can feel it.)

Nishinoya and Bakugou at Jump Festa

[claudeng80]

Fic Rec Bingo, 3/5

Part 3. I’m not avoiding making lines on purpose - it just keeps happening.

Rare Pair

Title: Good Company

Author: @thelionshoarde​

Rating: T

Shirayuki/Suzu. Let that sink in. Hymn writes awkward characters so charmingly, and this is a little one-night bubble of two friends looking at the possibility of being something different. But they talk and bicker and steal blankets like real friends, and then there’s kissing for science. I can’t resist the kissing for science.

Favorite Trope Reversal

Title: Impasse

Author: @vivianvivi1​

Rating:E (warnings galore, definitely read the tags)

I’m calling this a trope reversal because it keeps changing the reader’s expectations. What kind of story is this, what are they going to do, how are they going to get out of this- there’s levels of tragedies going on, and characters making hard decisions, yet with moments of beauty sprinkled throughout. It’s painful and suspenseful and, tragically, unfinished. I keep hoping.

Made You Laugh Out Loud

Title: Lay Back and Think of Obi

Author: @sabraeal​

Rating: T

Drunk Suzu and Yuzuri mocking Obi and Shirayuki (in a loving and exasperated way, of course) turns into something more. They are such fun disasters and nothing will ever be funnier than Suzu judging Shirayuki’s safety practices and envying Obi’s wardrobe. It has sequels that compound the disasters even more.

Steamiest Kiss

Title: Saint Elmo’s Fire

Author: @infinitelystrangemachinex

Rating: T

The exact wording of the category here is kind of ironic, given where the kiss takes place. I cannot tell you how many times I have reread this scene (the whole fic yes, but the kiss scene even more so). The circumstances that lead up to it are such a pile-up of emotions, and the dialogue that leads up to it is some of my favorite I’ve ever read. Hang onto your heart. (Also be forewarned that it’s unfinished. That’s okay. Read it anyway.)

Missing Scene

Title: Pressure

Author: @azalearhoden​

Rating: T

Obi and Shirayuki are both suffering even more through Tanbarun than we thought. Obi’s point of view shows someone who really doesn’t know what he’s doing, doesn’t know Shirayuki that well yet, but is trying so hard to do his job. And Shirayuki’s shows her scared, tired, and immensely stressed. But they talk about their problems, and fight, and communicating helps them get through it. This fills in the gaps between them being thrown together and actually starting to trust each other.

[thelionshoarde]

untitled; obiyuki fic

for obiyukimadness, accidental soulbond

if i don’t stop now i won’t ever stop and i have work to do today, so here, have a couple of scenes from a fic that i may never finish and which, if i do finish, will probably either be scrapped or changed beyond recognition, since the rest of what i’ve written more recently for this stupid thing is pretty different already

what you need to know: harry potter au, seventh year, obi super-sneaky cast a spell to bind zen and shirayuki together without their consent and, wonder of wonders, fucked it up, so now he and shirayuki are all tangled together and shirayuki NEEDS TO STUDY FOR N.E.W.T.S, OKAY?? also there are elements of non-con throughout because of obi’s stupid, stupid choices. (o shit yeah also: i gave ‘em last names)

A clap of thunder woke her from a dead, dreary sleep, and Shirayuki -- without opening her eyes and with a groan of instinctual dismay, heart hammering and wide-awake with a sickening lurch -- slapped her palm desperately at her headboard and her wand in its bolted holster above her pillows.

Merlin, but she wished there was a gentler way to wake herself up.

The silencing charm on her bed curtains, at least, ensured that none of her year mates would strangle her in her sleep. And Prickle was the type of kneazle who could sleep through the entire castle falling down around their ears, so the heavy, warm weight stayed content across Shirayuki’s ankles, attempting to lure her back to slumber with indecent amounts of purring.

Shirayuki, alone, suffered the horrendous alarm spell.

A shift of agitation -- muzzy and sleep-addled, like the buzz of distant wasps -- looped about her sternum, tugging.

“Well,” she told Prickle, rubbing at her eyes and shifting up onto her elbows. “If he didn’t want to be a morning person he should have thought for a moment and realized that casting a highly illegal, highly temperamental soulbond spell on two students who had not given their consent would backfire on him in epic proportions. He can deal.”

After all, the whole thing was his stupid fault.

The agitation mounted, tugging more firmly, and Shirayuki scowled beneath her palm. A headache throbbed at her temples, and she felt sick, shaky, weak. Not dissimilar to how she often felt woken so suddenly, on little sleep, still exhausted and worn from the mountainous work assigned her, but much, much worse and with a significantly more frustrating cause.

Reaching unsteadily for her wand, she forced her wrist to move into a smooth clockwise circle, and then cast, “Tempus,” on the sudden uptick. A clock face wavered into perfect existence atop her wand point, hour hand at four, minute hand at ten.

Nearly ten hours since she had last seen him, and considering the distance -- Hufflepuff Basement versus Ravenclaw Tower, could this possibly have been a worse combination -- between them, it --

Was getting worse.

Last week hadn’t been nearly so bad. But each day the spell pulled on them tighter and tight, cinching them inward, pushing them hard until they were plummeting deeper inside each other, until struggling out, away, apart, became an excruciating exercise.

How bad, she wondered, would this have to get before they fixed it? How many hours would they have before the side effects became unbearable? Exactly how close would they need to be, for how long?

Ugh, it was too early to dwell on it.

A wave of her wand dismissed the spell into a dissipating, pearlescent fog, and she gripped the length of applewood in her fist as though for comfort, rubbing at her chest where she could feel him curled tightly in annoyance, woken by her own slap-dash heartbeat and sudden startlement.

Probably, she should say sorry; should go back to sleep and head into the Great Hall at a later hour, let the ache and nausea and exhaustion abate with his presence; should, no doubt, not have skipped out on performing the second-half of the ritual to end this on the last new moon.

But she wouldn’t, because N.E.W.T.s waited for no witch, and it was all his own fault.

So instead Shirayuki was going to get up, escape from the comforting weight of Prickle, and the soft glide of her warm duvet, and she was going to get dressed, and make certain that her robes were not on inside-out this time, and then Shirayuki was going to get some studying done, and to hell with Obi Karasu and this stupid, stupid soulbond.

If the agitation prickling along the barrier of her ribs eased, soothed, turned rueful and fond in response to whatever involuntary feelings of apology and guilt Shirayuki may or may not have felt at waking him up at 4:50 in the morning, then she just sniffed, annoyed, and ignored it, because she wasn’t going to say she was sorry, and if he knew that she was then that was cheating and did not count.

“This sucks,” Shirayuki told Prickle, who opened one glittering green eye and yawned, teeth gleaming, plumed tail twitching, and entirely without sympathy.

*

Quidditch.

Stupid, stupid quidditch.

Slumped in an armchair in the library hours later, Shirayuki glared blearily at the quill clenched between her fingers. The ink on the nib had long since dried, and Yuzuri, at this point, had both elbows on the table, chin cradled between her palms, watching her with interest.

“You know...”

“I do, actually, know a lot of things,” Shirayuki interrupted desperately. “What I do not know is how I’m going to get any work done if he insists on flying about every morning.”

Yuzuri snorted. “It is quidditch season, you know. And he is their best player.”

“He’s just a beater,” Shirayuki complained, glum. “Maybe if he was a chaser then I’d understand. Or seeker, even! But he just -- hits things --”

“Mm, yes,” Yuzuri grinned. “And he does it very well.”

Groaning, Shirayuki finally released her quill and allowed herself to slump forward onto the parchment that was meant to be twenty-three inches of Potions essay, and was, instead, mostly just staggered blotches and emptiness. Merlin, but her head ached. There wasn’t much, she thought, that she wouldn’t do for the kind of migraine that could be cured by just going to the infirmary.

But no. It could only be cured in one way.

And just -- what the hell was wrong with him?

Didn’t he know how stupid it was to be on a team during Seventh Year? He should have been focusing only on N.E.W.T.s, he should have been studying, not hundreds and hundreds of feet up in the air, dizzying heights, far above her and out of reach, their bond pulling and tugging, straining worse than it did with the entire distance of the castle between them.

What an idiot.

“I think I hate him,” she wailed, voice muffled by the crook of her elbow as she buried her face in her arms. “I am so tired.”

Yuzuri patted her head gently, hesitated, and then plucked at Shirayuki’s hair. “You should really put this up in a ponytail,” she tutted. “You’ve got a bad case of bed head, Shirayuki. I meant to tell you. You can’t go see him looking like this.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Shirayuki whimpered.

“Then do so elsewhere, please. I’ll watch your stuff, so just go. You know it won’t get any better until you do.”

Unfortunately, that was true. Because of the stupid bond Shirayuki had to give up valuable studying time to hunt down Karasu by the Hufflepuff dorms so she could snag him after quidditich practice. When he was all sweaty, and flushed, and encased in leather padding, and...

Ugh. This was the worst.

“Well, now you just look down-right flustered,” Yuzuri commented when Shirayuki finally leveraged herself back upright, waving her wand at Shirayuki pointedly. “You look like you could use --”

“A hug,” Shirayuki said, voice flat, and refusing to acknowledge the flush that wanted to burn her cheeks.

“Sure,” Yuzuri winked. “If you wanna call it that.”

*

Ten minutes later Shirayuki was stumbling past the portrait that led to the kitchens towards the cluster of barrels that disguised the entrance to the Hufflepuff common room. She was practically one with the wall by the time she got there, and let herself slump into a defeated lump on the floor to wait.

“I want a nap,” she told the empty corridor sadly.

It was all well and good that Yuzuri could joke about Shirayuki getting some, but the truth of the matter was that the side effects of that stupid spell Obi had performed were awful. The migraine was a pulsing agony, her vision slick and blurred, white lights and nausea to the point of vomiting. If she could have convinced her sluggish body to go any faster she would have, but she couldn’t.

The real kicker, though, was how sluggish her brain felt. Mental exhaustion was the worst of the side effects in Shirayuki’s opinion. She had N.E.W.T.s to conquer. A mental hiatus for any length of time was too long.

Despite the truly impressive amount of work she’d gotten done last new moon, Shirayuki did, indeed, deeply regret not finishing the ritual needed to break the soulbond spell. She just hadn’t realized how pervasive this spell would become. How incredibly, absolutely consuming, and impossible to ignore.

Next time, she promised. Next time I will not forget!

But in the meantime, she supposed it wasn’t such a bad thing if she just closed her eyes. Just for a moment. Karasu wasn’t going to show up any sooner just because she kept her eyes open, after all, so there was no point in bothering. She’d just...rest. A little.

And if she fell asleep listening to the fast-paced beat of another heart echoing inside her chest, well, no one had to know.

*

Shirayuki woke up when another body slumped down to the floor beside hers, almost close enough to touch.

“Mornin’,” Obi grinned, looking weary. There were bruises beneath his eyes, and his skin looked pale, soured. Even his eyes were glassy, too-yellow when usually they were a bewildering blend of darkened topaz and rich honey and pale gold. A bead of sweat lingered on his brow. “You look like shit, Akagi.”

“Touch me,” she said.

“Holy -- shhh, jesus fuck, Akagi!” Nervous, Obi darted his gaze around the hallway, but he must have waited to wake her until the rest of his teammates had gone inside, and there was no one in the hallway to have heard.

Honestly, Shirayuki wasn’t certain she would have cared if there had been.

“Touch me,” she ordered, voice slurred with sleep and pain, and lifted up her arm to offer her hand. It trembled, slightly.

Grumbling, Obi pulled off his quidditch glove and, after only a small hesitation, laid his palm against hers. Instantly, relief swelled through Shirayuki. It doubled as she caught the ricochet from Obi, the two of them overlapping, mingling, pressing into each other too intimately. “Ohhh,” Obi groaned,  leaning the back of his head against the stone wall and rocking it there, eyes closed, an expression of agonized bliss on his face.

Shirayuki bit her lip, trying not to think of Yuzuri’s suggestion. Trying not to think about anything other than how much she needed to get back to the library as soon as touching Obi stopped being as necessary as breathing.

“It’s like a fucking drug,” Obi complained. “Complete with body-wrecking withdrawals. I almost fell off my broom today, Akagi.”

Shirayuki frowned.

“Don’t,” Obi said, scrunching up his nose and refusing to open his eyes to look at her. “Ugh, I can feel your worry, all right, and your disdain for our practice sessions, stop it, that’s enough. What do you have against quidditch, anyway?”

“Nothing. It’s just -- distracting.”

Distracting, like the low-burn of arousal she felt from Obi every time the pain went away, a knee-jerk reaction. Like the horniness he carried with him every day, all the time, because he was seventeen and hungry and it was ruining Shirayuki’s life, because before this she had had control of her hormones, she had been better than this, damn it.

“You are so weird, Akagi, I don’t even know where to start." Obi sighed, lashes fluttering as he forced his eyes to open and remain so. “C’mon, we gotta go before any one comes by and sees us. Do you -- No, wait. I’m starving, actually. Have you eaten?”

Shirayuki admitted, “No. I didn’t want to loose it when the side effects set in. And I need coffee. Lots of coffee.”

Laughing, Obi went to his feet. Their fingers were linked, locked, never letting go. Shirayuki was tugged up with him, helpless to do anything but follow him down the sort distance to the entrance to the kitchens, basking in the way their momentary contentedness layered, sweet and soft.

*

No stranger to the kitchens -- late night study sessions in Ravenclaw common room necessitated copious amounts of snack food, after all, and Shirayuki had done her due diligence in retrieving it at three in the morning -- Shirayuki tickled the appropriate pear, grasped the resulting door knob giggling against her palm, and led them inside.

“Oh! Obi Karasu, sir! You has come again!”

Shirayuki’s forward march to a cleared space at one of the long, rough hewn tables bisecting the massive, high-ceiling room was brought to an abrupt halt. For a moment, Shirayuki thought about twisting her hand out of Obi’s grip. Most of the side effects of the spell had eased, though relief still shivered beneath her skin at the prolonged contact. But it was enough to get by; she could have easily escaped.

Sighing, she turned toward the house-elf quivering before them, and summoned up a smile, made all the more easier for the throb of fond affection Obi felt, suffusing her with an indulgence she might otherwise not have found without coffee.

“Now, Bonky,” Obi started, voice warm and curled through with amusement, “You know I couldn’t possibly stay away from you. How’s it been going?”

“Oh, Master Obi! We is just fine, just fine!” The house-elf, knee-high, with large, gleaming eyes and a neat, pale-yellow shawl wrapped about his little body, grinned fit to split his face. “Master Obi is too kind to ask after such as us, sir.”

“Is that so?” Obi asked, sounding convincingly surprised; but Shirayuki felt the frission of helplessness and frustration course through him, there then gone, and turned to look at him. Obi glanced back, eyes all honey-glaze and secrets. He looked back at the house-elf, but Shirayuki lost the thread of the conversation, thinking: he always did have a lot to say about house-elf rights in History, didn’t he?

Shuffling closer, Shirayuki took a deep breath in, let it out, and leaned against Obi’s side, arm to arm. He shifted beneath her weight, and she felt the sharp, bright note of his surprise before Bonky pulled him back into conversation.

*

Eventually, Bonky released them to be fed.

A veritable army of house-elves saw the two of them seated at a table near the massive fire, and a small spread of the breakfast mirrored above in the Great Hall had been set out for them. The crush of sound was almost comforting. The clang of copper pots and the thwock of knives, ladles ringing, dishes being washed eased the heightened, too-aware silence between them as they muddled through the indignity of eating one handed.

Shirayuki thought about being embarrassed. Thought about being horrified that handsome, clever, popular Obi Karasu was watching her get cream on her cheeks and nose, golden flaky bits of pastry all over her robes and sweater. Thought Yuzuri, at least, would be mortified at the way she shoved food into her mouth, heedless, reckless, without grace or poise or manners.

She had seen him far worse, after all, and that when they had been little more than acquaintances; when he had been Zen’s friend, an irritation on her peripheral that was too loud, too bright, too boisterous, glittering gold and shifting shadow, secret darkness too deep and treacherous to ever risk the venture.

And then Obi had wrenched that choice away.

So she stuffed herself full, uncaring, her fingers shifting, sliding, catching against his, their knuckles grazing the rough wood of the bench, pulling and tugging and readjusting, and never, ever letting each other slip.

Obi Karasu could deal with her, all of her, every single improper part of her.

He had no one but himself to blame, after all.

*

Later, after they’d each eaten their fill, Shirayuki said, voice low: “They’re quite fond of you.”

“Hm?”

“The house-elves,” Shirayuki clarified with a faint smile, watching him steadily.

Obi grimaced, free hand cupped around a chilled goblet of pumpkin juice while he straddled the wide bench, his thighs -- still strapped into all-too-enticing, corrugated leather protective gear -- flexing as he shifted forward. Shirayuki sipped from her own hefty mug of sweetened coffee in a helpless bid to moisten her suddenly dry mouth.

Quidditch uniforms were the worst.

“House-elves have always been pretty fond of Hufflepuffs,” Obi dismissed. “And I mean. I’m not a part of S.P.E.W. or anything, which I think they appreciate. It’s not like I do anything in particular, I’m just, you know, naturally charming and awesome.”

“You treat them with respect,” said Shirayuki, and she opened her mouth to say more -- that he treated them better than most humans, like sentient beings deserving of affection and equality, like friends, and that it was all the more important for being a conscious choice -- but she felt the twist of his agitation and discomfort sharp in her gut, and let it go.

“I’ve never been to the Hufflepuff common room.”

“The Basement?” Obi asked, surprised. “No? Huh, that’s right. You Ravenclaws don’t really party much.” He grinned, a bright gleam of white teeth against dark skin. “Pity, we’ve got some good party favors. I would totally get you high, Akagi, you’d love it.”

If Shirayuki was very, very lucky, Obi took the hot, vibrant burst of arousal in her gut at his stupid, perfect grin as anger. She muttered into her coffee, “That is a waste of valuable studying time. Really, Obi, we’re in our Seventh Year.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Obi said, rolling his eyes. Between them, their clasped hands shifted, awkward, uncertain. “Anyway, wanna come with? I can show you.”

“I should really get back to the library.”

“Oh, my god,” Obi groaned, tipping his head back. Shirayuki stared at his throat, frustrated. In her chest her heart beat fast, hard, and she saw the moment it echoed in Obi’s because he started, chin coming back down with his brows raised up in question.

He decided, “Yeah, no, you need a break, Akagi. If you spend any more time in that library you’re going to actually become a fixture there, permanently, and then you won’t ever get to do anything with all that knowledge you’re hoarding.”

“No,” she said, and watched the way Karasu moved beneath the surge of her emotion, the roiling morass of half-thought, visceral reaction; the sting of irritation, the hot buzz of anger, the helpless drip of desire and how much Shirayuki hated feeling that way.

“I need,” she tried, again, swallowing hard, “to go back and study. Yuzuri is waiting for me. But --”

Obi wasn’t looking at her. He was looking down at their joined hands, and she could see the shift of his jaw as he clenched his teeth, the furrow between his brows; could feel him in her veins, a black tide -- regret, shame, acceptance -- that threatened to drown before pulling back.

“We do need to talk about this,” Shirayuki admitted. With a sigh, she slipped her hand free from his. “We -- the new moon isn’t for another two weeks, and we can’t go on like this, right? Pretending like nothing is happening and then almost -- almost falling off of brooms, really. So we... We’re going to set up a plan, a -- a schedule, or something. So I’ll see you later, Karasu.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, slipping from the bench and standing, stretching, as if he hadn’t a single care, as if this was nothing at all. When Obi’s voice got sharp and flat, like a smooth sheet of tin, Shirayuki could hear the emotion strike off it like raindrops on a roof. He thought he was subtle. He was not subtle.

Honestly, it was endearing and stupid. He was endearing and stupid.

Shirayuki didn’t fight the surge of affection that got stuck in her throat, and huffed a sigh at the way his eyebrow twitched, feeling it. “You’re a menace,” she complained. “And I need to study. Don’t you need to study?”

“Eh,” said Obi, rocking back on his heels. He was waffling, now, confused by the swift change of her emotion, of the back-and-forth. She was exhausted, confused, furious.

None of this was fair. She hadn’t asked for this. For Obi in his stupid, sexy quidditch uniform, stretched lean and long and rippling before her, still sweat-damp and beautiful, and --

Eventually, Shirayuki realized she was staring because Obi was staring back, jaw dropped a little with surprise.

It was the surprise, really, that jerked Shirayuki away from her hormones. Irritation welled up in her, warring with the need to lick the sweat off Obi’s collar bones and neck until he was shaking beneath her, gasping, and --

A blush suffused his skin, his eyes wide with disbelief.

Did he have to look so surprised that she found him attractive? Really? What was she, a rock?

“You need to leave,” Shirayuki huffed, shoving at her fringe. “I mean it. I don’t have time for --” she waved her hand at him, fluttering it in the air in disgust, “-- this.”

His heart flipped in her chest -- lub-da-lub -- and --

“Right,” Obi babbled, edging toward the door out of the kitchen, sounding wildly confused by what he was reading off of Shirayuki’s emotions. “I’m gonna -- study, too, I guess, if just so you’ll stop nagging me? And shower. Cause I must stink. Rank, right? I left practice as soon as we hit ground to find you and so -- I, uh, sweat. Stink. Shower!”

“Go,” Shirayuki managed, before her stupid sex drive could quite finish latching onto Obi showering.

this thing wants to be some weird mash-up of angst and comedy or some weird shit and also apparently i really want to spend too much time talking about how badly shirayuki hates her father because i really think teenage shirayuki in an environment like this would not be quite so cool with daddy being awol, and there is just, a lot of things that are cropping up that i’m tripping along behind too slowly to keep up with, so yeah, we’ll see if anything else ever comes of this, HOPE YOU HAD SOME FUN THOUGH, i figured the least i could do was save the silly pervy-esque bit for you guys /thumbs up??