#lin writes ! | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

kusanagihaku · 2 months ago

Text

running in love in the season of you

⭢ haru x mc, 4.4k

k is for kindergarten. ˖⁺‧₊⟡ alphabet series | ao3 for @aayakashii!

Children typically speak their first words between 12 to 18 months of age (Zubrick et al., 2007).

The first time you meet Haru, it is in a blaze of fire and light.

Or rather: the first time you meet Haru, he is lit by the bright of a summer bonfire, eyes crinkled up in amusement and laughter shimmering in the air between him and his friend. His hair is messy and wind-swept; as he runs his fingers through them, the fiery red catches the light and catches your eye.

You nudge your roommate. “Who’s that?”

She squints in his general direction, bringing her hand up to shield her eyes from the glare of the bonfire. “Haru Sagara, I think. I heard he’s an Early Childhood Education major. Lives on the third or fourth floor, maybe?”

Before you can ask her anything more, though, she is swept away by an enthusiastic acquaintance, disappearing into the noise of the dorm welcome party like smoke in the night.

You sigh. It shouldn’t be surprising, with the way she’s always been a social butterfly, but you feel some shade of helplessness all the same. Maybe she was right – maybe you do need to make some new friends at this party.

You sip slowly at the cup of Coke you’ve been nursing so far. The cold condensation on the outside of the cup leaves your hand dripping and uncomfortably wet; you hope nobody asks to shake hands.

Your eyes return again to the man on the other side of the bonfire. His head is thrown back in laughter this time, cackles floating through the crowd as his conversation partner, a tall blonde man in a black turtleneck far too thick for the summer, regales him with some story or another.

In the heat-shimmer of the fire between you he looks almost like a mirage.

You watch as he lifts his cup to take a sip, then makes a little frown. He pouts at the man opposite him, who laughs and motions for his cup before standing up and walking away.

He turns back to the bonfire.

His eyes meet yours.

All at once the roar of the bonfire fills your ears, a crackling hush that dims the rest of the party to a dull murmur. Your cheeks burn with the embarrassment of having been caught; yet there is something in the way he holds your gaze, lips lifted in the beginnings of a smile, that stops you from looking away.

Haru tilts his head. It is as much an inviting question as a quick puzzlement, but before you can decide which one it is his face splits open in a blinding smile. It reminds you so much of a puppy you barely have time to register it before you’re smiling back.

Perhaps, perhaps you should—

But his friend returns, red cup in hand dancing at the edge of your vision, and just like that the moment shatters in a spit of sparks.

He looks away, mouth rounding out a response to an unheard question.

You stand, and leave.

(Or rather: the first time you meet Haru, he is lit by the flickering glow of a bonfire and a radiance of his own making. He sends the thump of your heart racing faster than the rush of summer wind, his smile a glow that will suffuse through your dreams for nights to come.)

—

Children typically develop two-word combinations between the ages of 12 to 26 months (Brown, 1973).

The second time you meet Haru, it is in a dingy elevator lazing its way to the basement.

The elevator slows to a stop on the third floor, red digital display flashing twice before dimming. You shift your laundry basket to your other hip.

The door dings open.

You come face to face with a shock of fiery red, tamped down by a cream white hoodie emblazoned with the name of your university, similarly balancing a laundry basket on his hip.

His eyes meet yours, half-formed smile already dancing on his lips, and it slips a laugh out of the both of you as you shift to make way for him.

“Hi,” he says. His voice is far brighter than the artificial warmth of the elevator lights. “I’m Haru.”

You grin back. “I’m Y/N.”

He hefts his laundry basket higher. “You were at the dorm welcome bonfire, weren’t you?”

“Oh, yeah. Good memory.”

Haru hums. “I remember wanting to introduce myself! You left before I could, though, and I couldn’t find you afterwards.”

The elevator slows to a stop. You try to keep the sudden loud bumping of your heart under control, try to keep the stray spark of his grin from landing on where your throat has suddenly been lined with gasoline.

“I decided to turn in early,” you say, carefully. The doors slide open.

He waves you forward. “Healthy sleeping habits?”

You snort. “As healthy as sleeping at three every night can be.”

“Eh?” He looks at you incredulously. “Here I thought I had the bad sleeping habits.”

You learn, as you’re putting your laundry into the washing machines, that Haru’s not only a double major (Early Childhood Education, of course, along with Animal Studies), but also a volunteer with at least three different clubs. His schedule is more packed than you expected from a college student – he spends his Wednesday nights building huts for turtles and feeding owls at the local animal sanctuary, then his Sunday afternoons conducting book readings in the warmth of the children’s library, not to mention the occasional nights he delivers food scraps from the university dining halls to the nearby animal shelters.

It makes you feel like your twenty four hours aren’t quite the same as his, and when you tell him this, shovelling armfuls of clothes into the cranky white washing machines, he laughs, loud and boisterous.

“Can’t help it, I guess,” he says. He dumps the last armful of clothes into his front-loader and shuts the door. “I’m interested in far too many things to give any of them up.”

“I’m sure they appreciate your help, though,” you say. You slip the last pair of pants into your washing machine and reach for your detergent.

Haru hums. “My grades sure don’t!”

It pulls a laugh out of you. “What classes are you taking, anyway?”

Haru squints at the level of liquid detergent he poured into the washing machine. “Marine Conservation… Ecological Policies… Literature of Children and Adolescents… what’s the last one…”

He drips a little more blue liquid into the washing machine, then leans back, satisfied. He caps the detergent bottle. “Ah, Child Language Acquisition!”

“Oh,” you say in surprise. “I’m taking that.”

Haru turns to you, eyes widening. “No way!”

“I didn’t see you last week at the first lecture, though?”

Haru looks thoughtful for a moment. “I usually sit in the back row. Where do you sit?”

The washing machine under your hand starts with a groan. You set your empty basket atop it. “Front row, but all the way to the right.”

“Huh,” Haru says. “A good blind spot. They never pick on students sitting in the aisle seats… I should try that.”

You laugh. “You’d catch anyone’s eye no matter where you sit.”

Too late you realise the implications of your words; Haru’s ears flush red as you sputter a retraction. “I mean, with how bright your hair is and all, it’s hard not to notice you!”

Your tongue stumbles along to the beat of your heart, but thankfully Haru buys it. His responding laugh is slightly awkward, but warm, “Gahaha, can’t refute that!”

“Anyway,” you say, trying to pull away from your inadvertent compliment, “I heard that class is pretty content-heavy.”

“It’d be nice to have a study partner,” Haru hums in agreement. He stuffs his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants. Neither of you make a move to leave the laundry room, despite having already started your machines.

You run your thumb along the tooth of your keys. You don’t want to overstep, given that you’ve just introduced yourselves to each other, but there is something in his easygoing smile that glints so hopeful it sends a rush of words out your mouth.

“We could study together,” you say, and watch his eyes light up.

You realise, heart sinking and hopeful, all the reckless things you might say to get him smiling at you like that again.

“Maybe I can get your number,” Haru says, and he beams so brilliantly you couldn’t bring yourself to refuse even if you wanted to. “That way we can figure out some sort of schedule?”

The offer is taken up, of course – you input the digits into his keypad with hands you barely remember moving, and are rewarded with the soft September warmth of his smile.

It stays with you long after you part ways in the hazy grey of the elevator, and lingers in your memory for the rest of the week like the tail-end of summer, sweet and sparkling on the tip of your tongue.

At three years of age, children begin to play beside one another engaging in the same activity (Stagnitti, 2021).

Haru, as it turns out, is notoriously busy.

Every time slot you suggest is occupied in one way or another by the others’ classes, club activities or volunteering work. You had no idea it was even possible to fit so many activities in one day – if you didn’t believe so ardently in the sincerity of Haru’s offer you would have suspected long ago he was avoiding you on purpose.

It takes a bit of back and forth to settle on a time, but it opens up the opportunity for semi-regular texting, at least.

Did you know, Haru says, in the bruise-purple of Friday twilight, that red foxes have an extra toe on their front paws? Isn’t that amazing?

Dining hall ran out of eggs (´Д` ) nooooo, comes bright and early Saturday morning. It coaxes some form of fondness from the morning fog of your brain – you can almost hear his voice through the text.

Read Ten Fat Sausages to the kids at the library today, arrives in the slant of Sunday sunset. One kid asked me if she could listen to it since she was vegetarian…

Every text he sends sends a jolt up your fingertips; every piece of himself that he shares spreads a giddiness along your veins. If anyone else notices how much you’re smiling at your phone and jumping at notifications in the past few days, well, no they did not.

How’s Thursday night sound? Your phone buzzes.

You swipe to check your calendar. Bingo!

That’s my laundry night, you tap back. If your laundry basket is full you’re welcome to join.

Amazing!!! ψ(｀∇´)ψ I’ll get my detergent ready!!

If you were alone you’d be kicking your feet and giggling. But your roommate is asleep, as is the healthy thing to be at two in the morning, and so you settle for closing and opening your messaging app a few times just to give the butterflies in your stomach time to settle.

Gotta make it through tomorrow’s lecture first! You tap back, then watch as the three dots above your message bar dance and pause, dance and pause, dance and pause.

Can I sit beside you?

Your heart jumps a little too high, and lodges somewhere between your last two braincells. Before you can reply, however, another message pops up.

Just so we can cross check study notes, of course!!

And then– I promise not to call too much attention to myself!!!!

You think your cheeks might cramp from smiling so hard. As long as you pay me back for compromising my blind spot.

Haru’s reply breezes in seconds later. Deal! ٩(˃̶͈̀௰˂̶͈́)و

Payment comes the next morning in form of a warm white paper cup balanced precariously on the edge of a tiny lecture chair table. Haru slides into the seat next to yours with a grin, rust-red hair tucked under the hood of his jacket, eyes waned into crescent moons.

“I wasn’t sure what you would like,” he admits, sheepishly, “so I made a guess.”

You crack open the plastic lid. The moment the smell of coffee hits your nose you lean back into your seat with a satisfied groan. “God, just what I needed.”

His eyes crinkle up in amusement. “Coffee addict?”

“You have no idea,” you say, taking a sip. “Mm, is this the honey oat latte from round the corner?”

Haru beams as he sets his laptop on the table. “You’re so well-versed in their menu! Or is it your favourite? Did I get it right first try?”

You laugh. “Unfortunately not.”

“Aw.” His face falls so quickly you briefly think about saying that now it will be, but before you can, he’s smiling again, leaning his cheek into his palm as he turns sideways to face you. “Well, good thing I get to keep trying!”

Your cheeks burn, and you spend the entire lecture telling yourself it is from the heat of the coffee and not at all from the sun of him, bright and radiant and all too breathtaking for the muted dim of morning.

Children begin to develop the grammatical use of additive conjunction ‘and’ at age three (Glória et al., 2016).

It becomes an all-too-regular thing – you and Haru, front row on the right, matching Monday take-away cups and coffee-tinged sighs.

Your study sessions turn more-than-weekly too; you find yourself side by side with Haru more often, textbooks cracked open and lit by the soft glare of your laptops as you sit without the groan of washer-dryers in the back of your minds. Not that you spend much time studying when you’re with him – most of the time is spent talking about something or another, basking in the light of his laugh. You learn more facts about marine animals over the course of the weeks than you ever thought possible.

In some ways, you do spend time studying – you learn that Haru’s favourite colour is orange, and that he takes his coffee with way too much sugar. You learn that he is way too popular with everyone, with people from different clubs constantly waving hi or coming up to ask him about something or another, and that he talks to them all with the same dazzling smile on his face, welcoming and tireless.

(He complains to you about his club members sometimes. You learn the way his voice slips into a whine when he tells you about how Ren can’t clean the rabbits’ cages properly, and learn the way you can’t take your eyes off his lips when he pouts.)

You learn that Haru smells like morning rain and linen, a gentle sort of clean, and that he types quicker with his left hand than his right. You learn the jangle of keychains he keeps on a metal loop, the sparkle of his hum when he’s distracted, the glint of the hoop piercing on his left ear. You learn the four-beat vibration of his phone he set specifically for his roommate so he’d never miss a call from Rui.

(You learn, then, that Rui is astonishingly bad at remembering to bring his keys out, and that Haru is very good at picking locks.)

And, oh, between the two of you you learn that his hands are always rough and warm, that his ears tint pink. You learn how dark red can be when he meets you after a shower, and how rich it can be when he is fluffy and sleep-mussed. You learn the angle at which his eyebrows tent whenever he’s worried, the lop of his frown whenever he thinks too hard, the curve of his eyebags whenever you decide it’s time to turn in but somehow cannot bring yourselves to leave.

You learn the way Haru looks at you. You learn the way it makes you feel like you’ve been holding the stars in your lungs, too much and not enough. When your roommate asks you for your weekend plans, the “Haru and I” that graces the start of your sentences leaves you that sort of glowing, breathless, weightless.

It makes you wonder if maybe being with him is how flowers sound like, all slow and soft as they grow into what they are meant to become. As the semester melts into the cold of October you begin to wonder what it would be like to bloom.

At 3;6, children begin using subordinating conjunction ‘because’ (Glória et al., 2016).

Sunday finds you in the cosy, sunlit reading room of the library next to the park. It is full of caregivers and their children, bustling with laughter and yells of children excited for book-reading time.

It is more packed than you expected when Haru invited you to his weekly volunteer session, and you seek to tuck yourself into a corner, sitting cross-legged on a cushion underneath a painted display of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Haru sits at the front of the room. He has two books resting on his lap as he chats with the children sitting in the front row, eyebrows dancing through expressions as he gasps and exclaims in response to their clamouring. The delighted giggles of the children in response to Haru’s dramatic begging for them to go one at a time sends a strange sort of fondness through the swell of your heart.

But at last it begins; Haru claps his hands to be heard over the noise, and the din hushes instantly.

“Deep in the fridge, and behind the green peas,” Haru starts, “way past the tofu and left of the cheese…”

If he wasn’t already the centre of your attention, he would be now – when he reads, dancing through the pages in different voices and pausing to ask the children questions, his hands arc through the air, animated and bright as he pulls laughter and gasps from his young audience. The story is appropriately entertaining, you think, but you don’t remember a word of it.

Instead, as his eyes alight on yours again and again, bright and twinkling, you find yourself smiling in time to the rise and lilt of his voice. The sunlight sings through a nearby window; it paints Haru in the glow of the afternoon and sends tangles of fire-gold through the rust-red threads of his hair.

The image of him just like this, haloed and gentle and looking at you from across a room that is too big and too small all at once, freezes and melts, stretches and folds in the space between you, and then collapses, neat and sweet under the tip of your tongue. It dawns on you, slowly, that maybe you were wrong all along – Haru has never been sparks and summer, has never been the scorch of fire and sun. He has never been the blaze of midday, but the gradual warmth that creeps in with sunrise, the quietness of dawning light.

The promise of him blooms over you as you sit, still and quiet, amongst the muted shout-laughs of the children. Maybe loving Haru, all along, has been like spring – like the arrival of the season he has wrapped himself around you, slowly, completely and surely. Without you noticing the thought of him has already sunk its roots into the crevices of your days despite the business of his own.

You exhale, and with it comes the sudden undeniable certainty that yes, yes, yes, you are in love with Haru and the way he is filled with love. The way he gives so many parts of himself away and still manages to find more. The way he has been fitted with a heart five sizes too big, the way he will stretch himself thin to make time for all the things he cares about. The way his hands and arms are scarred from things that have hurt him, over and over again, but the way he will not keep himself from reaching back out to help.

There are a million reasons to love Haru, you think, but perhaps they all boil down to this – when his eyes meet yours again at the end of the storybook, crinkled up and flitting across the thrum of the room, his gaze feels like it is sliding home.

Speech intelligibility is expected to reach nearly 100% at four years old (Coplan & Gleason, 1988).

“Maybe I should just drop out,” Haru says forlornly. He drops forward, resting his cheek on his arms as he tilts his head to look back up at you.

You laugh, and set your pen down next to your coffee cup. If you cross your arms maybe you won’t feel as tempted to run your hand through the fluffiness of his hair. “Come on, two chapters to go.”

“I can’t cram anything in my brain anymore,” Haru whines, and he looks so adorable you give in.

You rest your fingers on his head. You ignore how soft his hair is under your fingers, and ignore how close he’s sitting, with your thighs nearly pressed together under the table. “You’re already doing so well. Just two more chapters!”

Haru blinks up at you, small pout forming on his lips. “You’re so encouraging… maybe you should be the kindergarten teacher instead.”

You pull your hand back – if you don’t, you’ll never stop threading your fingers through his hair. You focus instead on the smattering of freckles across his nose bridge, studying the constellations of sun that have painted themselves across his cheek. “That’s not true. You’re going to be the best kindergarten teacher your kids will ever have.”

“They’ll never have a kindergarten teacher if I don’t graduate,” Haru grumbles. His cheek is still smushed against his arm, slightly slurring his words. You bite back a smile.

“You’re going to graduate just fine. You’re perfect for this job, kids love you,” you say, softly. You can’t imagine anyone not loving him.

(Yourself included.)

You fish a small plastic-wrapped sweet out of your pocket. The wrapper crinkles between your fingers as you free the yellow candy from it, and when you nudge the sweet at him he opens his mouth obediently for you to slip it between the soft pink of his lips.

“You’re going to be their favourite teacher,” you continue, and leave the wrapper next to your cup.

“Will I be your favourite teacher?” Haru says, and he smiles a little, a sweet grin that bursts behind your teeth and makes your next breath feel all sorts of fragile.

The way he looks at you, wide and trusting, hitches in your throat. You daren’t speak for fear of shattering the moment, the anticipation in his eyes glass-thin, but the words build themselves in your tongue anyway–

You will always be my favourite. In a room full of people you will always be the only one I’ll be drawn to. In a crowd your voice will always be the first I will hear.

But Haru tilts his head, looking up at you, and something bubbles in you with a reckless confidence.

You lift your hand. Your fingertips brush along the soft of his cheek.

“You’re already my favourite,” you say, quietly. “You’ve been my favourite since the moment we met.”

He sits up, then, a slow unfolding of himself, sunflower-like.

“From that day at the bonfire,” you say. You let your hand and your gaze drop back into your lap. “And that day in the laundry room, and every day ever since. You’ve always been my favourite.”

There is a huff from your right. You look up, half-expecting another self-deprecating laugh as Haru is wont to do, but you are met with eyes twinkling and soft and fond. The bright grin that he gives you as he leans in is warm, like cloudless days on rolling hills, all blue skies through the clear of a window, all Haru.

“Come on,” Haru says, and as he takes your hand, carefully and gently, it fills you with the sort of dizzying, giddy golden you can only imagine fields of daffodils shine with. “You’re my favourite, too.”

By four years of age, children are able to compare things using words like bigger and smaller (Sheldrick et al., 2013).

The first time you meet Teacher Haru, it is in a riot of colours and clamour.

Or rather: the first time you meet Teacher Haru it is across a small wooden childproofing gate, painted a delightful blue and littered with misshapen origami flowers. The wattage of his smile the moment he catches sight of you matches the blinding yellow of his apron, but he barely opens his mouth before he is swept away again by the cacophony that accompanies playtime in a kindergarten class.

You squat down next to the child for whom you’ve been called in to do a speech assessment. You wait until he looks at you, then smile kindly. “Hi, Boo.”

The boy’s eyes round. He stares warily at you for a moment, clutching a small, red toy truck between his hands, before whispering, “Hi.”

It takes a while for him to open up to you, but you are nothing but patient – you eventually get him to respond in longer sentences at the end of fifteen minutes.

You prod at the toy truck that now rests between you. “Who’s your favourite teacher, Boo?”

Boo gives you a shy smile, then glances away to the front of the classroom. “Teacher Haru.”

You can’t help it – your eyes slide back to where you know Haru is standing. The sunlight streaming through the open classroom windows haloes him, basking the red of his hair in a familiar, golden sort of warmth. His head is thrown back in laughter, hands fending off crayons from a gaggle of enthusiastic preschoolers as they clamour for his attention.

In the sea of noise between you he looks almost like a mirage.

He turns, slightly, to look at you, his gaze brimming with a familiar fondness, a magnet finding its way home.

His eyes meet yours.

“Guess what,” you find yourself saying. The toy truck drifts from your fingertips as you smile back at him. “Teacher Haru’s my favourite teacher too.”

#tokyo debunker #haru sagara #lin writes #omg this took me way longer than i expected jksdfhlasjk #ANYWAY I HOPE U LIKE IT AYA ;u;#tokyo debunker x reader #title from higedan's same blue #which SLAPS 10/10 would recommend ugh i love higedan songs #i think they were like my top artist this year #alphabet series

86 notes · View notes

goblinhoursinsomniaramblings · 4 months ago

Text

I Know Those Eyes, Part 1

one dramatic in-universe reveal per chapter, let's go!

writing based purely on vibes, but i do have an actual plot brewing.

@grimdarling69 made more feel free to dm things you might want different

Prologue here

Tim had been the first to see the shape of his family’s future collective stress nightmares.

He’d been right there, after all. He had been asleep in the Batcave when Damian had decided to… he’d been right there, waking up to a single chance, loud noise Damian normally would have never made, with a chance to stop him, bring him to the others, talk it out, find a solution to whatever Luthor had been planning with concentrated Lazarus water. But he hadn’t woken up fast enough.

He had nightmares about that night for years. Sometimes, he knows exactly what’s going to happen and lets it happen anyway. Sometimes, he gets Damian to promise he’ll talk it out, only for him to run when Tim’s back is turned. The worst are the ones where he stops him, and everything works out for the best, and Tim wakes up and remembers what actually happened. Sometimes, he wakes up after getting to see Damian grow up, take on a new mantle, and haze a new Robin.

He always dismissed those dreams as filtering a fresh wave of grief through his knowledge of forensic analysis. He’d seen both Talia and Bruce, therefore he could map rough predictions of what he would grow up to look like, once he hit various milestones. It was all academic, since he would never get the chance to prove what he would have… been.

At least up until Oracle called him to verify something.

(“Red Robin, I need a judgment call.”

“A judgment call? Seriously? What exactly is stopping you from sending this to–”

“Luthor might be alive again. Check the footage I’ve sent you.”)

And… sure enough… here Tim was, three cups of coffee into an all-nighter, manually highlighting every shot in the security camera footage he’d been sent of a visiting CEO of a new tech startup that showed the man’s features. Which, actually, weren’t a lot, but once he started going through them all–yeah, that was Luthor alright. Same build, same face, the only thing that son of a bitch did was grow hair.

Like that wouldn’t have been the first disguise anyone who saw Lex Luthor would have suggested. Hair! Long, practically a lion’s mane of the stuff, tied into a low ponytail, with one of those chin beard things to hide the shape of his face more! All of it silvered by age and possible Lazarus contamination, and he hated that Luthor might purposely be affecting a ‘silver fox’ look.

And the worst part is it would have worked if anyone had removed him from the high priority list for being flagged for recognition. Tim almost had, but… Lazarus water. A mysterious death around concentrated Lazarus water. And apparently he had been, once again, completely right!

Tim had been furious by the time he’d combed through enough angles of his face getting out of a sleek black car to confirm, without a doubt, who he was. But then, the passenger side door had opened. All his anger had become shock. His hands shook as he opened a different, far more heavily encrypted profile.

Damian Wayne, priority 0.

Almost nothing came back an exact match, of course. The growth between 14 and 18 would have affected every feature, and the footage wasn’t nearly good enough to lift a retinal pattern or fingerprint from a distance (he noted the black gloves and mirrored shades blocking both), not to mention forensic prediction wasn’t an exact science, and beyond all of that, he could be totally wrong and Luthor was hauling out a clone, or a doppelgänger-

But as each feature lined up in his predictive model, as he watched the young man get out, brusquely close his door, and fall in at Luthor’s side without a word, a (surprisingly slight, far closer to Talia than Bruce) shadow falling into his wake like it was old habit, Tim felt certain he was right. He was certain he had dreamed of a world where Damian lived long enough to have that exact face. He called Oracle back.

“Hey, Oracle? I need a judgment call.”

***

It had taken minutes for Vlad and Danny to begin calling each other by their original names again. It had taken far longer, however, to get back to a familiar dynamic.

Oh, in the short term, it hadn’t been a problem at all. However, it was simply a matter of fact they had both led very different lives before remembering who they were meant to be. Vlad’s disgust at who he had been had colored much of his early days reclaiming his ghost half, and Daniel…

A childhood as a trained assassin had not been kind on the boy. Parts of Damian Al Ghul had needed to be chipped away over these last few years, most especially the fear of the League of Assassins that still hummed through him. Thankfully, Vlad had some help on that front and oh flaky pastry he was smiling again-

Though on second thought he supposed a warm and fatherly smile would help distance himself from ‘Lex’ Luthor. Yes, Lionel Vladimir Luthor, CEO and founder of VladCo, would be a man of warmth and fatherly compassion, and absolutely no one would suspect how thoroughly he could destroy them until they had dared to cross the line.

“You know we passed a dozen security cameras, right?” came a quiet voice to his left, the young man’s eyes flashing an even brighter green on occasion behind the shaded glasses he used to mask as Vlad’s bodyguard.

Oh, Daniel. So paranoid these days.

“Really? I only counted eight,” he replied, as the two of them were waved in by the desk clerk of their hotel.

“You’re not being creative enough with the word ‘security’. We’re meeting investors with ties to organized crime.”

Ah. So they were connected to weapons instead of larger networks of cameras. Classic Gotham City logic. Why only be corrupt, when you could be corrupt and violent? Though, it wasn’t as if he and his companion had to be careful anymore.

It had taken years to get to this point. Reclaiming their ghost halves, their powers, their lairs, their titles–their many, many titles, in Daniel’s case. Not to mention dear Daniela and Dante had taken years to recover, were still recovering, really, but at least now they could be comfortable staying with a substitute caregiver-

“Oh, any word from Frostbite?” he asked absently as he plugged the number code into the elevator to bypass the purposefully broken button for their intended floor. He had never encountered these kinds of silly little spy games after regaining his memories, it was almost endearingly pointless now.

“Nothing critical,” Daniel said with a small smile as they found their way to their specific unmarked door.

That meant there were pictures. Well. Good reason to get this nonsense done quickly. He raised a hand to knock.

“Game face, badger. We have a foundation to lay here.”

“Right back at you, frootloop,” said Daniel, slipping back into the resting scowl of his new childhood.

Honestly. Spy games. Next to what he and Daniel had planned?

Minor leagues.

***

-dramatic reveal in this chapter: the lazarus tech event brought back its victims.

-i don’t want to spoil their whole plan here but they’ve got obsessions to feed that are aligning super well right now and vlad wants to take the opportunity to show he cares and ruthlessly fuck over people who have personally wronged daniel/damian along the way.

-yes i am referencing the name used by luthor's father in the tv show, but in practice i'm referring to the time superman died and luthor pretended to be his own son, replete with luxurious hair.

#dc x dp #danny as damian #vlad as lex #de aged ellie #de aged dan #misunderstandings #lin writes

118 notes · View notes

hunniez · 10 months ago

Text

✎ fic preview | sandstorm (poly!satosugu/reader. modern!au)

hi baes, it's been a crazy past two months since I moved but I finally have had time to get into it and write! I'm still fleshing this fic out but here's a little peek ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و

“I’m..sorry. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.” Gojo said softly, standing stiffly at the front door of the apartment. He opened his mouth once more but hesitated and instead pressed his lips into a grim line. Bowing his head, he cleared his throat uncomfortably before opening the door and exiting promptly as if he wasn’t affected by what had just transpired. If he wasn’t affected by leaving you like this.

A shaky exhale escapes your lips as you grab at your thighs, nails digging into the skin exposed by your lounge shorts as if to alleviate the agonizing grief, pain, and sorrow that currently tore through your heart and mind. The faucet of the kitchen sink dripped quietly. You grit your teeth as you lean over your lap, burying your face in your shaking hands as the sobs crawl up your throat, constricting your airways and making it hard to breathe. Droplets of condensation steadily trailed along your forgotten glass of iced water. One tear turned into another. And then another. And then another.

Outside it started to pour.

#*gives u a spoonful of angst* SAY AHHHHH #I'm also writing a couple other things as well teehee #lin writes #poly!satosugu #gojo satoru x reader #geto suguru x reader #poly!satosugu x reader #jjk x reader #gojo x reader #geto x reader #fic preview

113 notes · View notes

enlitment · 10 months ago

Text

My attempt to translate Voltaire's The Divine Émilie into Czech because I just love it so much.

I don't think anyone who speaks Czech will actually see this, so you'll have to trust me that I tried my best to keep the rhymes.

#voltaire #émilie du châtelet #philosophy #french philosophy #18th century #1700s #poetry #poems #česky #čumblr #translation #literature #Lin writes

90 notes · View notes

pinkheichou · 5 months ago

Text

Chapter 25 of my Gofushi longfic 'It's Corporate Baby (The Zenin Revenge)' is up!

WHAT'S MEGUMI'S ANSWER TO GOJO'S QUESTION??

REGULAR UPDATES / Corporate AU / Revenge-themed

Chapter summary:

"It's a promise."

"You don't have to make a promise."

"I wanted to, though.”

#gofushi #jjk #jjk fanfic #gojo x megumi #gofushi fic #lin writes

9 notes · View notes

coffeewithcutcaffeine · 1 year ago

Text

Sometimes I think my writing is a pile of rubbish, and then I suddenly manage to come up with paragraphs such as this:

She despises herself for harbouring such thoughts. She loathes herself for suddenly devaluing her worth, for appreciating herself so little, for immersing herself in such frivolous concerns. Her body has given life to two beautiful creatures, living and breathing human beings, so why does her mind conspire to deceive her so cruelly, to trick her into feeling so powerless? Is it not a woman’s body that conjures such a marvel — a resplendent, delicate, rosy little creation emerging from a place of anguished cries, agony, blood, and sweat? What mortal man has ever created such enchantment on a battlefield as macabre and crimson as that which unfolds between a woman’s legs? Is not every battlefield etched with toil and sacrifice? Her body maps the victories won in those wars.

#lin writes #( oc: sanctuary )

6 notes · View notes

linderosse · 5 months ago

Text

This is 1000% true.

Echoing this for me as well: comments/tags give me life and I read every single one of them, no matter how old the original post. It’s incredibly nice to see what people think about my work. Always brightens my day <3

I dont care how old an art post of mine is, its always open to comments. I work hard on them. Its so sad that a comic i could work weeks on only gets comments or funny tags for like two to three days before trickling to a stop. They are like fuel to me. It shows me that people are actually interested.

#wisdomverse #wielders of wisdom #zelda #lin draws #lin writes #lin thinks #lin responds #also if you’re on my blog and haven’t checked out ovega #you should do so!#their work is always such a pleasure to see #my favorite is the one with the Hero’s Shade and Emblem Marth #absolutely stellar

875 notes · View notes

thegreatgatslin · 7 days ago

Text

MARK YOU UP - RIN ITOSHI X F!READER (18+)

╰┈➤ SYNPOSIS: you get a little too friendly with one of rin's teammates at a party. he doesn't like that. ╰┈➤ CONTAINS: fwb!rin, possessive!rin, p in v sex, orgasm denial, marking, degrading ('slut'), but also praise?? ('good girl'), idk man just shoot me alr ╰┈➤ WC: 450 ╰┈➤ series m.list

if this is what pissing off the rin itoshi gets you -

you wouldn’t mind doing it all over again.

because now he’s got you bent over in his apartment, your makeup utterly ruined as he plows into you relentlessly. his hot breath fans across your back with each pant, and you scrabble at the surface of the kitchen counter, cheek squished against the cool surface. you’re sure the neighbours can hear the both of you, but you just can’t seem to care.

he reaches under you, rubs circles into your clit, and you feel your eyes roll back as your mouth falls open into a whine. you feel him tightening his grip on your hips, hitting deeper with every thrust.

“rinnnnnnn,” you wail. “harder!”

“yeah?” you hear the strain in his voice, and lift your head to look back over your shoulder, meeting his hooded teal eyes that are darkened with lust. “you like that, huh?”

“sooooo good, rin… feels s’good! m’gonna cum soon…”

and soon you regret saying anything at all, because -

the sick bastard stops. he pulls out of you, leaving you feeling unbearably empty, and grabs a fistful of your hair, pulling you into him. the air is knocked out of your lungs when your back hits the hard planes of his muscular torso, but the real asphyxiation comes when he leans down, lips brushing your ear, and whispers -

“you think that bastard isagi could fuck you like this?”

“what?” your eyes widen in confusion. “w-what do you -”

“lie to me all you want, y/n, but i saw you,” rin growls. he sounds almost feral now, as if he’s returning to his base animalistic instincts. “getting all chummy with him of all people? as if you’re not coming back to me at the end of the night, begging me to make you feel good like the slut that you are?”

“rin, i -”

you’re cut off when he turns you around and hooks an arm under one of your legs, exposing your core, dripping with arousal, to his hungry eyes. he pushes you backwards, the counter pressing painfully into your back, then sinks his teeth into your neck. it’s definitely gonna leave a mark, but again, you can’t seem to care all that much.

“rin!” you moan weakly, trying to push him away, but he’s just so much stronger than you. “we agreed, no ma -”

“fuck that,” he hisses, leaning down to capture your lips in a messy, open-mouthed kiss, then pushes his length back into you in one fluid motion. “i’m gonna show all those idiots who you belong to, ruin you for any other man.

“now take it all like a good girl.”

#✦ lin writes #bllk #blue lock #blue lock smut #bllk smut #blue lock x reader #bllk x reader #bllk x you #rin itoshi #itoshi rin #rin itoshi x reader #rin itoshi x reader smut #rin smut

495 notes · View notes

marvelrivalsimagines · 26 days ago

Text

Relationship Headcannons

Characters: Iron Fist, Luna Snow, Squirrel Girl

Prompt: One requester asked for Iron Fist and Squirrel Girl general relationship HCs and another asked for Luna Snow relationship HCs, so I put all three character headcannons into one post :)

Author’s note: When it comes to relationships HCs there’s so many things you can talk about! I know I didn’t cover every aspect of these relationships in the HCs but I also didn’t want this to get annoyingly long lol. I hope everyone enjoys this, especially the requesters!

Warnings: Brief mentions of chronic pain in Iron Fist’s section

While Lin has an outwardly laid-back attitude it would be a mistake to assume that this means he takes everything in his life casually. When Lin commits to something he dedicates his entire body and spirit to it and this includes your relationship. Any challenges your relationship might face, whether it’s an argument between the two of you or the time stream entanglement itself, Lin is ready to do whatever it takes to keep you in his life.

Aside from his dedication to fighting for your relationship Lin is also dedicated to fighting for you. While there’s a lot to adjust to in his new role as the Iron Fist helping people and standing up for others is something Lin has always believed in. With him around you have the most supportive cheerleader who’s there for you in moments where you may be struggling. Whether you need someone to just listen to you vent for a moment or you’d like him to step into a situation to help you out Lin is more than willing to help. Real “they said no pickles on their burger” energy.

When it comes to PDA Lin is comfortable with almost anything. While other people might shy away from PDA due to embarrassment, Lin is just too caught up with you to ever turn down a kiss or a hug in public. While he might get a bit red in the face if you really go over the top with your affections, Lin appreciates every moment of your attention that he gets.

Lin’s main love language is physical touch. As mentioned before, Lin has no problem with PDA so when the two of you are alone you both can really indulge in each other's touch. It’s just something that comes so naturally to him; placing a hand around your waist as you both stand in the kitchen or wrapping the both of you up in the same blanket before starting up a movie.

Lin was living a normal life before becoming the Sword Master and then Iron Fist. While he is up to these new challenges life has suddenly thrown at him, it can sometimes be a lot to take in and can cause Lin to be overwhelmed or stuck in his own head for a bit. So aside from the affection he gets from your physical touch, it can also be extremely grounding for him to be hugged or held by you. It pulls him out of his worries and back into the present with you.

Lin also deals with chronic pain from the fragments of his sword that are embedded in his hands. He’s come up with his own routines to try to alleviate that pain, and methods of coping with the pain when it is particularly bad. It may take some time for Lin to feel comfortable with being vulnerable enough to show you just how much this affects him. But, if you offer to help him whenever you notice he’s experiencing more pain than usual, and especially if you take the time to learn how he manages his pain and help him in those routines, Lin swears he’s never felt more seen or loved.

While it’s impossible to completely alleviate his pain, for Lin it’s more about knowing that someone truly cares for him, and that while he puts his body on the line to save others you’re thinking about how to help him. The fact that you’re willing to put aside this time in your day and put all of your focus into this moment just to try to temporarily help with some of his pain makes his love for you grow even stronger.

When it comes to date night and spending time together Lin has a preference for more relaxed activities and places. As the protector of K’un-Lun he spends his day, figuratively and literally, running around the city and fighting crime. For as much energy as Lin has, even he comes home tired most days after his duties as Iron Fist are finished. And there’s nothing better for sore muscles than cuddling with you on the couch and putting on some cheesy comfort movie.

After an especially rough or tiresome day Lin would, figuratively, cry tears of happiness if he came home to a home cooked meal made by you. It doesn’t have to be anything complex or worthy of a michelin star, just knowing that you were thinking of him like this while he was gone touches his heart. As a hero spends his days protecting others, it means a lot to be cared for in return.

In terms of a date night out, I can see Lin being the kind of person who’s more adventurous with his food tastes. He’d enjoy going to a restaurant with you that’s advertising some new food that’s either really spicy, is a type of food you don’t get often where you live, or has some unusual ingredients. He’s going to be joking around the entire time hyping up his excitement to try this new food. And when it finally gets to the table he’s going to play up his reaction to try and make you laugh.

Lowkey I also think that Lin is the kind of person who eats his food really fast. Like you go out to dinner with him and while you’re just three bites into your food he’s already done. Then he’s looking at your side of fries like “Are you gonna finish that? 😳”

Having his significant other also be a hero would be fun and exciting, but it also might cause some worries for Lin. Lin would really enjoy training with you, learning about your skills and powers, and potentially thinking of ways he can learn from you by incorporating some of your tips into his own fighting style. He would also really enjoy being able to open up to you about some of the struggles of being a hero, like the pressure you put on yourself or how to cope when things don’t always go right. He’d really appreciate that his partner can truly understand these struggles. I can also definitely see Lin starting a relationship with someone he first met as a hero, probably a hero he’s looked up to simped for for some time.

But at the same time, Lin has some insecurities about his title as the Iron Fist. Lin knows he’s earned this title and that he's just as much of an Iron Fist as those who have come before him, but there are still so many heroes who question him and compare him to Danny Rand (cough cough that Moon Knight voice line). This causes some worries to creep in; did you ever interact with Danny as a hero? Do you ever think about how Lin compares to the previous Iron Fists?

If you’re fighting alongside each other in a fight, Lin is of course concerned for you but trusts you to be careful. His fighting style is highly mobile so he takes a ‘best defense is a good offense’ approach with the goal of taking out enemies before they become a problem for you. And even with that, he would still do his best to check in on you during the fight to make sure you’re doing okay.

As much as Lin hates to see you hurt in any way, it’s comforting for him to get to patch up any cuts or bruises post fight. He cringes at the sight of your injuries, but the physical contact really assures him that you’re still alive and well.

Dating Luna Snow, or as you get to know her, Seol Hee, is surprisingly chill. No pun intended While it might be easy to think that the life of a K-Pop superstar would be all mansions and fast cars, it’s important to Hee that she never loses touch with the people around her. After all, the entire reason she wants to be both an artist and a hero is to help people. So when she comes back home to you from a sold out show, all she really wants to do at the end of the day is enjoy some time as a ‘normal person’.

That’s not to say that there aren't certain benefits to dating a world famous super star, if you want to embrace that. As much as Hee enjoys the stage and the limelight she’s also experienced some of its drawbacks such as drama obsessed reporters and the ruthlessness of public opinion online. Going public about your relationship together would potentially pull you into all of that and Hee would never force you into that kind of life if it wasn’t something you were ready for.

Whether you choose to embrace the attention or would like to keep the relationship private, Hee supports the decision and respects you no matter what. Either way, you’re getting a love song written about you. The only difference is if the rest of the world knows that the famous Luna Snow only has you in mind as she sings the lyrics.

Levels of PDA would also depend on if your relationship is public, since kissing the pop star out in public would expose your relationship pretty quickly if you’re trying to keep things private. But even if your relationship is known to the public, Hee is pretty reserved when it comes to PDA. She’s comfortable with hand holding or a quick kiss to the cheek, but anything beyond that she’d like to keep in private.

It’s not that she doesn’t enjoy your touch, she just enjoys keeping the physical intimacy between the two of you completely private. She would rather enjoy your touch at home where neither of you have to worry about how others may be watching or perceiving you and you can both be carefree about your love.

Hee’s main love language is quality time. As both an international superstar and a super hero her schedule is filled to the brim. She rarely gets time to herself and sometimes when she does get a break from her pop stardom, she can be suddenly called into action as a superhero for an emergency. Hee has really learned the value of time, and her free time is especially precious to her. So it’s really a testament to how much she loves you when she chooses to spend that free time with you!

For as long as Hee has to wait to see you sometimes, she’s surprisingly open to do anything with you. For her, as long as she gets to be by your side it is definitely time well spent. Even if you just want to relax at home and do separate things, Hee is happy as long as she gets to enjoy your presence next to her.

Again, with her down to earth nature, even the small, mundane things are special to Hee. Washing the dishes becomes a cherished memory as the two of you work together, teasing each other as Hee playfully splashes water on you or carefully places some of the bubbly soap suds on the tip of your nose. It’s your turn to tease Hee as the radio you turned on for some background noise starts to play one of her own hits, and you’re treated to a silly and lighthearted lip sync performance by the artist herself.

Aside from the domestic nights at home, Hee does really enjoy the date nights the two of you plan where you both leave the home. She has a preference for beautiful, intimate date spots like dinner in a private booth at a restaurant or an evening of clothing shopping at local boutiques.

Restaurants are one of the few places where Hee will flaunt her wealth a bit. What good is all the pop star money if she can’t use it to spoil you a bit? She ensures that both of you get to enjoy a private and gorgeous setting so you can simply focus on eachother, and maybe the picturesque skyline in front of you. She also might not say it out loud but Hee loves taking any excuse to see you dressed up in tailored formal wear.

Speaking of, if the two of you go on a shopping date Hee absolutely loves taking you into the dressing room and making you try on endless outfits she’s picked out for you as you both have been walking through the store. As a pop star her sense of fashion is fine tuned to perfection, no matter what your personal style may be. Even if you have sensory issues with clothing, she tracks down the perfect piece that both accommodates your needs and compliments your figure.

During the course of all of these dates Hee takes so many pictures of you so she can keep reminders of you while you may be away from each other. Her favorite photos of you are the candid ones where you look the most like yourself, though she also likes to occasionally ask others to take posed photos of the two of you together. She especially likes to do a lot of these ‘photo shoots’ right before she knows she’ll be especially far away, like if she is going to perform a concert in another country or if she knows her super hero duties will keep her away for an extended time.

If you are also a superhero Hee is determined to make everyone realize what a power couple you two are. Hee works as both a pop star and a superhero because she wants to instill hope in people, so that people have something to keep them going in dark times. She would love to work alongside her partner to show the world that with both the strength of your powers and the strength of your relationship the two of you can conquer any threat and protect the hope that keeps humanity going.

Hee would especially get a kick out of your superhero dynamic if you are the masked, quiet, and mysterious type of hero. Despite knowing the real you and that you’re much more complex than those three adjectives, the slightly mischievous side of Hee can’t help but play up the dynamic of the bubbly pop star and the brooding hero that others have placed you two into. The fans just love it!

If the two of you are fighting side by side, Hee is of course worried for your safety but she also has a lot of confidence in both of your skills. I mean, this is the woman who sassed Namor to his face while they were both standing right next to the ocean. She’s very confident in her own skills, and she knows that you’re great at your job as well.

You’ve most likely fought side by side multiple times together, so it’s natural for the two of you to try and stick together during the fight. But if the two of you get separated for whatever reason, Hee makes sure to keep her eye on you in case you need any sort of help or healing. In a situation where multiple people on her team need healing, you’ll always get it first and she doesn’t really hide her bias.

Doreen approaches your relationship like she does with everything in her life - with lots of excitement and optimism. With her there’s never going to be a time where you’ll doubt if this relationship is something Doreen truly wants. Even when she comes home from a long day of beating up super villains she still finds the energy to dedicate to you and your relationship.

The relationship also tends to center around enjoying the now. Doreen is always in the moment, finding interest and excitement in what’s happening around her that day. With her optimistic outlook she doesn’t spend much time thinking about what might happen in the future. While it’s great to be with someone who reminds you to enjoy every day it also might be up to you to bring up important long-term topics, like if you two want to move in together. She’s not avoiding commitment or trying to duck out of tough conversations, she just finds it hard to worry about what you guys might be doing tomorrow when she has you in her arms right now!

Doreen is perfectly comfortable with PDA and if you’re comfortable with physical contact in public then Doreen will be initiating it a lot. She wouldn’t do anything crazy like make out with you in public though. Doreen enjoys the sweet honeymoon phase types of physical contact with you out in public, like resting her head on your shoulder or placing an arm around you while talking to other people. She especially loves to hold your hand out in public; on the crowded streets of New York City she’s gotta make sure you’re always right by her (and tippy’s) side!

Doreen would also be the kind of person who enjoys giving you a quick, chaste kiss on the cheek or lips if you’re both enjoying some down time in public, like if you’re at a restaurant or just standing and waiting at a crosswalk together. But if you give her a kiss in public, you’ll get to see a flustered and blushing Doreen. No matter how long you two have been together, a quick, unexpected kiss in public has the power to completely derail her train of thought which is quite a feat.

Doreen’s main way of showing love would be through her words. She loves to talk and that translates to a near infinite amount of compliments. Doreen’s compliments may not be poetry, but you can always tell that her words are genuine and come straight from her heart. Her lack of a filter can be a problem sometimes but when it comes to her sweet words for you it’s cute.

Aside from getting lots of compliments you’ll also get every thought that comes to her brain. You’ll be doing some activity that doesn’t require 100% of your attention, like cleaning your room or cooking some dinner for the two of you, and Doreen will spend the entire time talking to you about the most random things. From what she spent her day doing, any hero activities she got up to, and the drama amongst the local wild squirrels; you’ll suddenly be an expert in it all with how much detail Doreen goes into while she’s talking to you.

And Doreen isn’t 100% aware that she does this. She’s not purposefully trying to distract you from what you’re doing or talk over you. If you have anything to add onto her stories she’ll be more than happy to hear your comments and jokes. In fact, knowing that you’re paying attention to what she’s saying and showing that you care about her thoughts just makes her fall even more in love with you

But back to why she talks so much. It’s just that Doreen loves you so much and she feels so comfortable around you that she can finally let all those hyperactive thoughts stored up in her brain out! She loves you, feels comfortable with you, and has a lot of thoughts about a lot of things so of course she’s just gotta let it all out around you.

Doreen admittedly might struggle a bit if you sometimes need some silence, like if you’re overstimulated from the day or have a migraine. But she’s genuinely trying her best and is sincerely sorry if she’s too loud. As long as you communicate to her that you need some quiet Doreen will try to keep herself busy by either helping you out with whatever might be causing your need for silence or just doing her own thing until you’re ready to hear about what totally weird thing Tippy found in Central Park

Because of Doreen’s seemingly endless energy she has a preference for dates where you two get to actively do something together, like maybe a trivia night at a restaurant/bar where she gets to show off her smarts or a quirky local business like an axe throwing place.

There are lots of weird, interesting spots in New York and as a superhero who keeps her eyes peeled at all times Doreen knows about a lot of these places. So when it comes to date night Doreen is always full of suggestions. It’s honestly kind of impressive how she can almost always come up with some new place or activity that you two haven't done together yet.

Out of all the places you two frequent together Doreen’s favorite recurring date spot is Central Park. There’s nothing Doreen loves more than to pack a homemade lunch with you and walk over to the massive and beautiful park to enjoy each other’s company and some nice weather. Some warm sunshine, squirrels chasing each other through the trees, and the comforting feeling of you resting up against her. What more could she ask for?

That’s not to say that Doreen wouldn’t enjoy a quiet night in as well though. Squirrels get tired too, and sometimes a movie on the couch with some takeout is just what you need after a long day of beating up bad guys.

If you’re a hero like Doreen she sees this as an opportunity to spend even more time together. She would love to go out on patrol together with you and it would honestly be a lot like hanging out with Doreen regularly. Her cheerful attitude really helps keep things light when you're fighting the insane villains of New York.

If you’re in a major fight side by side, Doreen won’t baby you or try to tell you what to do but she’ll be trying her best to stick by your side. Just in case something starts to go wrong she wants to be by your side to make sure the two of you make it out okay. Doreen wouldn’t be able to forgive herself if something happens to you while she could have intervened.

Reassuring Doreen that you won’t be reckless and that you’ll always be looking out for each other will make her feel a lot better. While neither of you can guarantee the outcome, she just wants to know that no matter what happens during the fight you promise to come back home with her and Tippy.

#marvel rivals #x reader #iron fist x reader #lin lie x reader #luna snow x reader #seol hee x reader #squirrel girl x reader #doreen green x reader #marvel rivals x reader #loomis writes sometimes #LWS iron fist #LWS luna snow #LWS squirrel girl

403 notes · View notes

linderosse · 7 months ago

Text

Fic readers in the house, I’ve got a question for you all: After how long is it considered bad form for an author to reply to a comment on AO3?

See, I read every comment on my fics almost immediately and absolutely love receiving them, like many authors do. But often a mental block takes hold of me, and writing a response— even to the comments I freaking love— becomes difficult. So I put it off and sometimes never end up getting back to it.

And then, sometimes, I see a bunch of old comments and think, “Hey, why don’t I reply to those now?” Yet I’m not sure if that’s polite, since so long has passed in between.

So— what do y’all usually think if a few months pass before an author replies to your comment? Or a year? Or longer?

Would it be considered rude to reply at all, at that point, since the commenter may not even be in the fandom anymore?

Let me know what you think!

#lin writes #ao3 #ao3 author #the secrets we keep #lu the secrets we keep #mdzs gold poisons #silm the blank tapestry

350 notes · View notes

goblinhoursinsomniaramblings · 4 months ago

Note

why am i allowed to do things

inspiration struck

i am so sorry

They had been getting along so well, too. The mood swings had ebbed as the baby had started getting big enough to make visible changes to him. He had been able to actually enjoy being held again rather than alternating between needing it desperately and loathing it with every fiber of his body. He and Daniel had been enjoying a lovely, quiet evening with just that, Vlad getting some reading done while his badger had wrapped him and his belly in arms, radiating the low hum of glee one only truly felt around a ghost whose obsession was actively being fed.

It had been sweet, but certain things took priority, and Vlad being absolutely overwhelmed by a need for a cheese bake was one of those very things. (He still believed that, because he still didn’t have it, and if he didn’t get one as soon as possible he was probably going to burn this entire state to the ground.) However, the second he had tried to shift his weight to get up–

“Oh, do you need something? I can get it,” Daniel had suggested.

More strongly than he probably realized, given he had not unwrapped his arms from around Vlad.

“Just a craving, little badger,” Vlad had said, but that had made the arms no looser.

“For what? I can get it for you.”

“I want to make it, Daniel,” he had said, trying very hard to stay patient.

If his mood swings had ebbed, Daniel’s protective instincts had started to flow, and frankly Vlad was finding it insufferable. He knew how hard an obsession could strike, so he did try, but sometimes that Fenton bullheadedness would raise its obnoxious head and the biggest hint in the world would not be taken.

“Let me make it, you take it easy-”

And there it was. The exact moment he knew he would need to be blunt on the matter.

Targeted intangibility let him slip away (and the yelp from behind him as he did so was hilarious) and he moved quickly to his kitchen before the discussion followed him. Thankfully, he had everything in the oven before Daniel had his argument ready and waiting at the entrance.

“You turned on the anti-ghost shields?!”

Not the argument he was expecting, but a compelling one. He had, in fact, turned on the passive defenses so he could bake in peace.

“If I hadn’t, how fast would you have been down here trying to convince me it’s dangerous to bake in my own kitchen?! Cheezits, I have a portal to the Ghost Zone in my basement and this is what you–”

Oh, he saw the exact moment he should have stopped talking. That light in Daniel’s eyes that flicked on when logic clocked out and sheer opportunistic determination kicked in. He had pressed the obsession button, and it was very likely the Ghost Zone was about to pay for it.

“I’m just… going to…” started the young man as he moved towards where he’d hung his jacket.

Vlad followed, mainly out of a complete disbelief he was going to be this… no, end sentence, he could not believe he was going to be this.

“You know I need that portal open-”

“I know but what you said–what if the baby phases down there-”

“And what, somehow fires up the highly advanced technology and wanders out into the shifting infinite energy fields? Are you hearing yourself??”

“I’m just saying, what if they wander out somewhere unsafe? Sometimes the exit point shifts, I gotta make sure it-”

“Yes, and sometimes it randomizes entirely and has to be compensated for, my point is it’s a hypothetical, and a ridiculous one!”

Aaand, he was still putting on his jacket.

Unbelievable.

“What are you going to do, Daniel? Babyproof the entire Ghost Zone?”

“Maybe!”

And that was Vlad’s limit for the night. He was getting his cheese bake, and he was going to forget this entire asinine argument even happened.

Up until he remembered Danny actually had a very credible claim on several portions of the Ghost Zone. And his obsession had just flared.

So this is how Daniel discovers ambition, thought Vlad as he rubbed one of his suddenly throbbing temples.

*skedaddling into your inbox* Hello I heard old man mpreg. Danny cuddling Vlads bump and just has the strong instinct to protect him. Fretting over him like a mother hen and it starts to get on Vladdys nerves. *skedaddles out*

#mpreg #pompous pep #lin writes #look i had a vision #i hope its close to what the artist had

226 notes · View notes

kusanagihaku · 22 days ago

Text

and i will hold onto you

⭢ haku x mc, 9.6k

n is for new year's day. ˖⁺‧₊⟡ alphabet series | ao3 thinking always about this headcanon; also i know graduation is usually in march but like, artistic license, haha…?

The cheers in Tokyo Dome are deafening.

You watch as families stream down from the corners of the dome to the field, swarming their loved ones in congratulations as graduation caps are knocked to the floor with the force of their hugs.

There is a vague current of wistfulness in the air, amidst the celebratory cheers, as is common in most graduation ceremonies. As you stand alone looking around at all the families, you wonder how much of that wistfulness is your own.

It’s been a little over three years, after all, since you’ve entered Darkwick. Three years since the curse was placed on you and consequently broken, three years since you’ve last seen any of your family. Three years since you’ve found a new one, strange as they are, and two years since they’ve left you, one by one, to take on the world outside Darkwick.

And now it is your turn to leave.

“Honour roll,” comes a familiar voice, from behind you, and you turn, hand on your cap, to see Leo’s smirk and the camera in his hand.

Despite yourself, you laugh. “Leo.”

His smirk melts into something gentle, genuine. “Congratulations. Really. You’re free from this hellhole, once and for all.”

You dip your head at the Vagastrom captain, “Can’t wait for it to be your turn.”

“One year to go, then,” Sho says, appearing behind Leo. He grins, waving a sunflower stalk at you. “One year without our precious senpai coming to bother Vagastrom.”

“You better appreciate that one year.”

“You bet we will,” Leo says, without any real heat, and you share a laugh as Sho presses the sunflower into your hands.

Its stem is wrapped with a stiff yellow ribbon printed with the name of their house. You rub it between your fingers. “Which poor first year did you torture into doing this for you?”

Leo shrugs. “Bunch of ‘em. Said it was for the seniors, and they jumped at the chance.”

“Uh-huh,” you say, unconvinced, but before you can probe further Sho’s eyes flicker somewhere behind you.

A smile unfurls across his face, large and mischievous, and he bobs his chin to your left. “Someone’s waiting for you.”

You turn around, eyebrows furrowed – who is there left in this school who would look for you, Ritsu, Ren? – but then you see him.

He’s holding a small bouquet of sunflowers and white roses, laced with baby’s breath and bells of Ireland. There are whispers from some of the students around you, a gasp of recognition from a Hotarubi student or two as he steps forward. The purple Darkwick tie, never once worn when he was still a student, is loosely tied around his collar, slanting slightly to the right like he has tugged on it more than once under the dark grey suit he has chosen for the occasion.

You don’t notice the pinpricks in the corner of your eyes until he blurs into a mess of green and white and grey. “Oh,” you gasp, and he is there instantly, fingers brushing traitorous tears from your cheeks.

He laughs, palm still cradling your cheek, and even though you knew he was coming, the aw-shucks grin he gives you still puts an all-familiar lump in your throat.

“Congratulations, princess,” Haku says, soft and warm. “Well done.”

December 29 - Darkwick Academy Distance left to destination: 464km

It is eight thirty-four in the morning.

Haku stands, hands on his hips, in the middle of your dorm room. There are two duffle bags by his feet.

For what amounts to two years of living in the cathedral, you have fairly little belongings.

You’ve given most of your items away, of course, in preparation for your move cross-country. All that are left are your clothes, stuffed neatly into a nearly-bursting medium-sized suitcase waiting by the door, and the gifts from various ghouls you’ve accumulated over the years.

“Ready?” Haku asks. He gathers both duffle bags in one hand. In one of them is a notebook, given to you by Zenji before he, too, left.

You turn to survey the bare room. You wonder, for a moment, who the next person to inhabit the room will be like - what they will be cursed with - before you turn back to face Haku.

He is glowing, almost, in the morning light. His grey Hotarubi sweatshirt is rumpled, sleeves pushed halfway up his forearms and creased slightly where his overnight backpack is hung on his left shoulder. He looks at you, head cocked to one side, fond, sleep lines from where he slept on your pull-out sofa the night before etched into the soft of his cheek.

If you haven’t already been planning this road trip for the past two months over text you’d think he came straight out of a dream.

“Ready,” you say. You pick up your winter coat and his, and sling your backpack over your shoulder. The bouquet he gave you the previous day peeks out from the top.

Haku nods. He holds the door open for you as you wheel your suitcase over the threshold of the room. The door clicks closed behind the both of you.

He takes the suitcase from you, then, carrying it easily in one hand down the rickety old staircase. The third step from the bottom creaks beneath his weight like you knew it would.

It creaks beneath your weight, too. You fish the key to the cathedral door out of your pocket as you reach the first floor. You leave it on the side table leading into the kitchen – the worker cats will retrieve it later today – and head towards the front door.

You expect something to change, then, some shift in the air that tells you your time in Darkwick is over, but nothing happens as you emerge out into the watery grey sunlight. You wonder why you expected it to.

Haku’s car is parked, slanted, on the driveway outside the cathedral. The bright yellow permission slip you obtained from Professor Hyde the week before for Haku flaps flimsily in the wind, held back by the wiper on his windshield.

He unlocks the car, loads your belongings into the trunk. The wind brushes his bangs away from his face.

It is eight forty-three in the morning. He looks at you, again, patient, understanding, like he always does.

You exhale. You look back at the cathedral, one last time.

Then you walk over to where Haku whisks you away from Darkwick, as swiftly and as kindly as he did whisking you in.

December 29 - Hakone, Kanagawa Distance left to destination: 365km

It starts snowing a little before Haku pulls into the parking lot.

Being in Darkwick for most of the year means you’ve forgotten what the weather outside is like, sometimes. The powdery snowfall encases the both of you in silence as you shake out your winter coats and trudge up the stone steps, bowing your heads as you pass under the red torii.

The shrine is deserted. Whether it is because of the snow or the time of year you’re not really sure; after all, why come out to a shrine a few days before the end of the year when you’re going to visit again on the first day of the new year?

But it is peaceful and quiet, something you have no complaints about, and before long you’ve made your way up the long stairs and are standing in front of the main hall, heads bowed in respect.

This is the reason why Haku suggested a road trip instead of taking the Shinkansen down to Kyoto – to bring you to all his favourite shrines around the country on the way down. Your stops, carefully mapped out over Wickchat and Google Maps, are few but meaningful to him, planned out so that you’ll move into your new apartment before Subaru’s first performance of the year at Minamiza Theatre.

Haku hasn’t told you the reason for any of the stops, but you can more or less guess his reason for this one; as you descend a different set of stone steps, a tall red torii comes into view, half-submerged in water. Snow drifts into the darkness swirling around the feet of the gates, blurring into the red paint before disappearing on contact with the lake. What lies beyond the gate has been shrouded in mist, a white haze obscured by the oncoming snow.

It looks like some path to the afterlife, almost. Maybe some sort of adventure into the unknown. God knows you’ve had enough adventures to last a lifetime, though.

You hear Haku exhale. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

You nod. Perhaps it looks like something out of a myth.

He points, off to the side, at a strangely shaped rock a distance away from the main path. “Remember when you asked about the scar on my knee? Scraped it right there, running away from my grandfather.”

You huff a laugh at the image of a little Haku, eyes alight with mischief, dancing out of the grasp of adults. “Didn’t manage to run too far, I guess?”

Haku laughs. He retracts his pointer to rub at his ear. “Not at all. Cried all the way back to the shrine before they bandaged me up.”

You stuff your hands deeper into the pockets of your coat so you will not reach for where his fingertips are turning red with the cold.

“I haven’t been back here in a while,” Haku continues, softer. His eyes are fixed on somewhere beyond the gates. “Not since he passed away.”

You watch as his breath clouds in the cold air. You stay silent.

He glances at you, eventually, small smile tugging on his lips and blinking the snowflakes out of his eyes. “Let’s go?”

After a second of thought you take your hand out of your pocket to loop your arm through his. You feel him shift in surprise, before he presses himself against your warmth. “Yeah.”

December 29 - Shimizu, Shizuoka Distance left to destination: 295km

It stops snowing a little after Haku pulls out of the parking lot.

The rest of the car ride to your next stop is filled with idle chatter and green grape gummies that you picked up from the general store on your way out of Darkwick. Haku keeps his eyes on the lightly frosted road as you feed him, lips barely brushing your pointer and your thumb. You keep your eyes on him.

You just finish telling him about a mission you did with Ritsu before he slows down, turning off the highway into Shimizu.

“We stopping for lunch?” You seal the pack of gummies.

He hums. “Sort of. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

You wince, and finger-comb through your hair. “I’m dressed for a car ride, not for meeting people.”

Haku sneaks a glance at you. “You’re beautiful, princess, don’t worry.”

You flush. “That- you-“

He laughs, light and warm, as he makes a right turn. “Just as easy to tease, after all this time.”

“Shut up,” you say, but his offhand compliment has already burrowed its way under your cheeks and heated them up the same way they always did back at Darkwick. Damn him and his smooth tongue.

You watch as the train stations flash by – Sakurabashi, Kitsunegasaki, Mikadodai – before he slows down next to Kusanagi Station. You glance at him in surprise. Are you heading to the Kusanagi shrine?

Before you can ask, however, he stops next to a nondescript beige building, throwing the car into park.

“We’re here,” he announces, and laughs again when you peek doubtfully at your reflection in the side-view mirror. “You look fine.”

He reaches over to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear.

If his fingers linger longer than they should on the shell of your ear, you pretend you do not notice. You pretend your ears do not blush, pretend your breath does not catch.

You exit the car.

There is an old, stooped lady by the restaurant counter when Haku slides the rickety wooden door open, back turned to you as she mops down a wooden table with a bright yellow cloth. All you can see is the checkered bandana resting atop a mop of curly white hair, and a faded red apron sash around her waist, wrapped tight around a stout figure.

“Miyami-san?” Haku calls out. His voice is soft, reverent.

“Ah?” There is obvious shock as she turns around. A startled delight washes over her face the moment her eyes alight on Haku, and she hobbles over immediately, hands outstretched and eyes waned into teary crescents.

“Haku, my dear boy,” she cries. She reaches forward to clasp his hands in her own, wrinkled and gentle. “My, my, you’ve grown taller, haven’t you?”

Haku half-laughs. “I haven’t grown since I last came back.”

The old lady laughs, too. “Perhaps it’s me who has grown smaller. And who’s this?”

“A friend, from Darkwick. I told you about her over the phone, remember?” Haku’s hand is warm on your elbow through your coat.

The old lady turns to you, peering kindly. “Yes, I do remember…”

You wonder briefly what Haku has said about you, but under the scrutiny of the old lady you hurriedly introduce yourself, bowing.

She claps, delightedly. “You both must be hungry, coming down from your school. I’ll whip something up for you real quick, shall I?”

“Anything you make will be delicious,” Haku intones, and he shoots her a charming smile that would have turned half of Hotarubi silly.

It works on her as well, evidently, as she pats his cheek and makes her way to the back of the room.

“I used to come here all the time to hang out with her grandkids,” Haku says, removing his coat. His eyes follow her as she disappears into the kitchen, humming brightly. “They moved away when I was fifteen, though, but I just… kept coming. She’s more like a grandmother to me than my own grandma.”

He sweeps his fringe behind his ear, and rolls up the sleeves of his sweatshirt. His earrings brush the line of his jaw. “I stay here, sometimes, when I don’t want to go back to my family.”

You blink, looking around the restaurant. There are wooden panels lining the room, black ink on rectangle blocks to indicate the menu, but little else by way of decoration. “Here?”

Haku chuckles. He points to an entrance hidden by an egg-white curtain, tucked quietly into a corner by the back. “She has guest rooms, upstairs. She usually lets them out, but there tends to be no guests, at this time of year.”

You both agree on taking your overnight bags out from the car while Miyami-san is cooking, if only to save time. Haku stands, as if to help you, but you swat his hand. “Stay here. If she comes out and finds us both missing, how will that look?”

Haku just laughs, sitting back down in acquiescence, and looks up at you, chin in hand. He looks adorable, like this, adoring, and you are suddenly filled with a desperate wish that you could capture this image, forever. “Like we ran off like a couple of hormonal teenagers?”

You flush, and leave him without a response.

It doesn’t take long for you to gather his backpack and your duffel bag from the car, and as you slide the wooden door closed and toe off your shoes you hear murmuring voices low enough to make you still before the entrance curtain.

“Are you going to show her the shrine, then?”

A pause. “They’re going to be too busy preparing things for the New Year’s ceremony.”

She hums. “That’s true.”

“Miyami-san–” Haku starts, but she hushes him.

“I know, I know,” she says. “I won’t tell them you stopped by.”

Haku laughs, then, something soft and young and grateful. “Thank you. As always.”

There is a beat of silence, and you prepare to move, but her voice sounds again. “Who is she, to you?”

You hear the grin in Haku’s voice. “Why?”

“You know… you’re of age… it’s about time you bring someone home for me to meet.”

There is a rustle as Haku shifts around in his chair. “She’s one of the strongest people I know,” he says, slowly, “but she hasn’t had much control over her past few years. Now that she’s free of all that, I’d like to leave as much up to her as possible.”

You tense. Your heart hammers in your chest, tight and painful, as his words trip over themselves, over and over in your brain. Does he mean–

“–she’s also listening around the corner, so I refuse to say anymore.”

You don’t think your cheeks have experienced this much blood-rush in a while. You poke your head out from behind the curtain. “How did you know!”

“The door isn’t exactly silent,” Haku points out, and the three of you dissolve into laughter.

There is something light and warm, there, born in the small of the room. It expands, a golden sort of feeling that stretches beyond the four wooden walls and settles, stardust-like, in the space between Haku’s hands and yours; it collapses, cools under your tongue into a memory bright and sweet and precious.

If you don’t give it a name, you think, perhaps you can continue pretending that being by Haku’s side does not feel like home.

December 30 - Shimizu, Shizuoka Distance left to destination: 295km

There is a saying – what is a handspan away feels most like a world apart.

Haku sits, two handspans away. He is looking up at the ceiling, squinting against a lightbulb he changed prior to breakfast. It’s a different colour from the rest, a cool white against the warmth of the other, older bulbs in the restaurant, and it washes him in a faint crisp light.

“Well, at least it’s not blinking anymore,” Haku says. His elbows rest against the table.

Miyami-san sighs, forlorn. “I’ll have to write down the model number so I can buy the correct bulb next time. What time are you planning to head out?”

Haku leans over to you, taps the screen of your new phone you both spent an hour setting up last night. It lights up, displaying a blurry photo of Haku trying to take a selfie with you, overlaid by the time in white.

“In about twenty minutes? I’ll wash up before we go,” Haku insists, getting to his feet. “You’ve been more than lovely making us breakfast.”

He sweeps everything up into a pile before she can protest, and disappears, whistling, into the kitchen.

“Haku’s a good boy,” she sighs, as you watch him go. She stretches, and leans backwards. “Before he left for school he always helped me with all the odd jobs around the house. Changed all my lightbulbs for me, too.”

You laugh. “Sounds like Haku.”

She adjusts the strap of her apron. “He’s so smart, too. Made the top of his class whenever he put his mind to it.”

You suppress a smile. If you didn’t know better you’d think she was a grandmother eager to market her bachelor grandson off to the next available singleton.

“And responsible, too,” she continues. “Good thing he is, what with the shrine business.”

She peeks at you, and you quickly school your widening smile into something more presentable. “Has he told you about the shrine?”

You nod. You can hear Haku, more than a few handspans away, soft humming barely audible over the sound of running water in the kitchen. “The Kusanagi shrine.”

She hums. “He’s going to take over from his family one day. He’s going to be a better leader than his father is.”

A silence lapses over the both of you. They’re both true statements, you know, and yet there is something nagging at you about the mention of his father.

“Miyami-san,” you start, carefully. “If I may ask… what’s his family like?”

“His family?” She turns her head thoughtfully to the curtain that hides the kitchen from the restaurant, and is silent for so long you wonder if you’ve overstepped.

You are about to mumble a hasty apology when she turns back to you.

“They expect a lot from him,” she says, softly. “There’s a great many responsibilities that fall your way when you inherit a shrine. His father had to shoulder it, and his father before that, and so on. He may be running away from it now, but eventually it’ll have to be his turn, and I think in the back of their minds they all know it.”

You want to nod, but it feels like the wrong thing to do. Running away… except he isn’t, not really. Everything Haku did at Darkwick, every skill you’ve seen him practise and every responsibility you’ve seen him manage in Hotarubi, felt like he was building himself to take over the shrine – from his artifact to the research for his missions to all the summer festivals he helped manage. Even now, from what you understand of his work, it seems like what he has chosen to do is in preparation for him to take over.

“He’s more prepared than they think,” you say. “He works hard, even though he acts like he doesn’t.”

She looks at you a little more sharply, then. There is a cool appraisal behind her squint, before it melts into something like approval. “He does, doesn’t he.”

Before you can respond, though, Haku emerges from the kitchen, running a hand through his hair. “Talking about me?”

“You wish,” you say, and are rewarded immediately with the sparkle of his laugh.

He pauses next to your seat before picking up his backpack. His hand nearly brushes yours. “Ready to head out?”

You stand. Your hand nearly brushes his, a world apart. “Ready.”

December 30 - Nagakute, Aichi Distance left to destination: 175km

“Hard disagree – we turn left here – you’re only saying that because my name is Haku.”

You squint at the alleyway in front of you dubiously. It’s bathed in the last rays of evening, a dying honey from the setting sun that does nothing to ward off the winter chill, and it seems to lead to yet another street that looks oddly similar to the one you’re about to leave. “Are you sure?”

But Haku is already stepping forward, Google Maps winking into sleep on his phone screen, and so you follow behind. The thrift shop he is searching for is supposed to be a mere ten minute walk from where you left the warmth of the Ghibli Park, but you swear you’ve been wandering around for at least twenty minutes.

“Anyway, no, it’s because he’s a river spirit–“

Haku glances at you, eyebrow raised. “I’m not a river spirit.”

“-and he’s supposed to know a lot about the spirit world.” You huff at him, and he laughs in acquiescence. You reach the end of the alleyway; Haku squints against the reflection of sun on his phone and directs you to turn right.

“And he spent a lot of the movie using that knowledge to protect and save Chihiro, didn’t he?” you continue. You look down at your feet even though the evening light is no longer shining directly into your eyes. The worn grey of the road winks at you as you cross residential street. “Like you did with me.”

Haku is silent for a beat, before he says, lightly, “I think I’m much more like Howl.”

You cannot hold back your snort. “Because how he gets all the girls?”

His responding laugh is startled and bright. “C’mon now, princess. Howl only ever loved Sophie, in the end.”

He looks at you, brows raised, like there is something you are supposed to understand, but after a moment of expectant silence too laden for you to consider you swallow the whiskey-burn of his eyes and turn away.

“Is it nearby?” you ask, instead. You push the ice blocks you used to call hands deeper into your coat pockets, and push your gaze back down to the grey asphalt under your feet.

Haku unlocks his phone in response. “One more block to go. Sorry, you must be tired.”

You shake your head.

“We’ll get dinner after this, then crash out,” he decides, anyway. “We had an early start today, and we’ve done a lot.”

(You stopped earlier in the day at Atsuta Shrine to pay your respects before heading down to Ghibli Park, and briefly heard a guide explain about the great Kusanagi sword supposedly stored in the halls.

“Oh, my Kusanagi sword is great, alright,” Haku snorted under his breath; you smacked him on the shoulder and dragged him, holding back giggles, towards the exit before you got struck down for blasphemy.)

After two more minutes of sleepy residential buildings, you spot the orange signboard of the thrift store, hanging from a black rod above a shuttered flower shop. There is a chalkboard leaned against the side of the flower shop with carefully scrawled yellow letters and arrows directing you to a staircase around the back. Going up the concrete steps leads you to a wooden door with a heavy handle.

Haku tugs the door open, and gestures for you to go inside.

The store is swathed in yellow and orange, thanks to the narrow spot-light beams installed on the ceiling. The wooden shelving look old but well-cared for under carefully stacked clothes, a small contrast to the adjacent metal frames sagging with hangers of coats and jackets. There are mirrors gently leaned on the walls at strategic places throughout the store, reflecting the warm light from the ceiling and making the space look bigger than it actually is.

A man in a beanie looks up from where he is slouched over the cashier, and waves a silent welcome that you both acknowledge.

“One of my seniors told me this place has a good curation of sweaters,” Haku says, turning to study the racks. He picks up a bomber jacket in olive green, inspects it, then sets it down. “You’ll probably need more winter wear too, now that we don’t get climate control. But we’ll also stop at another place when we get to Kyoto, just so you can get some new clothes to wear around Subaru.”

You nod, and dutifully turn your attention to the racks, fingers running across the soft fabrics draped neatly on dark metallic hangers.

You’re looking at a cardigan the colour and texture of dawn clouds when Haku appears again at your elbow. “Look at this one.”

He holds up a sweater in washed out sage. It’s slightly fluffy, sleeves softly melting into a cream. When you reach out to touch it it’s impossibly softer than it looks.

“It’s cute,” you say. Its sloped shoulders are wide; you hold the pale green fabric up to his shoulders. “It looks your size, too.”

Haku hums in agreement. He takes the sweater, gently, from your fingers, and turns it around, lining the edge of its shoulders up with yours.

“I think it looks cuter on you,” he says. The honey of his eyes sparkle with mirth as he nudges you to face the mirror. “Like you’re stealing your boyfriend’s clothes.”

You feel a fire climbing up your cheeks immediately, and you glare at Haku, heatless and helpless, as he bites back a laugh. He shifts away, grinning brightly, and leaves you staring in the mirror with the sweater folded between your hands.

There is barely any evening light left over from golden hour, the last of the sun’s rays having died shortly before you stepped indoors, but the green of Haku’s hair is still dyed a soft copper by the warm lights of the store. He stands, turning glasses frames over in his hands, under a spotlight beam and the drifting strains of jazz, blurred only slightly by the fingerprints in the mirror and the irregular bump of your heart.

The scene is so mundane it feels almost unreal – this Haku, suspended in glass and glow. His long fingers are not wrapped around his flute or dusty research tomes, but between folded jeans; his movements are slow and languorous, no longer bound by the urgency of missions or threat of curfew.

You could stare at him like this forever.

It is suddenly easy, so easy to imagine him elsewhere, you think – sorting through vegetables at a supermarket, folding laundry on the floor of his bedroom, doing anything and everything far and away from the drizzle of Hotarubi.

This Haku has all the time in the world.

So do you. So do you.

You close your eyes and take a deep breath.

“How does this look?”

The heat of his vowels slide across the shell of your ear, and you jump slightly, eyes flying open.

You are vaguely aware of a chunky grey frame, translucent acrylic that slips low on his nose bridge and blobs shadows on his cheeks, but his eyes have locked onto yours in the mirror as he leans down over your shoulder to peer at his reflection, cheek dangerously close to yours, so close that if you just turned, if you just—

It sends your heart crashing, thundering painfully, cruelly, through your throat, a weight and an untethering from the hypnosis of the moment all at once—

“You look stupid,” you say. Or think you do, anyway. You can barely hear yourself over the thunderous rushing in your ears. “Try– try this one.”

Your fingers scrabble for the closest frame on the shelf next to you, and hold them up to the mirror.

Haku laughs, a gentle huff that blows by your cheek as he lifts the frame out of your hand, and straightens back up to slip them on.

It’s gold-rimmed, this time, a thin wire frame that catches the warm spot-lighting of the store and soaks a glow into his skin. The rounded rectangular shape sits well on his cheekbones, faded gold temples disappearing into his messy green hair.

You blink, and there is a fleeting glimpse of sun-spots and crow’s feet, of salt-and-pepper hair melting into green, of laughter creasing itself into deep-set wrinkles in the corners of his smile. He is looking at you, still, in the way he always has, this old-man-mirror-Haku, and something blooms, choking and sweet, in the hollow of your ribs.

Something shifts, then.

Eddies of a future you’ve never thought possible sing like the wind through the holes in your heart; they crash into you, a merciless tangle of relief and frustration and hope that steals the breath from your lungs you didn’t realise you were holding since leaving Darkwick.

The tremble of it’s over and your curse is well and truly over courses through the map of your veins, and winds its way across where your eyes meet Haku’s through the mirror. The words crack themselves in half, split to show you a future so wide and open and yet so certain it threatens to swallow you whole – of you, alive and un-cursed and getting to grow old. Of you-and-Haku, hand-in-hand, getting to growing old together, looking up at the same sky.

“-what do you think?” Haku is saying. His eyes are crinkled up in something you think might be fondness or affection, or something equally hopeful and terrifying.

It looks good on you, your mouth moves on its own accord, you should get it, but that is as far as you get before he blurs together in a sear of tears.

Haku moves immediately, hand on your elbow spinning you around to face him. His eyes search yours in alarm and concern and confusion, but to both your surprise a laugh bubbles out of you, quiet and free.

You raise a hand to brush his bangs away from his forehead, and he leans into your touch, in spite of his bewilderment.

“It looks good,” you say again, and you mean it.

(He buys the glasses, of course, and three sweaters you said you liked. You leave the thrift shop with paper bags in hand, yet somehow feel a lot lighter than you did going in.)

December 31 - Kuwana, Mie Distance left to destination: 99km

The numbers on the dashboard read a glowing ten thirty-eight.

The highway stretches before the windshield, a wide belt that melts into the distance. It is empty, save for the occasional cargo truck Haku passes, and the glare of the noon sun reflecting off its smooth grey surface is enough to turn every travelling vehicle into a mini-oven despite the season.

Haku adjusts his grip on the steering wheel. He reaches, slightly, to wind his window down to let some of the cool winter air in, but his fingers pause before they reach the switch.

He peeks at where you are asleep, head resting on the passenger window and eyelashes brushing the soft of your cheek. He retracts his hand.

He reaches, instead, with his other hand to the air-conditioning controls, and turns the dial towards “COOL”.

The numbers on the dashboard wink into ten thirty-nine.

The packet of strawberry gummies on top of the winter coats folded in your lap crinkles slightly, then slides from where your grip has slackened. It has long since been emptied, with you taking turns to tuck the candies between your lips and his, and its lack of weight slips it neatly between your seat and the centre console.

Ren recommended them, you said, an hour back, holding one up to his lips. They’re good, aren’t they?

Haku smiled, tamped down the familiar knot that swelled with any reminder of the years you spent at Darkwick without him by your side, and nodded. They’re pretty sweet.

You grinned and tapped the large yellow zero printed atop ruby-red strawberries. No sugar, too!

No, he thinks, now – perhaps the sugar had been in the brush of your fingertips against his lips. Perhaps it had been in the glitter of your laugh as you listened to him tell you some work story or another, or in the way the sun had bounced off the dashboard and lit you up all over, all soft glow and contentment as you slipped another gummy between the pink of your lips.

For a moment, he wonders if you will taste like strawberry, if the curve of your smile will be just as sweet as it looks when pressed against his own–

He shakes his head, to clear it.

Haku is a patient man. Ceremony is in his bones; he is good at waiting his turn, good at calculating consequences, good at following the rules.

Except for when he isn’t. Except for when he texted you, midway through your last semester, to ask which branches of the Institute has offered you a job in hopes that he can persuade you to take up some position near his own. When he asked you, two months before graduation, to drive down to Kyoto with him instead of taking the train, just so he gets three days with you by his side after so many days apart.

When he took one look at you, that night on the train from Kisaragi Station, and took your hand and held it all the way to Darkwick.

Maybe it is selfishness, maybe it is impulsivity. Maybe it is irresponsibility, and maybe it is the reason why, try as he may, they will never deem him ready to take over the shrine, but oh, when he looks at you–

He is a patient man. He will be a patient man. He has waited two long, excruciating years without you, and he will continue to wait, for as long as it’ll take until you’re ready.

The numbers on the dashboard wink into ten forty-three.

Haku reaches over, again, to turn the air-conditioning dial further down.

His gaze brushes against the new air freshener you bought him the day before at the gift shop. It smells of “clean” and “fresh”, whatever that’s supposed to mean, and he can barely catch its scent, but you unwrapped it the moment you got into the car and hung it neatly on the rearview mirror, and he cannot help but feel some fondness for something that brings you joy. Even if it’s just a small piece of cardboard with a white dragon and a girl printed on it.

He would have chosen a different one, himself. He would have picked the one with Howl and Sophie - someone who learns how strong she really is, and someone who has waited a lifetime to love her.

You stir in your sleep, shifting slightly so your head is no longer pressed against the passenger window. The numbers on the dashboard wink into ten forty-four.

Haku takes the next exit off the highway, and wonders if you remember that in the movies, Chihiro saves Haku, too.

December 31 - Uji, Kyoto

Distance left to destination: 21km

“Haku!”

The guy that emerges from the shrine’s prayer hall has a smile only one shade dimmer than the sun. He waves energetically at Haku and you, hands padded in red gloves a stark contrast with his navy blue haori, and bounds over to you.

“Thought you weren’t coming back for another two days!” the man says, beaming. “We’re prepping the omikuji right now, like you told us to.”

Haku chuckles, hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. “That’s good. I’m not back for work, though, I’m just here to show my friend around.“

The man looks at you curiously, and he looks so oddly familiar you could have sworn you’ve seen him somewhere before. He tilts his head to one side, like he’s working through the same puzzle you are, before it clicks–

“Honour student!” he exclaims, and claps his hands. “Didn’t expect to see you here!”

Haku laughs, and shifts closer to you. “Darkwick just had their commencement ceremony, so I’m helping her settle into her new apartment soon.”

Koji – the name comes to you in a flash, a vague impression of a Hotarubi general student floating to the top of your mind from when he helped Haku on a mission once – wiggles his eyebrows. “Will it be near to us?”

Haku looks at you, thoughtfully. “The Institute put her in Kyoto, near Subaru, but I suppose…”

Before he can finish the thought, however, a soft holler comes from an open window in the back of the sales hut. “Oi, heartbreaker!”

A man sticks his head out of a back door. He looks pleased to see Haku, and disappears for a few seconds before emerging from the wooden doors, wrapping himself in a warmer coat.

He waves a sheath of papers at Haku as he walks over. “We’re more or less ready for tomorrow, but I need you to sign a couple things–“

Haku moves over immediately, head bent over the documents, and leaves you in company of Koji.

“Heartbreaker?” You murmur, and Koji beams.

He nods his head, fluffy hair bouncing in his enthusiasm. “That’s Haku! Didn’t he tell you? When he first joined, half the local girls who came up to pray during Lunar New Year instantly fell in love and we had to barricade the shrine and defend ourselves with swords so our Haku wouldn’t get overrun–“

“Koji,” the other man says, severely, “stop making things up.”

Koji pouts, and you have to bite your lip to keep from smiling. “Anyway, he’s built up quite a following among the locals. It’s good for business, though.”

“I can imagine,” you say, and you can–

Haku, looking out the sales window next to the shrine, chin in hand and head slightly tilted as people come up to buy omamoris. The way the honey of his eyes will crease, slightly, as he smiles at their approach. The soft of his hands as he counts out their change, and wishes them a good day.

Haku, head bent over a candle box before he reaches in to select an appropriate one. The curl of his long fingers over theirs as he presses the candles into their palm, a blessing, a benediction, conferred with intent. The soothe of his voice as he comforts them, wishes them well, after.

Haku, this Haku that belongs to the people, whose heart swells with their aches and whose words are carefully chosen to quell them. This Haku, who works for the people by day, and works for them still by night.

Haku looks up from where he is flipping through documents, pen in hand, and grins as he meets your eyes. “Maybe we should spread word that my heart already belongs to someone else.”

Your cheeks burn immediately, and you open your mouth to stutter out a reply, but Haku’s senior beats you to the punch.

“Disgusting,” he mutters fondly, barely louder than Koji’s awww, then flips a page for Haku. “Sign here, then get out of my sight. Word from HQ is that you’re on four concurrent missions in January, so make the best of your break.”

Haku groans. “Best go pray for my own damn safety, then.”

His senior rolls up the freshly signed document, then raps him smartly on the head. “No cursing on shrine grounds. Come on, Koji, you’re still not done with the omikujis.”

Haku grins, rubbing his head where he got tapped, then turns to face you as Koji is dragged, mumbling in protest, back to the hidden back doors. “Shall we?”

The rest of the shrine is fairly quiet. Sunlight dances through the bare branches as you cross the courtyard and duck around some gates to the main shrine. There are rabbits printed on cream-coloured lanterns attached to the gates, faded slightly by the elements and swaying in the wind. They look like they are dancing in greeting as you pass them.

The main shrine Haku comes to a stop at is up a set of steep stone stairs. It is covered with wooden slats, painted warm by the noon light. If you didn’t look too closely you’d think the structures inside were glowing by themselves.

Haku fishes out coins from his pocket, and hands one to you. He leans forward to shake the thick rope after you toss your coin into the wooden offering box, then you both bow and clap twice.

You have so many things to wish for that you almost don’t know where to start, but the words flow out of your heart faster than you can think, afloat with intent and hope – for Haku to be safe. For Haku to be happy. For all the ghouls you’ve helped and been helped by to be happy and healthy. For all the anomalies they’ll run into to be a little less fatal, for the anomalies themselves to be safely captured and treated well. For all their futures to be a little less perilous, a little more secure.

For your future to be a little less dangerous, too. For your future to hold warm soup and cosy evenings, for your days to hold laughter and ease and familiarity, for your nights to hold home and sighs and moonlit dances across the kitchen floor with Haku–

Your eyes flutter open, and you bow, quickly.

Best to not hope for too much.

You sneak a glance at Haku. His head is still bowed, hands still pressed together. He is washed in the bright of sunlight unshaded by winter’s branches, and in the silent sun-stirred dance of dust motes around him he looks almost like a painting.

His bracelets shine a radiant translucence as they catch and absorb the sunlight, nearly covering most of a scar underneath. Your heart twinges slightly – you were there when he got injured.

It was to save you, really, some tiny anomaly or another changing directions and hurtling towards you with a vengeance. If Haku didn’t knock it off its trajectory with the back of his hand… you can’t imagine what would have happened.

Instead, you’d brought him home to Hotarubi and carefully cleaned his cuts and wounds, and stayed with the soft glow of his smile and the even softer glow of his words, well into the night. He’d murmured gentle reassurances into the quiet of the night, thigh pressed up against yours as you sat side by side and looked out onto the still Hotarubi gardens; yet the feeling of guilt has never gone away, cementing itself into the cracks of all that you owe him.

I’m sorry, you said, again, for the fiftieth time that night. If it weren’t for me you wouldn’t have gotten injured.

He had laughed before a ghost of pressure landed against your temple, so soft you think to this day you’d imagined it. Anything for you, princess. Stop worrying about it.

It sent your heart racing, back then, his words wild fireworks popping in your throat.

The same way his words send your heart racing, now.

Maybe we should spread word that my heart already belongs to someone else.

You exhale. Haku has never hidden his affection for you, not really – whether it was proclaimed in front of a beaming Zenji or murmured into the drizzle of Hotarubi, the flirtatious comments you once believed were just part of his personality or simply lavished onto everyone you eventually realised were only ever directed to you.

And you understood it, back then, the same way you understand it now. Haku has never been shy about you. How much of it was guilt over bringing you to Darkwick and a burgeoning sense of responsibility for your curse, you will perhaps never know, but this is what you know now, after two years of turning the thought of Haku over and over in your mind:

That you never agreed to start because you were always afraid of the end. That you perhaps wished he would forget about you after his time at Darkwick, if only to make things easier for him after your transformation into the Kyklos; that you wished to forget about him, too, after his time at Darkwick, if only to avoid the real possibility of Haku finding someone else.

But now your last page has been ripped out, a future of a curse torn out by your very own hands and shredded into the wind… now that you’re out and free (albeit still working for the Institute) and ready to rewrite your own ending…

Haku looks up from his hands, and bows. He turns to you, smile fond and sweet, and extends a hand to help you down the steps. “Ready?”

You take his hand, lace his fingers into your own. The word on your tongue turns into a candle turns into a lantern turns into the sun. “Ready.”

December 31 - Uji, Kyoto Distance left to destination: 19km

You cradle your hot cup of tea in your palms.

The cold of the bridge railing beneath your elbows seep past your coat and into your bones. The last of the sun’s rays cast a glow on the trees on the opposing shore, turning them into a sea of reddish-gold, but they do little to warm you as you watch the sun sink below the horizon.

Haku rests, one handspan away, identical cup nestled between his hands.

“This is my favourite place to watch the sunset,” he says. “You can see the train tracks and the Uji Bridge from here.”

A train rumbles by in the distance as he says it, slicing the scene in half. It takes a few seconds before the sky meets the river again.

“I think about bringing you here, all the time,” he says, quietly. He shifts the cup to his other hand. “I come here after work sometimes, and stay until the sky is dark and I can see the stars. Then I wonder about whether you’re looking at the same stars, too, in Darkwick.”

You both watch the sun creep steadily downwards, meeting its wavering counterpart in the water.

Haku exhales. He does not look at you. “I’m glad you’re here.”

His words wrap around you, hushed and gossamer. How much you’ve thought about him, too, looking up at the night skies as you dragged yourself back to the cathedral.

Whenever you walked out from Hotarubi, shutting your one-person umbrella and looking up at the moon, you’d think of him.

The way he’d walk you back, shoulder to shoulder as if you were still sharing an umbrella. The way he’d look at you, moonlight tangled into his eyelashes and the arc of his hands, the way he’d smile like the night was a secret only the two of you shared. The way he’d sit you down on the campus stone benches to talk about your missions with other houses, the way he’d reassure you, again and again, that whatever you were doing was enough. That you were enough.

The memories twist themselves onto your tongue. You do not look at him, either, when you say, “Me too.”

The last sliver of sun slips away, and then it is gone.

The conversation turns to seeing Subaru on stage in two days and what flowers you plan to get him, then to your new Institute-funded apartment, a small place buried near a Galaxy Express station, and the furniture you plan to get.

You wonder out loud how long the Galaxy Express would take to get to Uji if you and Subaru were to come visit, as compared to taking the regular train from Kyoto Station. It’s already a very short distance, you think, but maybe it’d take half the time.

“It takes sixteen minutes from Kyoto’s HQ,” Haku says. He taps the top of his now-empty cup with a long finger. “Or twenty-two, if you count the time it takes to walk back to my apartment.”

“Damn, these cats really know how to run a railway line.”

Haku laughs, quiet and breathless, before he says, “Move in with me, instead.”

You pause, cup halfway lifted to your lips. You lower your hand.

“It’s only a slightly longer commute,” he murmurs, “and you won’t have to buy new furniture.”

He looks at you, eyes full of morning sun. You read in them something that feels a lot like a future.

You won’t have to spend your nights alone in a drafty old room anymore. We will not have to untangle ourselves at the end of the day, and pretend we do not want to stay. Now that I’ve spent three whole days with you I don’t know how I’ve ever managed without; it feels like I’m never going to be able to go back.

You exhale.

This is how it has always been - this is how the two of you are - him building a bridge between you both and reminding you that if you ever want to cross it, if you ever need to cross it, he will always be on the other side, waiting.

He waits, now.

For a moment, you think you are brave.

Ready?

But the moment passes, and the words that have swelled up on your tongue are familiar and terrifying and comforting and too heavy and mean too little and too much, all at once, and you swallow the waves that rise up in your lungs, and you close your eyes, and you pretend you are not in love with him, have not been in love with him since he held your hand in the dark of a train carriage three-odd years ago.

“Imagine the paperwork,” you say, instead, and Haku leaves it at that.

December 31 - Uji, Kyoto Distance left to destination: 16km

Haku’s apartment is small, but homey.

It is much more modern that you expect it to be, and feels infinitely more Haku than any Hotarubi dorm could. The kitchen you step into is tiny but sleek, with just enough space to fit a boiler, a tea set and an induction cooker before ending at a large fridge. The green glow on the microwave tucked onto a shelf a bit higher than eye-level reads eleven forty-two.

He lucked out on the Institute lottery, he tells you, setting his keys in a bowl on the kitchen island and flicking on the kitchen lights – where others only get a studio apartment he at least gets a bedroom attached to the living and dining area. Ghoul perks, perhaps.

Where you expect a kitchen island is instead a mountain of books, shuffled neatly into piles not unlike what you used to be greeted with in his old dorm, bookmarked full with post-its covered in his chicken-scratch writing.

You pick out a barely-used blue post-it pad from a pile of neon-yellow ones, and run your thumb over the winking tanuki in the background. “Is this the one I bought for you, back on that shrine mission?”

Haku peeks over your shoulder. His laugh brushes your ear, soft and warm, before moving away to roll your luggage into the living room. “Yeah. I can’t bear to use it much, though. It feels as though I should treasure it.”

You snort, looking up at him. “I can always buy you another one.”

“I’m not opposed to that.”

(You’d buy him one set everyday for the rest of his days, if he’d let you.)

Haku tucks your suitcase next to a soft grey sofa set opposite a plain white wall, and sets your duffle bag on a small wooden coffee table in between that looks like it hasn’t been dusted in years. “There are fireworks bound to start in about fifteen minutes. Wanna watch those on the balcony?”

You blink – you’ve almost forgotten that today is New Year’s Eve, what with all the sightseeing you’ve packed in today around Uji.

Haku tugs the pale blue curtains apart, revealing glass doors to a small balcony overlooking residential neighbourhood. The night is quiet, still, buzz of the city conspicuously absent from the streets despite the celebratory date and even though most households have their lights on and curtains pulled open in anticipation of the fireworks, you don’t hear much beyond the whistling of the wind when you step outside.

You settle against the railing on his balcony. “It’s so nice, here.”

Haku joins you. “When everyone’s lights are off, at night, you can see the stars.”

You tilt your head up. Haku’s apartment is high up enough the street lamps that you do not have to shield your eyes from their orange glow, and as you peer up at the heavens you see constellations slowly starting to take shape. “Wow.”

Haku shifts, closer. His shoulder is pressed up against yours. “Any New Year’s resolutions yet?”

You laugh. “Other than learning how to survive outside Darkwick?”

“That’s enough,” Haku says, softly. “Sometimes surviving is tough enough, on its own.”

You bite your lip, and look down at the street below. A stray cat dips in and out of the shadows.

“I’m going to be brave this year,” you tell him.

I’m going to be brave enough to face what’s coming. I’m going to be brave enough to decide what I’m going to do with my life, instead of obeying missives from a corrupted Academy and existing at their beck and call. I’m going to be brave enough to tell you what I really want to say, to build my own side of the bridge, to finally meet you on the other side.

Haku tilts his head to look at you, then. He raises a hand from where his arms have been crossed on the railing, long fingers tenderly tucking a stray strand of hair behind your ear.

It sends daylight swirling down your spine, leaves you breathless and August-warm when you catch his gaze.

“I think you’re already plenty brave,” he says, quietly.

Before you can respond, however, the street explodes with noise. Windows are pulled open and chanting spills out onto the street, a clamour of three, two, one–

Tiny lights hang themselves across the sky, a mere flash before tightly packed colours dazzling as the sun explode across its inky canvas. Brilliant reds and blues and yellows and greens burst into bloom over and over again; they paint everything on the street with their glow. The distant booms and whistles of their journey travel through the neighbourhood, wind their way through the festivities and laughter and cheer.

It is at once so extraordinary and normal, this celebration of the Earth making its way around the sun yet again, that you find yourself giddy, smiling, joyful. You turn to look at Haku, tinted a faint red from the vivid glows in the sky, only to find he is already looking at you, gaze warm, fond.

You learnt once, on a mission with Jabberwock, that firecrackers and fireworks set off during New Year were as much meant to scare away the bad things as they were to celebrate the good.

I think you’re already plenty brave.

In the bright of the night his words soak into your skin.

Perhaps you are.

You lean up, and press a small kiss to the corner of his lips. This is me, building my side of the bridge. This is me, ready. “Happy New Year, Haku.”

His palm catches your cheek as you pull away. The spread of his smile, wide and bright and delighted, sends stardust settling into the hollow of your throat, sets its own fireworks off within the hollow of your ribs, pulls a smile onto your own cheeks. The gold of his eyes shine with something more than the pyrotechnics, something full of devotion, full of beginnings.

“Happy New Year,” Haku says, and leans in to kiss you again.

#tokyo debunker #haku kusanagi #tokyo debunker x reader #bangs pots and pans LONGFORM ROAD TRIP FIC IS HERE #SORRY this was meant to be in time for new year's but like #in my usual fashion im late lol #so have this in time for lunar new year #warnings i guess for canon divergence - mc doesn't die from the curse! as u can tell from the blurb asdjlkjsa #also i am AWARE this is my second haku fic in the alphabet series but like . i love haku can u rly blame me #also (lmao i have so many postscripts) this was written specifically with that one line in mind from new year's day #'don't read the last page but i stay when you're lost and i'm scared and you're turning away'#me with my haku lens on: idk i think it's very haku!#lin writes #anyways this is less a relationship pining fic than it is just me expounding on why i love haku #alphabet series

96 notes · View notes