#not like disappeared like gone missing but she's straight up been erased from the story like she doesn't exist

[bookwyrminspiration]

reading gideon the ninth:

reading harrow the ninth:

[hmslusitania]

Paint it Black

@evanbucxley @arrenemris you guys wanted petty, jealous Eddie stuck in an elevator with Taylor during the blackout, right?

Eddie Diaz has been involved in his share of awkward dinners.

This one takes the cake though. It starts with him showing up at Buck’s loft by himself, and Buck opening the door with that stupid puppy-dog confused tilt to his head that makes Eddie want to do something drastic.

“Where’s Ana?” he asks.

“We broke up,” Eddie says. “Figured it would be weird to invite her to dinner after that.”

“Oh, I didn’t know,” Buck says, which yeah, Eddie knows because Eddie hadn’t told him yet. “I’m sorry, man.”

Which makes…one of them.

The night gets worse when Taylor shows up with her latest story of her investigation into – Eddie misses the details, but he’s discovered that Taylor’s voice somehow is at the exact right pitch that he can’t quite hear it most of the time. Weird how that works.

Buck, bless his fucking heart, feels none of the tension in the loft. Or if he does, he doesn’t react to it. He stays chipper and upbeat and positive and doesn’t comment when Eddie and Taylor trip over each other to help him with making dinner or pouring drinks or to sit beside him on the couch while the food cooks.

But, like, the spot on the couch beside Buck is Eddie’s spot, and if it’s not Eddie’s it’s Christopher’s.

And Eddie…loses the fight.

Taylor’s tiny, and for just half a second, he entertains the utterly absurd idea of just picking her up and moving her, but it flits out of his head almost as soon as it arrives. It’s quickly followed by an unfortunate realisation that it must be easy as anything for Buck to just pick her up and move her when – which is then immediately erased by the second-hand memory he acquired from Captain Mehta that Buck had been able to just pick Eddie up and toss him into the engine like he was a sack of potatoes – which –

He’s saved when dinner is ready, but he feels Taylor’s eyes on him the whole way through the meal.

Annoyingly, they end up leaving at the same time. Buck and Eddie have a shift in the morning, and Taylor has a story to cut before some deadline or other. Eddie would rather not walk out with her, would rather not share the elevator with her – he briefly considers legging it for the stairs but they’re at the other end of Buck’s floor and the elevator is right there and it would be absolutely blatant what he was doing – but if the alternative is knowing she’s staying the night at Buck’s, he’ll deal with the elevator.

They’re both quiet while the doors slide open, the soft whisper of the brushed stainless-steel brushing against the dust guards the only sound besides the simmering mutual animosity between them. They step into the elevator, which smells vaguely of Pinesol, and Taylor presses the button for the ground floor with a shiny lacquered red nail.

The doors close again and the shimmering, irritable silence fills the space. No elevator music in Buck’s building, which is probably for the best.

“So,” Taylor says as the world’s slowest elevator descends. “Is it personal or are you just jealous?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Eddie says. The elevator has faux wood panelling, not mirrors, so he can’t tell if she’s looking at him or if she’s staring straight ahead like he is.

“You either hate me on a personal level, because I’m me or something,” she says. “Or you hate me because you’re in love with Buck.”

Eddie gets as far as a spluttered, indignant, “I am not in love with—”

And then the elevator lurches. Stops. The lights flicker and then die. The emergency lights do not kick on.

“Well that’s comforting,” Taylor says, dry.

Eddie pulls out his phone. Usually, it’s still connected to Buck’s wifi by the elevator, and the connection’s gone. So it isn’t just the elevator.

“There’s a button in here that calls the fire department, right?” Taylor asks, pulling out her own phone and shining it at the elevator panel. She presses the button that should connect them directly to the department, and nothing happens.

“Depending on how wide the power outage is, it might have knocked out dispatch,” Eddie says.

“Great,” Taylor says. “You’re a firefighter, you can get the doors open, right?”

“With a Halligan and a fully functional shoulder?” Eddie asks. “Sure.”

She huffs. “Do you think it’s just this building or wider?”

“How would I know?” Eddie asks.

“So helpful, thank you.”

“What do you want me to do, Taylor? Use my magical powers of divination to figure out if we’re in a building-wide, block-wide, city-wide, county-wide blackout?” Eddie snaps.

He can’t see her face in the shitty half-light of their respective phone screens, but he hears her roll her eyes.

“It’s because you’re in love with him, right?” she asks.

“For fuck’s sake, Taylor, I’m not in love with—”

“Because he’s in love with you,” she interrupts as though he hasn’t spoken. Eddie’s heart stops. “It’s weird, I’ve never really had to vie for someone’s affections before. I can’t say I’m a fan, but, see, he thinks you aren’t an option.”

“He told you this?” Eddie asks and hopes to God his voice sounds normal because it does not feel like it.

Taylor snorts. “He didn’t have to. Do you guys have any idea what you’re like when you’re around each other? It’s obvious to anyone who even meets you in passing, and I know both of you and have a journalism degree. It’s not difficult math.”

“Then why are you dating him?” Eddie asks, swallowing back the lump that’s just jumped into his throat that feels suspiciously like his heart.

“Because I like him,” Taylor says. “And because I like a challenge.”

Before Eddie can say anything rude about Buck being worth more than a challenge to someone, she sighs.

“I’d say you’re going to have to fight me for him, but it’s not going to be much of a competition,” she says.

“You really think my chances are that bad?” Eddie asks and he hates how sad he sounds, even to his own ears.

Taylor doesn’t get a chance to answer before Eddie’s phone lights up with a picture of Buck and Chris together and Buck’s name in bright letters. In the sudden illumination, he sees the annoyed, resigned expression on her face.

“That answer your question?” she replies, and Eddie answers the phone.

“Hey, did you make it out or are you stuck in the elevator?” Buck asks.

“We’re stuck in the elevator,” Eddie says. “No idea what floor. Maybe three?”

“Cool, don’t go anywhere,” Buck replies and hangs up before Eddie can ask where, exactly, they might go.

An awkward silence hangs in the elevator in the wake of the phone call.

Until, finally, Taylor says, “For what it’s worth, if I had to lose to someone, at least you’re as pretty as I am.”

Eddie is still searching for some kind of response to that – coming up absolutely blank – when the elevator doors slide open. Buck, illuminated by a headlamp, waves at them and pockets his keys.

“You have an elevator key?” Taylor asks while Buck pulls her out.

“Fire marshals and captains get ’em,” Buck says. “They’re standard across production lines.”

“Fire marshals have to give them back,” Eddie points out.

“Eh, when I was a probie, we got an elevator rescue and Bobby told me to go open the doors, and so I stood there trying to pry them open for like five minutes before he walked up to the elevator panel and unlocked them with his key,” Buck says. “Chim and Hen laughed at me for about a month every time we got near an elevator. So when I did my turn as fire marshal, I may have made a copy.”

“Of course you did,” Eddie says. He rolls his eyes and is grateful for the darkness so Buck can’t see exactly how fond he must look.

Taylor catches him, though, and for a tense second, Eddie thinks she’s going to say something about it. But Taylor Kelly is a lot of things, but “quitter” isn’t one of them. It might not be a fair fight, and the outcome might be rigged in Eddie’s favour, but he understands then that she’s going to make him fight for it. Fight for Buck.

No worthier fight, really.

“We should check in, see if they want us on shift early,” Buck says, already pulling his phone out to text or call Bobby.

“And I should go investigate,” Taylor says. “I’m sure my station is missing me.”

“Okay,” Buck says. “Do you want my headlamp for the stairs?”

“I’ve got it, but, thank you,” Taylor says. She stretches on her toes to kiss him goodbye – much more thoroughly than she had when they left Buck’s apartment. She arches an eyebrow at Eddie once she’s let go of Buck and Eddie narrows his eyes right back. “See you boys later.”

She flips on the flashlight on her phone and waltzes off to the stairs.

“We should tell all my neighbours to stay inside,” Buck says.

“Sounds like a plan,” Eddie says, shooting a text to his abuela and Chris to ask them to do the same. He doesn’t know yet if the blackout’s reached their neighbourhood, but it’s a better policy.

“So what did you and Taylor talk about while you were in the elevator together?” Buck asks in between knocking on his neighbours’ doors to announce LAFD please remain inside your homes.

“We, uh, came to an understanding,” Eddie says.

“Oh! Good,” Buck says. He pauses. “What about?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Eddie recommends. He nudges Buck with his shoulder and gets a grin in response. “Let’s check in with Bobby and see if they need us or if they recommend we just stay inside and stay safe, too.”

“No one I’d rather weather a lockdown with,” Buck replies, as if the second she stepped into the stairwell, Taylor also disappeared from his head. “Well, except maybe Christopher.”

Eddie laughs, and thinks in Taylor’s direction, may the best person win.

[bunnyywritings]

Hii, I think your requests are open but I am not sure, so uhm, if they're not open just delete my ask and pretend it was never there, I'd hate to be disrespectful of you. Would you write about Deku, Shoto and Bakugo (or instead of Baku take Shoji) with an s/o that isn't in the hero course and has a shrinking quirk? Like mount lady but reverse, she can get as small as an ant but usuly when she does shrink she'll be shoulder sitting sized? That could make some adorable things like aaaaaaaa >///

fem!s/o with a shrinking quirk

[a/n: uhmm this concept is so adorable 🥺 thank you for the request anon, you’re so polite 💓 I decided to do all 4 boys so I hope that’s okay, sorry if it seems short...I wrote this in between classes hehe 🙈 enjoy!! -yours truly, bunnyy -`ღ´- ]

midoriya izuku

✤ you bet your diddly doo that this boy has MULTIPLE pages about your quirk

✤ when he first saw you use your quirk it was during the sports festival, you were standing there one second but then it seemed like you just disappeared

✤ he was stunned to see how much strength you actually had even when you were that size

✤ he was convinced that you and shinso were robbed of your spots in the hero course but there wasn’t much he could do about it

✤ I think it would take him a while to finally approach you, but when he does, he’s absolutely ecstatic that you didn’t mind all of his questions

✤ baby boy was quite literally vibrating with excitement

✤ “t-thank you so m-much for answering my questions, (l-l/n)-san.” He was stuttering so much but he couldn’t help it, he was talking to such a beautiful girl

✤ “it’s no problem but call me (y/n), at least that’s what my friends call me.” Now he was bright red as if he wasn’t already

✤ “f-friends?”

✤ but of course “friends” weren’t forever because soon after that, you both had confessed your feelings for each other

✤ from then on, he introduced you to a few of his 1-A class mates

✤ oh boy what a mistake that was

✤ you had gotten along really well with Denki of all people, so one day, the both of you prank bakugo apparently you both have a death wish and of course it backfired

✤ you had burst into the classroom with a panicked kaminari behind you, eyes frantically searching for a certain freckled boy. Your heart beating faster when you could hear explosions getting closer

✤ “Izu! Hide me!”

✤ “huh!? wait how will I-“ he was cut off when you sat on the desk and activated your quirk (you were about 4inches or 10cm tall) and made grabby hands at him

✤ he placed his hand near the edge of the desk so you could jump on

✤ “now put me in your jacket pocket!” Your voice was super cute but he held off his fanboying and did what you said, carefully placing you in his pocket

✤ perfect timing too

✤ “WHERE’S THAT DAMN BRAT?! I KNOW SHE’S IN HERE!!” he caught a glance of kaminari’s blonde hair and growled

✤ “I SEE YOU, DUNCE HEAD!!” And with that, they both were off

✤ you stood up and let your head peak out of the pocket

✤ “(y/n)?! Oh my gosh! That’s so cute!” Mina cooed, making both you and midoriya blush

✤ he carried you around on his shoulder often, he thought it was adorable

✤ he once hid you in the side pocket of his backpack and snuck you into the dorms

✤ it was a success so it was cuddle time!!

✤ if anyone ever bullied you about your quirk, he wad instantly be at your defense and comfort you if you needed it

✤ “Don’t listen to them (y/n), your quirk is amazing and very useful, especially in missions where....” and he went on rambling

✤ but it’s the thought that counts

✤ oh!! I almost forgot!

✤ whenever you were sat on his shoulder and feeling mischievous, stand up and give him kisses on the cheek or neck ;)

✤ this will always effectively fluster him into a blushing and stuttering mess

shoto todoroki

❆ uhm if you weren’t in the hero course, it would take him a little longer to notice you

❆ but you were friends with ochako so he actually often saw you at lunch

❆ one day, you were all sat down and midoriya asked about your quirk and since everyone seemed interested, you gave ‘em a little demonstration

❆ he was kinda paying attention but the soba was so good so he missed the part where you shrunk down a bit but when a gust of wind knocked you over and you landed in front of him, his eyes widened

❆ you were so tiny 🥺

❆ he held out a finger to you and you smiled greatfuly before grabbing onto it and hoisting yourself up, making sure to dust yourself off

❆ he thought your quirk was rather interesting and whenever you shrunk down to size, he would go all doe eyed because he thought you were so precious

❆ you reminded him of the fairies in the bed time stories his mother used to tell him

❆ (i will fight you if you don’t think he used to LOVE hearing about dragons or fairies and fantasy stories when he was a little boy 😤)

❆ once he realized his feelings for you, he just straight up told you

❆ you guys were the cutest couple, the prince and a fairy (ugh oh my god this is freaking cute)

❆ when you first mentioned that you wanted to try and sit on his shoulder while he walked around and stuff, he was a bit apprehensive since he was afraid of dropping you

❆ so you started off easy, you’d sit on his shoulder while he was doing his homework or something and once he was comfortable with that, then you guys got to the moving around thing

❆ he would love it if you sat on his shoulder while he read a book, and he’d read it to you

❆ as much as he loves your quirk, I honestly don’t see him wanting to just rather hold your hand while ya’ll walked around or something but give him those puppy dog eyes and he’d do anything for you

❆ he’d never out right say it but he loves when your on his shoulder and just nuzzle his cheek

❆ he’d call you his little fairy 🥺🦋

❆ “can I please, I’ve had a really long day.” You pouted.

❆ he softly gripped your chin and gently tugged you closer to his lips

❆ “hop on, my little fairy.” He leaned down and gently met you lips, slowly moving them against yours before pulling away and watching as your cheeks and the tips of your ears turned pink

❆ I’m so soft for this boy

bakugo katsuki

✸ pfft i’m sorry, i just had to use this gif

✸ okay so he’d be all like, “Why would I care about some damn extra!!” As he usually is but specially if you weren’t a part of the hero course

✸ but you were friends with kirishima so he learned to deal with you

✸ he originally saw you do the shoulder thing with kiri and he thought he was having a stroke or something

✸ “kirishima, why do you have a damn bug on your shoulder?”

✸ “huh? Oh that’s (y/n)!”

✸ “hey! Who are you calling a bug, you jerk!”

✸ “call me a jerk again and I’ll squash you like a damn insect! Got that you idiot?!”

✸ one time, you fell asleep on denki’s shoulder and he forgot you were there

✸ so when bakugo saw him acting like a ‘reckless idiot’ he swooped in to save you

✸ he gently picked you up by the collar of your shirt and he put you on his own shoulder, making sure to walk around carefully as to not disturb your sleep

✸ you had accidentally disactivated your quirk so you went back to normal size, causing the both of you to fall to the ground with you laying on top of him

✸ he was in shock so he didn’t really move, your noses were touching, his arms had gone around your waist to hold you still

✸ “I’m so sorry, I-“ you had tried to get up be his hold on your waist only tightened

✸ “shut up! I’m trying to think!”

✸ he turned his head a bit and placed an experimental kiss on your lips

✸ well you definitely weren’t complaining anymore

✸ uhh he’d act like he absolutely hates having you on his shoulder

✸ he lives for it

✸ he likes to have you on his shoulder while he cooks so you guys can talk and whatever

✸ if you’re ever being a brat while on his shoulder, he’ll threaten to drop you in the hot oil

✸ he likes to tease you when you’re tiny

✸ as retaliation, you take his things while your tiny, like you’ll steal his eraser or something and he’d tear up his backpack looking for it before he finally spots it on the desk with you sitting on it

✸ he constantly worries about you because denki and sero like to mess with you when you’re in tiny mode

✸ it’s been too many times that he’s found you taped to something while posting about it

✸ i feel bad for the poor soul that decides it’s a good idea to bully you for your quirk

✸ he would quite literally, ‘blow up their asses’

mezo shoji

♡ I think shoji is a little apprehensive about making new friends since he’s a bit insecure but he’s open to the idea

♡ so when he sees that you’re eating lunch alone, he decided to sit with you

♡ you were surprised that he had sat across from you, you froze in place while looking at him

♡ he hadn’t said anything though, he just ate his lunch and you relaxed, continuing to eat yours

♡ this went on for a couple of weeks before you finally broke the ice by offering him some of your onigiri, you watched as he grabbed the onigiri and fed it into the mouth on one of his arms

♡ “your quirk is really cool!” His eyes widened at your sudden confession, he watched as a blush formed on your cheeks and looked away. “sorry, I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable...”

♡ he just chuckled and shook his head

♡ from then on the two of you would share your lunch with each other

♡ “come to think of it, I don’t know what your quirk is.”

♡ it was the first time you guys were hanging out outside of school, he had invited you to the dorms and you two were in the common room drinking some tea

♡ “I guess you’re right—hey! what’s that?!” he whipped around to where you were pointing

♡ “What? There’s...there’s nothing-what?” Once he had turned back to you, you were gone. “(Y/n)?”

♡ as he was looking around, you climbed up his sleeve and onto his shoulder, “I’m right here silly~” he looked around once more but couldn’t find you, “yoo-hoo! Shoji-kun!!”

♡ he looked down to his shoulder and oh...you were tiny

♡ he placed his hand near his shoulder and you jumped onto it, holding onto his finger as he held you right in front of his eyes

♡ he definitely wasn’t expecting that, he was so caught off guard that he started to blush (not that you’d be able to tell)

♡ you guys would also train together often and it was during one of those training sessions that he had confessed to you

♡ when you guys start dating, he’d definitely love to have you on his shoulder all the time...he can’t help it, he thinks you’re adorable

♡ “shoji...”

♡ “yes mr. Aizawa?”

♡ “what’s that on your shoulder?” You froze and trying to think of where to hide. “don’t make me do it.” He sighed

♡ “...do what?” Shoji tried playing dumb as he heard your tiny ‘oh crap!’ as you jumped off his shoulder, right when you did was when Aizawa activated his quirk and you reverted to normal size, falling to the ground

♡ there was a few giggles from the class as you got up, looking around

♡ “(y/n)? How’d you get there?” Shoji continued his act

♡ “you know, I was wondering the same thing...”

♡ “miss (l/n), please go back to class.”

♡ “yes sir.”

♡ that wasn’t the last time the two of you tried that

♡ he would also enjoy if you nuzzled and kissed his cheek while on his shoulder

♡ he vowed to protect you if anything were to ever happed

♡ he thinks you’re adorable, mini sized or not

[calif0rnia-lovers]

sweet as pie.

a/n: please join me in welcoming sam wilson to the page. first story dedicated to this classic man, surely not the last.

pairing: sam wilson x black!reader

rating: 💙

main masterlist | taglist | divider © @whimsicalrogers

sum: sam is home. although times have changed, his sister’s intentions for him have not. sarah would love for her brother to settle down, and she knows the perfect person to make him do it. but when sam gets caught up with work, he misses the date sarah has set up for him.

words: 2.3K

It’s funny how the human mind works.

How easily certain moments can slip through its cracks. Names, dates, songs, conversations, faces lost to the wind, never to be remembered again. In the same turn, how those same things can be retained, recited down to the last detail in perfection.

Sam Wilson has seen enough in his lifetime--more than most men. No one could condemn him for forgetting the smallest of details from time to time. Sometimes he does. He is human. But, strangely, he can never forget a single detail when it comes to you.

Sam can still remember the first time he saw you.

The coffee-colored, cardboard box you carried in your arms--'living room' written across the front panel in your mother’s flawless penmanship. The dark curls pineappled to rest atop the crown of your head--a last-ditch attempt of fighting the Louisiana heat. The oversized Purple Rain t-shirt faded from too many runs through the wash. The round, black sunglasses sliding down the brim of your nose as you paused to take note of the boy watching you from his front window. Down to the scuffed, worn high tops that could barely pass for white.

He even remembers the soft smile you gave him once he froze--too embarrassed to move from the window after being caught watching you for the third time--before turning to lug the box up the steps of your front porch.

It was the summer of ‘94, and Sam Wilson was running late. He was expected to be at the docks assisting his father. Instead, he was peeping around his mother’s powder blue curtains, attempting to score glimpses of his new neighbors. Primarily their teenage daughter.

It’s not every day that Delacroix welcomes a new resident--let alone an entire family. Later that night, over dinner, his mother shared that you were entering your senior year--same as him.

He still remembers the knotting of his stomach. The strange and unusual experience of being tongue-tied when he’d tripped over his name--his name for god’s sake--that morning, you opened your front door to find him and Sarah on the other side. The kindness of your dark brown eyes as they met his, the soft giggle you released as you ignored his sputtering to accept the chocolate chip cookies his mother sent her children to deliver.

He also remembers the vision of you in your wedding dress. The smile he had to keep plastered on his face the night he learned his skepticism, surrounding death by broken heart, faded. You’ve never felt pain until you’ve seen the woman you love marry another man.

Sam must admit. When he returned, he expected--hoped--that those feelings would have disappeared. That they would have been erased from his life. Only, the moment he returned home, Sam discovered those feelings remained--were stronger even.

Five years later, he found you in the same house. Your parents no lived there. After their return from the blip, they packed up their things. Suddenly, tackling their bucket list was their main priority. You still had your husband’s last name but no husband. He was gone, lost to a younger woman.

Five years later, and Sam Wilson finds himself still frozen by the sight of you.

The long-sleeved maroon shirt he’s tugged on is not his number one choice. It’s all he had in his bag. The time on his watch had forced him into an ultimatum. Either run home, shower, and change into the outfit Sarah helped him pick out and risk being five hours late. Or head straight to your house, and risk being four hours and forty-five minutes late.

Sam opted for the latter.

Flowers in hand, he stands in the gateway of your backyard. His eyes admire the glow of the string lights against your skin. The yard has been transformed. Several tables and chairs, enough to host the entire neighborhood, squeezed into its space. Filled with music and laughter a few hours before the backyard is now quiet. Only the sounds of crickets, and the rustle of the trash bag in your hand, can be heard over the racing of Sam’s heart.

“Hey.” Sam takes a step forward, clearing his throat. “Sorry, I’m late.”

“Late is an understatement.” You don’t bother looking up from the plates stacked in your hands. Dumping them into the black trash bag, you move towards the next table. “You missed the entire party.”

After dumping the trash, you realize that Sam is no longer in the backyard. You find him in the kitchen.

“What are you doing?” You ask, coming to a stop in the doorway.

Sam glances up from the soap-covered glass in his hands. “Helping you clean up.”

You glance around the kitchen, only to find that he’s managed to wash nearly the entire stack of dishes you’ve been dreading the entire night.

“I didn’t realize you still did stuff like this,” you tease. “What with you running off to save the world. Figured you’d just hire someone to do it for you.”

“Guess it’s a good thing I got you to keep me humble,” he winks.

Sam dries his hands with the bumblebee printed hand towel, a satisfied grin on his lips as he takes in the spotless kitchen. He’s too busy admiring his handiwork to realize you’re standing alongside him.

He turns, the snarky comment he’s prepared lost in his throat as he takes you in.

You can’t deny him a smile as you watch his eyes widen, a boyish grin brightening his face as he takes in the plate you’re holding. On it rests a single slice of homemade apple pie, topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and perfectly drizzled caramel.

“I think you’ve earned this.”

“You saved me a piece?”

“No,” you sigh, allowing your eyes to roll. “I actually saved it for me. But if I have to look at your pathetic attempt at puppy dog eyes one more second--”

“You were hoping I’d show up.” The grin on Sam’s face has morphed into a trademark smirk, the sight pulling a giggle from your lips. “You and I both know you don’t save, or share your pie with just anyone.”

Sam’s observation is spot on.

You don’t share your pie--or food, for that matter--with just anyone. In the chaos of hosting the neighborhood, you didn’t have a moment to stop and enjoy your own party. Let alone a slice of the apple pies you’d spent the previous night preparing.

Apple pies--specifically yours--were Sam Wilson’s true weakness.

The moment he sees you lugging home a bag full of granny smith and macintosh apples, he’s on full helicopter mode. You’re not sure how he knows, but he’s got a radar. One that somehow allows him to prophesize the exact moment the pies are out of the oven and set aside to cool.

He’ll show up, stopping by to say hi, or to see if you still need the drainpipe your ex-husband never got around to working on fixed, or to “pass along a message” from Sarah--as though your best friend couldn’t pick up the phone and call. Whatever the excuse Sam Wilson always manages to be the one to get the first slice of your apple pie. He’s smart enough to know that once the children of the neighborhood catch a whiff, they’ll show up on your doorstep. And as much as he loves the kids--Sam isn’t letting them steal his pie.

Sam’s words come out muffled through a mouthful of apples and crust. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, Y/N. You should sell these. You'd make a killing.”

“And I’ve already told you, it’s just for fun,” you dismiss his advice, taking another spoonful of ice cream. “Besides, what do you expect me to do? Quit my good paying--although painstakingly boring--job in the hopes that enough people will like my baking to keep me afloat?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Sam nods, a smile growing as he watches your eyes roll.

It’s a conversation the two of you have had for years. Here is the rundown of how it plays out--every single time.

Sam: suggests that you finally open up the bakery you’ve been talking about since your teenage years.

You: dismiss his words of advice, reminding Sam that most teenage dreams are foolish.

Sam: ends the conversation with, “I’d show up every day for a piece.”

You: spend the rest of the night wondering if he’s right, about taking the chance, only to psych yourself out before going to bed.

“I’m just saying,” Sam sighs, sliding the plate to the side. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned. Life is going to pass you by, regardless, no matter what you do. If you give it a shot, and it fails--which is never going to happen--your life isn’t going to end.”

You glance up from the table, a tiny smile on your lips as you take in his soft smile.

“Maybe you’re right,” you shrug. “If all else fails, I’ll just tell everyone it’s the Falcon’s favorite pie--”

“You’ll have people flooding in from across the country.”

“It’s settled,” you giggle. “I’m using you in my business model.”

“Hey,” Sam chuckles. “As long as I get a cut, I’m not complaining.”

A silence falls over the tiny kitchen as your gaze drops from his.

Sam lightly raps his knuckles against the table before pushing his chair back.

“Uh—I should probably head out. You’re probably tired. I just wanted to come by and apologize...again.”

“Wow,” the light laugh you release halts Sam’s act of standing up. “The second you get what you came for you hit the ground running?”

The response is automatic. The chance to tease him is one you never pass up.

Sam’s brow raises as he takes in your smile.

“That’s not what I came for,” he admits.

“What did you come for then?”

“To ask you over to my place for breakfast tomorrow.”

The proposition hangs in the air, Sam nearly squirming in his seat as you take your time studying his gaze. You let out a sigh, your shoulders shrugging lightly, once you finally speak.

“I don’t know, Sam” You shake your head. Picking up the plate, you stand and cross the kitchen to the sink. “You just have so many responsibilities, nowadays, running around trying to save the world--”

“I’m not going anywhere tonight,” he’s quick with the reassurance. “Or any day, until we get through that date you promised me.”

You turn to face him, arms crossing over your chest as he comes to a stop before you.

“Say I show up. You have to promise me something.”

“Whatever you want.”

He knows that promise can end up being a slippery slope, depending on how hard you’re willing to make him work for it.

“If something comes up, in the future, you call me. And you tell me exactly why you can’t be here. Nobody gets to stand me up. Not the Falcon. And sure as hell, not Sam Wilson. Understood?”

Sam’s eyes drop to your interlaced fingers, a soft chuckle escaping his lips as he gives your hand a gentle squeeze.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good.” Standing on your toes, you place a kiss against his cheek. “Now, go get some sleep. You’re making me breakfast in the morning. I’m expecting waffles, bacon, freshly squeezed O.J.--the works.”

if at any point you would like to be removed from the taglist, just message me

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[ashintheairlikesnow]

Tell Me Everything

Follows Found Out, Akio, Chris Sees, and I’m Here

CW: References to murder, suicide, grief, pet whump, abduction, whump of a minor, ableism, Oliver Branch manages to be creepy even now in brief reference

He’s shorter than Ben thought he would be.

Ben sees him first, but, like of course he does - Akio Nakamura isn’t exactly famous but he has his own youtube channel and is like an Olympic-level athlete, so he’s pretty fucking recognizable... if you’ve spent two days scrolling through every Instagram photo of him on three different accounts that you can find. 

Ben showed up thirty minutes early, because Ben has never been late to a fucking thing in his life and something tells him this is maybe one of the most important things he’ll ever do, even though he doesn’t quite know why. 

Something about it keeps picking at his mind, taking it apart, unraveling him with the reality that someone fucking cared about Chris, before whatever happened. Chris doesn’t remember much, and Ben and Laken had done the googling and searching and shit, trying to get some idea of what the hell could have happened to make someone like Chris - bouncy and full of sunshine optimism even on his bad days - end up at a place like WRU.

They’d found nothing a first. But Ben hadn’t known what he was looking for, then. Now that he knows what to look for, he can’t stop finding things. He feels like a detective or someone who has lost his mind, desperately piecing together a life that was interrupted, like someone disappearing mid-sentence, and Ben is following a trail of the words he said before. 

He finds human-interest stories from ten years ago, digitized articles from old community newspapers. He finds more photos from the gym, photos where the redheaded boy is in the background, or in the front always looking slightly off to one side, rarely smiling for the camera but happy to smile as long as he didn’t have to look right at it.

He finds out Veronica Higgs, murdered in the double-homicide that had destroyed the life of Tristan Higgs, had a facebook page, and it’s marked as In Memorial. So is her husband’s, but Paul Higgs’s page is private and his profile photo is a meme that hasn’t been a thing since…

Since they died.

Something about that makes his throat close up as he scrolls Ronnie’s last few public updates, the scattering of people who have left comments saying they miss her, they’re thinking of her, they hope she’s in a better place. Comments are left on the last post like clockwork, once a year, by the same few people. 

Thinking of you today, Ronnie. 

Saw your favorite bird today!

Hope you and Tris and Paul are happy wherever you are now, Ronnie. I take comfort in knowing you’re still together.

Happy Heavenly Birthday, Ronnie!

Left flowers for you today, Ronnie. Jennifer did a routine this year that uses some of Tristan’s music, we’re always thinking of you!

Thinking of you

Miss you

Hope you three are happy together

Miss you, big sister, always.

One day I’ll stop leaving comments like you’re still here. I was watching the old videos and gosh, I couldn’t help but think how proud we were of our boys back then! Rest in peace. Give Tris a kiss for me. That’s Aimi Nakamura, that’s Akio’s mom. Her profile photo is her with her arms around Akio himself, wearing his leotard and holding up a medal with a bright smile, and a younger teenager who must be his little sister - she’s just wearing regular clothes. Feeling like a stalker, Ben opens the mom’s facebook page in a new tab. He absolutely does not look at the photos of Akio she’s posted. He does not do that at all.

He might do that later.

For now he goes back to Ronnie’s page, sees that her last post was brief, something about looking for a recipe, crowd-sourcing. Tris asked to try baked oysters, isn’t that funny? Only my kid, I swear. He’d said seafood is ‘slime’ except for tuna since toddlerhood, but no, this week he wants oysters. He said he wanted to try something new for once and he might as well go as far from the usual as he could get. I

One of the joys of all of this is how when he gets something in his head, I just go with him, and we see what’s on the other side of the jump, right? Watch him spit it right back out. 

It’s fucking ordinary. 

She posted it a couple days before she was murdered.

That doesn’t seem fair, does it? He just can’t wrap his head around it. She was a good mom taking care of her kid, she got some recipe ideas... but then she never cooked any of them because she just… died?

She died, and Tristan’s - Chris’s - dad died, and then there just wasn’t anybody? There wasn’t anybody to take care of a kid who couldn’t take care of himself yet? Nobody at-fucking-all, to keep Tristan safe and loved when the people who loved him the most were gone? 

How the hell did he go from placed in the care of relatives to just... gone? How did he go from gone to a rescued runaway pet with a new name and a new life? What happened in all that gray space in-between?

Ben blinks back tears.

Whatever it was... could that happen to Jamey? Ben’s whole family has built their existence on holding his little brother together through the ways the world wants to shred everything about him. He’s spent nearly all the life he remembers with his brother’s hand closed in the fabric of his shirt, shadowing him through the world, reminding him that you can’t trust everybody, not everyone has good intentions. 

Ben doesn’t even have to think before he’s moving in front of him to block out the noise and chaos of the world that Jamey just can't filter the way Ben can. He knows that when - hopefully forever from now - their parents die, Jamey’s going to move in with Ben. 

It’s never been a question. He doesn’t want it to be a question.

But... what if Ben wasn’t there? What would happen to Jamey if his Mom and Dad were gone, and nobody was there who wanted to keep Jamey safe? He can’t stop thinking about it. He cycles around and around, and Laken called him yesterday and said not to talk to Chris for a few days, that he saw the video and he’s not okay, and Ben’s not fucking okay, either, is he?

This could happen to Jamey.

Someone could see him, alone and vulnerable, and think, no one will stop me and he can’t stop me either, and then Jamey could disappear and then just not be Jamey anymore, and there wouldn’t be anyone to save him-

Ben looks up from his phone without focusing on anything, sniffing back the pain, the tight feeling in his chest at the idea of his little brother, disappearing into some dark hallway and never coming back. Just some photos on Instagram, a video of two, some mentions on somebody’s In Memorial Facebook page, that’s all that’s left of his silly, serious, annoying, funny little brother?

Like someone turned out the light on Jamey’s life and the world just forgets him, because his family isn’t there to keep him safe and Jamey can’t always tell who you can trust and who you can’t, and… and Chris can’t either, can he?

He just wants to think the best of everyone, he forgives everyone who hurts him so easily, so quickly, like it’s second-nature, like...

Did Tristan Higgs want to think good things about whoever did this, whoever had him erased, whoever handed him off to be turned into one of those blank empty-eyed dolls celebrities and rich people drag around? Did Tristan Higgs trust the person who gave him away to be erased, because he didn’t know not to?

Who the fuck bought him?

How did it all fucking happen?

The bell chimes. Akio Nakamura is right on time.

And he’s short.

He’s got a natural almost-smile on his face at all times, a hint of tan to his skin even now in the early spring, wearing a thin gray hoodie, unzipped over a plain white t-shirt and blue jeans. His muscles aren’t visible, like this, but Ben has seen the videos and knows they’re there, the body of a trained athlete hidden under casual clothing. His hair isn’t as short as it is when he competes, in the videos Ben has already watched over and over entirely for research purposes. It’s a little longer, starting to flop over his forehead.

Dark eyes scan the interior of the store, and Ben raises one hand to catch his attention.

The smile brightens, briefly, with a quick nod - like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, Ben feels that smile as a physical warmth in his chest - and he pushes the rest of the way inside, walking straight over. 

“Hey,” Akio says, and his voice is a little deeper than it seems in the youtube videos where he narrates, and Ben, for one shining moment, completely forgets how to speak his own fucking native language.

His mouth opens and nothing comes out - except maybe kind of a croak, which, please let that not have been audible - and he clears his throat, waiting for his brain and his body to remember how to work together. “Uh… um, h-hey,” He says, finally, and shifts uncomfortably. “You’re-... right. I’m, um. I’m Ben.”

“Yeah. I, I figured, you look just like your profile photo.” Akio laughs a little, dropping into a seat cross from him, sitting casually and letting his eyes roam over the mostly-empty interior of the shop, painted with bright colors and lined with posters about ice cream. 

Ben could not possibly have picked a worse place for a professional athlete to go to… meet and talk about his dead friend, could he? Oh, God. Oh he’s a fucking moron. “Right. Uh, sorry, I couldn’t-... when you asked to meet on the phone, I kind of blanked and this was the only place I could think of-”

“Hey, that’s all right. I like coming here, when I’m off from competing. It’s been a while. Hope you don’t mind if I stick with an iced coffee today, though, I’m not feeling ice cream.” Akio grins at him, and Ben’s knees might buckle if he wasn’t sitting down already. The smile takes over his entire face, lights it up, and it reminds him so much of Chris when he’s really happy, the way Chris smiles with his entire fucking body, not just his mouth. 

“Yeah, it’s… no problem, I’ll order, I picked here, anyway. Just the iced coffee?” 

“Yeah, please. Also, I should warn you - my mom is lurking across the street faking an interest in whatever they sell at Paisley Poses and she’ll probably stop pretending she’s not here and show up before we’re done. She’s… uh. Well, get the stuff, and then I’ll, um, I’ll explain.”

“Right. Got it.” Ben’s grip on his phone is white-knuckled as he stands up, aware of every movement of his body as he walks - and he walks normally, right? Not, like weird? It’s not like Akio is watching him walk anyway, probably - over to the cash register. The cashier, whose hair is dyed a pale faded sort of seafoam green, almost the color of those weird mint shakes you can buy from McDonald’s in April, takes his order with a flat affect, unbothered, uncaring.

Ben doesn’t know what he orders for himself. His mouth moves and words come out and then he realizes he doesn’t know what he just said. 

Whatever it is, he pays for it.

He takes the little number-on-a-stick, and carries it back to the table to wait. 

“Iced coffee it is,” He says a little breathlessly. “Um, it’ll be just a sec. They’ll bring it out with my… with mine.”

Shit, what the fuck did he even order for himself?

“No problem.” Akio’s eyes move over his face, considering. He’s sitting slouched a little, but it doesn’t look quite natural - like his posture is usually so much better and he’s trying to look like everyone else. Ben’s eyes are drawn to his hands, folded over his stomach, over wrinkled white shirt fabric. He has a blood-bruise under one thumbnail.

What a weird fucking thing to notice about someone.

“I-I don’t really know where to start,” Ben admits, slouching himself. He runs his fingers over the textured case of his phone, a charcoal-black with rough edges. Jamey likes the texture on his phone, will just sit and rub the pads of his fingers on it over and over and over again, smiling in a distant way, sitting next to Ben on the couch while Ben watches TV and Jamey, who can go days without speaking and is currently one hundred percent all about how they film movies and tv shows, explains every fucking cinematic trick every camera is using at any given moment.

It’s nice.

It’s how Jamey says he loves you, by sharing what’s up in his head whenever he can, and Ben - when he’s home - always tries to listen. 

“Yeah.” Akio laughs again, and Ben decides it’s a good laugh - strong, and not overly loud, and a little infectious. “Yeah, me neither. I don’t-... how do you even begin a conversation like this? Hello, nice to meet you, what do you know about my dead best friend? I don’t know what to say, just… we don’t even know they’re the same person, do we? Maybe they just look alike. Fuck.” Akio laughs once more, but this time it’s shaky, breathier. “I genuinely can’t decide if I want him to dead or not, I just-...”

Ben takes a breath, thinking of Laken’s voice on the phone yesterday morning, exhausted and rambling after a night of not sleeping, their fear and grief and love for Chris, telling Ben to go ahead with this meeting, but Chris needed time. “They’re definitely the same person,” He says, voice low and quiet. “We, um. He saw the video you posted, and he kind of-... freaked out.”

“Freaked out?” Akio blinks, sitting up a little straighter. His eyes are focused completely on Ben’s face, which would make him blush if he weren’t trying not to look directly at him. “What do you mean?”

Ben swallows. “Um. Just. He’s-... he doesn’t remember. Or… he didn’t. Seeing the video might have… brought some stuff up. Like, a lot of... bad stuff.”

Fuck, I’ve never heard him scream like that. Laken’s voice, rough-edged, laced with their tears. I can’t believe… he needs a few days, he can’t go with you to see this guy, Ben. He’s-... he’s super fucked up right now. I’m so glad his brothers know what’s happening to him because I-I don’t know what to do and he won’t let me anywhere near him. 

Akio nods, slowly, and his hands worry at each other under the table, the smile faded and replaced with seriousness, uncertainty. “Yeah, when you said-... anyway, I looked the company up, and it’s-... it’s weird, I knew about pets, but I guess… I mean, he wasn’t old enough to…” 

“Um… yeah. So, um. I know, but they-... clearly they still did...”

They sit there in an awkward silence, and then Akio pulls his own phone out of his pocket and unlocks it. “Let me show you something. Tris and I shared our passwords for Instagram, way back, and when he-... went… when his aunt took his phone away-”

Ben’s eyebrows furrow. Something about that pricks at him. Miss you, big sister, always. 

“He went to live with his aunt?” Ben asks. The cashier reappears, setting a plain iced coffee down on the table, and Ben discovers he apparently ordered iced coffee with a scoop of ice cream for himself, and that’s not bad, good for him. It’s even his favorite ice cream, vanilla with almond and chocolate chips.

“Yeah, his Aunt Jo, his mom’s sister.” Akio shrugs one shoulder. “I never met her, she never came to meets or anything. Tris always said she was kind of a shit to him and his dad.” Something in his jaw is tightening - and the line of his jaw is catching Ben’s eyes entirely too much for the seriousness of this conversation. He can’t stop himself from looking. “She’s who he went to live with, after. She took his phone away because he was complaining to, um, to my mom and I - my mom and Ronnie, Mrs. Higgs, were… you know, team moms.” He shrugs, and Ben doesn’t know, but he nods anyway. “He was complaining about how she took him out of therapy, and… uh, you know, Tris needed therapy, just-... it helped him to, um-”

Ben swallows. “Self-regulate,” He says, softly. “Redirect potentially harmful stims. Figure out how to filter.”

“Right.” Akio smiles, a little shamefaced. “Sorry, it’s been… fucking years since I had to think about this so much. It’s… I would show my mom his messages, and my mom would call Jo and tell her to get him back in therapy and back to practice, but… you know, the social workers said there was nothing we could do about it. We weren’t family. We made complaints, but...” Akio slumps, closing his eyes briefly. "God, I don't even know if they did a home visit."

Ben closes his eyes. Jamey, trapped with someone who didn’t let him go to his own therapy. Jamey, nonverbal on hard days, trapped with someone who didn’t learn signing to talk to him during meltdowns like Ben’s family did. 

Jamey, trying to say he needed help with his hands again and again but no one’s listening, no one’s even trying anymore-

“Yeah,” Ben says, voice hoarse, and uses a thin plastic spoon with a long handle to get a bite of ice cream soaked in cold coffee taste, letting it dissolve on his tongue to buy himself some time for his throat to open back up. It’s fear in his chest, yeah, but beneath that is a bubbling, simmering fury, a distant anger for a hypothetical that he understands was Chris’s reality. “Yeah. My brother’s-... um, autistic, so I know… I know about it.”

“Yeah, I saw that.”

Ben blinks, caught off-guard. “What?”

Akio flushes, reddening along his cheekbones, and rolls his eyes at himself, slumping back down. “Okay, so, I promise I’m not a stalker, but when you messaged me I looked at your profile to see if you were just a creep. I saw the autism banner, so I looked and you wrote this really sweet thing about your brother-... how old is he?”

Ben almost forgets how to speak again. “He’s-... fifteen. Just turned fifteen. Jamey’s, um, his name is Jamey.”

“Cool. Yeah. So. I’m not a stalker. But, I’m just… listen, Tris and I started training at the gym together when we were like… seven. And I was seventeen when he, when she said… when she said he died.”

Ben’s breath catches. “Shit. She did?”

“Um. Yeah. A month after she took his phone away - we were calling her all the time asking to speak with him and stuff, my mom had kind of threatened to get social services involved again - she called my mom and said he-... um. Sorry if suicide is a thing for you, but…”

“No, I-I’m okay, I just…”

“Yeah. She told us he killed himself. We thought she was lying - oh fuck, she was lying, wasn’t she? - but so... but then you know, she had him cremated, and... I fucking-... I lost my shit, Ben. I didn’t compete, I didn’t train, I just, I just sat in my room for like six months bawling my eyes out and I told my mom it was just like she killed him, taking him away from everything when, you know, he was so sad and scared without them.”

Ben nods, quiet, watching Akio’s face as he speaks.

“My mom offered to take him, have him live with us, but… you know, she said no, and then he-... but he didn’t.” Akio drinks his coffee, absently, and Ben realizes his eyes are red around the edges. “Oh, god, he probably thought nobody cared about him anymore. Oh, shit. He probably thought we stopped giving a fuck. That h-he was al-... alone-”

He’s been crying. He’s maybe going to cry again.

Akio takes in a deep, shuddering breath. “He didn’t know-... shit. He probably just thought, no one’s coming, nobody cares, and… shit. I don’t know what to even think right now, just...” Akio slides his phone across the table. “Look at this. I locked it, when I thought-... but I kept it, anyway. I kept everything, I couldn’t-... I mean it’s just a box of stuff under my bed, but… I couldn’t throw any of it out, because… I don’t know. Somebody needed to, to r-remember him, and she wouldn’t have-... that fucking bitch told us he was dead. And she threw out all his stuff, so I’m... I guess I’m the only one who still has anything, so I just... kept it. Everything. And... this.”

There’s a moment where they both pretend Akio’s voice isn’t trembling.

“What is this?” Ben knows before the question is fully out of his mouth, but he looks anyway. Akio’s phone is still warm from his hand. 

“Tristan’s Instagram account. We, uh, we took pictures of stupid shit a lot back then, and Instagram was, like, super new and all filters all the time, so you just-... but this is his. His mom encouraged him to use it because, you know, sometimes he could show stuff better than he could say it.”

“Yeah, I get that.” Ben tilts his head, scrolling through the images. Most of the photos are just nothing - a cloud, books on a bookshelf, a tree leaf. Ben kind of quirks a smile at all the old Instagram filters right there, like looking in a fucking time capsule. Sometimes there are gymnastics photos, of the gym or of someone training. Sometimes Tristan himself appears in the photo, a blur of constant motion, photos taken by someone else. Photos of dinosaur bones at a museum, seemingly every fucking skeleton or fossil in the place.

“That’s our trip to DC, the team went,” Akio says, and points to a photo of Tristan and Akio, gangly awkward teenagers, standing in front of the Lincoln monument. Akio is smiling, and Tristan is looking up at the sky instead of the camera. “I like to look at this stuff sometimes? I know it’s been… it’s funny, we were talking a few weeks ago about how it’ll be a couple more years when he’s been dead longer than how long I knew him, but he’s not-... he was never dead.” Akio swallows, and his voice catches. When he speaks again, he sounds strained, forcing his voice to stay calm around the emotion that threatens to overtake it. “He was never dead. I keep getting caught up on that, because-... because how did we not know? How did we never… find him?”

Ben pushes the phone back to Akio. “You didn’t know to look,” He says, softly. “How were you supposed to find him if you didn’t know anyone needed to be looking?”

“I guess. My mom feels like shit, she’s been crying since we spoke to you. Well, I have, too. But my mom feels like she… she should have showed up at Joanne’s door and just taken Tristan by force, but, you know, the cops would’ve taken him right back, probably? That’s fucking kidnapping? And I keep telling her not to feel guilty, but she-”

“Yeah,” Ben says, thinking of Laken’s voice on the phone. 

I didn’t know he’d come home early. I keep saying I’m sorry but... He wasn’t-... he wasn’t ready for this and he’s so… he’s so fucked up. He won’t even talk to me. Every time Jake leaves the room we’re scared he’ll hurt himself again. He keeps telling me to find someone else, somebody easier, but I don’t want anyone else, god damn it, I want him! 

“She’s taking it really hard,” Akio says, finally, breaking into Ben’s thoughts. “I mean. We both are. But, you know, I keep thinking I can’t do this but then I think… I want to see him again. I want to see this guy in person, not just in those photos and videos you had. I want to see how he’s doing, he looks-... he looks so good.” Akio coughs, like he’s trying to cover up a sob, not quite managing it. “He looks really good.”

“He is, he’s doing… he’s good. Um, he’s having a hard time with remembering some stuff, but overall... he’s good.” Ben picks his own phone back up, pops back to Ronnie’s page. “What did you say the aunt’s name was?”

“Jo, um, Joanne… something. Sorry, I don’t really remember her last name, my mom would-”

“Botham?” Ben looks up, and god, he kind of wants to hug Akio until there aren’t tears in his eyes anymore. But also that’s a stupid thing to think, isn’t it? But he wants to, anyway. 

“Oh, that sounds right.”

“She left a comment on his mom’s-... I’ve been looking for everything I could find. I’m sorry, I know that’s creepy. But Joanne Botham left like a comment about missing-... hold on.” Ben clicks to open up Joanne Botham’s profile. A woman smiling in a profile photo, with dark hair. Something about the shape of her mouth is similar to Chris’s, but that doesn’t mean much, really. He scrolls down. 

Name, stupid quote from a stupider movie, current city is a while away from this one, like a couple states away, but she could’ve moved… There it is.

The answer to his questions, all of them, all at once, right out in the open.

“Joanne Botham,” He says out loud, “works at WRU.”

“What?” Akio looks up at him.

“His aunt. The mom’s sister, she works for WRU. That’s where Chris was-... where they hurt him. Where they make pets.”

Where they erase people. Where they take someone like Jamey and destroy him and how many versions of my brother are there who weren’t rescued by somebody like Chris’s big brother?

“WRU?” Akio’s face twists, an ugly pain written across it. “They’re one of our team’s sponsors. I’ve never thought about how… oh my god. I, I never liked… I mean, none of us are, like, political about it because you can’t be if you want an Olympic career, not really, but we all kind of hated taking the money. My coach thinks it’s good because it gets people off the street, which is super fucked up, but…” His iced coffee thunks down on the table. 

“What?”

“Oh shit. Oh holy fuck. They’ve been sponsoring us since we met with the old governor - he’s the one who hooked our coach up with their marketing team, and… oh my god. I’m gonna be fucking sick. WRU’s been my sponsor since like… a year after Tristan died-... didn’t die, I guess...”

“You didn’t know,” Ben whispers, staring down at Joanne Botham’s profile photo, scrolling through the profile picture photo album. He’s not maybe the smartest person on earth, but he can put two and two together for four. Tristan Higgs’s parents died, he goes to his aunt - who works for a human pet company - and he’s dead, supposedly, four months later. 

Time passes. No sign of supposed dead boy.

Then Chris, identical in every way, appears with no memory of his life and a thousand traumas to heal from, rescued from something that Ben doesn’t know the details of, but he doesn’t have to. 

Life as a pet, a life that made him terrified of bad weather and scared of people who raise their hands too quickly, unable to say no to anything when he gets scared, nervous about big vans with no windows, someone who says stupid fucking bullshit like silence is better than stammering when he’s upset, who sometimes has screaming nightmares that Laken has to wake him from that he refuses to explain to them...

Meanwhile, Aunt Joanne is putting up photos of herself traveling internationally, buying a new house, a new car, stuff she couldn’t afford to do before.

The math does itself.

It’s fucking true crime textbook, and it’s right in front of his eyes.

Akio’s jaw is working, and his eyes are glimmering again. He looks at Ben, and he looks weirdly lost and young, and Ben reaches out without thinking and grabs onto his hand. Akio grips on tight. His hand is warm, almost too warm, but also it’s the perfect amount of warm. “Do you think-... do you think she-”

Ben thinks about Jamey, scared and alone. He thinks about Jamey - and Tristan, the two of them mixing together in his mind - being dragged away, to be lost and overwritten, because no one was there to stop it.

Because someone did it on purpose.

Because no one stopped it.

“I think maybe she was lying to you because she didn’t want you to take Tristan,” Ben says, softly. “I think maybe she wanted to-... make money on him.”

Akio chokes, and leans forward, and Ben holds his hand as tightly as he can, feeling the other man’s fingers tremble in his grip. “I can't-... I can't even begin to deal with that, I just… So h-how did he end up in college? Pets don’t-... go to school, they’re not capable… are they?"

"Um. It depends, apparently?" Ben doesn’t know how much of this is something Chris would ever allow him to share. But Akio’s eyes raise, and catch his again, and Ben smiles, just a little, in an attempt to comfort. “He was rescued,” He says, softly. “I don’t know how, or when. He’d have to tell you that himself. But he’s, um. He’s just Chris now.”

“He’s just Chris, now.” Akio groans resting his head on his hand. “But not Tristan. So he really is dead, his body’s still just-.. walking around.”

“No,” Ben says, and leans in, getting Akio to look at him again. “He’s not gone. Not, like, the core of him, I think. We knew him as soon as we saw him on your video. We knew the smile, and how he moves, all of it. Everybody in the room knew him as soon as we saw him smile at you. He’s still there, he’s still him. I promise.”

“I knew it was him on your stuff as soon as I saw him dancing,” Akio says, brokenly. “H-he always did get obsessed with those fuh-fucking musicals and we used to make up routines to th-them-” His head drops, shoulders shaking, and Ben puts his other hand on Akio’s shoulder, moves around the edge of the little circular table, so he can put an arm around him. 

“It’s okay,” He whispers. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Akio says, muffled. “It’s not okay. We should have saved him, w-we didn’t know, we didn’t know she would… he probably th-thought we didn’t care... the social worker said it was fine, we’re not re-relatives, we didn’t know he wasn’t dead, we didn’t know he wasn’t gone, I thought I l-lost him and he probably thinks I didn’t even give a fuck-”

“I’m sure he never thought that,” Ben says, softly, and Akio’s hair brushes a little against the side of his face and he tries not to think too hard about how nice that feels, this is not the time or place, Benjamin, stop thinking about his hair stop it stop it stop it.

“We thought... “

“I know. But… you found him, now. He’s found.”

Akio sniffs back tears, mumbling, “Can I see him?”

Ben hesitates. “He needs-... he might need some time.”

Akio nods without looking up, but he leans a little on Ben. “I’m sorry, I’m being a fucking moron about this, making you comfort me and you don’t even know me, but I just-... missed him, and mourned him, and we go to see is parents wh-where they’re buried every year on the day that his aunt said he-... Is he h-happy? Now?”

Ben closes his eyes. That’s what I’d want to know, isn’t it, if it was Jamey. Is he happy now? Does his new family sign, do they know how to calm him down when it’s too much, do they know, do they care, if I’m not there does someone love him as much as we did?

I’d claw my way out of the fucking grave to make sure someone loves Jamey as much as he deserves.

“He’s happy,” Ben says, softly. “He was adopted by the guy who saved him, I think. There’s a whole lot I don’t know, you know, it’s not really my-... my story to, um, to tell. I just know some of it. He’s, um, he’s with someone, and… he’s… he’s happy.”

“Good. I just-... I want to see him.”

“I know. I’ll ask. But his partner... I’m friends with them, and they, um, he’s n-not... not okay right now, so...”

“I can wait.” Akio looks at him, intense, intent, eyes so dark Ben could fall in. “I’ve waited this long, I can-... I can wait a little longer, I just... I just want to see him, when he can see me.”

The bell over the door chimes again, and the two of them turn and look to see a woman who could not be more obviously Akio’s mother entering, looking at them, her eyebrows furrowed in immediate worry when she sees the tears on Akio’s face. “Aki?”

“It’s him, Mom,” Akio says, and she moves to him as if drawn, and Ben fights himself to pull back and away, to watch mother and son. Tristan had this, and lost it, but Chris has it, too. Life, interrupted at the second act, begun again with new actors around the main character. “It’s definitely-... it’s Tristan. But, she-... I have to tell you what happened to him. He, they-they made him a, um, a pet-”

She hitches in a breath, pulls a chair with a loud scrape from another table, and sits, looking Ben over, expression serious. “Tell me,” She says, softly, but fiercely. 

“It’s, um, it’s a lot…”

“I’ve got time.” Ben is reminded of his own mother, in the simple steel flashing under her perfectly styled hair and carefully done makeup. Her eyes are red around the edges, too. She lays a cool, dry hand over Ben’s, and her dark eyes bore into him with focused intensity. “Tell me what happened to our Tris. I want to know what happened to-... I want to know what I didn’t stop.”

Akio looks sidelong at his mother, putting an arm around her, and he’s shorter than his mom but she seems to sag against him, and he can see how Akio takes after his mom, with the same wide mouth that normally seems always on the verge of a smile, the same dark eyes flashing with anger and guilt. “M-Mom, you couldn’t have known, we couldn’t do anything-”

“I could have gone to that woman’s… house, or wherever she was, and taken Tristan right out the door, and I didn’t,” Aimi says, and her voice doesn’t shake, but her face is bright red and her eyes are overbright and glittering. “I could have called lawyers, or the cops, I could have tried to fight for him and I didn’t. Ronnie deserved-” Her voice catches and her hand is over her mouth. Ben watches her eyes well up, her struggle to calm herself, throat working as she swallows and leans into her son’s embrace. “Ronnie… would have wanted someone to fight for him. I want to know what happened because I did the normal thing and not the right thing, because I didn’t let myself see it. I want to know what exactly it is that I didn’t stop when I had the chance.”

Ben sits back, takes a breath. 

“He, um. His name is… Chris now,” Ben starts, slowly. “Christopher Stanton. He’s, um, he’s a sophomore in college, and… he was a human pet, for a while. We don’t know how long, nobody knows for sure, or who had him. I mean, I guess he knows and I think his brother knows, but h-he, won’t… won’t tell anyone who it was.”

Aimi’s whole body shudders, but her face doesn’t change, and her eyes don’t leave Ben’s. “H-how-”

Akio licks at his lips, and hesitantly says, “Ben thinks maybe that aunt they sent him to sold him. She works for WRU.”

Aimi’s eyes slowly close, and her breathing is slow but trembling. The two young men watch her. Akio’s knee bumps his under the table, and he doesn’t think about that, either, except it’s all he’s going to think about for the rest of the day.

“Okay,” Aimi says, after a long pause, and her eyes open again. A kind of perfect calm settles itself across the pain in her expression. 

Ben thinks that this woman is probably fucking terrifying if it’s you she’s angry with and not herself. 

“Mom, if we need to stop, that’s okay-”

“We don’t. Ben-... that’s your name? Ben?”

“Uh, yeah… Benjamin Prentiss, but-... call me Ben.” 

Prentiss, Akio mouths to himself, and Ben hopes, in another weird moment, that Akio likes his last name. 

“Got it.” Aimi leans forward, smacks the table with one hand. Ben flinches. Her jaw sets. She’s definitely terrifying. Like his own mother when they tried to kick Jamey out of school, this is a woman who could stare down the sun itself unblinking and walk away undamaged, if the sun was a threat to her children. “Ben?”

“Yes, um, Mrs. Nakamura?”

“Keep talking. Tell me everything about Tristan-”

“Chris.” He clears his throat. “He’s, um, his name is Chris.”

“... tell me everything about Chris.”

--

Tagging: @burtlederp, @finder-of-rings, @endless-whump, @whumpfigure, @slaintetowhump, @astrobly  @newandfiguringitout  , @doveotions  , @pretty-face-breaker  , @boxboysandotherwhump  , @oops-its-whump  @moose-teeth  , @cubeswhump  , @cupcakes-and-pain  @whump-tr0pes  @whumpiary  @orchidscript

[awkward-tension-art]

Put on a Show

So @weebsinstash has an incredible yandere!erasermic x reader series go read everything they write, its fantastic

I wanted to play around with the idea too, so i asked for permission on anon lol.

enjoy this full 2,090 words

Warning: yandere themes, yandere!erasermic, League of Villains, fear, mentions of past torture, mentions of abuse, mentions of past abusive relationship, implied  Spinner x Reader, kissing, Villain origin story, female pronouns used for reader, (if i missed a tag lmk)

You ran. You ran as fast and as far as you could. Your bare feet hit the wet ground, cursing as you stumbled. Your hands hit the mud, but you didn’t stop.

Even when your lungs screamed.

Even when your muscles burned.

You kept going.

With luck, a razor and your own wits you had managed to escape that hell house. You’d managed to escape from the clutches of your obsessed demons. 

At the slight thought of your tormentors, the now healed break in your leg aches all over again. 

Keep going.

Keep going.

KEEP GOING.

The woods betrayed you before, but hopefully, the downpour may erase your footprints. A branch latched onto your shoulder and you screeched. Memories of Aizawa’s cruel grasp flooded your mind. You slipped on the wet ground, tumbling down a slight incline. 

Dazed, confused and hurt, you ignored your pain and kept going. Desperation and adrenaline kept you going.

Do not stop.

Do not stop.

You looked down to avoid losing your eyes to another branch, only to embarrassingly run straight into a tree. Your body fell back, landing harshly on the mud.

You heard a groan.

Trees do not groan.

Fear overran your systems as you slowly, shakily looked up.

In front of you was a man covered in green scales. He looked more like a lizard, than an actual human, but you quickly guessed that was his quirk. But, he wasn’t alone.

A scarred man with piercings. A teenage girl with blond hair. Another man with a mask. And lastly…

You recognized him from the news.

Shigaraki.

The League Of Villains

“What the hell,” The lizard-man hissed, rubbing his head, “Where the fuck did you come from?”

You took your chances.

“Please…” you gasped, looking up at the white haired leader, “Help me.”

It took approximately 3 seconds to be taken from the forest. The scarred man, Dabi you learned, pulled out his phone and called Kurogiri, their method of transport. 

Spinner, surprisingly like a gentleman, helped you stand and introduced himself. 

Not a second later your vision was filled with black and you were out of the rain.

Out of the cold.

Out of the monsters’ clutches.

Instead, you found yourself in a surprisingly comfortable bar scene. It was warm, bright, and quite homey.

Shigaraki continued to stare at you, his red eyes giving away nothing. The blonde however, hovered, as she began to talk. You couldn’t keep up, exhaustion slowing your mind and mental process. All you managed to register is ‘blood’.

A tall woman spoke up first, “oh dear, look at you. You look like a wet rat.” She inspected you before standing straight, “Let me get you something dry.You can call my Big Sis Magne!”

You nodded, managing a small “thank you,” as she rushed out of the room to come back with a dry towel, draping it over you.

‘Huh, it smells nice,’ you thought, wrapping it around your shoulders, taking in the small comfort. Almost like roses and lavender…

The leader finally spoke up, “Who are you?”

That was the question. That one simple question caused the dam to burst. You broke down, telling them everything. The torture, the abuse, the agony, all by the hands of two supposed heroes. You went over every grueling, painful detail, tears pouring down your face. 

They knew of your captors and torture before they even knew your name.

With every word, The league members, especially Dabi, became more and more disgusted and angry. You didn’t even finish when Spinner offered a kind hand for you to hold onto. 

“P-please,” you finally managed, “D-don’t send me back…”

Shigaraki scoffed, “Heroes think they can just do whatever they want huh? Well fuck ‘em. Eraserhead and Present Mic want their precious treasure back? Well too bad. It’s ours now.”

Big Sis Magne let out a happy laugh, “Oh good! Another girl! If you ask me, only having Toga around was getting to be too much.” She took your other free hand, “We’re gonna be such a good team, those nasty heroes won’t know what hit them.”

“I can’t wait to make them pay with their blood,” Toga smiled, her golden eyes shining with excitement. Dabi remained silent, but Spinner gave you a kind smile. “What a show it will be! You, coming face to face with those demons, and having us at your back!” The one with the mask, Mr.Compress, finally spoke, giving a theatrical hand wave.

With every word, you felt your shoulders get lighter. 

“Now,” The leader, your new leader, spoke up, “Tell me all about your quirk, and those pieces of garbage that hurt you.”

When Shouta and Hizashi returned home, they knew something was wrong. The house seemed...cold. You were not in the living room, nor the kitchen. 

They assumed this was one of your bad days. Where you’d sleep until it was late at night, only so you can avoid them.

Quickly, that changed. 

The closer Shouta got to your door, the more he felt his gut twist. The air seemed wet and almost humid.

“Hey, are you awake in there?” He knocked, concerned, “I’m coming in!” 

When he opened the door, the wet air made sense. Your window was open, rain poured in from the storm outside. The carpet and everything else by the window was soaked, giving the hero a clue that you’ve been gone a while. 

“HIZASHI!” The black haired male called out, darting into the room. Desperately he looked around, only to look up when he heard his husband cry out. 

“She’s gone! Our songbird is gone!!” He panicked, aiding Shouta in his desperate search. The couple tore apart the house, hoping this was something else. Hoping you didn’t leave through the window. 

They hoped and prayed, only for their optimism to be dashed when their search turned up empty. 

“We need to go after her!” The blonde hero cried, “s-she could be hurt! She doesn’t know how to take care of herself!!” 

Shouta was already preparing to venture outside. He was at the door when he turned to look at his severely distressed husband, “stay here. In case she comes back, I’ll go look for her.” 

With that, Eraserhead ran out of the front door of the house, hoping to find you in the woods. 

Days became weeks became months. With every passing hour, you felt happier and lighter. Your spirit and soul were healing. It will take time, but you knew you were able to recover. You had escaped, and found a family who would ride or die with you. 

You’d ride or die with them. 

Spinner was especially kind to you. He was a gentleman, always asking before touching. You spent most of your free time with him when he or you weren’t gone collecting information or searching for members. 

You still weren't comfortable going on missions by yourself. Most of the them were with Dabi, Big Sis Magne or Jin, who you’d met shortly after your joining. Despite the short time with them, you felt like you belonged. You helped them, they helped you. You became a part of their family. 

They’d even gone so far as to get your cat Mochi back. Dabi simply dumped the kitty on your lap and walked away without saying anything. You missed your feline friend, and now in the league, he gets all the love the villains could muster. 

They try to keep sudden loud noises to a minimum. Occasionally a surprise yell or sound would happen, but someone was always quick to jump to your defense. 

It was mostly Shigaraki, but he’d apologize begrudgingly.

Even he wasn’t so bad. You had gone with Toga to get him a new controller, and he’s tolerated you ever since (maybe even respect you after you managed to beat him to a quick video game match). 

This was your life. This was your freedom. 

This was what you wanted. 

It’s been hell without you. Shouta and Hizashi were in hell. It’s been months since the eraser hero found your footprints surrounded by others. It’s been months of searching. Months of desperation to rescue you from your kidnappers. That’s the only logical reason for your disappearance. 

You were kidnapped. 

You needed them. You needed your lovers. 

But they couldn’t save you. 

Some nights Shouta would wake up alone. He’d be cold and lonely. Slowly he’d walk to your room, and find his blonde husband asleep, holding your favorite pillow. 

It stopped smelling like you a while ago. 

With every passing day their hope waned. With every passing hour their hearts ached. 

Shouta finally broke down one night. When he woke up alone again he wandered to your room, finding Hizashi in his usual position. Instead of being asleep, the blonde’s shoulders shook with muffled sobs and cries. 

The Eraser hero sat on the bed and held his husband, not bothering to muffle his own weeping. 

This isn’t what they wanted. 

The view from the roof was both beautiful and hilarious. You orchestrated a nomu attack, remaining hidden. Spinner was accompanying you. The others were scattered around the city, taking in the chaos. 

You remembered those roads and streets. You walked them for so long. 

Until those bastards stole you. 

Now, with your life in the league, you could stroll down the sidewalk again. You could see the sky and feel the sun. 

You could punish heroes for abandoning you. For letting you get kidnapped. 

A smile graced your lips. The chaos of the nomu was beautiful. 

There was a flash of black in the corner of your eye, and you turned your head. Slowly, your smile grew at the sight of Eraserhead struggling to take down the brutish monster. 

Only to have your smile fade when Present Mic saves him. 

“Ugh, I hate them.” You growled, “I see them and I hate them.” 

Spinner looked up from his spot on the roof. He swished his tail once before following your gaze to your distant tormentors.  

“You should put on a show,” he put a hand on your shoulder, “drive ‘em even more bat shit.”

You laughed warmly, the idea of breaking their hearts even more gave you infinite joy. 

“Mind if I use you?” You asked, preparing to use your quirk. 

With the villains you have gotten stronger. Your quirk was a weapon. A strong, powerful, useful weapon. 

You’re the opposite of what Shouta and Hizashi said over and over again. 

They can’t tell you that you're weak. Not anymore. 

There was a tipped over bus, and that’s where you planted the illusion. 

You and Spinner, hand in hand. 

Oh this is gonna be good. 

When they dealt with the Nomu, Hizashi looked to the bus, and even from a distance, you could see his eyes widen. 

“S-songbird!” 

You gagged, and Spinner laughed softly beside you.

Shouta looked up, meeting the illusions gaze. 

You feared he’d use his quirk, destroying your fun, but he didn’t, at least not in that instant. 

“G-get away from her!” The black haired male shouted, his black eyes trained on fake-spinner. 

“No,” the illusion spoke, “I think your precious songbird belongs to me.”

The illusion of spinner pulled illusion you closer. The illusion of you looking bashful.

Shouta prepared an attack, jumping up in the air to do so. Hizashi prepared his own quirk, apparently ok with sacrificing your well-being to get you. 

You cause fake-spinner to dip fake-you into a deep kiss. 

That was apparently distracting enough to cause Present Mic to choke on air, and Eraserhead to stumble and miss his attack. 

“Come on my sweet,” fake-you cooed, “let’s go.” 

You created one more illusion, covering the two fakes in smoke, making them disappear. 

As you finished with your quirk, you rubbed your temples. 

Spinner laughed beside you, “m-my sweet! Oh my god you killed me.” 

You gave a faint smile, that only grew when you heard Hizashi’s mournful howling. 

Spinner and you peered over the edge of the roof, and spotted the two of them breaking down. The blonde was wailing. You swear you saw his fat tears from your position. 

Shouta just looked broken. He looked absolutely devastated.

Maybe a long time ago that sight would have hurt you. 

You made eye contact with your partner next to you. 

“My sweet,” you teased, promptly bursting into laughter.

“Let’s go! Before they hear us!” Spinner tried to shush you, failing with his own giggling. 

You nodded and grabbed his hand. 

“Let’s go then,” you winked, “my sweet.”

The both of you fled, making your way to Jin and Toga. 

You smiled at the sight of them, only feeling happier as more of your family of villains got together. 

This is exactly where you wanted to be. 

A villain, to make those heroes suffer.

[selfships-in-spanish]

The Queen of Demons 2/?

Pairing: Erwin Smith x OC, Levi Ackerman x OC

Rating: Gen (the rating will go up as the story advances! But it will totally be explicit ;D)

Warnings: None for now, but sexist and misogynist upbringing (Eva's father is a huge asshole).

Word Count: 3449

ALSO POSTED ON AO3

A/N: Second chapter, woooo!! We are slowly getting more into plot details B) There's so much stuff I have already written out that I cannot wait to show you all

CHAPTER 2: THE DEMONS OF ELDIA

Eva tried to control her breathing the best she could while maintaining her gaze on the Chief, frozen.

That imposing figure standing proudly on top of the stairs was her husband to be.

Her father’s voice echoed loudly in her mind, chastising her for her lack of manners. How dare she stare at her betrothed? She was being rude, uncouth, and back in Gottesreich this wouldn’t have gone unpunished.

Eva didn’t see the way those calculating eyes narrowed when she teared her eyes from him and resumed the stance she was taught to maintain: head down in a display of submission, eyes glued to the floor and mouth shut. She also didn’t see a pair of steel gray eyes bore into her, watching every move she made.

The Chief kept talking, despite his inquisitive gaze towards the Princess, while Moblit translated, introducing everyone on his side. It prompted Eva to look up again and meet everyone’s eyes out of courtesy, knowing it would be disrespectful and rude if she didn’t, but never stayed too long as she accidentally did with the Chief.

The Princess was surprised at the variety of shapes and sizes of Eldia’s best warriors, going from tall like that giant with the big nose, moustache and crossed arms –Mike, was it?–, to short and slim, like the man with black hair and impassive grey eyes with a permanent scowl etched on his face –Levi, the Chief’s right hand man, she should really remember that–, and more. But Eva couldn’t hide her shock when she saw women amongst them. This would be absolutely prohibited back in Gottesreich, not to mention the punishment for even thinking of stepping on a man’s role. But these women looked proud, fierce, and Eva couldn’t help but envy such confidence being openly displayed a little bit.

Eva felt her father’s disapproving eyes on the back of her mind, and reprimanded herself internally for even wondering about how it must feel to be in their shoes. Eva had her own role, her own duty to perform, as her Father incessantly reminded her; thinking about such things would lead her nowhere. She was here for one single and very clear purpose.

“Please, come inside, I’m sure we all want to be out of the cold.” Moblit’s calm voice shook her out of her reveries. The Chief gestured behind him, towards the entrance of the Great Hall, with a hand on his belt and his arm open to his side, a polite smile on his lips.

Prince Hans reciprocated the smile, nodding and looking at his siblings as if on cue to follow him inside. Flora and the soldiers that accompanied them were ushered away from the monarchs, only letting the personal bodyguards go in with them, as protocol demanded, and it caused a knot on Eva’s stomach to not know where Flora was being taken. She only hoped they would all be alright. Sensing her distress, Moblit turned to address the royal siblings and ease her mind.

“The horses and luggage will be properly taken care of, as well as your men and maidens, your Highnesses. Any request you shall have please make it known, and we will try our best to comply.” Eva wanted to scoff at that, having several requests herself. She wanted to go home, please.

“Thank you kindly, Moblit.” Prince Hans replied. Eva prayed to God the Eldians would keep their word.

Upon entering the Great Hall warmth instantly greeted them, as well as a breathtaking view. Eva didn’t want to admit it, but the interior of the Great Hall was beautiful. It was composed of wonderfully sculpted wooden pillars with the same intricate markings and runes from outside etched in them, truly the masterpiece of very skilled artisans. She could even make out some animals on the relief carvings, merging with the patterns. The whole room was illuminated with the pale sunlight from the windows, as well as the warm glow of the fires roaring to both light and heat the room better. At the far end of the hall there were more steps, leading to a wooden platform where a big, imposing chair with thick pelts draped over it rested, undoubtedly like a throne. There was a smaller one next to it, with the beautiful markings and soft-looking pelts too, and Eva felt a chill at the realisation that it was for her.

They were led to a table surrounded with chairs, goblets already prepared to be poured wine to the guests. The Chief sat down, inviting his guests to do the same as him and his second in command. The Princes imitated their host, sitting on the opposite chairs and getting comfortable in them, and Eva waited for them to be already seated to do the same, silently, not drawing attention to her and carefully maneuvering her cloak and dress skirts to be in the pose she was taught to sit in: back straight, knees together and hands resting on them, crossed but never closing them in fists, legs–

“Wine, your Highness?” Moblit’s soft voice startled her, looking at the Eldian servant holding the wine decanter right above her goblet, waiting to pour it. Eva quickly looked at her brothers, already having been served and goblets in hand and taking a sip. Even if back at Gottesreich’s court it would be improper for a lady to drink wine out of a social gathering, it would be impolite and disrespectful to refuse.

Be good. Cause a good first impression. Be good. Don’t bring dishonor to your Kingdom. Be good–

“Yes, please.” Eva tried to not let her voice raise too much, knowing she shouldn’t be speaking while her brothers or other men were.

Eva didn’t notice the way the Chief’s eyes quickly shifted to her upon hearing the small exchange, too engrossed on maintaining proper Gottesreichan manners.

The Princess ventured a sip from her goblet and was met with a rich, powerful flavour with a hint of spices in it exploding on her taste buds. Her eyes widened and eyebrows rose, trying not to cough at the strong wine; that would be beyond rude and disrespectful. She gulped down the Eldian wine, hoping no one noticed it.

One of the Chief’s warriors, the giant one (Mike! She had to start remembering names), huffed, amused at her reaction. Her wish was not met as she also saw the Chief chuckle into his own goblet while listening to Moblit’s translations.

Perfect. Just perfect. Way to make good impressions.

The conversation seemed to momentarily change its topic as the Chief asked something and everyone became silent. Moblit’s voice made her look up from her goblet.

“Not used to strong wines, your Highness?

Eva’s gaze briefly traveled from Moblit to the Chief, who was looking at her with the corner of his mouth lifted, as well as one of his bushy eyebrows. The Princess hurriedly looked at her brothers, who were awaiting as well. Hans encouraged her with a slight nod. They were waiting for her response.

Oh.

“I am deeply sorry, my Lord, I meant no disrespect.” Her grip on the goblet tightened, trying her hardest to not let her voice waver. “I am indeed not used to strong flavoured wines, or wines themselves.” She tried to finish with a polite smile.

The Chief’s eyes had a curious glint in them, nodding at Moblit’s words. He replied something, and Eva dreadfully awaited Moblit’s translation. She really hoped she didn’t offend him or any of the Eldians present.

“Then, what are you used to, your Highness?”

This much attention on her was making her nervous. They shouldn’t be focusing the conversation on her, there were more important matters to discuss than her tastes!

“Coffee. Or tea, also, my Lord. But do not fret over it, I am sure I will get used to wine in no time.”

Would she? Eva doubted it, but if she had to, she would. Although she would deeply miss her morning cup of coffee…

The Chief hummed, instantly turning to one of his men to tell them something, and Eva watched as the warrior disappeared to carry on the Chief’s errand. She looked back at the Chief, seeing him share a brief smile at her before returning to the previous topic.

Eva tried to pay attention, but the thought of having hurt the Eldian’s feelings gnawed at her.

The warrior returned some time after with a steaming cup in his hands. Eva noticed he was that short warrior that stood next to the Chief when both parties presented themselves, with the cold and impassive grey eyes. He offered the cup to Eva, patiently waiting for her to take it. The Princess obliged, thanking him even if she knew he probably didn’t understand a word she said.

“My apologies for not having coffee, your Highness. I hope tea can suffice.” Moblit once again spoke to her, the Chief turning to face her in his chair, awaiting her response.

“Please don’t apologise, my Lord. This is more than enough.” Eva briefly looked down at the cup, then up at the Chief with another polite smile. “I am thankful for your kindness.”

Smile, smile, smile. Always smile.

Trying to divert everyone’s attention away from her and let the conversation go back to where it was, Eva ventured a taste. Her nose picked up the delicious aroma of the tea, and her mouth was filled by the sweet flavour, finishing with a touch of spiciness at the end that made her want more. Eva raised her brows, surprised but satisfied. She took another sip, erasing any traces left of the wine from before. It wasn’t coffee, but this tea was an agreeable alternative.

“I take it you liked it, your Highness.” The Chief wasn’t done with the conversation, and Eva didn’t understand why the Chief was so adamant to make her talk, or even try to engage her into a conversation besides the ones between the princes and himself. She wasn’t there for that.

“I do, my Lord. This is a blend I haven’t had the chance to try before, thank you for letting me have a taste of it.”

The Chief let out a soft chuckle and began talking again. Eva awaited Moblit’s translations, delicately holding her cup.

“Ah, I’m afraid I am not the tea expert here. Levi is, so please feel free to ask him more about his blends.” The Chief gestured towards the short warrior, who nodded in acknowledgement.

“I will. Thank you, my Lord.” Another polite smile on her lips.

That seemed to end the conversation for now. Eva kept drinking the tea, listening to what was being said. She shouldn’t zone out, not when this concerns her too.

The Gottesreichan Princes excused the King for not coming himself to Eldia because of urgent matters that required his presence, but Eva knew the truth behind that, having heard her father with the other advisors in the throne room already discussing plans beyond her daughter’s marriage, and being greeted by her brothers the same day they departed with sad smiles on their faces.

It left a bitter taste in her mouth, knowing the King, her own father, couldn’t stay away one minute from his plans on how to maintain the Kingdom’s borders, or how to expand them, too.

He didn’t even think about walking her to her awaiting carriage, and she was graced only by a quick kiss on her forehead when Eva went to look for him and found the King still in his chambers. But her father made sure she didn’t forget how his daughter would represent their beloved Kingdom in foreign territories, how she had to bring both civilization and manners to the barbarians. All this, while intensely staring at the map hanging on his wall.

Not a single look at her.

The King was not at the courtyard to send them off. Did not wave goodbye, did not do what any father would do when they knew their daughter would never come home again to start a new life somewhere far away. He only expected her to do a good job as she was taught to do.

This is all Eva knew about fatherhood from the day she was born, an absent paternal figure that only looked at her when she did good. And she always strived to do good. She had to. Father would spare a glance if she did.

Hans often tried to unconsciously supply and fill that void her father left when he wasn’t chained down by his own princely duties, recalling when she was a little girl how he would take her to the Capital’s festivities and let her stuff her mouth full of sweets. Or when he would indulge in her imagination and games, running around the castle slaying dragons, which often made Friederich play the part of the dragon going down with theatrics that put court jesters to shame, or playing hide and seek, or when the royal tailor made a new dress for her how he would compliment and praise the craftsmanship, and of course how she looked pretty in it.

The days where both her brothers took her on strolls around the Castle woods were the happiest for her, getting to hop from horse to horse and run around the meadow without being reprimanded for it. Rolling in the grass, chasing birds and squirrels, picking up flowers to make flower crowns that would lately put them on both her brother’s heads...

Sadly it ended when Father decided it was time for Eva to start her studies and long preparation to be his perfect little princess. Her brothers had less and less time to spend with her, and Hans was almost absent all the time with the pressure of being the Crown Prince.

Still, Hans and Friederich found a little loophole in Father’s strict schedule, using their diplomatic travels as a perfect excuse to make their little sister tag along, always with the excuse to further prepare her for her upcoming future.

But now there was no little loophole anymore.

The Chief and the Gottesreichan princes were discussing dates and procedures, and agreed on carrying on the Eldian traditions and rituals, as well as have the ceremony here in Eldia. Eva had uselessly hoped it would maybe be carried in Gottesreich, respecting the bride’s lineage, or maybe a double one, but her wishes would not be granted. She drowned her sigh with a sip of her tea.

They finally decided that a spring wedding would be the best, knowing the roads were hard to travel with the immense amounts of snow in them, and they wouldn’t want the guests to be inconvenienced by it. Besides, for Eldia spring was important, and it would be just perfect to celebrate a wedding. The Chief tried to include the Princess on this decision, asking her if she liked spring, which she replied that she did, not really enjoying the cold.

That settled it then. It meant two months of preparations, approximately. Maybe a few weeks less, depending on the weather conditions.

Two months.

Dread twisted her stomach.

“I hope you will find your life here pleasant, your Highness. I understand the shock and differences between our people, but we will accommodate you the best of our capabilities.”

The Chief was paying attention to her again. Why? Why was he trying to fake kindness? Eva knew he only pretended because her brothers were present, why else would he? Eva was just an asset, a bargaining chip, so why go to such lengths for someone from another Kingdom such as her? A twisted sense of humour? That would fit, weren’t they demons?

Her father made her memorise the words and movements she was about to spit and act out, telling Eva how that is what every man wanted to hear from their future bride. Eva found the comment crass, even coming from Father, but still complied as she was trained to do.

Eva set the cup on the wooden table, moving gracefully as she let her right hand touch her heart, lowering her head in the submissive display she was taught to never slip out of.

“Thank you for your consideration towards my well-being, my Lord.” Head still lowered, eyes closed— “I hope I can perform my marital duties beyond your expectations, my Lord, and that I am to your liking. I will do my best to ensure your needs are met and fulfilled.”

Eva then resumed her previous position as she heard Moblit translate her words. Eva ventured a look towards her brothers, finding twin saddened expressions on their faces. She was shocked. Did she not do good? Alarmed, the Princess looked over the Chief, pushing aside the protocols and needing to know she did not displease the Chief, that Father wasn’t wrong.

The Chief looked troubled himself, as if some suspicions and thoughts he had from before had been confirmed right that instant. No no no– this was disastrous! Father told her it was imperative she did it, that it was what those brutes wanted from their wives, so why was the Chief not overjoyed to see such an obedient, docile behaviour from her?

The Eldian warrior looked like he wanted to say something that was on his mind, but ultimately decided to close his mouth. The Chief seemed to thoroughly think about what his next actions and words should be, so instead of replying to the Princess as she thought he would do, with a lecherous and satisfied smirk, he chose to tightly smile and bow his head as if in acknowledgement of her words.

It didn’t settle well in her stomach, and Eva had never been more confused than she was right now.

What was this man playing at?

Moblit’s strong but soft voice cut through her musings.

“You surely must be tired from the journey, your Highnesses. Please, allow us to escort you to your rooms so you can rest until tonight’s banquet. Baths will be ready, too.”

Yes please! Eva wanted nothing more than to run to the safety of four walls and a tightly closed door, and Flora to embrace her like she always did when Eva got overwhelmed.

“We indeed are, thank you. Those carriages don’t do anyone’s back a favour.” Hans laughed, accompanied by Friederich’s chuckle and the Chief’s shaking of shoulders. Eva was eagerly awaiting for Hans to get up so she could follow and get out of there, too. A warm bath sounded so nice. “Eva, do you mind going before us?”

Wait.

What?

From Hans apologetic face, and Friederich’s gaze avoiding her, this was something they had planned beforehand.

“Brother,” Eva tried not to raise her voice or make her desperation known. She didn’t want to go alone, to be alone with those people supposedly taking her to her rooms. What if they didn’t? “please.”

“Eva,” Hans turned to face her, getting a hold of her tightly clasped hands. “we are deeply sorry– no, don’t give me that look, we are.”

Like Hell they were!

“Hey, Birdie” Friederich always used that nickname with her since they were little kids, so him using it right now conflicted Eva’s feelings. Her brother always used it when he wanted to make her feel safe, but right now it wasn’t really working. “Trust us. We will be right behind you, okay?”

“But–“

“We only need to discuss some matters, that’s all.”

“Hans–”

“Yes, very boring matters that will make you fall asleep. You go rest, Birdie.”

When her brothers synched with each other it was a losing battle for Eva. Knowing this, she promptly closed her mouth into a thin line, resigned. Swallowing down a sigh, Eva forced a smile on her lips as she spoke to the Eldians, focusing on the Chief.

“Excuse me for my behaviour, my Lord. I will gladly take your offer and let you men discuss what you need to talk about.”

The Chief nodded, asking Levi once again to comply with his requests and accompany the Princess to her room, taking almost every guard with him. Eva gracefully raised herself from her seat, making a short reverence to the people present in the room.

“Thank you for the tea, my Lord, it was most delicious.”

Eva followed Levi to exit the Great Hall, leaving the three men inside and trying hard not to dwell in it. She had no right to pry into men’s matters, and she best accepted it quickly. They watched her disappear through the door with Mike’s towering form closing the little entourage.

It hurt both brothers, but it had to be done.

[accioecho]

Tkem Novel 10

Chapter 13 - “A made up mind”

Gon hastily wrapped up the tasks that had accumulated in the short time he was gone and went back to his study. Tae-Eul must have been bored while waiting for him to get back.

He handed her a cold can of beer and watched her gulp it all down in one go. He had seen her drink beer before with unmatched enthusiasm but he had to admit that he was quite impressed seeing her drink again like this. She definitely held her liquor well.

Gon kept glancing at her, unable to tear his gaze away until Tae-Eul quipped at him.

“Did you just lock me up in here?”

“I’m housing you. Be understanding. I brought you here without saying anything. Everyone’s in a panic because this has never happened before.” Gon said, unfazed.

Tae-Eul listened to Gon’s calm explanations and opened up another can. With one dirty thumb, she tried using the other one free of ink but it was trickier than she had initially expected.

“Then why are you being so calm, Kim Gae Ddong?”

“I imagined bringing you here lots of times before. Not like this though.”

From the moment he had asked her to be his Queen back in her world, he had envisioned this moment. When he came back to the palace with Tae-Eul in another universe, he had thought about it again. The fact that this had all come true put a smile on his face.

“Did you sign a contract or something? Did you buy some land?” He asked, gesturing to her crimson finger.

“I stopped myself from wiping it on the wall because of your citizens. You should promote the employee who was watching me. She’s a real patriot. Let me borrow your phone, and give it to me unlocked. She wouldn’t lend me her phone.”

“What are you going to look up? I’m sure you have no one to call.” Gon obediently complied and handed her his phone. Tae-Eul promptly grabbed it.

“None of your business. What’s your passcode?”

“Who would even try to look through a King’s phone? It’s not locked.”

It made sense. With a quiet snort, Tae-Eul slipped his phone in the safety of her coat pocket.

Gon set aside the lid of the small plate he had set down in front of her. They did everything backwards. This wasn’t how he pictured his first evening with Tae-Eul, but since she had already drunk the beer, he figured that she ought to get something to eat as well. Assuming she would get hungry at some point, Gon had gone down to the royal kitchens to personally cook dinner for her.

Although the food looked appetizing, Tae-Eul made no move to pick up her spoon.

“You try it first.” She really asked him, a royal— the King, to taste her food.

Seeing Gon’s completely dumbfounded expression, she continued. “I’m not joking. I’m Alice in Wonderland right now. She eats weird pills and grows bigger and smaller and stuff. What if I eat this and die from poisoning or natural causes? What are you going to do then?”

“Don’t worry. I keep my promises. You’ll die from a beheading.” Gon retorted, eyes crinkling in mirth.

They were each other’s white rabbit, both chasing after time, trying to capture elusive moments together.

Tae-Eul let out a sigh, a faint smirk forming across her lips as she finally grabbed the spoon.

“All right, then. I’ll enjoy the food. Did you make this yourself?”

“Yes. Is it good?” Gon watched Tae-Eul busily taking mouthfuls of rice and stilled in expectation.

“No it’s not.”

Both her cheeks were filled to the brim with food— he was full just by watching her eat. Gon winced, face dropping in disappointment.

Tae-Eul swallowed her laughter at his childlike reaction and tried to keep a straight face. She had only meant to tease him.

Just as she was about to finish her plate, Lady Noh reentered the study. Tae-Eul recalled the matron’s cold expression upon their first meeting earlier that night. Lady Noh’s distant demeanor made her feel nervous and slightly intimidated.

“I prepared a bedroom and a meal for your guest…”

Tae-Eul’s face reddened in embarrassment and looked down at her empty plate. Lady Noh visibly didn’t know that Gon fixed her dinner. So he really did prepare the meal himself after all.

“… I will escort her to her room. It is the farthest one from Pyeha’s room.”

The hour was late. Tae-Eul stood up, set to leave the room.

“See you tomorrow, goodnight. Sleep tight.” Gon smiled and casually waved his hand in goodbye.

Lady Noh’s scowl deepened, eyes glaring down at him.

——

True to her word, Lady Noh escorted her to one of the guest bedrooms.

Tae-Eul only had the clothes on her back but it looked like she didn’t need to worry about anything at all. The room was set with all the necessities: from pyjamas to toiletries, everything was furnished and meticulously laid out so that she wouldn’t need for anything. It was better than a hotel.

“Besides emergency situations, outsiders hardly ever stay in the palace overnight. So you must never speak about what happened today anywhere or to anyone. You must keep everything a secret, such as the layout of the palace or the private conversations you’ve had with the King.” Lady Noh warned her.

Tae-Eul instinctively nodded. “You don’t need to worry about that. I’m a government official, too.”

“So I’ve seen. Lieutenant Jeong Tae-Eul”. Lady Noh scrutinized the young woman in front of her with hawk-like intensity.

It seemed both Lady Noh and Yeong knew her name. Tae-Eul wondered if the police badge in Gon’s possession was the sole reason why both people were already aware of her existence.

Still. Lady Noh’s stern expression made her uneasy. Her dislike of Tae-Eul was obvious which was strange because apart from the ID card, she had no prior connections, no prior interactions with her. Yet her initial reaction during their first meeting was a sharp contrast to how Gon had reacted. Maybe it was because Lady Noh didn’t expect her to turn up here at all.

“This is a rather curious situation. His Majesty has had a strange ID card since he was young. There was no police officer named Jeong Tae-Eul in the Kingdom of Corea and there is no such rank as lieutenant in the police force here. I thought that it was a fake ID made as a joke or for some other reason, but that nonexistent person suddenly appeared here. Surely you can see why it’s shocking.”

Tae-Eul tried to understand Lady Noh’s cold attitude and see things from her perspective. She did behave the same way when she had been faced with the possibility of an existence outside her world.

“Everything is just absurd, but there is one thing I’m sure about. An existence that cannot be explained will only bring chaos to the world, and it will only warm our King.” Lady Noh declared with finality.

Even so, Tae-Eul felt this was unfair. She could easily accept that the idea of her existence could be construed as inexplicable, confusing. But to see her as a threat seemed excessive.

Tae-Eul stood rooted on the spot, silently listening to Lady Noh’s hurtful words, unable to reply back.

As Head of the court, Lady Noh’s job was simple: looking after the King and having his best interests at heart. Dutifully protecting him— the man who had to bear the weight of the world on his shoulders since the young age of 8.

Lady Noh had no other choice but to keep to her steely resolve, even if it meant hurting Tae-Eul in the process. If she could, she would erase that fateful night from history, get rid of all traces and evidence, the ID card and Tae-Eul included.

“I do not want to know where you came from. I will act as if you do not exist. So, during your stay here, please try to avoid contact with anyone besides Pyeha, the chief of the Royal Guard Jo Yeong, and me. Furthermore, don’t get curious about this world, and don’t try to stay. And when I say ‘this world’, that includes the King.” Lady Noh retreated with a hasty bow.

In the late-night hour, the bright and fuzzy contentment Tae-Eul felt after dinner disappeared completely, her face now pale, the sound of Lady’s Noh closing the doors a distant echo in her mind.

Tae-Eul plopped down heavily on the spotless bed. When Gon was with her in the Republic of Korea he had never lied to her once. He kept telling her about his world. Even when she half listened to him, acting skeptical, questioning his sanity, he had never once given up and relentlessly continued to talk about the Kingdom. What started out as anger turned into curiosity.

And he had done so again and again, filling her with stories. Those vibrant eyes inviting her to his home. He had made her long for him. He had made her want to believe him. He had made her miss him.

She had barely stepped into his world and she was already captivated by it. Tae-Eul didn’t pay much attention to the whys or hows, she had taken the few steps in without a second thought. The day wasn’t even over yet and she had been asked to leave.

Their two worlds were too different anyway. She would have to leave this place at some point, disappearing in the blink of an eye like he did back in her world.

Lady Noh had advised her not to get too curious, to not even think of staying here. But it was already too late. She could not go back.

The bed Tae-Eul was lying on was smooth and comfy, but it felt like its surface was made of tiny thorns. She slid down to the ground, opting for the hard surface of the wooden floors instead. Leaning against the side of the bed, Tae-Eul let out a humorless laugh.

The sudden sound of sliding windows drew her out of her reverie.

“There’s a bed and a sofa in here. Why are you sitting on the floor?” Gon asked.

Gon stood in front of him, wearing pyjamas and a bathrobe. It looked like he changed clothes and was getting ready to go to sleep before he came over to her room. Tae-Eul was half startled, half happy to see him.

“Why are you here?” Tae-Eul asked abruptly, trying hard to will her racing heart to calm down.

“I didn’t want to leave you scared all by yourself. Trust me. I’m not a weird person here.”

“Why did you use the window instead of the door if you’re not weird?”

“There’s something you should know: that’s the shortcut. The palace is really big.” Still talking, Gon casually slid down on the floor next to her, his large frame grazing her shoulder.

Tae-Eul cleared her throat. “I thought you couldn’t sleep on the floor.”

She had to admit one thing. For a short, fleeting moment tonight, Tae-Eul had felt lonely. She remembered Gon telling her that she shouldn’t leave him alone. This was a few weeks ago, in her courtyard— he had told her that she shouldn’t treat him like a stranger, because she was the only person he knew in her universe. Tae-Eul understood his solitude. Because it was the same for her now.

For the the time being, he was the only person she could rely on.

“It’s not so bad actually. There’s some charm to this.” He replied.

Their conversation was a reflection of their current position. Sitting side by side, bodies close, within reach but not quite touching.

“When are you going to show me my ID card?”

“… tomorrow.”

“Why tomorrow? Were you just pretending to have it?”

“I do have it. You might try to go back to your world if I show it to you.”

Tae-Eul looked at the man next to her. Gon’s eyes glinted darkly, pupils turning black. He looked lonely. Even if she was here with him, in his world.

Here she was, in this strange universe with strange emotions coursing through her. She anxiously held her breath.

“… What is it?” Tae-Eul changed the subject, clasping her clammy hands together.

“What?”

“The doll on my car key. It seems pretty cheap.”

Gon— who was serious just a few seconds ago, looked away flustered. Tae-Eul had seen these dolls before. They came as a prize from the local shooting gallery. If she had to take a rough guess, she would say that he got the keychain there and it probably didn’t come at a cheap price either.

“You should really know, nothing I have is cheap.” He was really being sincere. In other words, it meant that he spent a good fortune on this trinket.  

Tae-Eul was completely speechless that he would spend this much money over a relatively simple challenge.

“How much did you spend? Anyone’s who’s served in the military can do it with their eyes closed.”

The shooting gallery owner said so as well. Be that as it may, it still took him several tries. “I knew it. Everyone in your country is a swindler.”

“Be quiet, there is someone guarding the door outside.” Tae-Eul shushed him with accusing eyes.

“Are you stupid? There are dozens of security cameras in here.” He grinned, looking around.

“Is that a security camera?”

“Wave at them. Twelve people are watching us right now.” Gon waved at one of the many paintings framing the walls.

Tae-Eul couldn’t believe her eyes. She stood up suddenly, ready to take the frame down. Kingdom or not, this was a serious breach of privacy.

Gon caught her arm and pulled her down, dragging her closer to him. “You believe everything I say now. That was a lie.”

“Do you want to die? So… is that really a security camera or not?” She blinked several times, trying not to pay attention at their intimately intertwined bodies.

“It isn’t. I was just joking. Do you want proof?”

Calm and collected, Gon let his head rest on her shoulders causing Tae-Eul to tense up. Ever since their first meeting, Tae-Eul knew that he was the kind of person to capture people’s attention. Seriously. The man was chiseled like a classical sculpture. And with his eyes closed like he had now, he looked even more like a greek model.

“I’m going to ask you something, so just answer with yes or no.”

There was no point in overthinking this. There could be only one reason why he had invited her to his world. Tae-Eul was braver than most people but no matter how brave she was, she was also curious like anyone else.

Her attention turned to the man currently resting his chin on her shoulder. The man who seemed lonely. The same man who declared he had been less lonely with her by his side.

“Okay, shoot.” Gon responded.

“You’ve never dated anyone before, right?”

“Yes I have.” Gon refuted, slightly lifting his head.

“Should I guess when?” Tae-Eul retorted.

“Guess.”

They both stared at each other in thick silence, neither willing to look away.

“Now.”

The corner of his mouth lifted up in a lopsided grin at Tae-Eul’s direct answer.

“Should I have done this?” He wondered.

His large hands swiftly cradled her delicate face. Slightly inclining his head, he closed the distance and pressed his lips to hers. Stunned, Tae-Eul felt his soft lips tenderly brush over her mouth.

Slowly inching away, Gon looked down at Tae-Eul, eyes gently sweeping over her frozen expression.

“Try guessing what I just proved. The fact that I’ve dated before? Or… that I’m dating right now?” Gon smiled, barely containing his joy. For the first time in a long while, he felt genuinely, truly happy.

Tae-Eul, on the other hand, felt restless. Their universes had collided but she had only partially faced the consequences. She didn’t know anything about the world outside the Palace. She didn’t even know if her being here— even temporarily, was okay.

Forces were already set in motion. Wherever they went, wherever they would go, a dark road lay ahead of them.

[siimjaeyun]

Chapter 6: The Tale of Hong Chanmi 

Synopsis: A new girl arrives at Seoul High, and manages to crush your dreams of ever attending Prom with Heeseung. New emotions come afloat, ones that no one is ready to deal with, or well up to when you find yourself with new evidence on the disappearance of the kids from twenty five years ago. 

Series Masterlist 

------ 

“Mom! Cut it out!” The teen boy in his baby blue suit attempted to shove off his mom who insisted on taking more pictures of him before Prom. 

She took one last snapshot before waving him off as he got into the slick black limousine; his date waiting patiently for him inside. 

“I’m so glad you accepted to be my date tonight Johnny.” She scooted closer to him, placing both her head and left hand on his upper chest. 

“Aha, yeah.” Being new to a source of affection threw him off, causing him to chuckle awkwardly. 

“You know this isn’t my first prom...but I think you might be the one Johnny…” A long pause followed afterwards before the guy saw himself swooning over the girl’s flirting attempts. 

She inched closer, pulling offer her rubber mask and demonstrating her green wrinkled skin and purple hair. 

He was gone. 

------ 

“Woah, check out the prom posters.” All of you had arrived safely in one piece to school; Sunoo pointed to the light pink posters on the tan walls. 

“Are you planning to go?” Heeseung turned to ask you, and maybe just maybe, he thought of asking you. 

“Yeah, but I was hoping someone would ask…” 

“Well, good luck with that.” Your chances had gone back to zero. 

Meantime, Jake stood quietly in the background; the last amount of courage leaving his body as he openly observed you attempting to get Heeseung to go with you. 

“Ah, man. Stupid locker.” A voice muttered in the distance, and it caught the attention of Heeseung as he saw a new student struggle with opening their locker. 

“Here, these things tend to get stuck easily.” In a quick manner, he managed to loosen the lock and it came open. 

“Thank you! I’m Chanmi by the way.” She extended her hand to the young boy, who gladly received it. 

“I’m Heeseung!” The rest of you stood waiting in the back, clearly witnessing how the girl was shameless making attempts with him. You clearly didn’t know how to react. Your crush was flirting with another girl, who if you were to be honest, was clearly attractive. 

“Maybe we should get you out of here before you do something stupid.” Crossing your arms, you let Sunghoon drag you away from the scene with Sunoo, Jungwon, and Jake following behind. In the meantime, Jay was in the principal’s office welcoming another new student. 

------ 

“Hey guys.” Jay walked into the auditorium, taking a seat with a young boy in blonde hair trailing behind. 

“This is Niki, they asked me to take him under my wing while he gets used to it.” Sunoo and Jungwon enthusiastically welcomed him, and had practically called dibs on him the moment he took a seat next to him. 

“Where’s Heeseung? I don’t think the trip from English is this long.” You glanced around the room until you saw him coming into the room with new girl Chanmi next to him. An audible crack heard once you heard yourself enter a stage of a heart break. 

“Would now be a good time to get over him?” You asked Sunghoon who was seated next to you, seeing how tears began forming in your eyes. 

“Hey guys, this is Chanmi! I’ve been showing her around.” 

“He’s like my knight in shining armor.” Everyone slowly gagged, of course except Heeseung who was as dense as that one cake that Jungwon tried to bake last week. 

“Everyone, we have a special announcement, we ask people to not go to this week’s prom with ghost girls given the disappearance. That’s all.” Chief Kim left the stage leaving all you free to take off. 

“Need a ride Chanmi?” You didn’t stay back to hear the rest of the conversation; the least thing you wanted to see was your first love falling for someone else. 

“Hey, Jungwon and Sunoo have that cooking class afterschool. How about the rest of us go off to look for more information about those missing kids?” 

“What would I do without you Park Sunghoon?” The four of you took off from the auditorium, stopping for some coffee before returning back to the school later that night. 

------ 

“So let me get this straight, you guys solve mysteries?” Niki had chosen to tag along, curious at the troubles that your group seemed to get yourself into. 

“Pretty much. Trust me, I’m new to this too,” Jay stopped before realizing he wasn’t sure why they were there in the first place, “What is this story about the missing kids anyway?” 

“A couple weeks ago we started getting messages from a so-called JK. While we were researching for Que Horrifico, he sent over a newspaper article of some missing teens who disappeared twenty five years ago. They’re the same ones from y/n’s locket she found in a cave. He said it would lead us to a real mystery.” 

“Here. You and Jake go that way, we’ll head this way.” Sunghoon led the newcomers down to a collection of old books, while you and Jake handled the maps and articles. 

When your collection came to form, an odd thing occurred. All of the data relating to missing kids was gone. Circles and squares were cut out, meaning that someone had gone through it and erased all the data possible from the books and newspapers. 

“Who doesn’t want them found?” Your locket came open and shut when one of the large bookcases came down crashing on the floor. 

In the distance, a shadow quickly moved, and while Jay attempted to chase it down, more and more cases came falling down; whoever it was, they were trying to injure you. 

“Who’s there?” The shadow crept inside the girl’s locker room, leaving you the only one able to track it down. However, the room was empty.  You took a good look in the mirror before a frizzled beast startled you. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” Chanmi was positioned behind you, giving you a welcoming smile. 

“No, I thought I saw something, sorry. What are you doing here so late anyway?” 

“The plumbing isn’t at the house yet so I came to freshen up. Well, I’m going to go change. See you tomorrow.” she responded. Your eyes wandered as Chanmi left to the sink, and you turned backwards one more time before seeing the guys waiting outside. 

“Hide over here.” All four of you squatted on the floor, watching the girl’s locker room door. Moments later, Chanmi walked out, almost as if checking if the coast was clear. She opened her locker and in her grasp was a silver key, shining in all glory. 

Her steps carried her to the basement door; her body vanished moments later. 

“Come on, let’s go before someone else tries to kill us.” 

------ 

“I’m telling you, something is up with Chanmi.” 

“Come on, haven’t we all snuck in the basement late at night?” Heeseung tried his best to defend the poor girl who had just arrived, but clearly wasn’t very supported given the perplexed looks on everyone’s faces. 

“I mean we don’t know much about her, could be possible. Haha take that Sunoo!” Niki exclaimed once he saw the pinball enter the target. 

“But-she looks so nice. Her eyes twinkle and her hair smells like peaches.” 

“Heeseung, do you like her?” You asked, not even semi-prepared for the answer. 

“Well if you look at the time, I have to go!” Heeseung caught hold of the keys on the table and fled immediately. 

“Hey you know that chic stealing guys at proms, she’s been doing it for years.” RM caught hold of your attention and used his head to nod at the screen. Endless pictures of boys who have gone missing in the past years, 

“We can’t stand here and do nothing. Let’s go.” You dragged Jay by the arm outside and into his car who somehow managed to fit the other five people into the back seats. 

------- 

“How exactly did you get Chanmi’s address?” 

“I have my ways Yang Jungwon. I have my ways.” Jay, who was in charge of driving the bunch, came to a stop with the GPS claiming he had arrived; he did not however expect to stop at a cemetery. 

“Are you sure that this is the right place?” Niki cautiously, closed the door and found himself slightly terrified at the arrival of a real adventure. 

“I guess we have to split. Sunghoon can go with Jay and Niki, and Jake and I will go with Sunoo and Jungwon.” 

The two groups separated at the first path; moss covered tombstones plagued the hills of grass; it was a cemetery after all. 

Most of the journey was quiet for both groups, but the occasional conversation did surge. For example, both Sunghoon and Jay began to learn more about Niki’s interest in dance, and his past life in Japan. 

The stroll was peaceful-like and the moon in the sky glistened and illuminated them from above. Too entertained by the silly jokes made by their friends, they failed to recognize the shadow that had begun to follow them. Before they knew it, a wrinkled woman jumped from behind a tombstone scaring the trio of friends. 

“Run!” Out of realizing that the two people with him were newbies, he took over getting them to safety while the witch-like creature kept chasing them. 

You on the other hand were having fun; telling Jake all the stupid things you and your friends have done was a great way to keep you from the whole Heeseung situation. Suddenly, Niki by mistake tackled all of you to the floor. When your eyes met the gaze of the creature, you snapped out of it and began sprinting once more. 

A small building-like place awaited you at the top of the next whole; your tired legs barely managing to get you to safety. 

“Quick!” Once Jay accomplished getting into the building, Jake and Sunghoon were able to close the door and waited for the continuous pounding to stop. 

“T-that was close.” Everyone struggled to catch their breaths; given that you were being hunted for a couple miles on end. 

“Huh. Take a look at this. Carswell.” Puzzled, all of you managed to take the top off the bin. 

“Isn’t this Mr.Carswell, the creeper? I thought he was in prison.” Jungwon pulled out a creeper rubber mask, a transfer slip, and finally an old backpack. 

“This transfer slip is from Seoul High.” Sunghoon held it in his fingers, and dropped it when the pounding emerged again. The door opened, and Heeseung was waiting while waving his camera phone in his left hand. 

“Jungwon let me know you guys were here.” You ran to give him a hug, comforted by the idea that he had yet to be abducted. 

“W-we think Chanmi is the monster. She’s planning to steal you!” Heeseung simply grabbed you by the shoulders and looked straight into your eyes. 

“Look, I know this must be about Chanmi asking me to prom. I promise that this won’t change our friendship.” Bitter reality had arrived on a silver platter. Three of your friends looked at the floor; everyone knew you were head over heels for the boy in front of you since middle school. 

“Let’s go home, thanks Heeseung.” Jake bravely stood and wrapped his arm around to comfort you. 

------ 

It was prom night at last. The dream night that most young girls dreamed for had arrived at once; it was a true miracle. Well, it was a dream night for -most- girls. 

“Come on, everyone is waiting for you.” Jay waited by the door frame, noticing the portrait from middle school between your hands. It rang in his head. You liked Heeseung, and he was taking some other girl to your senior year prom. 

“Everyone is downstairs. Let’s go.” Well, mostly everyone anyway. 

Sunghoon was seated with Jake in their navy suits; Sunoo and Jungwon in a burgundy color, and finally Niki and Jay in tan like color. On the other hand, you decided a lilac color was the best way to get you out of the slump you had entered since last night. 

“Now I get why they say girls take so long.” You slapped Sunghoon in the back of the head and headed off to the dance. 

------ 

In the meantime, Heeseung was still trapped in his room upstairs.

Standing in front of the mirror, he debated with himself over the color of his tie; which one would match best with the lilac corsage? A cruel reality settled inside him; lilacs were your favorite flower and he didn’t know why his mind was no longer excited for night. I mean, he had a pretty date. 

The phone that buzzed in his hands snapped him out of his thoughts. He attended it, seeing your latest Instagram post of you at the dance. The lilac-colored dress catching his eyes; how ironic. He swiped through, the last one stopping him in his tracks. Jake close to you, staring into your eyes while your lips curved into a smile. Ironic indeed. 

He wasn’t used to complex emotions, much less the odd sensation that began to creep into his system. Was he really going to spend his senior prom without his friends?  Emphasis on the friends. 

In a haste, he made the decision to call it quits on the date; he canceled the date and went alone. 

------ 

“Yo, Heeseung!” Jay flapped his arms when the tall boy walked in through the doors, without a date surprisingly. 

“Where’s your date Hee?” You asked with a punch cup in your hand. 

“It felt weird to come without you guys.” Internally, Heeseung hoped you wouldn’t pester him with any more emotions; he was thrilled when all eight of you made your way to the dance floor. 

Niki and Jay burst out into a full dance battle and it left the party to cheer loudly through the pounding music that played for the dancers. The atmosphere was dazzling, and everybody was having fun. 

The chaotic environment began settling down and so the slow song appeared; every confused lover’s worst nightmare. 

The younger trio which included Niki, Jungwon, and Sunoo stood in a circle, swaying their hands left and right to the rhythm of the song. It left the rest of you to stand by and observe in the comfort of your own group. Was now a good opportunity for the two love confused boys to gain courage? 

Heeseung was still conflicted by these new emotions; in his mind you were his friend. So why did you not appear to be his just friend tonight? 

“Want to dance?” 

Jake took hold of your hands when you gave him the go; Heeseung retreated back the original two steps he mustered the confidence to take. 

A soft melody engulfed your ears as you stared into Jake’s eyes. Had he always been like this? Your bodies moved in synchronization with the beat; you found yourself getting lost into what seemed like a friendly intention. 

Sunghoon and Jay both were attentive to what was occurring; a mix-up of feelings had occurred before their very noses. Who liked who was unclear? 

“Rough times buddy.” Sunghoon patted his back and Jay, trying to alleviate some of the tension noticeable in Heeseung’s figure, mimicked the younger trio’s swaying dance. 

Everything was well, or well until a loud cackling was heard through the speaker system. 

“I hope you saved a dance for me, Heeseung!” All of the students fled from the gym; who would want to be part of a monster show down anyway. 

The eight of you that remained ran as well, trying to find a way to avoid the witch from the cemetery. 

“Isn’t that Chanmi’s locker?” You rapidly opened the locker, taking possession of the silver key you witnessed the other day. 

“Follow me.” Inserting the key into the hole, the doorknob twisted letting you hide inside the basement. 

The basement had a light fire in the background, but it managed to brighten up the room. 

“Uhh..” Niki gave out an awkward stutter before showing you an old creeper mask and Chanmi’s school clothes. 

“Niki found his first clue, I’m so proud.” Sunoo wiped a fake tear from his eyes, and in the meantime Heeseung ran out of the basement; he was going to build himself a trap. 

------- 

The crinkled witch re-appeared in the gym, pausing at seeing Heeseung stand in the center with arms extended forward. She leaped towards him, but when she did, the disco ball came down onto her, capturing her hands in a set of plastic zip ties. 

“Heeseung, didn’t you hear me? I told you to not to go with a ghost girl to prom!” Mayor Lee stepped into the room with Chief Kim, amused at the scene in front of them. 

“She’s no ghost girl dad, she’s Hong Chanmi.” 

“More like Chanmi Carlswell.” Jungwon responded. 

“As in Mr.Carswell, the creeper?” Chief Kim asked with a hand on his chin. 

“That’s right! When you guys imprisoned him the past summer, I vowed to take revenge. I used the old creeper costume to construct my own and mimic the story of the ghost girl. I kidnapped Johnny and kept him in the cemetery building to keep people off. My plan was to then take out your oldest member, Heeseung. And it would have worked, if it wasn’t for you meddling...school..mates of mine.” 

------ 

All of you stared as you saw the reflection of Chanmi through the police car window; it faded moments after when the car left. 

“Hey they forgot her backpack!” Jake picked up the bag and my mistake dropped the book inside onto the floor. 

“This is an old Seoul High yearbook.” Sunghoon dusted off the front cover, and turned to the book marked page. 

 “It’s them, the kids who disappeared.” Eight boxes on the top displayed with a group photograph on the bottom confirmed that it was the same story sent by JK. 

“Check out the caption...Kim Daniel, Min Yoongi, Jung Hoseok, Kim Namjoon, Park Jimin, Kim Taehyung, Park Yena, and Jeon Jungkook...Seoul High’s mystery solvers club, Mystery Co.” 

“I like that name, mystery co.” Sunoo gazed at the page a little longer. 

“Those kids are just like us.” 

“The thing is, why did they disappear?” Had this been the mystery you were warned of before? 

------ 

Chanmi waited patiently on the mattress, swinging her legs back and forth until the gates of her cell opened. 

“Took you long enough.” 

“Is it taken care of?” A broad shouldered man now was in her sight, hands in his pockets.

“They bought the story. Will be a while before they realize Mr. Carswell never had a daughter.” 

“And the yearbook?” 

“In the backpack like you mentioned. I still don’t get why you didn’t just give it to them directly.” 

The man escorted her into the limo, and looked at her directly. 

“JK hired you to do this job, you don’t need to know everything. Let’s just say he needs them to start looking for the real mystery underneath Seoul City. One that drove away eight teens into their disappearance. It is time. ” 

------ 

Next- Chapter 7: Medieval times  

Taglist:

@softkons @nikisboxysmile

Side Note: Yay, Niki is finally introduced :) Send an ask to the added to the tag list! <3 

[inorganicone2230]

Time and Time Again (Part 1) 1930′s Yandere!Overhaul x Fem!Reader

Prologue TBC in Part 2

Summary:  An accident that should have killed you has instead left you stranded decades in the past with no apparent way to get home. You are saved and offered assistance by Kai Chisaki, a charming young man at the head of a powerful yakuza organization, who oddly enough believes your story. But Kai seems to have more on his mind concerning you than simply lending a helping hand, and as the days turn into weeks, you begin to wonder if he’s ever going to let you leave.  

Warnings: None for this chapter. Warnings and tags will be updated as the chapters progress.

Side Note: I do NOT and never will condone the actions committed in  this and future chapters, please be mindful and respectful of the fact  that all of this is purely fiction.

And as always, I want to give a BIG thank you to my amazing friend @talpup for all the brainstorming and encouragement on these stories!  I’m sure I would have given up on this blog a while ago if it wasn’t for  all of their help. I highly encourage anyone who takes the time to read  this to go over to their page or their AO3 account under the same name  and check out their works, especially Chaos and Erase The Shadow. They  are two of my favorite BNHA fics of ALL TIME!

Frigid and stiff.

Those were just a few of the words that came to you as your eyes began to flutter open, the slight facial movement causing the splitting pain in your head to become the forefront notice of your mind. The rest of your body was sore and stiff as well, but your head was where the pain was the worst. You were wet, your clothes drenched, the cloth water logged and heavy as you tried to push yourself up. It hurt to move, but at least it didn’t feel like anything was broken or dislocated, that was a plus in your book.

Gingerly turning your head to look around, it took your brain a few moments to process and catch up with the events of what happened before you woke up in this state. It all came rushing back to you at once, the walk, finding the old path that led to the cliff and then the sudden breaking of the ground under your feet as you screamed and fell over the ledge. You tried to recall if you remembered hitting the water, but the rest up until now was blank, meaning you must have passed out during the fall. Your vision was blurry and your brain felt like mush, but even those handicaps didn’t get in the way of you determining that this place was nowhere near the spot you originally fell from. From what you could recall of the spot where you were before, one side of the river had been right up against the cliff wall that you had fallen from, you still had no idea how you survived a fall like that, and the other was along a rocky shore and a forest. Now though, the waters of the river were much calmer and the stretch of water was flanked on either side by sand and thick forest, the current having likely carried you quite a ways down before you washed up on this little shore.

On pure instinct, you reached into your still zipped up pocket for your phone, along with its accompanying solar powered charger and were amazed to find that the expensive waterproof/shock absorbent case had done its job and protected the delicate tech device’s. It turned on just fine and there wasn’t a scratch on it, but it was telling you that you had no service, so you would still need to find some sort of civilization or an area near a cell tower before you could get help.

“This is bad.” You said to yourself as you finally stood up on shaky legs. The movement caused your already splitting head to pound even harder and when you pulled your hand away from your temple, you were unsurprised to find that what you’d been hoping was just water running down your face was actually blood. “And it just keeps getting better and better.” You groaned, internally chastising yourself for not having brought a little first aid pack just in case and vowing to do so from now on no matter what.

Looking around, it was impossible to tell where you were or how far down the river had carried you, but you figured that your best option would be to follow the flow of the water and hope that it would eventually lead you to some place you could get help from.

As you slowly began making your way along the bank of the river, it didn’t take you long to realize that the sun was beginning to set already and what very little warmth the day had to offer was quickly disappearing as the sun sunk lower and lower behind the mountains. Your clothes were still saturated with water and you were so cold that it physically hurt to move, it was impossible not to focus on it when every move you made brought the reminder to the forefront of your mind as the bitter cold material clung to your body and made you shiver to the point that your teeth were chattering uncontrollably. If you didn’t find help soon, it was likely you wouldn’t make it to see the morning. If the exhaustion didn’t make you keel over first, then the next option you’d have to take a guess at would be hypothermia setting in, but you needed to keep going, you had to find someone to help you or you were a goner.

So, despite how painfully cold you were, you did what you could to ignore it, along with the throbbing ache in your head and pushed on further into the darkening forest.

—————

Something was wrong...

It was pitch black out and it took about two hours of near painful and freezing walking, but you did eventually manage to find a road. There was a distinct lack of streetlights though and if it weren’t for the headlights of the occasional passing car, you may have missed it entirely, but that wasn’t what was bothering you, not entirely at least.

No, what you were finding odd were the types of cars that were passing you.

Oldsmobile was the word that came to mind when you managed to get a decent look at them. Every single one looked like they were brand new, like they were from the turn of the century or something straight out of a period piece style movie. Not that there were many cars out and about, but of the few that had passed by, not a single one seemed to be a newer model. It made you wonder if there had been some kind of event going on nearby, like a car show or something similar, but that didn’t explain why every car driving by looked like it was from a different era.

However, the model of the cars wasn’t your biggest concern right now, what was truly your greatest dilemma was that none of them were stopping to help you. You had tried to flag down every single one that passed and they all either just kept going or outright picked up speed. Your cell phone still wasn’t picking up a signal either and by this point, what little bit of adrenaline you had been running on before was now gone and you could feel the stress and fatigue finally starting to hit you. Walking was becoming increasingly difficult and with every meager step you took, you could feel your head pounding harder and harder. All you wanted to do was pass out and sleep for days, but doing that here would more than likely mean a death sentence.

Tears brought on by both fear and frustration began to roll down your cheeks as you took another painful step, your knees locking up and almost buckling under your weight. A broken sob escaped and that one sob led to more and more following in its path as you stumbled down the darkened roadside.

“Please… someone help…”

—————

“I want this leak taken care of by morning Hari, the last thing we need right now is the police sniffing around where they’re not wanted.”

“Understood Sir, I’ll inform Rappa that he’ll need to pay them a visit tonight.” The driver of the sleek black Packard replied, his gaze briefly shifting to his rear-view mirror to make eye contact with the handsome golden eyed male in the spacious back seat.

“No. Rappa’s too messy and we need this handled quietly and efficiently, but it still needs to send a message to anyone looking to capitalize on our name and turf that this kind of behavior won’t be overlooked.” The man’s gloved fingers tapped against his knee in thought for a moment before coming to a conclusion. “Send Nemoto instead. Tell him to make it look like a generic hit, like another organization was icing out their competition. Execution style should look standard enough.”

“I’ll handle it as soon as we get back.” Hari replied. “It’s late, but is there anything else you wish for me to handle before tom- what the hell?” Hari’s voice trailed off as he spotted something, or rather someone, walking along the roadside as he slowly drove by. It was too dark to make out the features while in a moving vehicle, but whoever it was, they were far too shapely to be a man as far as he could tell.

Kai heard the way Hari’s sentence had trailed off and he glanced in the same direction his lieutenant’s gaze was briefly focused as he continued to drive and watch the roadway. It took a moment for his eyes to spot what had caught his attention but when he did, he was rather surprised. 

Walking along the side of the road was a strangely dressed woman. It was hard to tell what she really looked like in the brief moment that the headlights had hit her, but she appeared to be in trouble. She had her arms wrapped around herself as she shivered from the cold mountain air and it looked as if she was soaking wet, not a good combination in these kinds of open elements. Normally Kai wouldn’t have cared about some nobody, but this was an isolated mountain road miles and miles away from any towns or people and she didn’t appear to be prepared to handle this kind of terrain or temperature. Her clothes, while strange looking and not normal for a woman, seemed to be ill equipped for being out here and her shivering posture only added to that conclusion.

As a young child, Kai had been abandoned and left for dead on the streets, surviving on nothing more than his wits and determination to stay alive. This was how his life had stayed for a good number of years, but that all changed one summer when he’d met the man that helped forge him into who he was today, the man that took him in and raised him up to be strong and confident, the man who gave him everything.

Pops.

Pops had found him on the streets and gave him life again, had fed and clothed him, hired all the best tutors to teach him how to read and write as well as an assortment of other curriculum's, had treated him as if he were his own son. And one of the most important lessons that Pops instilled in him was to always treat a woman with a certain amount of respect and dignity, to be a gentleman. Kai took everything Pops taught him very seriously, and that included this. So while Kai himself wasn’t some paragon of virtue or that good of a person by any stretch of the word, seeing a cold and lost young woman alone on an empty mountain road, he couldn’t help but flash back to all those lessons and feel the need to help her. Though his curiosity over her strange clothing and wanting to know what exactly she was doing out here definitely played a part in deciding his next decision.

“Hari, pull over.” Kai ordered, his tone firm and commanding.

Hari did as he was told without question, the moment he had seen the woman he knew that this was more than likely going to happen. Kai was nowhere near being a model citizen, but he wasn’t a complete monster like most believed him to be, his acts of kindness were simply very selective and few and far between. In many ways, Kai’s anger was like an irritable cat having its fur stroked in the wrong direction; if one played by Kai’s rules and did everything as he expected, then he would remain content, if one didn’t play the game by Kai’s standards… well then they better pray that his claws were the worst of their punishment.

Kai told Hari to stay put in the car and to keep it running as he stepped out to look towards the young woman who was now illuminated by the headlights. She was a tiny little thing already, but the way she was shivering and huddled in on herself made her look even smaller. She was half soaked to the bone, desperately in need of a bath and beat up as well, he could already see the dried blood that coated the right side of her head and long (h/c) hair as well as other numerous little cuts and scrapes that were littered across her face and bare hands. Cleaned up she would be quite the beautiful young woman all things considered. He was definitely right about her clothes though, they were some of the oddest garments he had ever seen on a woman. From the damp black coat that looked like it was more for appearance than practicality, to the provocative skintight trousers and fitted leather boots that both concealed her body and showed it off, it was a far cry from the usual long skirts, baggy pants and pressed blouses that most women wore, but still very flattering on her.

But it wasn’t until she lifted her head to meet his gaze that he truly became captivated.

It was her eyes, they were big and (e/c) and they were staring at him as if he was an oasis in a vast desert, as if he was her god given solace and it left a strange feeling chorusing through him. The best way he could describe it is by remembering a time from his childhood, when he was still very little and his aversion to all things filthy had not quite set in as strongly yet, when he had fallen out of a tree he had climbed. He remembers how it had seemed as if time slowed down around him as he plummeted down towards the ground, how he felt weightless and it left a tickling sensation in his stomach right before he impacted with the ground. It was a rush and his desire to find out who this woman was was even more consuming now than it was a few seconds ago.

“Are you alright Miss?” He asked smoothly, trying his best to sound as cordial as possible so as not to spook her. “You appear to be injured.”

Finally, after what seemed like forever, a vehicle had stopped for you and a seemingly handsome young man stepped out to ask if you needed assistance. Your head was pounding and your vision was so blurry though that all you could tell about him was that he had short dark hair and was dressed in a stylish dark suit with a slight vintage look to it and a black dust mask that covered his face from the nose down.

“I-I had an accident…” Your voice sounded hoarse and weak when you spoke and it took everything you had to stay standing upright as you wobbled on your feet. “Fell in the river while… while on a walk.”

Well that explained why you looked half drowned, Kai thought, his concern rising when he saw the way you were swaying from side to side. Just as he was about to speak again, you beat him to it, but what you said left him confused since he had no clue as to what you were speaking of.

“Pardon me Miss, but what did you say?” He calmly inquired.

You shook your head, trying to clear away the cloudy haze and black spots from your vision as you fought to get the words out through your dry mouth. “My-My cell phone is acting weird, can’t-can’t get a signal… could I borrow yours?”

Cell phone? What was that?

Kai knew what a telephone was, they were still relatively new though and very expensive. But he had never heard of a cell phone before, and what was that you had said about a signal? This was becoming more and more intriguing by the second. Were you speaking of something real or were you merely hallucinating and babbling nonsense?

“I am afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about Miss. I’ve never heard of a cell phone before, but if you have someone you’d like to get in contact with, you’re more than welcome to use the telephone I have back at my home.” He gestured towards the still running car, fully expecting a heartfelt thank you and for you to get in without further questions, what he got instead was not at all what he had been expecting.

His head shot up when he heard you scoff and a rough, humorless chuckle fall from your pretty mouth. “That-That’s just great…” You mumbled sarcastically, just loud enough for him to hear. “First car to stop and help and it’s some jackass wanting to play fucking mind games with me.” You looked him in the eye, you gaze hard and unflinching. “Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll take my chances with walking. The last thing I need right now is help from some asshole who just wants to fuck with my head.” You spat bitterly and began to make your way past him to continue on down the road, but stopped when your movement brought on a sudden dizzy spell and before you knew it, you were slumping to the ground as dead weight, your vision going completely black as you quickly lost conscience. Your anger and frustration had cleared your head for only a moment, but just as quickly as the clarity had come, it was gone again, and it took your waking mind right along with it.

If he was a more sensitive man, Kai may have been appalled and shocked at the way you had just spoken to him. Most women who met him saw his wealth in the way he dressed and carried himself and most threw themselves at him in an effort to gain his attention, some succeeded, some were cast aside, but what they all had in common was a more conniving way of going about it. They were flirty, trying to sway his opinion of them by stroking his ego with pretty words and coy smiles, and it had become boring. When he was younger, he had taken women to bed only to avoid being looked down on by his peers and other members of the organization, and while he had made sure the ones he chose had greatly enjoyed themselves, he himself had never gotten much more than a weak release out of those moments.

But you didn’t appear to notice or care about his appearance or the visible signs of his wealth. Instead, you simply ignored him as if he was just some random nobody you had met on the street, even going so far as to speak to him in a disrespectful tone and use crass, unladylike language on top of it. He knew he should be feeling slighted and angered by your lack of respect, but instead, all he felt was elated and proud. You were already a pretty little mystery that he wanted to solve, but now you were proving yourself to be a challenge for him to conquer and break.

But before he could do that, he needed to find a way to get you back to the compound and under his care and supervision. You were obviously hurt, disoriented, and lost, so his fist order of business was seeing to it that you got proper care and were back on your feet first and foremost, that would give him time to plan out how best to go about this new pet project of his.

Luckily you passed out before making it too far and he quickly ordered Hari to get you into the backseat of the Packard, to which his lieutenant did without question. A spare blanket from the trunk was draped over your small frame and as he took his place in the passenger seat up front, he reached back and placed his still gloved hand against your forehead and even through the material he could feel that you were burning up with a nasty fever. Once back at home, he would need to have Dr. Takani take a look at you after the maids gave you a bath and changed your clothes. It wouldn’t be right to let his new little curiosity become too ill after all. 

He had found you and now you were his responsibility to care for. He was a man that took pride and care in all his possessions, and already you were becoming his new favorite. He didn’t know a thing about you, not even your name, but that was part of it, finding out everything he could about you was going to be half the fun of it.

“Where would you like to go Kai?” He heard Hari ask, but he never took his eyes off of you beautiful face as he replied.

“We’re going home.”

Sorry if this seemed a bit rushed, I was too excited to post it and didn't do a whole lot of editing besides a quick once over. lol

[hongism]

not your typical flower shop story - chapter four

Pairing: Taehyung x Reader

Genre: Flower Shop Owner!Taehyung, College!Reader, College!Taehyung, Gang/Mafia!AU Fluff, Angst, Eventual Smut

Word Count: 4.5k

Rating: M

Warnings: language, talk of guns and weaponry

Summary: You always goes to the cute boy next door’s flower shop across the street because hi yes he’s the cutest damn person you’ve ever seen, until one day a guy with tattoos and a severe obsession with the color black shows up in the shop asking for the ‘usual’ and you find out that your cute innocent little flower boy has a dirty little secret.

A/N: okay so i’ve been secretly working on this chapter during my break oOPs but i’m very excited to share this with you guys. you all have given this story so much support and love so far, and it’s exciting and nerve-wracking! i’m so touched but i hope this can live up to your expectations and such!

⇐ previous | next ⇒

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“Did you think it was all a coincidence?”

The question is much like a punch in the throat, something that steals all the air out of your lungs and leaves you heaving and trembling in the seat you’re in. The same coy smile remains on the man’s lips. It never wavers even as you push the chair back and stand up, knees buckling as you move. You have to grab the edge of the table to stabilize yourself. He just keeps smiling.

“Miss L/N—”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” You hiss through gritted teeth, glaring at the man with as much vehemence as you can muster. To be honest, you’re more trying to cover the panic that sears through your system, but the man must see right through you anyways. 

“Please take a seat. I don’t want you to feel tense or on edge while we talk. That wouldn’t be the best introduction, would it?” He motions towards the seat again, long fingers flitting through the air as though attempting to slice through the tension. You narrow your eyes at him rather than moving though, and he seems to sense your hesitance. “Miss L/N. I would truly love to explain things to you, but I refuse to do so if you are standing there glaring at me.”

“What’s your name?” You ask, arms coming to rest in a crossed position over your chest. That unwavering smile falls at your question.

“Empe—”

“I don’t want your dumb, codename, kinky bullshit. I want your real name. You know mine already, so isn’t it only fair that I know yours.” He cocks his head to the side, chin lifting as he looks up at you. Slowly he brings his hands to the table, rests his elbows there, and clasps his fingers together. Two moments of dense silence linger. His stare does not waver. You blink. Then—

“Kim Namjoon. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Y/N L/N.”

You exhale a breath of relief, arms falling to your side as the anxiety falls from your shoulders, and you return to the table to sit down once again. 

“Are you content with that, Miss L/N?” The man, Namjoon, asks once you are seated again. You nod a few times, catching your breath before speaking again.

“I’d rather you not call me Miss L/N though. Y/N is fine.”

“Alright, Y/N. May I begin explaining things now?”

“Yes, please,” you mutter in response. His steady and cold exterior sinks through your skin, the small outburst you had moments ago suddenly seems embarrassing and childish, and you want to sink through the floor and disappear forever. Your phone buzzes against the warmth of your hip, tucked between your skin and the waistband of your underwear, and you press it closer to yourself in the hopes that Namjoon doesn’t catch the sound.

“Do you need to answer that?” He asks, breaking your hopes into a million pieces. Heat rise in your cheeks, a red hue no doubt blossoming across your skin. You tug the phone out with shaky fingers and glance down at the screen. Another missed call from Jimin’s ID, alongside 4 new unread messages from the same ID. Namjoon’s eyes linger on your screen, expression unreadable, and he shifts his gaze back up to your face after a moment. You place your phone face down on the table, ignoring the notifications in favor of looking at Namjoon. “Shouldn’t you call back?”

The question hits with too much force, and you’re caught off guard for a moment. 

Shouldn’t I?

Should I?

If it truly is Jimin, then why would I not answer? And if it’s not, then what do I have to lose? And if it is him…

You pick the phone back up, thumb swiping across the screen without a second thought, and press it to your ear while looking Namjoon in the eye. It rings one, twice, three times then— 

“Well, well, well. Look who decided to pick up?”

Blood runs cold, heart stops in your chest, muscles lose all their strength and the phone slips from your hands. It lands in your lap and nearly tumbles to the floor if not for your instinctive decision to press your legs together and catch the device there. It takes a moment for you to recover, the action of picking up the phone taking way too much effort, but you manage to bring it back up to your ear. Namjoon says nothing about your reaction, and he merely looks at you with that same unreadable glint in his eyes. 

“H-Hello?” You stutter into the speaker. You don’t shift your gaze from Namjoon, and you can barely hear the responses from the man on the other side of the phone because of how loud your heartbeat seems to be in your ears. 

“Hello~” It’s Jimin, no doubt, you could never forget that teasing tone coming at you through the speaker.

“Ji-Jimin.” Your voice barely works, the name squeaking out so timidly that it doesn’t seem like it came from your lips. 

“There she is. My little Y/N~” That singsong lilt in his tone hits again. “Where are you? I wanna come see you, princess. Since you couldn’t be bothered to come visit me in the hospital, after all. Guess I have to do all the work, hm?”

“I-I, Jimin, I ca-can’t talk right now.”

“And why’s that, princess?”

Wherever Jimin is, he must be surrounded by lots of people, because you can hear chaos and voices surrounding him mixed with clanking cups and the scrape of chairs against the floor. An image arises in the back of your mind. You’re brought back to the diner, the place you were hours ago, but also the places you were almost two years ago. The image of Jimin’s bright and wide smile flashes through your mind once, then the reflection of fear across his expression which preceded the horrid events that followed.

Could he be back at the diner? No way…surely not, it must be closed by now.

“I asked you a question, princess.” You exhale at his words, blinking to bring yourself out of the memories that bind your thoughts.

“I’m with someone.”

“Oh? Is that so? At this hour?”

“Yes,” you breathe into the phone, watching Namjoon’s eyes shift from your phone to the doorway, and you turn in your seat to look in that direction as well. There is nothing there, however, and both of you are left staring at a closed door without reason. Jimin is the one asking all the questions and yet it should be you. You should be asking how he’s awake, when he got out of the hospital, how he got out, why the nurses didn’t tell you anything, and what the fuck is happening. “Jimin, I—”

“I must say, princess, I am quite disappointed in you. I thought you were better than this, but I suppose you’ve been proving what kind of person you truly are in the time I’ve been gone. What a shame.” Jimin tsks, tongue clicking against the roof of his mouth, and you can envision the way he shakes his head side to side as he used to. The overwhelming barrage of emotions coursing through you doesn’t let up, and a sharp stab of pain hits when his words sink in. “Listen here. Next time I call, I may not be as sweet or loving as I used to be, but you had better pick up on the first ring next time, okay?”

The line goes dead. You don’t have a chance to say anything in your defense or ask for an explanation.

“Odd to have someone calling at this hour, isn’t it?” Namjoon asks, breaking the silence and laughing after he voices the question. You can’t laugh in response or even crack a smile because too much shock lingers in your abdomen for you to say anything. Namjoon waits though, eyes still on yours, lingering and anticipating as though he’s waiting for you to do something specific.

“Sorry,” you mutter as you duck your chin to avoid looking him in the eye.

“I would like to get straight to business, Miss L/N. You see, you have something I want. It just so happens that I have something you want as well.”

“Are you—are you looking to make a bargain with me, Mr. Kim?”

A smile plays at the man’s lips, and his tongue dashes out to moisten them. “I would certainly hope that we could come to an agreement. If not, then… I’m afraid this won’t be pretty.” Your expression drops, color draining from your face as you look forward to Namjoon.

“Y-You would k-kill me?” You ask, unable to keep your tone steady.

“Well I would certainly hope to avoid that circumstance, but I’m afraid I can’t tell you the details of what might happen should we not come to an agreement.” Namjoon stands all the sudden. You jolt a bit, watching his movements closely as he loops around the back of his chair and folds his hands behind his back. The smile on his lips maintains. “Yoongi told you, didn’t he? That we have someone who has a very special set of skills and is rather… talented in certain areas.” You freeze in your seat. Namjoon circles around the table, behind your chair, and bends to speak directly into your ear. “I know you don’t pose a physical threat to anyone. As I said I’ve had my eye on you for a while now. However, as a leader, a commander, a person in charge who seeks the safety of my men, I’m not afraid to erase an innocent from the equation. I know that if I let you go right now and give you complete freedom to talk to people about us, you will go straight to the police, won’t you?”

“I wouldn’t, I wou—”

“We’re bargaining, Miss L/N. And before you lay your cards on the table, I am going to lay mine down first.” Namjoon pulls back and circles the table again. He slowly sinks back into the chair across from you, eyes locked on yours. “I have something you want. Well, to be more accurate, I have someone you want, and if you wish to see him again, then I suggest you comply.” Your blood freezes in your veins. Namjoon keeps smiling. Jimin. Jimin. He has Jimin. How? How did he know? Was he behind the first attack? No, that wouldn’t make sense. “Voice your thoughts, Miss L/N. I can almost hear the gears turning from here.”

“You bastard!” You hiss as you slam your palms against the table. Then, there’s a whiz, a rush of air, and the shattering of glass. The small window on the right wall shatters from an unknown impact. The table quakes and trembles under a sudden force and you pull your body back so quickly that your chair almost tips over. There, two inches away from where your hands just were, sits a black arrow, still shaking from the collision with the metal table. Namjoon remains unwavering.

“A warning, Miss L/N. Tower has a short temper and an even shorter temper for people who… threaten me.”

“You said you wouldn’t kill me,” you whisper, eyes still on the arrow stuck in the table.

“I wouldn’t. I can’t make any promises about Tower not doing so. Thus, if you want to keep all your limbs intact, I suggest maintaining an air of diplomacy between the two of us.” Namjoon leans forward, propping his elbows on the table.

“You’re evil,” you say under your breath.

“Some say that. I, however, prefer to call it being tactical. It's all in the eye of the beholder, Miss L/N. I know what I want, and I know how to get it. How about you? Can you say the same?"

"Ye—"

"No, you can't. Because if you did, then we wouldn't be in this position. I wouldn't be threatening you or have leverage over you, because you would already have exactly what you want. So, why don't you tell me exactly what it is you want?"

"I need money."

"For what?"

"For some bills."

"Miss L/N, I can't help you if you don't elaborate. If you don't know exactly what you want, then you'll get nothing from us."

"My f-friend was shot in an armed robbery. He's been in a coma ever since, and I need money to pay off his medical bills."

"And?" Namjoon prompts, fingers drumming across the table. "Do you want revenge? Justice? Payback? What do you want, Miss L/N?" You blink back at the man with jaw hanging open as you take in his questions.

"I want..."

"Hm?"

"I don't need revenge," you say after shaking your head. Your tongue darts out to moisten your lips before your teeth clamp down on your lower lip.

"I'm not asking about what you need. There's a significant difference between what we need and what we want, and I'm asking about the latter."

"I want revenge," you state as you look Namjoon in the eye. "And I want my friend back."

"Good. I can give you both. Le—"

"For what? What's the bargain?" Namjoon sighs and leans forward, his hand finding the arrow sticking through the table. He wraps his fingers around it, a laugh escapes his lips, then he yanks the arrow out of the table.

"What are you prepared to give?" He examines the sharp head of the arrow, not looking your way as he asks the question.

What would I give to have Jimin back? The Jimin I knew, the one I loved, the one I gave my all to.

"I'd give anything," you answer. Namjoon looks at you now, a smirk coiling on his lips.

"That's exactly what I thought."

"You said I had something you wanted. What did you mean?"

"That will not be included in our bargain, Miss L/N. What is included… that is our business right now. You want revenge? Is that your only bargaining chip at the moment?"

"My friend. I said I want my friend back."

"Right, of course. The issue with that..." Namjoon trails off, fingers dancing around the shaft of the arrow as he looks to the ceiling. A tense moment of silence passes between the two of you. Then, his gaze snaps back down to you. "I can't return the Jimin you once knew." You blanch again, although you aren't sure what is more shocking to you — the fact that Namjoon knows exactly who you meant when you were talking about your friend or the underlying meaning behind "the Jimin you once knew". Namjoon reads your shock. "As I said, Miss L/N, I've been watching you for quite some time. Of course, I'm going to know what happened at the diner that one night, what happened to Jimin, and his current state right now. After all, he called you minutes ago, didn't he?"

"Shut up," you hiss out. Namjoon merely continues.

"And he wasn't the Jimin you used to know? Not so sweet and loving?"

"What did you do? What did you do to him?"

"Me?" Namjoon gawks back at you, his face almost comical, but you can't bring yourself to find humor in it at all thanks to the shock coursing through your veins. "Why think that I'm the reason for any of this?"

"How else would you know so damn much?"

Namjoon clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, a small tsk resounding through the quiet room. "Your tone is a bit aggressive, Miss L/N. I can't understand why though."

"And you constantly calling me 'Miss L/N' is driving me up a fucking wall."

"Alright then, Y/N—" Namjoon spits your name out as though it's poison on his tongue "—if you want to see Jimin again, then I'd suggest being a bit more respectful because you're about to fall under my leadership."

You bite down hard on your lower lip, avoiding Namjoon's gaze in favor of staring at the table before you. "What do you want from me?" You inquire. Namjoon releases a small chuckle.

"Loyalty, for starters, and obedience, seeing as you seem to have issues holding your tongue. You drive a steep bargain though, Y/N. Revenge and Jimin? Two weighty pieces, so I will need a lot in return." Namjoon places the arrow down on the table, and you watch his movements warily, unsure of his next movements as he leans forward. "Loyalty, obedience, and what else? Oh yes, you need to quit your day job."

"W-What? I can't! I can't do that! I need the money to—"

"I assure you that this job will more than cover for whatever expenses you need. I hope you know that you will not be leaving this room tonight without this deal being made. Agree to my terms, or you may not be around to get what you want. You want revenge. How do you plan to get it?”

“I-I…” You stammer and trail off, unsure how to properly answer Namjoon’s question without further making a fool of yourself.

“Do you even have a plan?”

“Of course, of course, I do, yes. I do have a plan.”

“And what would that be?” Namjoon tilts his head to the side, a small smile still playing at his lips, but it feels more like he’s looking down on you. There’s an arrogant air about him, as though he knows what you’re going to say before you even say it, and you detest this man more and more with each passing second.

“I… I need t-to talk to the robber who came into the diner tonight. If he’s still alive that is. He could—he could be linked to the first one, the one who attacked Ji—my friend.”

“Hm, color me surprised, Miss L/N. You’re more put together than I imagined you would be. As is your plan. There are, however, multiple holes in your plan. How would you find the robber? You never saw him. As I recall, I was told that you hid under a table during the whole encounter.”

“I-I did. Yes. I did, but only because Taehyung told me to. I woul—if I had the chance, I would’ve done something.”

“What?”

“I wou—”

“Fought him? With what training? Shot him? With what gun? Called the cops? How long would that have taken? You didn’t do anything because you couldn’t do anything. Did that ever occur to you? Or are you too hard-headed to realize that there is nothing you could do to get revenge on your own?”

“That’s not—no, that isn’t—”

“True? Is that what you were going to say? Was this not an exact repeat of the first time?” You freeze, glaring up at Namjoon as he speaks the words.

“Wh-Why are you doing this? How do you — how do you even know what happened the first time? Why am I here and what the fuck do you want from me?” You want to slam your fist against the table, lean forward and get in Namjoon’s face, just do anything to give you back some of the power. But the threat of the unknown man outside the window and the hole where an arrow pierced metal still looming in front of you keep you from doing any of those things.

“We’ve been through this already, Y/N. That is not a part of the bargain. As for how I know what happened: it’s quite simple actually. I was avoiding sharing this bit of information with you, but since you already are aware that I know Jimin personally, you can know this as well. Jimin told me what happened the night you two were at the diner. That’s how I know things lined up.” Namjoon’s explanation is sound. Too sound. It still doesn’t explain how things were so similar.

“So… so you know where Jimin is now?”

“I know exactly where he is. I know what he’s wearing, where he’s sitting, what he’s drinking, and who he’s talking to.”

“That’s a bit much, don’t you think?”

“No. It’s my job to know these things, Y/N.”

“Y-Your job is to know where Jimin is?” Namjoon smirks back at you. The gears are slowly starting to turn in your head, and Namjoon seems to be able to see that.

“Come now, surely you’ve figured it out. Spit it out, Y/N.” Namjoon lets a hand fall to the table. He drums his fingers against the cool metal.

"Jimin is one of your men," you utter, tone flat and monotonous even though your heart is racing miles per minute. "He works for you. I can't fucking believe this."

"How can it be so hard to believe? Think your little angel of an ex isn't possible of working for a man like me? Would you say the same about Taehyung?"

"Taehyung explained his situation to me. He told me why he does it, and why he feels like he has to. You are trapping him in this line of work, making him stay with you. Telling him you need him to work, you need him to do things. Don't you know that he feels like a horrible person because of you?" You bite back, and your tone rises with each word spoken.

"Did he tell you that? Or are you making simple assumptions merely because you don't like the idea of Taehyung or Jimin working for a person like me?" Namjoon's laugh is dry, almost abrasive in the way it hits you, and you lean back from the table. "Did he tell you that or not, Y/N?"

"More or less..." You admit, looking away from the man as embarrassment hits your cheeks. "He said he feels like he's hurting people. If you are his leader, then why don't you do something to stop that?"

"Do you think I'm heartless? That I don't care about my men?" Namjoon clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "What else did Taehyung tell you? That I torture my people? If they don't obey, then they're thrown on the streets for dogs to feed on?"

"No, what? Of course not. He just... he seems to be in such a moral dilemma."

"And I give him time to deal with that. I give him time to think about whether this is really what he wants, or if he thinks he's in the right place, whether he wants to be here anymore. I don't force him into anything. Before every job I ask Taehyung -- do you want to take this job? I have other hackers, people come and people go, there is nothing that is forcing Taehyung to stay under my lead. He chooses to stay. He wants to be one of my men. And as long as he wants to be with me, then I will let him stay. The minute he says that he is uncomfortable, then I will let him walk out the door."

You let your mouth fall into a small 'o' at Namjoon's explanation. The venom drops from his tone, voice becoming much calmer and more caring than before, and for once, you actually see that Namjoon cares about the people who work for him.

"Funny how I am extending that exact same offer to you now, Miss L/N. Yet you seem hellbent on depicting me as a villain and criminal who despises the people he works with. Why not give me the benefit of the doubt?"

"Because I'm bad at trusting people who don't seem to have good intentions. And considering you threatening to put an arrow through my skull minutes ago, I see that as bad intentions. Prove me wrong."

"I want you to work for me. I thought that much was clear. In return, you will be paid for your compliance and services. You need money to get through school, pay bills, buy flowers from Taehyung every week--"

"Excuse me, how do you know about that? I--"

"I was speaking, Y/N. Please let me finish. Anyways, you need the money for life, and I need you for the betterment of my team and my business. It's not mindless gang wars and shit shows out here. We're better than that. Higher class, I'd like to think. I cannot explain many of the details since we have not come to an agreement, but I'm quite confident we will based on my biggest bargaining chip."

"Jimin," you state, already knowing where Namjoon is headed with his statement.

"Indeed, that is what I mean. Jimin is the thing you want most, is he not? If I can provide a means to see him and be with him again, then why on earth would you ever say no to me?" Namjoon hooks one of his legs over the other and lets his clasped hands come to rest atop his knee. You don't offer a response; instead, you bring your gaze back to the man and let it pause there. The man wears a cocky smirk again, one awfully similar to the one you saw earlier. He knows he's going to get what he wants. At the end of the day, the prospect of seeing Jimin is too enticing.

"I can walk away whenever I want? You won't stop me?"

"I will let you walk out without stopping you. Free to go whenever you want or need to. Say the word and you're out."

"What happens if I leave? Am I... will I have a target on my back?" You ask tentatively, eyes flitting up to meet Namjoon's. 

"You might. You might not. But Taehyung has been your next-door neighbor for how long? Do you think that was a mere accident? I'll tell you straight up: no. I placed him there because someone wanted to keep an eye on you." Your gaze narrows at the insinuation behind his words. You know he must be talking about Jimin but based on your earlier conversation with him, you can't imagine him wanting to see your safe and sound. "Everything has been completely intentional, Y/N. You were exactly where we needed you to be in order to execute this plan. And now, you sit across from me thanks to that plan. So, all that to say: should you leave, you will have a target on your back but you will remain under my protection. Taehyung will stay put and continue to keep an eye on you. I give you my word that we will not allow any harm to come to you. I can not give you the exact same promise should you stay though. The nature of our work is dangerous, and there is always a potential for harm. Even Taehyung is at risk of getting hurt despite only working from our base…"

"I'm sensing a 'but'?" You tilt your chin up a bit as Namjoon glances away from you. 

“No one knows where we work from. It is a well-kept secret. We have never had any issues with people finding us in the past, and I assure you that it would remain that way from now on. But given the nature of work I have in mind for you… safety is not always guaranteed.”

“I’ll take my chances,” you utter with little emotion to your tone. It’s all a front though, because, on the inside, panic is coursing through you. 

Exactly what does he have in mind for me? How dangerous is it going to be? 

You inhale sharply at the thought of a gun pointed at your head. The two instances in the diner were enough for you; you never want to see a gun again, to be honest. 

“Will I – do I need to learn how to… fire a gun?”

“For safety, yes. I can assure you that you won’t be needing it all the time, but it is a precaution. We want you to keep a handgun on your person in case, but I’m thinking that you won’t work alone. Anyways, I don’t want to give you too many details without hearing the confirmation from you first. So, Miss L/N, let’s not waste any more time. Will you take me up on my offer? We can review the terms again if you wish to make sure you’re getting a fair deal.”

“No, no. I-I know the terms.” You hesitate, eyes falling to the bend of metal where the earlier arrow had pierced. “I would like to take you up on the offer.”

“Wonderful. I assumed as much, but hearing the verbal confirmation always helps.” Namjoon uncurls his legs, shoe hitting the ground with a loud thud, and you nearly jump in your seat. He leans forward without another word. Hand extended, the man smiles at you. Your tongue darts out to moisten your lips. Slowly, you reach across the empty space, hand passing directly over the hole in the table, and take Namjoon’s hand in your own. It’s a gentle shake at first, slow and methodical. You can almost see the gears turning in Namjoon’s head as you shake his hand. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Miss L/N. I hope you don’t mind beginning right away. We have a lot to do in a short amount of time, including getting you settled and meeting some others. Yoongi should be outside still with another member that I’d like you to see. Of course, there’s the one on the rooftop across from us but he won’t be joining us tonight. I realize it’s quite late, but I’ll be sure to get you home as quickly as I can.”

“A-And… Taehyung?”

“He’ll be taking you home once we’re done.”

Namjoon retracts his hand, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. Then, he pushes his seat back. The chair scrapes against the floor with a loud and abrasive noise that hurts your eardrums. You follow his lead and stand as well, waiting for him to step around the table before walking behind the tall man’s back. He pushes the door open, signaling for you to step through first, but you shake your head at him instead.

“Fair enough.” Namjoon chuckles under his breath. He doesn’t push for you to step through first though, so you follow behind him while chewing at your bottom lip like it’s a piece of gum. “Ah, Yoongi. Wait outside the door the whole time?”

He’s standing directly next to the door, arms crossed over his chest and chin faced forward. For a moment, you think that he’s not going to acknowledge Namjoon at all. Then, he snorts and glares at the tall man in front of you.

“Only when there was yelling.”

“Come now, Yoongi, we were civil. Now, where is Moon?” Namjoon turns away from‌ Yoongi. You try to follow his line of sight but it’s too hard to keep track of with his broad shoulders blocking your view. So instead, you look to Yoongi.

“How did it go?” He asks under his breath.

“Fine,” you answer. You’re opening your mouth to say more when Namjoon intervenes, spinning on his heel to face Yoongi again.

“I asked you a question, Yoongi. Didn't tell you to ask her questions.”

“He’s at the counter. Where else would he be?” Yoongi pushes himself off the wall. Arms falling limply by his side, he motions towards the bar counter. All you can see is a black leather jacket and a head of silver hair; nothing beyond that is visible, and Namjoon’s shoulder is still very much in your way.

“Well, Miss L/N. I’ll let you go talk to him yourself.” Namjoon steps out of your way at that. He extends a hand in the direction of the man at the bar as though presenting him to you. The gesture sends your heart plummeting. Something about that silver hair and black jacket…

You force yourself to step forward. Heavy feet drag you to the edge of the bar. He turns to face you when you’re still three feet from his stool. Your heart nearly stops beating in your chest, blood runs cold, eyes surely bulge out of your skull. A smile is the first thing you see, dark brown eyes hidden behind the soft crescents of his eyelids. Plump lips. White teeth. Crescent eye smile. And –

“There you are, princess.”

...

a/n: yeehaw i am so sorry this took forever to get out. i honestly lost my passion and inspiration for a period of time for it, and left it to collect dust for a bit too long. but here she is!! i hope you enjoy, and let me know what you think below!

tag list: @minyoonkeeks​ @succulentjinkook​ @xanny91​ @knjkitten​ @shadowsremedy​ @purpleheartsfortae​ @etaerealboy​ @hotnoodle​ @xcastielbabyangelface​ @nmjcn​

unable to tag: @nosnakeuthankyou @aegijunhongie

y’all are probably like wait what who is tagging me and why since it’s been sO LONG JEOIJSFIO

consider sending me a ko-fi!!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

[fantasyoverreality98]

Back To You

Pairing(s): Bryce Lahela x MC, mentions of Ethan Ramsey x MC

Summary: Casey and Bryce reunite after a brief period apart.

Author’s Note: Once again, I have been inspired by a song from Little Voice; “Coming Back To You”. It’s been a while since I’ve posted some fanfic, but I hope you guys enjoy! As always, thank you so much for liking, commenting, reblogging, just reading in general. I appreciate it!

Tags: @anotherbeingsworld @aylamreads

Word Count: 1,785

---

“You told me that this meant something to you, but I can’t help feeling like that isn’t the case.”

The words echoed in Casey’s mind as she sat on her bed, staring at the wall. She would never forget the way Bryce looked at her that day. Neither would she erase the pain in his voice from her memory. All in hopes that a certain doctor might return the feelings she had for him.

And it had all been for nothing.

“Case? You alright?” Sienna peered into the room, a frown tugging at her lips. “You’ve been in here all night.”

“Fine. I’m fine.” She glanced at a picture framed on her desk.

It was a picture of her with Bryce and Keiki, taken when the three of them decided to go to the mall to shop around for a bit. It also happened to be one of the last times she’d spent time with the Lahela siblings.

For months, Casey had chased after Ethan, following her heart instead of using her brain. She knew that the relationship was doomed from the start, it always had been. No matter how much she might have wanted him, they weren’t meant to be.

“Bryce, I’m sorry. I just—I changed my mind. There’s someone else, and I can’t live with myself if I don’t tell you the truth.”

“I just wish you’d made up your mind sooner. Before I—” He’d stopped before finishing the sentence, a bitter laugh tumbling from his lips. “You know what? It’s fine. This was always meant to be casual anyway.”

A lump had started to form in her throat, and Casey ripped her eyes away from the picture. She glanced down at her phone.

No new messages. There never were.

She’d screwed up. Big time. It had been months since she had a proper conversation with Bryce, and the few words they’d exchanged were always related to work. He couldn’t even look her in the eyes most days.

The shame she felt over letting him slip through her fingers would haunt her forever. A part of her left with him that day, and she knew that it would never come back.

Bryce Lahela was the one. He had always been the one. She just couldn’t see it until it was too late. Now, she was alone.

“Well, we ordered some pizza. There’s plenty if you want some. Bryce is coming over in—”

Hearing those last few words, Casey snapped from her daze. “Bryce is coming here?”

Sienna’s brows furrowed as she pushed the door open wider. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t he—Oh. You two still aren’t on speaking terms?”

Casey chewed on her bottom lip, thinking of a time when he used to hang out at the apartment constantly. She shook her head, trying to ignore the tears that threatened to spill over. All of this was her fault. She had no right to get upset about it.

“Maybe I should stay in here. He probably doesn’t want to see me anyway.” Her voice cracked near the end of her sentence. “I’ll just eat later.”

“Case—”

There was a knock at the apartment door before Sienna could continue speaking. She glanced back with a sigh, a troubled look in her eyes as she stepped out of the doorway. Casey breathed a sigh of relief when her friend closed the door behind her.

An extremely familiar voice spoke from the living room, but Casey ignored the urge to run out just so she could see that Bryce really was here. She fell back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, reliving the moment when everything came crashing down on her.

“We can’t do this, Rookie. There will never be an us.” Ethan groaned, running a hand over his face. He started to massage his temples, his eyes cast down on the paperwork laid out on his desk.

Casey started to reach out for her, but withdrew her hand when given a warning glare. “Ethan, I just—”

He shook his head, sitting up straight. “Enough. We are expected to maintain a professional relationship. Our feelings, whatever they may be, must not get in the way of our jobs. I’m sorry, Casey, but this has to end now.”

The floor could have opened up and swallowed her whole, and she would welcome it. Casey stood, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “Fine.”

She turned and rushed from the office before she could change her mind, finally letting the tears flow freely when the truth became clear.

This time, it really was the end of her relationship with Ethan.

“Casey! Come eat before the food gets cold!” Jackie’s voice drew her back to reality. She could hear Bryce mumble something, followed by a chorus of laughter.

Could she face him tonight? It had been days since they’d spoken to each other.

After both Elijah and Sienna took turns calling out to her, Casey figured that there was no getting out of this situation. With a deep breath, she stood from her bed, checking her reflection in a mirror before walking to the door.

Everyone turned to look at her when the bedroom door creaked open. Bryce looked away the moment their eyes met, and she tried to ignore the flash of hurt she felt when he did.

“Hey,” Casey mumbled, directing her gaze to the floor as she made her way into the living room.

Of course, the only available spot was beside Bryce. It surprised her that he didn’t scoot away when she took a seat. The warmth radiating from him was enough to make her blush.

“We were just talking about some of the craziest cases we’ve had lately. Care to share some of your own?” It had to be the most words Bryce has said to her in weeks.

Casey looked up at him, her heart racing when their eyes met. “Um…sure.”

Bryce’s lips twitched, and some of the tension in his shoulders disappeared. “Great. Let’s hear it.”

By the end of the night, everyone else had gone to bed, save for Bryce and Casey. They’d been exchanging their most ridiculous school stories for hours.

“Did I ever tell you about one of my classmates in my first year of university that wanted to be a surgeon, but he was afraid of blood?” Casey’s voice echoed in the apartment, so loud that one of the bedroom doors flew open.

“Would you quiet it down? Some of us are trying to sleep,” Jackie hissed, squinting against the bright living room lights. “You two need to stop.”

“Sorry!” Casey covered her mouth as she fought back a laugh, glancing over at Bryce with wide eyes. Once Jackie retreated back into her room, the two of them chuckled. “God, I miss this.”

The words were out before she had a chance to reconsider. A rush of heat flooded over her face and Casey started to chew on her bottom lip. She tried to think of what to say, but her mind refused to come up with any words.

Finally, when it seemed like she may die of embarrassment, Bryce spoke. “I miss this, too. I miss you.”

“Really?” Hope swelled in her chest. “You do?”

He hesitated before reaching out to brush some hair behind her ear. “I meant it when I said being with you meant something to me. You’re everything I ever wanted, Case.”

Her eyes started to fill with tears, and Casey had to turn away. “I’m so sorry, Bryce. I—” The words caught in her throat, and she glanced down at her hands, folded in her lap.

“You don’t have to apologize.”

“Yes, I do.” She gathered up the courage to look at him, still trying to fight back the tears. “I ruined things between us when you have always been the one who was right for me. And now you can barely look at me. You hate me, and it’s all my fault.”

Bryce took her face in his hands, turning her head to look at him. “It’s okay. You needed time to figure things out. And hate you? I could never. I—” He paused, his warm brown eyes meeting hers. Neither of them spoke for a moment. Finally, he took a deep breath, biting his lip before he opened his mouth. “I love you, Casey Valentine.”

Casey’s hand shook as she slowly raised it and placed it over his. A few tears managed to slip out, rolling down her cheeks. “I love you, Bryce Lahela.”

Both of them moved at the same time, closing the distance between them. It had been so long since they’d kissed. They were hesitant at first, a slight brush of the lips, before Casey moved closer, placing her hands on Bryce’s face.

She kept whispering that she was sorry, only stopping when he kissed her with more force, burying a hand in her hair. “Please, stop apologizing,” he mumbled against her lips, chuckling when she said sorry again.

Casey pulled back, shaking her head. “I don’t understand. How can you forgive me so easily? After everything I’ve done?”

“Because it hurts not having you around. You were there for me when I needed help with Keiki, and she still asks about you. I just—the thought of not being close to you again scares me. So, I don’t care about what happened. I’m sorry that it took me so long to stop acting like an idiot.”

“It’s you. It’s always been you.” I don’t know how I was so blind before. The last sentence she didn’t dare speak out loud. “Why don’t we start over?” She held a hand out, trying not to laugh when she broke out in a grin. “Nice to meet you, I’m Casey.”

Bryce smirked, playing along when he took her hand and shook it. “Hey, Casey. I’m Bryce.” He bit his bottom lip, obviously fighting a smile.

“Why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself?” She tried her best not to laugh, leaning back against the couch as Bryce started to tell her things she already knew.

Long into the night, the two of them sat and talked about their lives. She wasn’t sure when it happened, but they eventually fell asleep on the couch. Casey woke up hours later in Bryce’s arms, his steady breaths filling the quiet apartment.

She laced her fingers through his, thinking about the events of the past two years. There had been plenty of heartbreak and drama, but it had all led her back to Bryce. And right here, right now, she was in the arms of the man she loved, right where she belonged.

[shnuggletea]

This is my first birthday gift inside the fandom. Sorry to all the ones I missed before; I wanted to write and post you something but I had no warning! I’ll do my best to get you next year!! 

I feel a bit lame, making this for @lavendertwilight89​ Bday while everyone else is making amazing new fics. But this is what she asked for lol! Hope you enjoy it Lavender and Happy Birthday!!

The continuation of After the Well Closes, find out what happens the day after as Inuyasha continues the story for you. Honestly, I could def write more chapters for this series. If you guys want them that is.

Anyway, you can read it on Fanfiction, AO3, Patreon, or read below!!

FORGOT THE PLAYLIST!!! CLICK HERE FOR IT!!!!

Chapter Two

“I love you. You’re mine. I’ll kill any bastard who tries to take you from me.”

― Samantha Young, On Dublin Street

He hated staying in villas. The homes of others or the ones opened up to all. The sounds and smells always kept him up all night. Last night hadn’t been much different; he’d had a fitful sleep and he was lucky for that! The physical (and though he would never admit it; emotional) drain the last two days had been on him? Chasing down Kagome and then making love in the hot springs had been a lot even for a demon. 

She was in his hold now and if Kagome hadn’t allowed him to curl around her last night, he wouldn’t have slept for the third night in a row. Her skin and hair blocked out the other smells of the house. Pressing himself tighter to her, he breathed her in greedily. The light herbal smell that was all Kagome now mixed with his scent. How much of that was their naked skin warming each other all night long and how much of that was due to him filling her with his… stuff last night; Inuyasha was sure he would find out later. After they washed and had more sex. 

A small thrill ran through him at the thought; making love to Kagome again and again. She was his, there was no doubt now. Like hell, he was ever going to let her go. And if last night was any indication, their lovemaking was going to be something amazing. What he experienced with her… there were no words. Other than all-consuming. Even now it plagued his mind. That might have something to do with her round, soft ass pressing gently against his groin. It was tempting; waking her up with his cock like a selfish bastard. She would be mad but Inuyasha was confident he could have her feeling other emotions quickly. 

But there were more important things to take care of first and he had already shared their first time in a public bath. Who knows who had heard and seen them? The thought made a shiver of disgust run down his spine; disgust at himself for his greed and at the possible others for theirs. 

Carefully, Inuyasha pressed his lips to Kagome’s shoulder before him, allowing himself to taste her skin for a moment before removing himself from her. Taking his arm and leg off her (draping one over her in a possessive manner) was easy but the arm under her slumbering head? That one proved to be a little tricky especially with her ebony and silk locks clinging to his skin and threatening to yank.

He took his time dressing, looking down at her sleepy face and trailing down her body as he did. Slightly curled into herself (clearly cold from the missing heat he provided) he took a few heartbeats to enjoy her perfect pale skin again before covering her with the blanket they had kicked off at some point in the night. 

Since she arrived alone and Kagome was a well-known Miko all over, Inuyasha thought it best she didn’t have a Hanyou in her room when she woke up. The last thing he ever wanted was to ruin her; her reputation, her body, or her soul. But he also couldn’t give her to another. It put him in a tough spot; as if he were between a rock and Tessiga. More than anything, he wanted Kagome as his mate. But the process? It would be painful and he never wanted to hurt Kagome. Ever. 

Marriage would be enough. For him and for her. She would be his mate even without the ritual. But it would mean he would have to watch her age and die without him. Without making her his mate, he couldn’t share his long life span with her. 

“Thanks for sharing that one, Sesshomaru,” Inuyasha mumbled to the gray morning sky. 

As little as he wanted to admit it; his stupid half brother was right. If he wanted to be with a human (even one as strong as Kagome) he would have to perform the Inu no Akuma no kōbi.

This was what he had decided; long before he and Kagome had sex but he still found himself struggling with it. There was no regret in choosing Kagome, just in what he had to do to her. The decision was made but that didn’t mean he was happy about it. Even now, he sat in the tall tree in the center of the courtyard thinking it over. Lost in thought, he missed the sounds of Kagome waking. The sight of her slowly opening the shoji screen barrier between them caused him to jolt slightly; the Miko catching him a little off guard. Even more so when she smiled up at him, warm and bright as always. 

It froze him (the ridiculous beauty that she was) walking up to him with her plump lips upturned in a warm manner. Her eyes sparkled from it and he had to swallow a groan when she stood just below him at the foot of the tree. Because their mixed scent on her skin wafted up to his nose and he took a deep whiff. All of it was exacerbated by the pink hew on her cheeks; her flush warming more than her face and making her scent stronger. 

“Good morning,” she called up, her pink cheeks turning red for some reason.

It caused him to feel a bit flushed as well. But that was because the color of her cheeks now matched what they had been last night while she bounced on him. His resolve to get her away from prying eyes and ears before making love to her again was slipping every second she looked at him like that. 

“Morning.”

Looking away and down at her feet helped him rein in his lust but not his cravings. He wanted her eyes on him. “I worried… for a moment… that you had left me again.”

The thought hadn’t occurred to him even once. At no point had he considered what she might think or feel; waking up alone.

He was on top of her in a blink, gripping her shoulders with an urgency he could only explain as fear. “I would never do that.”

Kagome wasn’t going anywhere so his death grip loosened but didn’t disappear, pressing his fingers into her soft muscles and rolling his thumbs back and forth. She was looking at their feet still but he could smell her skin as it got warmer. It forced him to swallow another groan. 

“You kinda did, didn’t you? Twice now…”

“I didn’t go far. I’m just protecting you, Kagome.”

She finally looked up, crystal blues stabbing him right in the heart. “I don’t want to wake up alone. No matter what. I never want to wake up and not find you beside me.”

Kagome wasn’t far from him to begin with so it didn’t take much to bring her all the way into him. His hands now on her spine, Kagome’s head curled under his chin while her small hands pressed into the back of his ribs. With his nose in her hair he rested his cheek on the hot strains, the sun already unforgiving on her dark colored head.

“You’re being so stupid, Inuyasha.”

His eyes (which he had closed to savor the sensations that was Kagome in his arms) popped open and he instinctively tried to pull her back to look at him. But her tight hold on his body prevented much movement. “What?”

She sighed heavily as if annoyed and sad. “You’re being stupid. Caring more about what others think? You’ve kept us apart all because you worried what others would think instead of what I thought. Even now! I thought you didn’t love me, Inuyasha. Do you understand how painful that’s been for me?”

He had caused her pain? No, he had kept her from it, hadn’t he? That was his intention; waiting to make her his until everything was right? So she never suffered the life of half-breed’s wife? That was all he wanted; for Kagome to be happy. How was that causing her pain? Inuyasha didn’t doubt it; he could hear the pain in her voice when she spoke. 

Inuyasha was still confused when she pushed him back and looked up, tears just starting to form. “This year; the year I’ve been back here in your time with you? It’s been a waste. I hated it.”

Before he could think about it (tell his body to catch it), his clawed fingers were wiping the fallen tear away as if to erase it from existence. A year. A whole year and he had spent it working hard to make himself worthy of the woman before him. A year he could have spent with her in his arms instead of at arm's length. A part of him always knew Kagome would accept him as he was. She had told him many times that she would. It was because of this that he wanted more than anything to deserve her love. 

But now; he could see how he had been stupid. 

A year of her short human life was gone. Wasted. Once they were mated, it wouldn’t matter how many years passed. But now, every second mattered as she aged every one of them without him. 

With one cheek already in his hold, he grabbed the other and cupped her face in his hands. It wasn’t that she was going anywhere or wasn’t giving him her full attention. Inuyasha just felt like holding her. “Today will be the last day you ever wake up without me beside you.”

It was a promise he could and would keep, bending down to fold her lips in with his. Inuyasha’s intention was to reassure her; to keep giving her pieces of himself that he had never given to anyone else. His gentle and loving side. But it quickly spiraled into his needy side, sucking her lower lip to play with between his teeth. And then she brushed his fang with her tongue. It was like a shot of hot blood straight to his groin. Actually, that’s exactly what it was and Kagome had to know it too with her pressed tightly to him. His eagerness to repeat last night was literally poking her in the belly right now.

All of that was all brought to a screeching halt with his ears picked up on the sound of shuffling feet. In his attempts to be gentle, Inuyasha pushed Kagome away just after they were in sight. Which meant two women (carrying trays of breakfast) caught their lips locked. 

The flush Kagome wore wasn’t the same as the one she wore when they made love but it was close. She didn’t push his hands off of her either but that didn’t really surprise Inuyasha. Kagome was shy about public affection but not being with a half-demon like him. He knew her well enough, after all these years, to know that she wasn’t ashamed of him in the slightest. 

Released but still close, Inuyasha watched Kagome while she watched the women. Her face pointed mostly to the floor, she looked at them from the corner of her eye while he watched Kagome openly. “Are you ready to go?” Her head and eyes popped up to him, slowly nodding as if not quite sure. “Good. I have something I want to show you… someplace to take you.”

He tugged on her yukata and Kagome blushed again. She had forgotten what she was wearing out here with him. Inuyasha didn’t mind; she could wear yukata’s all day every day for all he cared. The way the fabric clung to her curves and cinched tight to show off her thin waist? He couldn’t help but note the nice round shape of her hips; perfect for baring pups. 

One thing at a time, Hanyou.

Inuyasha quickly shook the thoughts out of his head and stood still to watch Kagome’s backside as she hastened back to her room… their room to change and pack. He found himself looming by the door, considering going in to help her undress. Her shadow danced on the door as she moved around and he listened to the hurried and excited breaths that left her. Inuyasha had to take a step back and focus on anything else before he burst into the room (full demon probably) and took Kagome roughly on the fucking floor if he had to. 

Back where she found him that morning, Kagome looked around again and then looked confused when she found him back in the tree. They said nothing about it, Kagome not pressing as he collected her and put her on his back. 

Ever since Kagome returned, there were many things that hadn’t changed and few things that had. For example; their means of transportation. Kagome never hesitated to get on his back and he never stopped offering to carry her. But since she returned (traveled back through the well just to be with him) something had changed when he had her on his back. This time was no different; her thighs in his hands and her chest against his back? It made his heart race like no one ever had in his entire life. With her heat pressing from his shoulders down to his lower back; he was covered in sweat from the combination of running and Kagome’s warmth. She had to notice but just didn’t seem to mind. Like his sweat didn’t disgust her. Like so many other things that should disgust her but didn’t.

They were nearing the place Inuyasha was taking them and his nerves started to act up. That was the thing about Kagome and Inuyasha. The thing that made him truly realize just how important she was to him. Kagome made him feel things. Fear, sadness, anger, jealousy, care, happiness, friendship, love. When he was with Kagome it was the same as when he was human. Controlling his emotions was difficult. 

He never told anyone this because it was just like the nights of a new moon. Kagome was his weakness and it had nothing to do with his mixed blood.

So now (as they neared their destination) he was shaking. If she didn’t like it… well he would just fix it. He would do anything for Kagome. Another thing he would never tell anyone. With Naraku dead, things were safer. That didn’t mean that Kagome didn’t terrify him from time to time. Now was one of those times; slowing to a stop and letting her down. 

Kagome was already awestruck. And confused, turning back to him with it clear on her face. “I uh… I built this… for us.” Her face went back to awestruck, swiveling around to face the tall structure (a small and simple hut for two). First, she wandered her way over to the overturned ground; the black dirt smelling sweet to the half-demon. “We can grow food here. And herbs so you can make your medicines.”

She glanced back at him; silent and he was starting to get worried. Leaving him behind, she made for the door and hesitated slightly before opening it. Inuyasha already knew what she would find. A small kitchen to the left with a small chimney like the one at her house in the future; so she could cook indoors. Two small tatami mats and futons that he ‘rearranged’ over a hundred times. Sometimes they were on opposite sides of the room from one another (days he and Kagome had a fight) and other times they were on top of each other (the day they would makeup or she petted him). The distance between the two beds varied from a few inches to a foot depending on his mood and their relationship. It was only luck that they were so close together now since he had tossed one outside the day when Kagome left by herself for work before putting it back hastily and going after her. 

Kagome was taking in the place and even with the sun high in the sky, it was dark inside. The irori was silent so he stepped back and speeded away to grab some wood. She was looking around the kitchen when he returned. He had a fire going by the time she faced him; her inspection was complete. 

“You built this place?” He nodded silently. “Built it… for us? To live?”

He nodded again and Kagome took her eyes from him. When he smelt the salt of her tears, a hand squeezed his heart. Fear. There it was and it was like bad meat that he wanted to avoid ever eating again but still slipped up from time to time. “If you don’t like it, I can change it. Whatever you want, Kagome.”

She sniffled and swiveled fast, practically glaring at him with her face shimmering from tears. “Change it? Are you mad?? I love it!” Relief. It washed over him like a balm and soothed deep in his bones. “I can’t believe you did this all by yourself?”

“Feh,” he said with a shrug, “most move in with the wife’s family. But… you gave up your family for me so this was the least I could do.”

There was a fire in her cheeks and mischief glowed in her bright blues. And it had nothing to do with the fire. “Wife’s family? Are we married now?”

She smirked at him but he hadn’t misspoken. His embarrassment was seeded in the intimacy of the conversation; a flush blooming on his face. “Keh, you think, after last night, I’d have any other intentions?”

He watched as her smirk dissipated to a blank look. Then as the corners of her lips pulled upwards in a smile. It all felt as though it was in slow motion; the difference in speed between a human’s reaction time and his demon brain. “Guess it’s a good thing I brought all my stuff with me then, huh?”

At that, she set her bag down and his heart actually trembled. They were really doing this; Kagome was going to live with him. There was nothing in this world he wanted more than to have a long and happy life with her. Which meant there was still one very important thing they had to do.

“Kagome…” she was busy placing her things around but stopped to look Inuyasha in the eyes when he spoke, “there are things that… we need to discuss.”

When he sat down next to the fire, she joined him without another word needed. They were now waiting; both of them. Kagome was waiting for Inuyasha to spill the beans and Inuyasha was waiting for the words to come to him. He had spent the better part of the year thinking over how to say this to her. How to ask or tell Kagome to be his mate. And explain what it would entail. He had thought it would be… easier to talk about after they had sex. But it was almost the opposite; desire flooding his loins at the thought of being naked with Kagome again. 

This was important, dammit. You have to get it right so stop thinking with your dick!

Drawing in another breath (at the point of dizzy with all the ones he had already taken) he decided to just spit it out. “Will you mate with me?”

Kagome looked a little lost, her head tilting to the side to look at him with curiosity. “I thought we did that last night?”

“No,” he stuttered, pushing through his hard flush, “that wasn’t it. It’s… different.”

He couldn’t look at her, staring at his hands in his lap instead. When her soft and dainty hand traveled into his sightline. She took his hand in hers; never threatened or worried about his sharp claws. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re mates already. I’m not going anywhere. I love you and you love me. What else is there to be mated?”

It had never occurred to him but Kagome might not want an extended life span. He really wished he had thought of it sooner so he was ready for a retort. “I’m a demon so I will live longer than you.”

She pulled away at that and dropped her gaze. “I see. I don’t mind giving you my life, Inuyasha. There’s no one else I want besides you. And I understand if, once I’m gone, you love another…”

“That’s not it…” now he grabbed her hand instead, pulling her closer to him, “if we mate, it’s for life. My life. You and I would live the same length of time. Together.” Her brows pinched together and when she didn’t give him a ‘yes’ he started to get nervous. “Please… Kagome I will never ask you for anything else as long as we live. Just… live with me. I know… I know I’m being selfish. And I’m sorry… no, no I’m not sorry. I’ve lost everyone I’ve ever cared about. Over and over again. I won’t apologize for wanting to keep you by my side forever. You promised to stay by my side, dammit…”

Kagome was in his lap, cutting off (what promised to be) a long rant. “Hey, calm down!” He did instantly because it was Kagome. “I’ve never considered it. I was happy with the idea of being with you for my life, not yours. I guess that was pretty selfish of me.”

He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face into her chest. The feeling of her heart, tapping against his forehead; it was a feeling he never wanted to miss and he was sure of that. “Please Kagome…”

“Okay.”

Ripping upward, he was about to question it but decided against it. Inuyasha really didn’t want her to change her mind. So instead, he crushed her to him. His mouth was ravenous on hers; in part, to being so damn grateful she would be his forever but also because she was in his fucking lap. 

With her hands in his hair (tugging a little rough with her want) he vaguely wondered (if she said no) if he had it in him to force the mate on her? It’s not as if she knew how to mate. To her, it would have seemed like the hard fuck of a dog demon. But that was if he forced it; she wanted it so he was going to be gentle.

Then again; Kagome ran her tongue along his lips and got up just enough to spread her legs around him. With her legs wide, her scent filled his senses. It was now or… much later after several rounds of straight-up lust taken out on her body. Inuyasha also had to be considerate though. Because Kagome was still a Miko. Mating was a marriage for a demon and although not enough for her to satisfy expectations, it was better than nothing. They would have a human marriage soon but the clock on Kagome’s life was ticking so loud now; he could barely hear himself think!

Carefully, he pushed Kagome back until their lips popped apart. “I need to explain how the mating works first,” he said, pausing to thread a curl behind her ear, “you need to understand so you’re not scared. It can get messy.”

“Yeah, you said that before. When have I ever been scared, Inuyasha?”

With that, he picked her up and plopped her back on the floor, sitting her in front of him. “This is different! I’m not even sure what will happen; if my demon will take over and go nuts,” her breath and heartbeat spiked with his words but he ignored it for now, “but I know it will be painful for you and I don’t want to cause you any pain…”

Kagome rose to cup his face and effectively cut him off again. “I’m not afraid. And you shouldn’t be either. We’re doing this together.”

Inuyasha took a moment to lean into her touch and take a deep, calming breath of her scent. “Okay. You trust me?” She nodded with a soft smile; just as he knew she would. “Then… strip. And submit to me.”

The confusion on her lovely face quickly turned to embarrassment, a bright red coloring on her cheeks as she began loosening her robes. He watched her in a trance until her skin peeking through the cracks she made woke him up. Catching up quickly, Inuyasha removed his clothes as well, until he was sitting with his legs under him, his hands resting on his knees. 

He was exposed; completely naked for the woman he loved. Although ashamed, he soon found himself looking at a naked Kagome once again. She copied him, her legs under her luscious ass and her hands on the tops of her thighs; curly black hairs sticking up between them from her mound. It only took a few moments of watching her breasts rise and fall with her anxious breaths to get him aroused and ready for the task of mating. Worry and fear still buzzed at the back of his head and deep in his heart, but it was hard to think about that too much with his need to claim her screaming in his head. 

Inuyasha was a demonic cliche and he really didn’t give a fuck.

“Submit, Kagome.”

She didn’t move, looking him over as he had her. Then she stared into his eyes as if she could find what she was looking through them. His anticipation was growing and it was evident in his breathing. It was when a lopsided grin flipped up on Kagome’s face that his heart skipped; watching as she turned from him and gave him her back. Soon, he was drooling. Because Kagome was on all four, offering up her hindquarters to him. 

“Cheeky Wench.”

Her response was to giggle and he crawled over to her. His demon was raging inside him to take her but he wanted to be gentle. As much as he could, he wanted to make Kagome enjoy this. It was only their second time together and now more than ever he was glad they at least had sex once before trying to mate. 

There is no try, only do.

Now his inner voice was starting to sound like Kagome; a line she said so many times now (laughing for some odd reason) that it was ingrained in his subconscious. But it was right; he didn’t want this mating to fail, he wanted to succeed. In case it didn’t, he needed to make sure Kagome was willing to try again instead of scared stiff.

He dug between her thighs tenderly and pushed her legs apart a little. Then he pressed a finger to the swollen flesh just above her entrance. The whimper she released and the heated scent of her skin told him he was on the right track. Rolling his finger around got him warmer. When he found the hard, small nub inside her skin and she moaned loudly, he knew he was dead on. 

Kagome was wiggling her hips without shame and he watched her without shame as well. She wiggled so much, his digits slipped and found her wet, pink entrance instead. Kagome sucked in a harsh breath and held it. So he let his finger sink deeper inside her, getting a lovely moan as a reward. A hand on her hip to keep her still on his clawed finger, he slipped another digit inside and slowly pumped them. He didn’t dare coil or wiggle, afraid he would nick her delicate insides. But Kagome didn’t seem to mind, trying to rock back and take more of his touch inside. 

He was straining, feeling like he might pop if he didn’t get some relief soon. With Kagome dripping around his fingers, he couldn’t even focus on something else to try and calm down. 

Inuyasha took his hand from Kagome, placing it on himself instead to guide his way in. It was tempting; to just make love to her instead of doing the mating ritual. But he needed it; needed her in his life. The seconds were precious to him so he put his tip in her entrance and leaned over her. 

He took in her appearance, her hands in tight fists pushing her up off the floor as she panted her hot breaths into the smooth rocks he placed around the fire pit. Her hair was in the way, taking a moment to be tender as he brushed it up and over her shoulder. Then (to a T for the Inu no Akuma no kōbi) he used his nose on her neck to push her down further. When he could get his hands on the ground next to her hands… he dug his fangs into the back of her neck. 

The tang of her blood filled his mouth and coated his tongue while her pain-filled gasp and whine burned his ears. He had her pushed all the way down, her face and shoulders now pressed into the floor. It was now that he could enter her, slowly pressing his hips upwards until he filled her completely. He quickly got lost in her what; unsure where he ended and she began. Inuyasha reveled in the feeling of oneness for a few moments while he could stand it.

Kagome had her eyes closed; to the pain or the pleasure, he wasn’t sure but he hoped the latter as he pulled himself in and out of her. Her walls sucked hard at his shaft and he was quickly losing himself to the sensation. He couldn’t forget himself completely; keeping her pressed to the floor with his fangs in her skin. Or lose his concern for his mate, making sure she was still breathing freely before picking up his pace. Inuyasha was careful, making sure his cock pulled in and out fluidly while his hips only gently tapped Kagome’s ass. He didn’t want to jar her and rip her skin more with his fangs. 

She was softly moaning under him but it wasn’t the same as last night when she was crying with wild abandon. They both had to ‘release’ from this; she had to fully submit to him and he had to give her all he had. If she didn’t orgasm and if he didn’t give her his… stuff, then the mating wouldn’t be complete. 

Balancing himself, he took one hand from the floor and found the skin between her legs. The skin that she liked so much when he touched it. Soon, he was rubbing and she was panting, whimpering. More than anything, he wanted to comfort her. Encourage her. But he couldn’t remove his fangs from her or let her rise from the floor until they were done and he didn’t want to risk speaking through her skin. 

Kagome was twitching; her insides and her hips as he rubbed her. With his fingers and with his cock. Warmth flooded him from her, a wash of hot liquid that coated him from his tip to his balls. It had him closing his eyes too, giving in to the sensation that was mating with Kagome. 

Her breath hitched; that was his only warning as her insides clenched around him. It had been hard to pull from her before but now it was as if the vortex that once plagued Miroku’s hand was now inside Kagome, sucking him back in again and again. It caused a growl to rumble in his chest as she started to cry out. This was it; the end of the mating. They had made it. And as Kagome called out (his name on her lips) he stopped and let her body milk him the rest of the way to his end. He couldn’t stop the heavy groan that he released against her neck. As the last of him spilled out into her, he carefully pulled his fangs from her flesh. Another moan released from her that hinted at pain. 

Once he was sure they were both done, he moved quickly. Fangs removed, his cock was next. Then he scooped her up from the floor to cradle her in his arms tightly. “That’s it, Kagome. You did good.”

She purred against his neck, limp in his hold. “So did you.”

Tension (he hadn’t realized he’d been holding) released at her words and the feeling of her smile against his skin. With the tingling under his skin; feeling her breaths and heartbeat instead of just hearing them, Inuyasha was sure they had (in fact) been successful. Even with her words of encouragement and the pleasure he had felt from the all-consuming ecstasy that was making love to Kagome, he was glad they didn’t have to do that again.

“I’m sorry.” He said finally, wrapping a hand around the top of her spine where his teeth had broken her skin. “This is what I meant about it being messy. And painful.”

Kagome just shook her head against his chest; hairs wet with sweat tickling as they brushed his skin. “I think you’re giving yourself too much credit. Or not enough. I… I really… enjoyed it.”

Her heart raced and he felt it. It made his heart race in return. “I’m not going to be rough with you ever again, Mate.”

There was a wicked look on her face when she lopped her head back to look up at him. “Oh yeah? I think I’ll make you eat those words someday.”

He huffed. “Keh, yeah right. Someday.”

There was a challenge in her eyes that he knew was going to come back and bite him someday. Someday. They had a lot of those together now. 

“Do your worst, Mate. I’ll be right here to take it just as you will be here to give it.”

@underwater0phelia @lavendertwilight89 @mamabearcat @nartista @nopenname22 @echobows @superpixie42 @smmahamazing @redflamesofpassion @jme-chan @cstorm86 @cicleydark-light @ruddcatha @lavaffair @kirrtash @sistasecbhere @inusgirl @obsessandfangirl @britonell @lordofthechips @mcornilliac @faolenwolf @classyhumanathletepalace @keichanz @phoenix-before-the-flame @artisticloveexpressitsall @lamuertadehambre @noyourenotreal @mitty-san @thenoammonster @little-deeluna @royaltrashpanda @sailorbabydoll92 @storyweaver2017 @malditamigs @adorabubblesblog @lilms-obsessed @petri808 @anniehcresta @fan-dumpp @itzatakahashi @utakuprincess @theschultinator @all-too-ale @little-inukag-obsessed @theseagullqueen @queenofthesquirps @inusgirl @jolinaaa00 @knowall7k @neutronstarchild @fawn-eyed-girl @eringobroke @sapphirestarxx​ @clearwillow​ @dangerouspompadour @tingaliciousky

[jessicalynnhepner]

What Every Parent Needs to Know About Child Sex Trafficking

For most police officers, this scene is a familiar one—a young kid gets mixed up with the wrong person and finds him or herself on the wrong side of the law. In virtually every case, this would be the end of the story. The young girl would get a slap on the wrist and be released into her parents’ custody where they could, presumably, set her straight. And, at this point in our story, Officer Scott was prepared to do just that—to trust the overwhelming testimony of prior experience and process this girl out so that he could get on with his shift. But, something was different this time… Discerning the SignsAs Officer Scott sits down to file his paperwork, he’s reminded of last Tuesday’s roll call.  His Sergeant, having recently attended a training seminar on human trafficking, used that day to teach his officers how to identify potential trafficking situations. All of a sudden, alarm bells start going off in Scott’s mind: The Fear — Sure, a kid’s going to be afraid of the consequences. But, this girl seems to fear for her physical safety. She’s acting like there’s something worse waiting for her than an angry mom and dad at home. The Stolen Merchandise – Why did she need a Red Bull and a pack of condoms? Scott recalled that traffickers use starvation to control their victims. Usually, their only choice is to steal the bare necessities. The Boyfriend – Per the owner’s description, this guy was at least 10 years older than she. What were they doing there together in the first place? A New ApproachWith these things in mind, Scott calmly invites the young lady out of holding and brings her to a quieter part of the station, away from prying eyes and menacing glances. She looks cold, so Scott hands her a sweatshirt. As he does, he notices a small tattoo of a crown with the name ‘Hugo’ scrawled beneath it—likely a brand to show who ‘she belongs to.’ They start to chat. This time, he speaks less like a cop and more like a friend. Clearly, she hasn’t had anything to eat for quite a while. Moments later, a female officer appears with a bag from McDonald’s. The three make their way to a private lounge. As they talk, the girl lets her guard down. Scott listens as she describes her broken home life, struggles with friends at school, and her constant search for belonging. All the while, her phone continues to buzz. “Your boyfriend?” “Yes. He just wants to make sure I’m ok.” He really is a great guy, she explains. He’s been there for her when her parents weren’t. He shows her the affection and attention she needs. She feels protected. He loves her……only, sometimes he makes her do things—things she would ordinarily never do. TrustHaving earned at least a glimmer of trust, Scott asks if she would slide her phone over. Reluctantly, she does, and he begins to scroll through the text messages. Wisely, Scott checks his emotions before he begins to read. It doesn’t take him long to realize these are not the supportive words of a loving boyfriend. No, they’re the verbal assaults of a degenerate thug bent on belittling her into submission. Scott does his best to hide his disgust as he reads about threatened consequences for ‘missed quotas.’ Horrified, he sees insults that no human being should ever have to endure, capped off by threats against her little sister for talking to the cops. Officer Scott thanks the young woman for her trust and politely excuses himself to make a call. He can read the writing on the wall: this girl is clearly a victim of trafficking. She needs someone with much more experience than him to help regain her freedom. He picks up the phone, dials his Sergeant, and together, they get to work. What Made the Difference?This story, though generalized in some ways, is rooted in the accounts we hear from police officers every day. The first part of the story is common enough. But, what about the second when, in Scott’s eyes, the girl goes from ‘shoplifter’ to ‘trafficking victim’? Not so much. So, how do we get from A to B? How do we help police officers learn

to look at each ‘punk kid’ as a potential victim, to ask deeper questions, and find the real story lies beneath the surface? Just as in Officer Scott’s story, that turning point comes when an officer recognizes the signs, trusts his or her gut, and decides to unravel that thread. It all starts with that one officer—a soldier on the front lines of the underground battle to set captives free. This can only happen when officials at every level of law enforcement learn to detect the signs and receive the tools they need to bring trafficking victims out of the cruel darkness and into the liberating light of day. National Human Trafficking Law Enforcement Training ProgramAt ERASE, one of the most impactful things we do is train police departments so that they produce more officers like the one in this story. It’s our mission to educate officers to detect the warning signs, identify potential victims, and safely lead them to freedom.  Your donations make this possible. Source Child Sex Trafficking-Not My Child Mom shakes her head and Dad raises his voice. Their 16-year old daughter storms up the stairs. As the bedroom door slams, she collapses on the bed with phone in hand. She’s ready to vent her frustrations one status update at a time. With every angst-laden tap of the keyboard, she lays bare her soul: “Nobody here gets me.” “No one understands!” “I feel unloved.” 📷An hour later, a boy from the next town over reaches out. She doesn’t know him, but they’ve got a few mutual friends, so it’s probably no big deal. He’s cute and thoughtful. And, he seems to understand what she’s going through better than anyone else. For the next two weeks, they exchange messages every day. He’s sweet, a digital shoulder to cry on when nobody else seems to care. They decide to meet up in person, so she borrows Dad’s car “to meet some friends at the mall.” That night, Daddy’s little girl doesn’t come home for dinner and Mom sits up all night. The next morning, they call the police. An officer searches her computer and finds evidence of the girl’s new relationship. Turns out, the boy she thought she knew didn’t exist. And, just like that, she’s gone.Reality check about child sex trafficking At ERASE, we hear heartbreaking tales like this all too frequently. Stories from average families dealing with everyday stresses when out of nowhere, their child is lured right out from under them. Whenever we tell these stories, the most common response goes something like this: “Child trafficking is something that happens to those types of kids out there. We live in a great community and our neighbors are good people who look out for one another. Something like that could never happen to one of my children.” This is the kind of response that makes us cringe. If only parents knew what we know, they wouldn’t be so quick to ignore this real and pervasive threat. Sadly, that very ignorance is what traffickers count on most when looking for children to target. The danger is far more imminent than most parents recognize. If we’re going to protect our children, we need to be clear on the real threats child traffickers impose. Traffickers are Smart, Motivated, and Tech-SavvyA dark and horrific market has grown up around the purchase and sale of human beings. Researchers estimated that, in 2007, Atlanta’s underground sex economy alone brought in $290 million. Even in a far less “saturated” market, sex trafficking in San Diego enables a pimp to pull in over $11,000 per week. Fast forward 10 years and there’s no reason to think that number hasn’t grown. Innocent children aren’t given a pass here. Instead, the most vulnerable among us are routinely bought and sold like property—many of them up to 15 times a day. With business booming, traffickers are working harder than ever to keep up with demand. Leaving no stone unturned, they use social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, to research, target, and groom children for sexual exploitation. In fact, 77% of sex trafficking victims

report having been initially approached online. Just as a skilled marketer uses sophisticated keyword searches to identify his audience, traffickers monitor social media for anything at all that would suggest an easy target:Children with social media profiles open to public viewing Teenagers posting introspective status updates about feelings of insecurity Boys and girls who are venting about arguments with their parents Like a lion crouched in his thicket, a predator will scan through lines of text looking for vulnerable children to drag off into the tall grass. How many of those lines will have come from one of your children? Yes, your child can be a victim of sex traffickingThe children that traffickers rip from their happy homes aren’t pretend characters on television or disembodied faces from the evening news. They’re our kids, the ones we work hard to raise and the ones we hope to see grow up happy and healthy. They’re the kids we teach to be smart, to mind their surroundings, and never talk to strangers. And yet, we give them free reign to explore every dark corner of the internet via their cell phone. We must do betterLittle more than half of parents closely monitor their children’s online activity. So, when a stranger asks to connect on Snapchat, it’s nearly an even shot that no one will be looking over that kid’s shoulder. You can count on a child trafficker to take that bet. Do you know which platforms your children are using or who they connect with online? Do they have any secret accounts and how would you find out if they did? If someone asked to meet in person, would they do it? Can you be sure? These questions may seem intrusive and even overbearing. However, considering the reality of child trafficking in the United States, we have to ask these questions.  Every day, thousands of children disappear into slavery. We’d like to hope our kids could never be victims but the facts simply don’t allow us that option. Understanding the facts of child trafficking is the first and most important step in prevention. There is HopeGood people around the world are standing up and fighting back against this great moral evil. You don’t have to live in constant fear for your children. The story we shared at the beginning of this post doesn’t have to be your story. And with some common sense and the will to step intentionally into your kids’ digital lives, you can protect them from becoming a victim of sex trafficking. The question is: will you? At ERASE, we want to educate parents on how best to protect their children from online predators. Please take a look at our tips and best practices pages to see how you can teach your children to be safe online.Juvenile Delinquent or Victim of Human Trafficking? Blog Story of a Human Trafficking Victim It’s midnight. Officer Scott pulls his patrol car into the lot of a small, 24-hour convenience store. As he approaches, he peers through the decal-laden glass door to see a middle-aged man struggling to restrain an agitated 16-year old girl. The store owner had caught this young woman and her boyfriend stuffing items into a small handbag. Her companion—a ‘white man in his late 20’s’—had bolted out the door without so much as a backward glance. The last thing on Officer Scott’s mind was “human trafficking victim”. Scott had seen this before. Some young teenager, looking for thrills, decides to pocket a few items from the local bodega and gets grabbed by the watchful owner. As he escorts the girl to his police car, Scott’s treated to an earful. She can’t stop going on about what a jerk he is, how he had violated her rights, and how much trouble she’d be in if he didn’t let her go right away. “Just wait until I call your parents,” he thinks. 📷 The Same Routine When they arrive at the station, Scott walks this young woman to his desk. She can hear the snide remarks of a few men handcuffed to chairs nearby. As they leer conspicuously at her, she shrinks further into herself.  Scott starts in on his typical line of questioning: name,

age, address, and so on. The entire time, her phone buzzes with one text message after another. She begs Scott to let her reply, but he refuses. “There’ll be plenty of time to talk to your parents later.” “I’m not worried about them,” she snaps back. “They don’t give a crap about me, anyway. They’re too busy arguing to even notice I’m around.” Not sure what to make of that outburst, Scott begins to sort through the items she had attempted to steal: a sleeve of Hostess Cup Cakes, a Red Bull, and a box of condoms. “Must be one heck of a boyfriend to leave you there like that, huh?” “You wouldn’t understand. He loves me. He takes care of me.” Angry and frustrated by this girl’s bad attitude and ignorance about that poor excuse for a boyfriend, Officer Scott escorts her to a holding cell and prepares to process her out.Is This the End of the Story?

https://whateveryparentshouldknowaboutcps.blogspot.com/2020/08/what-every-parent-needs-to-know-about.html

[midnighttmarauder]

Go Away - Part 2

Read part 1 here!

Pairing: James Potter x reader

Summary: Reader thinks that James is in love with Lily and refuses to speak to him, so he writes them letters in hopes that they’ll realize the truth. 

Warnings: like one mild swear word, rushed ending 

Tags: @evyiione @quokkatrash @accio-rogers

A/N: This isn’t my best work, but I wanted to post something in a sort of comeback. I won’t be on here consistently because I just went through, and am still going through, one of the hardest times of my life. i just want to reconnect with you guys a bit and chat. As always, my inbox is open whenever any of you need to talk or just want to pop in and say hello. Hope you enjoy. Love you all xx

***

The past month had turned you into a master of avoidance. You had avoided James, Lily, and pretty much anyone associated with them to the best of your ability, which left you with nearly no one to talk to. Anytime Sirius or Remus even looked at you, you disappeared. It had been so hard to sleep that you had visited Madam Pomfrey, begging her to give you something that would essentially knock you out. The potion was effective, but disgusting. You had only taken it twice before you had given up and resulted to sharing warm milk and stories with the elves in the kitchens at night.

You committed James’ schedule and routes to class to memory. You took different hallways, didn’t even think of going to certain sections of the school altogether, and avoided the common room like the plague. From the little that you saw of James Potter, he looked happy.

James hadn’t actually broken up with you. He had confessed his love to Lily, which was basically the same thing. He had sent you multiple letters over the past few weeks, slipping them under your dormitory door or having them delivered at morning post. You didn’t have the heart quite yet to tear them up, so they sat unopened at the bottom of your trunk. Maybe you could open them one day. Or maybe they’d go straight in the fireplace.

James cornered you in the common room just before you could slip up the stairs exactly forty-seven days after he broke your heart. Seeing his face sent a pang of sadness through your heart, but it was replaced by a flare of anger that heated your cheeks.

“Can I talk to you?” James asked.

You only glared at him.

“C’mon, please just let me explain. You haven’t returned any of my letters, so I assume you haven’t opened them,” James said. He took your silence as your answer. “Since you won’t read them, at least give me a chance.”

“I don’t want to talk to you,” you ground out.

“Then you don’t have to. Just—promise me you’ll read the letters,” James said.

“Why should I? I don’t owe you anything,” you spat.

“I know. If you won’t read them for me, read them for yourself. You must have questions and I think the letters can answer them,” James replied.

“You know nothing about how I feel. You seem fine and dandy with your Lily flower. I should just throw your stupid letters in the fire,” you said. James sighed.

“Promise me you’ll read them. I miss you,” he muttered. You huffed and turned on your heel.

“You don’t get to miss me.”

***

James’ handwriting was both illegible and elegant. Sharp printing entwined with looping cursive created a lazy script that told when James’ hand got tired. Even though you promised yourself that you would never read the letters, something deep in your heart made you believe James. You cursed your weakness as you tore open the first letter with a little too much force, sending the wax seal sailing across your bed. You almost smiled as you unfurled the paper and smoothed it out on your knee.

Y/N,

I know you must hate me. But I want you to know that I don’t love Lily. Not anymore. I owe you an explanation.

I know you heard me tell Lily that I loved her, and I did. I told her that I used to love her because Sirius let it slip, as if I wasn’t obvious enough when I was in love with her. But I told her that I only love her the way I love Sirius or Remus now—as a friend. I swear to you that she’s nothing more. I wasn’t over Lily when I asked you to be my girlfriend. I’ll admit that I was a prick for getting into a relationship before I was fully over her. But you changed that. I never loved Lily as much as I grew to love you. You erased her and every other girl from my mind. You surrounded me, every second of every day. All I could think about was your pretty smile, your laugh, even the way you walk. I love everything about you. I still think about you every day, but now all I can think about is how I’ve messed everything up and lost the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

You’re it for me, love. I hope you’ll find it in you to forgive me.

James had a big heart to a fault. It was what made you fall in love with him, the fact that he had so much room for love. He offered his entire heart to everyone he loved, and still had enough to go around. You sniffled and tore open the next letter.

Y/N,

I hope you’re well. I noticed that you haven’t replied to my first letter, but maybe it got lost in the post. Those ruddy owls have a habit of dropping mail in the wrong places.

I miss you. I’m sorry for lying to you and telling you that I was over Lily when I wasn’t. I should’ve been honest from the beginning. I was a different person back then. I only cared about myself. But I’ve realized now that you’ve helped me grow up and become a better person. I want to be better for you.

Sirius keeps bugging me about talking to you, but I haven’t seen you around much. We’ve got a big match against Slytherin this weekend. I hope to see you in the stands. I always play better when you’re there.

You let out a sigh as you put the letter down and reached for the next one. You hadn’t gone to the match, hadn’t attended the party in the common room after to celebrate their win. While part of you was still mad, the other felt bad that you hadn’t been there. Not for him, you told yourself, but for the party.

Y/N,

Suppose my last letter got lost too. Maybe I should take my owl to the infirmary or something. I didn’t see you at the game, but we won! 250-240, it was super close. I wish you could’ve seen it, it was one of the most intense games I’ve ever played.

Sirius and Remus are on my ass again about talking to you. Remus said he saw you in the library the other night, but he didn’t know what to say. He said you looked okay, working away on Slughorn’s essay. Funny enough, I checked out the book you used right after you returned it. That’s the closest I’ve come to you in weeks.

I’m so sorry. I’ll send you a letter to prove it for the rest of my life if I have to. I miss you like crazy. Please, write me back or give one of us some indication that you’re okay.

Your heart beat painfully in your chest as you skipped over the remaining letters and opened the most recent.

Y/N,

Alice told me you have all of my letters, you just haven’t been opening them. I understand that you’re angry and don’t want to read them. I guess it helps me to write these, even though I know you’re not reading them. I don’t know if I’d have the courage to look you in the eyes and admit that I’m a coward. I’d give anything just to see you. You’ve become a ghost. I’ll do anything if you let me talk to you for even a minute. Whatever it takes to make you see that I’m sorry and that I love you. I hope you still love me, but I don’t really blame you if you don’t.

You had read enough. You collected the letters and stormed out of your dorm, nearly knocking Alice over on the stairs. She squeaked as you brushed past her and towards the boys’ dormitory. The stairs mercifully stayed intact as you stomped up the steps and knocked on the door. Sirius swung it open, and something like relief flooded his face.

“Y/N, what are you-”

“Where is he?” you asked. James appeared over Sirius’ shoulder. His hair stood on end and his shoulder peeked out of his t-shirt as he nudged his glasses up his nose.

“Y/N,” James breathed. You pushed past Sirius and waved the letters in James’ face.

“What do you think you’re playing at?” you growled. You distantly heard the door click shut behind you as James staggered back.

“Wha-what do you mean?” he stammered.

“Why couldn’t you say all this to my face?” you asked. Tears welled in your eyes despite your best efforts to keep them away.

“Because I’m a bloody coward, that’s why! You wouldn’t talk to me and I didn’t have the courage to come find you. I didn’t want to see you looking at me the way you are now,” James replied. He ran an aggravated hand through his hair, and you would’ve laughed if you could at the way it stood up.

“And just how am I looking at you?” you muttered.

“Like you hate me. I don’t blame you, I hate me too,” James said. You had never seen him look so defeated as he sank onto his bed and put his face in his hands. You sighed and sat down on Remus’ bed across from him.

“I’m not mad because of what you did. I understand now that what happened was a big misunderstanding. I’m mad at myself for not reading your letters sooner, and I’m mad at you for not growing a pair and trying to talk to me,” you said.

“I did try. You just yelled at me,” James replied, his voice muffled by his hands.

“But it made me finally read your letters. I thought you didn’t love me anymore because you didn’t come look for me. I thought you were so happy with Lily that you had forgotten,” you explained. James raised his head.

“Merlin, Y/N, I wasn’t happy. I was just scared that you didn’t love me either and I tried to act like everything was okay so that nobody would worry,” James said.

“It looks like we’re both gits who need to learn how to communicate better,” you replied.

“I’m sorry. I understand if you want to break it off and just be friends,” James said. You stood from the bed and stepped in front of him. He looked up at you as you leaned down to press your lips to his. James froze for a moment, and then wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you down onto his lap.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” James whispered against your lips. You laughed and cupped his cheeks, wiping his tears away with your thumbs.

“I love you,” you said. James smiled, and you found yourself smiling back. It felt strange after so long, but so right.

“I love you, sweetheart. Until we’re stardust.”

[shiny-procrastinates]

(re)Watching Magia Record S1 - part 2

part 1 here

I had no idea it’d turn into a run-on text when I posted the last one, am now regretting several life choices.

Hello everyone and welcome to the second post of this series where we watch Magia Record together! (Hopefully)

Last time our cute protagonist was kidnapped by a witch and taken to a mysterious city called Kamihama, only to be saved by a singing chibi Kyuubei, getting kicked out by a blue haired op magical girl, and remembering that her long forgotten wish was to cure her missing sister’s illness. You know, happens everyday.

So then, where is Iroha’s younger sister Ui? What is going on in Kamihama? What’s up with those full-body tights? Guess we’ll have to watch to find out! (There is no answer to the last one.)

Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story: Magia Record Episode 2

So we kick this episode off with what seems to be a flashback of Iroha visiting her younger sister in the hospital.

The smile that was not protected.

They do some sister bonding and we are now back to the scene of Iroha making her wish, just a little trippier this time.

Iroha’s covered by some white sheets and…

Of course, it was all a dream. Yes, we’d like to know that, too, Iroha. I like how the camera moves back to show the empty part of her room, emphasizing how her sister’s completely gone.

And cut to the op. Talking about nice shots, this one’s my favorite in the opening:

Later, Iroha is telling Kyuubei about her wish. Today, she just bought her lunch instead of making it. Did you oversleep?

Regardless, Kyuubei does not know her sister. He asks if Ui really existed. According to him, it would take something like a magical girl’s wish to erase someone’s existence completely like that, so he suggests it’s more likely that someone implanted false memories in her. Iroha, however, believes those memories are real, and plans to visit the hospital she saw in her dreams in search for clues.

So Iroha is now going to Kamihama. She tried to get in contact with Kuroe but couldn’t reach her. Considering how determined Kuroe was to go to Kamihama though, she might be there already.

Iroha asks Kyuubei about the chibi Kyuubei from earlier, but Kyuubei doesn’t know anything about it. Rather, he says something like that shouldn’t exist.

This bus has ads. And Iroha really does like kids a lot, doesn’t she.

Alas, it seems you can’t even ride a bus in peace in this town. Before she can arrive at the hospital, Iroha gets caught up in yet another witch’s barrier.

Hello, Witch Delivery Service. How can I curse you today?

Once again, she’s not alone in the Labyrinth. There’s another girl getting her butt kicked having a hard time with Kamihama’s witches.

The new girl knows she can’t win, so she’s all in on running away, but Iroha can’t just leave the passengers to become witch food. They’re weak though, so as soon as they stop they’re attacked and end up stuck in a web.

:fuyuu～:

When all seems lost, in comes our knight in shining armor, with her weird shaped sword. If it was jagged, you’d think someone took a bite out of that.

This confident, strong-willed magical girl is called Momoko, and she came to help out the girl from earlier. I can’t screenshot this, but it’s cool how the camera slightly shakes as if affected by the wind when it shows her from the front.

Then there’s Rena.

The two join hands and do something like enchanting, I suppose. Borrowing Rena’s water powers, Momoko dives straight into the enemy and clears everything, not like a tidal wave, but literally with one. Iroha is very impressed… and then she gets run over by a ball of fur along with Kaede. gg

Iroha was abducted, this was actually sci-fi all along.

Of course not, though Madoka does happen in the near future.

Iroha wakes up to find herself in an unfamiliar place. Momoko explains to her that they are at the Coordinator’s, some sort of hospital + consultation center for magical girls… Iroha, please don’t repeat “magical girls” as if it doesn’t ring a bell, you are one.

You’re too nice for this world, shame only suffering awaits you.

Rena criticizes her, but Momoko reassures Iroha that’s just Rena’s way of showing concern. Seems about right.

Momoko offers to escort her back to the station, and Iroha asks if there really are that many witches in Kamihama. I’d say yes, considering how we’ve already seen three in only two episodes. They were way more rare in the og.

According to Momoko, it’s just like the blue haired magical girl had told her yesterday: not only there are a lot of them, they are also stronger than normal. However, Momoko says it was not always like that.

Iroha still needs to go to Satomi Medical Center to investigate her sister’s disappearance, so she explains her situation to Momoko’s trio.

:momokoncerned:

Rena’s not keen on believing Iroha’s story, but Momoko can’t leave someone in need, so she decides for her team to help Iroha. Even Iroha’s perplexed.

Rena complains that they already have their own investigation going on, but the other two argue that they haven’t found anything anyway and Rena was the one who least believed the rumor they’re investigating. Iroha just has no idea what’s going on.

It seems Momoko’s trio is chasing down a witch called the chain Witch, but Iroha has never heard about it.

Feeling bad about the trio arguing, Iroha says it’s fine and that she doesn’t want to bother them with searching for her sister too when they already saved her earlier, but Kaede pushes the point of “we’re all magical girls after all”, even when Rena’s clearly unwilling. They then finally properly introduce themselves.

The fiery blonde is Momoko Togame, the red haired druid is Kaede Akino and the blue haired tsundere is Rena Minami. They’re a magical girl team acting in the Shinsei Ward in Kamihama.

The group heads to Satomi Medical Center but, as expected, I guess, they wouldn’t let Iroha in. After all, not only her sister is not hospitalized there right now, as there are no records of her ever being there.

So the obvious choice here is going for some burgers.

Momoko says about Momoko.

She snatches the lunch from Iroha and goes upstairs… then she’s Rena. Guess we can assume Rena’s power is shapeshifting. Iroha is understandably very confused. (poor girl’s been like that ever since she came to Kamihama).

I do want to be spoken, too.

Iroha apologizes for having them accompany her for nothing, and says she’ll find a way to get to Ui’s hospital room. Momoko’s trio seems to have some plan, but Rena refuses to do it. Kaede confirms that Rena can shapeshift.

Momoko and Kaede want Rena to shapeshift into a nurse and infiltrate the hospital, but Rena doesn’t want to take the risk. Kaede and Rena then start fighting. Kaede’s upset that Rena refuses to use her powers for others, while Rena doesn’t want to put herself at risk for a stranger. Rena gets worked up, and ends up saying something bad enough to erase the background stickers.

Yeah, getting caught up in a friend fight is quite awkward isn’t it.

Rena runs her mouth and accidentally says Kaede’s wish is stupid. But magical girl’s wishes are their biggest desires when they make them, so it’s extremely rude to diss one. Kaede starts crying. Rena really screwed up there.

If only the background could talk for you, Rena.

Kaede is so upset she breaks up her friendship with Rena and walks off. Momoko tries to cheer Rena up with a mood-deaf joke, but it backfires and Rena also runs off. It’s nice how the girl’s thoughts they can’t put in words are expressed by the background stickers here. Rena would’ve seemed like a jerk if not.

Iroha and Momoko make their way back to the station. Momoko apologizes for the previous scene and Iroha apologizes for making them fight, but Momoko reassures her that that happens all the time.

Yeah, seems tiresome. From my experience, poking your nose in your friends’ fights more often than not only makes them both turn against you.

Iroha asks Momoko if the Chain Monster she joked about earlier was the same as the Chain Witch, and Momoko tells her about the rumor of the Staircase of Severance. According to the rumor, if you end your friendship with someone and write your names on a certain staircase at the school Momoko and co. attend, the first person to try to make up will be abducted by the chain monster. It would be fine if it was just a rumor, but the people who had their names written in the staircase did in fact disappear, and-

Hands- *cof* I mean, what do you have to do with this?

No, Kaede, don’t do it, it’s not worth it!

After a brief flash of a call to(?) or from(?) Momoko, Iroha meets up with her and Kaede at the station. According to them, Rena has been missing ever since their fight, and I’ve just now noticed the detail on the background showing the train lines. Nice.

The girls search for Rena until late, and finally find her at the arcade. Rena tries to pass herself for someone else, but the keychain doesn’t lie. Rena runs away, turning into a lot of other people, and the girls chase after her. As they do, chains follow their path.

Kaede catches Rena and asks why she’s running away. She says their friendship isn’t over, since Rena didn’t throw away their mascot, so she’ll apologize again if she has to and she won’t let go until Rena forgives her.

So Kaede apologizes to Rena and says they’ll go back to being friends. Rena then starts seeing chains.

The familiar-like things start mocking her. They say Rena wrote their name on the Staircase of Severance, so they won’t let them go back to being friends. Rena’s also the only one who can see them. The chain monsters start saying what should be the reasons why Rena would break up their friendship, which Rena desperately denies. The monsters then take Kaede away.

And that’s it for this episode. The rumor of the Staircase of Severance was true, Kaede was kidnapped and we still have no clue what that flash to the blue haired magical girl when Momoko was talking about the rumor even means. Leaving this episode with more questions than answers, and barely making any progress on Iroha’s investigation, we now get the ending for this season: Alethea, by ClariS.

It’s a beautiful ending, but it’s kind of funny having this when Yachiyo’s name hasn’t even appeared in the anime yet. I actually thought for the longest time that this song was called Alicia since the katakana sounds like that (or I may have misread it), so you can imagine my surprise when I learnt over a year later I was wrong lol

There’s also the little but nice detail that Yachiyo’s holding the umbrella she has when she meets Iroha on the opening.

With that, we are done with episode 2! Will our girls be able to save Fuyuu from the Chain Witch? Will Rena be able to be honest for once? Guess we’ll have to find out next time! Looking forward to having you guys for episode 3, same hour, same Tumblr blog.

(P.S: I went with Staircase of Severance for the name of this rumor since that’s what is being used in these subs, but I think it’s Friendship Ending Staircase somewhere else. Same thing tho)