#like I’m usually so creative and sometimes obscure that nobody knows who I am

[bbyboybucket]

I think this is the first time in years that I’ve decided on a basic Halloween costume. Like usually I am so original but I couldn’t find anything for the very few creative ideas I had 😔

[lord-explosion-baku]

Yandere Warlock!Monoma x insecure witch!reader

Warnings: dark themes, yandere, suggestive themes, hinted dubcon scenario, light violence

A/N: THIS WAS RUSHED AS HECK. Like when I say that, the story just moves along really fast and I’m hhhh sorry about it. This is the first thing I’ve ever written for Monoma though! Fun stuff! Also ahhhh I’m not loving the way the reader reacts to how Monoma treats her. I’m so used to writing the reader with a hint of ANGERY BASTARD inside but I figured that if she’s insecure, and wack enough to fix a love potion for someone, this might be natural for someone like her?? Idk dood. I love magic and I am a newt.

“Tell me you love me…”

You’d spent so much of your time yearning for Neito Monoma, wondering if he’d ever give you the time of day. It was wild and unexpected of you to crush so hard for someone as arrogant as that warlock; usually types that constantly had to one up everybody irked the living hell out of you, especially since you were too modest by nature, too nervous to ever give yourself any credit when you’d excel, but Monoma paid you a few compliments here and there. He smiled at you during passing periods and even told you he liked the way you cast your spells. You thought that maybe he was this way with all the other witches, even so, he made you feel less obscure, visible to even a stronger caster such as him. You had no idea that he’d reciprocate your feelings, at least, until it was too late.

It was a simple potion, you couldn’t even call it a love potion. Sure, you may have added some reagents that had similar properties one would put in a love potion, but it wasn’t supposed to be for “love.” You just wanted to be more recognized by him. And woof, after you’d slipped that potion into his morning pumpkin juice, you were for sure recognized.

Things started out fine. You had stumbled upon Monoma in the school gardens, a place he rarely studied but it was one of your main haunts. He was sifting through flowers, making an eclectic bouquet full of different varieties of your flora friends. When he’d caught you staring at him, he gave you a bashful smile that nearly melted your heart.

“I was hoping this would be a surprise,” he said, tying a black ribbon around the bouquet that made the various colors of each petal pop out more. He held the bouquet out to to you and when you took it, his long warm fingers lingered of yours. Clear blue eyes scanned your face, lingering on your lips before you brought the bouquet to your nose to take in the sweetened aroma. “The prettiest flowers for the prettiest girl.”

After that, you spent so much more time with Monoma. He seemed pretty normal to you other than how often you caught him staring at you from across the classroom. He’d leave you cute little notes, if you could call them notes; honestly, they were a bit more like sonnets than anything, and he’d bring you nice gifts and pay you sweet compliments. He made you feel special. You had never known that someone who spent most of his time boasting about his power and shutting everyone else down had such a way with words! He was nearly the perfect boyfriend.

Until he started to get a little more creative with his gift giving. You’d find roses left on your pillow when you returned back to your dorm room after a hard day’s work. Warlocks weren’t permitted to enter the witch’s dorms but somehow Monoma figured out a way past certain enchantments. You thought it was cute that he was willing to break some rules for you. After you told him that you were interested in brewing a certain master level potion that required fairies blood, a super rare rageant that not even Aizawa, your potion’s professor, could get his hands on, Monoma came to you with a box full of four vials of fairies blood. That was a bit excessive. The potion only called for a tiny bit.

Monoma grew more violent towards other warlocks in your life as well. He’d hexed your best friend, Hanta Sero, giving him octopus arms after Sero carelessly threw his arm around your shoulders in the main hall, right in front of Monoma and sometime after Kaminari asked you what you saw in your new, probably too invested boyfriend, Kami’s lips were seen sewn shut for about four hours until a professor figured out how to reverse the curse. Kaminari never told you how it happened, but after everyone who was supposed to be your friend started avoiding you, you kinda figured you knew what was going on.

On top of everything else, he was advancing on your hardcore. You enjoyed the attention, in fact, you craved it, but you weren’t ready to go all the way with him and he was beginning to get really pushy. When you didn’t do whatever he wanted, he’d get frustrated, accusatory, he’d make you feel guilty about things you never did! Claiming that you weren’t faithful to him seemed like his favorite thing to do and the only way to get him to stop was for him to use a strange truth spell on you, one that you were always afraid would work so you’d tell him about the potion you slipped him, though the questions he asked never lead to that. Once he was satisfied with your answers, he’d litter your neck and body in hickeys, little bruising love marks to make sure that if you weren’t committed enough, everyone else knew that you belonged to him.

So you knew you had to confront him.

Walking up the steps of the astronomy tower, your shared secret spot with Monoma, the place you’d use to make out amongst other things without being caught by any school faculty, you gripped the note you’d written out for Monoma tightly in your trembling hands, trying to steady your breath. You knew what you’d done and you had to admit to Monoma that you were responsible for how he was acting. Aizawa always said that you shouldn’t mess around with love when it came to magic. You didn’t think you were when you’d made that potion, but deep down, you knew what you were going for. This was your stupid mistake and you had to right your wrongs. You shoved the note in your pocket and opened the astronomy room door.

Monoma was already there, standing by the extravagant telescope, tapping his foot impatiently. “You’re late,” he said, hands latching onto your hips immediately. “I was beginning to think that I was going to have to fetch you.”

Instantly, he yanked you close so your body pressed flush up against his, and he turned so your back was against the wall. His body felt… warmer than usual.

“I missed you,” he murmured, nuzzling into your neck. Almost instantly his tongue slid out and he licked a strip up your neck to your ear, making you shudder against him. “Don’t make me wait for you again, angel. I can’t stand not seeing you.”

He squeezed your hips before trailing a hand up to the edge of your shirt, thumb gently caressing the skin underneath. “How are you?” He asked, playfulling toying with the elasticity of your skirt.

“Um- I’m okay,” you stammered, catching his hand in yours that only made him smirk as he brought the back of your wrist to his lips.

“Just okay?” He lifted a brow, brushing his lips across your skin. “Better now that I’m here?” He closed his eyes and breathed you in. “Oh!...” you took in another long whiff. “You got a new perfume…”

He brought your arms to hang around his neck, keeping your gaze locked into his. You wondered if he could tell just how guilty you were just by looking at you. “Did my sweet girl have a bad day?”

“I’ve just been… a little stressed, is all.”

“Mmmm, I can tell,” he mused, “lucky for you, I know the perfect way of relieving tension.”

You bit your lip, dreading the blood that undoubtedly rushed to your face. Even if Monoma wasn’t all there, he still made your heart jump, especially when he got himself riled up.

“Sound nice?” He smirked, leaning closer back to your face. “I’ll be gentle. You know I only want to take care of you, right?”

“Neito,” you began, turning your head away from his cool, mint scented breath. “N-not right now…”

He scoffed. It was too easy to aggravate him and pissing him off was a dangerous game to play. He never… forced you to do anything you didn’t want to, but he was not above throwing fits. “Then why don’t you tell me what’s going on with you? Honestly Y/N, you’ve been acting strange for weeks, and if you don’t want me to show you just how much I love you, then you might as well come out and tell me who you’ve been fucking already.”

“Neito!” You shot him an incredulous look. “I haven’t been sleeping with anybody! You know I’m a-!”

“Who is it? You can tell me,” he cut over you, not bothering to hear you out. “You know I’ll always forgive you, but I want to know what filth has been tarnishing what’s mine.”

“Nobody, Neito! I’ve never had sex!”

“Was it Todoroki? I saw him talking to you after your Charms class.”

“He was lending me notes! I missed classes because I was with you!” Jesus, you hadn’t even seen Monoma after you had charms, he was like some kind of obsessive ninja.

“It better not have been that trash, Katsuki Bakugou! He’s been eyeing you since the moment he saw that you were with me. I bet he can’t stand seeing me have something that he doesn’t!”

“You’re not listening to me!” You cried, moving your hands from his back to gently cup his face. You watched as his eyes went from feral and angry to soft and loving as you drew your thumbs across his lips, trying to ease him back to his senses. “Neito, nobody’s been talking to me… even if they were, I’d let them know there’s only one guy for me. I… really liked you, Neito. I liked you enough that I did something very wrong and it has hurt you and for that, I’m sorry. ”

“Hurt me?” He didn’t understand.

“I spiked your drink with a love potion. I thought it would just make you notice me, but now everything is wrong!”

The pregnant pause between you and Monoma was nearly deafening. He lifted his hand to neatly place over yours, his body hot. His eyes searched yours, seeming to register what you were saying. But his eyes lied.

“Liked?” His hands tightened over yours. “As in past tense?”

“That’s not the point and not really what I meant-!”

“Oh, darling, don’t be cute with me right now. I’m thinking!”

You only realized how hard you were shaking when he pulled away from you to let you breathe. Monoma ran his fingers through his hair, messing up its usually neat style. He let out an exaggerated sigh and began to pace. You brought the note out of your pocket. If he couldn’t understand your words, maybe it’d make more sense to him if he’d read them?

You reached out for his shoulders, he tensed at your tender touch for a moment before relaxing against you. You hugged him from behind, burying your face into his back and held the note out in front of him. “Please read it,” you asked, muffled by his blazer.

Gingerly, he took the note out of your hand. He read it over; it basically said all that you had done, when you did it, and why you did it. You noticed his back growing damp and you only realize that you were crying when he turned to face you, with an unreadable expression.

Monoma’s thumb found your cheek and he wiped away an escapee tear you hadn’t intended to let him see. He sighed and watched your lips part, a natural, possible submissive instinct you’d picked up since you started dating the warlock. “I love you, Y/N,” he muttered, trailing his warm, now shaking fingers down to your chin. “I love you so much, it hurts.”

“I-I know.” You forced yourself to speak even though your skin was nearly vibrating from anxiety. “And-“ you gulped “-It’s all my fault. But I’m going to fix this, Neito. You won’t have to hurt… anymore.”

Monoma’s hand found your neck, his touch tentative and gentle at first until his fingers wrapped around you and he started to squeeze.

“You know?” He demanded, his face inching closer towards yours. “If you know how much pain I’m going through, then why the hell are you trying to push me away? Why don’t you ever say you love me back? Why is my angel lying to me?!”

“I’m not,” you squeaked back, pulling on his arm but that only encouraged him to back you up against the wall again.

“I’m going to make you tell me who’s making you say these things to me and then I’m going to have you watch as I strap them to a chair and set them on fire!”

“N-no, Neito,” you choked out as he began to raise you against the wall. The corner of your eyes started to blacken as you stared into the raging blue irises of the crazed blonde.

“I’ve done so much for you, Y/N, and I’ve asked so little in return!” He scoffed at the pathetic, reddened face you were making. You didn’t think you could hold on much longer. “Tell me who it is, Y/N. Tell me who it is or I swear I’ll kill every last warlock, hell, every last caster in this whole goddamn school!”

“Aizawa!” You cried out, noting the shifting black figure across the tower windows.

Monoma blinked, registering who you had named. He was silent for a moment, not noticing the older warlock muttering an incantation behind him.

“Filthy slut,” Monoma finally seethed. “You like older men, then? I bet he gets a kick out of that, taking advantage of something so pure-“ he dropped you to the floor “-so fragile.”

Tears were streaming down your face. You couldn’t manage to look at him and didn’t dare look at Aizawa while he was preparing a spell without Monoma noticing.

“I bet you call him daddy before he makes you choke on his cock, huh?” Monoma grabbed a fistful of your hair, forcing you to look up at him. “Once I rid the world of him, I’ll make you do everything you've done to him to me. I’ll be your daddy then, and you’ll be my dirty. little. princess.” He laughed dryly, yanking your head closer to his crotch. “But why wait until then when I have my pretty angel on her knees all ready for me?”

“That won’t be happening.” Aizawa’s low voice sounded across the room. Before Monoma could even turn, Aizawa muttered something in Latin and your boyfriend’s arms were magically bound together and he fell to his knees beside you.

You grabbed Monoma before he could topple over onto the floor, hugging him tightly, whispering ‘I’m sorry’s’ over and over again. Monoma looked at you incredulously before thrashing around in your embrace as Aizawa approached the two of you.

“Obsessive and violent behavior, attempted assault on a student,” Aizawa sighed. “This is exactly why you don’t screw around with love magic, little witch.”

You wiped at your wet face, looking up to your teacher. “You knew?”

“Of course I did.”

“Then why,” you sniffed, looking apologetically bac to Monoma leering next to you, “why didn’t you do something sooner?”

“We have to from our mistakes by facing the consequences,” he said as if your situation were so simple. A potion vial appeared in his hand. “Now it's time to take care of your mistake. Step back.”

You looked to Monoma who had his lip curled up at your teacher. His eyes flicked to you. “Don’t you dare.”

“I’m sorry,” you whispered before scooching away from the writhing warlock.

“Stay away from me!” Monoma snarled at Aizawa as he got a bit closer.

“You need to drink this,” Aizawa said to him, “it’s going to cure you of your ailments.”

“Lying pig!” Monoma all but screeched at your teacher. It burned you to see him this way. This was all your fault, all your fault. “You just want her for yourself!”

Monoma’s eyes once again found yours as he pleaded, “angel don’t do this to me. You love me right? I love you… tell me you love me baby, just this once— KEEP YOUR HOBO HANDS OFF OF ME!”

Monoma kicked his legs up, nearly knocking the vial out of Aizawa’s hands. Your teacher sighed, “at this rate, it might be better to just knock him out.”

“I dare you to try,” the blonde growled.

“Neito, please,” you silently begged, “this is only going to help you.”

Monoma answered you with feral noises, he was practical foaming at the mouth, being over dramatic and kicking himself away from his threat, even while Aizawa backed off and waited for your go ahead.

“If you do this for me-“ you inhaled, heart beating rapidly against your chest “-I’ll do anything and everything you want.” Though, you were sure that after this, Monoma would want nothing to do with you. “I promise you, Neito, anything.”

Monoma scowled at you. “You promise?” He asked. “Anything?”

Another tear fell to your cheek. You nodded.

He finally let up. He stopped his squirming and Aizawa could finally get close to him. Monoma didn’t fail to warn Aizawa that he was going to “be the end of him,” before Aizawa popped the vial into his mouth, and Monoma drained it dry, all while keeping his glare on you.

Minutes passed. You stayed on the floor, allowing silent tears to roll off your face while Aizawa stood cross armed, watching the motionless Monoma intently. Finally, Monoma groaned, squeezing his eyes shut.

“How are you feeling?” Inquired Aizawa.

“I…” Monoma winced. “My head feels like it’s splitting in half…”

“That’s to be expected.”

Guilt hung on your shoulders. Still, you managed to reach out to Monoma’s legs. His eyes opened, he looked right at you, then down to the floor, crossing his legs closer in to himself.

“You should probably go,” Aizawa said to you.

You never wanted this. You never wanted Monoma to be hurt, never wanted him to be obsessive or possessive, never wanted to feel how did you now. You just wanted him to recognize you so you did something vile to him and now you had to live with your guilt and your shame. Now you had to live with Monoma hating you. And you carried your guilt all the way home, using it to cry yourself to sleep.

~

You didn’t go to school the next day. You would have to face your problems sooner or later but after the night you had, you couldn’t face Monoma or Aizawa or anybody else who would without a doubt know about the heinous act you pulled.

You went into town, trying your hardest to forget about who you were, but whenever you saw a couple holding hands or simply exchanging glances, your heart stung. You managed to split Monoma’s head in half while you simultaneously ripped your heart to shreds. It was what you deserved.

Your legs felt heavy as you crawled into bed. You hardly had enough energy to kick your sheets over your body. You thought you just about drained yourself of all of your tears, but when your head hit the pillow, they came rushing back to you. You could only hide for so long. You were going to have to go to school tomorrow.

Sleep crept its way into your bedroom all the while another force snuck its way in. You were busy having a dream of being forced into a cauldron, when a heavy weight was pushed onto your torso. Your eyes snapped open and you found yourself face to face with Neito Monoma.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said, a sickly sweet smile crawling across his face. “You were so still, so… perfect… Did you know you talk when you sleep?”

“Monom-!” Before you could get his full name out, Monoma’s lips locked into yours. He moaned as he kissed you, fingers wrapping around your wrists and bringing them up above your head. He took your breath away, but it wasn’t all that uninvited. You had missed him.

He pulled away, sighing as he took in your flustered physique. His body pressed down harder on you and you were finding your breathing to be a bit strained. He was crushing you.

“I waited for you today,” he mused, peppering kisses down your collarbone. “It seems I’m always waiting for you…”

“What… are you doing here?”

“I’m hurt you even have to ask,” he chuckled sarcastically. “Don’t you remember the promise you made me before making me drink that poison?”

You promised him you’d do anything he wanted. “But the potion was supposed to change you back…”

“It didn’t work,” he said thoughtlessly while his hand slid down to palm you breast.

“W-wait!” You grasped his hand but his merely pushed your arm back down, pulling his knees up to hold your sides tightly.

He glowered down at you. “What I mean to say is, the first potion you slipped me didn’t work.” He smirked. “Do you think that I’m so much of a fool that I couldn’t tell that a drink of mine had been spiked? I was insulted at first, of course, but your actions did give me incentive to pursue you. I’ve always had these feelings for my little angel, and soon, you will too.”

In one swift motion, Monoma held both of your hands back with one of his, while the other pressed glass against your lips. Cold liquid was forced down your throat. Panicking, you swallowed, making Monoma grin and coo, “good girl.”

You coughed when he pulled the vial away from you. He hushed you and kissed your forehead. “Things will be better this way,” he whispered as your body began to shake. “You’ll see me just as I see you. We just have to wait a few minutes.”

Your head spun and it felt like your body was sinking into your bed. Your mind was clouding over and there was nothing you could do about Monoma’s wet, hot, hungry kisses across your body. But in a matter of minutes, just like he said, it wasn’t of any negative concern. Your head, along with your heart, was changing.

“Neito,” you sighed his name and leaned up against your bed.

Monoma placed a tender kiss on your stomach before looking up at you with the most dazzling and brilliant blue eyes. You lifted your hand out to him and he wove his fingers through yours.

“Is my angel ready to make good on her promise?” He asked. You nodded and he grinned, crawling up your bed to level his head with yours. “Then let’s start with one simple request,” he said before brushing his lips against yours.

“Tell me you love me.”

~

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[cskiner]

Quick-witted winter

On a rather gloomy Thursday afternoon—she had already finished her regular lunch, a king-sized snickers and a diet Coke—Jensen locked herself into her room to write a paper and found herself doing anything but that dreadful paper. Mind you, she was a very good writer. She could boast a few awards, even, from local contests, and her songs were getting better. But Jensen would not write today. On this rather gloomy Thursday afternoon, she put down the pen (she usually had trouble doing that, distracted by her own projects even in her more interesting classes) to let the thoughts run around in her head a little while. I will write for her, so you can get some idea of what went on in her head on this day.

She found herself distracted by her collection shelf, which was more of a steal-shelf, really. Her philosophy was that it wasn’t stealing if it wouldn’t be missed. It was her own way of memory-keeping, like a three-dimensional scrapbook, she liked to think. It kept her memories sharp and vivid; almost as though she could bring them back to life by just cradling the object in her hand. She only took little things, things that she was sure the owners had forgotten about. And she made sure to gave things away in return, most often to the little kids down the street. Her 256-pack of crayons was the envy of the whole block. She remembered the ear-to-ear smile on little Jasmine’s face when she passed the box down, the energy in her happy little running feet as she scrambled to show her new prize to mama.

A couple of the trinkets on the steal-shelf were especially special, things she had lifted from grandpa or from Minnie (when she was around) or from her Aunt Esther’s funeral. They would have wanted her to have them, anyway. Others weren’t so special—a die from under the bed at a frat party and a number two pencil that fell out of a cute boy’s backpack once. She hadn’t really stolen that one, she just didn’t have the courage to speak up and return it. She had used it for a little while, when her pearl pen broke. It was a fine substitution, objectively.

But nothing beat her pearl pen, nothing in the world. She couldn’t write her best without it. Iridescent and pristine on the outside, it wrote smoothly and bled ink from the inside, just enough that the ink smears looked real. Real like she was a serious writer who worked hard and marked up the page, but not dark enough to obscure the words. Real like she had scribbled furiously and with abandon, not giving a second thought to the splotches that came out and turned her hand black as the coffee she drank every morning. Real like the flourish she put on the last word of the story when she just knew it was done. The feel of it was so grand, so professional.

She liked that sensation, the sensation that she could be a real writer one day, that maybe her finished work was actually good enough for something. She wasn’t studying writing in school, at least not officially. She had, however, weaseled her way into all of her friends’ literature classes, audited at least three creative writing ones, and convinced Professor Cauley to read some of her best pieces last year. Music was her declared major and yes, she loved it, but that’s not the point here. The point is that she wanted to write.

Jensen made time to write every day. She played gigs at night, too—sometimes they went until one or two in the morning but she would come home and bust out a stanza or two if it killed her. She had fallen asleep at her desk, pearl pen in hand, on more than one occasion. It was convenient that her passions bled together; at weeknight music shows in buzzing rooms full of artistic inspirations, it was easy to hear new words, new rhythms with which to feed her journal. Poems could always become songs. But they had their own special feelings to them, and poetry gave her a silent solace that could not be matched. She was an introvert. She knew she was an introvert, and while she didn’t mind performing so much, she felt most at home with pen in hand.

That was why this Thursday afternoon was strange—she put her pen in its special pocket in her backpack and, looking outside, decided it was time for a walk. No, today was not particularly beautiful. It was gloomy, as I mentioned before. Jensen felt, however, that good things always happened on sunny days and that felt wrong. She thought all types of weather deserved to host happiness—weather discrimination was unfair. This gloomy day would be different, she resolved, and with a toss of her yellow scarf around her neck she was outside, backpack and all.

Not ten minutes in, rain began to sprinkle the sidewalk. No matter, she told herself. She liked the smell of the rain, anyway, and the cold droplets felt good on her skin. She walked a little faster.

Walking a little faster made her trip on the uneven sidewalk. She caught herself in time to minimize the damage, but the ends of her yellow scarf had been dipped in a puddle and were now quite decidedly brown.

And soggy. No matter, she repeated, wringing out the ends and picking up the pace a little more. But it seemed just then as though the wind and rain picked up the pace too, and she remembered that her electronic guitar tuner was in her backpack. She couldn’t afford to replace it after water damage, so she challenged the wind and rain to a race. Faster and faster she ran towards home, her backpack clicking and clacking behind her as she focused on the ground ahead.

Wait. Clicking and clacking? Was it open? She stopped just as she reached the doorstep to clutch the zipper.

Tuner’s still there, she breathed in relief, zipping her backpack closed. No miracles this afternoon, she supposed. Yet.

She showered, then threw her scarf in the laundry and her hair in a knot for tonight’s gig (to avoid the frizz), then warmed up her voice a little before heading out…only to find that the rain had completely stopped. The day was still gloomy, though. There was still time to make it a good day.

At the venue, she noticed a couple of faces she knew. Little Jasmine, with her mama—she had probably begged to be up past her bedtime on a school night. Jensen wondered, though, how Jasmine had known about the show. It had only been advertised at school, for an audience of college students like herself. She didn’t think much of it, though, because little Jasmine had been like her shadow ever since the crayons. Jensen couldn’t blame her. She was sweet and looked a bit like Jensen had as a kiddo, wide eyed, eager to please (and eager to read), little pigtails with yellow bows at the ends. She loved to play with the steal-shelf trinkets when Jensen babysat her, and she had even learned how to pluck a few notes on the piano for the tunes Jensen sang.

Jensen finished up her tunes onstage and packed up her guitar. She gave little Jasmine a hug, bought her a milkshake, and sat down to watch the next set, a band that included a few of her classmates. Amongst the buzz, she picked up a few sounds, as she so often did in crowded places. It was, really, another form of stealing. But that’s kind of the nature of writing, isn’t it?

“We had a quick winter spell today,” she heard a woman making small-talk-about-the-weather behind her.

More like a quick-witted winter, Jensen thought, the way it played those dumb practical jokes on me today. Quick-witted winter.

Quick-witted winter. Quick-witted winter! The sounds were perfect—another little sound-bite, stolen from the bustling café. She had to write it down, stat.

She reached for her pearl pen and her heart jolted; it wasn’t in its proper pocket. There was an obvious reason why, and she knew it right away—it had fallen out as she ran home earlier—but she scanned the room just the same. Jasmine’s eyes grew bigger as Jensen grew more frantic, but her mama had pulled her away for bedtime long before the closing set. Jensen stayed afterward to congratulate her friends, but mostly to double-check the café floors for writing utensils. She didn’t find anything.

She trudged home. Gloomy days must just be gloomy days, she thought, defeated.

The next morning, she woke up before her alarm clock to thunder crashing outside her window. Bundling up for class, she grabbed the pencil from the steal-shelf and aimed for the door. But it was only halfway open when she nearly jumped out of her rain boots—Jasmine was standing on the step, eyes wider than ever.

In her hand was a little yellow ribbon to match those in her hair, wrapped around…

My pearl pen. Jensen gasped.

“Jazz! How’d you find it?”

“I was playing outside after the storm yesterday. It was in a puddle but I cleaned it,” Jasmine assured her.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you! You have no idea how important this pen is to me,” she gushed, pulling the little one in for a hug.

“I do! I saw you get sad when you lost it yesterday.”

“I did panic a little, didn’t I? Wait—you came to the show last night. How come you didn’t bring it then?”

“I—uh,” Jasmine stammered.

“Jazz, come on. You can tell me. It’s okay.”

“I wanted to keep it—just for a little! I…wanted to write like you. I’m getting better at school. My teacher said. But I thought…” she trailed off.

Jensen thought maybe she should frown at Jasmine’s wanting to keep the pen—you know, to teach her a lesson—but she couldn’t wipe the smile off of her face. Someone, no, not someone, little Jasmine, wanted to write like her. There was that same feeling again, grand, professional. Like she could glimpse herself in the future, scrawling furiously to meet the publisher’s deadline.

“Keep going, Jazz,” she encouraged. “I’m not mad, I promise.”

“Well you always say take it if nobody will miss it. I knew it was yours but I didn’t think you’d miss it. I’m sorry, I really am.”

And there it was. Her steal-shelf philosophy may not have translated perfectly to such a young one. Maybe she should be a better example. Better yet, maybe she shouldn’t steal people’s things—you never really could know how valuable a little trinket was. Her pearl pen was case in point. But in truth, little Jasmine’s sparkling eyes looking up at her in admiration gave her all the validation she needed to keep writing. Her first reader.

She’d be okay without her pearl pen. Someone else needed it, maybe more than she did. And she had an idea—she could still get to see it, check in on it this way.

“Oh, Jazz,” she pulled her little friend in for a hug again. “Don’t you worry about me. Keep it. It’s yours now—we’ll write together. You can come over after school and we’ll sit together at my desk.”

“Really?!” Jasmine squealed. “Oh Jensen, really?!”

“Of course,” Jensen smiled. And there was a little pang of separation in her, but the squishy feeling in her heart made up for it tenfold. Maybe the quick-witted winter hadn’t been playing jokes on her, after all. Maybe it was just trying to tell her it was time to stop stealing. To make her older, wiser—all the better for writing with.

“I have something for you then,” Jasmine declared.

Jensen raised her eyebrows, curious. Jasmine reached into her pocket—crumpled inside were a mud-soaked flyer for last night’s gig and a yellow crayon. Jensen’s name was circled in bright yellow, sun yellow, on the flyer.

“It’s my favorite thing to write with!”

csk

5/1/18