#or anything teru gives you no matter how pretty either of them are

[mental1975]

Who let him in the kitchen

[sillyyuserr]

terukane analysis, and/or just random stuff, i have too many prompts in drafts but they’re too small to be their own analysies so they’re here pt. 2 💫

I already made one of these a bit ago, so if theres anything not here it’s either in that other one, or i just haven’t covered it (yet)

Item A: “I like Akane-san”

When teru says this, it comes out differently in every language. And seemingly equally ambiguous which i find interesting

for example, in the french translation of this line, teru says "I love you more than you might think akane" rather than saying “i like akane-san” and i mean having a mistranslation here is obviously something, but what he actually says is just what?

“i love you more than you might think akane” EXCUSE ME??

also not to mention “san” is gender neutral. He very well could be calling akane by his first name and them (akane & nene) misunderstanding what he said. Although he does refer to aoi as “akane-san”, the translators wouldve translated it to “aoi” instead of “akane” if he was referring to her (or not, im not completely sure on how they do the translation 😭)

Item B: queer association

not only is this one of the only canon queer characters in tbhk, (my guy only got one panel 💔) but also this associates “queerness” or wtv that means with teru

along with akane mentioning both genders being attracted to teru. Again, associating queerness with him. And you may be wondering, why is this important? well, notice how out of all of the main and/or reoccurring characters, he is one of the ONLY characters to be associated with queerness. (The only others being kou; his friends teasing him about wanting to “undress mitsuba” and akane; the whole yamabuki thing) for example, take note of how scarily popular aoi is because of her beauty, shes like a literal god, everyone loves this girl, but notice how never once has a girl ever confessed to her? actively not associating her with queerness, unlike teru.

and notice how the other characters that are associated with queerness are kou, who (its pretty much been canonized atp) has romantic feelings for his male friend mitsuba, and AKANE. The guy i swear he has a crush on like cmon now AidaIro can you be more obvious

Item C: reoccurring patterns

in tbhk, all of the confirmed/obviously implied romantic relationships between the main characters have been supernatural x human, hanako and nene, mitsuba and kou, akane and aoi, excluding only teru and aoi. But this does not exclude teru and akane, almost showing us that in the love triangle between teru, akane and aoi, it may not be revolving around which one gets with aoi, but which one gets with akane. It seems as though teru x aoi was never an option from the start.

Although teru has said he likes aoi, his actions say otherwise. for example teruaoi’s conversation in the convenience store was obviously extremely awkward, the only non-awkward part being when he helped her out of that creepy interaction with the clerk.

And the face he made when akane asked/assumed he had a crush on aoi

(Which he never definitively answered)

The point of this section was because of these reoccurring patterns we can conclude akane is the main love interest, not aoi.

Item D: their relationship

Something teru likes about akane, is how no matter what he doesn’t seem to ever give up. Which yes in some aspects this can be a bad thing, coff coff

But most times, you can kind of tell this is a big reason he likes akane, almost like a “he pushes him down, he gets back up” kind of thing, its a big part of their dynamic. If akane wasn’t like this, their dynamic would change a lot. He likes this because as stated in the spinoff, he kind of uses akane as a “stress toy” (which has obviously changed, as their relationship did when the series progresses) but he likes this because at the end of the day, akane will come back. No matter how many times he ties akane up, he returns to the student council room. No matter how many times teru pushes akane down (in this example, literally) he gets back up.

Something i like about terukane, is their relationship. The trust and motivation they give one another. For example, its shown early on Teru has disassociates himself from other people. Teru views the living as “delicate” and kind of makes it his job to protect them from supernaturals (when i say he made it his job i mean his dad did). He was raised to have a very different view towards the living vs supernaturals. Rounding this back to Terukane, teru doesn't view akane as “fragile” like other people, and I think that's something to take note of. The reason he thinks like this could definitely tie into the fact that he’s half supernatural but also he views akane in a higher regard then most people. Akane keeps up with him, teru actually acknowledges this, saying he values his intelligence and enjoys talking to him. 

Its kind of been shown teru has had a hard time making friends ever since grade-school, i mean yeah he talks to people, but the only people he’s lowered his guard around has been tiara and kou (siblings), and akane. A literal supernatural (the kind of person this guy is supposed to exterminate??) Literally what makes akane so special? This guy is the most popular person in THE school, second to none, and the only person besides his family that he can let his guard around is akane? They both work in the student council, president and vice president meaning they work in extremely close quarters, everyday, giving them lots of time to talk, so its no doubt they became close, but out of everyone, teru choosing akane to put his trust in is just odd to me idk man

Item E: bringing up each other alot

in many instances, teru and akane bring eachother up when they aren’t even involved in the current situation, or unintentionally show us they think about eachother more than we think they do, a few examples:

Teru talking ab akane to his family. Call me insane but i have alot to say ab this one. This one really gets me because that would mean throughout his entire way home from school, including if he fought off supernaturals on his way back (which he seems to do pretty much everyday), from the last time he saw akane, he had to have been thinking about him the entire time. Since they are in the student council they stay together for most of the day when its not their extra/curricular classes or lunch, meaning they probably stayed together until about an hour after school ended, and according to google

School ends around 3:50 to 4pm and their after school activities last until around 6pm. In one chapter i forget which one, kou complains about his brother not being home much and whenever he is home he’s usually sleeping or too sleepy to answer him properly, (and in art of their ‘home life’ teru is always either sleeping or sleepy) because of his constant fighting with supernaturals well into the evening. Now lets assume at this point teru has left the school building, and about a few (5) minutes down the sidewalk and he runs into supernaturals, fights them off yadayadayada, at this point it’s presumably now 6:30-6:40, now lets also assume they live about a few (5) blocks away from the school, one block presumably taking 5 minutes each, times the 5 blocks they live away, taking approximately 25 minutes to half an hour to walk, plus the additional time he took to exorcise the supernaturals on his way home, which by this point we can probably assume its 7-7:20 now which is around an hour after families/people usually make dinner, we can assume he gets home at the 7-7:20 mark, sits down with tiara and kou to have dinner when this panel was shown

Meaning for an esitmated two and half, to three consecutive hours, akane was on teru’s mind. Thats a pretty long time to be thinking ab someone teru. I know what you are

Item F: extras

the “Aoi is coming too.” Bro brings him up at any given opportunity

akane having a literal DREAM about him.

Like I havent had dreams with life long friends in them so to have a dream about this boy you “hate” is.. hmmm

Innermost subconscious feelings you say? okay okay so not queer at all yk so buddy so bro of them

Item G: the original plot

tbhk was originally going to be a oneshot manga featuring the love triangle between akane, lemon and aoi but later was cancelled, and in the official manga, they made lemon and akane “fall in love”

obviously as a joke but that shows AidaIro is not oblivious to the idea/premise of the two boys instead falling in love with eachother, rather than the girl, so the idea (i talked more ab in a past analysis) of teru&akane getting together rather than teru&aoi or akane&aoi getting together is ON THE TABLE

would add more but i fear this will take me too long💔 new chapter next week yall prepare urselfs

[tklpilled]

merry christmas, @lee-lucius !

shigeo isn’t popular. he’s been told that before; reigen’s made it very clear, at least. he’s well aware that he has a small group of friends, but he’s fine with that. he doesn’t exactly like when lots of attention is on him, it overwhelms him.

so, he’s not used to being fought over.

“you have an unfair advantage.” teruki sits behind him, arms wrapped around shigeo’s waist and pulling him into his lap. his head is resting on shigeo’s shoulder. “you live together.”

“that doesn’t mean we’re always spending time with each other.” ritsu sits across from them, leaning against the wall, arms crossed. 

“but you’ve known each other all your lives!” teru huffs.

shigeo stays out of their argument, embarrassed and unsure what to say. he instead leans his head slightly against teru’s and focuses on the feel of the steady thumping of the blond’s heart.

“if shige liked you more, that wouldn’t matter,” ritsu retorts. 

teru makes a hmph noise. “but that’s still not fair! right, shigeo?”

ritsu narrows his eyes. “shigeo?”

teru’s heartbeat speeds up. “ah. u-um.”

“it’s fine,” shigeo interrupts, before either of them can say anything more. “you don’t have to fight.”

“shi—” teru cuts himself off with a glare in ritsu’s direction. “he’s right. there’s no need to fight over this.”

ritsu nods. “right. glad you realised how wrong you are.”

shigeo sighs and prepares himself for a long day.

it becomes a competition of who knows shigeo better. ritsu, naturally, is winning, although teru continues to protest against the advantage that he has. shigeo tunes them out, not bothering to pay any attention. he doesn’t even realise that they’re asking him a question until teru pokes him to get his attention.

“c’mon! answer!”

shigeo blinks back into reality. “ah, teru—” (“teru,” mouths ritsu, gaping at the use of not only teru’s first name, but his nickname) “—cut that out, please.” he swats teru’s hands away lightly before looking up. “um. what were you asking?”

ritsu shakes his head to clear his obviously many thoughts and questions. “we just wanted to know—”

“are you ticklish, shigeo?”

please stop calling me that, you’ll give ritsu a stroke, shigeo thinks, before the question registers. “huh?”

teru pokes him again, gentler this time. “or are you hurt? you’re not hurt, are you?”

“n-no, i’m fine.”

ritsu leans in, looking interested. “i didn’t think you were still ticklish, shige.”

their attention is suddenly entirely on him. he squirms a bit. “u-um, what was the que—aha!” he jolts, and teru giggles beside his ear.

“oh, you are!” he turns to ritsu. “see, i bet i know more about where he’s ticklish than you do!”

before shigeo could point out that actually, neither of them had known anything about it until just a moment ago, teru’s fingers spring into action, and then shigeo is too busy with his sudden fit of laughter. 

he covers his mouth with his hand, curling up. “w-wahahait!” he protests quietly at the feeling of teru scribbling over his stomach. 

“just admit it, shigeo,” teru says, and shigeo can feel the outline of his smile from where the blond’s cheek is touching his, his chin resting on shigeo’s shoulder. “i know you better.”

“he can’t admit something if it’s not true.” ritsu’s voice is suddenly much closer than before, and then an extra set of hands are squeezing his knees.

teru grumbles. “go on,” he tells shigeo. “which of us do you like better?”

“th-thahahat wahasn’t the quehehestion!” shigeo squeals, batting at the assaulting hands but otherwise not fighting back much.

“no, it wasn’t,” ritsu agrees, “because the answer is obviously—”

“bohohoth! both of yohou!”

the two of them pause instantly. teru is the first to speak up.

“…both?”

shigeo nods, catching his breath. “b-both…i like you both.”

they look at each other, and for a moment shigeo thinks they'll finally stop arguing. and then —

“that's not the right answer, shige.” four hands are back to tormenting him, and the noise shigeo makes is not a squeal… but it is pretty damn close.

“wait, wait, wahahait!”

this continues for a while — all three of them know that shigeo could never actually pick a favourite between the two of them. the arguing is just for fun, and it’s a silent agreement that the tickling is because shigeo needs to smile more often.

but when shigeo pleads for them to stop, they both freeze instantly; because much like he cares about them too much for his own good, they love him too much to keep tormenting him. a smile being forced from you isn’t a true smile, after all.

[thebeautyoffanfics]

Hello! I was wondering if I could get separate headcanons for Teru and Akane (boy) with a fem s/o who tends to be polite and calm in the beginning of their relationship, but once she gets comfy with them the boys realize that their s/o is so chaotic that she can somehow??? Jump off of buildings and be okay??? Or accidentally die and revive like nothing happened, memories in tact and all. You don't have to do this if course, but thanks for reading it! Good luck with finals!

teru minamoto x f!reader, akane aoi x f!reader

a/n: hihi!! Aonrfonak i love this so much bc it lowkey reminds me of myself- and thank you so much!! I’m nearly done, thank goodness!!! And thank you so much for requesting <33 iiii am writing this very late at night tho, so i’m sorry if these are bad or have any errors;;;

warnings: none <3

word count: collectively, 902

Teru Minamoto <3

At first, you caught Teru’s interest because of how reserved you were. Even once the two of you became friends, you treated him respectfully for a good while- it was interesting, but he never really questioned it, since you were a bit similar to him.

One thing about Teru, he’d insist it day in and day out should anyone ask, was that he’d love you no matter what! No matter how you expressed yourself, no matter how your personality may change as you grew more comfortable, no matter anything. As long as you were still comfortable in the relationship, he promised he’d be perfectly content as well.

As you grew comfortable, and let your more chaotic side show, Teru was just as content with you as he was when you first started dating. He found it a bit funny at first, glad that you were comfortable around him. He considers it a proud moment!

It was a bit of a surprise, of course. As you grew louder and somehow seemingly more energetic, he’d simply smile, watching and listening to you as you went about with your antics. It was honestly really cute to him- and impressive. While you were less similar to him, he genuinely didn’t mind- he still admired you, and your personality.

However, Teru can be a bit protective at times. He’ll watch you running around, nearly bumping into things and yet managing to be fine, and be standing there, internally panicking. Like “(Y/N), please- be careful- you’re gonna get yourself hurt.”

“I’ll be fiiiiine,”

“You nearly walked into traffic-”

“Traffic shmaffic.”

It was pretty funny to Teru when he watched you hanging out with his family once you were comfortable around them. Family clearly means a lot to him, so watching you play around with Tiara and mess with Kou was both entertaining and heart-warming in a way.

On that note, it was somewhat new for Kou and Tiara- Tiara didn’t really question it, simply going along with how playful you had gotten, and Kou sort of… was there, slightly confused. He definitely asked Teru if you were feeling alright- Kou didn’t mind it either tho! It was just something to get used to.

However, Kou did nearly have a heart attack when you were running down the street and tripped- Teru was there too, just as worried as Kou, yet somewhat used to it. While Kou panicked over whether or not you were alright, Teru helped you up as you brushed yourself off, grinning as if nothing happened. As if you didn’t before, you earned all of Kou’s admiration at that moment.

Teru’s certainly the type to send goodnight texts, so expect them to go from something like “Goodnight. Rest well <3” to something like “Goodnight <3 Don’t stay up too late, stay safe, please don’t go skydiving, look both ways (twice, thrice even) before crossing the streets <3 or perhaps don’t go somewhere late at night. Rest well <3”

“Teru, I’m not a child <3 Rest well!”

“Whatever you say <3”

Akane Aoi <3

It’s very clear that Akane would love you no matter what- seeing as Aoi would be someone of the past, I wouldn’t take it that his love for you is too much different. He loves you, and will show you love no matter what- because he knows that you’re a good person, and you’re the one he fell in love with.

While Akane was used to your calm, polite personality, he did wonder what it would be like if you just… dropped the formalities? Like, don’t you just wanna? Sucker punch people? Scream? Kick Teru in the shins????

Once you grew more comfortable, Akane was pretty relieved. It was a sort of “oh, thank goodness, she actually likes me” moment. Sure, you were loud and somewhat bouncy, but it wasn’t like he minded at all. You’re still his (Y/N), the one and only.

Like Teru, Akane worries about you relentlessly- he even started to carry around bandaids and antibiotic cream in case you fell. As if it did anything since, of all the times you did fall (if Akane didn’t manage to catch you), you’d hop right back up, continuing along as if you didn’t nearly bust your head.

Any time you did fall and hurt yourself, expect Akane to scold you while patching you up. He doesn’t mean any harm, and doesn’t want you to feel like you shouldn’t be yourself- all he means is pleaseeee watch your steps. Though, while he won’t admit it, he does feel a bit proud to have been prepared for the one time you actually got a scrape.

Should you be out and about, texting Akane while at a store or whatnot, expect him to jokingly give you tips on “how not to get killed.” It’s all silly, common sense things like “watch your feet” “keep your eyes on your surroundings” “if there’s an obstacle, d o n ‘ t jump over it, simply move it out of the way” “don’t stare at your phone while walking.”

“Akane, you’re the one texting me while I’m walking.”

“Stop??? Walking????”

“Haha nah”

Despite the heart attacks, Akane really does enjoy your personality- it always brightens his day, and even makes him feel more energetic, to see you so chaotic. He does find it funny though, when he sees you in a setting like school, back to a calm, reserved façade-

[stargaze-issei]

— 𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐢𝐤 𝐭𝐨𝐤 𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐝 + 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫-𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧 !

𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐭; karasuno and fukurodani react to their manager doing the body count/bodyody audio tik tok ! [insp by this tik tok]

𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞; crack(?

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬; suggestive themes, maybe a little swearing i can't remember ajaksjq.

𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞; the trend it's to put pictures of all the people you've slept with, in case anyone doesn't know!!

karasuno !

-> it was a joke, it wasn’t supossed to get out of the thrid year managers gc.

-> the girls found it hilarious and was a good conversation topic for hours, discussing who you put or didn’t put.

-> they knew, of course, it was fake. you hadn’t slept with oikawa, KYOUTANI, BOKUTO, tendou, atsumu, TERUSHIMA and OSAMU.

-> it was SO obvious it was a joke for them that nobody felt the need to point it out.

-> they just said things like “the most quiet are the worst ones” “OMG DETAILS ABOUT THE TWINS!!” “did terushima yk,, made a good use of his percing” because they KNEW nothing was real.

-> until tanaka and sugawara asked kiyoko for her phone to watch some videos of the new play they were trying.

-> and misaki, from johzenji, sent a “forget about teru— 🤢 can’t even say it,, Y/N I WANNA HEAR ABOUT BOKUTO!!! ik man’s  p a c k i n g”

-> tanaka looks at suga and suga looks at tanaka and they’re like .......tf

-> suga’s finger “slips” and they see the other messages until finally they reach your video.

-> you’re there looking pretty as usual and above your head reads “seems like were showing our body counts with this sound? here it’s mine 🤪”

-> tanaka is about to say “it can be what we’re thinking” but when OIKAWA’S picture appears both their jaws hit the floor.

-> nishinoya sees them and ofc he wants to know what’s so shocking, so he gets closer.

-> he drags hinata too, and shoyo’s like “that’s the great king!! play it again!! play it again!!”

-> fyi: suga paused the video because wOW and they don’t know who’s left in your video.

-> sugawara looks straight in the eye at nishinoya, going “keep hinata, kageyama and yamaguchi away and bring the team” with the MOST SERIOUS EXPRESSION

-> noya is lowkey scared??? like wtf??? but does as he’s told bc suga seems super intense.

-> kiyoko and yachi left to fill the bottles and pick some needed implements from the club room, you had classes for a few more minutes, therefore, there was nobody to stop them.

-> once the rest of the team, including tsukishima because everyone seemed to have forgotten he was a first year too, is together, suga plays again the video, while the littlest ones watch from afar in curiosity.

-> the silence, you will never hear them in a more tense silence.

-> they read what’s your tiktok about, daichi’s eyes go O.O, asahi goes RED, nishinoya seemed to be ready to FIGHT THEM ALL, ennoshita awkwardly laughs, even tsukishima blushes a little.

-> then oikawa appears. EVEYRONE’S EYES ARE FULLY OPEN AND NOYA LET’S OUT A GROAN???

-> but when kyoutani shows up they’re in SO much shock they kinda forget oikawa before, and daichi whispers an “oh god”

-> then it’s BOKUTO’S TURN and tsukishima just stops functioning. asahi is static on his place contemplating, withouth being able to form a coherent thought.

-> suga highkey wants the tea.

-> tendou feels like a betray to asahi, tanaka and tsukishima. noya, just for a second, wonder what was that like.

-> ATSUMU AND OSAMU FUCKING MIYA AND THEY EXPLOTE.

-> THE EXPLOTE LIKE WHAT????? WAS IT AT THE SAME TIME???? Y/N?¡¡¡¿¿1

-> they aren’t ready for the cherry on the top at the end, a picture of terushima sticking his tongue out, sweaty after a match, SMOKING HOT, and it’s not a picture he posted to his social medias or anything.

-> it’s only suga, and daichi a little bit, who realize that if that picture isn’t public, then either he send it to you or YOU TOOK  IT.

-> that’s when you walk in the gym, just to say hi before going to change.

-> the first year are playing among each other and you are like ????

-> they don’t even notice you’re there so you go nearer to see what they’re watching. and you see the picture of tersuhima yukie, from fukurodani, once sent asking misaki WHY her kouhais where that hot. it was also the only picture you had of him and the one you used in you video the day before.

-> the phone in suga’s hands seems familiar and... that’s kiyoko’s

-> “Y/N” screams asahi when he sees  you and the rest looks like they saw a ghost.

-> a second of silence goes before everyone blows in questions and you just hear names between bambling, “OIKAWA MNASNANPGDF” “MANASKL BODY COUNT ASLKLAS” “MAD DOG!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

-> and daichi makes himself heard despite the screams.

-> “y/n, i know you’re 18 and capable of making your own decisions, but we have to talk about... physical relationships, with our rival teams”

-> kiyoko arrives and quickly puts two and two together and asks yachi to go check on the first years.

-> she looks at you and sees you like WHAT TF DO I DO and nods and say “you shouldn’t have gone through my phone, no matter how curious you are, sugawara-san” COLD AS ICE ISTG.

-> AND SHE CONTINUES “what who y/n does or doesn’t do on her free time is none of your business, all of you, if she decides to get together with anyone it’s just up to her. you should be ashamed of yourself, specially the third years. you weren’t just violating y/n’s privacy, but mine, kaori’s, yukie’s and misaki’s. it may have been a joke, or not, but it doesn’t give you the right. if you ever do something like this again, we will be talking with coach ukai and takeda sensei” SHE GRABS YOUR ARM, TURNS AROUND, CALLS YACHI AND YOU THREE LEAVE LIKE QUEENS????

-> once you’re in the club room, both you and kiyoko start laughing because the team was FROZE in place. not even daichi was so scary.

-> the team then apologizes to both and send an audio to the groupchat too, and never bring the subject uo again.

-> still, they all wonder everyday if you really did or not.

-> and of course, they get so defensive when they see any of the boys in the video it’s hilarious to you and the other managers.

— fukurodani !

-> damn yukie making up dares that always ended up bad for either you or kaori.

-> mostly you doe.

-> at a sleepover, she was like let’s make fake body count vids and who falls asleep first has to show them tomorrow at practice!!! it will be fun!!!

-> you accepted because you usually fell asleep after one of them did but that time it was like they gave you a sleeping pill because you fell like a rock after a few hours.

-> as to why you were there, the day after, about to go ask the team if you should post it.

-> you list consisted on kenma, kita, sakusa, daichi, and just for the fun of it, konoha.

-> the girls call konoha aside so he doesn't ruin the prank, and you proceed.

-> "hey guys, should i post this?? i’m not sure if i look good enough to be seen by the world” bokuto practically yells at you that you always look pretty before taking your phone from your hands.

-> “why don’t you ask yukie or kaori?” asks akaashi, that was a question you hand’t thought about and by pure luck, you were saved by bokuto yelling at the team to come and see what you’ve done.

-> konoha is about to head their way and yukie just grabs his arm like “no ❤️"

-> and nobody can contradict yukie’s no so he has no choice but to stay.

-> anyways

-> the team gather around bokuto, who is about to press play. at first it’s just your face, and everyone agree you look pretty.

-> but then they read “did anyone say body count? ;)” and they look at each other like ......what

-> washio leans to stop the video because he genuinely doesn’t know what body count is, sarukui explains it a little too loud, grinning, and washio goes "oh–"

-> thanks to sarukui’s explanation bokuto confirms his idea because one part of him did think it was how many people you’ve killed.

-> they press play again and kenma appears and bokuto just stares, doesn’t react.

-> akaashi’s eyes widened and he GASPS, washio can’t hide his disappointment mostly because why would you make this video and then show it to them.

-> when kita shows up bokuto lets out a surprised squeak, along with washio that’s just question your and his whole existences-

-> sarukui is smirking, his complete expression yells “way to go y/n!!!”

-> sakusa comes as a shock to every one of them, even sarukui loses the grin for a bit.

-> “how did you manage to...?” whispers akaashi, half amazed, half grossed.

-> bokuto then has to pause it for a little to keep his composure, he looks at your like WHY WOULD YOU MAKE ME GO THROUGH THIS

-> but when they resume it and daichi welcomes him he thinks it just can get any worse.

-> washio is like “isn’t that karasuno’s–?”

-> ��HELL YEAH IT IS” SHOUTS SARUKUI AND THE GIRLS BEHIND YOU LAUGH SO HARD BECAUSE HE IS SO PROUD OF YOU.

-> the rest is like 🧍‍♂️ while sarukui is SO happy for you LMAO.

-> it’s at the end when no one smiles. konoha’s picture smiles at them and bokuto just stops the video to look at him, only a few meters away.

-> he looks at the picture and then at konoha and so on.

-> can’t get his mind around it????? lowkey no one can.

-> akaashi isn’t even blinking and his eyes are concerningly open, washio is regretting all his past choices that led to this moment.

-> sarukui death stares at konoha. no more fun sarukui, he crossed the line.

-> kaori and yukie are wheezing WHEEZING I SAY and konoha is so confused.

-> his teammates look like dogs about to attack but he hasn’t done anything to upset them?? has he??

-> like robots, akaashi and bokuto get up and walk towards konoha. a part of you tells you to protect him but... what are they going to do tho...

-> “you’re out of the team” THEY SAY AT THE SAME TIME AND ALL AND KONOHA GOES WHAT

-> your co-managers can’t even breath istg NO HELP

-> you then intervine trying to keep konoha in the team lmao “IT’S FAKE GUYS!! A PRANK!! KAORI!!!! YUKIE!!!! BACK ME UP!!! I’M KIDDING DON’T KICK KONOHA OUT”

-> akaashi partially believes you, but bokuto?? nope.

-> you planted the seed on his mind.

-> the whole team acts weird when they see guys from your vid and are looking for chances to bark at konoha.

-> “AKAASHI HAS TO STAND BETWEEN YOU TWO ALL THE TIME” that’s the new rule he set.

-> just to see them freak out, konoha sometimes flirts with you at practice ;)

[sunshinecrashed]

Hey! Can I request a Teru x Reader where Teru gets jealous? Thank you and I love your writings! Hope you have a great day/night 😊

ᴅᴇғɪɴɪᴛᴇʟʏ ɴᴏᴛ ᴊᴇᴀʟᴏᴜs

𝗆𝗂𝗇𝖺𝗆𝗈𝗍𝗈 𝗍𝖾𝗋𝗎 𝗑 𝗋𝖾𝖺𝖽𝖾𝗋

𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆: 𝗽𝘀𝗵𝗵𝗵, 𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘂 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗷𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗼𝘂𝘀. 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁?

word count: ~1.3k

↳ warnings: !! spoilers for vol. 12 chapter 59 !! they’re pretty minor (it’s insignificant to the plot), but i just wanted to put that out there anyways. 

a/n: i hope u have an even better day/night <3

⋆──────☆──────⋆

“Stupid pretty-boy,” Akane mumbled to himself as he marched through the hallways of Kamome Gakuen. 

His rival, Minamoto Teru, was deceivingly sly. No one would have ever expected the school prince to have such a secretly dark side of him. Akane shivered.

A couple weeks back during the semester exams, Teru successfully provoked Akane into competing with him in an academic contest; in which the winner (whoever had the most points on their exams), got to command the loser to do anything. 

Naturally, Akane refused with a blunt, “How about no?”, but after Teru threatened to “confess” to his beloved Aoi, Akane had no choice but to give in.

And now,

It was time for Akane’s revenge. 

Sneakily tip-toeing around the campus during lunch, Akane whipped his head back and forth to find that evil Teru. 

“Aha!” 

There he was... talking to a girl?

‘Wait.. who's that?’ 

Akane racked his brain, trying to remember where he’s seen you. Wait- now that he’s thinking about it, he does remember seeing you hanging out with Teru pretty frequently, sharing laughs and cheerful smiles. 

He hid behind a wall while resting his chin in his hand. 

‘Could it be,’ he crept out to take another peek at you and Teru, narrowing his eyes as he noticed that you both were awfully close to each other. 

‘-that Teru has a crush?’

Oh, yes. 

This was the lead that Akane needed in order to set his revenge plan in place. Giggling like a little gremlin, he tip-toed back into the school.

A couple days passed, and now Teru and Akane were sorting through Student Council papers. 

“Say, Teru,” Akane started, sifting his pile absentmindedly. 

“Hmm?”

“Who’s that girl that you’ve been talking to lately? Was it.. [Name]-san?” 

Teru froze, the sound of rustling papers coming to an abrupt halt. 

His narrowed eyes looked up at Akane’s preoccupied expression. “..Why does it matter?” 

“Oh, because-” Akane leaned back into his chair, stretching his arms over his head while smirking. “I’ve begun to accept the fact that Aoi will always reject me.. and [Name] is pretty cute, don’t you think?”

“Akane, you’re just joking with me, aren’t you?” Teru tried to bite back the venom in his tone. 

He continued, “And if you’re trying to trick me, it won’t work.” 

But Teru’s cold body language said otherwise. It wasn’t difficult to see that he was creasing his paper with a tight grip, or how his mood instantly turned sour.

Akane’s words were clearly having an effect on Teru, whether he liked it or not. 

‘Interesting.’ Akane observed Teru’s body language out of the corner of his eye. He knew that he was bound to hit a soft spot for Teru, but to find it so quickly? Akane struck gold. He had no idea that Teru was this... sensitive when it came to you. 

“I mean, Teru.. You’re not jealous, are you?”

The boy in question brushed it off too quickly, stating, 

“Jealous? That’s childish. I’m not jealous.” He stiffly held his hole puncher, using a little more force than necessary to clip holes into his pile of paper.

Teru looked like he was trying to convince himself more than he was trying to convince Akane. 

Akane’s “plan to confess to you” was just a bluff; no matter how hard he tried, he would never be able to fall out of love with his lovely Aoi. But in order to get back at Teru, he wouldn’t mind becoming friends with you! It was win-win.

He always imagined Teru as this untouchable, charismatic leader who would rather prioritize his studies or exorcism over a potential relationship. So why was it so easy for you to break down his walls? 

“Hi Teru!” you poked your head out from the classroom door frame, a bubbly vibe around you. 

In the blink of an eye, Teru’s bad mood vanished- it was as if he wasn’t even sulking in the first place. As Akane watched Teru, he could tell that Teru wasn’t even faking it either; he was truly just happy to see you. 

“[Name]! What are you doing here?” Teru said with a gentle smile.

He kicked Akane under the table as a warning. “oww-”

“I was just on my way to my club and I wanted to say hello.” you beamed. 

You noticed that Akane was there too, who looked pretty frazzled. “Oh wait, I was actually looking for you, Akane!” 

“Oh~? You were looking for me?” He smirked, locking eyes with Teru before shrinking away under his murderous gaze. ‘..Scary’

“I-I mean, uh.. Is there anything you need, [Name]-san?” 

“Well,” You sat on top of a nearby desk and swung your legs lightly, oblivious to the thick tension in the room. “You told me a few days ago how you were willing to tutor me on some subjects? I really want to raise my score for next semester.” 

Teru not-so-sneakily shot daggers at Akane. The red-haired boy gulped. 

“R-Right! We can talk about scheduling a time after this! Hah..” 

"Really? Ah, thank you so much Akane!” you hummed with a bright smile.“I owe you one.”

“And that is,” you glanced at the clock, “-all of the time that I have right now. I guess I’ll talk to you guys later!” you waved at them, and with that, you padded out of the door. 

Teru waved back with a fond smile. “Bye, [Name]-san.” 

And like a switch, he flipped his mood instantly. 

“Akane,” he gave his most sickeningly-sweet smile to Akane, who in contrast, looked like he was going to bolt. 

‘Shit, I’m done for-’

“We are going to have a decent, thorough discussion later, aren’t we?” 

“.......y-yup..” 

- - - - -

You peered up at the sky with a slight frown, eyeing the dark clouds. Maybe you should have brought an umbrella, just in case? It looked like it could rain any minute.

 You wrapped your school jacket a little tighter around yourself as you searched for Akane in front of the school.

‘He told me to wait for him right around.. here!’

And to your pleasant surprise, you found... Teru standing underneath the tree that you and Akane decided to meet under. 

The agreed plan was to then head to a cafe and go over some of the school material, and then discuss when to schedule the next tutoring session. So what was Teru doing, waiting patiently in Akane’s place?

“Teru?” you approached him with a slightly tilted head. “Where’s Akane?” 

“Hey. Akane wasn’t feeling very well, so he asked me to take his place instead. Is that fine with you?” he questioned softly, brushing a hand through his locks. 

You furrowed your brow. “Damn, I hope he feels better soon. And it’s no problem! Let’s get going, yeah?” you said.

Teru nodded eagerly and walked in step with you, brushing his arm with yours. While you were distracted, he smiled victoriously to himself. Yes, he may have threatened Akane (or ‘highly discouraged’, as Teru put it), but in the end, it all worked out fine! Now, he got to spend some more time with you, and also didn’t to worry about Akane’s cunning trickery. Perfect!

‘I’ll find some way to make it up to him after this..’ he thought.

You felt a drop of rain fall on your cheek, and you blinked up at the clouds once again. “Rain? Crap, I didn’t bring an umbrella with me-” 

“One sec, I have one in my bag. We can share it.” Teru looked calm on the outside, but internally he was cheering. 

As he held the umbrella over the two of you, you seemed to ponder about something for a moment before asking, “..I-Is it all right if I scoot in a little closer, Teru?” 

A thousand times yes- “Ah, of course.”

Here you both were, each with a slight blush dusting over your faces, and with equally thudding hearts. 

He glanced down at you with butterflies in his chest, taking his arm out of the sleeve of his jacket before draping it over your shoulders. 

“It’s getting a little chilly, so keep warm, [Name].”

You leaned more into his side, hiding your smile. “..Thank you, Teru!”

Okay, he might have been a just a little jealous earlier. 

 But now that you were at his side, he couldn’t have been more content.  

[alexiethymia]

JSHK Questions and Answers

Since I love lists, and I want to organize these for future reference, this is my compilation of the questions I still have as of the most recent chapter, and attempts to answer them with theories and headcanons with no bases whatsoever. So, let us begin!

1.) How does a human become a supernatural? 

Among the Seven Mysteries, only Hanako and Akane-kun were or are humans. Shijima isn’t the original Shijima Mei, and the current Mitsuba was created from the original Mitsuba. Is there a difference between a human becoming a simple supernatural or becoming a School Mystery? Are humans who died and become ghosts, like original Mitsuba, considered Supernaturals? Is Sakura one such human-turned-ghost-turned supernatural? 

For Amane and Mitsuba, we know how they became spirits. They had lingering regrets, which is confirmed by Kou when he said he’d help Mitsuba with his unfinished business so that he could pass on. So what Kou was talking about in the most recent chapter is probably not that. 

Going back to Akane-kun and Hanako. How did Akane-kun become a supernatural? It was through a deal to save Aoi’s life, albeit he was tricked into it. 

Did something of that sort happen to Amane and Tsukasa perhaps? Did Amane make a wish, was tricked, and somehow as a consequence end up killing Tsukasa as some sort of exchange? Because for some reason, among a time lord, a spider that has a library full of knowledge, and the GOD OF DEATH, it’s Hanako-kun who’s the leader of the School Mysteries. Something big must have been exchanged for that. 

Perhaps Tsukasa heard a rumor that one way he and Amane could stay together forever was to become Supernaturals, with one being the other’s yorishiro and for this reason he wanted to kill Amane, except it happened the other way around. Admittedly, this is a bit farfetched. 

2. Who does Teru actually like?

This was established from the very first chapter, so i believe it’s an important plot point.

Sakura: My first guess, again despite having no basis at all, is Sakura. But Sakura already has Natsuhiko so hmmm....

Mei: Yes, this is a bit weird. The only thing I have to go on is that one picture of Teru with Mei and Shijima in Monster Nursery. Teru could have been a kid who had a crush on high school student Mei before she died. 

Aoi: Recent chapters would point to that. It seems so obvious as to be a red herring, but what if that is what makes it surprising enough to be true? I always thought Teru ‘liking’ Aoi was a way to troll Akane just as how Teru lords over Nene’s crush on him to Hanako (man in other circumstances, Akane-kun and Hanako-kun would get along soooo well), but he never said he liked Nene in a joking way, like he did with Aoi. 

If the Teru-Aoi-Akane triangle is suppose to parallel the Kou-Nene-Hanako triangle, then it checks out if both Teru and Akane have a crush on Aoi. I do see them as being kindred spirits. Both are set up on a pedestal despite no one actually knowing their true selves. Everyone thinks they’re so perfect and nice, but both have pretty twisted characters. I mean Akane is also a ‘nice guy’ but everyone knows about his yandere tendencies, and he’s pretty free about what he thinks. On top of that, there’s also the shady business going on in the Minamoto and Akane families. 

Akane: BUT THEN, what if Akane is the Nene in their triangle. Admittedly, a lot of Teru’s actions could be interpreted as him teasing the boy he likes who’s already in love with someone else. IT CHECKS OUT.

Akane and Aoi: Or you know he could have a crush on the both of them. This is just headcanon after all. 

3.What on earth is Natsuhiko’s deal?

I swear he’s like the wolf in sheep’s clothing. Always beware the fool. I have this weird headcanon that he belongs to a family that’s also spiritually inclined like the Minamotos and the Akanes. Who knows, what if both Sakura and Tsukasa are dead supernaturals and Natsuhiko is their link to the living world?

Someone pointed out how the room with the mirror and the toys could be Hanako’s boundary. Besides the fact that we didn’t see any water, I would say that that is one brilliant observation! I could easily believe that. With what we know now about Sumire and from what Tsukasa said about not seeing Hanako for ten to twenty years, Hanako probably left Tsukasa, his yorishiro, in his boundary and never went to see him. The implications are horrifying. As we saw with Sumire, she kept relieving her death. That’s bad enough with No. 6 letting her die. But based on what we know, unless something else gets revealed, Amane was the one to kill Tsukasa. And he left Tsukasa in the boundary for ten to twenty years to relieve that? If true, I really will have to reevaluate my whole opinion about Hanako. 

I think based on what we saw, if that really is their boundary, it may be a replica of the twin’s room, what with all those toys, and by the time we arrive at that point when we’ll see Hanako’s boundary, I think that’s where the key Nene picked up from Amane in the past will play a part. Is that the key to their house? The twin’s bedroom? Perhaps a secret tree house? There must have been a repercussion as well with Nene picking up that key from the past, because if it’s with her now, then it wasn’t with Amane in the past, and that may have changed something.

If that’s true, then it was Sakura and Natsuhiko who broke Tsukasa out. Again it gives credence to the Sakura-is-already-dead theory, because Tsukasa grants the wishes of the dead, so perhaps there was a wish that Sakura had to have granted no matter what, enough to bind herself to Tsukasa, like how Nene did with Hanako.

(A bit of a sideline, LISTEN I STILL HAVE HOPE FOR A HAPPY ENDING OK. Kamisama Hajimemashita also had time travel shenanigans. and it looked like the protagonist would die, but all of those time travel shenanigans were necessary for them to earn their happy ending. Time isn’t a straight line after all. It’s more like a loop or a circle. What will happen has already happened.) 

4. Why are Tsukasa and Sumire the only human yorishiros?

Although Tsukasa as a yorishiro is not yet confirmed, I still have to wonder why. All of the supernaturals had or have strong ties to a living human. No. 1 has Akane-kun, Yako had Misaki, Mitsuba has Kou, Shijima had Mei, and Tsuchigomori had Amane. We don’t know what No. 1 and Mitsuba’s yorishiro are, but for the other three, the yorishiros they have are in relation to their precious humans. 

I can’t imagine that Yako loved Misaki less than No. 6 or Hanako (presumably) loved Sumire, or Tsukasa, and yet Misaki isn’t Yako’s yorishiro nor is Mei, Shijima’s yorishiro, and I have to wonder why.

Is it because Misaki and Mei had already passed on peacefully, while in contrast Tsukasa and Sumire wanted to stay by Hanako and No. 6′s side, which translated to them being bound as yorishiro? 

It’s stated in the story that yorishiro are the things most precious to a Mystery, but it also makes me think that yorishiros are the things or people that the Mysteries have the most regret about. 

5. Why is Akane-kun affected by supernatural events?

Akane-kun has stronger ties to Supernaturals, being a Supernatural himself, unlike Nene who’s just an assistant to one. 

So why did he forget about Aoi when Yako kidnapped her the first time around, yet Kou and Nene were unaffected, and why did the confession tree have an effect on him?

Maybe, because except for the deal with No. 1, for all intents and purposes he’s just a normal human being? 

But this time around, he doesn’t forget about Aoi. Maybe because he was too involved this time so his memories couldn’t be so easily erased.

But admittedly, it may just have been a story telling choice so the readers wouldn’t know Akane had anything to do with supernaturals.

6. Why was Nene chosen as the kannagi?

This was a question I had all throughout the arc, and it still wasn’t answered. Normally you’d think that Nene became the kannagi the moment she made a wish to Hanako but Hanako later says that he had nothing to do with her short fate. So if Nene had never met Hanako in the first place, would she have been doomed to die for completely mundane reasons?

BUT THEN when she read her book at the Bookstacks, if I’m not remembering incorrectly, her first disastrous date was in college, but Mirai says in the Clock Keepers arc that she had less than a year to live, which means she’s supposed to die in high school. Why this discrepancy? Could Hanako have been lying? Did her lifespan shorten after making a wish to Hanako thereafter becoming the kannagi i.e. Hanako’s assistant? But again only those who were already near to death could have made a wish to Hanako so maybe since they were already doomed to die anyway, making a wish to Hanako and becoming his assistant was just the prerequisite to being the kannagi. Except in this case, Hanako wanted to change her fate. Perhaps opening a person’s book changes their fate. Nene’s book was read, Amane’s book was read by Tsuchigomori, but again no in-story event would support this. 

Sumire identifies Nene as the kannagi, but No. 6 passes her by and identified Aoi as the kannagi, so again why this discrepancy? Perhaps someone in the past put a stop to the practice of sacrificing Akane girls (the Minamoto family perhaps?), but an Akane girl would always go to Kamome as a sort of back-up just in case.

Hanako was clearly lying when he said no human sacrifices happened during his time. What if there was a Hanako-san before our Hanako-kun? What if either Amane or Tsukasa made a wish to that Hanako-san, and as a result one of them became the kannagi or human sacrifice?  

7. Why is No. 1 so important? 

Kako is just sus af. Out of all the supernaturals, No. 1 always seemed the most powerful to me, which makes me wonder why Hanako is the leader of the Seven Mysteries. I mean when he called a meeting, only Tsuchigomori and Yako came, but when Kako presided over the meeting, all the supernaturals were there, except No.6. It was like Kako was the judge while Hanako was the defendant. 

Time is an amazing power, even if it’s only in the school. Theoretically, if only within the school, doesn’t Kako have the power to reverse time going back to when Amane’s time when he was still a student there? Or does Kako have the power to transport people to the past while in the school?

Similarly, is stopping time for fifteen minutes the extent of Akane-kun’s powers as the Clock Keeper of the present, or is there something more to it? Why is it necessary for a living human to be the Clock Keeper of the present anyway? Akane-kun once said he was forced to clean the clock where they kept Mirai imprisoned so Akane must know the location of No. 1′s boundary and yorishiro.

Teru said it was important for them to get to the Clock Keepers. Would something happen if all of the Clock Keepers combined their powers (like some super sentai)?

And let us not forget, Shijima’s hint about Nene’s lifespan lies with No. 1, specifically with Akane. (Speaking of Shijima, what on earth was the price Tsukasa exacted for her wish?)

Who knows? Perhaps the key to solving Nene’s lifespan problem without sacrificing Aoi lies with No.1 and No. 6 as the mysteries who have dominion over time, life and death. 

Seven questions for seven mysteries. 

[elizabeatrice]

Feeling Blue, Seeing Red (Chapter 69)

Let’s Talk About JSHK Manga #5

Updated: 19/8/2020 (more thoughts)

Bea is back with the lame punny titles~

Warning: !!! MANGA SPOILERS UP TO CHAPTER 69 !!! Duh.

Soooo I opened the raws this morning. Saw the spicy and went 'ohh shoot'. Then some of y'all say that some folks are hating Akane bc of this chap. I proceeded to panic, because fandom war is scary af. So I translated the chap for myself. And I just gotta say:

Aoi, Nene, your boyfriends are idiots. Y'all gonna be punching and headbutting the idiocy out of them for the rest of your lives and I'll be willing to pay for your karate classes.

The teen drama made me laugh so hard ahahahaha I guess this is what you get for hoping sensei will drop a bomb this month lmaoooo.

P.S. Teru you little shit

Man I don’t even know where to begin. This chapter is oozing doraaaaama and I can’t take it seriously no matter how much I try. I remember thinking, “Shoot, this is the ‘I hate you, I hate you too, proceed to make out’ trope in JSHK’s classic ‘oooh serious moment, eh? PSYCHE!’ style,” before bursting into laughter.

I swear I’m not making fun of it.

Because it’s already fun to begin with. Ahahahaha.

I do however, take seriously the long-awaited insight into Aoi’s mind. I hollered in joy, y’all. ‘Cause like ... finally!

(Also like ... ngl the development of Aoi and akaoi in this arc might come into play in my Shrek AU. Pls don’t ask. Yet. That’s not the official AU name I swear I just wanna confuse my readers ahahaha)

Back when chapter 64 came out I wrote something that was supposed to be the first of the Let’s Talk About JSHK Manga series but I ended up not posting it because I wasn’t sure about a bunch of things. Here’s an excerpt from that post, titled ‘Aoi and Her Blues’:

I mean, what did the minions do to her? ‘Remove unnecessary things’. Someone said they removed her inhibitions (I’m terribly sorry I forgot who said this because it’s been so long so I can’t put the link here, but if you know, feel free to send me the link).

But she has to be brainwashed, right?

She remembered enough about Nene. Enough to call her out on her feelings (that she still denies btw lol) and recognize Hanako from Nene’s wonderful description (or because Aoi could see him all this time and never said anything, who knows?).

Most importantly, she remembered Akane.

So apparently they weren’t unnecessary enough to be erased from her memory. Which I’d beg to differ if I were going to make this girl willingly sacrifice herself.

Would she let her best friend fall down into a pit full of giant insects, or let her childhood friend get impaled? I mean this is the same girl that cried when Akane and Yamabuki got together (by accident) and when Nene started talking to herself like a madwoman.

So yeah. Definitely brainwashed. Pretty sure now.

The one thing that bugged me is what she said though.

“I’ve always wanted to go somewhere far away.”

“Nothing will stop me from getting my wish.”

Btw these aren’t accurate word for word I’m just drawing from memory.

Is that a wish forced upon her by the brainwashing, or has Aoi been depressed all this time and ... y’know, therefore thought about ‘going far away’? I’m personally leaning more towards the first, but it still got me thinking.

Remember back in The Clock Keeper arc when she said there was something she wanted to tell Nene?

Can some creepy hands showing up in the gardening club’s album photos really warrant that kind of expression? Is it just me who got disappointed when the thing she wanted to tell Nene ended up being just that?

But if she did have such thoughts, why?

Maybe she was lonely? I mean Nene got so busy with supernatural shenanigans. Akane’s busy with student council stuff (and school wonder stuff). Though I don’t doubt for a second that he’d drop everything for Aoi, but Aoi’s not the kind of person to do that. And to be honest, I feel like so far Aoi hasn’t been shown having genuine interaction with anyone aside from Nene and Yamabuki without the other person being completely enamored by her. And even with Yamabuki that was just in that After School chapter.

So I guess my hunch wasn’t that far off. Still though. Still though. Is she or is she not brainwashed? Because as much as Aoi likes-but hates-but actually kinda likes Akane, I still don’t think she’s the type of person to stab her childhood friend until he’s got a hole through his fucking torso.

Throwing Nene into the bug pit I guess makes more sense if Aoi knew all along that the pit won’t lead anywhere too dangerous, and that Hanako wouldn’t leave Nene’s side. Nene’s perfectly safe with him. Sorta. She did get kidnapped and were about to be sacrificed after all. But heeey Hanako still showed up to save her in the end.

Stabbing Akane like that tho? Even if she knows he wouldn’t die in a boundary especially in his school wonder form? It just doesn’t feel like Aoi, man.

Then again she did say no one really knows her, and that anyone who does would end up being disappointed in her.

I’m really happy to know that she does not, in fact, appreciate all the attention given to her. Comedy framing aside, constantly having some random guy approach you to ask you out presumably every day is ... annoying at best. Kid deserves better.

So ya girl got some extreme trust issues. Strangers, even Akane and Nene, I could understand. But her dad tho? Is something going on in the Akane household? Bruh ....

How long has Aoi not been able to trust anyone enough to let them get close to her? Because if she’s been feeling like that about Nene all this time, Imma be super sad bruh. Nene is one of the most genuine kids ever (perhaps only second to Kou).

I understand that Aoi’s disappointed because Nene’s been keeping secrets, but honestly, who would believe you if you come up to them and say, “Hey so I summoned a toilet ghost and now I’m stuck as his assistant. The rumors about supernaturals are like, totally real, and can endanger everyone in this school for real, too. Also I turn into fish when I come in contact with water.”

Sensible best friends would either a) not believe you, or b) try to get you as far away from supernatural shit as possible ‘cause hello? Ya ain’t Miles Morales ya can’t just blast What’s Up Danger when monster of the week shows up.

Even if Aoi does let it continue, wouldn’t she wanna get involved? Would Nene let her get involved when Tsukasa’s still around? Ya girl got cursed, thrown off the top of a boundary, sent to literally nowhere and everywhere, almost got her body stolen by mirror monsters, kidnapped and taken into a fake world, and now trapped in literal Grim Reaper’s realm. Honestly, who would involve their best friend in this sort of shit?

It just makes me sad to think that all this time Akane and Nene have genuinely cared about her but she didn’t think they were. Aoi, my girl Nene literally threaded hell boundaries and high shallow water to save you!!!

Unrequited platonic love hurts just as much as romantic ones, y’all ....

Speaking of romantic love.

Hey, uh, Akane. For claiming to despise Hanako and calling him a slimy pervert, y’all kinda act the same way with your respective girlfriends when things get a bit heated up, huh? Even the teasing part.

Boy, you’re dumb af. You deserve that.

There it is y’all, it’s official. We got punches for akaoi and headbutts for hananene.

You deserve this too. But Teru’s face here is really annoying, I’ll give you that. Teru you little shit.

At least you’re finally gonna be useful. Let’s just see.

Hmm I guess I have to address the thing now.

Ahem. The thing. The pushing (pulling?) Aoi down, grabbing her neck thing.

Yeah I don’t get it either. Whether it was a creative choice taken in consideration to the actual character’s state or to just pander to the trope that seems to be marketable in Japan or both, I don’t really know.

I do however, have to remind you that none of these kids are in their right mind. One is possibly still recovering from the effects of brainwashing and dealing with not only extreme trust issues and insecurities, but also the sight of a gaping hole on her childhood friend and perhaps crush’s torso, not to mention having to deal with this in the middle of nowhere. The other one is the said person with a gaping hole on his torso, who almost lost his life-long crush, and even got stabbed by her in the first place.

They’re lost. They’re tired. They’re emotional. They’re frustrated. They’re two hormonal teens.

I think Akane thought Aoi wouldn’t listen to him unless he makes her. Which is why he went with exposing her by saying he hated her. Which is still a dumb move in my opinion. But Aoi rightfully got back at him. And honestly I didn’t think he really hurt her. I mean, it’s Akane after all. *shrugs*

The way I see it, the entire thing was a result from not only their current condition but also the uh ... not telling each other how they really feel all this time. Aoi with her issues, Akane with his secrets. They’re a ticking bomb. It’s horrible that they ended up hurting each other because of this (physically and emotionally), but I could see why it went like this. These two are flawed. Most importantly, they’re teenagers. They’re bound to fuck up in this equation.

Heck, I’ve fucked up worse in less endangering situations before.

But heeey once things get cleared between them they fall right back to each other. Sure things aren’t entirely resolved. But they’re gonna be okay. Teru’s there. Should be fine. Probably.

The thing is we as the audience who come into the story with a clear head can easily figure out the best, most sensible way to deal with the characters’ problems. But these problems affect the characters in (physical, physiological, psychological, emotional) ways most of us can’t immediately empathize with, which can make their bad decisions frustrating for us to see. We know it’s wrong. And when these characters have calmed down and healed, they’ll know that it’s wrong, too. If they’re not dicks, that is.

You know how it feels when you’re fighting with someone, and you know the best thing to do is to talk it out, but you just can’t bring yourself to? It makes things worse, right? And you’re frustrated, right? Unfortunately that’s just how humans are.

Even I let my emotions get the best of me when I judged the villagers’ actions back in chapter 68 hahaha (but I still think they’re awful).

It’s just my opinion tho.

And whooo everyone is officially here but Yamabuki (and Sakura and Tsukasa, but they’re bound to show up)! Catch up soon, my citrus child.

Lastly, I have the moral obligation to remind you that if akaoi’s confrontation ended up like this, imagine how hananene’s would be.

I’ll leave you to your deductions.

As always, feel free to discuss. Just ... don’t fight, onegaishimasu.

[snowstories]

I’m creating an esper girl AU because of course I am, and it focuses on the girls teaming up to save pretty much all the other espers of Seasoning City, who have been kidnapped by a mysterious organization. Anyway here’s a rundown of everyone’s powers I have so far:

Mezato: brainwashing, but like, mostly subtle. She basically has a form of telepathy/empathy that focuses on projecting her emotions/thoughts/wants/needs onto others, and uses that to influence people’s minds. She usually does this over a longer period of time, because that’s harder to detect or resist, but can brute force her way into your brain if need be. 

Tome: spacey powers; gravity control, wormhole creation, light manipulation (or rather, darkness manipulation; mostly the ability to take light away from places and make it dark, though other abilities sneak in too). Also has some very basic psychokinesis. 

Emi: written curses/talismans. She can curse anything she writes on, as well as make portable curses on paper. In addition, she can also protect anything she write on and create written talismans for people to carry. Also has the ability to see curses.

Tsubomi: necromancy and control over living beings. More specifically, she can control physical aspects of both dead and living things, such as bones, blood, tissue, etc. Can also create decay, and has chlorokinesis.

Rei: extrasensory perception/clairvoyance. Yes I know she’s a canon esper I just wanted to make clear she’s involved in my AU.

More details about their powers and a little bit about the role I’m planning on giving them in my AU under the cut.

Mezato:

Her powers manifested when she was too young to remember, and she’s used them on an almost daily basis since. This made her spoiled rotten and used to getting her way, creating an ego similar to that of Teru or even Touichirou. However, after the Divine Tree Incident, she got some character development and realized that always getting what she wants through mind control has left her hollow, which, combined with the newfound knowledge of just how scary it can be to be on the receiving end of mind control, has knocked her down a few pegs and made her use her powers less. 

Is mostly a support member, searching out information by brainwashing people into giving it for her and/or using her brainwashing to get access to places she shouldn’t have. 

Has the best control of her powers out of everyone in the group, and functions as something of a mentor for the rest because of that, despite her distinct un-mentor-like personality and the fact that her powers aren’t really comparable to most of the group’s.

Her power level is rather high, somewhere around Teru’s and/or Takenaka’s level, but she’s not and will never be as overpowered as Mob.

Has a very faint, sickly yellow aura. Can brainwash you into overlooking it, forgetting you ever saw it, etc. 

Avoided the organization’s detection because her power is very subtle and hard to recognize, and even telepaths and empaths generally don’t pick up on her aura because she has a unique mix of the two abilities.

Tome:

Her gravity control functions basically the same as the leader of the Seventh Division’s, but much less powerful (and she can’t create orbs at the start of the story).

Her wormhole creation is basically just cool space themed teleportation, with the added bonus of making it easy for to teleport large groups (but she develops it relatively late into the story).

Light manipulation mainly focuses on being able to take light away from a place, so it looks more like she’s controlling darkness than light. However, later during the story, she develops invisibility (and maybe even the ability to manipulate colour? idk I think it’d be cool).

By ‘very basic psychokinesis’, I mean that she can do basic esper things like create barriers/have raw explosions of energy, but can’t do anything more advanced. Doesn’t even have telekinesis. Cannot shape her raw psychic powers like the vectors Teru/that one Seventh division guy uses. At most can blast people somewhere like Serizawa, but it’s much weaker than his. Mostly, her psychic powers lie in her space themed powers.

Her powers manifested when she came under Rusty’s curse, as a desperate reaction to try and keep her alive, but since they only manifested as a slight increase in gravity and some darkness swirling, everyone assumed it was Rusty’s curse and didn’t pay it any mind. Tome later found out that they were her powers, and was planning on telling someone, but then all the espers got kidnapped.

Has really shoddy control of her powers to start with, bc she only just manifested them, but learns and grows quickly.

Has impressive powers but a moderate to moderately high power level, a little weaker than Ritsu to start with and eventually developing to somewhere around his level.

Acts as one of the front line members and is often on the offense, because her powers are very well suited for it, and she’s the only one of the team who can create barriers. Later also helps with stealth missions, after she masters her darkness control/invisibility, and acts as the transportation for the team after she manifests the ability to create wormholes.

Has a very noticeable galaxy aura when she’s using her powers, but it’s faint if she’s not. It gradually becomes more and more noticeable even when she’s ‘in rest’ over the course of the series.

Evaded detection by the organization because her powers had only just manifested, and nobody except her knew they existed.

Emi:

Manifested her powers during the last exam period, after she got way too stressed and her powers pulled a Ritsu and awakened. This happened about a year prior to the start of the story. Found out about her powers after she noticed she had accidentally cursed her teacher with her exam, and suddenly gained the ability to see spirits.

Is bad at detecting esper auras, because her power set is very unique and has little overlap with either psycho/telekinetics or telepaths/empaths.

How powerful her curses/talismans are is almost entirely dependent on how much time she’s had to prepare them; she stores up energy into the curses/talismans, which releases when the curse/talisman is activated. 

She does have an upper limit, of course; the most extreme talisman she could create would be a one-time protection against death, and the most extreme curse she could create would either cause minor decay in a person or collapse a building. She cannot store power for longer than a week.

Has a moderate to moderately high power level. However, her unique power set makes her hard to compare to others. Would, with practice, maybe be about as powerful as or just a little weaker than the curse guy from the Seventh Division, but her power is less suited for battle bc she needs to store energy first.

Has really bad control over her powers bc she’s scared of them; accidentally curses almost anything she writes on, and doesn’t really know what her base powers are. Doesn’t even know she can make talismans at the start of the story. Eventually becomes more confident and gains better control over them.

She didn’t tell Mob or any other esper about her powers because of the aforementioned fear of them. Was, however, working up to asking someone for help after realizing she can’t control them herself; had told Tome in confidence, who was planning on asking Reigen for advice on this (since he may not be an esper, but he knows pretty much all the espers in Seasoning City). 

Avoided detection by the organization partially because she’d told almost nobody of her powers, and partly because her unique power set gave her an aura that’s practically invisible to most other espers.

Has an ink black aura that rises up from her hands like thick smoke/ghibli tears when she’s writing her curses; otherwise doesn’t have an aura at all.

Rarely to never goes out into actual danger situations, because her powers are basically useless for spur of the moment defense. Almost a complete behind the scenes support member, making curses for the team to use and talismans to protect them.

Note to self: prime damsel in distress material. Might get kidnapped at some point.

Made friends with Tome online after finding out they both liked the same game. 

Tsubomi:

Her powers give her the ability to, among other things: have rudimentary brute force control over animal’s bodies (sort of similar to blood bending but harder to maintain; this drains a lot of energy and is generally impractical), deform tissue/blood/bones in animals (hard to control, but easy to manifest), control over plant bodies (the easiest for her), control corpses (very easy), cause decay in things (pretty easy in organic matter, a lot harder in inorganic matter), and heal living thigns (very difficult, requires fine tuned control).

Manifested her power about one to two years after she stopped being friends with Mob, but rarely if ever uses it because it really freaked her parents out and they encouraged her to keep it secret, and because her powers are by and large useless in day to day situations.

She’s not particularly bothered by the nature of her powers herself, but does recognize that it’s very morbid to others, and can be pretty self-conscious about that.

Her control over her powers is decent, but not great. She has a fairly good grasp on what her base abilities are and doesn’t have wild explosions of power, but is bad at knowing where her limits lie and unpracticed in a lot of areas of her power. 

She’s extremely powerful, about at Touichirou’s level, and if she was more practiced, she might even be able to hold her own against Mob. 

Is the tank of the team; because of her raw power, she often brute forces her way through obstacles. The biggest issue with her is that her control isn’t fine tuned enough to ensure that she won’t seriously injure or kill people if she goes against them, which, in the beginning, makes it difficult to send her out into the field. However, once she gets the hang of that, she’s easily the most powerful.

Evaded detection by the organization because she never told anyone she was an esper, and because she moved out of Seasoning City about a year prior to the start of the story.

Emi was a friend in school and she maintained contact with her after she moved.

Gets dragged into the story after Tome, Emi, and Rei evacuate Seasoning City and come to her. 

Rei:

Only canon esper in the gang, and mostly maintains her canon powers. However, due to frequent practice over the course of about four years, her extrasensory perception/clairvoyance now has about an 80% accuracy rate, and she can even sometimes sense nebulous things from the future, such as ‘danger’ or ‘happiness’. 

She actually was detected by the organization, but she felt a sense of danger before they came to kidnap her and booked it. When she realized that almost all of her friends weren’t answering their phone, she figured out that espers were probably being targeted by someone, and went to Tome for help, who seemed like the safest option at the time. Tome realizes she might be watched bc of her work at Spirits and Such, and brings them both to Emi, after which they decide it would be saver to go out of town entirely and go to stay with Tsubomi.

She went to Tome for help because she was one of the two (supposed) non-espers involved in esper shenanigans she knew. The other was the Awakening Lab guy, but after being kidnapped by Claw, she realizes that he would almost certainly be watched, and opted for Tome instead. 

While they aren’t close, acquaintances more than friends, she knows Tome from Spirits and Such. 

Functions as a support member, primarily; while she does go out into the field if necessary (usually paired up with Mezato, because she could point to people who probably has information/are important and Mezato could take care of them), she also often stays at home base, sifting through documents and internet rumors to find the ones that she can sense would be the most useful. 

As in canon, her power level is very low, but she is definitely one of the most practiced members of the group and has good advice on how to train your powers. Along with Mezato, functions as something of a mentor as a result, and is very nervous about it.

[thatonekawaiigirl13]

Who Said Death Was Easy? [Death Note] Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-One: Confession

Light’s POV:

“Light-kun!” Misa squealed, causing Light to inwardly groan. He stepped into her hotel room, barely getting through the door before she pulled him into a rather bone-crushing embrace. “I missed you!”

“It’s only been a few days since we last saw each other. You visited me at headquarters, remember?” he muttered quietly. “Don’t be so dramatic.” 

She’s annoying as always…one upside to finding a new Kira is that I won’t have a reason to see Misa anymore. Not that she has to know that. 

“I know!” Misa replied, pouting a little. “It’s been so long…why are you here? Are we finally going to get to go on a proper date?!”

“Not quite,” Light replied, earning a slight frown from Misa. “Misa-chan, please understand, I’m strictly only here for business. There’s something pressing that we have to discuss. It’s important, so I’d like it if you’d be serious.”

“That’s no fun,” Misa pouted, leading him into the living room. She sat on the couch, patting the cushion next to her. “But what is it? I thought you’d be happy that I started killing criminals again! Isn’t that what you wanted me to do?”

Light sat down next to her, “it’s not quite that per say…I did want Kira to continue punishing criminals, but...it’s complicated. Where’s your death note?”

At this, Misa jumped up, “wait a moment, I’ll get it!”

He watched as she left for her bedroom. Light was wondering how best to break the news to her. However, he didn’t have very long to think. Moments later, she was barreling back into the room, death note in hand. Ryuk was trailing closely behind her. 

“Hey, Light!” Ryuk grinned, “got anything for me?”

“Of course. How could I forget?” Light murmured, reaching into his pocket for the fruit. The apple was gone from his hand in seconds. 

“Anyway,” Misa interjected, “what’s going on, Light-kun? You look so serious…is anything the matter?”

“There’s been a change in plans, I’m afraid…” Light looked between Misa and Ryuk, who was still gobbling down the apple. He turned his attention back to Misa, taking a moment to turn his charm on. 

I know she won’t be happy to hear this, but it’s what Rem wants…if I want Rem to get rid of L for me, I need Misa to agree to this… I have an idea...I think I know just how I should go about this…

“Misa-chan,” Light started. “Please keep calm and listen to me. I know that you want to help me by acting as Kira, and I really appreciate all that you’ve done for me…but I think it’s best if we find a new Kira…”

“A new Kira?!” Misa squeaked out. “Don’t tell me you don’t think I’m suitable for the job anymore! I thought I was doing pretty well…Light-kun, don’t tell me you’re replacing me because you don’t like me anymore! I’ll do anything you want me to!”

I knew she’d react like this…now it’s time for me to convince her…I have a feeling she’ll end up agreeing by the time I’m finished. 

“It’s not that at all, Misa-chan. Don’t think so much. It’s not what you think. And anyway, you’ve been doing a great job acting as Kira,” Light commented. “However, it doesn’t feel fair to me to ask you to dedicate your life to this.”

Misa was quick to reply. “Oh, don’t worry about me Light-kun! I don’t mind at all!”

“You might not mind, but I do. Trust me,” Light leaned over, tucking a loose strand of hair away from Misa’s face. He spoke softly, catching her eye as he did so, “you’re beautiful, you know that. I’ve always thought so, too. I don’t want you acting as Kira because I’d rather you be doing something else with your time. Let someone else do the dirty work. Hashimoto wants to cast you in his new movie again, right?”

“Where are you going with this, Light-kun…?” 

“What I’m saying is...why don’t you tell him you’ll do it? Why don’t you go back into being an actress? Don’t waste your talents, Misa-chan.”

“But…” Misa protested. It was clear that she was going to need a bit more convincing. 

Fortunately, I know what to do… 

Light pressed a finger against her lips, which was instant in silencing her. “I know this seems so sudden, Misa-chan…but I’ve thought a lot about this. I know you want to help me, and I’m grateful for everything that you’ve done up to this point. Right now helping me means that you’ll let go of the death note and go back to your normal life.”

Misa grabbed Light’s hand, guiding it away from her face. While she was still rather shocked, it appeared she was calming down some. “Are you sure about this? You truly want me to go back to my career and give this up?”

Light gave a nod, “absolutely. I’ve already found someone to replace you as Kira. He’s the best person for the job. Once he takes over, you’ll be free to do whatever you please. You won’t have to worry about anything.”

“You’re really...serious...about this…” Misa murmured. She let out a breath, staring up into Light’s eyes. She was silent for a moment, as if deep in thought. “Alright, Light-kun. I trust you...if you’re certain, and this is really what you want me to do, I’ll do it. You know I’d do anything for you…I just want to know if this is really what you want first. I know I’d make a great Kira...”

A smirk found Light’s face, I knew it would work on her…it didn’t take very much convincing at all.  

“Like I said a moment ago, I’m sure about this,” Light confirmed. “I’ve already thought everything through. It’s not that I don’t like you acting as Kira, it’s just...it wouldn’t be fair to ask you to give up your passions in the process. Besides, it’s safer this way. If someone on the Task Force were to test the fake rules, we’d be easy targets. That being said, it’s better if neither of us are Kira, because if something were to trace back to us, it probably wouldn’t end very well. That would mean all that extra work we did before would be meaningless.”

“That makes sense, Light-kun,” Misa leaned back on the couch, looking deep in thought. She was quiet for a few moments, absorbing what he said. “You really did think this through. Who is this new Kira that you’ve decided on then? I want to see this guy for myself.”

Heh, I knew you’d ask. I came prepared, as always...

He took out a stack of papers out of his briefcase, handing them to her. “His name is Teru Mikami. I created a list of possible people that could take over as Kira in case something were to happen months ago, and he was always my number one. He’s quiet, methodological, and doesn’t ask unnecessary questions. He exercises good control over his emotions, so I wouldn’t have to worry about any slip up. Like you, he’d be willing to do anything I ask of him without hesitation. Most importantly, he’s loyal to Kira.”

“Oh, wow. He’s a criminal prosecutor?! He’s perfect,” Misa grinned, holding up his file. “He really is the perfect Kira…”

“Yes, he’s the ideal candidate,” Light replied. “Misa-chan, listen to me very carefully. Here’s the plan. I want you to get in contact with Mikami-san, but make sure that there is no record of your interaction. There cannot be anything that links Teru Mikami to either of us. Once you get in contact with him, tell him that Kira has chosen him to become his right hand man. You can kill off a criminal to prove your identity...then the time is right, I will get in contact with the two of you, and the exchange of the death note will be made.”

Misa gave Light a nod. “I understand! When do you want me to contact him?”

“The sooner, the better,” Light raised an eyebrow, “I can count on you, right?”

“Of course you can!” Misa grinned, “don’t worry, I got this!”

Good, good, looks like everything will work out smoothly after all…this little bump in the road will have been worth it.  

/meanwhile/

Keiko’s POV:

Keiko kept watch of Light’s empty chair. For the first time in a while, he had left headquarters.  While there wasn’t much going at the moment, her thoughts were more than enough to keep her occupied. There was a lot for her to consider, especially about Light Yagami and how to go about the rest of her plan.

Light’s been gone an awful while...he said he was stepping out to get some fresh air, but somehow I have a feeling he’s meeting up with Misa. He has to be, there’s no other plausible explanation. And, if I’m correct, then that means they’re probably trying to figure out who the next Kira will be in their place. I can’t sit still and wait for them. I suppose now is a good time to put the next phase of the plan into action...that means...it’s finally time…with the two of them electing a new Kira, the investigation starts from scratch. At least, on the surface, it will. There’s a way to make progress with my plan and with the investigation, but I’ll need some help...his help.

“Ryuzaki-san,” Keiko stood up, walking over toward the detective. She had to admit, she was a little nervous, but it was time to tell him. “May I speak with you in private?”

She watched as L turned around in his chair to face her. From what Keiko could tell, it appeared that he had been expecting her. “Yes. If my deductions are correct, this is about what we talked about last time, right?”

Keiko gave a slight nod, looking him in the eyes. “Yes. I think it’s time…”

“Time,” the detective echoed. “You mean…”

He trailed off. Although he never quite finished his sentence, Keiko knew the two of them were on the same page based on the look in his eyes. 

She gave him a soft smile. “Yes.”

I suspect you’ve already tried to figure out what my plan is…and maybe you have, but it’s finally time for me to tell you what’s been on my mind this whole time…with Rem now on my side, I feel confident enough. You should be safe for the time being...which means no more keeping secrets, and no more lying...at least not to you.   

“I see,” was his immediate response. He was quiet for a moment, and Keiko wondered what he was thinking. Fortunately, she didn’t have to wait too long. The detective’s voice was much softer as he added, “Kagami-san, you’re sure about this, right?”

“Yes.” Keiko nodded once more, “I’m sure.”

“As long as you’re sure,” L replied. He met her eyes, a thoughtful look on his face. “I told you before, I trust you. You’ve made it this far, after all.”

At those words, Keiko’s heart soared. She knew, coming from the great detective, those words meant the world. “I…” she trailed off, suddenly feeling a little shy at his unexpected compliment. The look in his eyes wasn’t quite helping her either. “I-I just…” She couldn’t speak, not when he was smirking at her like that. 

“You just...” he repeated. It was clear to Keiko he was enjoying seeing her flustered. “What is it, Kagami-san?”

Keiko looked away, trying to ignore his gaze. “I just…wanted to update you on what’s been going on…like I said, I think it’s time…and I’ll be needing your help with some of it...or rather, you and your connections…”

“Is that so?” L raised an eyebrow, chuckling slightly. “It sounds like you’ve thought everything through. In that case, let’s go…”

/short timeskip/

“...I was thinking, once we finalize all the preparations, we can go after them. With everyone’s cooperation, I’m sure we can get the evidence we need to capture Kira once and for all. Of course, no one else can know what we’re up to. Rem knows I have a plan for Light, but even she doesn’t know the specifics. Anyway, I’m not worried about her. As long as Light doesn’t suspect anything, we’ll be good.” Keiko finished. Despite her anxiety, she was glad she let everything out. She cast a look at the detective. As she expected, his face didn’t betray any emotion. Instead, she waited with bated breath for his response.   

What does he think? Is it what he expected? Wait…what if it’s not and he doesn’t think it will work? What if he’s silent because he’s regretting his decision to trust me? No, no, you can’t think like that! You’ve come this far…he said it himself. You managed to earn his trust, so have a little faith in yourself. Even if he isn’t entirely sold on the plan, you can find a way to convince him. You can make things work! 

“Look, I know it won’t be easy, Ryuzaki-san,” she added after a moment, breaking the silence between them. “I’m aware of that. But I’m prepared to do whatever it takes. That’s why I took Light back in the first place. I’m certain that, if he thinks I’m on his side, he won’t suspect anything…at least not from me. And anyway, as long as we work together, I’m sure we can pull this off. It’s the only chance we have…please.”

“Kagami-san,” L said after a long moment. His gaze met hers, and Keiko was starting to feel anxious all over again. “Based off what you told me, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how risky this plan is. I’m afraid, no matter how well thought out your plan is, it’s still a dangerous idea, especially if you get caught.”

“I know. To be completely honest, I’m terrified.” Keiko swallowed. “But you’re already in a dangerous position right now. I couldn’t just sit back and do nothing.”

She watched as the detective took a step toward her. A flash of emotion crossed his features. “You really did all of this for me?”

A sheepish look found its way onto Keiko’s face. She gave a slight cough, her cheeks already tinged with pink. “And for the investigation, of course,” she added.

“Hmm…” He raised an eyebrow at her but said nothing. 

Keiko wasn’t sure how to take his sudden silence. Her mind was buzzing with worry, what’s he thinking…? Is he going to let me continue on with this…is he going to help me with setting the rest of my plan into action? He will, right? Or at least, I really hope so…unless...what if he thinks my plan isn’t good enough or something? Is that why he isn’t saying anything? Is he by any chance disappointed?

“Ryuzaki-san,” She started, but the look on the detective’s face cut her off. His expression was only momentary, but she wondered if he was concerned. Keiko wasn’t quite sure. Before she could stop herself, she started to speak once more. “What is it? I don’t know what you’re thinking and it’s driving me crazy.”

Actually, crazy is an understatement… 

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it,” the detective let out a breath. “All you need to know is that I trust you, Kagami-san…and it should go without saying that you have my support.” 

“Thank you, Ryuzaki-san. That really means a lot,” Keiko found herself saying. She gave him a soft smile, feeling a little better at his words. 

But he’s still holding back…what is it? 

However, despite his answer, Keiko found she still wasn’t satisfied. The two of them both knew that there was more he was keeping to himself. While she knew it would be a shot in the dark, she also knew that she had to attempt to pry the information out of him. 

“Ryuzaki-san, is something the matter? Is it something with my plan? Are you worried it won’t work out?” Keiko questioned. At his silence, she swallowed. “Please, just talk to me.” 

The detective buried his hands in his pockets. His eyes flickered towards Keiko, studying her intently. “It’s not your plan that I’m worried about, Kagami-san.”

At this, Keiko let out a sigh of relief. However, her relief was only short lived as she realized he still had yet to fully answer her questions. “Then what is it?”

“Like I said, I’m not worried about the plan…I’m worried about you.”

“A-about me?” Keiko stuttered out, taken aback a moment. For the second time that day, she was speechless. This answer was not what she expected. “You’re the one that’s in danger, L…it’s you that I’m worried about.” She said simply, meeting his eyes. His gaze was soft, causing her heart to skip a beat.

He was worried about me again? I know the circumstances are grim, but hearing him say that…and knowing that he was concerned about me…makes me happy. That means he really does care about me.  

“That may be true but I was serious when I said I didn’t want anything to happen to you,” L started, breaking her away from her thoughts. He took a step toward her, his expression serious. “I know you’ve thought a lot about what to do, that much is clear, but think about the position you’re in right now. At this point, Light Yagami will do anything to ensure that Kira wins. And you’re letting him use you as his pawn. Not only that, but you made a deal with a shinigami. You’re in a dangerous position yourself.”

“I-I’ll be alright,” Keiko replied. “I’m sure of it. Don’t worry about me.”

“That’s much easier said than done, Keiko-chan,” the detective said, causing Keiko to lose her breath.

When he says things like that, he makes it impossible for me not to fall for him!

For a moment the two stared at each other without saying a word. The detective was so close, if Keiko were to reach forward, she’d be able to touch him. To hug him, maybe even kiss him. The thought was enough to make her shiver. It took a lot of effort, but she refrained. For both of their sakes.

I know it’s silly to think about at this point, but I wish things were different. Technically, I have a boyfriend, even if he is Kira…and L’s told me that, due to the nature of his job and status, having feelings for me would be too risky…but still. I can’t help how I feel about him. While I can’t act on those feelings, I can still help him. Right now, I suppose the only thing I can do for him is to help him capture Kira once and for all. 

“Just tell me you’ll be careful,” L spoke, breaking the sudden silence between them. If he could feel the tension between them, he didn’t show it. 

But, then again, he’s always been better at hiding things…it’s always hard to know what he’s feeling. 

A faint smile played on Keiko’s face as she nodded. “I will…besides, we can do this. I know we can outsmart him.” 

After all, what other option do we have?

At this, L’s lips curved upwards, “I hope you’re right, Kagami-san.”

/timeskip/

L’s POV: 

“You’re finally here,” the detective commented, not looking up from his computer screen. “You were gone an awful while.”

Too long, in fact. It’s suspicious...

“Ah, sorry, Ryuzaki-san,” Light started. He sat down in a seat across from the detective. “I lost track of time. There was a lot to think about.”

‘A lot to think about’, eh? He narrowed his eyes, I’m sure there was a lot to think about, Kira… I know exactly what you were really doing… 

“Everyone else already went to bed, huh?” Light added after a moment of silence passed between the two. “It sure is quiet in here at night.”

“It is,” L agreed. 

Now that Light’s back, it’s time for a quick little test…this is all I can do right now for Keiko…I have to make sure that she’ll be okay for the time being, I have to make sure that Light still thinks she’s in love with him. At this thought, he felt a pang of some sort in his chest, but he brushed this aside, as much as I don’t like seeing the two of them together, their being together is a good way to ensure Keiko’s safety.

The detective turned around to face Light, an eyebrow raised. “Kagami-san was wondering when you’d get back. I’d say she missed you.”

“Is that so?” Light commented. The detective watched as the corner’s of Light’s mouth curved upwards as he chuckled. “Well, I missed her too. It’s too bad I couldn’t see her tonight, but I suppose I’ll get to see her tomorrow.”

The detective studied Light carefully, looking for any sort of sign of suspicion on his part, hmm…from what I can tell, he definitely doesn't suspect anything at the moment, meaning Keiko should be alright for now. I thought as much, based on his previous behavior. Also...I’m quite curious…were you really missing her, Light Yagami? Or are you lying to me once more? One way or another, I’m going to find out. 

L let a few moments of silence pass between them before opening up the conversation once more. “Did you happen to meet up with Misa Amane by any chance?” L questioned.

At this, Light frowned. The detective could hear a hint of defensiveness in his voice as he replied. “No. I told her that I had no feelings for her, why would I see her? That makes no sense, Ryuzaki-san.”

Denial. Of course. I knew he was going to react this way, but…

“You can lie to Kagami-san, but not to me,” L raised an eyebrow. “Why else would you take so long? You went to see her. It’s that simple.” 

Well, what now, Light Yagami? Will you continue to lie to me? You should know that it’s pointless, it was pointless from the beginning. 

“Fine,” Light replied, crossing his arms. “I went to see her. But it’s not what you’re thinking. I just don’t want Keiko to get the wrong idea. I don’t want her making assumptions and getting hurt again.”

“Oh, I assure you, I’m not thinking anything. In fact, your relationship with Kagami-san is none of my business…” L started, “but quite frankly, I’m curious. You say you don’t want her to get hurt again and yet, if she were to find out what you were really up to, she would be. Tell me…are you truly in love with her?”

“You’re right, my relationship with Kagami-san is none of your business,” Light retorted. His voice was lighter as he added, “you can think or not think what you want.”

How interesting…it appears I struck a nerve. 

“You sound quite offended, Light-kun. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but…I think you might’ve just indirectly answered me anyway.” 

Based off of how defensive he’s getting, there’s only one answer that makes sense… 

“I am in love with her,” Light replied after a moment. There was a slight bitterness in his voice as he added, “I’m in love with Keiko Kagami, not that it’s any of your business.” Afterwards Light paused, almost as though he was a little shocked at his own admittance. L supposed he was, after all, it would be better if Kira were just as emotionless as he was, that way he could kill without complication.

I had a feeling that was the case…and even though I know it’s good Light is in love with her…it hurts. To think, that monster’s in love with her…and she has to pretend to be in love with him as well. Logically, I know it’s the only way for Keiko to carry out her plan…but emotionally…I’ve tried never to let my feelings affect me like this but whenever I see or think about the two of them together…well…perhaps Watari was right…perhaps I am jealous…     

Light continued on, “anyway, that’s how I feel. I wouldn’t want to hurt her. I’m sorry for being so abrupt, Ryuzaki-san.”

The detective gave a nod. “It’s quite alright. I’m not offended. After all, I was the one prying into your personal business.”

“Thank you for understanding.” Light headed toward the hallway, “now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be going to bed.”

“Of course. Rest well, Light-kun.”  

After Light left the room, all L could think about was his previous conversation with Watari from the other night. It replayed in his mind, plaguing his thoughts. He knew he should have been focusing all of his energy on the investigation, but he found it was becoming increasingly harder to keep Keiko off of his mind. 

L closed his eyes and Watari’s words echoed through his head once more, “have you ever considered the possibility that you might be in love with her?”

At this, the detective’s eyes sprung open. 

Of course…this time, I was the fool…  

The answer had been right in front of him the whole time. He had simply refused to accept it, or rather, he could not bring himself to accept it. 

Until now, at least…especially after having such a strong reaction to Light’s confession…there’s no way I can deny it any longer.  

His thoughts traced back once more to Keiko; her warm smile, her fierce determination, her fearlessness, even in the face of danger. He had to admit, he was hooked on her. His lips curved upwards absentmindedly, and the realization hit him with full force. The detective’s eyes widened, his heart skipping a beat.

I tried to avoid it all this time, but Watari was right…I love her. I’m in love with Keiko Kagami… 

[hcpefulmarshmallow]

Hello friends, I just wanted to make a quick case for some of the lesser-liked characters in the series. Mostly our blackened, but pretty much anyone who does something morally questionable, directly related to the killing game. There are a lot of people in this fandom who are highly critical of some of them - which is fine, it’s okay to be critical of your media. But there are some important things to remember I just wanted to bring up:

 (Oh, and I’m mostly talking about 1 & 2 because hoo boy v3 is on a whole other level and gets SO much more complicated)

 --These people were kids at the time. Even though technically they were older than they thought they were, their memories had been wiped, and their minds (and in some cases, bodies) were reverted to their 16/17 year old selves. 

 --They were thrust into an extremely difficult situation I challenge any adult to face, and come through morally pure. What passes for ‘good’ in the real world isn’t the same as what’s good in a game where it’s kill or be killed. Can you honestly say that there’s no situation on Earth, even one that seems near impossible, that would push you to go directly against your own moral code?

 --Recall, if you so bravely will, the discourse around the H.unger G.ames when it was first released, and all the discussion about the ethics of the tributes themselves. The general consensus was usually: no, they aren’t evil, they’re children put into an impossible survival situation by adults. Even the careers, who trained for this their whole lives, were brainwashed into believing in the “glory” of being a victor. It’s the adults that sanction the child killings who are evil. The tributes might not all be likable, but that’s not something they deserved to die over.

 --I’m not saying this gives the characters a free pass. It’s still pretty inexcusable to physically or sexually harass someone, but under these circumstances, there are some things that require a closer look. 

 --For instance, Sayaka gets a lot of crap for luring a fan to his death. And yeah, under normal circumstances, that would be an abhorrent things to do. But these aren’t normal circumstances. We have no indication Sayaka planned to kill anybody at the beginning, but that all changed for her rather quickly when she saw her DVD. The game was no longer a game. It was a trolley problem. She had to choose between her band - the people she considered family, who she loved more than anyone in the world - and this group of strangers she thinks she’s never met. Imagine yourself in that context. A teenager, terrified out of your wits, cut off from the outside world, surrounded by people who might try to kill you, and forced to choose between them and your closest loved ones. Again, not exactly righteous, but at least sympathetic. 

 --Let’s take a more grey example. Teruteru, who I personally struggle with and love as a character at the same time. I love the role he plays in the story. From a narrative sense, his character is used well in my opinion. He knew about Nagito’s little plan, but chose to do nothing about it. In fact, he used it to his advantage to commit murder and try to escape the island. He claimed he was just trying to save everyone else from Nagito, but that has a glaringly obvious fallacy: the trial. If he got away with it, everyone else would have died anyway. He could have, and should have, just told the others. I truly believe this lie about ‘saving’ everyone is something Teru told himself to justify his actions. If you recall, he was established early on as being the most terrified. He spent most of his time trying to deny what was before his very eyes, because he was singularly incapable of comprehending any of it. That already makes him the easiest to manipulate, and the quickest to do stupid, thoughtless things. And then he learns that his mother’s life might well be in danger. Once again, he has to make the choice whether to try and save his loved one and sacrifice everyone around him to do it, or...not. And I’m not saying there’s a right answer to this conundrum. Either way, you’re doing something you’ll regret for the rest of your life. But when you factor in his age, his fear, and his love for his mother, his actions become far more understandable. Does this absolve him of his other bad behaviour? Certainly not. It’s entirely valid to be made uncomfortable by a guy who uses a girl’s perceived naivete to coax her into a sexual situation, or speculate about the colour of womens’ panties, no matter how much he loves his mama. But remember, not all immorality is created the same.

 --Does love justify murder in any context? That’s for a higher power than me to say. Danganronpa doesn’t pretend to present a typical good vs evil narrative. It doesn’t try to make it easy for us. It doesn’t try to tell us that all people are good or evil, black or white, one or the other; and the characters that frame the world this way tend to have quite skewed moral compasses themselves. To hate a character isn’t to condemn everything they ever do, and to love a character isn’t to endorse their every action. And you’re allowed to like or dislike whoever, based on whatever you want. 

 --That said, when drawing your own conclusions, take in more than just the characters. Take in their lives, their circumstances, and then make up your mind. You’re also allowed to be sympathetic towards a character you dislike, or find fault in a character you do like. Again, it’s not all up or down here. Take in the type of story this is, and the fact that if all the ‘good guys’ were purely good, it would be a rubbish story. Take in the fact that these terrified kids are being manipulated at every turn, and while that doesn’t heal the damage they do, it certainly makes them more redeemable. Take in the fact that, while they do some messed-up stuff, most of these kids are good and harmless under normal circumstance. The circumstances under which most of us live our lives. They might be somewhat immoral, but we’re not necessarily any better. And the only way to know for sure, is to actually be in that situation. The only way to know your limits, is to find them. And I sincerely hope none of us ever have to find out whether we’d kill or be killed. But if you write off everyone in the story who ever did anything bad, decide that makes that character automatically unworthy of your interest, then you’re missing the best thing about DR, my friend. At least, that’s my tea on the matter. 

Tl;dr: it’s okay if characters in a work of fiction do immoral things, even if those characters are supposed to be the ‘good guys’. There’s no such thing as a morally pure human. Be critical, by all means, but don’t criticize. 

[mirrorteru]

This is late-night ramblings but

(also. does this count as muse spoilers???? probably??? maybe???? i don’t know i just like to Ramble)

so like with richard the corruption he spreads isn’t always like, power-giving. sometimes it just fucks with the people. idek if it does other stuff to somehow spread more or not but basically the power-giving corruption stuff isn’t a frequent thing

there’s like, maybe two or three other characters among the worlds/multiverse that I have thoughts for as being corrupted with the power-giving stuff aside from Kai

he’s able to corrupt people himself bc he is being outright used as a vessel/meat puppet/host/emissary for like the main. actual fuckin eldritch entity behind the BR stuff. corruptive dark force elder god bullshit that’s mostly formless but my mental image of a representation is the BR eye surrounded by tendrils/thorny vines or something

I still need to think of outright reasonings since this is all working backwards and stuff but eventually he did get curious about the units, and likely the increase in arcane units, to where he decided at a point to do a little Experiment himself

Damien was chosen at random, out of false builders he saw, to work with. Damien, being a false garage builder sent out by the GVF, would purposefully make faulty units to people looking to get garage built units, to smear the reputation of garage building. (a waste of his talent, honestly, but at least he gets to be out in public)

Richard would of disguised himself to look like a normal person, and-- being, well, completely in Phase 3, that’s super super easy for him. Damien would of been weirded out at this rando but eventually they did work together on one unit they started on-- which. Would of been Kai. 

Since units could have powers, Richard likely stuck in his own corruption while building Kai with Damien, really without even Damien being fully aware.

With Richard also working on making Kai tho, that also meant Kai’s build is. Slightly different from general GVF builds. They didn’t need a tuner to be opened up, though the option was given, and it’s likely some internal stuff is different. maybe this could be my bs reasoning as to their ‘simulated breathing’ stuff they do, and maybe that could of also been played off as some of the experimenting. Idek

In order for Richard to make sure the corruption actually took hold/stuck with Kai though, he’d need to actually. See them active. 

As such, the two did do test runs, but Richard decided to keep them on for longer... specifically, a little over two weeks, maybe three.

Basically, during the androids main learning/training period.

He wouldn’t bother to really wipe anything after, either.

....either way, Richard likely secretly kept an eye on Kai even after they were given to Teru, to see how things would go, what would happen, if this would work.

.......and upon rambling up to this point I realize I went way off my initial ramblings which was BASICALLY

Richard is a vessel for the main BR elder god what the heck ever, and as such Kai getting the corruption is similar to getting it straight from said thing

Same with. Those other handful of characters that got the power-giving corruption from Richard.

Though it doesn’t make them vessels for the outright elder god, but going up to phase 3 would basically be as powerful as Richard is. At the cost of, well, losing themselves.

They can’t even die, not really. Even if you remove the head, tear them apart, obliterate.

....that being said the more damage done, the longer it would take for them to come back. Outright thanos snapping them would proooobably take like. ...depending on what phase they are in, a month to years, and also depends on if they get uh... help. (like. Richard, or the BR main honcho. but that,,, would come at a price. You want them back, right...? Doesn’t matter how they’ll be....? even if they’re heavily corrupted, at least they’re back, right~~?)

And even then, they’d likely be in QC mode for _quite_ a while before totally snapping back to themselves. ...if they aren’t in Phase 3, since phase 3 doesn’t really get a QC mode since that’d be redundant. 

this became a god damn novel i’m so sorry I’m just getting thoughts down

and also I Fear things being too OP but this is literally reality breaking eldritch stuff that’s pretty horrific to deal with sO i’m just. Shrugs.

also if --- kai for example got thanos snapped and thus was Gone for a long time, the pocket dimension at least has links outside that wouldn’t go away--- it’s likely it’d stay replenishing for a while but eventually... stagnates. The first obvious, immediate thing would be the time on the pocket dimension being stuck at whatever time that happened. Noon? Night? Morning? Evening? it’ll be like that until Kai comes back, however long that would be. Weather stays the same, as whatever it was when they got erased. The wind either stays blowing whatever direction it was at the time, or completely stops.

so eventually they’d all have to leave, back into their world.

also i’m using thanos snapped as an example because that’s like ultimate getting erased so

anyway uh i apologized earlier i’mma sleep

[its-love-u-asshole]

Let My Love [Ch. 1]

Pairings: Kuroo Tetsurou/Tsukishima Kei

Summary: For Kuroo, finding love was all about patience. He had no problem with waiting for the right person to come along, no matter how many awkward dinners or weddings he had to endure as a single man until they did. Regardless, meeting Tsukishima was something he’d never been prepared for. The feelings were overwhelming and intoxicating, ones he was sure he’d do anything for. However, it seemed his endless waiting wasn’t over. 

Rating: T 

Warnings: none

Note: haha...I started another multichapter -sweats- I’m excited for this though, it’s a bit different from the stuff I usually write and will have some other storylines so it’s definitely a challenge for me! I like the idea a lot though, so I’ll try to update as much as possible before school starts <3 Enjoy! Thanks to @emeraldwaves​ and @amajikies for reading this over! 

AO3

Kuroo’s hands typed steadily, the words and phrases beginning to read more like gibberish in his mind instead of proper sentences. Not to mention he missed a letter every now and again due to his sleep deprived brain, resulting in atrocious typos he was in no mood to fix. His fingers stopped suddenly, eyes uselessly scanning over the blurry letters and science formulas. Obviously, writing this article was a little beyond his comprehension level right now.

That, and the fact he could barely focus on any of his older cousin’s words through the phone were probably good signs he needed caffeine. However, upon rolling out of bed, the energy to actually go to his kitchen and rectify the situation had been quickly drained out of him when he noticed his phone light up.

He couldn’t explain it exactly, but Kuroo felt he had a sixth sense at times when it came to reading the mood of a certain situation or day. This particular day, it was dread he sensed, like the universe was willing him to not pick up the phone. Kuroo thought he could just let it ring, as he did with most calls, but when Semi’s name and photo appeared clear as day on screen, he knew he had no choice but to answer.

It was far too early for this.

Kuroo rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, grimacing at the grainy bits of sand he caught on his fingers as he leaned back in his chair, defeated. “A lake house? You want to rent a lake house?”

Semi’s all too innocent voice drifted smoothly through the phone, the voice of someone who had probably been up for hours already. Jerk. “Yeah, Kenjiro thought—”

“Don’t implicate me in this,” a flat, much grumpier voice called from somewhere in the background, and Kuroo couldn’t help but laugh at Semi’s grunt of disapproval.

At least he could always count on Shirabu to keep things real with him, no matter how blunt he could be. How someone as considerate and polite as Semi managed to fall in love with the crown prince of callousness, Kuroo would never know.

Of course, he knew that was an exaggeration, but like hell was he going to point out how perfect the two were together when they were literally trying to drag him on some ridiculous adventure.

“Fine,” Semi continued, his sigh long and surrendering. “I thought it would be nice for all of us to get together for a week. It’s been a long time, and god knows a lot of us work too hard. A vacation seemed like a good idea.”

“All of us? Like…all of us?” At that, Kuroo found himself a bit more awake.

Semi had a point, Kuroo worked himself like a dog writing for the science magazine, though he wasn’t afraid to say he loved his job. It was the best, writing about the things and discoveries which fascinated him, and it even meant he could work from home. However, it could get to him, being all cooped up. The thought of going to a lake house with all his closest friends sounded like a dream. But while he could admit a vacation wasn’t a terrible idea, the well-mannered part of him couldn’t stand for Semi’s grandiose gesture of friendship.

“Yes Kuroo, all of us,” Semi said, his tone practically the vocal equivalent of an eye roll. “Stop trying to act like I’ll be feeding an army, it’s nine people.”

“That’s a lot of rooms too…”

“Only six rooms, married couples tend to sleep together you know,” Semi said, voice smug as if he’d already won the argument. Ah yes, the other problem…

“It’s still expensive Semi, and wait…nine people?” Kuroo grabbed a stray pen on his desk, wincing when some of the ink leaked through the pen cap and onto his hand. He needed new office supplies…

Without waiting for a response, he grabbed a random notepad and began to work it out in his head. There was him, and then there was Semi and Shirabu (duh Tetsurou), Oikawa, Yachi, Kyoutani, Yahaba, and finally Terushima. At the thought of his eccentric, fun loving cousin, Kuroo couldn’t help but smile. He, Semi, and Kuroo had grown up together, forced to attend family events and reunions where they would of course wander off and get into trouble. He looked down at the names, feeling a surge of nostalgia at how much he missed them. Seeing everyone again would be nice…

Still, he was seeing eight.

“I’m a professional athlete Kuroo, I…make more than enough money,” Semi informed softly, clearing his throat right after. Kuroo snorted to himself, of course Semi would feel bad about seemingly bragging about his income. Riches hadn’t changed him in the slightest, and it made Kuroo miss him all the more. “And oh yeah, Teru apparently has a new boyfriend, so he’ll be coming. Apparently our dear cousin really likes this one.”

Of course he does.

The news was enough to bring out a wry smile onto Kuroo’s face. Terushima had introduced them all to a handful of potential beaus and babes in the past, but none had ever made the final cut. He hoped this one was different. As picky and ridiculous as his younger cousin could be, he deserved to be happy.

But that didn’t mean Kuroo couldn’t make fun of him. In fact, he could make fun of a lot of the people he considered family too.

“Oikawa isn’t bringing his one true love? He sure talks about him enough,” Kuroo said, making a mental note to call the brunet at some point; it had been a while. In the background, he could hear Shirabu scoff and hum in agreement.

“Iwaizumi is still away at grad school abroad, otherwise I’m sure Oikawa would insist,” Semi said with barely concealed amusement. “But anyways, stop avoiding the question. Will you come? The house has Wi-Fi so don’t even think of using work as an excuse.”

Kuroo couldn’t hold back his wince, Semi sure did know him well. It wasn’t like Kuroo was actively trying to get out of going though, really, the whole idea sounded like a lot of fun. It was just—

Semi made an undignified squawk on the other end of the call, and before Kuroo knew it, Shirabu’s cutting voice was ringing through his ears. “Stop bullshitting him Kuroo, we all know you just don’t wanna go because you hate being the only single person there.”

The words were like ice, quickly traveling through his body and veins until he was frozen over completely, the pen dropping from his hand and clattering onto the desk. Kuroo clutched the phone tighter, knowing he’d been caught.

Well damn.

“K-Kenjiro! You don’t need to be so rude…” Semi sounded distant, voice fading in and out of clarity as if he was physically having to wrestle the phone away from his husband.

“Well it’s true!”

“Why would that matter to Kuroo? He’s not like that,” Semi said with a final strain to the end of his statement, his breath heavy from finally having won the phone back. “Um…right? Kuroo?”

Kuroo winced again, and that was all Shirabu needed to hum triumphantly. Bastard. How Kuroo had been friends with both of them since the baby daycare days perplexed him. Either way, it meant they knew him well enough, and someone with no tact like Shirabu was more than happy to point it out. Bless Semi, that poor soul.

It wasn’t like Kuroo was upset he was the only single person in their friend group (well, aside from Yachi, but no one gave her the same crap they gave Kuroo).  He wasn’t envious, not in the slightest. It was simply annoying. Every time he’d meet up with his friends or family, it always came back to who he was dating. Or well, who and why he wasn’t dating. Kuroo was pretty good looking, had a well-paying and steady job, and was all around a charismatic guy. As a college student, he’d go on dates all the time, hook-ups, blind dates, kissing booths, whatever. Girls and guys liked him, loved him even. He just hadn’t found someone he loved back.

After a while, he’d gotten tired of just sleeping around or breaking hearts when he knew he had no intention of making a life with any of the people he dated. What was the point in dating just for the sake of it? So, he’d stopped. Kuroo had promised himself he’d only get involved in relationships if he could see himself falling in love, if there was a real connection. So far, there hadn’t been, and he was more than content with that. Falling in love and getting married was definitely something he wanted sure, but he wanted it with the right person, and he had no problem waiting.

His friends disagreed.

“Well, see…you guys don’t exactly leave me alone about that stuff,” Kuroo admitted sheepishly, slumping when he heard Semi’s indignant gasp.

“That’s not true! When have we ever done that?”

At that, Kuroo couldn’t help but give a dry laugh.

Well, never. Directly.

But Kuroo could count how many odd looks he’d gotten at Semi and Shirabu’s wedding, and it had started a trend. An awful trend. It was always ‘Semi seems really happy as a married man’ from his mother, or ‘when are you gonna find that lucky someone, Tetsu?’ from his dad. Then there was Oikawa’s constant nagging, or Yachi’s well-meaning but awkward questioning.

And then it had gone further downhill, because all his friends started to settle down, which made his singleness seem amplified by fifty percent--it was like he was a walking pity party. Oikawa had a date every weekend it seemed, never short of suitors. Then Iwaizumi came into his life, and Oikawa had never been happier. Terushima was the same, albeit with a bit more drama and still no permanent relationship, but it seemed that was changing too. Hell, Kyoutani and Yahaba had basically been in love since middle school, and their wedding had been the previous year.

(Kuroo was specifically sat at the table nearest the bar at that wedding, right next to the singles table. Nothing was more depressing. So yeah, lots of fun.)

“You guys realize that everyone outside of our group sees me as the lonely troll under the relationship bridge right?” Kuroo deadpanned, trying to restrain his laughter when dead silence was heard on the other line. “Say, why doesn’t anyone get on Yachi’s case for this?”

Shirabu was quick to answer. “Because she’s a peppy independent woman, and you’re a loser.”

“Kenjiro.”

“Just consider coming Kuroo, it’s not a big deal,” Shirabu said finally, and the sudden softness actually made Kuroo perk up. “If you really think the attention will be a problem, bring someone. Or don’t. Whatever. You know we’ll all drag you there anyways…”

The last statement was said in a whisper, and Kuroo could practically tell Shirabu was glaring at the phone. Shirabu was actually trying to comfort him, and it was pissing him off. What a nerd.

Kuroo smiled, the implied ‘we miss you’ in Shirabu’s words having not gone undetected. His chest felt warmer than it had in weeks, and his only regret was that it was the feisty ex-setter who had delivered the final blow. Damn, what did he do to deserve these wonderful idiots?

“You know I’m waiting for the right person, but I’ll keep an eye out,” Kuroo said with a grin.

“You do that Kuroo,” Shirabu deadpanned, and shortly after, Semi cleared his throat.

“So…you’ll come? You have about a month to decide but…” Semi trailed off, and he was probably doing that thing where he bit his lip or stuck out his tongue from nervousness. Just like back when they were kids…

Kuroo laughed, the sleepiness from earlier having fully melted away. “Yeah, sure.”

After all, he couldn’t let his biggest fans down. What would they do for a whole week without his puns and knowledge of newly founded scientific theories?

Kuroo couldn’t help but smirk. This time, he’d have all the fun.

“Great,” Semi breathed out finally, texting Kuroo the details as if he’d been waiting to the whole time. He probably had been.

There was a comfortable silence that followed as Kuroo looked over dates of the vacation, and as he was about to hang up, Shirabu spoke up for the last time, voice smug and mocking.

“So…when are you gonna get married Kuroo, you’re getting kind of old don’t you think?”

Kuroo answered with the dial tone.

--

Hoping to be productive, Kuroo made plans to go to the library the next day. If he was going to go on this trip, he wanted to get a head start on next month’s article. It was better to have most of it done now than to spend most of the vacation worrying about it.

However, as he walked up the stone steps to the library’s revolving doors, he couldn’t help but feel out of place and jittery. It was stupid, considering all the other times he worked at the library, and how usually it provided him with a motivational and quiet environment. Today just wasn’t his day it seemed.

Kuroo would be up for a promotion soon—so these next two articles, one of which was finished, had to be perfect. That was stressful enough, but more than anything, he couldn’t help but find himself flustered over the phone call with Semi from the previous day. Maybe it was general excitement at the thought of seeing all his friends again, but the dread from before was still there.

Kuroo hated to admit it, but maybe the whole being single thing was getting to him more than he thought. He was twenty-seven, almost twenty-eight, and by no means old. Hell, with his looks and health, he was in the prime of his life. There was no need to worry about him finding a potential partner anytime soon, and it wasn’t something he wanted to rush.

Of course, that hadn’t stopped his brain from giving him nightmares about dying alone. What a good night he’d had.

Sighing, Kuroo happily stepped into the library, inhaling the comforting scent of books and printer ink which always brought him solace. After college, the library became his new most visited place after the volleyball court, a place he could sit in all day and get lost in his imagination and thirst for knowledge. It was perfect, and he couldn’t wait to get started on his research for the magazine’s article.

Luck was, apparently, not on his side.

The collection of computers usually provided by the library as databases were all turned off, with sheets of paper taped to each one. Already cursing the day, but never one to be negative, Kuroo walked over to them. The papers said what he’d expected, that the computers were out of order, and to go to a library attendant if people needed help finding the books. Glancing over to the main help desk, Kuroo saw two computers for the librarians to use as databases, and could already tell that a line would no doubt form once more people came in.

Thank god he’d come early.

Kuroo strides were brisk as he approached the counter, eyes trained on the desk. He’d have to find all his books now if he didn’t want to wait in line later…

Plopping his book bag on the desk, Kuroo began rifling through it in frustration, searching for the resource list he’d haphazardly stuffed into it that morning. He didn’t look up when he heard footsteps stop in front of him, too focused on making sure the rest of his day went off without a hitch.

As he rifled through his things, he came across Yahaba and Kyoutani’s old wedding invitation, which he’d never thrown out, souring his mood even further. Why the universe was bent on reminding him of his own romance predicament, he wasn’t sure.

Kuroo didn’t even bother holding back a groan as he resumed looking for his book list.

“Can I help you with something?” The person in front of him finally spoke, voice soft and velvety despite the irritation laced through it. It reminded Kuroo of a freezing gust of wind, refreshing and biting all at once. Kuroo was too involved in his own task to really linger on the sudden sensation though, or the source.

As a result, his tact had also seemed to fly right out of him. “Yeah, got any books on how to get my annoying friends off my back about being single?”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Kuroo felt like sucking them back in, his breath hitching with the power of a vacuum as he processed what he'd said. Ah damn. 

Oversharing had never been an issue for him, yet here he was, accidentally unleashing his frustrations out to an unsuspecting library worker. Kuroo pursed his lips, his hand freezing just as it gripped the sheet of paper he'd been looking for all along.

He waited for an awkward cough or scoff, maybe even a scolding for his rudeness. It definitely wasn't his day. Kuroo tapped his fingers against the tarnished wooden surface of the desk, stiffly pulling out his resource list and laying it flat in front of the employee. Kuroo didn’t dare look at the other’s face.

Instead of sounding irritated though, the person simply snorted, their body relaxing as they leaned against the counter. From their close proximity, Kuroo could smell the faint scent of sand and saltwater—his favorite.

“If such a book did exist, I’m sure people would be fighting over it as we speak," the voice answered, and yeah, Kuroo thought, velvety was the perfect way to describe it. He may have written scientific articles, but he knew his way around some adjectives.

Oh god, he was an idiot.

But actually yeah, the other had a point.

Kuroo laughed at the joke, tension leaving his muscles as he ran a hand through his hair. Finally, he looked up as he spoke, unaware of just how deadly of a blow it would be. "Yeah, you got a point ther—"

Kuroo choked on the end of his sentence, and the sensation returned tenfold. Like a cold, refreshing gust of wind, or an ocean breeze at night, golden lanterns lighting the way...

That was what looking at the other man in front of him felt like. Kuroo didn’t know it was possible, to have just one person practically embody such an image.

The young man's eyebrow arched in question, his plush lips pulled into a frown as his gaze slowly drifted to the paper on the desk. As his hand reached out, Kuroo noted how the sleeves of his black jumper were too long, easily sliding past his palms. The v-neckline of the jumper was skewed, as if the other had put it on in a bit of a rush. His blond hair was damp, and it pressed against his neck and forehead, and Kuroo could take a guess now about why the other smelled like he was born from the sea. So many questions…

Beautifully pale skin.

Piercing honey brown eyes which glowed behind black frames.

Long, delicate fingers.

Kuroo's eyes jumped from one feature to the other, his mind trying to drink in as much as he could before he was forced to step back into reality. He didn't know what had gotten into him, or why he'd never seen this man at the library before, but Kuroo couldn't take his eyes off him.

"Um, do you need me to look up all of these?" The blond's tone was hesitant, slow, alerting Kuroo to the fact he probably looked like a complete moron staring into oblivion. The blond's fingers crept over the crumpled paper, pulling it closer to him.

Kuroo cleared his throat, knocking on the desk with his knuckles as he begged himself to form coherent words. "Uh yeah, please! I need them for an--articles, magazine articles I mean. I write magazine articles."

Oh my god, what's wrong with you?

Kuroo was known to be quite the smooth talker, and this was just embarrassing.

The blond squinted warily before he moved to the computer, beginning to type in the authors Kuroo had listed. Every now and again, his gaze would flick back to Kuroo, his fingers slowing in their typing.

Kuroo wondered if he felt it too...whatever this weird moment was.

Kuroo couldn't have explained it if he'd tried, it was something he'd seldom experienced. It wasn't that Kuroo didn't believe love at first sight could happen, though it was rare. He didn't even know if this was it, but he knew his own emotions, and he trusted his instincts.

This person in front of him was special, and Kuroo wanted to find out why.

He leaned more of his weight on the desk, inching closer into the other's personal bubble as he watched the blond dutifully write down the call numbers from the computer.

Hell, his handwriting was even pretty.

"Hey," Kuroo began, his voice still feeling way too loud despite his whispering. "I haven't seen you around before. I mean, I come to the library often for work, I know most of the employees pretty well."

"Do you want a medal?" The other scoffed before his face twisted in regret, as if he'd forgotten he was at work. Kuroo lost it. He snickered into his hand as the blond pouted, his stunning eyes sending an impressive glare at his computer screen as he aggressively scribbled down another number.

"Actually yeah, I do. My one from last year isn't as shiny anymore, " Kuroo retorted, happy when the other relaxed upon realizing Kuroo wasn't actually angry at the comment.

The blond rolled his eyes, but Kuroo didn't miss the amusement hidden in them.

"Seriously though, how do I know you're not some impostor, trying to steal forbidden library secrets?"

At that, the other actually stopped typing, bringing a hand to his hip as his eyes stared up at the ceiling, as if trying to figure out how to answer Kuroo without calling him an outright nuisance.

"I already know where the hidden make out row is, thank you very much," he finally said with the ghost of a smirk, and fuck, Kuroo felt a shiver run down his back. "I'm a new volunteer, that's all."

"Volunteer?" Kuroo perked up, his head tilting to the side. "You a college student or something blondie?"

"It's Tsukishima. And I'm not, I'm a web designer." Tsukishima tensed after that, his eyes going wide like he'd said too much, and he regarded Kuroo curiously afterwards. It was pretty cute actually, as if Kuroo had performed some sort of witch craft.

Ah, so he's not normally a sharer?

For some reason, the realization ignited a fire in Kuroo. "Work from home?"

"....yeah."

"Me too!" Kuroo said, clapping his hands together. "What a small world. I also come here for fun of course."

At that, the blond crossed his arms, unbelievably unimpressed.

"So you write science articles, stay at home, and the idea of going to the library is what constitutes as fun?" Tsukishima clicked his tongue, his smile smug and practically begging Kuroo to snap a photo of him. "You sound like a nerd to me."

Oho, a decent jab. But Kuroo could return anything dished out.

"I'm pretty sure web design is nerdier than magazine writing."

"Science magazines. That makes a big difference. Have you seen the titles of these books?" Tsukishima waved the paper around, the wobbly sound echoing into the silence of the library.

Ugh, so cute. What the hell.

"Okay now, no need to get vicious."

"There's always a need to get vicious,” Tsukishima said with a huff, his eyes twinkling with mirth.

"Spare my poor chemistry books kind sir, I beg you." Kuroo couldn't help but smirk, his skin warm as their eyes locked, building a fire deep inside him. What is going on?

He was just having a normal conversation for fuck’s sake. Right?

The quick beating of his heart disagreed. The amusement faded from Tsukishima's eyes as their staring contest continued, those long, beautiful fingers clenching around the pen the blond was holding. It was then Kuroo realized Tsukishima had scrawled the last call number down long ago.

The chill was back, the connection was there.

Kuroo wondered how close he'd be standing if the desk wasn’t separating them, the pull between them too strong. It would've certainly been enough to lure him into the blond's waters, and he didn't have a clue why.

He didn't really have to know why either. Sometimes, he just knew when he'd met someone worth his time, and why miss out on it?

Kuroo licked his lips, not missing the way Tsukishima's gaze flicked to them quickly before returning to Kuroo's eyes. "Um...do you--"

There was a loud cough behind him, and everything seemed to unfreeze, the smell of the ocean and sounds of the sea disappearing into nothingness as the spell broke. The fog in his brain lifted, and he wasn’t sure he was thankful for it.

"Excuse me?" An aggravated voice spoke up behind him, way too loud for the preferred library volume. Kuroo glanced over his shoulder expecting to see one disgruntled patron, but was met with a line of seven or eight people.

Whoops.

Kuroo flushed, smiling sheepishly as he pulled his book bag back over his shoulder in a haste. As he did so, he caught sight of his watch, revealing he'd ended up staying at the counter for a good twenty minutes longer than intended.

Shit.

Tsukishima snapped out of his daze right after Kuroo, practically shoving the list of books into Kuroo's chest. The blond’s face returned to a more neutral expression, calm and almost uncaring despite the obvious complaints and mutters behind them.

"Here you are,” he said, defaulting back to a more professional tone. Then the blond leaned to the side, looking past Kuroo with evident annoyance in his eyes, luckily not directed at Kuroo. "I'll be with you in just a moment."

Kuroo heard the blond mutter a curse under his breath, and the man behind him in line huffed in displeasure. Kuroo felt guilty for holding up the line, but he was more in shock at the fact he hadn't noticed at all.

He was usually so much more observant than that, a people person, constantly aware of his surroundings. But in the moment, it had felt like nothing and no one else existed, and it made his palms sweat and his throat dry up.

"Uh thanks, sorry about that...well, bye," Kuroo stuttered out as he started to walk away, meeting Tsukishima's stare until the other was forced to tend to the next patron.

All the while, it was like something in Kuroo begged him to stay.

He shook his head profusely, willing himself to focus on finding the correct floor for the first book. He had work to do, whatever this was...he could sort it out later. His article was what mattered most.

Yet as he made his way to the second level of the library, not tearing his gaze away from the head of blond hair at the front desk until he absolutely had no choice, he knew this was far from over.

[gutter-guy-100]

And There Were Daffodils in Her Eyes

Read chapter 5 here on AO3

Summary:  Asigiri Minori is going to change.

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5

I would like to thank you all so much for the overwhelming support I’ve recived while writing this fic, I’d also like to bring attention to some fantastic artists who have created fanart for the series: teruki-terugay, hybridshadzart, ilee-font, And malengold made two pieces! (If you make a piece tag it with 'And There Were Daffodils in Her Eyes' so I don't miss it!)

Thank you again, you can read under the cut or at Ao3!

Days turned into weeks and weeks quickly turned into a month. An entire month Minori had spent at Salt Middle School. Though time didn’t move fast for Minori. Her days started with her rolling out of bed in the morning from sleepless nights and ended with sweat and tears after long training sessions with Teru. In Between were tiring classes and failed attempts to have any sort of casual conversation with Mob.

Lunch had quickly become one of the only nice parts of Minori’s day. Everyday Minori ate lunch with Mezato in either the newspaper club’s room or the courtyard. Mezato was great to be around. She was chatty and knew everyone in the school, she was nice and was genuinely interested in things Minori had to say. It felt strange, having a real friend, someone who didn’t know about her wealth, or that was using her for her popularity, or that was just plain terrified of her.

Thanks to Mezato she had been able to meet other students too. Emi was one, a sweet, if not shy, girl with brown hair and a lovely smile. She hung around the newspaper club room often to try and get her short stories published. Mezato always argued that the school’s newspaper wasn’t for works of fiction. Minori had offered to read Emi’s novels and she thought they were pretty great.

Minori also had the honor of meeting Tsubomi, a girl who Mezato had described as “Salt Middle School’s idol”. It was obvious why, Tsubomi was beautiful and sweet and friendly. And she was so damn nice. Tsubomi is everything Minori could have been. Tsubomi had rose to popularity because of her own kindness, not because she was rich or manipulative, she was popular because she was nice and pretty and everything Minori could never be. Still, Minori couldn’t even hate her because she was just so damn perfect . It made Minori sick .

Minori had learned that a lot of things made her sick now. Bad dreams and big tests and large groups of people and sometimes when she saw a stray cats walking alleys she could feel her stomach twist. She wasn’t always like this, in fact it was all very new, she just figured it was a side effect of her new powers or a reminder of her past self. She did know that she wanted it to stop.

She wanted to be anywhere but here, On her hands and knees in a restroom stall staring down at the toilet water. What had triggered it this time, she doesn't know. Was it the volume of the classroom? The fact that she had a math test today that she had skipped out on studying for? It could have been the way Mob had looked at her when she had said good morning to him, a vacant stare and a monotone ‘hello’ that once again reminded Minori that just maybe, this was a horrible idea, and just maybe, he doesn’t give a shit about her.

Whatever the cause, it didn’t matter right now. Because right now she felt her stomach lurch and her throat grow hot and the taste of acid spread through her mouth. Her hands pulled her hair back tight as her entire body contracted. Chunks of her lunch and breakfast from the day hit the water, some splashing back and hitting her cheeks. She retched until there was nothing left in her but dark green bile and spit. With the vomit came tears that streamed down her face and dropped into the toilet bowl with all of the garbage that had just left her body. She clutched her stomach and heaved one more time before hugging her knees to her chest and leaning against the wall of the bathroom stall.

She felt low. Lower than ever. Nothing but her now-stifled sobs echoed through the air.

A loud knock on the bathroom stall interrupted her. She let out a quiet gasp when she turned to see someone's shoes from under the crack of the bathroom stall. If she hadn’t just emptied her stomach she probably would have thrown up again.

"Um," it was a boy’s voice, "Doing okay in there? You know this is the boys bathroom, right?"

An almost silent "oh my god," left Minori's lips. She didn't even think to look at which bathroom she was entering before she ran in.

She reaches her hand to flush the toilet and grips the toilet paper dispenser to help her stand to her feet. "S-sorry. I didn't realize." She wipes her mouth with the palm of her hand and then wipes the spit and acidic residue off on her skirt. It leaves a gross green stain behind that won’t be fun to wash out later.

She opened the stall door to be greeted by a taller, brown haired boy. He wore an unreadable expression that almost reminded her of Mob. Her face flushed red with embarrassment and she focused her gaze to the floor. She sidesteps past the boy and goes to the sink to wash her hands and face. She wished that she had a toothbrush or a mint or anything that could mask the stench of vomit on her breath.

"I think you should go to the nurse."

"I'm fine, re-"

"No, seriously." She’s almost taken aback by how serious the boy’s tone is, "You should go to the nurse. I'll take you."

Minori decides that it's best not to argue with him. She agrees with an almost silent, "Okay."

With that the boy turned to exit the bathroom. Minori followed closely behind him, peaking her head out of the bathroom door nervously and checking the hallway for other students.

The boy looked back at her, "No one is in the hallway, don't worry."

The two walked down the hallway together in silence. Minori stared at the back of the boy’s head as they walked. She wasn’t sure if she had ever seen the boy on campus, he didn’t look too familiar. There was something that felt off about him though. The closer Minori was to him, the more she felt the familiar warmth of an aura that she had only found in other espers, 'Is he...?'

The boy stopped so suddenly the she almost ran right into his back. "This is the nurse’s office."

"Oh, thank you so much, um..."

"Takenaka."

Minori twitched into a small smile, "Thank you, Takenaka-kun."

Takenaka turns to meet her eyes, his gaze concentrated. For just a moment, the air feels almost a little too uncomfortable for Minori. When he finally responds, it's somewhat quiet, "You shouldn't overwork yourself."

"What... what do you mean by that?"

Takenaka let's out a sigh and shrugs, "You just looked like you needed to hear that." Minori isn't sure how to take that, but he isn't exactly wrong. "Anyway, feel better."

Minori watched the boy walk down the hallway until he disappeared behind the corner. 'Ah, I forgot to tell him my name,' she thinks. She hopes that she'll catch him in the halls someday so she can properly introduce herself.

She turned to look at the door to the nurse's office and for a split second contemplated turning around and going back to class. The angry growl her stomach made swayed her decision.

~~~~~

The nurse had insisted that she go home early. Her father, in his usual overly dramatic fashion, called off the rest of his meetings for the day so he could pick her up himself. Minori was glad that she had insisted on making her father let her take the train to and from school. The sleek black car with tinted windows that pulled up to the school gates really did seem to stick out against the ordinary atmosphere of Seasoning City. The driver’s side window opened and Minori locked eyes with her father’s chauffeur. ‘He could have just driven himself,’ she thinks as the chauffeur opens the backseat door for her. She slides into her seat and smiles at her father who’s sitting in the seat next to her.

“How are you feeling, sweetheart?” Worried was plastered all of her poor father’s face.

“I think I’m okay.” she leaned back  and rested her knees on the back of the empty passenger seat, “It might have just been something I ate.”

“Alright, as long as you’re feeling better now.” He rests a hand on her shoulder, “I’m proud of you, Minori. Transferring to a new school, making good friends, doing well in your classes, I feel like you’ve grown up so much.” Minori can hear her father’s voice beginning to choke up, “You’re doing great.”

Minori smiled, “I’m just doing my best.”

“And how’s that Kageyama boy doing?”

“He’s… fine. He’s a really nice boy.” Minori avoided her father’s questioning gaze and turned her attention to her cracked fingernails.

“I’m sure he is. The next time you see him, I want you to tell him and that master of his that we still owe them the world for what they did for us.”

Minori’s brows furrowed as she looked back at her father, “Master…?”

“Yes, I haven’t been able to contact him since back then, but Kageyama was brought to the exorcism by another man. Some self-proclaimed psychic.” Her father let out a soft chuckle, “I wouldn’t just invite a kid to preform exorcism, I’m no madman!”

Minori doesn’t ever remember seeing a ‘master’ with Mob, she’s not even sure that he’s ever mentioned having a master. He has mentioned having a job before though. A part of her wants to think that maybe, just maybe, she could get Mob to take her to meet his master so she can meet him. The other part of her thinks that it is a horrible idea that will only bring more friction between her and Mob.

“I’ll stop by his workplace tomorrow after school and thank him.”

When they get home Minori makes sure to take some medication to soothe her stomach pains and nausea. Her father tried to convince her to see the doctor, but she reassured him that she just needed to sleep it off. And that’s exactly what she did. When she wraps herself up tight under the fluffy blue covers of her bed she’s asleep almost the moment she hit the pillow.

It doesn’t feel like long though, before she’s woken up by the sound of incessant ringing. In a groggy state, she groped her sheets to try and find her phone that had gotten lost between blankets and pillows. By the time she finally has it in hand the ringing had stopped. She clicks the home button and squints her eyes as they adjust to the brightness. ‘4 missed calls from Teruki Hanazawa’

“Shit!” Minori shoots up from her bundle of blankets and pillows, ‘I didn’t tell him,’ She thinks as she quickly scrolls through her contacts, ‘he’s going to be pissed.’

The phone only rings once before Teru picks up. “Where are you?”

“Teru-san! I’m so, so sorry! I got sick at school and I forgot to tell you that I wasn’t coming today. I’m so sorry, I-”

“It’s fine.” The tone of his voice indicated that it was absolutely not fine. “Tomorrow we’ll just train twice as hard.”

Minori swalled hard, “Um, actually… I’m doing something after school tomorrow, so I…” She trails off her sentence when she hears an exasperated sigh come from the other end of the line.

“Asigiri-san, I’m starting to think that maybe you don’t take this as seriously as I once thought. I’m not going to waste mine time on you if-”

“No, Teru-san! I am taking it seriously, I’m sorry. Friday we’ll train three times as hard, I’ll try to lift the building of you want me to!”

She hears a breathy laugh coming from Teru, “No need for that. I have something special planned for you, don’t worry. Now, if you're sick then you should get some rest.”

“Thank you, Teru-san. And once again, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine, just remember to let me know ahead of time. I’ll let you go now, tell Kageyama-kun that I said hi.”

“I will.” Minori lets out a sigh of relief as she ends the call and drops the phone back onto her bed. She was half expecting Teru to be a lot harder on her. Teru was a little scary, to say the least. He worked Minori until she was on the verge of tears sometimes. Having her lift and throw things and levitating herself and testing every boundary of her powers. It was paying off at least, Minori finally had a pretty good grip on reeling in her powers, no more accidentally exploding objects or floating her bed up two feet in the air every time she had a nightmare.

Minori laid back down in her mess of pillows and blankets and closed her eyes.  In her head she rehearsed what she would say to Mob tomorrow until she drifted back to sleep.

~~~~~

Mob had kept his distance from Minori since the day he took her to train with Teru. To him, he had done his job in helping her and saw no need to offer her any further assistance. It was impossible to completely avoid her though, especially when she was in the same class as him and had started making friends with the people he knew. No one is completely avoidable. But he had kept his distance.

That's why when she had suddenly approached him near the school gates at the end of the day, he was not-so-pleasantly surprised.

“Mob-kun!” Mob turned around to see Minori jogging over to him, waving her hand excitably on the air to catch his attention. She slowed her pace and smiled as she approached  him, “Hey! I um, I wanted to ask you something,” Mob gave her a slight nod before she continued, “I know this seems like it’s coming out of nowhere, but I’d like to meet your master.”

Mob answers Minori with a confused look, furrowing him brows and curling his lips together, “Um. Why?”

“I just,” Minori reached into her schoolbag that was hanging off of her shoulder. She dug around for a moment and then pulled out an envelope, perfectly white with a wax seal holding it shut, “My father wrote this thank you letter, I wanted to hand it to him directly. I have a lot to thank him for.”

Minori didn’t know what answer she was expecting, but she was pleasantly surprised when she heard Mob mutter a quiet “Okay,” and started to walk.

Minori followed close behind Mob. After a month of attending school in Seasoning City it doesn’t feel like such a foreign place anymore. She recognized buildings and streets and could probably navigate her way around town by herself now.

Minori tried to break the uncomfortable silence that had grown between the two, “So, what exactly do you do at your job?”

“Exorcise spirits, give consultations, things like that. Master Reigen does most of the work, really.”

“Wow, are there really that many spirits out there?”

“Well, there are a lot of dead people, so.”

Minori felt her face flush, she made a mental note to not ask anymore dumb questions. “I haven’t seen any spirits yet, do you even think I have the ability to?”

“All espers do.” Mob slowed his pace as they approached a building, a large sign hanging from the side read “Spirits and Such Consultation Office”. They make their way up four flights of stairs before they reach an office door with a small plaque next to it reading the same Spirits and Such name that was on the sign outside.

Mob opened up the office door and flicked on the lights. The office was small and had an almost a homey feeling. The smell of incense and lavender fill the air as Minori walked inside. Mob headed over to the desk and started shuffling through papers and folders that were strewn all across the wooden surface. "Master Reigen is probably out right now, you can go ahead and sit down while you wait for him." He motions over to two chairs that sat adjacent to each other in the corner of the room. She walks over to one of the chairs and goes to sit down, but she jumps back when she sees someone was already there. Something between a gasp and a yell gets stuck in her throat, and she can only make a distressed sound as she practically scrambles backwards.

"M-Mob-kun! There's someone in here!"

Mob doesn't even look up from the desk he was organizing, "It's just Suzuki-kun. He's a friend."

"Oh, okay..." Minori looks down at the boy, curled up like a cat on the small chair. The way he was curled up, practically contracting his entire body, looks painful to Minori, but he seems to be in a pleasantly deep sleep. He almost look a little too eccentric to be a friend of Mob’s. Bright red messy hair, a face dusted with freckles, and a warm aura that Minori could feel from where she was standing.

Mob walked over to the chair and gently nudged the boy, "Suzuki-kun, its late in the afternoon. You should get up."

There's a moment before the boy starts stirring. He let out a loud yawn and stretches out his body across the small loveseat. "Hmm, thanks for waking me Shige." The boy sits up and stretches his arms over his head, letting out one last yawn before he finally notices Minori. “Oh, hey. Sorry Shige, I didn’t realise you had a client in right now.”

“She’s not a client she’s a… friend. She’s here to meet Master Reigen.”

“Hi,” Minori extends a polite hand towards the boy, “I’m Asigiri Minori, it’s nice to meet you.”

The redhead stands up and grabs Minor’s hand, shaking it a little too enthusiastically, “Suzuki Shou, nice to meet you too!” Minori can’t help but to smile, the energy Shou gives off is almost refreshing. He looks past Minori’s shoulder and over to Mob, “Reigen is out meeting someone, but he left a while ago so I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”

“Alright, thank you Suzuki-kun.”

“No problem,” Shou made his way over to the open window behind the desk, “Well, I’m out, I’ll see you later, Shige.” He flashed a smile to Minori, “Nice meeting you, Asisgiri!” And with a wave of his hand, he climps up and jumps out the window.

Minori watches in horror and slight confusion,“Why didn't he just use the door?! We’re four stories up!”

Mob shrugs, “That’s just the way Suzuki-kun is.” Mob makes his way back over to the desk, “Um, I could make you some  tea, If you’d like that.”

A smile blooms across Minori's face, “Yeah, I’d really like that.”

[uncannycookie]

You are the entire reason I ship terumob. They're so cute. I love your writting and it's amazing. So far my favorite is Of Nearly Letting Go. It's a damn shame ONE never got to the aftermath of the mogami arc. :o It said you were looking for writing prompts?? Maybe Chapter 9 but from Teru's perspective?? It'd be interesting to see his internal thoughts of the big reveal

Ahhh sorry it took me so long to get to this! 

I tried rewriting scenes before, but I just can’t quite make it interesting enough when all the dialogue is already established. SO. I hope you don’t mind that I adjusted your prompt a tiny bit… now it’s the aftermath of chapter 9 from Teru’s POV.

I really hope you like it, and thank you so so much for the prompt and for reading my fics!!

AO3 link

In Liminal Space

Teru has no idea what kind of book he's holding right now. He was looking at the shelf pretending to pick one out for at least a few minutes, but if he was actually expending any energy on reading through the titles, he immediately forgot about them again.The only thing he knows is that it's large and heavy and shaking in his hands.Teru is absolutely no stranger to the sensation of wanting to kick his past self right in the teeth an indefinite number of times. But it's a relatively new twist that he would feel it this strongly about a past self that's only a few weeks old. He was under the impression by now that he'd gotten better than that.Yet here he is, playing through a past argument in his mind again and again, remembering this bitter, satisfied sense of superiority when he brought up the cats to prove a point. And now it just makes bile collect at the back of his mouth.

The book covers are slowly bending in his hands, pages fanning open and pressing against his fingers in a way that he knows will give him paper cuts if he just moves his hands a certain way.With a hard breath, he puts the book down. Leans closer to the bed, his elbows making the mattress dip slightly, and props his chin up on it just a few inches away from Shigeo's face.It's burrowed deep into the pillows and covered up to the nose in blankets. Teru can hardly see any part of him except a worryingly flushed cheek and one closed eye, almost entirely hidden behind a thick curtain of hair. Near his nose on the pillow, the blankets are bundled up where he must be holding them in his fist. His knees are drawn up all the way to his chest. It makes him seem so small that Teru has to swallow past a traitorous scratch in his throat.It was maybe five minutes ago that Shigeo curled up here and tucked himself in, but his breathing is already deep and even.Teru's hands, empty now that the book is lying forgotten on the floor, must have wandered towards the hem of the top blanket all by themselves at some point. Now they're pulling it further up Shigeo's shoulders, which are covered in two layers of thick blankets already ‒ but it was not even a few hours ago that there were small ice crystals stuck in black hair and eyebrows, that pale toes and lips and fingertips were turning blue. Teru is entirely governed by the senseless urge to keep him warm right now.(Safe.)He makes sure to keep his grip light and soft, to not do anything that might wake him up. Which is yet another reason to not let his hands wander even further up and run his fingers through his hair. Apart from possibly waking him, that might also be just a tiny bit creepy.Teru still keeps his fingers curled around the edge of the blanket for a few seconds too long. He's never used this one before. He's spent a lot of time telling himself he bought it simply because he liked the pattern of purple and blue circles and that it had nothing to do with how it reminded him of someone.His legs are starting to hurt. He's been kneeling on the floor in front of the bed for a few minutes now. For some reason, his muscles are trembling with an odd strain.Well, no, not for some reason, he knows the reason. They just had a half hour long talk about the reason.The more calm and quiet Shigeo's breathing becomes, the more Teru's own is picking up, hitching uncomfortably, pressing a sensation of dry cold into the roof of his mouth. He's been trying ‒ albeit not all that successfully - to keep his own feelings on the issue somewhat contained. It's not about him after all. He's supposed to be just the supporting cast, literally.But now it's quiet and his mind is running away with images of blood and loneliness and dead cats and Shigeo right in the middle of it.He pushes himself upright, too fast, too jumpy, and the edge of the futon behind him gets caught on his heel and nearly trips him up.He should get some shopping done. It's the perfect time and he needs to anyway. There is nothing edible left in his fridge, there is nothing else to do in here and it's silent and it's making him itch on the inside.The pajama bottoms he's wearing are just plain enough to not be too embarrassing to wear outside. He still grabs a scarf and a long coat to hide most of his questionable outfit, as if he would even meet anyone at this hour who would care. There is a small shopping list pinned to the magnet board by the door, but he hasn't added anything to it in at least two weeks, so it's pretty useless. He'll know what to get when he sees it.

At some point between two and five in the morning, the twenty-four-hour convenience store becomes a weird place.

There is a small group of drunks pretending to be sober in front of the entrance, too absorbed in their surprisingly sophisticated discussion about artificial intelligence and the nature of human consciousness to really pay him any mind as he walks past them.There is that sales clerk behind the counter that Teru would swear is a different person every time, but who still nods at him as if in recognition whenever he comes here.There is the quiet, cheerful and relaxed music slithering through the air above him. He knows it's exactly the same music as during the day, but it sounds slower now, more tinny, just as the lighting appears colder when the windows are tinted dark from outside.The shelves are loaded with wares that he's sure he never sees here any other time. That chocolate bar in front of him is from a brand that was discontinued years ago. He drops it into the basket hanging from the crook of his arm.Only distantly, the realization bumps into him that he brought his cash card with him. That's usually a bad idea for night time shopping, as he's had to learn the hard way. He stops in front of the refrigerators, fumbles the card out of its usual place in his wallet and crams it into another slot along with four other cards. If it gets to the point where he has to either spend an awkwardly long time pulling it out of there again at the register or just put a few items back instead, this might help him to make the more sensible decision.It's already a challenge to fit it in there at all, because his hands don't want to stop trembling.Teru remembers this one summer camp from when he was a kid. Camping in the woods somewhere, with lots of child friendly survival training, tying knots, fishing, making camp fires. Nothing he was particularly good at or interested in.He was already spoiled back then, already convinced he was better, only he hadn't figured out yet how to distract from his rough edges with the thick padding of charm that is his second nature today. Hadn't figured out how to be mean and arrogant and make people like him for it.Those were three weeks stuck in the woods without friends, without anything nice to do. Three weeks with even the adults there not willing to indulge him anymore, three weeks of being the singular most disliked person in a group of twenty.He managed to stay angry while he was there. To yell at the other children when they hid bugs and snakes in his bedroll, to argue with the adults when they put him on cleaning duty the fifth time in a row, to loudly defend himself every time he alone was forced to carry the blame for their "roughhousing," to barge in filled with rage whenever he caught a group of other kids making fun of him behind his back.And then, when his mother came to pick him up, he ran to her so fast that he fell and knocked out a part of his front tooth on a rock. Even though it was still humiliating, he could at least leave the other children behind knowing they'd think he was bawling his eyes out because of that.And it might be a stupid little thing - a stupid little story, one where maybe every other person can tell at least one similar to it from their own childhood. It's probably the most normal thing, Teru doesn't know.

He does know that it formed him. That it was one of the things that had him trying harder to be popular. It was three weeks of loneliness that he was not going to let himself experience ever again.He can't even begin to wrap his mind around six months.Should probably not even think of comparing one unpleasant three week camping trip to six months of ‒  A hot lurching sensation invades his chest and he has to breathe it away harshly, squaring his shoulders and filling his lungs with as much air as he can. There is a word for what was done to Shigeo there, hovering at the edge of his mind, but he doesn't want to think it, wants to keep it neatly in between the lines of Shigeo's story, where the storyteller himself likely didn't even notice it.Teru is clutching the handle of the refrigerator door in front of him, maybe a bit too hard, and staring right past his reflection in the glass. He's trying to remember... he feels like he's hanging off kilter, jarring conversation snippets clinging to his mind the way a catchy but awful song would, only it's Shigeo's soft, kind voice declaring that "it's not so bad," and "it wasn't real," and "it was so long ago."And Teru is trying so hard to remember if he even answered anything. If he made sure, absolutely certain, that Shigeo knows it was real and it matters.He doesn't think he did.What a joke he is. There was the most basic sort of reassurance he could have provided, just a few strict words he could have said to offer some basic validation, and he was too busy feeling horrified to even attempt it. All this time that he spent trying to get Shigeo to open up, to just fucking talk to him, and when he finally does, Teru is completely useless.A derogatory chuckle escapes him, falls against the glass in front of him and spreads light fog over it. Teru is leaning so close to it that his entire vision is buried in white.Will he ever learn not to do this? To not think himself so much better, so far above failure? It was only ever about making Shigeo trust him, breaking him out of this self-inflicted prison where apparently it wasn't appropriate to acknowledge that he is not okay.And that was it. The end goal. He hadn't even bothered to think past that. Hadn't even considered the possibility that maybe he wouldn't come up with a solution right on the spot, that maybe he wouldn't be able to fix it.That he wouldn't be able to help.With a small snapping sound, the door handle fractures under his hand and he hastily lets go. The shelf behind him would have made it impossible for the clerk to see, but Teru still throws a nervous look over his shoulder and then quickly walks a bit further up the aisle.What even is it with him and refrigerators lately.He sighs loudly, pulls a hand over his face and rubs his eyes until he sees stars. Groceries. That's why he's here. He should stop letting himself get distracted. The drunks from outside have entered the store by now and are wandering along the aisles. Teru makes sure to keep a few steps between them and himself. They seem pretty harmless, but it's hard to tell sometimes and he doesn't want to risk a confrontation. Not today.Two of them are holding hands while they stumble through the store.Teru stares for maybe a second too long. His own hand twitches around empty air, senselessly grasping for the memory of a touch. It's not that he thought Shigeo reaching out to hold his hand was ever about more than simple comfort. He knows it couldn't mean anything else. Teru started that whole thing, offered it as a solution for a problem he barely understood, and that's all it's been ever since.He always enjoyed it. Was always feeling weirdly proud and special whenever Shigeo's fingers would quietly slip between his own as if that was something they did all the time. Teru savored those instances of something almost intimate between them. He knew it was only happening because something had upset Shigeo, but he felt trusted and useful, felt like he was actually doing something to help. At least it never seemed as if it wasn't helping.And all this time, while Teru was walking along in blissful ignorance, proud that he was doing just a small thing to make a small problem go away - this had been on Shigeo's mind. Memories of - of cats dying and of Shigeo dying and of Shigeo being alone, and hated, and helpless...Teru presses his palm to his forehead, hard, if only to stop himself from punching something.The handholding drunks are looking at him in concern. "Kid," one of them says, hardly even slurring, "you feeling alright? Drink some water, we're getting some water right now. Water helps. Hey!" They turn and gesture towards one of their friends already at the register. "Hiro! Get, get some extra water for the kid, yeah? He doesn't look so good, kid, you really don't look so good.""I'm fine, thank you," Teru bites at them and quickly adjusts his hand gesture so it looks like he was just going to brush the hair out of his face. He means to send a smile along afterwards, but it feels more like a strained grin and he is surprised that it still seems to work somehow. The drunk points at him with a stern frown. "If you're sure," they say, already turning away. "Gotta take care of yourself, you know."Teru waves them off with barely contained annoyance and flees to another aisle.Right, so, time to concentrate. All he has in his basket so far is a possibly ancient chocolate bar that he should probably put back. He'll do that when he gets back around to the front of the store. For now, he should prioritize what he needs in his head, pick the most important stuff first and leave what he can't afford right now for later. A gentle buzzing feeling is ghosting over his skin, urging him into action. He hasn't gotten anything done for way too long now.He'll have to make breakfast for Shigeo tomorrow, so the first priority is milk. Two cartons, just to be safe. He still has some coffee powder at home, but no marshmallows. There have to be marshmallows. Teru instinctively reaches for his standard ones, but snaps himself out of it just in time. They're cat-shaped. It's like he's trying to be an asshole now. Grinding his teeth for a second, he gets the more expensive ones instead, the ones that just have dog and bear shapes in different colors.Also, he should make pancakes. The thought barely strikes him before he's already collecting everything he needs, hardly even realizing how he gets from one side of the store to another. Every movement feels a bit too erratic, too sudden. Only in front of the shelf with the syrup does he stop for a moment, searching deep in his memory for any inkling of what Shigeo's favorite is. He doesn't know. Does he even like syrup at all? Teru ends up getting all four he's looking at. Just to be safe.The drunks have left the store. The music stopped playing for some reason. The sudden silence makes Teru hurry up even more. When he's standing at the register, he realizes that he doesn't have enough cash to pay for everything. He doesn't even consider putting anything back and instead spends about half a minute fumbling his bank card back out of his wallet.The clerk accepts it with a wide-eyed look. Teru raises an eyebrow at him and there is an odd, slow moment where they just stare at each other.Then, as he notices a little leftover flare of his own aura, Teru realizes he probably doesn't remember how he got around the store just now because he might have been using telekinesis to do it.... oops.The clerk has slipped back into his work routine by now, quietly ringing him up and handing the card and his shopping bags to him. The light perspiration on his forehead and the enormous question mark in his eyes are the only indicator that he's even remotely uncomfortable.Teru takes the bags and aimlessly waves one hand around at the store behind him. "So you noticed that too, huh?" he says with a forced casual tone. "Seems to be some weird haunting going on here. Maybe think about hiring an exorcist." Then he hurries towards the exit, paying extra attention to his feet and that they stay on the ground. He hasn't slipped up like that since forever ago. Apparently he's very tired, even though he doesn't really feel like it anymore.On a garbage can next to the exit sits a single, unopened water bottle with a post it note on it. "Water is healthy, kid!" it reads. Teru blinks at it for a moment, before quickly walking past it.He is nervous on the whole way back to his apartment. Like an itch in his throat that he has to try and swallow again and again to make it go away for at least a few seconds. Dawn is slowly approaching when he unlocks the front door and closes it behind him to the first sounds of chirping birds. It hasn't registered until now that it's not really nighttime anymore, that his late shopping trip switched to an early shopping trip somewhere along the way. That's worse, that's so much worse. What if Shigeo woke up already while Teru wasn't there? Woke up to an empty apartment, alone and abandoned, right after the sort of talk they just had?Teru rushes up the stairs taking three steps at once, the railing shakes and creaks loudly under his grip. The content of the shopping bags would have long since spilled all over the staircase if he didn't keep it inside with his powers.His fingers are shaking when searching for his keys.

He knows he locked the door and windows properly before he left, but spirits can still get in. Why didn't he think of that?

He's never seen many spirits, none actually before meeting Shigeo, and he's certainly never had to be afraid of them.

But suddenly there is a spirit that managed to overwhelm the strongest person he ever met, a mere spirit with enough power to blur the lines of reality and the mind. A spirit that, as far as he knows, is still alive somewhere and still watching Shigeo.Finally he unlocks the door. It slips from his grip and crashes into the wall of the hallway. Teru barely catches it in time as it swings back at him, but then tries to close it as quickly and quietly as he can. The bags slip from his hands and right to the floor, he kicks off his shoes and jumps over them, dashing to the living room.He feels unhinged, suddenly, his muscles twitching weirdly and making him move in ways he doesn't want to. There are no spirits nearby, he can feel that, but there is still that thought clawing at the back of his neck that he left Shigeo alone and if something happened to him then it's his fault, he needs to make sure he's still there and safe and warm -With his socked feet, the sudden stop at the door to the living room almost has him sliding to the side and falling, but he catches the door frame just in time to keep himself upright.Shigeo is still there.

In fact, he hasn't moved at all since Teru left. His knees are still drawn up to his chest, his hand still curled around the blankets, his face still buried deep into the pillow. As Teru's heartbeat slowly but surely backs down from ringing in his ears, he can make out the calm, even sound of Shigeo's breath.Teru goes slack against the door frame. Holding himself up with the right, his left arm now tightly wraps around his ribcage, fingers grasping for purchase on the thick, rigid surface of his coat. Something burns in the corners of his eyes, hot and itchy, and his next inhale stutters, hitches and becomes a sob.This is stupid. And loud. He'll end up waking him after all.Turning around, he leans with his back against the frame, decisively looking away from the bed. He presses a hand to his mouth, closes his eyes, keeps swallowing hard and breathes through his nose. Stop, he thinks at himself, calm and clear, strict. He knows he doesn't listen otherwise. Stop. He's fine. He's still here.The arm slung around his middle is not the sort of contact he is craving, is not at all enough compared to holding another person. But it helps, just a bit. Just for now. It has to.Only two more sobs manage to escape him, then he bites back the rest. They taste bitter, but at least it's quiet now.

One, two, three more breaths and he pushes himself off the frame. Hangs up his coat, picks up his groceries. By the time he's cleaned out the fridge and stocked it anew again, the sun is already coming up. Teru quickly washes himself, turns on the coffee machine, and walks back into the living room.Everything is still as it was before.Teru kneels down next to the bed, elbows on the mattress. He tries not to look at Shigeo too much. That'd be weird.The purple and blue blanket has slipped down Shigeo's shoulder again. Teru carefully pulls it back up.Just to keep him warm.

[qcatter]

Pretty please with a cherry on top would you write about Reigen adopting all the starkids? Like I saw PTA meetings mentioned for Teru and I would just love to see all the cute headcanons of Reigen being Dad now. (Yes I know that Mob and Ritsu have a father, but there is no way on heaven or earth that someone can tell me that Reigen never acts like a dad) And Serizawa headcanons of him working at the office too? All the cute with a happy starchild family.

(does reigen even have an office? or is it just his apartment)  either way, reigen ends up giving mob a key, so that mob has another place to stretch out in and so mob can keep dimple company and take him on walks when reigen goes off on a case while mob’s in school.  Reigen comes back one day only to find mob completely transfixed by the plants he keeps in the window. Reigen’s not sure what mob finds so fascinating about them. Is he watching the cells grow? (close reigen, he’s watching the transfer of energy as it photosynthesis)  Sometimes reigen will come home and turn on the lights, only for the room to barely brighten.  It’s a good thing reigen’s survival instincts are a bit messed up. Humans fear darkness, eyes in the dark, and things that are big and capable of eating you.  Reigen’s fortunate that agents get lots of space in their rooms, mob takes up a third of it.

Eventually, reigen’s door ends up open for teru as well.  Dimple has many snarky remarks about how with reigen’s luck, of course he end up with not one, but TWO of the rarest aliens known to the MiB lounging in his house doing math homework by the weird glow of the not light they produce. 

And of course, reigen volunteered to be teru’s guardian. He figured that he has the most experience with starchildren after hanging out with mob all the time, how hard could it be? Reigen may have miscalculated. Because hey, growing kids eat a lot sure, starchildren will eat just about anything.  But with mob, you tell him he can have two things off the menu, mob will get two. Teru will order half the menu, look you dead in the eye, and order the other half.  why didn’t anyone warn reigen

though, after seeing mob and teru in their natural forms, reigen figures out that the humming mob makes, which ranges from soft and quite, to glass shattering and rivals jet turbines, is some form of communication.  It seems to be involuntary, and it seems to be closer to body language than actually words. Teru buzzes and screeches like chalk, and no matter the tone, always sounds far more confident than mob’s. 

After cleaning up after Claw, reigen ended up with Serizawa on his doorstep, because seri still wanted to learn control.  Reigen tried to push Seri towrds Mob for that, because while Reigen might be the leading expert on Starfolk, it’s more weird facts, like, they can speak cat pretty well, and seem exist in one more dimension than humans do because watching them move will give you a headache after too long. (sorry reigen, you tried, seri tried, but he ended up more attached to you than mob.)  Sometimes Seri gets really emotional when he realizes he has all this nice people to rely on.  Those moments sneak up suddenly, but reigen can handle those with enthusiastic arm movements and motivational speeches.  The ones where seri remembers his time with touchirow are worse, because those memories are tainted with ignorance and abuse and seri still misses him.  Those take the effort of everyone to bring seri out of his guilt.

(why are you coming to me for cute? i try, but i always end up with suffering)