#mr. perfectionist coming out here

[hazbinsponsoredbyvee]

Having a lavish and expensive wedding is not the same as having a meaningful one. Who cares if it's cheap so long as it has importance to you and your relationships? You don't have to do what Al wants but you also don't have to spend a gazillion dollars on it just so it looks pretty.

"But why wouldn't we, if we have the money? This is going to be the biggest event Hell has seen since the birth of the princess, and you can bet I'm going to make sure it's perfect."

[bywons]

𖥔ׅ YOU CAN BE THE BOSS — PSH

𝖮𝖱 𝖶𝖧𝖤𝖭 𝗒𝗈𝗎𝗋 𝖻𝗈𝗌𝗌 𝖿𝗂𝗇𝖽𝗌 𝗒𝗈𝗎𝗋 𝖼𝗎𝗍𝖾 𝗌𝖾𝖼𝗋𝖾𝗍, 𝗏𝖾𝗋𝗒 𝖼𝗎𝗍𝖾

𝖲𝖧𝖮𝖶𝓉𝖨𝖬𝖤 ⋆ 𝖼𝖾𝗈!𝗉𝖺𝗋𝗄 𝗌𝗎𝗇𝗀𝗁𝗈𝗈𝗇 𝗑 𝖿!𝗋𝖾𝖺𝖽𝖾𝗋 𖥔 𝖿𝗅𝗎𝖿𝖿 𝒾𝖭𝖢𝖫𝖴𝖣𝖨𝖭𝖦 𝗌𝗄𝗂𝗇𝗌𝗁𝗂𝗉, 𝗉𝗋𝗈𝖿𝖺𝗇𝗂𝗍𝗒?, 𝗅𝗈𝗍𝗌 𝗈𝖿 𝗄𝗂𝗌𝗌𝗂𝗇𝗀 1399 wc ( CATALOGUE。)

૮ ♡◞ ◟ ა ⠀PLS REBLOG !! 4 my princess @atrirose i locee u vv much TT

“you were supposed to send me that report a week ago.”

here comes the insufferable perfectionist, with an annoying handsome face which makes it just impossible to hate him for too long. he pushes the glass so it settles still on the top of his nose bridge, eyebrows jotted together to hint a slight disappointment in you. you want to mock him, make faces and scream at him, “leave me alone, idiot!”, but then you visualise your resignation. what an asshole of a boss.

you lift your head up to meet his eyes, hands buried in the pockets of black trousers, leaning tall over your work cubicle. “i uhm- i was, i was sick. high fever,” oh gosh, you hope he doesn't catch the shakiness in your voice.

“high fever?” park sunghoon raises an eyebrow, skepticism etched on his face. “convenient timing, don't you think?”

your heart races, and you mentally kick yourself for not thinking of a better excuse. “it came on suddenly,” you stammer, hoping your blush isn’t too obvious. “but i'm feeling better now, so i'll get right on that report.”

and just as you're about to type away on your laptop, a soft but firm grip on your wrist stops you from doing so. and of course, it has to be park sunghoon, the sole trouble maker in your life.

“actually, come meet me at my office,” he says, before letting off your wrist and striding off to his office.

ugh, there you go, another hour long lecture again.

shortly after, you make it to his office. you glance back, all your colleagues getting ready to end their shift and head home. fuck you, park sunghoon, you evil man.

“sir, can i—”

“come in,” sunghoon's serious invites you in, and you close the translucent glass door behind you, which does a pretty good job of reflecting the inner furniture and heads in a blurry, but certain way. “don't just look around, take a seat.”

sunghoon doesn't lift his head up even for a second after you enter the room, he simply gestures you to sit down before him, as he types something on his own laptop, the coffee forgotten and cold beside it. you tap your heels slightly against the office floor, it's been a whole fifteen minutes inside this room already, a minute more and you might just combust.

it's hard to stare at his face. not in a boring, ‘he's so rude’ way, but more of in a breathtaking, ‘i want to kiss him’ way. to be honest, you've imagined how his lips would feel against yours, whether they would move in sync and sweep you by your feet, or steal your breath and make you fantasise. would he like the kiss? would park sunghoon ever kiss you? does he want to kiss you, like you do right now? his ever concentrated face directed towards the laptop screen, the little creases that form around his eyebrows makes him look so cute. you'd like to think that it's just a harmless crush on your grumpy boss, and nothing more than that.

but time's passing by fast, and you need to get home. the taps of your heels against the floor fastens as you say in a tone of urgency.

“mr. park, is this about—”

“call me sunghoon,” he startled you, closing his laptop, “we're of the same age, so it's weird.”

“ok, sunghoon,” you gulp, gosh it feels weird, “is this about me not submitting my leave application?”

“no? it's just a .. friendly talk with my secretary.”

“oh?” what is this bastard planning on again, “well, what is it?”

“how sick were you? i mean, your temperature,” at this point you could throw yourself out of the window. shit, he's kinda smirking, does he really know you weren't sick? that it's all a lie? that you were faking it to avoid a deadline that had you pulling your hair out and attend the corporate party instead? in your defence, that party was much needed by you after a week long of hectic paperwork.

“like about…a 102—”

“i guess people with a 102F fever don't go to parties?” crap. you know that smirk, that ‘i-caught-you-bastard’ smirk. was he at that party too? shit, no way— “i was there too.”

sunghoon sets aside his laptop and leans in against the work desk, folded hands beneath his chin and another ‘know it all’ smirk shoots at you. you gulp, did he listen to you and minji talking too? oh no, no, no, no. you don't want to be fired.

“you annoying bastard,” it was intended to be a low whisper, but under the pressure of your enraging boss's stare, it came out louder than you intended.

“annoying bastard? i think that suits me?”

“no, mr park i didn't mean—”

“no no it's okay, i get that, a lot,” and now he gets up from his seat, circling around his desk to stand just in front of you.

“but i don't get ‘he's cute’ a lot.”

shit.

“i don't get ‘i like him’,‘he's so handsome’,‘he's so gorgeous’ a lot,” you were too mesmerised by his walks and the glints of his eyes to realise he's too close now, hands on either sides of the arm rest in your chair, blocking you in, “i don't get… ‘i wish i could kiss him’ a lot.”

shit, is he smiling or smirking? you can't really say when his face is inches above yours, babbling nothing but the truth. you had in fact shared your little desires about your boss to your best friend, minji, in the party. if only you knew he would be there, you would've bolted out of that place.

this current situation is really getting to you. you're trapped in a damn chair, you don't dare to move as his face only comes closer. a sudden wave of deja vu hits you; no, you've never been trapped in a chair like this by your boss before. but this intimacy, this fluttering proximity reminds you of those playful staring contest between you and him across the office, stumbling over paperwork and crashing against sunghoons chest, and now, this. you could feel heat rushing to your cheeks, as slowly his face transcends down further, now right beside your ear, his lips softly brushing the earlobe.

“no, i-i mean the other park sunghoon, you k-know?”

“hmm? but there's only one park sunghoon in the hype building whom i know of.”

“no you're getting me—”

park sunghoon doesn't let you finish your sentence, he thinks you're too cute to not kiss right now, so he does just that.

a small kiss, a look of admiration and fush in his eyes, then another, and another, and this one holds for a moment.

and the kiss is just as you imagined, soft, sensual, in sync with your rapid heartbeats as the distance slowly begins to disappear, his hands closing in around your cheeks to cup them.

he pulls back, breathing heavy with that smug smirk of his, “was it … cute? or gorgeous?”

“i think i want to kiss you once more,” you whisper. a twitching smile, shy eyes looking up at him and he smiles back, you feel yourself blushing again.

“of course,” sunghoon chuckles, now lifting you up from the chair and sitting down on it himself. placing you on his lap, he leans in for a sweet kiss, once more. it's just as soft and breathtaking as before, this time, you melt even more as you hook your hands around his neck and blush furiously into the kiss.

sitting on your boss’s lap to share a passionate kiss was definitely not in your bingo list this year.

his kisses travel down from your lips, becoming more feathery and ticklish as they reach your cheeks, jaw and finally the crook of your neck.

“i think i find you quite gorgeous too,” he holds you by your waist.

“you think?”

“nah, i'm sure”

“would then be uhm, like to be personal secretary?” he smirks, caressing your cheeks.

“and what do i get in return?” you chuckle

“anything you want,” he reassures, softly gliding a hand behind your back. your eyes surge around the office room for a potential gift, and then they land on the big bold ‘CEO PARK SUNGHOON’ engraved on the metal plate, and then you look back at him, “anything?”

“oh? mrs. ceo?” he smirks again, looking at the plate and then back at you. “of course, you can be the boss,”

a/n — yayaya comeback fic how r u guys, missed ya smsmsm ^0^ pleek lmk what u think of this !!! personally, my skills r cooked TT CLICK ME

© bywons, 2024. do not copy, translate or upload any of my works without my permission

📌 :: PERM TAGLIST IS OPEN ( the tags are rebloged ! ) nets. @/k-labels

[starmaidengarden]

HIIIII it’s me again the one who requested scarabia headcanons can I please request the scarabia dorm + Leona with a partner that teases them relentlessly, if you are okay with it of course!!

-scarabia anon🫶🏻

— scarabia dorm : leona : x gn!reader. Teasing. established relationship. dividers: uzmacchiato.

note: I couldn't be too mean to Kalim I'm sorry that my son (T_T).

Kalim Al-Asim ༉⋆｡˚

At first, Kalim doesn’t even realize he’s being teased. He laughs everything off and assumes you’re just playing around. You call him “sunshine boy” and poke fun at how he's literally never had a bad day in his life. He just laughs and says, “That’s because you’re here!”.

When you flirtatiously call him “your personal sunshine” or ask if he ever stops smiling, he gets adorably red and tries to change the subject.

He tries to get revenge with teasing of his own, but he’s way too sweet to make it land properly. You end up teasing him for his terrible comebacks too. “Well you’re—uh—too cute! Hah! Gotcha!”

Jamil Viper ༉⋆｡˚

Externally calm, but internally screaming. He is not used to someone having the guts to tease him constantly and actually get away with it.

If you poke at his “overachiever” energy or call him “Mr. Perfectionist,” you’ll catch a faint twitch in his brow before he huffs, mutters something under his breath, and walks off—only to come back later with a smug revenge plan.

He teases back in a very dry, razor-sharp way, but you always manage to hit him with something that makes him visibly flustered.

The more you tease him, the more he starts hiding behind sarcasm and biting comments. But his ears turn red when you call him out on it.

When you tease him for being “Mr. Control Freak” or always being one step ahead, he hits you back with some dry sarcasm “I’m sorry, I forgot chaos was your love language.”

If you flirtatiously tease him in public—like, “Jamil, stop looking at me like that. People are gonna know you like me or something”—he’ll cover his mouth and mutter, “Do you want me to die of embarrassment?”

Deep down? He treasures it. You’re one of the few people who treats him like a person first, not a tool. He secretly loves that you're bold enough to push him, and he trusts you because he knows it’s always affectionate.

Leona Kingscholar ༉⋆｡˚

You’re one of the only people who can get away with teasing Leona without immediately getting growled at. He acts annoyed, completely over it—like your teasing is just another reason for his eye-roll count to go up that day.

If you call him lazy or make fun of his pride, he’ll scoff and roll over like he’s ignoring you—only to pull you down next to him a second later with a cocky smirk.

Tease him about being a "grumpy old man" or joke that he’s just a "big cat," and he’ll shoot you a deadly glare… but the next moment he’s nuzzling into your shoulder with a low, satisfied rumble.

He’ll never admit it, but he finds your teasing hot. Especially when you whisper teasing things in his ear while he's trying to act cool.

He’ll never admit it, but he lives for the banter. You’re sharp, fearless, and won’t worship him — which is exactly what he needs.

If your teasing gets flirtatious, like, “Leona, are you glaring at me or checking me out again?” he smirks and responds, “Tch. Don’t flatter yourself.” But his tail? Definitely flicking happily behind him.

[formulakracing]

"you belong here" - s.v.

pairing: gf!reader x aston martin!sebastian vettel

word count: 1.5k

warnings: (slight) age gap relationship, a little bit of cursing here and there, seb being absolutely down bad for the reader, some (slight) angst, the general public being judgmental, (slight) slut shaming, the drivers being little shits (as always), yadayadayada

a/n: i am a perfectionist when it comes to writing personalities, mannerisms, cadences of words, etc. so if i happened to not do the best job with this fic, please be patient with me!!! this is my first time writing for seb!!! i am open to feedback!!! <3

"okay, from the top. how many drivers are there?"

"twenty."

"nope!" he shakes his head, his lips curling into a smug smirk, "there are nineteen drivers. sorry love, but you were incorrect."

"sebastian," you scoff, rolling your eyes, "you needed to specify if you were included. because if you weren't included, there would be nineteen other drivers. if you were, there would be twenty."

"that's why it's called a trick question," his hand squeezes yours, "your hands are clammy, by the way."

"maybe because i'm nervous?" you counter, "this is my first time tagging along to a grand prix, you know."

"i know," he brings your hand to his mouth, kissing it tenderly, "i'm sorry for being a little pest."

"you're not a pest," your heart swells at the gesture, "i'm just anxious to meet everyone, that's all."

"oh they'll love you," confidence oozes out of his words, "i have no doubts about that."

sebastian vettel, four time world drivers' champion, was your boyfriend of the last year or so. the two of you met online, as you had slid into his dms on instagram after a very intoxicated evening out with friends.

since you had a love for formula one since you were a teenager, you admired drivers such as lewis hamilton, nico rosberg, daniel ricciardo, and well, sebastian.

you weren't quite sure where the love for the sport came from, but you could remember the sleepless nights you spent on youtube, eagerly clicking through racing highlights through various grand prixes. the sleepovers where your friends would be doing makeovers on you or painting your nails as you chattered about all of the driver drama and lore.

so, when you learned that mr. vettel was very single, and very open to the world of dating, you decided to shoot your shot. it took about six or seven drinks, but you mustered the courage to type out those fateful words.

i heard your single. we should change that.

shockingly, you received a response not too long after sending the message.

i believe it's *you're and not your. why should i take you up on your offer? you're a very beautiful woman but i need a little more information before i take you out on a date. ;)

from that message, the two of you chatted constantly, getting to know one another in-between shifts at your job, and his free time between races, press conferences, and training sessions.

eventually, he asked for your number, requesting a facetime call. you obliged, the two of you talking for hours upon hours that night. only a week or so later, he flew you out to his place in switzerland, requesting that you spend the weekend with him.

you did, falling for him the moment you met him in person. well, not like it was difficult by any means. with his charming aura and goofy persona, you felt comfortable almost immediately, letting your walls come crashing down.

nothing was too much or too out-of-pocket. you could make all of the vulgar jokes you wished, and he would laugh right along, only escalating the joke further. you could cry on his shoulder about anything, and he would happily rub your back, wiping away the tears that fell. he would hold you every night you slept together, not letting go until you wriggled away in the mornings.

and now, here you were, hand-in-hand as you entered the paddock. your heart skips a beat as your gaze falls on lance stroll, sebastian's fellow driver and teammate.

upon seeing you, his mouth curves into a bright smile, "look who it is!"

"i know you're not that excited to see me," sebastian pouts, "or did you really miss me that much?"

lance rolls his eyes at sebastian, sticking out his right hand, "good morning! i'm lance. i'm the other aston martin driver. well, you probably already know that."

"it's nice to meet you," you suppress a giggle, "i've heard a lot about you!"

"oh have you?" lance arches a brow, turning to sebastian, "have you been talking shit?"

"always pooks," sebastian chuckles, "not really. i just happen to talk a lot about racing. i'm sure she's tired of it by now."

"oh never," you flash sebastian a radiant grin, "i never get tired of all of the racing talk. i've loved formula one since i was about thirteen or so."

"that's awesome!" lance gushes, "you have yourself a keeper then, seb."

"i know i do," you feel his arm wrap around your shoulder, "should we go meet some fans? i promise they won't bite."

"fans?" you echo, a shiver running down your spine.

"well yeah," lance nods, "we have some time before we need to meet up with everyone. we usually chat with some fans, hand out some autographs. nothing too serious or glamorous."

"if you say so," you mumble, the words so quiet you were shocked you heard them.

it wasn't like you were dreading interacting with fans, it was just that you were a bit daunted by the idea.

ever since sebastian went public with you about a month ago, the reaction from the public was mixed. one half was adamant that you were too young for the driver, as there was an almost fifteen year age gap between the two of you. the plethora of negative comments that flooded the comment section of your instagram posts was almost too much to bear.

the other half, however, was very supportive, voicing that they "shipped" the two of you or that you were good for the driver. some comments even went as far to say that you were "a breath of fresh air", and that sebastian needed someone like you in his life.

yet, as the three of you stroll out of the paddock, you hoped for the latter. that the fans would be kind, welcoming you with open arms.

you could only dream, right?

"sebastian!"

"sebastian over here!"

voices flurry about, calling from all directions. everywhere all around, it was almost a sea of green, fans donning aston martin gear from head to toe. people of all ages flooded your field of vision, children hoisted on their parents shoulders to men and women in their seventies, maybe even their eighties.

"baby, can i see your purse?" his breath fans against your ear, snapping out of your trance.

"yeah," you nod, fumbling with your bag, "y-you need your sharpie, right?"

"hey," fingers find yours, intertwining them together, "it's just you and i. forget everyone else. just think about you and i."

"it's hard to-" you protest, yet you're swiftly cut off by a voice rising above the midst of the crowd.

"who invited the slut?"

sebastian's brows furrow, his eyes narrowing into slits, "what the fuck?"

more voices cut in, jeering.

"put her back in her crib! where she belongs!"

"you heard what i said! who invited that slut beside you?"

"goddamn," lance mutters under his breath, "what the fuck are they on right now?"

tears well up, threatening to spill over as you duck your head, lower lip trembling. sebastian senses your energy shift, wrapping a protective arm around your waist. he pulls you in close, pressing gentle kisses along your temple.

"come on, let's go back to the paddock. you don't deserve this."

lance flashes you a sympathetic glance before raising a hand, giving the crowd the finger, "whoever said that, this is for you!"

every aspect of the walk back is blurred as the tears fall. your lips are sealed tightly shut, suppressing the sobs rising in your chest.

you were barely here an hour and fans were already heckling you.

could you even last the weekend here?

did you even belong here?

"hey," his voice is soft, "come here."

blinking, you realize that he had taken you back to his motorhome, a private space for just the two of you. his arms are open, inviting you in. you nearly collapse into his chest, burying your head in it as he rubs your back.

"i'm so sorry."

"you don't have to be sorry," you shrug, swallowing the lump in your throat, "they're right. i don't belong here."

"stop that," fingers grasp your chin, tilting your head up, "you do belong here. you belong here just as much as anyone else does. i need you here."

"you promise?"

"i promise baby," sebastian tucks a few wisps of hair behind your ear, "you're irreplaceable. who cares what they think? just focus on me. it's just you and i this weekend, okay?"

"okay," you nod, sniffling slightly.

"you know what i think?" he leans in, the tip of his nose brushing against yours.

"what?" you inquire, the tears dissipating as he brings you in closer.

"they're just jealous that i have the most breathtaking, stunning, kindest, funniest girlfriend in the whole wide world. and no one, i mean no one, can take that away from me. you're mine baby. and nothing is ever going to change that."

you find yourself nearly crumbling into his chest once again, "you mean that?"

"of course i do. now, let's go try this again. if anyone is rude or hateful, i'll just spit on them, okay?"

[violentdelightsandviolentends]

hi baby!! dont worry!! it was about reader getting so stressed and annoyed while building a gingerbread house that they throw it in the garbage because its going all wrong and carmy finds it hilarious lol then he builds one for her hehe<3 love u

Perfectionist.

Your boyfriend being a professional chef has its perks - especially when it comes to gingerbread houses.

pairing - carmen berzatto x female reader warnings - cursing word count - under 1k!! short and sweet author's note - just a little dose of carmy at christmas for you. thanks baby angel for sending this request in (twice!!) <3

masterlist. inbox.

"Fuck this."

Carmy hears your raised voice and immediately comes running, coming to a halt in the doorway of the kitchen.

"You good, baby?"

"No."

The frown on your face is amusing him to no end, fighting to keep his smile from breaking out. He doesn't want to minimise your feelings, but you're cutest when you're mad.

Carmy takes in the scene in front of him, surveying carefully. There's chunks of gingerbread scattered across the table, icing dripping from the tablecloth. Your kitchen looks like a candy store exploded - sweets in red, green and blue littered over every surface. You're caked in frosting, hair falling into your eyes as you take deep breaths to try to keep your anger at bay.

"I knew this wouldn't be easy, but fuck me, Carmy... I'm on the brink of a breakdown here."

He makes his way over, grinning like an idiot. It's not often he gets to help you with things - you're fiercely independent, determined to get stuff done all by yourself. He likes teaching you, getting to feel like he's easing your worries a little.

"You want my help?"

"I said I'd do it," you huff, on the verge of stamping your feet and pushing the table over.

"It won't kill you to ask for what you need, baby."

You roll your eyes, bottom lip caught between your teeth. It's difficult for you to admit defeat, but you might rip your hair out if your gingerbread collapses one more time.

"Can you help me, Carm?" you whisper.

"What was that, honey? Say it again?"

You sigh in exasperation, slumping back into your chair.

"Can you help me, Carmen? Please?"

He beams at you like the cat that got the cream, making his way over to sit next to you at the table.

"Lets start again, hmm?"

"Good idea."

You pick up the remnants of your gingerbread house and throw them so forcefully, the trash can almost tips over. Carmy laughs, wrapping his arms around you from behind.

"I think we've finally found the one thing you're not good at, honey. It's a Christmas miracle."

You can't help but chuckle, leaning your head back to rest against his shoulder. He presses a kiss or four into your neck, nosing at the spot under your ear.

"Okay, Mr Michelin Star. Show me what you got."

You bake, first, Carmy explaining how to get the perfect texture you need for structural soundness. He even gets out a ruler, measuring the rolled out dough so the sides will be even.

He kisses you lazily while your gingerbread is in the oven. You're propped up on the counter as he stands between your legs, arms thrown around his shoulders. He tastes like cinnamon and spice, groaning when you lick the sugar straight from his tongue.

When it's cooled, you begin your assembly, sitting back while Carmy trims and remeasures. He draws out a template with a pencil and cuts accordingly, ensuring each piece has a straight edge. You watch in awe as he works, so careful, so attentive. You're fighting not to jump his bones at any given moment.

It's time to build, and Carmy has the perfect plan. He's made a thickened sugar syrup that acts as a glue, hardening when it dries and keeping everything together. His tongue darts out to wet his lips as he concentrates, determined not to mess this up for you.

He steps back, then, to let you decorate. You clearly have a vision, your picturesque idea of what you wanted your original creation to look like. Carmy makes you multiple bags of icing in different colours, and melts down candies so you can make windows and doors. He opens packets of chocolates, and carves into them with a knife to make little trees for the yard.

Hours later, when you're both covered in powdered sugar and melted chocolate, you step back to admire your masterpiece.

"Holy shit, Carm."

"We did good, huh?"

"Is there like, a business in this? Can we do this for a living?"

He laughs, the sound vibrating through you from where his chest his pressed to your back. He's got you tightly in his arms, swaying gently to the soft music that plays from the radio.

"What were you saying about finding the one thing I wasn't good at, Berzatto? Hmm?"

He spins you, pressing his forehead into yours.

"I take it back. I take it all back, baby. You're good at everything."

"Especially gingerbread houses."

"Especially gingerbread houses."

You lean up to kiss him, wiping some frosting off his cheek with your thumb.

"Thanks for not making me feel like an idiot."

"I would never. Life is a learning curve, baby, You taught me that."

"I love you," you whisper. "And just so you know, we're never eating that. It's going to have to be display only."

He laughs, full chested and whole hearted, moving his hands to cradle your face.

"I love you too, baker extraordinaire. We don't need to eat it, anyway. We've got all this candy to get through."

You reach behind him to pick up a chocolate, tossing it into your mouth.

"It isn't as sweet as you," you wink.

A blush rises up his cheeks as he rolls his eyes, pulling you in closer.

"Merry Christmas, baby."

"Merry Christmas, Carmen."

[bearprofessorr]

chasing the stars.

being kind costs nothing, but earns you so much more than you could ever imagine.

ship: bfd!declan o'hara/fem!reader. tags/warnings: slow burn, alcohol mentions, panic attacks, fluff/comfort, no y/n. word count: 2.5k.

part 2 here! a/n: i've already written p2 and i'm just saying it is way slower development wise than i'm used to writing - however, it'll get there i promise <333. I'll edit it and get it up probably when im part way through p3 just to keep the flow of posts decently consistent (famous last words). enjoy <3

---

Declan was, as ever, stressed as fuck when he came back from work - barely stopping for a quick 'hello' before heading into his office and slamming the door shut behind him. You, as had become habit on a Friday night, were two glasses of white wine deep, cooking some new recipe with Taggie in the kitchen as a new years resolution the pair of you had made to broaden your taste palettes. Taggie was busy being a perfectionist measuring out the dough into the tray, and you - with no real intention one way or another - took the chance to peek your head around to check in on your best friend's dad. You disappeared from the kitchen with a quick, "Be right back, Tag." that was quietly acknowledged before she went back to adjusting the balls of dough. You lingered outside of the door, hearing the frustrated mutterings of the Corinium show host, hesitating before knocking lightly on the hardwood. The mutterings paused, and you heard the scratch of wood against wood, then heavy footfall until the door clicked open. Declan, expecting it to be his daughter, started to speak as the door opened, "Tag, look I'm - oh-" He paused, gathering himself in a fraction of a second, "Hey love, are you alright?" His voice softened from the slightly accusative tone he started with, eyebrows knitting together as he tried to read your neutral expression.

"Yeah no, I'm okay." You started, with Declan nodding along with a tired expression in his gaze. Your eyes dropped from his as you admitted, "I was actually coming to check in on you."

"There's no need for that, love." The nickname slipped so easily as he spoke to you, and you gathered he had no idea how close you held the endearment to your heart. "I'm alright, but thank you."

He stepped back from the doorway, going to close the door, and in a moment of confidence, you pressed your hand against it to stop the movement. "Are you sure? You don't look fine, if I must say, Mr. O'Hara."

Declan took a deep breath in at that, he had been caught, it seemed. He clicked his tongue before conceding, stepping back again to open the door of his office to you. "If you insist, I'll regale my troubles."

"Oh, I insist, I wouldn't be able to sleep without knowing what ails your soul." You joked as you walked into his office - the one place in the house that was wholly Declan. His books adorned the grand bookshelves on each wall, his work was stacked into haphazard but organised looking piles with sticky notes plastered over them, the whole room was quintessentially him. Even the scents of whiskey and lingering smoke made the room more like his. You almost felt like the room would start to push you out, with your flour covered skirt and light perfume made of peonies and vanilla acting like a magnet to repulse you from the space. Except, it drew you in, the one place in your best friend's house that it made sense you never spent any time in - apart from the obvious personal bedrooms of the house's other inhabitants.

"Make yourself comfortable, we might be here for a while." He smiled to himself, the weight on his shoulders lifting slightly with the mere concept of someone to share the burden with. Someone who he had never really spoken to in much depth - not counting the drunken talk of philosophy that he often fell into with whoever would listen. The door clicked shut behind him, walking past your to sit behind his desk, where he was already part way through a glass of whiskey - which if Taggie knew she would chastise him for, but she wasn't here.

"So, what's got you in more of a huff than usual?"

"What do you know about what's usual for me?"

"If I hadn't heard all of it from Taggie when I haven't been here, the past 3 weeks that I have been here when you come back from Corinium you've been in varying states of joy or outright despair." You shot back, which Declan silently responded with his tongue running along the the backs of his teeth, "Do you need me to repeat the question?"

"No, no, heard you loud and clear." Declan put a hand up in mock defeat, "I don't know how much has gotten to you about Tony Baddingham, but he was being even more of an arsehole than usual." He spat his bosses name out like it was rotten, even with the conversational tone of his words, "Gave the Thatcher interview to Veriker."

"James Veriker? The daytime show guy?" Your jaw dropped a fraction, enough for Declan to pick up on the visceral reaction it caused within you, "He could barely interview a chatterbox never mind the fucking PM."

"You're telling me." Declan bit back a scowl, feeling the tension rise in his jaw, reaching instinctively for the whiskey glass and taking a long sip. "Baddingham saw me as too much of a flight risk for 'handling' the woman 'cause I didn't want to ask about her fucking kids."

Declan took a deeper breath at that, the embers of his anger being sparked from where they had previously settled. You took that as your moment to comment, "He's not going to outshine what you could - and have done. It'll be considered monumental because it's independent TV, not because she got the true 'Declan' treatment - like she deserves."

"Right." The older man shook his head at the thought of James Veriker opposite the PM on his stage. "He won't stray from what's asked of him 'cause at the end of the day, he's Tony's lapdog."

"Didn't take you for being a gossip, Mr. O'Hara." You accused playfully at the insinuation, finally getting comfortable in your seat.

"Please, love, you can call me Declan. No need for the respectful parent shit around here, alright?" Again with the endearment, you could at least write off the smile that immediately plastered across your features as being from getting to first name basis with your friend's dad.

"Noted, Declan." To stop the fluttering in your chest, you tried your best to steer the conversation back to why you came here in the first place, "Is that really all it takes to get you in such a storm? Correct me if I'm wrong, of course, but there has to be something else."

"Well then, you should consider journalism with an instinct like that." Declan deflected, looking from you to the swirl of amber liquid in the centre of his glass, hesitating to even form the next sentence in his head - since then he would have to acknowledge it's truth. Regardless, you were ruthless, poking him again.

"So there is something?" You assumed it was some secondary work troubles, something else infuriating about another one of his co-workers that lingered in the after hours of his workday. What you didn't immediately catch onto was how he had nearly frozen on the other side of the desk, biting the inside of his cheek, breathing deep to hold back the emotion that had bubbled to the surface.

As soon as you did, though, you stood from your chair, raced around the other side of the desk to try and comfort him, unsure entirely of how to proceed, what was appropriate to do when your best friend's dad was close to breaking down in front of you. "Hey, hey," You tried to get his attention, his eyes flickered to the sound of your voice but he was still frozen, "Look, I get that you might not want to tell me - is there someone I can call? Maybe Rupert? I know he lives just across the field-"

"It's alright, love, I-" His voice choked up, jaw tensing his mouth shut as his lip quivered. Now that you were closer you could see the tears pilling up on his waterline, threatening to break the barrier and fall down his cheek. The gloss of his eyes only made them look younger, his deep brown irises reflecting the golden light of the room.

"Declan?" Your voice was quiet, having lost all power and confidence it had when you walked into the room compared to now, "If you need me to go, I can. I'm sorry if I overstepped at all."

You waited a moment for a response, but as you leant yourself off of his desk, his hand came out to reach for your arm, his hold noncommittal. The silent agreement between you was clear, even if he didn't want to speak, he really did not want to be alone. He still didn't say a word to you, but he turned his head to meet your gaze, looking up at you with his doe-like eyes. That was enough for you to rest back on the edge of his desk, adjusting your own arm so his hand slid into yours. It wasn't meant as a romantic gesture, your fingers weren't intertwined at all, it was just for the reassurance that you were here, and you cared for him. You squeezed his hand once, a sympathetic look in your eyes matched with an upside-down smile.

The soundscape of the outdoors replaced your conversation, the archetypal noise of the countryside, the rustling of leaves and choirs of chirps as the sun dipped below the horizon, coating the sky in shades of pink and orange. You both stayed as you were for minutes, until Declan broke the silence with a quiet admission, "I- you can't tell Tag about this," He prefaced, waiting for you to acknowledge it, as much as it would hurt your to hide anything from your best friend, it was necessary in the moment. He took a purposeful breath, "Her mother and I, you probably know from Tag it's not been the best as of recent."

You nodded, still holding his hand.

"I have a feeling, that if nothing changes, it won't get any better - if you catch my meaning." His voice was solemn, one admitting defeat in a war instead of the typical talk of a long-term relationship like his with Maud. "And, I don't think I can change anymore."

It was your turn to sit and process, as Declan stared into the middle distance, loosely focused on the door; While his other hand came up to cover the bottom half of his face, realisation settling in. Your gaze was set out of the window behind the desk, in front of you, watching the world pass by as your mind raced. You couldn't tell Taggie, never mind if Declan hadn't made you promise not to, it simply wasn't your place to break that type of news to her, no matter how close you two were. The only other thought at the forefront of your mind was how to help Declan relax, how to calm him down, get him out of the spiral he was at the precipice of throwing himself into the centre of. If it was anyone else, you would take them out on the town, forget over a bottle of wine and music loud enough to drown out their thoughts. Although, you assumed from Declan's general introverted personal life that a rowdy club would be the last place he wanted to be in this kind of state. Instead, you did the logical thing, since your own mind had run dry of ideas.

"How can I help?" You suggested, not realising that at some point, Declan's gaze had moved from the door to you, for long enough that when you looked down to get his attention, it was already fixed on you.

"A distraction would be nice."

"Like a story?"

"If you've got one."

"Yeah, it's probably all going to seem petty to you, but they're the only ones I've got of any interest, unfortunately."

"Go ahead."

You regaled some bygone tale of a schoolfriend's suspension, all the way from your young teen days but still fresh in your mind and still just as scandalous. You became more animated the more you got into the story, your hand slipping away from his to gesture excitedly about the chase around the school grounds that your friend was involved in, with teachers and students trailing behind to watch as it all unfolded. Your eyes were rushing around the room, never settling, so you couldn't see the fondness in Declan's eyes as he watched you speak, and how quickly it helped him forget about his own troubles simply by the guidance of your voice. "And then," You paused, overcome with laughter at the memory. "Then," you gathered yourself, looking to Declan to reach the apex of the story, "She got stuck on the fence while she tried to climb over it, and had to get the fire brigade in to cut her out!"

"That's…" Declan chuckled alongside you, "And you said you went to an all girl's school?"

"Mhm!" you agreed, "The amount of crazy stuff that went down in that place, you'd think it was a TV show sometimes."

"If what you've just told me is anything to go by, I might just have to agree with you there, love." He paused, thinking on the details of the story, "Are you still friends with this girl?"

"No, no not really," You shook your head, appreciating the last warm embers of the sun as it fully disappeared out of view, "I hear about her and her lot every so often, some new escapade they've gotten wrapped up in, or old stories that finally get all the details filled in."

Declan nodded along as you spoke, his voice softer but with a clearer tiredness underneath, "Like a cold case, then? Those always fascinated me, keeping tabs on seemingly dead ends just for the hope of a revitalisation."

You made an affirmative sound, letting the conversation fall into a lull as you took in a deeper breath, appreciating the serenity of the moment, breaking the silence with a quiet, "Are you feeling better?"

He muttered a small 'yeah' following it up with a sincere, "Thank you, love."

"It's no worry, you needed it, and it cost me nothing to help - so why wouldn't I?"

"You're a selfless girl, honestly." He smiled to himself, the pull on his heartstrings a problem to deal with later, "Tag is lucky to have you."

"Speaking of!" The time had been lost on you, a part of you was sad to have to leave, but there was only so long before Taggie would get concerned of your absence, "I should go check if she needs any help finishing off the food."

Declan gave a polite smile as you got up from the desk, brushed off your skirt, leaving a small puff of flour in it's wake and rushed off to the kitchen, not before pausing at the door for a moment, turning back to Declan and letting him know, "I'll poke my head round once they're ready, if you're still here."

"I will be, thank you."

[mybelovedwoo]

Could I maybe a request a “Ateez and their toxic traits/red flags”? And if you don’t it’s fine!! Anyway love your works<33

Thank you so much for your request! I hope you'll like it <3

ateez and their toxic traits/red flags

headcanon, angst

gn!reader x bf!atz

wc. ~0.8k

an: you can request headcanons if you want to!! if you want to be tagged in any of my fics you can apply here <3

masterlist

hongjoong

you plan a cute movie night, but hongjoong gets caught up in his studio. when you remind him, he sighs and says, “just give me another hour,” but three hours pass and he’s still not done.

-the perfectionist leader

-he can be overly controlling, always needing things to go his way. if something doesn’t align with his vision, he might micromanage or get frustrated

-he sometimes prioritizes his work and ambitions over his relationships, which can leave you feeling second place to his career

-despite his flaws, Hongjoong will always go out of his way to show you how much he cares once he realizes his behavior has hurt you. he’ll write you a heartfelt letter or dedicate a whole day to making you feel loved.

seonghwa

you tease him about not cleaning the kitchen properly, and instead of laughing it off, he quietly stops talking to you for the rest of the evening, overthinking if he’s not “good enough.”

-silent overthinker

-seonghwa tends to bottle up his feelings, choosing to remain quiet instead of addressing problems. this can lead to misunderstandings or passive-aggressive behavior

-he has impossibly high standards for himself and, sometimes unintentionally, for you too. ee may subtly push you to be "perfect"

-when he realizes he’s being unfair, seonghwa will open up more, offering sincere apologies and sweet, thoughtful gestures to show he’s working on himself

yunho

you bring up something that’s been bothering you, and yunho jokes, “oh, come on, it’s not a big deal! we’re fine!” but you can sense he’s avoiding the conversation.

-mr. nice guy complex

-yunho can sometimes suppress his own feelings to keep the peace, which can result in resentment building up over time

-he’s overly optimistic, brushing off serious issues with humor or positivity instead of addressing them head-on

-his warm-hearted nature means he’ll do anything to make you laugh and feel better. he’ll sit down and have a serious conversation once he realizes the importance of addressing things

yeosang

you have a small argument, and while he doesn’t yell or fight back, he quietly distances himself for days, leaving you confused.

-yeosang can be emotionally unavailable at times, keeping his walls up and making it hard for you to understand what he’s really feeling

-he has a tendency to hold grudges and doesn’t easily forgive, even if he doesn’t outright show it

-when yeosang lets his guard down, he’s incredibly attentive and sincere. he’ll work on opening up and showing you just how much you mean to him

san

you’re chatting with a mutual friend, and san playfully but obviously interrupts, draping his arm around you and saying, “hey, don’t forget about me over here.” he brushes it off as a joke, but you can tell he’s a little serious.

-attention seeker

-san can get jealous or possessive when he feels he’s not the center of your attention. he loves being adored and might pout or act out if he doesn’t get it

-he sometimes tests your boundaries to see how far you’ll go to prove your affection for him

-san is quick to realize when he’s being unfair. his apologies are as dramatic as his personality, and he’ll shower you with affection to make it up to you

mingi

he sees you talking to someone on your phone and later asks, “was that a friend? you seemed… really close.” when you reassure him, he says, “i trust you, but I just… tend to overthink sometimes.”

-mingi’s tendency to overthink can lead to unnecessary doubts or insecurities in the relationship. he may read too much into small things

-he has moments where he can retreat into his own world and become distant without explaining why, leaving you feeling unsure

-mingi’s love language is reassurance. once he’s calmed down, he’ll open up and let you in, making sure you feel secure in the relationship

wooyoung

during a playful argument, he blurts out, “well, at least i’m not as annoying as you!” the moment the words leave his mouth, he knows he messed up.

-wooyoung’s fiery personality means he can be impulsive, saying or doing things in the heat of the moment that he later regrets

-he has a competitive streak that can sometimes turn into unnecessary comparisons or playful jabs that might sting

-wooyoung is the king of dramatic apologies, complete with puppy eyes and endless affection. he’ll always go above and beyond to make you laugh again

jongho

you tell him about a bad day at work, and instead of comforting you, he says, “well, maybe you should handle it differently next time.” his words sting, even though he’s trying to be practical.

-jongho can be incredibly stubborn, refusing to admit when he’s wrong or refusing to budge in an argument

-he has a tendency to be overly blunt, which can come off as insensitive even if he doesn’t mean it that way

-jongho’s love language is acts of service. he might not say the words “I’m sorry” outright, but he’ll go out of his way to show you he’s sorry through thoughtful gestures and his unwavering support

taglist: @dinossaurz @soso59love-blog @tiredlittlevirgo @everythingboutkpop @engentiny @abibliolife @k-zuzu @ateezswonderland @oc3anfloor

[candyheartedchy]

Part two of this, so if you want more context on this analysis, please read the first part!

In part one I went over the struggles of SpongeBob’s desire to fit in and how he falls into this perfectionist nature. And because of this, he also falls into being a people pleaser A LOT. Where he’ll put the needs of others (mostly his friends) before his own. He also gets tricked and manipulated constantly by folks for their own personal gain and selfish reasons. Not to say SpongeBob doesn’t have any himself, but he tends to put his own on the back burner in order to please his friends. Again, he’s a people pleaser, he wants everyone to like him. The episode “Not Normal” is another example of him worrying he’s not normal enough and changes his personality and appearance because he thinks he’ll be better. He also worries what his own parents think of him, even though his parents don’t mind his energetic nature and childlike wonder.

Once again trying to prove himself to people. But the question still stands, will he ever “grow up” and “be mature”?

Well, that’s where Coraline (my self insert) comes in.

Coraline is a sea monster. Her species is well known for being scary and dangerous. But she’s not. She’s an outcast. Spending her entire youth bullied by other sea monsters due to being seen as “sensitive” and “weak”. And once old enough, she leaves her trench. Going from town to town trying to find a place to call home, before finding herself in Bikini Bottom and ends up working for Plankton because no one else will hire her. Already sealing her fate of crossing paths with SpongeBob. And once the two do meet, SpongeBob of course wants to befriend her, offering to show her around because he wants to make a good impression. But due to Mr. Krabs threatening him when they find out she works for Plankton, the sponge once again puts others before his own needs, causing Coraline to get stood up by him. And then SpongeBob ends up having to apologize later on.

[More context of this in the first two chapters of the fanfic about them here!]

Eventually he forms a friendship with the sea monster, almost in secret from his own boss.

Right away the two hit it off, discovering that they share a few similar hobbies and interests. But the two also start to notice that they share the same struggles as well. People pleasing. SpongeBob does it to avoid being alone, while Coraline does it to not be seen as a threat. Unlike SpongeBob, Coraline accepts her loneliness, purposefully avoiding folks and will sometimes deny the sponge’s offers in fear of scaring him off, but because she wants to keep peace, she keeps accepting them.

But SpongeBob is scared. Not because Coraline is scary. He’s afraid of being tricked and disappointing his boss. With Mr. Krabs filling his head with the idea that Plankton is using Coraline to get to him to get to the secret formula, SpongeBob starts to get paranoid. While Coraline on the other hand feels trapped because she has to do what Plankton tells her or else she loses her job. But because she’s honest, she’ll let SpongeBob in on the plans, allowing the two to be one step ahead of their bosses to avoiding any conflict between them. The two then start to make a game out of it, sneaking around and being very tongue in cheek whenever they have to “confront” each other during work hours. But once the two starts to catch feelings for each other, it gets messy really fast.

Coraline believes she’s a mistake. Believes every time SpongeBob is nice to her is out of either pity or as a joke. She wants to avoid him but can’t, SpongeBob is stubborn, but so is she, so it’s a constant push and pull between the two. SpongeBob genuinely enjoys her company. He never met anyone who treated him gently before and he doesn’t want to mess up whatever they have going between them because he’s afraid he won’t find it again.

Skipping forward to them dating. For another analysis post on the whole thing about SpongeBob and dating can be found here!

Neither have any dating experiences. The only time SpongeBob had form “relationships” was with a boat, a spatula and a krabby patty.

With “Spatula” he had to get a replacement in order to continue his work and the episode is kinda treated like a “cheating” allegory in a way that SpongeBob chose his work before the spatula, later in tears asking “Spatula” for forgiveness. Again we could see this as an internal battle SpongeBob most likely have that he himself worries about being replaced and sorta acts the scenario out. I know this (and the other episodes) is played for laughs, but I’m making this deeper than it should because I like him to have depth dammit!

“Boatie” comes from SpongeBob’s loneliness of everyone leaving town and once again starts to believe the boat has it out for him while he talks to a puppet of Patrick, again most likely acting out a scenario he most likely fears will happen to him one day. I could also go on about the whole “National No Spongebob Day” subplot at the end of that episode, but that would end up being a rant…

Heck even Bubble Buddy plays into this since SpongeBob created him out of loneliness due to all his friends being busy (before it’s revealed that the bubble is alive).

And then there’s “Patty”. He becomes infatuated with a krabby patty and I think the little teasing comments from Squidward about it triggered the attachment into an obsession from SpongeBob. Because if we once again go by the one comment in the episode “The Chaperone” where he never had a date to prom, it’s most likely he never dated in general.

He wants to feel wanted, but doesn’t know how to get it without it backfiring.

Once getting closer to SpongeBob, Coraline catches on right away that SpongeBob goes to desperate measures to make her happy, which makes her uncomfortable. To her SpongeBob is more mature in her eyes since he has more life experiences than her and she’s the only one who treats him with respect because of it, so once noticing his people pleasing nature, she tries to step in out of concern. Because he doesn’t need to change for her, she already accepts him as is. Which of course throws SpongeBob out of loop because this is what he always does, he has to help others however he can, and he recognizes Coraline’s struggles and wants to help her too. Eventually the pair starts to get frustrated by each other due to this, not realizing that they are both not only forcing themselves out of their comfort zones, but also growing as people from their impact on one another. Causing them both for the first time in their lives to “grow up” and accept being different.

[nanamineedstherapy]

Literally cannot wait for the next chapter to drop!! Please post it soon so I don’t end up sneaking chapters at work again.</3

Thank you for reading it all Pookie, my sincere apologies for the delay. I'm unfortunately a perfectionist and needed to add more details to make it real. Hope you enjoy it :)

Third Wheeling Your Own Marriage

F!Non-Sorceress CEO Reader x Gojo Satoru x Nanami Kento

Summary: You should be overjoyed that Gojo Satoru & Nanami Kento are your husbands. But you feel your skin crawl as you become the third wheel in your own marriage. Trigger/Crack Warnings: Graphic Violence, Emotional Abuse, Medically accurate Pain/Injuries Horror (yes, I do alot of research), pregnancy complications, Weaponized Guilt, Mentions of Rape (past, non-graphic), Psychological Manipulation, Mild Suicide Ideation (implied), Brainrot-Inducing Dialogue, Reader May Require Therapy After This, Emotional Damage Simulator 2025, Sukuna is Down Bad – Yuji said so, Mafia CEO AU (kinda), Reader is So Tired, Found Family? Or Found Emotional Damage?, Gojo Satoru's Consequences, Nanami Kento Deserves a Nap & to be able to pee in peace without his wife+husband combo broadcasting it, Unhinged Girlboss Reader, Murder as Romance, This chapter is a war crime. Trillionaire Tech Wife With Two Useless Men, Emotional Support Chicken. A/N: I feel like the reader is the biggest comedian in this series, tbh lol. Like??? She's fighting for her life, trauma bonding with eldritch horrors, & still has time to serve face & sarcasm in the same breath. Queen behaviour. Honestly, if I were her, I too would commit crimes while sipping Sprite out of a hospital cup. POOKIE SUKU IS HERE!!!!

Previous Chapter 23 (alt ending 2.14) - How the Salt in Our Wounds Was the Ocean - [Tumblr/Ao3]

Chapter 24 (alt ending 2.15) - Shattered Constellations

Aftermath | Their POV

They called her mortal.

They forgot she was trained by monsters.

Hour One

Nanami burned through every Tokyo contact. Then called Anna Wintour.

"Who did she meet tonight?"

There was a pause. The silence that comes when too many people are in the room, and you suddenly realise you’re the prey.

Anna’s tone was clipped, as ever. “Kento.”

“Anna. She’s missing. We can’t find her.”

“You must be very upset.”

“Who did she meet today? What was the investor’s name?”

“I was told if I revealed that name, if I tell you anything about her movements without her consent, I’ll be dead before the phone line disconnects. And you—you won’t even know who killed me.”

He closed his eyes. “It’s not about control. I think she’s in danger.”

Silence. Not even the buzz of static.

“Goodnight, Mr. Nanami.”

The Koenigsegg Jesko had been the first to betray them.

It shouldn’t have.

It was registered to her company but custom-built by Megumi’s black-ops R&D. Eight embedded trackers—nano chips, tyre sensors, two voice AI failsafes. The works.

But one by one, the signals blinked out like dying stars.

First, the GPS. Then the emergency LTE backup.

Then the engine monitor started sending Morse-code gibberish, as though something inhuman had possessed the car.

“She cut the battery?” Megumi asked, horrified.

The smoke alarms were disabled.

The flames were superficial, controlled—nothing damaged except the bed, the mattress soaked in Tom Ford and Dior and spite. Nanami didn’t smell arson. He smelled intent.

Megumi’s team—your personal security detail, his people—had been scrambled into a full lockdown.

“She shut down the internal feeds,” he gasped, crouched on the cold marble. “Her penthouse went dark mid-step. She disabled the elevator cam.”

“She shouldn’t even be able to do that,” Gojo said, eyes flashing cerulean. “The feed’s encrypted.”

“She built the system,” Nanami added quietly.

Gojo activated the Six Eyes at a higher altitude.

He’d only ever used them like this twice—once, back when they were hunting the remnants of the Star Plasma cult. Back when Geto still— And the second time was when he was trying to find you in your home country when you’d disappeared after the gaming convention.

Nanami was watching the flame flicker and die in Gojo’s face.

Gojo balled his fists in frustration. “Why can't I see her? There’s no cursed energy hiding her. She’s not suppressing her aura. She’s not using a veil or a curse technique—she can’t. She’s just a normal woman!”

“No.” Nanami corrected coldly. “She’s lived with you for years, and you talk alot about your conquests, Satoru. By now it’d be a miracle if she didn’t figure out how to counter you, given the way she is – all or nothing.”

Hour Two

“She’s still not showing up,” Megumi whispered.

Not on satellite. Not on traffic cams. Not even on Gojo’s six eyes, which were burning as he stood barefoot on the balcony, sweat crystallizing on his cheekbones.

“No cursed energy signatures,” Gojo muttered. “No barriers. No pings.”

“She’s not a sorcerer,” Haibara said, leaning against the glass. “She’s just angry.”

“She’s not just anything,” Nanami half-yelled, eyes scanning five monitors showing nothing but static. “She disappeared mid-day. Mid-breath. That’s not normal.”

The Jesko went through one toll booth. Then stopped showing up.

Gone. No transponders. No speed violations. No tyre marks.

“Tracker’s off,” Megumi said, barely keeping it together. “All of them. Phone, car, security fob, coat lining. Gone.”

“She’s still wearing the tracker from last week's security update,” Nanami muttered, clicking on her medical vitals screen.

"Not anymore," Haibara said, holding something bloody in his hand. A tiny sliver of metal he'd found on the toll booth she’d disappeared from. "She cut it out. Used the same blade she cut me with."

"Was she bleeding?" Gojo snapped, voice shrill.

"Not when she bit me. After? Who knows."

Hour Three

They stood in the war room.

Screens everywhere. Her last known locations. Holograms. Pulse tracking. Voice AI failed prompts.

A red string corkboard in a glass room.

Haibara, biting into an apple like it might be poisoned.

Megumi, rocking back and forth, hands pressed to his skull.

Nanami, silent.

Gojo pacing like an animal.

“She fucking ghosted us,” Haibara laughed like the irony was too much.

“She can’t ghost the Six Eyes,” Gojo muttered. “I’ve found people in other dimensions. She can’t—she’s not supposed to be able to—how is she doing this?”

“She’s deleting herself,” Megumi whispered. “Not hiding. Erasing.”

They all turned to him.

He kept staring at the floor. “You don’t know what she’s capable of when she feels cornered. You don’t know what she learnt from my father. Hell, even I never really knew what they talked about.”

Hour Four

Your location-shared signal blipped once.

A rural highway. Eastbound. Then silence.

“She left it on just long enough for someone else,” Haibara murmured. “Not us.”

Gojo slumped to the ground, blindfold in his fist.

Security teams deployed.

Megumi’s own private elite—trained to hunt rogue sorcerers—went silent within thirty minutes. They followed a false signal to the western district. Found nothing but a pile of burner phones duct-taped together.

It wasn’t signed. It didn’t need to be.

Haibara laughed, unwrapping the bandage on his bitten hand. “God, I love her. Bites like a jackal.”

“Shut up,” Nanami hissed.

“She’s fucking incredible.”

“Shut up.”

“She could’ve been a serial killer.”

Gojo slammed him against the wall. “Shut. Up.”

“Are we trying to find her or fight each other!” Megumi yelled, and Gojo backed off with a grunt from a smirking Haibara after a beat.

Hour Five

“She was smiling when she lit the bed on fire,” Haibara whispered, staring at the footage one of Megumi’s corrupted drones caught before she destroyed it.

The flames danced across your face like a rite. You looked holy. Like a woman who knew God personally and had decided He wasn’t worth the apology.

And none of them—not even the strongest sorcerer alive, not the meticulous executioner, or the boy born of a cursed blessing, or the resurrected demon from society’s trash heap—

None of them could stop you.

Because you weren’t human anymore.

Hour Six

They found a lead.

Not from tech. Not from tracking.

From blood.

Haibara licked his injured hand, still oozing from her bite. He stared at it. Smiled.

“She didn’t take the knife to hurt herself. She took it to threaten us. And this? This isn’t desperation.”

“What was the reason then?” Gojo whispered, eyes burning from overuse.

“It’s theatre. She left us a trail. Just enough to make us panic. Just enough to remind us…” He looked at Gojo, gaze gleaming like a blade.

“…That she’s smarter than all of us combined.”

And somewhere, far beyond their reach, in an untraceable place with prepaid electricity and blackout curtains, you stared at your own reflection.

Still. Silent. Pregnant. Waiting.

Then you peeled back your coat. Checked your stomach. Ran your fingers over the black bruise near your ribs—where the babies kicked too hard in your stress while you were pulling out the car batteries.

You weren’t safe. Not really.

A phone ping.

Mom: Flight's delayed a little further. Get yourself food but stay away from view.

Hour eight

“Why can’t I fucking see her?” Gojo demanded again, voice rising. He was glowing faintly now, like a sun left to rot in a glass coffin. “I can see everyone. I can see through walls. Why not her?”

“Because you don’t know her,” Haibara said without looking up from his phone.

The words dropped like a knife.

Gojo turned. Nanami didn’t stop him.

“You wanna say that again?”

“You don’t know her. You know the woman who cooked for you and sucked your cock and gave you children you aren’t worthy of. You don’t know the girl who broke her own jaw so her cousins wouldn’t rape her again. Or the girl who lived under a bed with rats and still makes Blackrock shudder. The one who cried blood the night you came on each other right next to her sleeping body.”

Nanami’s jaw clenched, hard enough to hear a faint crack.

Haibara kept going. “You didn’t even know she was pregnant. You called her bipolar. Your little baby killers club didn’t tell her shit.”

Megumi punched Haibara out of nowhere, and the latter straightened back up like an unkillable pest, spitting the blood from his lip tear.

Megumi yelled, “If you can’t be bothered to help, then get lost.”

“I am helping.” Haibara smirked, “By laughing at them.”

Megumi eyed him suspiciously. “You know who she called, don’t you?”

Haibara smirked.

---

Before the meeting with the investor and the subsequent disappearance—

You’d barely slept.

Not because of discomfort, though your swollen ankles and the relentless ache in your lower back would’ve justified it. No, sleep had eluded you because of them—the disasters you somehow forgave, loved, and carried children from. After months of icy silences, bruised egos, and walking on eggshells sharpened by betrayal, a night last week had finally broken the drought.

Satoru cried five times. That you know of.

The first time was silent—his face buried in the curve of your neck, a hand trembling on your side, like he thought if he held too tight, you’d vanish. The second was louder, gasping, muttering apologies into your skin like they were spells. By the third, he’d woken you up entirely, whimpering as he clung to you in his sleep, kneading the soft swell of your hip like a needy white tiger. The fourth came when you cupped his face and kissed his lashes and whispered, “I missed you.” And the fifth—well, that one came when he was already inside you.

Slow. Soft. No cocky grin, no teasing flick of his tongue. Just desperate Satoru with tears slipping down his cheeks and his forehead pressed to yours, as if he were scared that blinking might separate you again.

Kento didn’t cry.

But he looked at you like a ghost. Like if he blinked, he’d wake up so he’d woken before either of you, face buried in your neck, lips pressed to your pulse like he was checking you were still warm. There was no ceremony to it—he was already hard, already leaking against your thigh. His hand curled protectively over your bump, reverent, steady, like he was anchoring himself to proof that this—all of this—was real.

You don’t remember how it started. Only that your hormones had made you wet and half-dazed. Satoru had slid inside you without even waking properly, moving in that lazy, sleep-drunk way he always did when overwhelmed. You'd been too sensitive lately—your body a minefield of electric nerves—and soon you’d ended up on Kento’s lap, Gojo moving behind you while Kento’s cock rested hot and hard under your soaked folds, rubbing him and you off.

It wasn’t pornographic. It was tender. Messy, yes. But real.

Your arms around Kento’s shoulders. Satoru's hand splayed over your belly like a talisman, anchoring you so as not to hurt the twins. The low, breathy sounds you made when Kento pressed kisses under your jaw, whispering that you were beautiful. Sacred. A miracle.

You moaned so sweetly that Kento chuckled low in his throat, eyes closed, face tilted to the ceiling in something like prayer.

Then came the chaos.

You were so lost in the rhythm that you didn’t notice Satoru getting bolder—until he grabbed Kento’s thigh and tried to shift his leg up in a mating press. Kento’s leg jerked with surprise, and he just snorted. Loudly.

“I’m not a yoga mat,” he groaned, covering his eyes with one arm, stifling his laugh.

You burst out laughing. And felt it in your ribcage, like someone was letting light back into your lungs.

Satoru paused mid-thrust, blinked, then looked sheepishly between the two of you.

“Well, you both keep trying to get me pregnant, so this is me turning the tables,” he said, deadpan, then he kept thrusting.

Kento’s laugh shook the bed.

You turned and kissed Satoru—salt and saliva and need—and then turned and kissed Kento, who looked more in love than he’d ever admit. For a second, the three of you just stayed like that. Tangled. Breathing. Full of each other.

By the time the sun climbed over the skyline, you were dozing again between them, skin sticky, sheets tangled, legs heavy. The morning routine happened in sacred silence—no fights, no tension. Just Kento helping you into your dress while Satoru brushed your hair, quiet and reverent, as if caring for you was penance and prayer combined.

He pressed a kiss to the crown of your head. “You look powerful,” he whispered.

Kento kissed your wrist, slipping your wedding ring back on after cleaning it. “And the mother of my children.”

“Mine too,” Satoru chimed in.

“You’re such a narcissist,” Kento said.

“So are you,” Satoru shot back, smiling now, eyes clear.

You rolled your eyes, heart full.

This was what peace looked like. No chaos. No yelling. Just the quiet, perfect calm that came when everyone chose to stay.

You had ten minutes before take-off. Your phone buzzed.

“I’ll be back tomorrow, depending on what he wants and the flight time,” you promised, turning at the door.

They both followed you—of course they did. Satoru tugged your hand. Kento wrapped his arm around your shoulders. They walked you to the elevator like you were made of glass and gold and unspeakable power.

You kissed Satoru first. Then Kento.

They both held your gaze as the doors closed. You caught Satoru mouthing I love you. Kento didn’t speak, but his expression was the same one he’d worn when you walked down the aisle.

The last thing you heard before the metal doors shut was Satoru murmuring, “Call me if there’s even an ounce of doubt. I’ll teleport you out.”

And Kento’s quiet, unwavering, “Keep the life vitals tracker on and call me once you land.”

---

The jet was quiet, save for the muted purr of climate control and the occasional shift of turbulence against steel. You’d boarded at noon—twenty minutes ahead of schedule—surrounded by a sixteen-person armed security detail and your logistics assistant, who kept glancing at your ankles like they might explode mid-flight.

She asked if you were comfortable three times before takeoff. Like she was stalling. Like the jet wasn’t just taking you to New York, but to the guillotine.

Anna hadn’t sent the jet. He had.

The new investor. No name, just gravity. A black hole in the shape of a man—silent, never photographed, but powerful enough that Anna had stumbled over her sentence when his assistant called.

When you’d first told Nanami about the request for an in-person, he’d exhaled like a loaded gun. Pressed his hand to his forehead and muttered, “Can’t we just kill him?”

He wasn’t joking. He spent the next three hours building worst-case flowcharts in that calm, terrifying way he did—like even apocalypse could be optimized.

Satoru had stopped joking altogether. That was worse.

Takahashi, at least, had behaved for his first flight. Curled at your side in a little albino ball of privilege, snoozing through turbulence like he was made of clouds and sedatives. You kept stroking the patch between his ears. It soothed nothing, but pretending helped.

Across from you sat a PR assistant barely old enough to rent a car. Her eyes kept flicking to your bump like it might blink back. “You don’t look that pregnant,” she offered hesitantly.

You smiled, didn’t answer.

Because it wasn’t the look of it. Never had been. It was the feeling—like your body was being rewritten in a language you didn’t speak. Nights were the worst. The way the skin moved—too fluid, like something inside was stretching out. Like it wanted more room.

Scans didn’t capture that. Machines didn’t feel the slow-shifting horror of cartilage loosening, knees dislocating if you stood too long, lungs compressed to the size of childhood grief. The doctors said miracle. You said miscalculation.

You’d worn red today. A deep, cruel red. It felt… appropriate for some odd reason.

---

Vogue Private Office — Manhattan

The orchids were wilting by the door. You walked in like the third act of a tragedy—heels cracking marble like closing statements.

The staff didn’t question you. They swung the lobby doors wide, as if bracing for a storm in stilettos.

Inside, the air clung with the scent of dying flowers and fragile wealth. Glossy surfaces, curves designed to look expensive, chairs meant to be admired, not sat in. They led you to a glass-walled suite where the city still bent to your silhouette—even if your shares never did for them.

You folded yourself into the seat, spine negotiating with memory. Accommodations were never an option.

Anna was late.

Of course.

When her heels finally announced her, you didn’t rise. Couldn’t, really—not with the way your body had begun to betray you, bone grinding against bone.

She stood haloed by light, a magazine-cutout of power, her smile sharp with the arrogance of someone who still believed timing was a weapon.

“You glow,” she said. “Like women do before they’re devoured.”

“Unmedicated,” you replied.

Her grin widened, all teeth and conquest. “We’ll keep this clean. You know why you’re here.”

You blinked, slow.

“The new investor wants your story. The twins. The empire. The marriage. He thinks your silence is sinking your company.”

One of the twins kicked—hard enough to fracture breath. Lately, it didn’t feel like movement. It felt like revolt.

Anna tapped her nails against the table. “How are the husbands?”

You exhaled.

“Protective. Armed. Near breaking.”

She tilted her head. “Would they die for you?”

You mirrored her.

“They already did.”

A pause. Her eyes flickered—assessing whether it was poetry or prophecy.

Then, the ice of her smile.

“Now that,” she murmured, “is a Vogue quote.”

Soon enough they led you through a corridor so silent it felt like something had been sacrificed to keep it that way.

No corporate logos. No gaudy art. Just sharp edges, sliding doors, and the kind of air that had passed through too many purifiers. The kind that made you feel sanitized, surgically so. You were shown into a tea room so traditional it bordered on uncanny for New York—tatami mats, shoji screens, and incense coiling faintly in the corners like an old ghost. For a second, you thought it might be a set. A psychological stage.

And then he walked in like a theory made flesh. The kind of man who survived the apocalypse by looking like prophecy.

He wasn’t what you’d expected.

Long raven hair swept back into a precisely tied half-bun. He wore a form-fitting black turtleneck beneath a long trench coat, the fabric whispering as he moved. Polished leather shoes. No noise. No dust. The kind of outfit that commanded attention without asking for it—quiet, curated power. His face was too symmetrical to be trustworthy, his skin untextured in that uncanny, expensive way. No jewelry except for a Rolex that said old money or old blood.

“Thank you for coming,” he said, extending a hand. “I’m Geto Suguru.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Geto,” you shook his hand briefly. “You’re very composed for someone hiding behind NDAs and empty LinkedIn profiles.”

He smiled, unfazed. “I don’t like being photographed. It makes it harder to disappear when people disappoint me.”

You blinked and filed that away.

Another man stepped in—vaguely inbred in posture and temperament. The kind of man who inherited his surname like a loaded weapon. He poured tea like it was beneath him.

You didn’t need an introduction to know what he was.

Zenin.

Naoya, specifically. Blond, lean, the sharp-boned entitlement of someone who'd never been told no by someone who could make it stick. There was a feral brightness behind his eyes, like something hungry and bored. He poured tea with the grace of someone imagining your autopsy.

Geto glanced toward him. “Naoya. Thank you.”

The man gave a short bow that wasn’t quite a bow.

You smiled, tilted your head slightly—your expression deliberately soft, even as your voice curled with something sharper. "You're really beautiful. You shouldn’t be in corporate. Milan seems more appropriate."

Suguru chuckled, almost surprised. “Fashion is a battlefield. This is where I’m better suited.” He gestured to the tea cup in front of him. “I hope the flight was comfortable.”

“It was fine. Apologies if I kept you waiting—my husband insisted we play a little longer.”

He didn’t blink. But in the corner of the room, a man with stitches across his face twitched slightly. Like the mention of something domestic scratched at his teeth.

Naoya, who was now pouring your tea like it was poison, said nothing. Suguru didn’t offer introductions. He just let the platinum blond ghost linger at the room’s edge like a lion watching your blood pressure with a smirk.

Then he looked back to you and said, with no real warmth, “Ah. Is he still obsessed with Digimon?”

The shift was instantaneous.

You didn’t move. You didn’t breathe wrong. But beneath the table, your fingers twitched once—an involuntary microexpression.

Satoru had never said that online. Not to fans. Not to journalists. Not even in investor decks.

But you didn’t bite, not so easily. “So tell me, Mr. Geto, what are your plans?” You didn’t specify whether you meant plans for your company or for you; he’d clear that for you soon enough.

He began flipping through a file. “As I’m aware, you’ve had… an eventful quarter.”

You kept your smile. “Define eventful.”

“The employee assault. The digital blackouts. The marriage leak. The #TwoHolesForAReason campaign. Your stock drops. The public threats. And of course…” His eyes dropped, just briefly, to your stomach. “The pregnancy reveal.”

You took a measured sip of tea. Let the silence breathe. You could feel a fish curling beneath the floorboards—koi or curse, you couldn’t tell.

“I didn’t come here to relive the timeline.”

“Of course not,” he said gently. “You came here because I asked politely.”

That stopped you. Just a breath.

Suguru chuckled, as if he'd made a harmless joke. “Satoru always did get possessive when he felt threatened.”

You blinked once, slowly. He was no longer implying leverage. He was showing it.

“How do you know my husband?”

“From a different life. We were in Jujutsu Tech together, some ten years ago or more.” He didn’t elaborate. “He’s... very consistent. Even back then.”

“Were you close?”

“We were best friends. Classmates. Same special grades. Different curse techniques, same suicidal ambition.” His voice didn’t change. “Then the world changed after your guardian killed a girl we were protecting, and I… left.”

You didn’t react.

You recognized the tempo. The bait. He knew more about you than he was supposed to.

“Are you still in touch?”

“The last time I spoke to him was eight months ago.”

He said it like a wound. Or a warning.

Blood crawled up your throat, but you smiled and sipped your tea like a lamb, luring him into a false sense of comfort. “What happened eight months ago?” you asked softly, like you couldn’t put two and two together.

He smiled—not kindly. “I lost.”

The silence that followed was polite. Hollow.

You inhaled. “You joined the corporate sector after that?”

“Mm. Sorcery has its limits. I realized my skills were better suited to cleaning up PR messes.” His eyes flicked over your bump, your body, the controlled inhale of someone used to performing normalcy under duress. “Your company’s been through enough chaos lately. The world turned fast.”

You didn’t rise to the bait. “That’s the risk of marrying violently private men.”

“Or of marrying two of them,” he said, too evenly.

You didn’t reply. Let him talk.

He didn’t. Clever bastard.

Instead, the blonde set down another cup of tea with a thud that felt deliberate. You glanced at him, properly now.

“You didn’t introduce your company.”

Suguru didn’t look at him. “Naoya Zen’in. Logistics director. Don’t take his silence personally—he doesn’t like powerful women.”

“Must be exhausting,” you said, sipping your tea without breaking eye contact with Naoya’s sneer.

Naoya’s lip curled, but Suguru raised a finger, and the man stilled like a dog leashed by old violence.

You glanced around the room again—and noticed the other man was too still. Too silent. Sitting near the incense tray now, legs folded like a child mimicking meditation. Young. Heterochromatic eyes. Face like a cherub carved by a sadist—unblemished except for the stitches, soft, but off.

You didn’t recognize him.

But something primal in you curled. Not fear—yet—but revulsion. He watched you with a kind of gleeful interest people usually reserved for vivisection videos.

Suguru didn’t introduce him either.

The air felt heavier suddenly. Your skin began to itch under your dress, and you couldn’t tell if it was hormones or the way that stranger tilted his head slightly every time you moved.

You didn’t flinch. Didn’t ask. Let the wrongness root itself in your memory.

“So what’s your plan, Mr. Geto?” you asked calmly, eyes never straying. “You want to scrub my company’s image. Why now?”

He met your gaze with something that almost felt like recognition. “Because Satoru did what he did for you. And the world saw it as a threat.”

You stayed silent.

He was skirting around Kento’s name—which meant Nanami, in Suguru’s eyes, was just as guilty.

And neither of you were forgiven.

He continued. “Beating your own employees in the middle of a crisis? Then disappearing. Leaving your CHRO and Higuruma to spin internal terrorism as a ‘security concern’ while the internet tore you apart. And the marriage leak…”

His voice lowered. “The rape threats. The arson calls. The memes.”

You exhaled, slow. Steady.

He didn’t know Higuruma either.

His mouth twitched. Almost sympathetically. Almost.

“Your men love you,” he said like an obituary. “But the world is still too cruel to forgive a woman for being adored.”

You tilted your head and met his violent violet gaze. “And you do?”

Suguru leaned back, folding his arms. “I understand optics. I understand what it means to be seen as unnatural.”

He hadn’t once referred to Satoru by his full name. Hadn’t asked how he was. Hadn’t asked to set up a meeting to catch up. Hadn’t insulted him either.

Every mention dripped with intimacy. Personal. Familiar. Irreversible.

You glanced at the tea again.

You were being dissected.

Not you exactly. The idea of you. The blueprint. The soft horror of a woman who had everything and bled alone.

You smiled. Not sweetly.

“So you stayed hidden all this time. Why?”

His eyes glinted. “Because sometimes, anonymity is power. I don’t need to be seen. I need to move.”

You hummed, sipping.

You weren’t stupid enough for men like him. Suguru wasn’t obsessed with investing in your company. He was trying to replace you in your own life.

Naoya stepped forward again. This time, it wasn’t tea. He whispered something into Suguru’s ear. A coded phrase, maybe. Or a trigger.

Suguru nodded once.

And then the man with the uncanny smile by the incense tray finally spoke.

“Has it kicked yet?”

The room shrank by degrees. You froze mid-breath, head swivelling toward him slowly. “What?”

He beamed. It didn’t reach his eyes. “The baby. Or babies, I suppose.”

Your stomach twisted—not from pregnancy. Instinct. Deep and ancestral. Like recognising a predator that shouldn’t exist anymore.

Suguru didn’t stop him. Naoya grinned.

Your fingers brushed the inside of your coat pocket, finding the cold edge of your phone. You didn’t need to see the screen—just feel the lock button. One long press, and the emergency contact would trigger. Satoru had set it up himself, laughing like it was a joke. “Just in case you’re ever too tired to scream.”

You weren’t screaming now. But you were tired. And surrounded.

Your thumb hovered over the side of the phone, ready to press and hold.

He’ll feel it. He’ll come. He always does.

But you needed answers.

Across from you, the scared man’s gaze skittered over your body, hesitating on the weight of your pregnancy like it offended him. Like he was doing the math on your vulnerability.

Your fingers twitched again—hovering but not pressing.

"Funny," you murmured, voice honed to a razor's edge—quiet enough to slit the throats of every man in that room who dreamed of hurting you. Of hurting them.

"You didn't introduce him, either."

Suguru’s gaze dragged over you—slow, careful, like he was calibrating the threat level of a black widow spider beneath his shoe. “Ah. That’s Mahito. He’s not an employee. Just… an enthusiast.”

“Enthusiast of what?”

“People.”

Mahito’s laugh was a rusted scissor drawn softly across silk. “Of change.”

Your fingers tightened around your teacup, the heat biting into your palm. “I don’t discuss my children with men I don’t know, Mr. Geto. Remove him, or this meeting ends now.”

For a heartbeat, no one moved. Then, at Suguru’s faint nod, Mahito walked out—but not before his eyes dipped to your swollen abdomen, lingering like a promise.

Suguru tilted his head. “You’re not what I expected.”

“And you’re exactly what I prepared for.” You didn’t take the bait, just sipped your tea and wished you could gouge out Naoya’s wandering eyes on your body with the teaspoon.

“Your men could’ve fixed this,” Suguru mused. “Instead, they buried you alive under their failures.” He leaned forward, voice dropping to a whisper. “Let me dig you out.”

You let out one sharp smirk. “You want my loyalty.” Naoya’s gaze continued to crawl over your skin, but it was Suguru’s quiet hunger that made your pulse stutter.

He didn’t just want your empire. He wanted what you had with him.

“No,” Suguru said, and for one suspended breath, you saw something ancient behind his eyes. “I want the myth they buried you in. I want to rewrite it in your bones. You can keep your loyalty. I know how fragile that is.”

Naoya smirked.

You traced the rim of your cup again, as if you weren’t about to be eight months along and evaluating three likely special grade threats in a building without exits.

“I remember he used to hoard candy in his coat pocket,” Suguru said idly. “Said it was for focus. But he always saved the strawberry ones. Said they tasted like the spring of youth.”

Your breath caught—only for a second.

He smiled.

You didn’t give him more.

“Why now?” you asked. “You’ve had years to insert yourself. Why wait until after they ruined everything?”

His smile thinned. “Because now the narrative is fragile. Vulnerable. Editable.”

You didn’t smile back. You narrowed your eyes, the way a knife narrows a throat.

“Editable?” you repeated, voice flat as the heartbeat monitor they once used when your blood pressure dipped from stress-induced anemia. Third trimester. High stakes. Too much noise. Too many men trying to rewrite your obituary before the children even arrived.

He leaned forward with the casual precision of a man who’d once taught his enemies philosophy before killing them. Elbows on the table. Like a professor who enjoyed watching you fail upward and spiral into myth.

“Everyone loves a redemption arc,” Suguru said softly. “Especially when the protagonist is already bleeding.”

You watched the way his fingers interlocked, how his eyes held yours without fear, pity, or desire. Familiarity, yes. But it was impersonal. Surgical. “You’re smart. You built a world-changing company, held it through five hostile acquisition attempts, and somehow survived being married to two emotionally repressed men with god complexes.”

A pause. Letting it land.

“But your narrative is a mess. Right now, you’re not a visionary. You’re a punchline. A cautionary tale.”

You didn’t blink. You’d stopped blinking for fragile men a long time ago.

“So you want to help me out of the goodness of your heart, Mr. Geto,” you sarcastically mocked, voice like cooled steel.

“I want to curate,” he corrected. “The public needs a villain. I’d rather it not be you.”

Your breath didn’t change. Your spine did.

“And who should it be instead?” you asked quietly.

His gaze didn’t falter. “The men who made you disappear.”

You didn’t answer.

Because your brain was already screaming. Eight months. That was the moment the light began to fracture. The lies weren’t clumsy—they were rehearsed. Gojo crying in the shower without making a sound, standing too close to the shower faucet like he wanted to burn off his skin. Nanami avoiding eye contact with you like you were Medusa.

They hadn’t just betrayed you.

They’d buried someone.

And this man across from you—

—this Suguru—

He wasn’t the villain of the story. He was the page they tore out.

You shifted slightly in your seat, careful not to press too hard against the left hip joint. It ached from carrying too much weight—twins, fear, expectations.

“I don’t trust men who speak softly for a living,” you said, finally.

He smiled, not kindly. “Then you’ll appreciate that I don’t live. I manage. I observe. I insert pressure.”

“That sounds dangerously like extortion.”

“That sounds like truth.”

You stood, feeling the subtle catch in your hip again. A strain, not a collapse. You could handle it. You’d handled worse.

“Then here’s some truth for you, Mr. Geto,” you said, staring him down while Naoya twitched beside him like a dog smelling meat. “I don’t care what happened between you and him. I don’t care if Satoru fed you strawberry candy with his mouth. I don’t care if you’re here to drag me into whatever unresolved soap opera you three left fermenting in a casket.”

Naoya flinched like a puppet yanked by ancestral strings.

Suguru just kept smiling, unflinching.

“But if you want a stake in my company, you’ll need to do more than spill secrets and wear pretty silk. I’ve already survived two of the most powerful men in Japan loving me to the brink of destruction. Fear’s a luxury I ran out of two assassination attempts ago.”

Suguru rose slowly. Elegantly. Offered a hand as if any of this was normal.

You didn’t take it.

You left.

And you didn’t realise your hands were shaking until the door sealed behind you. The tremor was slight, concentrated in the fingertips—just enough to betray you to yourself. Just enough to remind you that no amount of tech, intelligence, or control could reverse the trauma of being known by dangerous men.

You didn’t take Suguru’s jet.

Instead, you boarded your own—slid into the leather seat with Takahashi curled against your belly like a breathing talisman—and told your assistant not to speak unless the plane was on fire.

By the time you hit cruising altitude, your nails had already scrolled through Nanami’s phone.

Not because it was hard.

His password was still the same.

Gojo never had one.

You found messages you were never meant to see.

Shoko: 15 days until abortion is off the table.

Gojo: She won’t agree.

You: Then we don’t ask.

You stared at the screen for a long time.

So they all lied.

Not just Gojo. Not just Nanami. All of them. Shoko even pretended to be in your corner.

There it was.

It wasn’t just about control. It wasn’t even about love.

It was the assumption that because you didn’t throw cursed techniques like tantrums, you couldn’t possibly comprehend risk. That your life—your mind—was collateral. Disposable in the face of their warped logic and misplaced savior complexes.

Like talking to you was useless. Like reasoning with you was redundant.

Like you were some beautiful, ignorant thing to be protected and deceived in equal measure.

Like you were some animal incapable of critical reasoning when your own life was in danger.

So they could fuck each other guilt-free.

So they could play noble martyrs in the privacy of the wounds they gave you.

And still, that wasn’t enough. Because anger—real anger—needs witnesses.

You opened a signal sniffer, rerouted through two proxies, and tapped into your neighbour’s WiFi. Not because you couldn’t afford better surveillance, but because her router overlapped with the garden of Megumi’s penthouse.

You shouldn’t have looked.

You: She wouldn’t have agreed.

Haibara: Then don’t give her the choice.

You: She’s not a sorcerer. She doesn’t understand what these kids could be. My mom almost died trying to give birth to me, and I wasn’t even half as cursed.

Haibara: Yeah, she’s blind to what they’ll do to her.

You: I’m not going to let her die over a fucking ideal.

Haibara: That wack doctor says she’s fine, so stop obsessively worrying.

Your vision blurred—but not from tears. From calculation.

The rage came quietly. It didn’t scream or collapse. It focused.

You unclasped the ring from your finger. Gojo’s design, Nanami’s metal of choice. A perfect storm of sentiment you no longer had room for.

You handed it to one of the PR assistants travelling with you—someone young, hopeful, still romantic about the world.

"Get rid of it," you said. "Melt it. Turn it into something you like. Give it to your girlfriend. Or your mother. Or leave it on the street. I don’t care. Just make sure I never see it again."

She didn’t ask questions.

And you didn’t explain.

Because you knew your husbands were capable of cruelty. You’d lived long enough in the shadow of it. But what you hadn’t expected—

What truly broke something you couldn’t name—

Was Megumi.

Megumi, whom you’d grown up with. Who unknowingly saved you. Who you’d trusted with more than your safety. Who you’d let in on the soft, unfinished parts of your life.

He hadn’t just betrayed you.

He’d calculated your erasure like a business decision.

And somehow, that hurt more than anything Gojo or Nanami had ever done.

---

That was yesterday morning.

Now it was twilight in Tokyo.

They probably thought you’d thrown yourself into the sea.

But instead, here you were, crying into a bucket of fried chicken.

And you were borderline dehydrated, emotionally overloaded, stuck in a fucking KFC parking lot on the outskirts of the city, trying not to break down into raw animal sobs as you cried into your Zinger.

Your hypercar—a pearlescent black Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut—was parked sideways across two spots, hazard lights blinking like a distress beacon. The carbon-fiber passenger door still hung open. Your mascara was not waterproof.

The sandwich was getting soggy in your hand, fries had gone cold, and the second tub of soft serve was pooling slowly into your leather seat. Your coat smelled like fried oil, and you didn’t care. Not after the two days you’d had.

You missed Takahashi. You hadn’t meant to leave the house without him. But you had to run. And your mother's flight had been delayed without warning, your pelvic pain had spiked again, and your body had decided—in the grand tradition of pregnancy craving betrayal—that you absolutely needed karaage from KFC right now or you’d lose your mind.

You shoved another fry in your mouth. Your sunglasses slipped to the tip of your nose, and you wiped your nose on your sleeve. Your phone buzzed again in your coat pocket—ignored. The car’s touchscreen blinked up missed calls: Nanami. Gojo. Fushiguro. Haibara. CHRO. Keji. Shoko. Even Higuruma and Kashimo.

But your fingers only twitched when you reached into the Karaage Kun box and found it empty.

You blinked at it. Then stared at it again like it might refill itself if you focused hard enough.

It didn’t.

You muttered something vile under your breath, threw it into the bag, and reversed sharply out of the space, startling a group of high school boys who had been trying to take selfies with your car.

You pulled up to the drive-thru window again.

The teenage employee there—a scrawny, gentle-eyed boy with two acne patches on his chin—took one look at your blotchy face, your designer maternity wear, and the angry tears still clinging to your lashes like guilt, and leaned in awkwardly.

“Would you, uh… like to eat inside? In the back? It’s private. No one will see.”

Your eyes narrowed. Not because he was wrong. But because it was too damn late.

Fushiguro probably already had Tokyo’s entire surveillance grid running facial recognition on CCTV footage. You had thirty minutes, max, before someone pinged your license plate and alerted the staff that you were a missing trillionaire heiress with a God Complex Husbands Alert Level 5.

You opened your mouth to politely decline—and that’s when it happened.

A sharp, gravel-thick voice from behind your Jesko snarled loud enough to startle pigeons off the KFC’s roof.

“What’s taking so fucking long?”

You froze.

This. This was your final straw.

Not the delayed flight. Not the ghost of Geto Suguru. Not the stress migraine. Not even the go-bag full of burner phones in your trunk.

No. It was this man, some impatient Tokyo businessman with too much money and too little self-awareness, honking at a crying pregnant woman ordering a ¥700 chicken snack set.

The teenage cashier turned pale and scrambled to shush him, mumbling something apologetic and helpless in corporate lingo.

But you were already getting out of the car.

Your heels—flat, orthopaedic, pregnancy-safe—hit the pavement with a purposeful thunk. Your bump was covered in a loose belted trench, collar flipped up, eyes bloodshot, mouth red from crying, ketchup and eating your own lipstick with the fried chicken.

You strode across the parking lot like your water might break from rage alone.

The man was in a Porsche 918 Spyder.

Rich, then. But not you – rich.

You knocked on his tinted window hard enough to make the glass vibrate.

The man inside—long dark hair, too many rings, cigarette hanging from his lip like an accessory—rolled it down and looked at you.

Your heart stalled. Had Geto found you?

Then he turned fully—and no, you didn’t know him.

“Hey,” he started. “I’m sorry for—”

He trailed off. His eyes didn’t leave your face. But his hand went back, casually, like muscle memory. He grabbed something—or someone—in the back seat and yanked.

A pink-haired burly man, Fushiguro’s age, popped into view. Eyes wide. Face pale.

“Holy shit,” he muttered, staring at you.

You didn’t care. You were done being polite.

“Do none of you have the decency to wait your fucking turn? You’re not the only ones starving!”

The pink-haired one gawked. The long-haired one blinked, snuffed his cigarette.

And then—

The rear door of the Porsche opened with a heavy, expensive click.

A man stepped out.

No—a wall of a man. Towering. Black spiky hair. Tattoos across his neck, his hands, the visible sliver of skin beneath his bespoke coat. His suit looked Brunello Cucinelli. His gait was slow. Controlled.

Somehow, he was taller than Gojo.

Which should’ve been illegal.

You took a step back. Your hip twinged.

He looked at you the way sorcerers looked at curses: like you were made of secrets and danger.

His voice was almost gentle when he spoke in English to you.

“Hey, hey. It’s okay. I’m sorry for yelling. I was just… stunned. We were supposed to meet yesterday in New York, but you never came. Do you remember me, princess?”

You stared at him.

Confused.

Nauseated.

Because you did not remember him. Not the face. Not the voice. And especially not the “princess.”

Your hand—coated in fries and fatigue—slowly curled into a fist at your side, “Don’t call me that. Who the fuck are you?”

---

He’d seen a lot in his many lives.

Flesh peeled from bone in war. Gods weep beneath shrines. Kingdoms rise on the shoulders of men who lied.

But nothing—nothing—had prepared him for this: A woman powerful enough to end markets with a swipe of her hand, pregnant and a little crazy, yelling at a man twice her size at a Tokyo KFC lot like he’d committed a crime.

And to him? He had.

Because she didn’t remember him.

Not the face.

Not the voice.

Not the name he’d written for her the first time they’d met in Norway—softly, like it would break something if said out loud.

She stared at him now like he was a stranger. And it knocked the breath from his lungs harder than any curse ever had.

The same eyes. The same sharpness in her jaw when she was pissed, the same raw edge to her voice.

He opened his mouth. Could’ve told her. Could’ve said everything.

But the car behind him honked. Loud. Disrespectful.

And she turned.

Didn’t even wait.

Walked back to her car like he was just another suit in the noise.

Slammed the door. Didn’t look back.

He stood in the fading orange-pink glow of Tokyo twilight, heart slightly colder.

“Broooo,” came Yuji’s voice from the passenger seat. “You got rejected by a pregnant woman, in public. That’s generational humiliation, man.”

“She didn’t reject me,” He muttered, eyes still on her.

“She forgot you existed,” Junpei added helpfully from the back, licking spicy powder off his fingertips. “You’re a ghost. A failed Tinder date. A plotline that didn’t make the final cut.”

“Don’t you think she’s kinda scary, though?” Choso chimed in quietly, looking almost reverent. “She gives off strong mom-you-don’t-wanna-piss-off energy.”

“She is a mom,” Yuji pointed out.

“To twins,” He corrected, voice too soft.

They all looked at him.

“What?” He snapped.

“Nothing,” Choso said, already climbing out of the car, like that was answer enough as he walked to the car that had honked.

So of course, he didn’t think. Just walked.

Over to her Jesko, one hand raised, careful to keep his body language non-threatening. He knocked. Once. Lightly.

She looked up. Eyes bloodshot. Hands gripping the tub of chicken like a war trophy.

He held up the takeaway bag like a peace offering. Didn’t say anything.

She didn’t roll the window down. Just glared at him like she might reverse into him and not lose sleep.

Behind him, Yuji, Choso, and Junpei leaned out of the Porsche like hyenas watching a National Geographic special. “Go on then, Romeo,” Yuji stage-whispered.

The giant man ignored him. Nudged the bag closer. Still no window roll.

She shifted slightly—hand brushing toward the ignition.

But then… her stomach growled. Loud.

An indecent, almost comic little groan from deep within.

She froze. Looked horrified.

He bit back a smirk.

She sighed, finally rolling the window down with the resignation of a god forced to make peace with a lesser deity.

“Who the fuck are you?” Her voice was sandpaper and citrus. He almost missed it. The familiarity.

“Calm down, woman. I don’t hurt defenceless pregnant women.”

“Who. The fuck. Are you?” She snapped again, unbothered by his size, his tone, or the heat radiating off him like a threat.

He admired that. Always had.

“Ryomen Sukuna,” he said, slow, voice low. “From Itadori Industries, we specialise in market manipulation. I was trying to invest in your company. We met in Norway.”

She blinked. Sniffling. Mistrust etched deep in the slope of her shoulders.

“Show me your passport.”

He didn’t argue.

Instead, he turned and yelled, “Choso. You got the passports?”

Choso, saint that he was, was already halfway out of the car, rummaged around in his coat and brought it over.

As he handed it over, he leaned close and whispered, like it was sacred, “He wore this suit just because he was excited to meet you.”

Sukuna shot him a glare that could've flattened cities. Choso walked back, unbothered.

He flipped to the front page of the passport with one hand, takeaway bag still in the other.

Held it out.

She scanned it on her phone with the tired efficiency of someone who’d been betrayed before.

It pinged. Verified. Real.

She gave it back.

“I came to the meeting,” she murmured. “Some guy named Suguru showed up instead of you.”

Sukuna’s face darkened.

Who the fuck was Suguru?

Before he could say more, she sniffled.

“Princess,” he started, softer now. “Do you want to have this conversation while I stand outside your car with a takeaway bag like a solicitor?”

She wailed, openly now. “Nooo. Give me the food.”

And she got out of the car.

Didn’t stray from the door, but her body relaxed the slightest bit. Maybe from the scent. Maybe from the warmth of fried food. Maybe from the fact that Sukuna didn’t flinch when she got close enough to punch him.

He leaned against her car’s hood, offering the bag.

She rummaged through it like a raccoon with opposable thumbs.

Found too much food—because of course, he’d ordered one of everything Japan-exclusive. KFC bento. Teriyaki Twister. Pepper Mayo Twister. Chicken Katsu Sando. Matcha Tiramisu. Peach Mango Pie. Sakura Milk Tea.

She blinked. Whispered, almost suspiciously, “Did you poison it?”

He raised a brow.

Sukuna had been trying to meet with her for months. Months. And yet here she was, passing him the milk tea like it was some kind of test, like he wasn’t exactly who he said he was.

His hand almost brushed hers as he took the cup, and for a moment, he wondered if she’d noticed the slight tremble in his fingers.

He doubted it. She was too busy with the storm that raged behind her eyes to care about something as trivial as that.

He took it. Sipped. “Sweet,” he said, licking the sugar off his lip like it might make her remember.

She didn’t respond, her eyes still sharp like she could see every secret he kept buried behind his smirk.

“You look like you’re going through something,” he said, stealing a fry with the air of someone who didn’t have the blood of entire lineages on his hands. (He did. But not today.)

Her gaze barely moved, and her voice came out in a low, bitter monotone. “I hate my husbands.”

He smirked wider, his amusement sharp as glass. “I’ve seen the news.”

Yuji snorted from their car, and Sukuna glared at him.

She narrowed her eyes. “You look like a criminal.”

“'Cause I am,” he said, but shrugged. “Nah, just a sorcerer. Was."

“Get away from me,” Her mouth twisted as she began to pull away, pushing herself back into the uncomfortable space of her own thoughts. “God, they say sorcerers are rare but I keep encountering them like flies. Like cursed venereal diseases. It’s disgusting.”

Sukuna jumped to his feet without thinking, like it was second nature to console her, even if the reason felt foreign—some instinct buried deep in his chest, one he couldn't quite shake. He didn't need to comfort her. Hell, he probably shouldn't have. But for a moment, he wasn’t the monster he had been in another life; he was just a man, holding out a hand when it was needed. “No,” he said softly, his voice almost gentle. “I used to be one, but I’m not anymore. Don’t care about it, either. My brothers over there, and Yuji’s friend? They’re sorcerers too, but none of us participate in that die-a-thankless-death game.”

Junpei made a gagging sound behind the car. Choso threw a napkin at him.

“That’s what he said too,” she mumbled, shoving a mango pie into her mouth with the viciousness of someone who wanted to eat and disappear.

“Who?”

“The guy who showed up instead of you and … And there was this stitched-up guy and that fucking Naoya, and I thought I was going to die, and my husband lied to me about Suguru and his beautiful hair; he never told me about him.” She continued wailing.

Sukuna was confused between her sniffling, eating and crying combo. “Wait, slow down; start with the smallest one. Who’s the stitched guy? What did he look like?”

“His name was Mahito; he had stitches on his face and pale blue hair and looked at me like he was gonna open my stomach and take my babies like a claw machine prize.” She continued sniffing and also somehow sipping her tea.

Sukuna’s fists clenched.

He turned to Choso and yelled out, “Find where Mahito is. Now.”

Choso already had his phone out, mouth a thin line.

Sukuna turned back to her, voice low. “What about the other one? Naoya?”

“He looked at me like he wanted to assault me. I wanted to blind him with a tea spoon.” She said it so flatly, like violence was just a normal Tuesday.

“Naobito’s kid?” Sukuna asked. She nodded, still chewing. He gave a nod to Yuji, who was already on a call, voice sharp.

And then:

“Who’s Suguru?”

She went quiet.

Then, with all the ceremony of a royal confession, she slid him her half-eaten burger.

He accepted it like it was holy.

Then ate in silence with her for a while.

She began again, “He told me his name was Geto Suguru. That he and my husband were soulmates. And that I was their enemy. How the fuck am I someone’s enemy when I didn’t even know he existed?”

“Wait—Geto?” Sukuna stopped mid-chew.

She nodded, slow. “Yeah. Long black hair. Pretty, in that ‘will definitely commit a felony against humanity’ kind of way.”

Sukuna felt something shift in him.

“He’s supposed to be dead. There was a war a few months ago in Kyoto. Your husband killed him.”

Her eyes widened, horror blooming.

“Did I see a ghost? A curse?”

“Not possible. He was a curse user, yeah, but no one survives your husband.” Then he smirked. “Unless it’s me. I’m very strong, princess.”

She rolled her eyes and buried herself in the chicken like it could shelter her from the fact that apparently nothing in her life was real. “Less peacocking. More finding who’s impersonating you.”

“I’ll find out,” Sukuna said. His voice was flat, but his chest thrummed like a curse trying to break its seal. “And I mean that.”

Of course he did. She just nodded absently, like it was a customer service promise she’d heard before. There was Sprite condensation running down her fingers. Her lips were slightly swollen from all the salt. She looked exhausted. And holy.

That part hadn’t changed. Not in a thousand lives.

But then she said, “I have two husbands. And they’re both absolute clowns.”

Sukuna didn’t laugh.

(Okay—he let out a very soft, involuntary snort. Behind him, Junpei was wheezing into his Armani jacket, Yuji muttering “bro’s down bad”, and Choso took a photo of the moment like he was documenting a rare animal sighting.)

She kept going. “I wake up every morning to a new scandal,” she said, gesturing vaguely with a limp fry. “They bicker like old women in a laundromat. One of them tried to cheat on the 3AM Test with a voice actor, and the other failed so hard the internet started a NanaMoobs hashtag.”

Sukuna raised an eyebrow, more amused than he’d let show. “And yet, you are still married to them.”

“Bad decision-making, obviously.” So she was still in love with them.

He hummed, reaching for one of her fries again. Her wrist didn’t flinch this time. Small victories. “What did they do this time?”

She sighed, the kind that aged you five years in one breath. “Oh, nothing major. Just tried to abort my babies without telling me.”

Sukuna’s drink went down the wrong way. He coughed, violently, his eyes watering as Junpei whispered, “Bro…” with the reverence of someone witnessing an execution.

“…Excuse me?” Sukuna rasped.

She took a slow sip of her Sprite, eyes dead. “Yeah. Something about ‘if it was her or the baby, we’d choose her’ blah blah blah.’ I don’t know. I stopped reading after.”

For once in centuries, Sukuna had no words.

And that, in his world, was a fucking problem.

Because he’d once bathed in the blood of tyrants. He’d reduced kingdoms to ashes and made death feel like a mercy. His name had been enough to unmake faith.

But he had never, not once, been asked to comfort a furious, hormonal, fast-food-devouring, betrayed woman who used to be his entire world and now didn’t even recognize him.

And who was still, somehow, unspeakably radiant through it all.

This—this was worse than war.

So he said the only thing that came close to honesty. “You love them, right?”

She glared. Not just at him—through him. “What does that have to do with it?”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said. “So hypothetically, if they were pregnant and historically too stubborn to save themselves, would you let them die?”

She blinked. The words caught her off guard. Her fry stilled halfway to her mouth.

“That’s an oddly sentimental thing to say,” she said.

He smirked. A slow thing, calculated, but tired around the edges. “I’m a businessman. Can’t let my biggest asset disappear, can I?”

She rolled her eyes, but the edge had dulled. “Uh-huh. Whatever you say, Mr. ‘Not a Criminal.’”

But she wasn’t crying anymore.

And Sukuna decided that—pathetically, pathetically—that was his greatest win in years.

She turned to him again, half her chicken gone. “But like—hiding an ex that fucking relevant is still bad, right? Like ‘my one and only’ and shit.”

The words twisted something deep in his ribcage. Deeper than his heart. The one that still beat only for her, even after all this time, all his deaths.

Sukuna hummed. Not dismissive, just thoughtful. “I guess. But then I have an ex—though I never called her that—who nearly set my entire life on fire. Yandere, textbook. I don’t talk about her. Not because I’m hiding her, but because she… made living unbearable. Some people are like that. Maybe your husband didn’t tell you because it hurt too much, and the other one didn’t because it wasn’t his secret to tell.”

He looked at her then. Really looked.

There was mango sauce on her lip. Chicken grease on her coat. Her hand trembled just slightly, probably from the sugar crash. And still—still—she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

But she didn’t remember.

Not the wedding. Not the way she’d laughed into his neck. Not the way she’d once laughed when he brought her those blobfish plushies for the babies.

She didn’t smile that tired smile while saying his name now.

There was no hate in her voice. No love either.

Just air.

She kept eating. Sipping her Sprite. Talking about two men who didn’t know what they had until they almost threw it away. Two men she still loved.

Behind him, Yuji laughed under his breath, “he’s got it bad.”

Choso handed him a tissue for the Sprite spill that hadn’t happened. Junpei was still smirking.

And Sukuna—he just sat there, breathing through a heartbreak that didn’t even have a name in this timeline.

---

Small A/N: Before/After reading the next bit, to draw the parallel, read this - [Tumblr/Ao3]

---

On the other side of Tokyo, the Fushiguros had gathered.

“Mom.” Megumi offered a hand when she climbed out of the jet.

She didn’t take it, just kept walking with her guards.

“I didn’t know. Then that doctor said she was fine, so there was no need to tell her in case the stress got to her.” He snapped.

She turned to him, “Your father would be disappointed in you.”

Megumi didn’t speak after that.

---

Across town, Nanami and Gojo were in hell. Again.

Nanami looked like a man trying to mathematically quantify grief. A golden ratio blade flickered and died in his palm every few seconds,  uncontrolled—his body stuck in a loop, like it was trying to fight something that wasn’t there anymore.

Gojo’s Six Eyes still burned. Pupils dilated too sharp, skin gray-blue, the corners of his mouth twitching from the static in his brain.

Neither had slept in twenty-eight hours.

They had tried every scenario.

None of them ended with a pin drop at a KFC.

Incoming Message: Location

They stared at the screen.

Gojo broke the silence, cautious—hopeful like a man hoping the corpse in the morgue might still breathe.

“She’s—?”

“KFC,” Nanami said. Flat. Not deadpan—dead.

Gojo squinted. “You think the universe hates me personally?”

Nanami didn’t answer. Just turned the key and revved the car like he meant to drive it through Heaven’s gates and make someone answer for it.

---

By the time they arrived, the sun was bleeding into the horizon.

She was outside. Sitting on the hood of her car like the world hadn’t just ended two days ago. Barefoot. Anklets catching light. One hand held a melting Sprite float, the other a neatly folded napkin like she’d just wiped off a joke.

She was laughing.

Not alone.

Two—no, four others lingered around her. All vaguely wrong. One looked like Haibara on benzos, another like a Megumi with worse judgment and better hair. A third had cult survivor written all over him, and the last—

The last looked like he’d walked out of an ancient curse and decided to become a CEO.

Nanami’s breath stalled. Rage bloomed slow and clinical—an aneurysm waiting for a reason.

Gojo’s voice was already splintering. “Who the fuck—”

Nanami’s cursed energy cracked across his wrist like stained gold glass—subtle but loud if you knew him.

She saw them.

Across the street, with her mouth still full of fries, she called out, “Oh hey, look who finally decided to show up. I was gonna save you some, but figured you’d make me eat a granola bar and cry about my blood sugar.”

Gojo stopped in his tracks.

Nanami blinked.

She grinned like she hadn’t haunted them for past 29 hours. Like she wasn’t the reason Gojo started drinking his coffee black again.

“Come here,” she called, louder. “You two look like you haven’t peed in hours.”

Gojo, under his breath, muttered, “Because we haven’t.”

Beside her, reading their lips, Choso grimaced. “Jesus.”

Sukuna chuckled low in his chest, his attention never leaving her. “You really made them come to a KFC?”

She laughed harder, grabbing her side. “You don’t get to judge. You literally told me you’ve been burning cash just for a ‘chance meeting.’”

“Your business is lucrative,” Sukuna said.

“You’re covered in money.”

He glanced at his bespoke three-piece. “It’s decorative.”

“Okay, American Psycho.”

Sukuna smiled. His hand twitched once—almost like he was going to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, but didn’t.

Same as Nanami, Gojo was already halfway across the street. “Who are these people?”

“They’re my friends,” she said sweetly, swinging her legs off the car. “Don’t be jealous, Satoru.”

“I am jealous,” he muttered, eyes glued to her.

Nanami’s voice cracked, sharp and brittle: “What did you tell them?”

She stood. Twirled her straw once. Shrugged. “That my idiot husbands forgot I was dangerous. Corrupted my friends. Lied to me. So I made new friends. Ones who don’t gaslight and lie to me.”

Nanami took a single step forward.

She pointed a fry like a weapon. “Don’t. If you breathe without apologizing, I will stab this into your brain through your nose.”

Gojo wheezed. Somewhere between a sob and a snort.

She rolled her eyes. “You’re lucky I was already craving wings. Otherwise, I’d be halfway to Bhutan.”

She stepped off the curb.

Licked sauce off her thumb. Like she hadn’t been running for her life a day ago. Like she’d never had a panic attack in a jet with the lights off. Like the world didn’t owe her blood for making her survive it.

Her gait was relaxed. Chin high.

And then—

CRACK!!!

No echo. No cinematic recoil.

Just nerve, bone, and fate snapping in sync.

It was intimate. Like an exhale through a silencer. Like a trapdoor closing.

Her hand jerked. The Styrofoam cup slipped from her grip mid-sip, spiraling sideways—Sprite and melting ice cream spraying in a soft arc. Her other hand, still holding the napkin, trembled like it knew something her mind hadn’t yet registered.

Then—

Red.

A bloom at the base of her skull. Not metaphorical. Not poetic. Surgical. The kind of red that silences conversations mid-sentence. That never washes out.

Her shoulder twisted, tendons snapping like overstretched cables. A clean fracture. Deliberate.

And then she dropped.

Mid-step. No scream. No gasp. No hands thrown up in defense.

Just a body folding in on itself. Puppet. Cut strings. Floor.

Her knees hit first. Then her hips. Her skull would’ve cracked open if—

“NO—!”

Gojo’s voice split the air.

His body slammed the pavement just in time, arms sliding under her skull before it struck asphalt. His knees hit hard. He didn’t notice.

She was convulsing. Fingers twitching. Legs spasming like her nerves were glitching through static.

Her eyes fluttered open—barely. One blown wide. The other slow to respond. Her mouth moved, soundless, forming shapes she couldn’t say.

The back of her head was caved in. Blood bubbling at the base, wet and hot against Gojo’s thighs.

“Hey—hey. Look at me. Look at me—fuck, baby, just stay. Please stay—”

His voice was wreckage. No power, only panic. Shaky hands curled around her cheeks like he was afraid he’d break her worse.

She blinked. Just once. Then her pupils rolled up.

And still, he held her. Cradled her like a lifeline. A wrecked thing trying to hold together something softer than himself.

Her breath came out uneven. Like a machine trying to reboot.

Gojo didn’t feel the pain in his legs. Didn’t feel her blood soaking his clothes. All he saw was her face—lagging, like her brain was buffering behind real time.

For one breathless second—

Even Sukuna forgot who he was.

He blinked. Twice. His head tilted. Like something ancient had stirred from beneath his ribs.

Her face. Her blood.

The stillness.

He didn’t move. His hands twitched once at his sides. His throat clicked dry.

It was like watching a ghost die again.

“…No,” he breathed. “No—no, no—fuck.”

A memory surged:

He’d seen her bleed before. In another life.

Him, cradling her. Her gaze empty. The room sterile and humming with cold fluorescents. That awful antiseptic smell. The nurses whispering about miscarriage like it was a math error. All because the trauma to the womb was too violent.

A month later, Gojo. And Nanami. Suicides. News headlines.

She hadn’t remembered him in this life. Hadn’t even looked twice.

But Sukuna remembered everything.

The way her breath had sounded when she laughed in that life. The shape of the twins she lost before he could name them. The soft sigh she let out as she fell asleep in his arms. The nightmares—always the same men, the guilt too heavy to swallow. The way her eyes had looked when he told her she deserved to live, to be happy anyway—even after everything. The way they had looked when she told him she loved him. The way her lips had moved when she tiredly said his name for the first time.

That "Ryo" still ran through his bloodstream like a curse—he’d remember even if he forgot his own name.

The way she had asked him for help, like he wasn’t cursed.

He hadn’t begged for reincarnation.

He’d ripped it from the jaws of nonexistence—not to be a god, not to be reborn.

To see her again.

And now—

“No—” Sukuna’s voice came low. Not pleading. Not broken. Controlled.

Like a warrior watching the aftermath of an explosion he couldn’t stop. A man built to destroy, watching the one thing he didn’t want broken shatter anyway.

His hands curled into fists. Slowly. Silently.

Across from him, Gojo was still holding her. Still whispering like prayer was a reflex he’d never believed in until now.

“Stay with me. Just stay with me. Please, stay—don’t fucking do this to me—don’t—”

Choso turned pale, like the horror had wind behind it. “Who do we call?” he asked. “Hospital—police—do we—what the fuck do we do? We need a doctor—who’s treating her—”

No one answered.

Gojo didn’t even hear him. His voice kept going. Quiet. Shredded. “Stay. Stay. Please, stay. Just… just stay with me.”

Choso ripped Gojo’s phone out of his coat pocket, fingers slipping. His hand shook as he dialed.

Somewhere behind them, Yuji and Junpei were already moving—eyes dark, steps soundless, splitting off like wolves catching a scent. Trained. Tracking. Gone.

Nanami hadn’t moved.

Not yet. Not immediately.

Like his brain had glitched mid-frame. Like the universe had misfired—like the seconds between the gunshot and the collapse were just another nightmare in the endless reel of them.

He stood there.

Still.

Watching her bleed.

A man built on logic. Precision. Ratios and rules. Cause and effect.

But this?

This was mathematics without an equation. Balance without meaning.

Another cosmic joke played on a man foolish enough to believe he could keep something sacred in a world like this.

Then he saw it.

The red halo at the base of her skull. The unnatural kink in her spine. The shoulder pulled out of socket like a bird with a snapped wing. And the exit wound—clinical, too clean. Efficient.

Something in him shifted.

Not broke. Shifted.

Like a knife turning in its sheath.

He straightened.

He moved like something had been switched off.

Like the weight of a man whose grief wasn’t a feeling—it was a law.

Rage in Nanami was never hot. Never loud. It was the collapse of structure. The moment when the scaffolding gives and all that’s left is gravity.

He didn’t speak. He just walked.

His technique activated without gesture. No ritual. No threat.

The ground cracked beneath him. Golden ratios burned through the pavement like divine geometry. Reality bent into fragments, everything around him rearranged into lines of perfect consequence.

He was already measuring the moment—the bullet’s entry, the blast radius, the arc of collapse. Calculating, silently, the seconds she had left before brain death.

“What did you do?” Nanami asked. His voice didn’t raise. It was the sound of a hypothesis being disproven. A balance sheet that refused to align. A verdict already passed.

Behind him, golden blades began to hum violently—too precise to be called weapons. They weren’t made for war. They were made for correction.

Weak points blinked into the air like constellations on a surgical map.

He moved toward Sukuna.

And Sukuna didn’t retreat.

His hands twitched—not from fear, but restraint. Part of him wanted to summon every cursed tool he’d buried across the globe. His mind cycled through the names of every mercenary he had killed in secret to keep her safe. The spells he’d never used—not even when dying.

And the rage—the sheer, blistering fury—that he had let his guard down for one hour just so she could feel normal.

And this was what happened.

“You shouldn’t have looked at her.” Nanami’s voice landed like cold steel. “You shouldn’t have breathed the same air.”

Around Sukuna, the air sliced itself into pieces. Invisible blades hovering in calculus patterns—dozens of trajectories, all of them fatal. Reality split like a frog in a biology lab.

Sukuna didn’t flinch. Didn’t lift a finger.

“It wasn’t me.”

Gojo looked up, blood in his mouth, his eyes, his thoughts. Staining. Hers. “He’s lying—she was smiling,” he looked back at her. “She was smiling—”

“I didn’t,” Sukuna said again. Quieter. Still watching her. “I couldn’t. Why the fuck would I—?”

Nanami’s voice came like frost on a blade.

“I will burn down the laws of this world if it means ripping you apart.”

Sukuna straightened. Deliberate. Like a tree refusing to bow in a storm.

“You want to fight me now?”

Nanami didn’t answer.

His Domain cracked open behind him—reality cracking, rewinding, clockwork splitting open like a broken timepiece. Golden lines spun outward in spirals, mapping every single version of this moment.

Every version where she survived.

Every one that didn't.

This wasn’t rage.

It was annihilation.

Sukuna’s own Domain shuddered into existence—scarlet, grotesque, brute, heavy, like an axe swung through a cathedral.

The shadows warped around his frame. The air vibrated with it. The ground buckled.

“I didn’t fucking touch her.”

Even he—he—hesitated when he saw Nanami’s face.

Because there was no wrath there.

No vengeance.

Just the flat certainty of a man with nothing left to protect and nothing left to fear.

Sukuna’s rage curled inside him like a parasite chewing through meat. But he couldn’t exorcise it. Couldn’t spit it out.

Rage was all he had.

And rage felt like prayer.

“Do it, then,” he growled.

His voice cracked once—just enough to show the rot underneath.

“Fucking do it.”

Gojo didn’t move. He just held her.

His mouth against her temple. His hands cradling what they could not save.

“I didn’t say sorry,” he whispered. Not to anyone. Not to her.

Just to himself. Just to the air. Like he was giving the words permission to leave him now.

“I didn’t even get to say sorry…”

His fingers were red and shaking.

Her coat stuck to her ribs, soaked through.

Sukuna had trained himself not to feel. Feeling made you fail. Love made you late. Attachment got people killed.

But then she’d said his name.

In this life.

In that soft, exhausted voice. With eyes like she’d already forgiven him for whatever he hadn’t even done yet.

He wasn’t a god anymore. He knew it the moment she touched his wrist and didn’t recoil.

He was just a man.

A man who remembered what her laughter sounded like. What it felt like to be seen.

A man who was about to end a continent for her.

But she wasn’t blinking anymore.

And then—

A twitch.

Small. Shallow. The kind of movement most people would’ve missed.

But Sukuna wasn’t most people.

Her eyelids fluttered. Once.

Only he saw.

His jaw locked. A breath hitched in his chest—sharp and quiet.

He didn’t scream. Didn’t shout it aloud. Just—

“I didn’t do it,” he said again. The words were sharp now. Precise. Not a defence but a promise. “But I’ll help find who did.”

Behind him, Nanami’s golden blades froze mid-rotation. Suspended like judgement delayed.

The air stopped humming.

“Why?” he asked. Flat. Unbelieving.

Sukuna’s eyes never left her. “Because in another life, I watched a woman like that bleed out protecting idiots like you. And I don’t even know her.”

Nanami didn’t lower his hand. “I don’t care if you knew her in a fucking dream.”

Choso stepped between them—hand up, body rigid, his own technique thrumming in a futile attempt to shield his brother. But even he knew he was useless here. He was trying to hold back two tectonic plates with nothing but his spine.

Sukuna opened his palms. Empty. Still.

“I don’t want to fight you.”

“I don’t want to think,” Nanami replied like a man who didn’t want to hear his own thoughts anymore.

Gojo’s shoulders shook like a child’s.

Not from panic. From something worse—recognition. That this was real. That this might be the last time he held her with warmth still in her skin.

He whispered again.

Not to her. Not to them.

Just to the shape of her still in his arms.

“I didn’t even get to say sorry.”

His voice caught in his throat. A hiccup. A prayer’s corpse. Like he was whispering it to the version of her who’d already left.

Choso’s voice broke through in the background, rising in panic as he screamed into the phone. “She’s bleeding from the brainstem—there’s spinal trauma—we need an ambulance NOW—”

Gojo folded over her, head bowed, as if shielding her from the sound. “Baby, no,” he begged. “You’re strong. Stronger than both of us. So stay. Just a little longer. Just—stay. Please. Protect me. One last time…”

Something in his voice—not words, but the way he said them—stopped Nanami cold.

The blades vanished. His Domain closed.

And the silence returned—not peace. Not grief. Just that awful stillness that comes before a scream.

Gojo leaned lower.

His lips brushed her stomach.

“The twins…” he whispered, breath hitching.

His voice broke.

“I didn’t even get to say sorry.”

Sukuna moved again.

Slow. Controlled. Cautious, like approaching a dying god.

Red stained his collar. His shirt. His wrists. Her blood had dried at the corner of his mouth, but it still glinted in the light.

Yuji and Junpei were already gone—disappearing into alley shadows like bloodhounds with no leash. Their cursed energy sang behind them in violent harmony.

And the street was painted red.

Gojo rocked her body slightly. Whispering into her hair now. The words meant nothing. They were only shape and sound. “Don’t go,” he kept saying. “Don’t go. Don’t go. Don’t go—”

Except—

Her hand.

A twitch.

Not a movement. Not a miracle.

Just a final neuron firing.

---

📱Twitter/X

@CHRO, Gaming Studios | May 2, 2025

Today, the unimaginable happened.

Our CEO, founder, and my friend of seven years was the victim of a targeted shooting outside a private engagement. We are currently working with authorities. Out of respect for her family and those of us who love her, we ask for space and privacy.

She built a dream from nothing. She made this world more than it was.

Please keep her in your thoughts.

🗞️Official Press Statement

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Gaming Studios | May 2, 2025

Our studios are devastated to confirm that earlier today, our Chief Executive Officer and founder was involved in a violent incident outside a private location. The matter is currently under investigation, and we are fully cooperating with law enforcement.

A visionary behind one of the most influential gaming empires of the decade—a friend, a to-be mother, a wife, a daughter, a relentless force who refused to build anything less than a revolution.

We ask for patience, respect, and privacy for her loved ones and the gaming family during this profoundly difficult moment.

Further updates will be provided when appropriate.

---

After the hit

Haibara didn’t blink when the sniper’s echo died. He just exhaled softly, like he’d been holding in a cough. Then, with a gentleness that made Naoya shift uncomfortably, he patted Maki’s shoulder—twice. Like a priest giving last rites to someone still breathing.

He turned. Winked at Naoya like they were sharing a private joke.

“Let her go.”

Naoya scoffed but obeyed. His fingers slipped from Mai’s arm, slow with disdain.

Haibara’s voice lowered, flat and unimpressed. “It’s just a bullet. You’ve choked your own blood out for less, haven’t you?”

Maki didn’t flinch. Not when Mai stumbled into her arms. Not even when Mai clutched at her ribs and rasped her name. Maki’s gaze stayed fixed on Haibara. Unshaken. Surgical.

“You picked the wrong sister to threaten.”

Haibara smiled without teeth. “See, that’s the part I liked. Do you know why?”

No shout. No gloat. No warning. No waiting for an answer. “Because you shouldn’t have said that.”

He raised the gun and pulled the trigger.

Click.

One shot. Centered. Clean. Right between Mai’s eyes.

The sound was small. Not dramatic. Not final. Just... clinical.

Mai’s spine locked—then folded. Her weight slumped into Maki’s arms like a structure losing tension.

Maki didn’t scream.

She laid Mai down like she was putting her to sleep. One hand on her shoulder, the other cushioning her fall. Quiet. Focused.

Haibara didn’t wait for grief. He turned, flicked a hand in the direction of the body.

“Naoya. Get her out of my sight. My shoes are limited edition.”

Naoya grunted and kicked Mai’s corpse to the side like loose garbage. The body thudded against gravel, limbs folding awkwardly.

Still, Maki didn’t move. Her hands were slick. Her face unreadable.

“Megumi will kill you for this.”

Haibara grinned. All enamel. “Good. I’m counting on it.”

He paced a tight, deliberate circle around her. The gun swung in lazy loops from his fingers like a child’s toy.

“I’m not doing this for sport,” he said. “Or politics. Or whatever messy little revenge fantasy you’ve spun in your head.”

He stopped beside her. Then shifted slightly—gun lowering, gaze sliding past her.

Toward the street below. Toward you.

“Two heartbeats,” he murmured. “Feather-light. One flutters more than the other. Girl, maybe. You hear it?”

He didn’t wait.

“Twins. Inside her. You don’t need Six Eyes to hear it. Just patience. Stillness. Obsession.”

He smiled then. But it didn’t reach his eyes.

“I want them.”

It wasn’t said with lust. Or cruelty.

It was said the way collectors say, I want that painting.

The way scientists say, I want that body for dissection.

The way sorcerers say, I want that power.

“They’ll make glorious cursed objects,” he added. “Personal. Tragic. Intimate.”

Maki didn’t speak.

She moved.

No warning. No scream. Just acceleration—like a spring snapping forward.

Pure Toji’s curse. Clean, unstoppable violence.

The gun didn’t rise fast enough.

Haibara stepped back off the rooftop ledge.

But not in fear.

In invitation.

Behind him, his Domain bloomed open—slick, immediate, and silent.

Like silk unfurling from a box.

A trapdoor for gods.

He fell into it like he'd done it before.

Like he wanted her to follow.

And she did. Her foot crossed the threshold—

crack.

Another shot.

Clean. Efficient.

The bullet hit her mid-air, just below the sternum—left side, precise angle.

Her breath hitched. Her spine jerked. Blood bloomed from her chest like a curse blooming into form.

She shook.

Mid-lunge. All momentum gone. Her body folded in on itself—like a puppet yanked by frayed threads.

She never reached him.

She never touched the Domain’s edge.

She crashed. Bone snapped. Limbs bent wrong.

No scream. No dignity. Just meat hitting stone.

Ten minutes later, Yuji and Junpei found her.

There was no poetry. No storm. No wind cue. Just heat and buzzing flies.

Just traffic that didn’t stop.

No mourning. No rage.

Just reality. Still moving.

And somewhere else—clean, calm, unbothered—Haibara sent a message:

"Hearts are still fresh. You’ll need gloves."

---

A/N: hehehehehehe laughs like Mahito in a Gucci showroom this chapter was a psychological workout & a KFC commercial in disguise (Yes, I did it to torture Gojo; idk why he's growing more on me lately.) This chapter took a LOT of rewrites & delulu-fuelled breakdowns, but shoutout to my Todo (my beta bestie), who simultaneously enabled my fictional insanity & made sure I took naps like a toddler on a juice crash (she also made me eat fruit). My brain feels disturbingly relaxed even though I finished this in 2 days like a woman possessed by a keyboard demon. Thank you, girl, for keeping me from rewriting the ending 17 times. Did anyone clock Mamaguro?? LMAOOO & not Megs catching strays for existing 😭😭😭. Idk why I've been torturing him; he didn't even do anything except exist & love her. And, btw—Nanami’s reaction isn’t emotion bc he’s not regular, tax-paying Nanami anymore; he’s a special grade war ghost with grief compression issues. Also: HOW MUCH DO WE HATE HAIBARA NOW??? Please scream in the comments. I crave your rage essays like cursed energy. Your thoughts genuinely help me improve & shape this story—it’s my first time writing something this long & plot-based instead of just vibes & hot people with serious issues. How’d we like Suguwu-chan (or… whatever he is 👀) & the reader’s convo?? Was she not peak powerful, bad-bitch energy?? And don’t EVEN get me started on Sukuna!!! This man reappeared after 84 years & somehow aced every column with the highest marks possible?? I’m not even a Suku-girly, but maybe I’m also fictionally insane & it’s showing (but no, I’m not talking about canon Sukuna—I have no interest in murder or maternity, pls. I’m just tired). Also, Sukuna’s hair being black in this ending was an aesthetic choice bc I’ve seen the manga panels, & he’ll be built different next season. You’re free to hallucinate him however you want, just like my beta is doing as we speak. Also when he said “Ryomen Sukuna”? I flatlined. And not even his own spiritual homeboys spared him 😭. Absolute roast session. Peak television. Not Gojo crying like Andrew Garfield in The Amazing Spider-Man when Gwen died. Lmaooo. Loser. Please send your essays, memes, analysis & betrayal theories in the comments!! I re-read & reply to every single one like Gojo rereading her texts at 3AM.

Next Chapter 25 - Losing Sun - [Tumblr/Ao3]

All Works Masterlist

Beta - @blackrimmedrose

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[skzhocomments]

143 - being stuck at the office during Christmas with your asshole boss/coworker AU - Seungmin (Stray Kids)

General Masterlist

Request me a story

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Wattpad | AO3

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Writing Prompt 143 - being stuck at the office during Christmas with your asshole boss/coworker AU - Seungmin

4.7k words

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“Hey, sweetie!” Mia hears as soon as she picks up the phone, putting it between her ear and her left shoulder as she’s skimming through a million files at once.

“Hi, mom!” She replies, her mother’s voice bringing a soft smile to her lips. She misses her, and home, and the life she had before moving to the big city and struggling to make ends meet while trying to make a name for herself in the cruel world of the law.

Mia’s been working as a paralegal ever since she finished law school, as she decided it would be a good idea to get some experience with working on actual cases before taking the bar exam to become a lawyer. She wasn’t entirely sure of which career path she would take after law school, so getting certified for this seemed like a good idea.

One year later after working for various small lawyers, she landed a job at a big, prestigious firm and got assigned to be the assistant of one of the greatest lawyers of their firm – who apparently never got along with anyone and would fire them on the spot.

The firm was desperate, because Kim Seungmin is their strongest asset, he rarely loses cases, if ever, and he’s such a perfectionist, there’s simply no arguing with him. The moment he steps into the court room, he dominates it. Every person who’s worked with or against him respects him, and getting such a reputation is close to impossible in such a big city.

In other words, Kim Seungmin is exactly what Mia wants to become.

“How are you, baby? Have you been good this year? Will Santa come with presents or with coal tomorrow?” Her mother asks, excitement audible in her voice, and Mia lets out a chuckle.

“I don’t know! At this rate, Santa can come with whatever he wants, he won’t find anyone home.” She laughs slightly, a soft sigh making its way past her lips.

“Don’t tell me, are you still at work?” Her mother asks almost accusatory, and Mia can clearly picture the frown on her face and the deep lines on her forehead, partly because of her age, but mostly because of her certainly repulsed expression.

“Yeah, had to work on this big case…”

“You’re not even a lawyer yet! Why do you have to work during the holidays? Your asshole boss should do the hard work instead!” Her mother whines, and Mia knows that once she starts, she will never finish. “That’s why I keep telling you to get married and let a man take care of you! You never listen to me!”

“As much as I love you, I would never be able to endure that.” Mia laughs, and as soon as the words leave her lips, she hears her mother tut.

“It’s Christmas Eve! What do you mean you are still at the office? It’s 9PM!!!”

“I know, I know, but my boss is also here, and I- oh, shit! Sorry mom, gotta go!” She ends the call immediately as she hears the small ding the door makes as soon as someone enters a correct code and it opens.

One thing about their office is that everything is very safe and computerised: door codes with facial and fingerprint recognition and cameras everywhere are only a few of the things Mia had to get used to when she started working for Mr. Kim.

Another thing she had to get used to is the fact that Kim Seungmin loathes her being on the phone with a passion.

“Were you on the phone again?” He rolls his eyes as he enters the office – his. Mia only has a small desk in the corner of it since she’s helping him out with all his cases.

“Sorry, Mr. Kim. It’s Christmas, as you might be aware, and my mother called me.” She lets out a fake smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, and then she switches focus to the papers in front of her again.

“Oh, I thought Christmas is on the 25th, but maybe they changed the calendar while I was too busy keeping people out of jail.” Seungmin smiles back in mockery, clear annoyance in his tone.

He’s such a workaholic, which means that Mia is also worked to the bone, as she has to be there every time he is. She made the mistake of not picking up the phone one single time in a whole year because it was midnight and she was sick, and that almost got her fired, so ever since, she always makes sure to be in his office at all times when he’s actively working on a case.

When he’s working on cases, he is simply always there, cramped at his desk and reading all sorts of files, and Mia has to match. He makes sure to give her a lot to search through, and impossible deadlines, so she doesn’t even recall how many all-nighters she pulled because of him.

It's safe to say that Kim Seungmin is also exactly what she hates.

“Well, as I said, Mr Kim, I’m sorry, but some of us have families that are very insistent on not working Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Years, and any other bank holidays.” She smiles again.

“If you dislike it that much, you can go home.” Seungmin says with a shrug, but Mia doesn’t believe it one bit.

“Really?” She raises an eyebrow then looks at him, but he is already at his desk, his head buried behind mountains of papers.

“Yeah. And don’t bother coming back after the holidays.”

“There we go.” She chuckles slightly. “I was wondering when our streak would end.”

“Our streak?” This finally takes Seungmin’s eyes out of the papers.

“Yeah. You haven’t tried firing me in exactly 5 days. It’s a new personal record.” Mia replies, a smile playing on her lips, and Seungmin rolls his eyes.

“I’ve never tried firing you.”

“Uhm, yeah? You did.”

“No, I didn’t. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Mr. Kim, you know better than anyone that in order to be a lawyer you need to get your facts straight. I’ve been working for you for exactly 350 days today, and you’ve threatened to fire me 407 times. Oh, actually, 408, including tonight.” Mia says matter-of-factly, and Seungmin can’t help but let out a chuckle and shake his head.

“Did you keep count?”

“Of course, I did. You have a reputation, you see? I needed to cover my tracks.” Mia shrugs, but Seungmin is seriously impressed. He can’t believe it. He’s still laughing.

It takes him a little bit to calm down and get his composure back, but once he does, his lips form a straight line, and he begins speaking again.

“Mia, this time I’m serious. I thought you would’ve gotten used to me in 350 days. If you truly dislike my working style, you are free to walk through that door.” He points to it, and this truly makes Mia frown.

“No… I do like your working style… It’s just that, I’m pretty sure that we’re the only ones working at this hour on Christmas Eve.” She replies, then returns her eyes to the papers thinking his words over.

Kim Seungmin is insufferable, she hates working overtime, she hates pulling all-nighters every other week, and she dislikes how bossy he is, but working so closely to him, she realised exactly 320 days ago that she really, really likes him. It took her a month to figure out his likes and dislikes, and that how he acts directly contradicts what he actually means when it comes to interpersonal relationships.

She likes a lot of things about him. Most things, actually. She likes his determination and how serious he is about his job, she likes how he’s always pushing her to do more, to learn more, and she’s truly learnt so much from him, she doubts she would have any trouble passing the bar exam and working as a lawyer in the future. He inspires her to do better, and she does; she’s been doing her best ever since she started working for him.

Kim Seungmin is the person she loathes the most, while simultaneously being the person she admires the most.

When he fails to say anything back to her, she sighs again and asks quietly, almost in a whisper, half-hoping he’d hear, half-hoping he wouldn’t.

“Do you truly want me to quit? Don’t you think that… we work well together?”

He hums softly, letting her know that he’s heard her, and then randomly stands up, going towards her small desk and snatching the file she was reading from her hands.

“You know what, Mia? You’re right. It’s Christmas Eve. Let’s go home and relax and come back on the 27th. We deserve a break.” He smiles softly, and this takes Mia by surprise completely.

“What?” She asks baffled. “Are you joking? I still have to read-”

“It can wait. The court hearing is on the 15th of January. There’s plenty of time to prepare. Let’s go and rest.” Seungmin says, his eyes soft and a small smile in the corners of his lips, and Mia’s mouth is on the floor.

Turns out she doesn’t know him as well as she thought, because she would’ve never in a million years expect this from him.

“O-okay…” She stumbles on her words confused. “Let me just pull out my charger.”

“Alright.” Seungmin walks to the hanger to grab their coats, while Mia is bending over to reach the outlet behind her desk.

She struggles for a little while, because the outlet is slightly damaged. Maintenance was supposed to come and fix this last week, but they’ve told them that it’ll happen some time after Christmas, so she ought to be very careful.

As she pulls out her charger though, a breaker trips, making the whole room go dark.

“Oh, no! Fu- I mean, damn!” She curses out loud, realising she most likely caused a power outage.

“What happened?” Seungmin sounds slightly alarmed. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“No, but I think I caused a short circuit or something! How do we turn the power back on?”

“Shit, I told maintenance a million times to come fix that stupid outlet. You could’ve hurt yourself.” Seungmin replies, grabbing his phone and turning on his flashlight. “No worries, I’ll call the maintenance emergency number. You sure you’re okay?”

He approaches her and looks at her hands, and she almost hears him let out a sigh of relief when he notices that she is, indeed, fine.

“Yeah.” She nods, taken aback once again. He is too nice. Way too nice.

Who is he and what did he do to her asshole boss?

She sees him put the phone against his ear, but no one answers.

“Damn, why isn’t anyone working?” He mumbles under his breath.

“It’s Christmas Eve.” Mia replies, and he throws her a snare.

“Let’s try the door. Should still work. Or… there must be a generator or something to turn the power back on…”

Mia nods and heads towards the door to try the knob, but unsurprisingly, it doesn’t budge. Without the security measures and fingerprints and face recognition systems, they are locked in.

“Mr. Kim, the door is not opening.”

“Alright…” He scratches his nape.

“Maybe there’s a key, or something?”

“I don’t think so… I wasn’t given any.”

“Then… I guess we’re going to spend Christmas Eve together after all.” She chuckles. “Oh! Which reminds me!”

Mia hurries to her desk before she has time to change her mind, and pulls open the first drawer, pulling out a medium sized box. She looks unsure at Seungmin, but she shakes her head slightly and closes her eyes tightly, handing him the box.

“This is a gift… for you.”

“For me?” His eyes widen. “Really? What is it?”

“Open it and see. Well, you can actually open it tomorrow, or… or actually, give it back. You’ll hate it, it’s nothing important-” She tries to snatch the box back, but with the desk between the two, Seungmin easily gets away from where her hands can reach.

He hastily opens the box and pulls out a winter scarf in multiple shades of blue and white, soft to the touch and extremely beautiful.

“Thank you, Mia. You shouldn’t have bothered, though.” He smiles, bringing it closer to his face and smelling it. It smells just like her perfume.

This brings another smile to his lips that Mia fails to see in the darkness, with his flashlight turned away from them.

“Oh… it’s alright if you don’t like it, you don’t have to accept it…” her voice falters. She is quite certain that he hates it, but she’s spent hours making it, so she’d rather take it back and wear it herself with how much money and time she invested in the whole knitting process.

“I love it.” He says, making her eyes widen.

“You do?”

“Mhm.”

“Oh…”

“Thank you, Mia. It’ll be very useful this cold winter.”

“I’m glad you like it…”

“Then…” Seungmin hesitates slightly, before placing the box down on her desk and going back to his coat, rummaging through the pockets and pulling out a small box. “I also got this for you… I mean, I just happened to see it in a store, and I remembered catching you look at it on your computer a while ago, so…”

Mia is completely shocked when he hands her the box and she opens it, revealing a Tiffany gold necklace adorned with a few small diamonds; very beautiful, very expensive. Something she’s been eyeing for months, the first present she wanted to get herself once she would pass the bar exam and become a lawyer.

“Mr. Kim… this is… this is insane! I can’t accept it. I gave you a handmade gift, and you-”

“Wait, this is handmade?!” He grabs the scarf again, his mouth falling open. “But it looks perfect! I thought you bought it from somewhere!”

“No… I just love knitting. I can’t accept this gift, it’s too expensive…” She hands him back the box, but he shakes his head and refuses to take it.

“Mia, I’m… really grateful for your work this past year. I just wanted to show my gratitude somehow, but I always end up treating you badly and acting like an asshole. I’m sorry for being hard on you. I don’t actually want you to quit, or to fire you.” He confesses, and Mia smiles.

“Alright… Thank you, Mr. Kim.”

“Seungmin.”

“What?”

“Seungmin… that’s my name.”

“Yeah, I’m aware, but-”

“I’ve been calling you Mia for months. Why do you keep calling me Mr. Kim?”

“Because I’m a professional?”

“And I’m not?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I’m just saying, Mr. Kim feels a bit… cold?”

“Alright… uhm… Seung-Seungmin.” She stumbles on her words again, because saying his name feels very unnatural, but also very pleasant, like it just brought them closer.

She blushes to herself and is grateful for the darkness of the room for once.

“That’s better.” He smiles back. “So… I think we’re going to be stuck here until tomorrow morning. Maintenance should come at around 6AM, as they do every morning. The holidays aren’t an exception.”

“I won’t ask how you know that.” Mia says with slight mockery. She also knows it, in fact, since she’s also stayed that late, and even later, with him.

“What do you want to do?” Seungmin asks all of a sudden, and she is unsure of what to say back.

“Maybe we could… work?”

“No… we’ve worked enough. I already got out of that mood, so I don’t think I could focus back on it.”

“I’m sorry. We’re stuck here because of me…” Mia pouts.

“Don’t worry about it. However… since 6AM is very far away… should we go on the sofa and talk, or something?” He suggests, so Mia stands up and nods, and both make their way towards the large sofa in the middle of the room.

The sofa is usually reserved for resting when they both stay up late in the office and need a quick break, so it accommodates both with little issue. There would even be enough space for both to lie down, provided they would press their bodies against each other, but Mia doesn’t want to ponder too much on this thought, because it makes her heart race and her cheeks an even brighter shade of red than they already are.

“Can we maybe… turn the flashlight off?” Mia asks

“Sure.” He says without missing a beat, turning it off, and they are now in complete darkness, aside from the soft dim light coming from the large windows.

“So… what should we talk about?” Mia asks.

“Well, what about…”

And so, they begin discussing about their past cases, sharing inside jokes and laughing their hearts out. Instead of being totally work-focused, however, their discussions quickly become light-hearted, they start delving on personal matters, and soon enough, they end up discussing about their hobbies in a lot of detail. They go over books they’ve both read, theories, TV shows and films, and then about what they like to do in their scarce free time.

With each and every word they say, Mia can’t help but notice how many things they have in common. Both of them are career-driven, ambitious, have similar interests, and it feels like they could talk for ages without exhausting conversation topics.

“Mia, I’ve been meaning to tell you this for a while…” He says all of a sudden, and her breath hitches in her throat.

“What…?” She asks with hesitation.

“I think you are ready to take the bar exam. You should pursue your dreams and become a lawyer, because you’ll make a damn good one.”

Hearing his words, Mia feels her eyes water. She didn’t know how much she needed him to say it, how much she needed that validation from the one person she admires the most.

“Really?” She asks hopeful, wishing she could see his expression.

“Yes. Really. I think… I think you’re going to nail it. You should register for the next exam session. I looked it up, and it’s in February. There’s plenty of time to prepare, and I’ll also help you study if you get stuck somewhere, although I doubt you’ll need me.”

“Thank you, Seungmin…” She says, but suddenly, they feel way too far apart. She decides to launch forward and throws herself at him, her arms going around his neck, pulling him into a tight hug. “This means a lot to me.”

“Mia… can you promise me something, though?” He asks, and she tries to pull back, but his arms also go around her waist, pulling her closer to him; so close, their bodies are touching. If he would lean back, she would fall right on top on him.

“Yeah…? What is it?”

“You will go and pass the bar exam, and then… will you come back to me? Not as an assistant… as a partner.”

“Are you … are you serious?” This time she succeeds in pulling back, completely taken aback. It seems he’s full of surprises tonight.

She’s heard from the very beginning that Kim Seungmin prefers working alone. He dislikes training others, or having to share his ideas, or having to be patient with someone else – and yet, he wants to keep working with her right by his side?

“I am, yes. I feel like… this is where you belong, you know? Next to me.” He says, the last part a bit quieter, but she hears it nonetheless, and her heart does its thing to beat faster again.

“Yeah… if you’ll have me, Seungmin, I will always be by your side. I’d love to work cases together, as lawyers.” She smiles, her arms still around her neck, his hands now steadily on her waist.

For some reason, it feels natural to be so close to him, to feel his hands on her body.

“Great… I just wanted to get that off my chest.” He smiles back, and she almost misses it because of the dark.

For some reason, it feels natural to lean in and press a kiss against his lips.

.

.

.

Until it doesn’t.

What the fuck did she just do?

“What the fuck did I just do?” She asks out loud, immediately separating herself from him, realising how much she’s crossed the line. She should’ve never kissed him, she should’ve never-

“Something I really, really liked.” Seungmin cuts off her train of thoughts, and the words don’t register in her head before his lips crash back against her.

And so begins a long battle fought with lips, and hot tongues, and spit, and moans melting into each other’s mouths, and his body falls on hers, her back pressed against the sofa.

His weight on hers is perfect, his kisses are perfect, he is perfect.

“This is so inappropriate” Seungmin says hastily, his breath ragged, as he separates himself from her slightly and pulls on the tight knot of his tie with one hand to loosen it.

“You are so inappropriately hot, why do you think I stick around?” Mia chuckles, her breathing matching his, as she rises her head a bit to kiss his neck.

Seungmin lets out a loud moan as he forces her back down, under him, and her hands fiddle with the buttons of his shirt as she begins undoing them one by one, as quickly as she can.

Kim Seungmin is everything she wants to be, and everything she wants to have. And she will have him tonight, on this very sofa they’ve spent countless of hours on, in this very room they’ve smiled and laughed and fought and came up with plan after plan to win their cases.

“You’re so funny, Mia, but look at you melting.” Seungmin counters, his hands moving under her shirt, his fingers dancing on her skin and stopping right on top of her bra. He is quick to move them under it, to cup her naked breasts and play softly with her nipples.

Mia thought about Seungmin many times, although she always tried to not think of him in that way, but even so, every time she imagined him like this, she never thought he’d be so gentle with her if they were to ever cross the line between professionalism and desire.

“You’re so gentle, Seungmin.” She says out loud confidently, but her skin is all prickly, and she’s already extremely stimulated from his soft touches. She doesn’t even think she could handle anything more, not when mere hours ago, she couldn’t even say his first name out loud without stuttering.

“Don’t you like it, love? Do you want more?” He asks almost tauntingly as his hands disappear from under her shirt and his mouth connects to her neck, his teeth biting into the soft and sensitive skin between her ear and her collarbones, as one of his hands travel in her pants, touching her pussy and teasing her entrance.

“Oh, God.” She rolls her head back, giving him more access as he’s spreading her wetness around.

She’s already so wet, it’s embarrassing.

“You want me so much, huh?” He whispers in her ear, putting one finger inside, and her hands instinctively move on his back pulling the fabric of his shirt.

“Let’s get undressed.” Mia says breathless.

“You have to be more polite than that if you want me to do anything.” Seungmin chuckles, making her let out a loud whine.

“Please, let’s take off our clothes! I want you so fucking bad, and you-”

“And I also want you so much more than that, Mia. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve wanted to bend you over my desk when you’d speak back to me. God, you’re so hot.” He bites her neck again, making her moan and clutch his shirt’s fabric tighter.

He inserts another finger in her, pulling them in and out and curving them upwards just right, and just as she feels close to letting go, he takes them out of her, leaving her confused and slightly dejected.

“Why-”

“Let’s get you out of these clothes, hm? Since you’ve asked so politely.”

“Fuck you.” She curses, clenching her legs just to try and get some of that friction back.

“Maybe some other night, love. Tonight’s my turn to fuck you.”

He removes his shirt that Mia has so conveniently unbuttoned earlier, then helped her out of her blouse and pants.

Laying back naked on the sofa, she looks at him expectedly, her eyes more adjusted to the dark, enough to see his perfect silhouette as he unbuttons his pants and takes out his cock. She doesn’t hesitate to spread her legs apart, and he doesn’t hesitate to compliment her for it.

“Such a good girl.” He smirks, settling between her legs and pressing his hard-on against his entrance, letting himself enter her deliberately slowly, letting her feel every inch of his cock, getting used to the stretch.

He curses once he bottoms out into her, and as he begins moving, he tries to stay buried inside, his hips only buckling in and out slightly, rubbing against her sweet spot.

“Fuck.” She curses as well, her head rolling back once more, and his lips connect instantly to her neck.

The way he’s fucking her feels so intense, so passionate, and it’s hands down the best she’s ever had. Her hands move once more to his back, fingernails digging softly in his skin as he grunts in her ear, his movements becoming faster, more erratic, but still precise enough to make her come undone in mere seconds.

She clenches around him, her legs start shaking, and her toes curl from the pleasure. Hearing her so fucked up, feeling her warm body under his, he can’t help but let out soft curses against her neck as he fucks himself into her faster and faster, until he also lets go, painting her walls white.

“You are so fucking perfect.” Mia says breathless as he pulls out of her and kisses her lips.

“And so are you. Damn, Mia, you’re just… you’re incredible.”

He kisses her once more before standing up and heading to his desk to grab some napkins, helping to clean her up before she can head to the bathroom attached to their office.

“Thank you…” She says, feeling shy all of a sudden, as if she wasn’t moaning for dear life under him minutes ago.

“Damn.” He curses again with a shake of his head. “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. I was planning on asking you on a real date once you passed the bar exam and were no longer my subordinate.”

“You can still take me out on a date when that happens… and before, and after that as well.” She says blushing, and he caresses her head gently.

“Mhm. I will.”

“So… what does this make us?” Mia asks in a breath.

“Definitely a couple. God, this is so inappropriate.” He chuckles.

“Yeah, it is. How dare you take advantage of your power, hm?” She asks jokingly, pulling him into a kiss that he is quick to reciprocate. “Especially after you’ve been such an asshole to me for 350 whole days.”

“Technically, 351 since it’s way over midnight.” Seungmin replies with a smug grin.

“Ah, there is the asshole.”

“I’ll never stop being an asshole to you, even when we’re married and have 3 kids. Hope you know what you signed up for.” He chuckles.

“I know, I know. But that also means you have to know what you signed up for. No more working on holidays! I’d rather we go on some cute dates, maybe travel somewhere…”

“Which reminds me. Merry Christmas, Mia.” He smiles and kisses her lips again, this time softer, and tenderly.

“Merry Christmas.” She kisses him back, and she feels happiness bubbling in her chest, next to all the butterflies flying erratically in her stomach.

Turns out that Kim Seungmin is not that much of an asshole, and she has some big feelings for him, which make her more excited than ever for their future of working next to each other, for now as lawyer and assistant, and in a few months, hopefully, as equals.

~The End~

~

Hope you enjoyed this short story!

If you want to request a Oneshot, send me a number between 1-2675 and who it should be about, and I'll do my best!

Love,

Storm

[horoscope1078]

:)

Gavi had made many bad decisions in life, like challenging Lewandowski to a shooting contest, drinking three espressos before a match, and once thinking he could cut his own hair. But none of them compared to agreeing to a second driving lesson with you.

Yet, here he was, sitting in the passenger seat of his car once again, watching you adjust the mirrors, this time not to check yourself out, thankfully.

“Alright, Gavi, I’m ready.” you declared, placing your hands on the steering wheel.

Gavi folded his arms. “We’ll see about that.”

You smirked. “Still don’t trust me?”

“After last time? Absolutely not.”

You sighed dramatically. “You act like I crashed the car.”

“You almost killed me.” Gavi corrected.

You giggled. “Then why are you here again?”

Gavi opened his mouth, then closed it. He had no good answer. The truth was, you had looked at him with those big, pleading eyes and said “Please, Pablo? I’ll be so good this time.” And, well… he was weak.

“Let’s just get this over with.” he muttered, adjusting his seatbelt like it was a life vest.

You started the car, this time actually easing onto the road without giving him a heart attack.

Gavi let out a small, surprised nod. “Ok… not bad.”

You gave him a smug look. “See? I told you I-”

HONK!

You shrieked, swerving slightly. “WHAT WAS THAT?”

Gavi clutched his chest. “It was just another car!”

“Well, it scared me!”

“It’s a road! There are cars on the road!”

You huffed. “You didn’t warn me about that.”

“Oh I’m sorry.” Gavi said sarcastically. “Would you like me to warn you every time we see a building too?”

You stuck your tongue out at him and kept driving.

Gavi relaxed a little, watching as you navigated a turn surprisingly well. “Alright, that wasn’t bad.” he admitted.

“High praise coming from Mr. Perfectionist.” you teased.

Gavi rolled his eyes. “Ok, now try switching lanes.”

You signalled, checked your mirror, and started to move over.

“Slowly, slowly- NO NOT INTO THE OTHER CAR!” Gavi shrieked, gripping the handle above his seat.

You corrected yourself, just narrowly avoiding disaster.

Gavi exhaled sharply, rubbing his temples. “You have to check your blind spot.”

“I did!”

“You turned your head for half a second! That’s not checking, that’s glancing.”

You giggled. “You sound like my grandpa.”

Gavi shot you an offended look. “Excuse me? I am twenty years old.”

“Could’ve fooled me.” you teased.

Gavi groaned. “Why do I even try?”

You smiled innocently. “Because you love spending time with me.”

His mouth snapped shut.

You smirked. “No denial?”

He coughed, looking away. “Focus on the road.”

You laughed but did as he said. You drove in relative peace until you reached a quiet street.

“Ok” Gavi said, regaining some confidence. “Now let’s try parking.”

“Easy.” you said, pulling into an empty spot.

The car was diagonal. Practically in two spaces.

Gavi stared. “What is that?”

You blinked. “Parking?”

“Parking where? In two different countries?”

You pouted. “It’s close enough.”

Gavi threw his hands up. “Close enough? You can’t just park wherever you want!”

You turned to him with a playful smirk. “Oh, really? Is that a rule, Professor Gavi?”

“Yes! That’s literally the law.”

You giggled and purposefully leaned closer to him. “And what if I don’t listen?”

Gavi’s brain short-circuited.

You were too close. He could feel the warmth of your shoulder brushing against his. His usual furious glare softened, and his ears turned pink.

“I... I...” he stammered, gripping his seatbelt. “Then you’ll get a ticket!”

You tilted your head. “But you’re my instructor. Wouldn’t you get the ticket instead?”

Gavi blinked. “Wait, what? No! That’s not how it works.”

You burst out laughing. “Oh my God, you should see your face.”

He scowled. “Not funny.”

You reached over and poked his cheek. “It’s a little funny.”

Gavi swatted your hand away, ears now fully red. “Just park properly before I actually lose my mind.”

Giggling, you corrected your parking, and this time, you actually did it right.

“There.” you said proudly. “Perfect.”

Gavi exhaled. “Finally.”

You turned to him with a smirk. “Admit it. I did well.”

He huffed. “You almost killed me again, so no.”

“Oh, come on!” you pouted. “I did way better than last time.”

Gavi crossed his arms. “Fine. You were less of a disaster.”

You gasped dramatically. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t push your luck.”

You leaned in closer again. “Or what?”

Gavi’s entire body tensed. “Or I... I” he turned away, covering his face with his hands. “Ay Dios mío...”

You laughed. “You’re blushing!”

“I AM NOT!”

“You totally are!”

Gavi groaned, sinking lower into his seat. “This is worse than the driving lesson.”

You giggled and patted his shoulder. “I think we should have lessons every week.”

“Nope. Not happening.”

“Oh, come on, Pablito” you teased, batting your lashes.

Gavi looked at you for a second. Big mistake. Because the second your eyes met, he felt his heart skip in the dumbest, most embarrassing way.

“Fine...” he mumbled.

You grinned. “See? I knew you couldn’t say no to me.”

He crossed his arms. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Ok, fine, maybe I don’t...” he muttered.

You beamed, leaning in to kiss his cheek. “Thanks for the lesson, Coach Gavi.”

His whole body stiffened.

You pulled away, smirking. “Still hate me?”

Gavi, now fully red, turned to the window and muttered “Start the car before I change my mind.”

You laughed, starting the engine, while Gavi sat there, utterly defeated. He was never winning against you. And honestly? He kind of loved it.

[inkspiredwriting]

A Kiss Through Time

Five Hargreeves x Fem!reader

A/N: Hey you, yes you. I would be very happy if you would follow me :)

Warnings: none

The Hargreeves mansion was bustling with activity. Klaus had decided to host an impromptu party, and the siblings, along with their friends, were scattered around the living room, enjoying the music, food, and general chaos. Amidst the revelry, Five Hargreeves stood in a corner, his expression somewhere between exasperated and amused.

Y/N, his girlfriend, was the only one who could match his wit and keep up with his time-traveling antics. Tonight, she was busy teasing him about something that Klaus had let slip—namely, that Five had never had a proper first kiss.

“So, Mr. Time Traveler, too busy saving the world to pucker up?” Y/N teased, leaning against the wall next to him.

Five rolled his eyes, taking a sip of his drink. “I’ve had more important things to worry about, Y/N.”

“Oh, come on,” she said, a mischievous glint in her eye. “Even superheroes need some romance in their lives.”

Klaus, overhearing the conversation, sauntered over with a grin. “Did I hear someone talking about romance? Little Five here has been too busy jumping through time to even think about kissing anyone.”

Five glared at his brother. “Not helping, Klaus.”

Y/N laughed, thoroughly enjoying the exchange. “Well, Five, there’s no time like the present.”

Five raised an eyebrow, his interest piqued. “What are you suggesting?”

Y/N leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a playful whisper. “How about we remedy that right now?”

Five’s eyes widened slightly, but he quickly masked his surprise with his usual stoic demeanor. “You’re serious?”

“Dead serious,” Y/N replied, her smile softening. “Unless you’re too scared?”

Five’s competitive nature flared up at the challenge. “I’m not scared of anything, especially not a kiss.”

“Prove it,” Y/N said, standing up straighter and looking him directly in the eyes.

The room around them seemed to fade as Five considered her words. His siblings, oblivious to the moment unfolding, continued their party, but Five’s focus was entirely on Y/N.

“Fine,” he said, setting his drink down with determination. “Let’s do this.”

Y/N’s smile widened, and she stepped closer, her heart pounding in her chest. Five, ever the perfectionist, took a deep breath and moved in, his face inches from hers.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Klaus suddenly shouted, drawing everyone’s attention. “Is this really happening? Five is about to have his first kiss, and we’re not going to celebrate?”

Five groaned, his moment ruined. “Klaus, I swear—”

“Shush, shush, everyone! Gather around!” Klaus clapped his hands, and the partygoers formed a loose circle around Five and Y/N, cheering them on.

“Five, this is ridiculous,” Y/N whispered, trying to hide her amusement.

“Tell me about it,” Five muttered back. “But now we have an audience, so we might as well give them a show.”

With everyone watching, Five and Y/N stood facing each other again. Five’s serious demeanor was betrayed by the slight twitch of a smile on his lips.

“Ready?” Y/N asked, her voice barely audible over the cheers.

“Always,” Five replied.

They leaned in, the noise of the room fading to a distant hum. Just as their lips were about to meet, Diego’s voice rang out, “Come on, Five! Don’t mess this up!”

In a rare moment of spontaneity, Five wrapped his arms around Y/N and dipped her, much to the surprise and delight of the onlookers. Y/N let out a laugh, and then, finally, their lips met in a kiss that was both tender and electrifying.

The room erupted in applause and cheers. Klaus hooted loudly, Allison and Viktor clapped, and even Luther managed a supportive smile. Five and Y/N, still locked in the kiss, were lost to the world around them.

When they finally broke apart, breathless and grinning, Y/N said, “Well, Mr. Time Traveler, how was that for a first kiss?”

Five, still holding her close, smirked. “I think I could get used to this.”

Klaus threw an arm around Five’s shoulders. “Ladies and gentlemen, our little Five is all grown up!”

“Shut up, Klaus,” Five said, but his annoyance was softened by the smile on his face.

As the party resumed its boisterous energy, Five and Y/N retreated to a quieter corner, their hands still intertwined. They shared a look that spoke volumes, a silent agreement that this was just the beginning of their adventures together—both in time and in love.

And so, in the midst of chaos, with his eccentric family around him, Five Hargreeves had his first kiss. It was perfect in its imperfection, much like everything else in his life.

[hanichani]

Pairing: chan x gn!reader

Genre: fluff, idol!au

Summary: you and chan are amazing friends but…is that really all you are?

Warnings: none!

Word count: 821

there was a thin line between friendship and love. you and chan would know. what you didn’t know though was on which side of the line you were currently on…

chan’s hand was draped over your torso and his short breaths were tickling the skin on your neck. he looked pretty all the time, that’s a given but there was just something about him when he was asleep. he looked so unbothered, so peaceful and relaxed. that’s why you loved falling asleep next to him. to see him look so content. to see him finally not stress over the smallest things because surprise surprise, chan is a workaholic and a perfectionist. that’s how any good friend would feel about sharing a bed with their other good friend, right?

you also loved that his attention was always only on you and nothing else in those rare mornings after you’d sleep over and that’s why seeing him stir up made your stomach feel all warm and mushy. friends definitely feel this way about other friends.

suddenly his sleepy eyes looked up at you with a bright smile shining on his face. oh you were down bad (as a friend would be for another friend, of course).

"good morning.” he said as he snuggled deeper into the crook of your neck.

“morning channie, how’d you sleep?” you asked, your hand subconsciously moving to draw shapes on his bare back which made him hum against your skin.

“mm, good. always good when you’re here.” that’s surely something a friend would say, yup.

the smile on your face gave everything away and your other hand moved to his hair, earning another content groan from the man you loved (as a friend, obviously).

“that’s-“ your sentence was interrupted by chan’s alarm. he unwillingly untangled himself from you and reached for his phone, turning the alarm off.

“how is it already time to get up.” he sat up, rubbing his palms over his sleep laced face.

you were too busy staring at his defined back to notice his face turning to you. his chuckle brought you back into reality.

“you’ve got a bit of drool there, y/n.” he pointed to his lips while simultaneously laughing harder.

you frowned and draped yourself over his shoulders while his laugh still rang through the room. “oh shut up mr. I always sleep good when you’re here.” your impression of his voice only made him laugh more and pull you closer to him by your arms.

“hey, I was just stating facts.” he says, turning his head to look at you.

“yea and I was just admiring, you’re pretty much asking for it at this point. sleeping all naked next to me and stuff.” you retort while meeting his gaze.

your faces are only inches away and if you weren’t friends which you are, it would only take a slight movement from you to kiss him.

“oh, don’t act like you don’t love it” he says, his eyes briefly going to your lips and moving back up just as fast.

you let go of him and fall back into the bed, your back hitting the soft cushions. you stick out your tongue and give him a silly face as a response. he only smiles at you and then he proceeds to do the most cruel thing he could do to you in the moment. he gets up from the bed.

your hands automatically reach out for him but to no avail. he’s already marching to the bathroom with a small “I should really get ready now.”

when he comes back half an hour later, you’re scrolling on your phone, still in bed. his now clothed form leans over you so you’re face to face again. you throw your phone somewhere on the bed and your hands move into his curls, while each of his find their place on either side of your head.

“i have to go now.” he says, brushing his nose against yours. eskimo kisses are normal between friends after all, right?

“can we meet up tonight?” you whine quietly in response.

“i’ll see when I’m finished at the studio but after that we could?” one of his hands brushes a strand of your hair out of your face.

“yea okay.” you smile up at him.

and then he kisses you. no matter how surprised you are, you kiss him back, of course but just as quickly as his lips landed on yours, they pull away.

“i’ll see you tonight then.” he smiles and places another peck on your lips.

when he closes the door behind him, you realize what just happened. he just kissed you like it was the most mundane thing ever. sure you were close. you were really close but you were still just friends. maybe friends just kiss sometimes? he did it so carelessly, it has to be normal. it’s what really good friends do, right?

a/n: hellooo, i’m pretty new to posting my little drabbles and works soo any feedback is welcome!!!

[lovelyoliviasblog]

⚠~HAI I'M OLIVIA!!!!~⚠

Just a silly existing thing you can't get rid of >:3

I'm also the Creator and maker of "perfect perfectionist worker"! :3

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I'm 15 btw so don't be a creepo-

I'm also a bisexual, abrosexual, Demisexual, AND Demiromantic, trans man (@~@)

My other socials 😝😝😝 👇

I don't post on 90% of these though- 💀

BTW join my super Sigma server 😝😝😝

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My boi aka my Sona👇

Remember to please be patient with me I'm slow mentally 💀💀💀💀💀

ANYWAYS

my gang 👇(aka my friends 😝😝😝)

@i-am-xp-64 @fluffypuppy56 @ermwhatthefilp1 @ethan-torchios-bitch @ashmyself @gayspyy @jayceeartz @thelooneymary

MY SIBLINGS 😝😝😝👇

@anna-cute-049 @astrodrawz @drakobloxxer-creature @m00nsworldsstuff @ella-the-fella @weirdsillycreature

MY MOMS!!!! 😨😨😨😨👇

@that-unspeaking-sky-kid @mrs-mouse-skykid

SOME RANDOM AHH MUTUALS 🗣️🔥🔥🔥 (I care about y'all as well dw 👅👅👅👅👅👅👅)

@oculis-aspicientis-666 @ashleena-xx @zephamello @americanotaku @ferrotechfish @wearethebanannas @multicrazygummybears @bunniii-ylr @knightinblackarmor @queezelooweeze212 @eeveestarstudios-blog @gatitociro @fishkarack

AND THIS LOSER IG 😔😔😔👇

@lovelyoliviasblog

AND YEAH THAT'S IT I GUESS REMEMBER TO STAY SAFE AND TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF AND IF YOU EVER NEED TO VENT YOU CAN COME TO ME AND REMEMBER.....

DRINK YOUR DAILY WATER YOU DEHYDRATED AHH 🗣️🔥🔥🔥🔥

[belit0]

hey dear 🌼 i was just wondering how the uchiha/founders would be at doing home projects (like fixing a shitty floorboard or replacing a busted shoji, cleaning the birdbath, trimming the bushes, ect) (im doing projects around my house now that its gotten warm out lol 😊)

tysm and as always love your work!

ajshdakshdhsakj I madly love this kind of requests

Madara – “I’m above this” war general

Madara walks into any home project like he’s strategizing a siege on an enemy stronghold. His approach is intense, overthought, and far too grand for the simplicity of the task.

Fixing a busted floorboard.

-This is sabotage.

He kneels dramatically beside the creaky board like it's a fallen comrade.

-Who dared step here? Who has such disrespect for the sanctity of wood?

Ten minutes in, he's ripped out half the floor, shirtless, hair wild, tools scattered like casualties of war.

He’s yelling about “structural integrity” while Izuna screams from the other room that all the rice sacks just fell through a hole in the pantry.

He refuses help.

Every hit with the hammer is too aggressive.

A simple board replacement becomes a full-blown renovation, and the neighbors see smoke rising from the Uchiha compound by noon.

Izuna – "this shouldn’t take long" overconfident disaster

Izuna thinks every home project is beneath him, but somehow ends up knee-deep in it, sweating, cursing, and bleeding from a totally avoidable injury.

Replacing a torn shoji panel.

-Easy. Watch and learn.

Ten seconds in, he’s sliced his finger on the paper.

Five minutes later, the frame is broken.

Ten minutes in, he’s using glue that clearly says “not for wood” and trying to dry it with fire jutsu.

Thirty minutes in, the room smells like burnt glue, the new panel is stuck to his sleeve, and the old one is somehow fused to his leg.

-DON’T TOUCH IT, IT’S DRYING. I FIXED IT.

It is not fixed.

The paper sags.

It's crooked.

He’s blaming Madara anyway.

Hashirama – “let’s make this fun!” wholesome chaos

He starts any project with a sparkle in his eye and the deadly optimism of a man who doesn’t know what he’s doing but refuses to quit.

Trimming the garden bushes.

He talks to the bushes.

Names them.

Bends down and goes:

-Hello, Mr. Polka. Time for your haircut, yes?

He forgets he has superhuman strength and lops off entire chunks with one careless swipe.

One of the bushes now looks like an abstract elephant.

Another looks like it’s screaming.

But he’s beaming.

-Look at them! So expressive! Nature’s art!

The birdbath is upside down.

The rake is missing.

A raccoon stole his lunch and he called it “a miracle of forest diplomacy.”

Tobirama – “I will fix this properly or die trying” perfectionist

He takes one look at a leaky faucet or broken hinge and acts like it's a personal attack on his intelligence.

Cleaning the birdbath.

He doesn't trust the birds.

Why are they watching him?

He’s wearing gloves, a cloak, a face wrap.

He’s analyzing the water like it’s a volatile chemical compound.

-Algae. Avian feces. Unsanitary beyond reason.

Three hours later, the birdbath is deconstructed, chemically treated, sterilized, and filtered.

It now circulates clean spring water via an underground chakra-powered system he built from scratch.

But the birds won’t come near it anymore.

He’s offended.

-Uncultured vermin.

[holopossums]

I guess I never really officially showed off all of my Rise OCs I've thought up of so far, huh? Some don't have full body designs yet but that's okay. Here we gooo!

Dallas Walker

Human, cis bi man, he/him, 44 years old in the apocalypse timeline (born in 2000). He is mixed east Asian, of Vietnamese and White descent.

Dallas is Krow's/Casey Jr.'s biological father. He went M.I.A. shortly after Krow was conceived, so he was unable to be a father to Krow and husband to Kora (Cassandra). Dallas has somehow survived and is still kickin' it in 2044, just not in NYC. If you poke and prod enough, he may tell you what happened from 2026 to 2044. Though in his words, "It ain't pretty."

Dallas is a former Resistance soldier and a self-proclaimed bad boy. He is bold and takes risks in battle. He is surprisingly social given his lone wolf look, and tends to come off as a nonchalant slacker. Underneath his cool guy persona, he is a sweet and caring man who is fiercely loyal to those he considers worthy.

He does not have any mystical powers, and instead he typically likes to use non-tech weaponry. He is a chain smoker and has some disabilities from the war.

Voice claim: Troy Baker (sort of like Joel in The Last of Us games except imagine a Brooklyn accent instead of a Texan one)

Theme song: Time - Hootie & The Blowfish

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Cedrus Draxum

Sheep Yokai, cis gay man, he/him, 653 years old at the start of the series (2018).

Cedrus is Baron Draxum's older brother. He is a politician and is a lead speaker of The Order of Mystica Praesidia. The Order is an elite guard within the Radiant Souls AU that serves as protectors of the Hidden City as well as liaisons between the government and citizens.

He is typically a very calm, mature individual with a warm, welcoming presence. He is a natural leader with a traditional mindset. Cedrus takes great pride in his work, though he is very concerned about honor and social status. Being the eldest Draxum, Cedrus is a perfectionist and often mothers his younger siblings. While he is stern and tries to cover any flaws as best as he can, like his brother he is quirky and a bit dysfunctional.

While warm and welcoming on the surface, Cedrus has been known to use his skills in interpersonal relations, speech, and persuasion, as well as his political/social power, to manipulate others into doing what he wants or orchestrate situations. He views everything he does as for the good of others and a means to an end. Cedrus sees himself above that of a common, dishonest politician who blatantly lies, but those who know him well might disagree.

Currently (as of 2018), Cedrus finds himself bored with his wealth and power, which might lead to some interesting developments. He has considered leaving his job and living a simpler, cleaner life, possibly running away to the surface world. His plan on how to do this, however, may be flawed.

He has a powerful mystic ability to grow trees and manipulate wood. It is rumored that he can create a house within a day, something he neither confirms nor denies.

Voice claim: George Sanders (Shere Khan from Disney's The Jungle Book), Thurl Ravenscroft for singing (Tony the Tiger and singing voice of You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch)

Theme song: Frozen Pines - Lord Huron

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Leporyx Lagolune

Jackalope Yokai, enby sapphic, they/them, 540 years old at the start of the series (2018).

Leporyx works in the same elite guard as the Draxums as the Defense Commissioner of Historical Sites. Their job is to maintain barriers and security around important historical and sacred sites in the Hidden City, such as the Crying Titan. They are Baron Draxum's colleague, and they share a mutual hatred of each other.

Leporyx is a witch and alchemist who is known for being talented and highly secretive. They keep out of the public eye as much as possible and seem reclusive. They are a serious and hardworking individual with firm ideas on the way things should be or the way things should work. Leporyx is slightly emotionally closed off and is often blunt or dry-witted. However, they are not cruel and practice kindness. At times they are even quite caring and protective, managing to get along with most kind people. They probably need to take a day off, learn how to have fun, and open up more.

They have a goal to create the Elixir of Life, a legendary substance said to give the user immortality. For what reason they are trying to create the elixir and how they will accomplish it remains unclear.

Leporyx's mystic powers are related to the moon. They wield a giant hammer called Moonhammer which is powered by moonlight. Considering that down in the Hidden City they receive no moonlight, Leporyx has to rely on other spells most of the time.

Voice claim: Wendy Powell (voice of Envy from Fullmetal Alchemist and Phyllis from Ancient Magus' Bride)

Theme song: Moonlight Sonata - Beethoven, Tina Guo

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Murdina

Kelpie Yokai, enby lesbian, she/her, 487 years old at the start of the series (2018).

She is a slim bipedal teal horse with a shark-like tail and a wooden-like horn on her forehead. She has sparkly scales and long jet black hair that is always covered in algae. She typically dresses like she is a Celtic bog witch.

Murdina is a dear friend of Leporyx's and, unbeknownst to her, Leporyx's crush. She is ill with a mysterious mystical disease which prevents her from living the way she wants to.

Despite her name sounding like the word "Murder", Murdina is very kind, quiet, and soft-spoken. She is often whispery, sort of like Fluttershy, partly due to shyness and partly due to feeling weak. She is often confined to her bed or the care center that she is staying in, and usually needs mobility aids like a cane, walker, or wheelchair to get around.

She has a love of the ocean and the oceanic body of water within the cavern of the Hidden City. She enjoys collecting shells, sea glass, and other such things. In her youth she was an avid surfer and swimmer. She has a few mermaid friends who enjoy visiting her and giving her little gifts.

Murdina does have mystic powers related to water and mud, but her powers have become too weak to use much.

Voice claim: Helen Shaver (Little Foot's Mother in The Land Before Time)

Theme song: The Bog Bodies (Dorm Demo) - Rabbitology

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Selene (Relatively new OC!)

Pegasus-taur Yokai, cis bi woman (formerly thought she was straight), she/her, 570 years old at the start of the series (2018).

She is a white centaur-like horse with giant feathered wings on the back of her lower half. She loves crop tops and gold jewelry.

Selene is Cedrus' ex-wife. They divorced due to Cedrus finally realizing he was mlm and couldn't be sexually attracted to her like he wished he could be, so they stayed on amicable terms. Cedrus still regards her as one of his best friends outside of his political sphere, and Selene also regards him as one of her best guy friends.

Selene has a kindhearted, well-meaning white suburban mom vibe to her. While nice, she may have a limited understanding of certain perspectives. She is known for her beauty and elegance. Selene is feminine and loves shopping, indulging in girly things, and thinking about romances. She appreciates the finer things in life and has expensive tastes. When they were still married, Cedrus was all too willing to indulge her. Fancy restaurants, wine tasting, going to concerts, shopping for pretty diamond necklaces... you get the idea.

She worries often about being seen as old, so she tries to stay hip with it by sometimes talking like she's a teen instead of a mature woman, much to others' chagrin. She invests a lot in things like anti-aging skin creams, makeup, and buys into a lot of health beauty scams. She'd be the sort of mom to be on TikTok.

Voice claim: Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Laurel Lightfoot from Onward and Elaine from Seinfeld)

Theme song: Young and Beautiful - Lana Del Ray

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Esther (Relatively new OC!)

Hamster mutant, cis bi woman, she/her, 17 years old at the start of the series (2018), 34 years old when she gets introduced to Krow and the Hamato in the fixed future timeline way later (2035).

Friend and eventual love interest for both Krow and Yukito later on when they're all in their 30s.

Esther is your typical cute bookworm. She was once human and was mutated when she was 21 from a stray Oozesquito, which despite the Mad Dogs' best efforts have not gone extinct and are still roaming around NYC. She now works in the Mystic Library as a library assistant.

She is a kind, pacifistic, curious soul who loves to learn. She is an average 34 year old nerd: eternally online, loves reading fanfiction and playing video games, and loves anime (especially shojo and slice of life). Esther sometimes worries about being a plain or boring girl, especially after meeting the Hamato. She is often so quiet that sometimes people forget that she's there, but she uses it to her advantage to listen in and soak up information.

Esther's mystic ability is Cheeks of Holding. She has pocket dimensions in her hamster cheeks that she can use to store anything she wants. She is completely chill with her role in any group she's in as being the keeper of items.

A quirk of hers is that she loves wearing weird earrings, and every day she has a new set of funny earrings to wear. (Sort of like Mabel Pines' sweaters or Ms. Frizzle's dresses!)

Voice claim: Kimiko Glenn (known for roles such as Kiff from Kiff, Niffty from Hazbin Hotel, Horse from Centaurworld, and Izzy Moonbow from My Little Pony: A New Generation)

Theme song: HALO HALO - Shawn Wasabi (feat. Chevy)

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All of these characters are OCs that I roleplay sometimes! I don't mention them too much because most of their writing and characterization happens in private Discords. But I think they're pretty neat and it's about time I shared them :D