#photo booth business

[kwiki-trends]

Why Pet Supermarket is Famous Worldwide

Pet Supermarket is a leading chain of retail stores that specialize in pet food, toys, accessories, and other pet-related products. Primarily operating in the United States, it is a go-to destination for pet owners.

The stores offer a wide variety of products for dogs, cats, fish, birds, reptiles, and other small animals. Pet Supermarket is committed to providing high-quality products and excellent customer service, with many locations also offering grooming services.

In this article, you will find detailed information about Pet Supermarket. Let's get started.

Why Pet Owners Love Pet Supermarket

Pet Supermarket is well-known for several reasons:

1. Wide Selection of Products: The store provides a large variety of pet-related products, including food, toys, grooming supplies, and accessories, making it a comprehensive shopping destination for pet owners.

2. Convenient Locations: With numerous stores across the United States, Pet Supermarket ensures that customers can easily find a location nearby.

3. Expert Staff: The knowledgeable staff are trained to offer specialist advice and recommendations on pet products, helping customers make informed choices for their pets.

4. Reputation for Quality: Pet Supermarket is recognized for its high-quality products and excellent customer service, establishing its reputation as a reliable source of pet supplies.

These factors—extensive product range, convenient locations, expert staff, and a reputation for quality—have contributed to Pet Supermarket's popularity among pet owners.

Services Available at Pet Supermarket

Pet Supermarket offers various services to make pet ownership more convenient and enjoyable. Here are some of the benefits you can expect:

Pet Grooming Services

Many Pet Supermarket locations provide grooming services, including bathing, haircuts, and nail trims, all performed by experienced and trained groomers. These services ensure your pets receive professional care in a friendly environment. Read more...

[photoboothseller]

Explore the perfect photo booth for your business. For more information visit https://photoboothseller.com.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

I had the opportunity to attend rose city comicon this weekend! it was fun!

i got so many compliments on the crochet things I was wearing. I've been considering for a while that I might be able to make money selling crochet things at events like cons and ren faires/fantasy festivals. I'll have to spend a lot of time and money building an inventory and making more of a social media presence for myself and whatever.

but if I do manage to get to that point and I have a booth selling crochet, what items do you all think would be the most popular?

(image description: all the crochet items from the poll, in order. one photo of a dragon scale glove, one photo of a collection of parasols, four photos of different shawls with lacy patterns, two photos of scarves and a photo of a hooded scarf, and two photos of cocoon cardigans, which are very loose square shapes and have short baggy sleeves. end description)

if I have a sense of what people would be more likely to purchase, I can build a more effective inventory. keeping in mind, of course, none of it would be cheap and the parasols would probably be the most expensive thing here. but maybe by next year or the year after that I could have enough inventory to get a booth at some local event and sell some things.

If I figure out the most cost efficient way to make art prints, maybe I can even do some cool fantasy illustrations like a nice print of some speculative evolution or some of the art from my own worldbuilding posts like the centaur deities or something. I'm genuinely kind of excited and motivated now! it's been so hard to figure out how I can earn a living without sacrificing all the time I put into my personal passions, or how to earn money from my passions without sacrificing the joy I get from making things. but maybe I actually can do it, if I just find the right venues.

also if you'd like to help me build my yarn stash so I can craft a large inventory of things to sell, please consider donating to my ko-fi page or paying me for a commission! I am also willing to do crochet commissions, I just don't have a specific info page for it right now.

[bixy]

so my last day at my last job was on friday, and i almost never get tipped and when i do it’s like $10-30 max and I can count every time I got tipped on one hand lmao bc it’s very rare, and like I get it, weddings are extremely expensive, so when the wedding planner gave me an envelope i just stuck it in my bag and didn’t really think much of it, i just opened it now and they tipped me $100 what the hell 😭😭😭

[fotokraftwerks]

Transform your moments into masterpieces with Fotokraftwerks! 📸✨ From stunning portraits to unforgettable event captures, we turn your memories into art. Let’s create something amazing together! #Fotokraftwerks #CaptureTheMoment #PhotographyMagic

[deathberi]

went flat straight to dreamland when i got back last night but yay wrapped up another multi-day hobby convention ✨ damn it was both fun and tiring to be at the booth for 3 days!!!

[pseudowho]

"Itadori-kun. Good. You're on time."

Kento checked his watch, clearly distracted, as Yuuji approached with pocketed hands. The shopping centre was bustling, a hive of activity around them. Yuuji ruffled his own hair, unsure.

"Yeah, I just...wasn't sure why we're meeting here, is all."

Still distracted, Kento tapped off a message, before slipping his phone back into his inner pocket. He rarely offered smiles when there was business yet to be done, and today was no different.

"I was hoping for your assistance with a few errands before your school term ends. I'm sure you'll be busy with your friends after then, and I shouldn't like to take your vacation time. I'm sure you're looking forward to the break."

In truth, Yuuji deflated just at the thought of it; though he was an orphan amongst orphans, he didn't favour empty time in the way he used to, with memory and the devil as his constant companions. Still he smiled.

"Yeah! Can't wait. Got...got loads planned."

Kento read Yuuji, shrewd for a moment, before hyper-focusing on the task at hand.

"Quite. Come along, Yuuji."

Yuuji grew more and more flummoxed as Kento's list of errands tickered out before them. Too polite to question why, and with absolute faith that Kento had good reason to drag him along for the ride, Yuuji stomached it all with confused good grace.

Yuuji blinked, momentarily blinded by the flash of light in the photo booth. He grinned for the next photo, and Kento's cool deep voice rumbled past the curtain.

"No smiling, Yuuji."

"H-huh? How did you know?"

"Was I wrong?"

"Uh...sorry, Nanamin."

As a strip of tiny poe-faced photos clicked into the dispenser, Yuuji couldn't understand why Nanamin was so satisfied by such bland pictures. Yuuji was, however, touched; clearly Nanamin liked wallet photos as he liked his suits-- beige. Kento clipped across Yuuji's thoughts.

"Do you like the beach, Yuuji?"

Yuuji blinked. "The beach...?"

"Yes. The beach. Do you like it?"

"Uh...I guess. Why?"

Kento hummed, satisfied, not answering Yuuji's question. Instead, as he passed Yuuji his coffee, he stood and leaned around Yuuji, gently pulling at the back of Yuuji's collar. Yuuji twisted to look, baffled now, and Kento released him, sitting with another satisfied hum. He tapped on his phone again.

"Your identification documents are in your room at Jujutsu High?"

"Nanamin...what's this about?"

"It's important to take care of your documents, Yuuji."

"...so you're just...checking up on me?"

Kento smiled, polite. "Of course." A pause. "I assume you'd like to come back to ours for dinner?"

Yuuji brimmed with unasked questions. "I don't need to-- I'm not really that hungry-- honestly a coffee is great--"

"Mrs.Nanami has cooked extra."

"God, yes, please, I'm starving."

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

The summer vacation approached Yuuji like a black cloud. He could not bring himself to be excited for enforced inactivity; his casual offers to assist staff on missions fell on deaf ears. Gojo laughed Yuuji off with a clap on the shoulder. Yuuji smiled away the gentle rejection; he did not have the stomach to beg to work.

Instead, Yuuji stewed, leaning on his rainy windowsill until cicada buzz replaced the pitter-patter of water on earth. Late July arrived, unwelcome, and Yuuji steeped in a pit of dread.

At 2am, on the first day of summer vacation, Yuuji's phone rang. Bleary-eyed, and flat, he looked away from his computer screen and lowered his headset. He looked at his screen with a lurching gut; he answered the phone.

"Nanamin?"

A voice, rusty with sleeplessness. "Ah, Yuuji. I apologise for waking you at this hour. I need help with a mission. Are you available?"

Yuuji perked up immediately, tail wagging. "Y-yeah! Yeah, totally! I can be ready...er...in ten? Yeah?"

Kento's voice smiled. "Good. I'll pick you up."

Yuuji danced from his desk chair, shaking off his joggers and wriggling into his uniform with a grin, ruffling his hair before the mirror. In barely two minutes, he was ready, a spring in his step as he headed to wait outside. He felt so light, so relieved, and he grabbed his keys, opening his door to--

"Oh, shi--...Nanamin?"

Kento stood at the door, comfortable in loose clothes, and...sandals? It was an odd contrast to the backdrop of night, and Kento's usual attire. Kento smiled again, polite.

"Yes. Are you ready?"

"Y-yeah, I'm...how did you get here so fast?"

"The roads are quiet at this time of night, Yuuji."

A pause. "...Nanamin."

"Yuuji."

"Are you fucking with me?"

"Language."

When Yuuji opened his mouth to argue back, his jaw dropped, as you bustled up the corridor behind Kento with a sleepy grin on your face. You slapped Kento's elbow, shooting him a chastising look.

"Morning, Yuuji! Excited?" You pressed a kiss to his cheek, whirling past to invade his bedroom. Yuuji was speechless, horribly confused.

Kento checked his watch as you bustled around. Tapped his foot as you bustled around. Tutted, and leaned pointedly round the corner to stare at you as you bustled around.

"Darling, we're going to be la--"

"--don't give me attitude, Kento, we are about 6 hours early, and you know it--"

"--it pays off to check-in ahead of schedule--"

"--hush. I'll have words with you later."

Kento bristled, pugnacious. You walked out of Yuuji's room with his rucksack in hand. You pinched his chin, gesturing him along with your hand.

"Come on, Yuuji. Before Mr.Organised has conniptions."

Yuuji felt himself swept along by Kento, who still scoffed, mulish. The night air smelled sweet, and Yuuji found himself gently bodied into the back seat of Kento's car.

"--Nanamin-- I don't understand--"

You shot Kento a pointed look from the passenger seat. At first frowning, then with dawning realisation, you scolded Kento in disbelief.

"...you haven't told him."

Kento almost smirked as he rolled the car away over gravel. "I don't know what you mean."

You looked from Kento, to Yuuji, and back again. You reached slowly into Kento's bag, rummaging. Yuuji felt a glossy little book pressed into his hands.

"...a...passport?"

"...Kento didn't tell you."

Never one for expecting a gift, Yuuji couldn't see one when placed before his eyes. "Tell me what? Nanamin?"

Kento chuckled to himself, his eyes glimmering at Yuuji in the rearview mirror.

"Our flight is at 10:30, Yuuji."

Yuuji peered into the seat beside him; a new suitcase, neatly labelled with a luggage tag in his name. He yanked it to the seat beside him, unzipping it, and finding it full of new swimsuits, t-shirts, shorts, sandals, everything he could possibly need. He opened the glossy new passport in his hands, and hiccupped, his breath catching in his chest.

Yuuji rammed into realisation with prickling eyes, and a quiet sniffle, his eyes hidden in the dark. His reply was thick, stilted.

"Our flight...to where?"

"Malaysia. Now give me back that passport. You'll only lose it."

[buyselfiebooth11]

What Things Are Needed To Start A Photo Booth Business

Starting a photo booth business can be a fun and exciting venture. Photo booths have become increasingly popular; many people are renting this to make their events a splendid success. So you can invest in this business idea or seek a photo booth business for sale to get started and earn a great deal of profit. Here are some things you will need to get started:

Photo Booth Equipment: You will need to purchase a photo booth. Photo booths can come in various styles, such as open-air, enclosed, or mirror-style.

Camera: A high-quality camera is necessary to take high-resolution photos. A digital SLR camera with a wide-angle lens and a tripod is ideal for photo booths.

Printer: You'll need a printer to print the photos that guests take. A dye-sublimation printer is the best option for photo booths as they print high-quality photos quickly.

Props: Props are a fun addition to any photo booth. Ensure that you have a variety of props, including hats, glasses, and signs.

Backdrop: A backdrop is essential for photo booths. You can choose to have a plain backdrop or a themed backdrop that matches the occasion. Explore unique photo booth backdrops for sale available in the market.

Lighting: Proper lighting is crucial for taking studio-quality pictures. Ensure that you have good lighting that illuminates the subject without creating harsh shadows.

Transportation: If you plan on offering your services at various events, you will need a vehicle to transport your equipment.

Business License and Insurance: Obtain a business license and insurance to protect your business from liability and to operate legally (if required in your area).

Marketing Materials: Create marketing materials such as business cards, flyers, and a website to promote your photo booth services.

Optional Extras: You may also want to consider additional features, such as a social media kiosk or a green screen, to add some extra fun to your photo booth.

If you want to buy a photo booth or need to know about the photo booth package price, consider contacting Buy From Selfie Booth Co. The firm has different upgraded models of photo booths from which you can select the right one for your needs. For more information, visit Buyselfiebooth.com  Originally published at: https://theomnibuzz.com/what-things-are-needed-to-start-a-photo-booth-business

[blossomtalent]

The International Baking Industry Exposition (IBIE) is the largest event in the Western Hemisphere, held in Las Vegas every three years. Our amazing and professional talent is representing one of our clients during this important exposition. 📍Las Vegas, NV . . . #photo #m #lasvegas #booth #instagood #ibie #marketing #ibie2022 #exhibitionstand #exhibitions #n #instagram #travel #a #business #brand #baking #tradeshow #e #standdesign #happy #tradeshowbooth #g #dxb #o #translator #exhibitiondesign #exposicion #boothhostess #staffingagency (at Las Vegas Convention Center) https://www.instagram.com/p/CiqI3Kcuxgz/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[irisinluv]

Yandere x Time Traveler Reader

You could recite the rules by memory if you had to. You were read them before each and every time jump. The most important being- don’t do anything to alter the course of history, don’t let anyone know about time travel, and don’t stay longer than necessary. There’s a slew of other minute details to the rule book, time traveling is a delicate business after all. But you love your job, and you understand how important your work is. You see, history records are often sloppy. We do our best to put things together with old newspapers, books, and the occasional photo, but what if you could go back and meticulously record everything the exact way it was?

Well, historians realized they could utilize time travel to observe and document historic events and time periods. That’s where you come in. You are a field agent- dressed in time appropriate clothes, practiced in period accurate slang and culture, armed with a backstory, and ready to jump back in time to learn the things time has forgot.

You’ve done countless runs before, and this one is no different. Go in. Learn everything you can, and then get the hell out. You don’t stay more than a week, and whatever you do, you stick to your company drafted backstory if anyone ask. So, with this in mind, you wave to your team, and step back in time.

The 1920s proved to be more colorful than you’d imagined. Sure you knew not everything was in black and white… but you expected things to be a bit more drab. The streets were busy with old timey cars in each of the primary colors, women bustled down the streets in loose, boxy dresses with gorgeous patterns. You took note that maybe the 20s were onto something when you noticed the high waisted pants all the men seemed to be wearing. You’d certainly be recommending these slutty little numbers make a comeback.

Taking in all these details, you took a moment to enjoy being a tourist in a new time. This was your favorite part of the job- constantly exploring. You loved the freedom you had. Granted you had your rules, but you could go anywhere. Any time. It was fantastic. Ducking into a cafe, you took a second to inspect the menu before ordering, and taking a seat at a booth. You began people watching as you sipped your drink, taking mental notes of everything and anything that you could jot down later. Suddenly, you’re interrupted from your observations as someone slid into the seat across from you in the booth.

Sawyer saw you order and sit down, and was fascinated by you. You carried yourself differently than anyone he’d seen before, with a natural ease and confidence, yet he could see your eyes assessing everything around you with a slight hint of wonder that made him wonder what those eyes would say if they looked his way. After observing you for several minutes, Sawyer made his move.

You couldn’t help but feel comfortable about the man who slid into your booth and started chatting with you. It wasn’t against the rules to talk with people like this- it was often crucial in fact. As long as you didn’t do anything drastic like save or end their life, convince them of some major course of action, etc…. It often paid to have a friend in an unfamiliar time. So when Sawyer asked you if you had plans this evening…. You had told him you were free.

Now it’s a quarter to 6 and he’s picking you up at the hotel you’d arranged earlier in the day. You had a change of clothes already packed for the occasion, and were buzzing to see inside a real speakeasy during prohibition. Sawyer was prompt in picking you up, and it was only a short walk to a back door of a building. He was ushered inside and soon the two of you were sitting together, leaning close to speak as you sipped (rather horrible) watered down drinks.

You kept to your story- you were traveling from the countryside, and would be in town for the next week. Sawyer noticed, however, how much you steered the conversation away from yourself. You did so skillfully and he had to admire that, but you were secretive none the less. Of course, this only served to further fascinate the man. What was originally just a little crush began to turn into a burning need to know more. What were those calculating eyes of yours thinking? Why did you take everything in with such wonder, like you were committing every detail to memory? He had to know.

For the next several days, Sawyer acted as your guide through the city, showing you clubs and shows and the best places to eat. You found yourself genuinely enjoying his company, and it wasn’t hard to tell he greatly enjoyed yours- showing up first thing each morning to escort you on another adventure. You realized you needed to begin distancing yourself from him, however, as he was pressing you for more details about yourself, and was expertly dodging your attempts at redirection. So, with only a few days left before you had to return, you switched hotels. Went to a different part of town, and began looking into the affairs of a few businesses. You needed to round out your research more anyways.

Sawyer arrived at his usual time, only to find you gone. The hotel attendant explained you’d checked out early, and left no explanation. Sawyers heart stopped. You were the love of his life. He knows it’s sudden, and stupid, he hardly knows you…. But at the same time he feels like he knows you better than anyone else alive. In the few days you’d spent together he’d taken in every little detail about you. He could tell when you were excited or disgusted just by the way your nose twitched. He knew your food preferences, knew how to make you laugh, and just felt like he knew you on a soul deep level…. But you were gone. You’d left him….

You were taking note of the stock in a grocery store a few days later when Sawyer finally saw you. He didn’t approach, instead, followed you back to your hotel. He watched you through a sliver in the curtains as you pulled out a pad of paper and began writing. He watched until you fell asleep, and then slowly crept in through the window. He gently picked up the notepad, only to furrow his brows, confused. You were…. Taking note of the style of labels on soup cans, and the price stickers used? He looked around the room and saw a few other note pads, gently placing the one he’d grabbed back next to your sleeping form, he began snooping through the rest of your notes. You had pages and pages written about what you’d observed, meticulous notes littered with your own commentary and thoughts. And that’s when Sawyer realized the truth. He didn’t have all the details- but he knew you were from the future. You were from the future, and you’d be leaving him in less than 24 hours.

He knew he had to act. He found the small device you would use to return home- it was disguised as a watch, and tucked away inside one of your luggage bags. Holding the small object in his hand, he came up with a plan. Shooting one last look to your sleeping form, he made sure everything was as you left it, aside from your watch, which he slipped in his pocket, and then crept back outside.

The next day, you hustled to finish investigating the last few things your colleagues were interested in. You were walking down the road when you heard a familiar voice call out. Closing your eyes and letting out a soft curse, you turned to see Sawyer racing towards you with a grin.

“Hey! There you are! When they told me you’d checked out a few days ago I’d assumed you left! Glad I found you though! Did you lose a watch by any chance? I found it in the pocket of that coat you borrowed after the theater, it’s small and gold with some swirling patterns carved into it?”

Your eyes widened…. That was your ticket home. How the hell did you not notice it was gone?? You thank him profusely for finding it, and tell him that yes, it’s yours! He clarifies,

“It’s back at my place, I didn’t think I’d run into you so I wasn’t carrying with me. If you’d like, you can swing by my house with me and pick it up?”

Of course you readily agree- after all, you need to leave in a few hours, and seeing inside his house would be great for your research. So, you agree to go home with him. I mean you only had a few hours left. Saying goodbye for real this time wouldn’t hurt.

Sawyers breath catches as you step inside his house. Why does this seem so natural? So perfect? You, fingers lightly tracing the wood banister as you take it all it. You, turning to look where he stands in the entryway - God, he can imagine coming home from work, with you greeting him with a smile just like this. The only thing missing is a kiss. He blinks out of it as he realizes you’re asking about your watch.

“Oh, yes, of course! It’s just down here, follow me!”

He leads you downstairs to a partially finished basement. Partially finished is a loose term. It’s a usable area at least, a workbench in once corner, and minimal boxes cluttering the space. Instead, it’s relatively clean, there’s a few chairs and a couch set up. Far from a living space, but it’s certainly functional. You’re taking all this in when suddenly you’re pulled back wards, stumbling into a chair. Ropes are wound around your midsection, pinning your arms and torso to a chair. You cry out and squirm but he’s surprisingly fast and strong,wrangling your kicking feet until they’re tied to the chair legs. Soon, you’re securely bound to the chair, and he didn’t even have to knock you out. He finds it kind of adorable how easily he overpowered you if he’s being honest.

You cry out and ask him what he’s doing, demand he lets you go! But he only produces your watch from his pocket, and stares at it with curious eyes.

“So, this little thing is your ticket back, hm? I wonder what it’s like- your world. Your time….”

Your eyes grow wide. He knows. He knows you’re not from this time period. That’s breaking one of the most important rules. This in itself could have irreparable consequences to the course of history… what if he decides to use it? Decides to travel through time, un-trained, causing chaos!?

“Please! You have no idea the consequences this will have! You can’t use it! Please- there’s a way things have to be done, you could permanently alter the course of human history with the littlest misstep! The future depends on you letting me go and giving me that watch back!”

He steps closer to you and gently strokes your cheek, realizing you don’t get it. You think you’re tied up because he’s interested in the time traveling. You think he’s going to misuse it. Silly you. He’s not interested in traveling through time.

“Darling… come now. There’s no need to worry. I’m not going to use your watch.”

Your gaze turns confused as you look up at him, and he adores watching your eyes as you try to puzzle your way through this one. He takes pity on you and leans forward to press a kiss to your lips.

And then you watch as he drops and crushes your way home beneath his boot.

“The only future I’m interested in…. Is ours.”

[kwiki-trends]

Building a Lucrative Photo Booth Business in 2024

The concept of automated photography or the photo booth dates back to 1888 when William Pope and Edward Poole invented it in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. However, it has gained significant popularity only in recent years.

According to reports, the photo booth industry was valued at $645 million last year. Experts project it to reach $1.82 billion by 2032, with an annual growth rate of over 9%. This indicates a substantial opportunity for starting a Photo Booth Business in 2024.

If you're seeking new business ideas or have a passion for photography, starting a photo booth business could be promising. In this guide, we'll delve into how to start and run a successful venture in this industry.

How to Launch a Profitable Photo Booth Business in 2024

Before diving into any business, it's crucial to understand the industry thoroughly. The photo booth business is no exception. Researching, gaining knowledge, and identifying opportunities are essential steps. Here are ten steps to becoming a successful photo booth business owner or operator:

Understand the Photo Booth Market Conditions

The photo booth market varies by location. Each city has its own demand and competition levels. To start, visit your target area, analyze competitors, their equipment, photo quality, marketing strategies, and pricing.

As a customer, try out your competitors' services. This helps test their business model and gauge the return on investment (ROI) for your local area. Detailed knowledge of your market and competitors makes it easier to build a superior brand and anticipate demand.

Stay Updated on Trends and Future Predictions

To meet customer needs, it's essential to offer relevant solutions. Outdated concepts like traditional Photomaton booths won't cut it anymore. As you're establishing a photo booth business for the long term, understanding current and upcoming trends is crucial.

Here are a few trendy photo booth options for 2024:Slow-Motion Video Booth (Glam Bot): Ideal for capturing dynamic moments at lively events. 360 Photo Booth: Offers an immersive experience for panoramic photos or videos, popular among social media influencers. Augmented Reality (AR) Photo Booth: Integrates digital elements into reality, creating interactive experiences. GIF Photo Booth: Creates animated GIFs from a series of quick succession photos. Mirror Photo Booth: An interactive full-length mirror that guides users through photo sessions with animations.

By staying ahead of trends, you can provide unique experiences that keep customers coming back. Read More..

[honeekyuu]

photo booth strip. [kageyama tobio x f!reader]

>>Kageyama makes you smile that first day in the sandbox, and he spends the rest of his life learning what it means to make you happy.

or

You ask Kageyama to marry you, and he says yes, but you both realize over the years that it's just not that simple.<<

____________________________

tags: smut, fluff, angst, childhood best friends to lovers, childhood marriage agreement, sandbox confessions, emotionally stunted kageyama, hinata is too smart for his own good, younger yachi, lessons in growing up, college age kageyama, penetrative sex, first time

a/n: everything about kageyama in this fic makes me want to put him right in my pocket. enjoy!

[feel free to buy me a cup of coffee!]

------------------

Will you be my prince?”

The first words you ever speak to Kageyama Tobio, in the middle of the sandbox at the neighborhood park.

“I think we should get married.”

The last words you say to him, that same day, as your parents are warning you that it’s time to head home.

You’re wearing a princess costume, holding a plastic fairy wand.

He’s holding a volleyball, the crown you’d placed on his head an hour ago now lopsided.

“ Okay .” 

His response, both times. Nothing more, nothing less.

It’s enough to make you smile. Both times.

He doesn’t smile back. He doesn’t know why you’re so happy.

Only when he sees you the next day, waiting in the sandbox for him, does he realize that he doesn’t know your name.

–

You’re a year younger than him. He learns this for the first time when he mentions the elementary school he goes to, almost a week after you meet.

You tell him that you’ll be going there once the summer’s over.

He thinks nothing of it, not until he hears someone calling his name on the first day. He turns, surprised, because he doesn’t really talk to his classmates.

And then he realizes it’s the girl from the park.

You run up to him excitedly and reach for his hand. He lets you take it.

“Can I see you at lunch? Will you come find me?”

He doesn’t think that’s how it works. His teacher always lines them up and they eat lunch in a circle, out in the courtyard.

“Okay.”

He wonders if it hurts when you smile that wide.

By lunch, you’ve forgotten about his promise. You’re meeting so many new people and making friends, and your teacher is a nice lady who lines you all up and leads you down to the courtyard to eat lunch. 

You’re in the hallway, waiting for the line to move outside, when you hear the tapping of a finger on a window. You turn, finding Kageyama inside his classroom, standing on his tiptoes and tapping gently on the glass for your attention. His face is blank even when he waves.

That’s the first time you properly fall for Kageyama Tobio. Because he’d remembered, even when you hadn’t.

–

On your first day of middle school, you hover nervously around your classroom door. You check and re-check that you have everything in your bag, if only to have a reason to look busy.

This place is a lot bigger than your last school, and you haven’t been able to find your friends yet. Not everyone from your elementary school class would be here, so you’re desperate to find the few familiar faces that will.

You hear his voice in the stairwell, just beside your classroom. He sounds irritated, that harsh edge easy to identify. You peek around the corner, finding him on the stairs. He’s berating someone, telling them they need to give more energy during practice.

“Kageyama!” You stand at the top of the stairs, clutching your bag and beaming down at him. You’re filled with relief, because at least you’d found him .

He and his teammate turn, and you can’t help but think the boy next to him resembles a turnip.

“Oh. Y/n. You made it.” Tobio’s face is blank as always, but he’d lost the edge in his voice. You giggle, skipping down the steps to meet him, and cling to his arm once you’re within reach. The unfamiliar boy watches you with wide eyes.

“Don’t tell me you have a girlfriend , Kageyama.” He stares down at your linked arms and then meets Kageyama’s eyes, dumbfounded. “There’s no way the King got himself a girl.”

You scrunch your brows together. King ? Tobio had never mentioned a nickname like that.

From the way his arm tenses under your hand, you realize that it’s one he doesn’t like very much. 

He takes the volleyball that’s in his other hand and shoves it into Turnip Boy’s chest.

“Focus on what’s important, Kindaichi. Learn to meet my sets before I find someone else.”

You’d heard him talk like that before – his tunnel vision when it comes to the sport had gotten him into trouble a few times in elementary school, too.

The boy leaves with a huff, and Kageyama turns to face you. His arm slips out of your grasp, but he says nothing when you just reach for his hand.

“Do you have practice today?”

He tilts his head.

“I have practice every day.”

You nod, expecting that. “Can we eat lunch together?” You’re not sure if he has other second-year friends that he hangs out with. But he just shrugs, putting his free hand on your elbow and moving you out of the way of a group of girls coming up the stairs.

“Okay.”

You hear your name being called, and you realize one of the girls is a friend from your last school. She giggles when she sees Kageyama and teases you.

“Oh, it’s your husband!”

He says nothing about it, watching you blush and brush your hair behind your ear. He doesn’t understand why you get so shy. You’re the one who had spent all of elementary school telling anyone who would listen that you would marry him one day.

The other girls who don’t know you yet become curious, whispering to each other when your friend says that. Your ears turn pink, and you glance at him nervously. He just blinks at you, because you’re snatching your hand out of his like you weren’t the one who’d grabbed it.

The girls disappear around the corner, and you look at him with a crease in your brow.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d want me to tell anyone here. It’s probably embarrassing.” You’re in middle school now. It’s harder to talk about your crush so openly, and he might not want that kind of attention.

But he just glances at the spot where those girls had been and then meets your eyes.

“But they already know.”

You look him over, your face flushed.

“So… I can… talk about it?”

He shrugs. “Okay.”

He’s not really sure why you squeal and throw your arms around his neck in a hug. He’s just glad he doesn’t lose his balance on the stairs.

By the end of the day, even his own classmates are teasing him about you. He’s too busy reviewing videos from his last practice to care.

–

Both of your families know that you plan to marry him. His sister bullies him anytime he doesn’t greet you with a hug, saying he’s going to be a bad husband. Your mom calls him ‘ Son-in-law ’, and he’d decided early on to call her ‘ Mom ’, because that had seemed like the logical response at the time.

Both of your dads often try to help him practice out in your backyard, even though his sister’s the only other volleyball player and, frankly, your father never really got a grasp on the rules.

Your mother starts teaching you how to cook after you beg her to let you make a bento for Kageyama’s lunch, and your father only knocks you affectionately on the head with his newspaper when he finds you drawing hearts around Tobio’s name in your notebook instead of finishing your math homework.

Your friends don’t complain when you disappear up to the roof every day for lunch, because that’s your only real alone time with him. And by the time you graduate middle school and secure your enrollment at Karasuno, Kageyama’s waking up every day to the 20+ texts you’d send him every night while he’s sleeping.

Half of them are about wedding planning, which you both know is way too far in the future, but you have fun dreaming about the perfect wedding and he only really shuts down your ideas when you say something absurd.

What do you think about having goats bring our rings down the aisle?

Where are we going to get goats?

Oh… You’re right.

And wouldn’t the goats eat the rings?

Oh. That’s true too.

And how are we going to get the rings to balance on the goats?

Okay, I get it!

You’re not oblivious. You know that Kageyama has no interest in wedding planning. He only thinks about volleyball, and he lets you do whatever you want – not because he wants you to have everything your heart desires, but because he simply doesn’t care .

But he’s a man of few words, and he’s also quite literally incapable of lying for someone else’s sake. So if he continues to accept you and your fairytale daydreams, then you’ll continue to see him as your prince.

–

The first time you meet the Karasuno Volleyball Club, it’s with a shy bow and Kageyama’s bento hiding half of your embarrassed face. 

It’s your second week of high school, and there is an entire volleyball team of boys staring you dead in the eye in shock.

You skirt around the edge of the court toward Tobio’s bag. He’d mentioned a lunchtime practice, and you’d just wanted to drop this off so he could eat when he had time. He hasn’t noticed you yet, and you don’t mind, because this is one thing you’d rather not distract him from.

You don’t mind being second only to volleyball.

You set the lunchbox down and turn to sneak out of the gym, but there’s a boy with orange hair in your face.

“Who are you? Why are you bringing Kageyama his lunch?” His voice carries, catching the attention of everyone in the room, including Tobio.

“O-Oh, sorry, I’m just–” You fumble for your words, trying to duck around this shockingly agile shorty.

“Y/n.” Kageyama’s calling from the court, and you feel embarrassed that you’d interrupted him. He shows no irritation about it, though, his face blank as ever.

“ Sorry …” You whisper, as if you’re trying to avoid detection. As if you don’t have everyone’s eyes on you. 

You manage to dodge the small boy and make a run for it, calling back to him while you race for the door. “Make sure you eat everything and drink lots of water– Okay, bye !”

You fly off the steps of the gym and round the corner, slamming your back against the wall outside so you can catch your breath. Your head is just under the window, which is propped open. You hear his teammates grilling him as he approaches the side of the court for the bento.

“ Is that your girlfriend?! She made you lunch! ” It’s the small boy’s voice. 

You hear the rattle of chopsticks as he unpacks the containers and pops them open. His mouth is full of food when he responds, and he’s deadpan as always, not an ounce of emotion in his voice, but–

“That’s Y/n. Be nice to her. We’re going to get married.”

–that’s the first time he says it.

You fall for him all over again.

–

You’re a second year when Kageyama Tobio asks you out.

He’s napping at his desk at the beginning of the day, exhausted from morning practice. His phone keeps buzzing in his bag, the usual stream of texts from you, but he’s honestly too tired to even notice.

Hinata slams down into the seat in front of him, and Kageyama cracks his eyes open in annoyance. Yamaguchi and Tsukishima aren’t far behind, their own desks beside his.

“Could you be a little less annoying?”

Hinata just stares down at him with narrowed eyes.

“Hey, Kageyama.” 

Tobio puts his forehead back on his desk with a grunt of acknowledgement.

“How far have you and Y/n gone?”

He hears Tsukishima choke on his drink, and Yamaguchi’s scolding Hinata under his breath.

“You can’t just ask him that-”

“What do you mean?” Kageyama lifts his head, staring straight at his friend. “How far we’ve gone – what does that mean?”

Even Yamaguchi stares at him in disbelief now.

“What are you talking about?” Tsukki’s voice is judgmental as always. “He’s asking what you and your girlfriend have done together. You know…” He waits for Kageyama to get it, but it never clicks.

Tobio just looks at each of them blankly. “Y/n isn’t my girlfriend.”

He wonders if the bugs outside are buzzing louder than normal, or if it’s just really quiet in the room right now.

“But…” Yamaguchi scratches his cheek. “Did you guys decide to not get married after all?”

Kageyama tilts his head. “No…? We still are.”

The freckled boy stares back. “Then wouldn’t you have to date first?”

“Date?”

“Oh, my God-” Tsukishima leans his elbows on his desk and buries his face in his hands. Hinata grabs the front of Kageyama’s uniform roughly.

“Dude. Don’t tell me you never asked her out.” When Tobio just glares at the grip Hinata has on him, his friend gawks at him. “You have to date first, Kageyama! What if she’s been waiting all this time for you to ask her?!”

“ I think there’s something wrong with her .” Tsukishima’s voice is muffled. “ How could she possibly still be set on this guy? ”

Kageyama looks around at his friends as their classmates finally start to file into the room for the day. They all just sigh in frustration, as if this were something he should have known already.

Oh.

He reaches into his bag for his phone. He starts to type out a message, but Yamaguchi snatches the thing out of his hands. He looks appalled.

“You can’t ask her over text , Tobio.” 

Tsukishima just laughs and shakes his head. Kageyama ignores him.

“Well, how do I-”

“You ask her in person.”

Oh.

He waits until lunch, when you appear at the door to the third-year classroom. He follows you upstairs to the roof, and then he lets you excitedly explain the lunch you’d made him. He eats in silence, listening to you ramble about your classmates and the fact that your teacher had told you to start thinking about college.

“-think that maybe I should start looking at majors–”

“Hey. Y/n.”

You pause, surprised at his interruption. He’s staring down at his lunch, poking around with his chopsticks. Does he not like the food?

“What’s wro-”

“Do you want to be my girlfriend?”

You don’t think you heard him correctly.

“What…?”

His ears turn red. He knows this moment is important, but he doesn’t know how to make it go smoother.

“Uh-” He pokes at a piece of rice. “The guys said that I-That we need to date before we get married. They said I should have asked you sooner, but I didn’t know that I was supposed to-”

“O-Oh, that’s okay!” You flap your hands at him frantically. “It’s okay, I wasn’t waiting or anything!” To be honest, you hadn’t thought this moment through at all. You’d known that you would date eventually, but you thought it would happen later. Or maybe that you’d skip that part entirely and just plan the wedding after college.

You never thought that he’d…

Is the day suddenly warmer than it was before? Did the sun come out? 

You fan yourself, pressing your cold drink to the side of your face. Dating Kageyama Tobio is… not something you considered, even after all this time.

“Hey.”

You meet his eyes, flushing when you see how nervous he is.

If even he’s nervous, then…

“You never answered me.”

You swallow.

“O-Okay.” He watches you carefully, and you can feel it even when you look away in embarrassment. “Sure… Let’s date.”

–

“What’s the difference between dating and what we were doing before?” Kageyama’s twirling his pencil around his fingers, trying and failing to focus on his homework. It’s just too boring.

You’re across from him, almost done with your own work. You’re sitting at the table in your room, just a couple days after he asks you out. In that time, nothing’s really changed.

You flush, trying to think of what to say.

“Uh… I’m not sure. I think we just go on dates…? Hold hands and… stuff…?” You don’t want to give him more information than that.

He yawns, reaching for his phone. “Okay. Let’s go on a date, then.” 

You lean forward to see what he’s doing, and you watch him type ‘ places to date’ into his search engine. You giggle to yourself and then gasp, because the local movie theater had popped up in the results.

“Ooh, a movie!”

He says nothing, clicking on the website and scrolling through the showings silently. You point to one that’s just come out.

“The trailer for that looks interesting. You might like it.”

He buys tickets without even thinking about it.

You wonder if he even wants to see it. But he doesn’t say otherwise, and he’s already paid, so you’re not sure what would change if you asked.

When he picks you up the next morning, leaning his body lazily over the fence of your house and tapping obnoxiously at the small bell that hangs from the metal bar like he always does, you’re stunned to find that he’s dressed well.

He looks effortlessly pretty, his sweater well-suited to the pair of jeans he has on – you didn’t even know he owned clothes outside of his sweats and his uniform.

You stop short just outside your door, taken aback by how good he looks. You watch his eyes trail down the length of your body, analyzing your dress, your hair, and your jewelry. You’d spent far too long deciding on it all, and your mom is currently standing behind you with a camera, squealing as she takes pictures of the two of you.

But Kageyama says nothing, about any of it. He just keeps his eyes on you as you approach the fence.

“Hi… You look nice.” You mumble the words, trying to keep your blush in check.

“Thanks…” He trails off, looking like he wants to say something else. But he doesn’t, only straightening and waiting for you to join him on the sidewalk. And then he waves blankly at your mom, his hand finding yours as you start to walk away. He gives you a simple response when you look up at him in surprise.

“What? You said we were supposed to hold hands.”

You stare down at your shoes the entire walk to the theater, your face painfully warm. 

He buys you a large popcorn and drink to share, and you sit in the crowded theater with the bucket in your lap, grateful that it’s dark. You smoothe out your dress and tuck your hair behind your ear, trying not to ruin your outfit.

He takes your hand again once the movie starts, his voice low when he mumbles something to you.

“You look nice, too.”

You don’t really know what the movie ends up being about. Your heart is beating in your ears the whole time.

–

“Hey, Kageyama. How far have you and Y/n gone?”

Kageyama glares up at Hinata through his lashes. “Why do you always ask me that?”

“Because you’re a case study in idiocy.” Tsukishima flips another page of his magazine, his back against the frame of Yamaguchi’s bed. He’s not really reading it. He just likes to roll it up and smack Hinata over the head with it when he gets distracted from his studies.

Yamaguchi pushes gently at Tsukki’s arm without looking, just writing down another answer on his worksheet as he studies at the table with Hinata and Kageyama. “Leave him be. He’s doing his best.”

Kageyama wonders if the flush to Tsukishima’s cheeks is because he’d been scolded or because it was Yamaguchi.

He texts Hinata about it discreetly.

Does Tsukishima like Yamaguchi?

And then he stills when he watches the way his best friend’s eyes flit to the screen when it lights up and then up at him like he’s stupid. Hinata never takes his deadpan stare off of him, not even as he’s reaching for the phone and typing out a response.

They’ve been dating since first year.

Oh.

Kageyama purses his lips and puts his phone down. That’s enough meddling for one day.

It buzzes again a second later.

Answer my question, Dipshit.

Kageyama scowls.

I don’t know what you want me to tell you.

You’ve been dating for six months. What’s happened?

He furrows a brow.

We go on a date every week.

Hinata looks impressed.

You hold hands?

Yeah.

Kiss?

Kageyama blinks.

Kiss what?

Hinata no longer looks impressed. He meets Kageyama’s eyes again, that deadpan starting to get on Tobio’s nerves. And then he reaches across the table to show his phone to Tsukishima without a word. Kageyama watches Tsukki’s eyes dart down the length of the conversation.

And then he’s slapping his magazine shut and rolling it up. Kageyama doesn’t have time to avoid the harsh smack to the top of his head. 

He barely gets his arms up and over his head in time to block another well-aimed swing.

“What the fuck!”

“You haven’t kissed her yet ?” Tsukishima smacks him again, and then once more, because he’s properly tired of Kageyama Tobio. And then he leans back against Yamaguchi, sighing through his nose. “I feel so bad for her, I’m considering dating her myself.”

“Hey!” It’s Yamaguchi, his pout obnoxious.

Kageyama really wonders how he hadn’t noticed their relationship before this.

Tsukishima pinches the bridge of his nose. “Someone please teach Kageyama how to be a boyfriend with feelings. I don’t have the time.”

Hinata snorts. “I don’t think we’d ask you for the time, anyway.” He doesn’t even bother avoiding the magazine smack to the side of his face. He deserved it.

Yamaguchi reaches into his bag for his laptop, nudging his boyfriend with a knee. “Go make snacks. I’ll find movies.”

Tsukki says nothing, just ruffling Yamaguchi’s hair as he stands and steps over him.

Surely, they didn’t always do things like that. Kageyama would have noticed… right?

He shakes his head, watching Yamaguchi set up his laptop at a distance where they can all see the screen. He doesn’t know what’s happening, but at least he doesn’t have to do his homework.

His friends keep him trapped in Yamaguchi’s room for the next six hours, forcing him to watch rom-coms and yelling ‘ Do that! ’ every time they see a romantic gesture, because they know Kageyama won’t think twice about it otherwise.

–

“Hey. Y/n.” He’s standing at the door to your classroom, just after 6pm on a Thursday. The sun is starting to set, but you’re both still here.

The volleyball season had ended a few weeks ago, his last time playing for Karasuno there and gone before he’d realized it. But he and Hinata had been scouted by the same school in Tokyo, so they use the now-empty gym to practice almost every day.

You’d waited for him after your student council meeting, filling out homework with a speed that he’d always envied just a little bit. You’re brighter than you realize, especially with numbers. 

He hadn’t noticed until last year, when you’d gone for fun with them to Tokyo for the annual summer training camp and met Kuroo. You’d gotten on extremely well with him, and Kageyama had watched you two talk about chemistry and math as if they were exciting TV shows he’d never heard of.

Kuroo had gotten him alone soon after, mentioning to him that Tokyo had one of the best STEM programs in the country. He hadn’t realized what the Nekoma captain had meant at the time – not until he’d first been contacted by the university and had started, unknowingly, thinking that it would be nice to keep going to school with you after graduation.

“Oh, Kags!” You finish writing something with a smile and then start packing up. “I have a packet due next week, so I wanted to finish it before you were done practicing.”

He wouldn’t have started that packet until the night before.

He watches you skip up to him, in a rush even though you’re the only two people here. You walk down the hall together, and you peer up at him while you ask him about his day.

“Did you eat well? Sorry that I couldn’t see you for lunch – my class president wanted to talk about…” You talk excitedly, and he stops listening just as you’re approaching the top of the stairs.

There’s no one around right now, just noise drifting through the open window on the first landing of the stairs — the soccer team, running laps outside. It’s almost March. The frost is finally melting off of the grass. He’ll be graduating soon.

His mind drifts to what Hinata told him as they were parting ways, not even fifteen minutes ago.

‘Don’t make her wait much longer.’

Have you been waiting? Have you been expecting him to make a move on you? It had been a week since the forced movie night, but you haven’t given him any of the so-called signs he’d been made to notice in those scenes. 

No lingering close to him, no biting your lip and looking up at him wistfully.

He’s starting to think the movies were being dramatic.

Do you even want him to kiss you?

“-yama… Kags?” 

He stops at the landing, just in front of the window. He turns, realizing you’d stopped halfway down the stairs, just examining him with lifted eyebrows. You look mildly concerned, a soft smile tugging at your lips when he mumbles ‘ Huh? ’, and you move to join him.

“Are you okay?” Your eyes flit around his face. “Are you worried about training?”

No. He’s not.

For once, he’s not.

“Yeah. I guess.”

Does he want to kiss you? 

He’s not sure. He enjoys your weekly dates – movie and cafe dates, and one amusement park date where your photo booth shots had been so funny that he’d snorted milk out through his nose. Those photos sit in his wallet now, because he couldn’t think of anywhere else to keep them and because the fact that he’d put them there had made you oddly happy.

 And he’s realized recently that he likes the feeling of your fingers interlaced with his, hands joined and shoved into the pocket of his coat to stay warm. He likes having you close like that. And when he’d ask you to remove his finger wraps for him after practice, he likes how delicate you’d be about it, how soft your fingers were against his calloused ones.

Not to mention the strand of some unplaced emotion that would sit in his chest when his teammates would complain about him having a girlfriend. They’d whine anytime you would help him – ‘ We don’t have pretty girls who do that for us, Kageyama. Stop showing off. ’ – and he’d always feel a little weird. A little too proud that you wouldn’t do that for anyone else. A little too happy that he’s special.

Still, he has no idea about kissing. He hadn’t thought about it before last week. It had never crossed his mind. But now… he feels like he should do it. Hinata told him to. Yamaguchi and Tsukishima told him to. They were sure that you’d been waiting for him to do it.

You must have been waiting, then. They would know better than he does.

“-m sure that your drills have been going okay with Hinata, right? And you have some time still, if you wanted to fix something-” You cut short, realizing he’s stepping close to you. His face is blank, but he still looks like he’s thinking hard about something.

He steps in again, and you step back to give him some space. He follows, and soon you’re backed up against the wall on the stairs. Cold air drifts in through the window, along with the sounds of a soccer practice. 

You swallow, meeting Kageyama’s eyes nervously.

“What’s… What are you…”

He looks you over. Your nose is red from the chill, and you’re looking up at him in confusion, like you have no idea what he’s doing. He realizes that, no, you hadn’t been waiting. 

You hadn’t been expecting anything from him.

For some reason, that bothers him.

He sets his hands on your elbows, stepping close and dipping his head. You don’t have time to think, and Kageyama’s leaning in before you can bring yourself to wonder what he’s doing.

There, on that set of stairs between the first and second floor, just after 6pm on a Thursday. There are people outside, with no idea what’s happening not that far away. The sun is about to set, and the bugs are starting to come out of their winter hiding, a quiet buzz filling the air. It’s almost March. He’ll be graduating soon.

That’s the first time Kageyama Tobio kisses you.

He pulls away after a moment, tilting his head away to give you space but staying close enough that his hair gets in your eyes a little bit. You don’t remember the last time you took a breath, but it doesn’t matter, because you’ve never seen Kageyama blush before. Not like that.

You swallow hard, your skin tingling where he has his hands on your elbows. Another cold breeze drifts in, but you barely feel it. Your face is warm enough, and you think the heat radiating around you might not just be you.

Eventually, he takes a small step back, his head still ducked when he releases you. His ears are ringing, and he doesn’t like the fact that he can’t feel his fingers. And when he looks up at you through his bangs, seeing the way you’re still leaning against the wall for support as you hug your arms around yourself, he finds himself wanting to do it again. 

He wants to be close to you like that again.

It’s not the same as holding your hand. It’s worse. It’s a feeling that sits in his stomach and makes his heart pound. The same feeling of adrenaline and excitement he gets when he wins a game.

He doesn’t know what to do with this feeling.

So he doesn’t move. He just stares. You stare back. Eventually, you lift off of the wall and smile shyly, crouching to grab your bag. He hadn’t even realized you’d dropped it.

You grip the strap so hard your knuckles turn white. He clears his throat.

“I’ll walk you home.” It’s soft, but it echoes loudly in this empty stairwell.

You just nod, following him down the stairs and out the front door.

It takes him ten minutes to gather the courage to hold your hand. You don’t say a word the entire way back.

–

Kageyama graduates, and you become a third year preparing for college applications. Things between you somehow return to normal with little issue, although you’d been expecting some level of awkwardness.

He doesn’t kiss you again or even give you any sign that he wants to. You don’t know what to make of that, but you choose not to push it. You think that he would probably let you kiss him if you wanted to, because he lets you do anything you want. 

But the thought of kissing him when you’re not sure if he wants it or even cares about it – that makes you feel weird.

So you just don’t.

He’d moved to Tokyo in the summer to start training, and you find that, although you miss him immensely, you’re doing just fine here in Miyagi.

You talk every day, and you take the train to see him once a month, staying the weekend in his tiny dorm room and then rushing home to prepare for class on Monday.

You still text him random thoughts about wedding planning, but they’re far fewer than before. Now, you mostly just check that he’s eating and sleeping and that he’s not failing his classes. 

You let yourself be woken up when he calls at 4:30 every day because he has to be out for his morning run by 5 and he knows he won’t be able to stay awake unless he’s talking to you while he gets ready. And then you sit at your desk, studying for your entrance exams and prepping your application materials while the sun rises outside your window.

You make an extra trip to the city whenever he has a game, rushing out of school and racing for the train station like an olympic runner, because every game means the world to him and you would never dream of missing one. And every time he wins, he holds you extra tight at night, excitedly recapping the moments of the game into the crook of your neck as if you hadn’t witnessed every second with your own eyes.

It never occurs to you to tell him about your day anymore. He doesn’t ask, and you don’t think about that enough to be upset by it. His world revolves around volleyball, just like it always had. And your world – your grades, your achievements, your future – had always just been expectations you’d set for yourself. Top of the class, student council president, stellar record. They’re all normal to you. You’d worked hard for them, but you’d never found them to be novel or exciting enough to tell Kageyama.

You just… existed.

And you never realized that maybe your priorities weren’t in the right place. That maybe making Kageyama Tobio your whole personality wasn’t the way it should be. You had slowly stopped doing that, slowly eased yourself off of him, slowly started hanging out with your friends more than you used to.

Nothing could change the way you feel about him – he’s your prince. He’d always been your prince, from the day you’d met. But you’re becoming an adult with a life and a future, and you’d never thought that that was important enough to share with him. Your whole world is still him .

Until it isn’t.

“Have you told Kageyama about your midterm grades yet?” Yachi spoons food into her mouth, eyes sparkling cutely when she asks. “I bet he was so happy for you.”

You tilt your head at her. “Oh, I didn’t think to tell him.” And you don’t think you’ve ever seen him get happy about anything other than volleyball.

Your friend’s expression dampens. “You didn’t tell him? Why?”

“It never came up.”

She looks lost. “But you worked really hard for it… And you got top of the class… You didn’t mention it at all?”

You furrow a brow, pushing food around your bento.

“I guess I just didn’t think about it.”

She hums and then claps as a thought comes to her.

“What about the school festival?” 

You’re in committee meetings for that almost every day. It’s coming in the spring.

She frowns when you just shake your head blankly.

“Y/n, you haven’t told him anything? You even got sick the other day from the stress…”

“I didn’t want to bother him with it.”

She looks entirely unsatisfied. There’s silence, one where you’re eating slowly and trying to figure out what this feeling in the pit of your stomach is. And then she’s clearing her throat softly.

“Does he… ask about you? At all?”

No. He doesn’t.

You swallow. “He’s a busy guy.” 

Now Yachi just looks mad. “And you’re a busy girl! He’s your boyfriend! He should be asking!”

You laugh sheepishly. “He’s never really been that way. It doesn’t bother me.” Right?

“That’s not the point!” She frowns deeply. “What kind of guy doesn’t want to hear about his girlfriend’s day?”

The kind of guy that only asks you out because his friends told him to.

The thought hits you like a truck, and suddenly your lunch tastes like cardboard. You swallow what’s left in your mouth, wincing as it goes down, and cover your container. You don’t feel hungry anymore.

“It’s fine, really.” You smile at her, reassuring her. “I’ll tell him about my day today, okay? I just never thought to do it, that’s all.” 

She scowls, like that should never have been an option, but she lets it go.

You call Kageyama as you walk home later, the sun low in the sky. There had been 3 back to back meetings after school, and you’re rolling your shoulders in exhaustion. You’re already dreading the mountain of homework you have to do when you get home.

He picks up after a few rings.

“ Hey .” 

You can hear the squeak of tennis shoes in the background. He’s at practice.

“Oh. Sorry, I thought you ended at 5.”

“ It’s fine. We stayed longer to prep for the game next week. I’m taking a break .” He sighs. “ I’m still not super satisfied with my jump serves. I get them right 90% of the time, but… ”

He rambles on like that, and you try to push down that lingering feeling from lunch. This is how every day goes. You’re never anything but happy to talk to him. You like hearing him ramble – it calms you down, lets you have a moment of serenity in the chaos of your day.

Now, you’re just wondering why he didn’t ask how you are.

Eventually, you clear your throat, seeing the shadow of your house in the distance.

“Hey, I should probably go – I’m home, and I don’t feel super great today, so…”

“ Oh, okay. Bye. ” He hangs up, and you stand in front of your house, staring down at your phone.

He hadn’t asked why you weren’t feeling good.

You shake your head, heading inside. After your shower, you settle down at your desk with a sigh, switching on the overhead lamp. It’s dark now, and you’re just starting on your work. It’s all due next week, so you decide to take it a little easy because you’re supposed to see Kageyama next weekend and you don’t want to get sick again.

You try one more time with him, sending a quick text.

I’m excited to see you next week <3

You put your phone down, oddly anxious, and open your math textbook. Your phone buzzes beside you, and you reach for it with a rush of nerves.

It’s just a thumbs up.

You stare down at it. 

And then you close your textbook and switch the lamp off. You get into bed and cry into your pillow.

He doesn’t ask why you sound a little down when he calls the next morning at 4:30.

–

You decide to go see him early. You’re supposed to go next weekend, but you’d spent the last two days with a pit of anxiety in your stomach, and you think that maybe if you just see him, you’ll feel better. Reassured.

You get off the train, nothing but your backpack with you. You’d come right after school, but you hadn’t packed an overnight bag because you’d had this idea literally an hour before class had ended.

You make your way to the gym with ease, used to the lay of the campus by now. Kageyama has practice until 5, so you’re right on time to see him.

You stop short when you round the corner, your heart dropping. 

He’s out front with Hinata and his teammates, all chatting excitedly about something from practice.

He’s laughing brightly at something his senior is saying, his eyes screwed up and his arms clutching his sides. Hinata puts him in a headlock with a grin, and he’s fighting back, the two roughhousing on the steps.

You’ve never seen him smile like that before.

Your bottom lip quivers against your will, your eyes filling with unshed tears. You turn to walk away.

This was a bad idea. You’ll just sit at a cafe and wait for the next train home.

“Y/n?”

It’s Hinata, calling out to you from afar. 

You freeze, unable to turn back to them. You can hear the sounds of Kageyama’s teammates as they tease him.

“ Ooh, Kageyama-”

“ -your girlfriend’s here- ”

You blink, wiping furiously at the tears that finally slide down your cheeks. And then you swallow and turn back to them, seeing that Kageyama and Hinata are jogging to meet you where you are.

“Hi…”

“What are you doing here?” Tobio tilts his head at you, confused. “I thought you were coming next week. And-” He looks you up and down, a brow furrowed. “-where’s your bag?”

You’re not sure what to say to any of it.

I wanted to see you .

That would have been fine before. Now you just feel clingy.

I had a bad day. I missed you .

He won’t care. He won’t ask. He’ll just accept that.

Hinata leans toward you a bit, a frown tugging at his lips.

“Are you okay? You look sad.”

Tobio looks at his friend, blinking in surprise, and then down at you.

“What happened? Why are you sad?”

You try not to let it show when your heart cracks a little.

He’d only noticed because Hinata had.

“Uh-I’m fine.” You watch him closely, watch him accept your answer at face value with a nod. Watch Hinata lean away, eyes narrowed in disbelief. You wonder why your friends can see right through you but your own boyfriend can’t.

“Could we maybe get dinner…?”

Kageyama looks back at his teammates, frowning. You wonder where that bright smile had gone and why it had left when he’d seen you.

“The team was supposed to get dinner today…”

Your heart doesn’t even drop anymore. You’d expected it, the rejection. 

“Oh. Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll just meet with you later.” You smile, starting to pull your phone out so you can look up some nearby restaurants. You’d shown up unannounced, anyway. Kageyama hadn’t expected to fit you into his schedule today.

Hinata nudges him hard with his elbow.

“Dude, your girlfriend came all this way to get dinner with you. You can just come along next time.”

Tobio turns to him, and then to you. He blinks.

“Oh. Okay.”

That word feels like a knife through the heart.

–

You sit silently across from him at the ramen shop, listening to him talk about the upcoming game.

“-maybe if I can just get there a little faster, I could probably-”

“Tobio…”

Kageyama freezes, noodles halfway to his mouth. You almost never say his name. It’s always Kags, or his full last name.

He looks down at you, eyes skimming over you quickly. You won’t meet his eyes, and your hand is trembling just a little. You’ve barely touched your food, and you’ve looked upset for a while now. He hasn’t wanted to push, because you always tell him when something’s up, but…

You put your chopsticks down and take a deep breath. Smile up at him. It doesn’t reach your eyes.

…he’s worried.

“I got top of the class on all my midterms.”

He blinks.

“Oh. Okay. Nice.”

Your brow furrows for just a moment before you fix your expression. 

Something’s not right.

“And I’m organizing the school festival this year…” You bite your lip and look out the window. “It would mean a lot if you could come…”

He puts his chopsticks down and reaches for his phone right away.

“Okay. When?” He opens his calendar and looks up at you expectantly.

You just stare, your eyes full of an emotion he’s never seen before. And then you whisper to him.

“Why did you ask me to be your girlfriend?”

Tobio stares. Locks his phone and puts it down without breaking eye contact. Stares some more.

He’s confused. 

“I thought that’s what I was supposed to do…”

You don’t think you can do this.

There are tears filling your eyes. Your voice cracks when you respond.

“Then I think we should break up.”

He just stares. 

What? Where is this coming from? What are you talking about? You’re supposed to date and then get married. Breaking up isn’t in the plan. 

At all.

“Oh.”

You flinch and look away. ‘ Oh ’. That’s it.

“Why?” He looks serious when he asks, like he might actually be worried about this. You’re not really sure you’ve ever seen him worry about you.

“Because I don’t want to marry someone who doesn’t want to marry me.” You smile bitterly up at him. “Because I never asked you what you wanted. I just decided what we would do.”

You’re having trouble breathing. You feel selfish and guilty. You’d decided what his life would look like, and he’d gone along with it because he’d had no complaints about the choice. He’d done everything right, exactly how you wanted him to. Exactly how he was supposed to.

“Because I don’t want you to wake up one day and realize that you wanted something different out of your life. Or for you to meet someone else and realize that you should have married for love, not obligation.”

He shakes his head, face blank. “That wouldn’t happen.”

You smile sadly. “You haven’t asked me about myself for as long as I can remember.”

He frowns. “I figured you would just tell me the things that were important.”

“And I figured you wouldn’t care because you never asked.”

Kageyama’s heart feels a bit strange. He doesn’t like the look on your face. It upsets him to see you unhappy.

“Oh.” 

“You don’t really know what I’ve been up to. And you don’t know how I’ve changed since you left. You don’t ask. And that’s okay.” You hold eye contact, willing yourself not to cry. “But can you really say that you’re marrying me because you love me?”

He just stares. You stare back. And then you make up your mind.

“Me loving you enough for the both of us still isn’t enough to build a life together.”

He doesn’t react. All he says is–

“Okay.”

–

It’s been four days.

In those four days, Kageyama Tobio has learned several things about himself.

First, that he’s entirely incapable of getting out of bed on his own. He oversleeps three of the four days and misses his morning runs, barely rolling out of bed in time to get ready for class. The fourth day, he only wakes up on time because he’d put his phone on the bathroom sink the night before so that he’s forced to get up when his alarm goes off.

Second, that the days go by in a blur. He doesn’t remember eating breakfast, and he’s certain he doesn’t go to the cafeteria for lunch like he usually does. He subsists on the protein bars he keeps in his bag, and he only remembers dinner because, by the time practice is over, he’s so hungry that he’s stealing food from Hinata’s bag, too.

The third thing is that he’s messes up at practice in things that he had perfected years ago. He screws up during drills, he somehow is off-tempo during warm-ups, and – most importantly – he’s snapping at his teammates. The stress gets to him on day three, to the point that he’s running drills by himself and pushing his own limits every time he forgets even the smallest thing. When that doesn’t work, he’s yelling at Hinata and then blaming a senior for moving too slow during a set.

He hadn’t done that since high school.

“Dude-” Hinata approaches him after practice on day four. It’s Monday, and they have a game on Friday. Tensions are already high, and he knows well enough that he’s making things worse. “-what is with you lately?”

“ What ?” Kageyama shoots him a glare, one that has Hinata’s eyebrows flying up, because his best friend hasn’t looked at him like that since their first year at Karasuno.

He doubles down, keeping up easily with Kageyama’s long legs when the setter storms out of the gym. “What’s your problem? No one asked the King to make a special guest appearance.”

Kageyama turns so fast to face him that he skids to a stop, bumping into him. And then his shirt is being balled up in Tobio’s fist, and he’s being dragged onto his tiptoes and into Kageyama’s face.

“What the fuck did you just call me?”

Hinata breathes out a sigh, recognizing the frustration in Kageyama’s eyes.

“Why are you snapping at everyone? You’ve been in a mood since Friday.”

“No, I haven’t.” 

“Did you get dumped or something?” Shouyou knows he’s right when Kageyama’s glare and furrowed brow turn into a blank slate. He’s realizing something. “Oh, my God, you did. You got dumped.”

Kageyama drops him back down, releasing him. He blinks.

“I mean… Yeah, I did. But so what?”

Hinata looks at him like he’s crazy.

“What do you mean, so what ? You’re upset!”

Kageyama only swallows. He knows he’s upset. He was upset all of Friday, after you left him sitting there in that ramen shop, claiming you needed to catch the last train home.

But has he been upset enough to disrupt his days this much?

“I…”

“You’ve been oversleeping and barely making it to class.” 

That’s true. 

“You’ve been skipping meals, which is probably why you’ve been crabby and fucking up during practice. You haven’t been eating enough.”

That’s also true. That makes sense.

“And you’ve been distracted.”

Kageyama blinks down at him.

Hinata sighs. “You’ve been checking your phone constantly, dude. You never look up from it anymore.” He points up at the man with renewed frustration. “You almost got hit by that biker when we were crossing the street on Saturday!”

That… had happened. He remembers, barely. That he’d only looked up because Hinata had yanked on the back of his hoodie, that the student on that bike had yelled at him as he’d passed them by.

That he’d been checking his phone, wondering why it had been so silent all day.

“What are you waiting for, Kageyama?”

For her to text me .

“She usually texts me… about eating and… and wedding stuff.” There’s dread in his stomach, and his nerves are twisting painfully in his chest.

Hinata sighs dejectedly, running a hand through his hair.

“What wedding, Kageyama? She broke up with you.”

‘ What wedding, Kageyama?’

Oh.

If you broke up with him, then… Then there’s no dating, and that means no wedding.

Right.

Kageyama scowls at his short friend.

No.

No, he doesn’t like this.

–

He’s waiting for you at the Karasuno gates on Tuesday afternoon. You spot him as you’re walking out of the building with Yachi. You’d spent the weekend crying in your bed, and you’d decided on Monday – after you’d opened your wallet and promptly started sobbing, because you’d had the other photo booth strip from the amusement park in there –  that you had to get yourself together.

Yachi links her arm through yours and pulls you back when you walk out of school, because she’d noticed him first. You look up, freezing when you see him lingering there. He’s out of place without a uniform, and he’s pacing back and forth in the corner, running his fingers through his hair.

What is he doing here?

You meet Yachi’s eyes anxiously, and the two of you walk to meet him. He looks up when you get close, eyes widening when he sees you. He takes a breath. You think he looks nervous.

“Can you un-dump me, please?”

Your lips part in surprise. Yachi slips her arm out of yours and walks away without a word, realizing that this is probably not something she should be present for.

You stare up at him.

“What?”

He scratches his neck. “This really sucks, Y/n. Can we date again? Please?”

“I-Kageyama-” You look around, wondering if he’s really doing this here. “Can we at least go somewhere else?”

He just blinks. “Okay.” 

You try not to sigh. You hadn’t missed that word.

You lead him past the school grounds, crossing the street and toward the park that’s nearby. There’s no one around, and you take a seat at one of the benches. He sits next to you, silent. And then he turns to you.

“So…”

“I don’t think we should get back together.” You stare down at your hands when you say it.

He shifts to face you, huffing under his breath. “Why not?”

“What’s changed, Kageyama? In the last four days, what’s changed that would make things better this time?” You run a hand through your hair. “Because, from where I’m sitting, everything’s the same.”

“Then sit closer.” He pats the empty space between you for emphasis. 

You sigh, growing frustrated.

“You don’t get it-”

“No, I don’t get it.” He cuts you off, angry. You’ve never seen him get upset with you before. “I don’t get it , Y/n. I thought we were fine. I thought I did everything I was supposed to-”

“Yeah, you did!” You stand, facing him. He stands, too, his chest heaving as he breathes harshly. “You did everything you were supposed to, Tobio. Because Hinata told you to. Because Tsukki and Yamaguchi told you to. You did everything they told you to do.”

“So what ? They were helping me figure out how to be a good boyfriend-”

“Did you even want to be my boyfriend?” You throw your hands up, annoyed. “Did you want to do those things ?”

He looks lost. Lost and frustrated that he’s lost. “Does it matter ? I was fine doing them, and they were things you wanted, and I didn’t mind-”

You fist the front of his hoodie, shaking him. Your eyes are filling with tears. “ It matters, Kageyama!” You drop your forehead to his chest, your breath shaky. “It matters . Those things mean nothing if you don’t want to do them yourself.”

You lift away from him, stepping back and covering your face with your hands. “I thought that if you didn’t have any complaints about the things I wanted, then that meant that everything was fine-”

“Everything was fine.” He’s looking at you like he’s begging you to explain this to him. “ I asked you out. I kissed you first. I did those things-”

“ Because they told you to! ” You bury your hands in your hair. It feels like you’re going insane, saying the same things over and over again. “They didn’t ask if you wanted to . They told you to.” You breathe deeply. “ I didn’t ask if you wanted to.” You drop your hands, sighing. “I just told you to.”

“And then you didn’t ask when you left me!” He digs the heels of his hands into his eyes, frustrated. “You just decided that what we had planned on doing was no longer the plan. You didn’t ask.”

You stare at him, processing. Realizing.

You thought you’d done wrong by pulling him in and keeping him close. So you let him go. 

But that had been wrong, too.

“I’m sorry.” You can’t tell if your apology reaches him. He’s just glaring down at his shoes. “I’m sorry, Tobio. I felt guilty that I had forced you into this relationship and this future with me, and then I realized that I had made you my whole life without ever considering you.”

He meets your eyes. He’s listening.

“And then I saw that you weren’t interested in me or what’s happening in my life. You weren’t asking about my day or asking why I was tired or seeing when I was in pain. And I thought that meant that you were just going along with my plans for our future without ever thinking about if that’s what you even wanted for yourself. And that hurt, so much.”

Kageyama knows what you’re telling him. He’d been thinking about what you’d said on Friday, your words on repeat in the back of his head through the entire weekend.

‘Me loving you enough for the both of us still isn’t enough to build a life together.’

But he had never felt that you had forced him into this. He’d never felt that he might want something else. Even when he was just going along with your ideas because he couldn’t care less, there were no ill feelings. He’d been making you happy your whole lives, without even trying. All he’d ever had to do was be there, and you were happy.

You were never upset around him, never upset because of him. 

So he didn’t know how much he hated it until it had happened.

He had never considered that you might ever need more than that from him. That you might need him to make this an equal-efforts relationship.

“Ask me.”

You just blink up at him, confused. He swallows.

“Ask me what I want.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then you’re inhaling nervously.

“What do you want, Kageyama?”

“I want-” He takes a step toward you, and then another. “-you to be where you’ve always been.” He grabs your shoulders, forcing you to come close to him, right in front on him. “Right here, Y/n. I want you right here .”

You tilt your head back to really look at him, your eyes wide. He’s meeting your gaze evenly. “I need you next to me , Y/n. I cannot function if you’re not.”

You’re confused. And extremely nervous.

“What?”

He tightens his hold on you. “I have not been doing anything right the last few days. I don’t wake up on time. I don’t eat . I am fucking everything up at practice.”

“Kageyama-”

“I keep checking my phone, waiting for you-I almost got run over on Saturday because I wasn’t paying attention-”

“What?! Kageya-”

“I miss you , Y/n.” Do you understand what he’s saying? Is he being clear enough? “I’m useless without you.” 

Butterflies swirl in your stomach, but you still furrow a brow, protesting weakly.

“I’m not your mother, Tobio… I can’t keep doing everything for you-”

“Oh, my-” He releases you, stepping away and running a hand over his face. “Okay, fine! Yes-” He looks at you, exasperated. “I will work on that. I will work on being-I don’t know-” He’s fumbling for his words, trying to figure out what he should say. What’s right. 

“-I will work on myself, okay? But-” He sighs. “-don’t break up with me. Please. Can’t I work on those things with you still here with me?”

You just stare. You’ve never seen this. You didn’t know this side of him existed. This person who is flustered and frustrated and lost. This person who is trying to communicate with you but is struggling.

He looks around, thinking hard. He rubs a finger over his brow, scowling. And then he tries again.

“Okay. When I asked you out, I was really nervous. And you had never made me nervous before. And when we went on our first date, I thought that you looked really pretty when I picked you up, but I didn’t know how to say it.”

You blink. What is he doing?

He starts pacing.

“And when I held your hand on the walk to the movie, I kept wondering if my hand was sweaty and if you could feel it. And I really liked that cafe you wanted to go to the week after, because they had that banana milk latte thing and I thought that was good. And you looked really happy with the cake I bought you, and I thought it was weird that I noticed that part specifically, because you always look happy.”

He scratches his forehead. Is he doing this right? If he’s just completely honest about everything, that would be progress, right?

“And when we went to the amusement park, you wanted me to buy you the cat ear headband, but I thought you looked really cute in the bunny ears. That’s why I bought you both.”

You didn’t know that. He never told you.

“And I look at the pictures from the photo booth thing all the time, but definitely after a bad day at practice. Because you look funny, but also because after I snorted out that milk, you laughed so hard that you cried, and I can never forget that. It makes me smile to think about it.”

He stops pacing. Turns to face you.

“And when I kissed you that day. On the stairs.” 

You flush, your ears already warm and your heart already thrumming nervously in your chest from everything he’s been saying. He sighs, shaking his head.

“I wanted to kiss you again. I should have kissed you again. Because the guys, they did tell me to kiss you. That’s why I did it.” He steps toward you, swallowing hard. “But I wanted to kiss you again. I wanted to. I didn’t, because I was nervous and I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t feel my fingers. And every time after that, when I wanted to kiss you, I would start to feel that way again. And I didn’t know what to do with that, so I just wouldn’t kiss you.”

He feels it now. His fingers are numb, and his heart is beating in his ears. And his stomach kind of hurts, and he’s terrified that this still isn’t enough. He’s terrified that your silence means that he’s not doing this right.

“I would have liked that.” You purse your lips when he blinks at you in surprise. “If you had kissed me again. I would have liked that.”

He sighs in relief and looks away, putting a hand on his stomach and clutching at his hoodie, scrunching the material. He nods, his eyes shut when he responds.

“Yeah. I would have liked it, too.”

And then he looks at you, eyes examining your expression. 

“Y/n, I… I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how to do this. I’m bad at everything that’s not volleyball-” He cuts off to roll his eyes. “Well, now I’m bad at volleyball, too. But that’s not-” 

He sighs.

“I don’t know how to make you happy without you telling me, and I don’t know how to be a good boyfriend because I don’t know what that means . I don’t know if what I feel is love because I don’t know what that feels like, and I’m convinced that all the rom-coms the guys made me watch were full of shit.”

You don’t even want to know what that means.

“But I know now that I should try harder. That I should ask you about your day, and that I should talk less about me and more about you, and that this -” He points between the two of you. “-shouldn’t just be you doing everything.”

He steps toward you. “So I’m going to do those things. Not because you told me to and I’m just following along, but because you told me what makes you happy, and I want to make you happy.”

You can only stare, your breath shallow and shaky. He closes the distance, and then, after a beat, reaches hesitantly for your hand. You let him take it. He meets your eyes nervously.

“Can you say something, please?”

You look at him for a moment longer, and then you smile.

“Okay.”

He rolls his eyes.

You lace your fingers through his. He watches the movement, swallowing.

“I like when you do that. It makes me happy.”

Your face starts to warm. “I didn’t know that.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’ll work on that.”

You nod slowly, thinking. “I’ll work on… growing up, I guess. Being an independent person. Becoming successful on my own, just like you.” You smile softly up at him. He just quirks an eyebrow.

“You already are. Your grades, and your student council stuff…”

You lean forward, planting your forehead on his chest. “You’re a nationally scouted volleyball player, and you think me having good grades makes me successful?”

He puts his free hand on the back of your head, tangling his fingers in your hair. “I think I’m failing two of my classes.”

He smiles when you snort into his shirt. And then he chews on his lip, thinking.

“So… am I un-dumped?” 

You laugh, letting go of his hand so you can wrap both arms around his waist, pulling him in. “Yes, Kags. You’re un-dumped.”

His heart swells, just a little.

“And the wedding?”

You think about it. Your fairytale wedding, with the prince of your dreams. The prince, who is flawed. And you, also flawed. And the fairytale, which apparently needs a lot of work.

“We’ll see.”

You feel him huff. “But you promised me goats.”

You look up, surprised. You hadn’t brought that up since middle school. “I thought you said no.”

He pouts, sheepish. “That’s because I’m pretty sure animals don’t like me very much.”

You can’t help the smile that’s growing on your face. He looks down at you, his fingers still tangled in your hair. And then he leans down, using those fingers to angle your head so he can drop his lips to yours without a word.

You feel his grip tighten nervously, and you raise onto your tiptoes, wanting to be closer, wanting to keep feeling this nervous. Wanting to stay like this forever.

Eventually, he pulls away, but only enough to whisper to you, his lips still against yours.

“ Will you still come to my game on Friday ?” He smiles wide when you snort and nod. “ And you’ll stay with me? The whole weekend? ”

You whisper back. “ If you want me to. ”

He just kisses you again.

–

Things are different now. Even though those four days had been a blip in the radar of your lives – which haven’t changed very much – things are different because of them. Kageyama becomes a boyfriend in more than just title alone.

He sends you awkward pictures of himself at the cafeteria, showing you that he eats without you needing to remind him. He still calls at 4:30 for his morning runs, but he tells you within a few minutes that you should go back to sleep, that he can get ready even if you’re snoring on the other end, because he doesn’t want you working so early in the morning. And then he calls after practice to ask about your day, about your student council meetings, about your college applications. He asks more questions as you talk, because he wants to know more about you.

He wants to keep knowing more about you, with every part of you that changes.

He comes home for Christmas, sitting through your joint family dinner with that blank stare but with his hand firmly nestled in yours, his arms reaching after you anytime you move to do something that would separate you. And then he takes you to see the Christmas lights in town, buying you anything that catches his eye and pulling you in for a kiss under every mistletoe he sees, because there’s nothing he likes more than a free excuse to kiss you. He comes back for the school festival, even though he has a game the next day, because he know it means everything to you that he’s there. And he wants to support you the way you support him.

He slowly stops looking to you for what he should be doing as your boyfriend. He starts relying on himself, because he knows now that it’s okay if he doesn’t know everything. He just does what he wants whenever he wants to, because more often than not, it ends up being something that makes you happy.

You graduate in the spring and follow him to Tokyo after being admitted into their Chemistry program. It’s nerve-wracking, leaving home like that, but you know it’s for the best that you do. You even fight Kageyama when he tries to get you to move in with him right away.

‘ We’re going to live together forever anyway’ , he says when you tell him you decided to be assigned to a dorm instead. You tell him that that’s exactly why you should live apart now. You have forever.

You’re terrified on your first day of the program, but those fears fade away and are replaced with relief and gratitude, because Kuroo Tetsurou is waiting for you outside, already a fourth year in the same major. He takes you under his wing, introducing you to your new seniors and giving you advice about which classes to take and which professors to avoid.

You make friends with the people in your year, and you hang out with Kuroo whenever you can, because he treats you like an adult, asking for your thoughts on his thesis and giving you opportunities to network with the right people but never doing it for you. Because it’s your future, so you’re the one that has to work for it.

You and Kageyama get into fights now. There are days when he clearly isn’t listening, when he needs to be told multiple times to do something like his laundry or writing that email to that professor about that missing assignment. He asks you multiple times to remind him, and you tell him you’re not his mother and that he’s an adult, for fuck’s sake. He always grumbles when you say it, but he never needs telling twice after that.

And on the days when you feel insecure, when you worry that you’re telling him too often what you want and not giving him enough freedom to act on his own, you close off. You stop communicating, because you forget that the whole reason you feel guilty is because you’re worried he’s not communicating. He’s never gentle with you on those days, because he doesn’t know how to be. He just snaps at you, warning you that you better not get trapped in your destructive cycle, that you just need to talk to him because he’s not a mind reader. You always end up spilling your guts to him afterward, crying like a baby because of the guilt and also because you’re mad that he yelled at you. But you’re still glad that he had.

Those days when you fight are always hard, but they feel real. They feel like a relationship created by people who try for each other because they care about each other. Kageyama slowly becomes a self-sufficient adult who learns to read you better than anyone else, and you slowly let go of the anxiety that had filled you for those first few months after getting back together.

Before you even realize it, two years have gone by and you’re moving into your new apartment for the start of the semester. Kageyama is graduating this year, and he’s still unhappy that you won’t move in with him, even now, but he leaves you to your decisions, because they’re yours.

You both make passing comments about marriage, but you never feel the need anymore to think about it the way you used to. You’d found your notebook from middle school – the one with the hearts around his name – while on a trip home, and you’d almost burned the thing in embarrassment.

Marriage is no longer the fairytale wedding you’d constantly dreamed of, to the prince who could do no wrong. Now, it’s just an expected next step in your relationship, to the man of your dreams – because you’ve always loved him, and you find new ways to fall for him all the time – but there are definitely days when you want to smack him with whatever you have on hand.

Despite that, though, he’s still your prince from the sandbox. That part would never change.

Things are good.

–

“ So, Hinata asked me how far we’ve gone again .”

You sigh out deeply through your nose when you hear that.

You’re in an otherwise empty lab, just after 7pm. Your studies had gone extremely well, and you’re on track to receive Honors, but unfortunately, that had come with the added responsibility of a rather rigorous independent study project. Your third year began with a pile of journal articles and the keys to your advisor’s lab, which you now use after working hours in order to develop your thesis.

You’re prepping materials for another round of experiments that you’ll run starting tomorrow, when Kageyama calls. You’ve got your headphones in, phone in your back pocket as you run around the room organizing. You can tell by the background noise that he’s riding his bike.

“You know, he is awfully interested in our physical relationship. What does he want, a threesome or something?” There’s a long pause after you say that, one where you can feel his desire to pick a fight. “I’m guessing you didn’t find that funny.”

“ Oh, could you tell? I was trying to figure out how to make my silence angrier .”

Ever since he’d picked up the concept of sarcasm from Hinata, you often have to wonder if that’s what he’s doing or if he’s still just being blunt.

“So what did you end up telling him?” You pull a blank chart from the drawer at your desk and open your laptop to check your notes. You have to document which chemicals you plan on using so you can file the report for clearance.

“That we fuck like bunnies and often in public.”

That was certainly sarcasm.

“You’re funny.”

“He thought so, too.”

Apparently, it was not sarcasm.

You look up from your work, staring out the window in disbelief. “You actually told him that?! ”

He laughs on the other end.

“Well, he didn’t believe me anyway, so–”

“You are so annoying, Kageyama-”

“ I work hard at it .”

You just shake your head, a laugh leaving you. “So? What did he end up telling you that you need to do?”

Kageyama sighs on the other end. “ I knew you would say that .” 

He’d stopped listening blindly to the words of his high school friend group. Hinata asks every few months about your relationship because he’s painfully nosy, and Tsukishima continues to insist that it’s actually because Kageyama is a specimen worth scientific analysis and that it’s shocking that he’d managed to get you back and keep you.

Yamaguchi is the only helpful one and therefore the only one that you meet up regularly with for coffee.

Rather than just doing whatever it is that Hinata thinks you two should be doing, however, Kageyama always brings it to you, asking if you think that’s true or if he should kick his friend’s ass. Most times, it’s the latter.

This time, Kageyama surprises you.

“ He didn’t suggest anything. I didn’t give him anything for him to go off of.”

You hum with interest. “Why?”

“ Because we kiss, and we hold hands, and we spend the night at each other’s houses, and there was that one time we both drank too much and then you jumped me as soon as we were alone- ”

“Oh, my God.” You groan under your breath, wishing he would let that go already. You were drunk and he was particularly pretty that night. And, if you remember correctly – and you do – he had wasted no time slipping his hands under your shirt when you’d started kissing him, so it wasn’t exactly one-sided.

“ -so I guess there was just nothing to tell him. The only thing he would really tell me anyway is that we should have sex, but I think if he’d said that to me, I would have thrown him out a window, so… ”

You flush but say nothing, only offering him a hum of acknowledgment. You two still haven’t gone that far, because Kageyama isn’t ready.

‘It’s one thing to learn to be a good boyfriend,’ He’d said. ‘ But I feel like, if I don’t do this right, I could hurt you. If I’m not good at knowing how to treat you – if I’m selfish with this, even on accident – then something bad would happen between us. ’

You had completely understood, and you’d just thanked him for being honest with you about it. It was back when you’d first started college, back when he still couldn’t read you the way he can now. It wasn’t priority for you, not enough to feel neglected and never enough to pressure him about it.

You had both still been kids back then. You weren’t ready either, to be honest. So it had just never come up again.

Even just a few months ago, on that night when you’d both gotten drunk and ended up in his bed, his hands fumbling for places he’d never been brave enough to go while sober, you had woken up to a guilty look on his face. He’d apologized so earnestly, terrified he’d gone too far, that he hadn’t done it right. It had taken you almost an hour to bring him down, assuring him that you’d had fun and that absolutely nothing was wrong.

You’d known then that even though he can read you perfectly now, sometimes better than you realize, he’s still worried about it. But it’s not like you’re in any rush to get there. You’re both extremely busy, and you barely have time to see each other outside of Friday and Saturday nights, which you’d both decided would be the time when no one else was allowed to contact you.

Just you and him on your couch with bad takeout, your phones lying forgotten in the kitchen. No teammates, no emails from your advisor, nothing.

It’s your favorite part of the week, and you know it’s his, too, because he always gets extremely affectionate on those two nights, his hands lingering on your skin and his lips on yours any chance he gets. That’s as far as he ever goes, and you’re more than happy with that. His attention, his time, his love – it’s all more than enough.

“ -guess I was kind of thinking about it, though… Or… I don’t know, I’ve been thinking for a few months… since that night… I don’t know.”

You have an inkling of what he’s talking about, your nerves suddenly on edge as you stop writing, giving him your full attention. You twirl your pen around your fingers, leaning back in your chair and putting your work aside.

“Thinking about…?”

There’s nothing but the sound of wind in your ears for a moment. It doesn’t sound like he’s in traffic anymore, which means he’s on campus. He must be close by.

“ I don’t know… I kind of feel like I might be ready…?”

You freeze, wondering if you’d heard correctly, and your phone slips and falls out of your back pocket in that stretch of silence. It clatters to the floor loudly, and you know Kageyama hears it on the other end, his voice judgmental in your headphones.

“ Hey. Alive and unharmed, please. I don’t ask for much .” 

You laugh nervously and shake your head, reaching down for your phone. That’s the first thing he’d said when he’d learned that you’d be spending 20 hours a week locked in a chemistry lab this year.

‘Try your best to stay alive and unharmed, okay?’

He’d had no idea that the chemicals are all safety locked, because of course he wouldn’t, so he thinks you’re just in a room surrounded by shelves of corrosive liquids all day.

“What, you gonna cancel the wedding if your girlfriend gets a really awful, face-altering chemical burn? That’s low, Kageyama.” You joke, checking your phone for scratches and then setting it on your desk. He jokes back with ease, his social skills having improved so much over the last few years that he can even go toe to toe with Tsukishima when he’s feeling particularly sarcastic.

“ No, I’m gonna cancel the wedding if my girlfriend manages to blow herself up, because that’s just embarrassing .” You laugh again, louder when he adds, “ -a national volleyball champion marrying someone who trips over her own feet? Pass. ”

“ Wow -” You throw your head back, your laugh echoing in the empty room. “You’ve gotten meaner over the last few years-”

“ Yeah, well, you grew up and became a mini Kuroo, which might be worse .”

You snort, letting a semi-comfortable silence settle between you as you think about what he’d said. That he might be ready. The thought of taking that step with him had always given you a little rush of butterflies, but they’d been easy enough to put in a box for another time.

Now… your hands are starting to sweat and your stomach is flipping.

You hear his bike start to slow, the wind less harsh in the mic of his headphones. He sighs quietly. 

“ Almost done with work? ”

You survey your desk. You’d gotten enough done to call it a day.

“I suppose I could schedule you in.”

“ Funny. Get down here .” He cuts the call without another word.

You grin, packing up and checking that the lab is in order as you’re heading out.

Kageyama’s sitting on a bench outside, bouncing his knee while he waits for you. He stands when he sees you, eyes a little wary.

“Hey…”

You smile wide as you run to meet him. He looks nervous. Probably because you hadn’t said anything when he’d told you he’s ready.

You can fix that.

You reach for his hoodie when you’re close, fisting the material in your hand and dragging him down to meet you. You plant your lips on his, stepping up onto your tiptoes to make things easier.

“ You sure that’s what you want? ” You whisper against his mouth, feeling the way he smiles when he hears it. 

He doesn’t answer, just taking your face in his hands and pushing his lips harder against yours.

“ Let’s go home .”

–

It doesn’t happen that night. 

You sit together on the couch in your apartment after dinner, but he must be more tired than he’d realized, because he’s asleep, head in your lap, less than ten minutes later. You just smile down at him, carding your fingers through his hair and scratching softly at his scalp for a few minutes. He eventually mumbles under his breath at the feeling, turning and burying his face in your stomach.

His quiet words, muffled in your shirt, reach you in the comfortable silence of your apartment.

“ Love you… ”

Your heart skips. He’s said it before, in the darkness of his bedroom with you wrapped in his arms. At the end of a phone call while he’s abroad for a game. In the middle of a fight, said with frustration and your cheeks squeezed between his fingers, because even when you’re not listening to him – even when he has to grab your face and make you look at him just to get you to focus on him – he still loves you.

And now this, when he’s asleep and has no idea what he’s just said. When he has no control over his thoughts and the way they take form on his tongue. When he can still feel you here with him, even when he’s not here at all.

He says it then, and you can finally see just how deep those words run for him. How engrained they are in his soul, just as they are in yours.

You fall asleep like that, fingers tangled in his hair and his words fresh in your memory.

–

You wake the next morning to the sound of rustling, the bed dipping next to you. It must be early, the sky outside your window still a bit dark. Had he carried you here?

“ Kags… ?” 

He says nothing, but there’s more shifting and then something’s hitting the mattress beside you lightly. You skim your hand along the sheet until you find it, your eyes still closed. It’s soft, and when you bring it to your face, you realize it’s his t-shirt, still warm with his body heat. 

You drape the thing over your face with a gentle smile, breathing in his scent and trying your best not to be soothed back to sleep by it.

And then you feel a hand on your waist, nimble fingers slipping under your shirt and pushing it up along your ribs. His mouth is warm on the newly exposed skin.

“‘m sorry I fell asleep…”

Your stomach flips when you realize what’s happening, and you’re suddenly wide awake. His mouth lifts off just enough that he can whisper to you, his bottom lip dragging along your skin as he moves up your torso.

“ I wanted it to be last night… ”

Your fingers start to go numb when he makes eyes contact with you, his gaze darkened with something you’ve never seen before. He climbs on top of you, caging you into the mattress with his elbows and dipping his head so he can attach his mouth to your neck, his lips hot on your skin.

You tilt your head to the side, mostly to give him better access, but also so that you can see the time flashing back at you from the alarm clock on your bedside table. It’s almost 6am.

“D-Don’t you have practice…?” It’s Saturday morning, which means practice is early, because there are no classes.

“It was cancelled.” He nips at your earlobe, and you feel him breathe a laugh into your ear when you shiver.

“I feel like you’re lying.” They have a game in two weeks. There’s no way it was cancelled. 

He just hums into your skin, nibbling on a spot under your ear and finding your hand with his, lacing your fingers together on the pillow. “They can survive a day without me. I have something more important to do.”

You can’t help the sigh that leaves you when he shifts between your legs, nudging your thighs apart so he can lay his body between them.

“And w-what would that be?” Your body feels warm, your head hot and fuzzy. You can’t focus on anything except the way his lips feel against your skin, the way he’s pressing his hips against yours, half-hard already.

“ Have to apologize to my girlfriend for making her wait .” He mumbles it against your throat, his tongue peeking out and swiping gently at your pulse point. Your thighs flex around his hips as a reflex, and he’s grinding down shallowly into you unconsciously. Your free hand trembles as you grip at his bicep.

“Wasn’t waiting… It’s okay…” You try to shake your head for emphasis, to show him that you don’t feel neglected, but your head is so heavy and foggy that you’re not really sure how successful you are. “‘s no rush…”

“No?” His lips move down your skin, hand leaving yours as he travels down to the collar of your shirt and then disappears, his mouth finding that exposed skin of your stomach again. His fingers dance along your ribs and under your shirt, stopping just under the swell of your breasts. “But I’m in a rush.”

“Huh?” You barely lift your head off the pillow, meeting his eyes shallowly. He just grins, kissing down your navel and bringing his hands down so he can tug carefully at the waistband of your shorts. He buries his face there, kissing along the marks your shorts left on you and nipping at your hip bones. His mouth starts to water as he thinks of all the skin he hasn’t touched yet. Claimed yet.

He plans to change that.

“ You’re not in a rush, but-” He leaves your navel alone, sliding down easily and pushing his hands against the hem of your shorts so he can have more access to you. So he can be closer.

He wraps his hands around your thighs, mouth finding your inner thigh easily. You’re warm, soft. His grip on you tightens.

“-now that I know what I want, and how much I want it, I want it now.” He meets your eyes, your own wide and nervous. Your thighs tremble just slightly under his touch. “So I’m in a rush. That okay?”

You just nod, your head falling back against the pillow as you breathe out an unsteady ‘ Okay… ’. You can’t help but jump when his tongue laps against your thigh, and then his voice is reaching your ears, a whisper of your name. You just hum unsteadily to let him know you’re listening.

“ I’m going to need your help… ” He just hold your thighs tight when you lift your head to look at him. “ I can’t do this without you .”

Your stomach flips at how innocently he’s looking at you, despite being in such a compromising place. It never fails to affect you, when he’s so blunt about the fact that he needs you. For a man with a face so neutral, a stare so empty, he’d always been vocal about wanting you by his side, ever since that confession in the park all those years ago.

You don’t think you’ll ever get used to it.

“ Okay… I’m here… ”

He breathes a sigh of relief, pressing his lips to your thigh one more time before letting you go, climbing over you again so he can push his mouth against yours.

His fingers curl around the hem of your shirt, and, with a nod from you at his curious tug, he pulls the thing up and over your head in one motion. You fall back against the bed, fisting the sheets in your hands as you lie there under him, chest exposed for the first time. 

He stares down at you, settling back on his knees and letting your shirt slip from his fingers and onto the floor without even realizing. He just stares, lips parted as his eyes dart between your breasts and up to your face.

“I…”

You cave when he trails off, finally bringing your arms up to your chest and hiding yourself, your face burning. Kageyama’s eyes widen, gaze flying up to meet yours firmly.

“What? What happened?” His fingers hover nervously over your arms while he watches you. “What did I do?”

You just shake your head, your ears ringing as you start to feel warm all over. “Nothing, I just… got nervous… that you wouldn’t like them…”

You watch his face, previously so vulnerable and scared that he’d screwed up, fall into a perfect deadpan. 

You know that face.

With a click of his tongue, he closes his fingers around your wrists and pulls them off of your chest, pinning them above your head.

“Stop being annoying.”

You scoff, not even slightly offended but still shocked he’d switched up on you like that.

“What the hell-”

“ Smartest fucking girl I know -” He’s mumbling to himself as he presses your wrists down into the pillow. He leans back onto his heels with a shake of his head. “- and you can still be so stupid sometimes .”

“Kag-” You jolt, cutting off, because he’s sliding his fingers up along your ribs and enveloping both of your breasts in his hands at the same time. He’d felt them over your bra before, that night that he’d gotten extra handsy, but to look down and see the way he’s got both hands cupping them, kneading gently with an excited glint in his eye – it makes you realize that you have nothing to be worried about.

Not with him.

“Can I…” He glances up at you, swallowing quickly. “Can I do what I want?”

Your stomach drops, heat building in your navel at the way he’s asking you to let him have his way.

“Yeah… Whatever you want…” You nod, and then your eyes widen, because he’s dropping his hands from your chest to your waist again, fingers hooking into your shorts. You meet his anxious glance with one of your own, but you lift your hips and let him undress you, let him explore. Let him get to know you better, because he’s always saying that that’s what he wants more than anything else.

Kageyama drops your shorts and panties to ground with your shirt, and then he’s hooking both hands behind your thighs and prying them open, letting them drape over his own. You inhale sharply at being so suddenly exposed, and your hands fly down instinctively to cover yourself, but they’re caught easily in his hold.

He sends you one withering look, daring you to try again, but he holds your wrists with the utmost care, feeling your fingers wrap nervously around his own as he stares down at you.

“You’re really pretty… You sure this is all mine?” He can’t take his eyes off of you, not even when your hips shift nervously under the weight of his stare. You whine his name, feeling vulnerable like this.

“I thought there was something you wanted to do…”

He doesn’t bother to look up at you when he responds. “I’m doing it.”

You breathe out a laugh of disbelief, shaking your head.

“Come on, you’re making me nervous again.”

Finally, he looks at you, seeing how anxious your gaze is. How your lips are pursed, how your eyes are begging him not to look so intensely.

He can’t help but smile.

Releasing your hands, he climbs back over you and lowers his lips to yours, gentle but firm. Sure that this is what he wants.

You slide your hands into his hair, anchoring yourself to him and trying not to gasp too loudly when he lowers his hips back down to yours, pressing the fabric of his sweats against your bare core. He pushes his tongue carefully against the seam of your lips, angling his head for a better fit when you part your lips for him.

You’re so focused on kissing him, on feeling the way he brushes his tongue against yours and makes your head swim, that you don’t feel one of his hands finding your breast until he’s cupping it and kneading softly.

“ This okay? ” He murmurs against your lips, growing bolder when you nod earnestly. 

“Little more is okay, too…” You feel him try again, feel his thumb pass over your nipple and then find it again when you twitch at the feeling. He focuses his attention there and flicks at it a few times, a weak moan leaving him when you dig your teeth into his bottom lip and pull it into his mouth in response.

The hands you have in his hair grip tighter, and you’re whispering his name against his lips, because he’s bucking his hips forward unconsciously again, bumping up against your core and sending a shock through your skin. 

He does it again, on purpose this time, because he likes the little shiver that runs through you, the way you lift your hips to meet his halfway. He likes how you feel under him, your skin soft under his hands and your core wet, starting to soak through his sweats and boxers the longer he touches you.

He drops his mouth to that spot under your ear that he likes, his heart pounding in his ears and his pants tight on him when you whisper into his ear, that ‘ Tobio ’ a half-moan and full of desire. Full of him and everything you want him to do to you.

And when he feels you push at his sweats with a shaky hand – when you arch your back and press your chest against his, asking him quietly to please take them off – he wants nothing more than to make you his.

With a sigh that holds everything he’s nervous about – hurting you, not being able to make you feel good, fucking this up – he leans away just enough to reach over for your bedside table, for the box that sits on top.

You had gone together to the convenience store last night, standing together in mortification and confusion by the condoms. He hadn’t known what size to get. He’d been so lost, and there had been so many options. 

You had watched him stand in the aisle with a box marked ‘Medium ’ for so long – long enough that you’d left him there to grab some snacks, to give him space – that by the time you’d come back, arms full of chips and drinks, he was still standing there, staring down at it. He’d switched it out for the large ones at the last second, and you’d tried not to blush at the implication.

Now, as you’re pushing his pants past his hips and staring down at his cock as it slaps lewdly against his navel, you’re realizing that he’d probably made the right choice in that store last night.

He fumbles for the box when he feels the cold air on his hot skin, and it falls to the floor. He swears under his breath, his voice shaky, and he reaches down for it. You watch him carefully, seeing the color of his ears and the flush of his cheeks. He meets your eyes nervously as he’s lifting back up onto the bed.

“ S-Sorry… ” He sits back on his heels, tearing into the box with shaking hands and pulling a condom out, throwing the rest onto the bed next to you. He starts to rip into the foil, but his hands are trembling so bad that he just ends up dropping the packet onto the mattress, between your legs. “Fuck, sorry-”

“Kags-” You sit up, fingers touching the back of his hand when he reaches for it again. He meets your eyes, and you can see that he’s more than nervous. He’s scared. “What is it?”

“I-” He swallows. “I just don’t want to ruin this.”

“You won’t.” You’d been so nervous this whole time, giving him that shy look while he’d been touching you. But now your gaze is firm, unyielding. “You won’t ruin this. You want this, right?”

“So much.” He nods harshly, trying to convey to you how badly he wants this. He’s just scared. “I want this so much.”

“Okay. That’s all that matters, then… Remember? What you want, and what I want. That’s what matters.” When he just blinks, nodding slowly but still unsure, you take his face in your hands and force him to meet your eyes. “It’s me, Tobio.”

Kageyama stills. 

It’s you.

The girl from the sandbox, all those years ago, with that princess costume. Asking him to be your prince. Beaming when he’d said yes.

The girl who would cheer for him at every game, screaming his name like there was no one else, like there would never be anyone else.

The girl who’d sacrificed pieces of herself to make him happy, even when he’d been clueless and stupid, too caught in himself to see everything you were giving up for someone as undeserving as him.

The girl who’d tried to leave his side. Who’d left him lost in his head when you weren’t where you were supposed to be, anywhere he would turn, searching for you.

The girl who’d forced him to grow up, loving him and caring for him in a way that he would never find again. The girl who laughs and cries for him, the girl who fights with him and for him, because you’d promised never to leave his side again, and you’d stuck firmly to that decision, no matter how impossible he can be sometimes.

The girl who had looked at him – had seen how much he struggles to understand people’s emotions, how selfish and unaware he can be – and had only ever seen a boy that she’d wanted to spend the rest of her life with.

“It’s you…” 

You smile at the dumb look on his face, empty and processing, and nod. “It’s me. I’m not going anyw– mm- ” 

Kageyama surges forward, cutting you off and pushing his lips against yours urgently. You hold tight to him as he knocks you off balance, your head meeting the pillow as he kisses you with everything he has. Finds your hand in the sheets and holds tight, like he never wants to let go. Whispers ‘I love you’ against your lips, like it’s not enough for him to say it – he needs you to feel it.

And then he leans away, leaving you to catch your breath with your hand pressed to your heart while he reaches for that forgotten packet lying between your thighs. 

He rips it open easily – still nervous, but sure of himself – and rolls the condom on carefully. He scoots his hips toward yours, laying your thighs flat over his, and meets your eyes again as he’s lining himself up at your entrance.

You smile sweetly, nervously. “You’re sure?”

He smiles back, a soft laugh leaving him on his next breath. “I thought that was supposed to be my line.”

There’s no hesitation in your voice when you respond.

“ I’ve always been sure. ”

Kageyama Tobio learns in that moment that not all heartbreak is bad.

His eyelids flutter as he looks down at you, breath caught in his throat. Your fingers find his wrist, and your smile knocks the wind right out of him.

Neither of you say a word as he nudges the tip of his cock past your entrance.

You inhale sharply at the sting, and he stops, eyes wide as he watches you. You nod after a breath, and he keeps going. 

He drops his head, feeling how tight you are, how hard it is to push into you. You bring his lips to yours, kissing him and letting him know silently that this is okay, that this is normal. That he’s not messing this up.

You cling to him, burying your head in the crook of his neck when he drops down over you with a shaky sigh. His hips finally meet yours, and all you can feel is your heart beating, everywhere. In your head, in your chest, in your ears. In the place when your body meets his, the place that almost seems to pulse with his heartbeat, too.

His lips find yours, and you kiss him with your hands buried in his hair, holding him close as you tell him everything that you don’t have the breath to say.

You stay like that for a while, and then he’s tensing, because you had clenched around him unconsciously, finally finding the stretch less painful and more pleasurable. 

He pulls his mouth away, leaning back so you can prop yourself up on your elbows and then pressing his forehead against yours. You both stare down at the junction of your bodies, breath mingling in the space between you as you fight to calm your hearts.

After a moment, you slide your gaze up to his, only to find that he’s already looking at you. His eyes are full of something – something soft, soft and warm and his – and your stomach flips harshly. You clench again without meaning to, and that look in his eye is gone, disappearing when his eyes roll back briefly, eyelids fluttering at the feeling of you around him.

“I-I’m sorry…” 

He only laughs breathily, eyes still shut, and shakes his head.

“Yeah, so am I.” He heaves out another breath, finally finding your gaze again. “This is torture.”

You blink, realizing what he means. “Oh! You can move now, Tobio, I’m fine-”

“You’re telling me that now ?” He looks distraught, and you can’t help but laugh. “Do you have any idea how much self-control it- agh- ” He shakes his head again, dropping his head to your shoulder and knocking you back onto the bed. He tangles his fingers in your hair, speaking into the crook of your neck. “You’re killing me here.”

You shift your hips, intending to apologize, but the feeling of him buried inside of you like this when you move has you gasping. He does the same, your name a half-moan in your skin. He pulls his hips back gently without removing his face from your neck, and you both breath shakily when he pushes into you again, slow but less uncertain than the first time.

The moan that tumbles out of your mouth is amplified by his own, low and harsh in your ear.

“You-” He moves again, and you start to crave the stretch he gives you when he pushes into you again. “-you feel-”

“ Kageyama… ” You cling to his arms, burying your face in his skin and wrapping an arm around his neck to keep him close like this. “It feels-” You cut off, moaning when he snaps his hips harshly.

Neither of you are able to form any coherent thoughts, and you can tell that he’s close when he reaches almost frantically for your hand, gripping so tight that his knuckles turn white.

He doesn’t last long, not when your moans are so close to his ear like this, flying straight down his spine and into a spot just under his bellybutton, shocking his system and shoving him closer and closer to something he can’t even begin to describe.

He comes with your name on his tongue, his face buried in your neck and your hand in his the only thing keeping him grounded. You mewl at the feeling, the sound forcing his hips forward one last time and drawing his name out of your mouth.

You feel full of him, your heart pounding harshly in your ears as he collapses on top of you. You keep your arm wrapped firmly around his neck, holding him against you. He catches his breath like that, his chest heaving against yours as he comes down from his high.

And then his fingers are wiggling against yours in your joined hands, and it almost aches to pry your fingers off of his when he pulls his hand away, sore from the tight grip. 

He reaches down blindly, and you think he’s going to lean away from you and pull out.

But he just skims his shaking fingers over your skin, reaching between you and brushing over your core. He stops moving when you jolt against him, and he knows he’s found your clit. He stays firmly there, his middle finger circling the spot gently and adjusting to the way your body responds, the way your back arches and you breathe in harshly at the feeling.

“W-What are you–”

“ You didn’t finish .” He mumbles against your skin. He can tell because you’re still clenching around him, your walls fluttering every time he does something you like. “ ‘m I doing okay? ”

“It’s perfect.” Your eyes start to fill with tears, your heart swelling with emotion. You hide your face in his neck. “ You’re perfect -”

“ Marry me. ” 

You almost think for a second that he hadn’t said it. His fingers never stop moving, and he pulls you closer and closer to the edge, still buried inside of you, as if he hadn’t said anything at all.

But you know he had, because he’s saying it again, even as your head is starting to fill with white static at the way he’s touching you.

“Let’s get married.” He pulls his head away from your neck, and his eyes are meeting yours. “Please. Marry me. Let me make you happy.”

His fingers swipe over your clit, and those tears that were filling your eyes are spilling over now, your chest drowning in that feeling of love that you’d become so familiar with over the years. It forces a choked sob out of you, and you’re nodding frantically as he’s nudging the tips of his fingers against that spot again.

He laughs breathily, and if you could see through your tears, you would know that he’s staring down at you like he’s never seen something so perfect. Your tears stream down your face and onto the pillow, and the feeling growing in the pit of your stomach has you reaching for his shoulders to pull him back down.

“ I love you– ”

Kageyama drops his head to your shoulder as you come undone, your body twitching and your back arching as you cry for him. He holds you tight, murmuring his love into your ear as you come down, breathing hard against his skin.

You lie there, wrapped up in him as you sob, because you can’t find your breath and because he’s holding you like you’re somehow still not close enough.

“I love you…”

His words are soft in your ears, soft against your tears. 

“I’ve loved since before I knew what that meant.”

You cry harder, squeezing your eyes shut and sobbing into him.

“I was so bad at loving you before.” He finally pulls away so he can meet your eyes. You can barely see him, vision blurry. “But I know how to love you now. You taught me how to love you. I can’t unlearn that.”

Your hands are shaking as they grip his shoulders. He waits until your breath starts to even out, until you’re blinking the tears out of your eyes and finally seeing him. Until your heartbeat can match his.

“Please let me keep loving you.”

You whisper his name, and then nod. He starts to smile, and you beam back at him, your smile watery and fragile. He combs your hair out of your face, wiping your tears away with his thumb while he talks.

“Is that a yes? You’ll marry me?”

You just nod again, leaning your face against his hand.

“Okay.”

He sighs, heated, and rolls his eyes.

“You’re annoying.”

“You love me.”

His smile gives him away.

[cntrlnoah]

Photoism

Summary: Rafe’s shy girl wants to take photobooth pictures with him on a date.

Pairing: Rafe x shy!fem!reader

Warning: food mentions, kissing, Rafe being a tease, nicknames (sweet cheeks, princess), Rafe flipping off the camera

A/N: sorry it took so long. got really busy with work. hope you enjoy! (^з^)-☆ idk if all of y’all know photo booths work cause each one of different so I took inspo from the photo booth in my Koreatown and how it works 🤍🤍🤍

Little dates with Rafe are common. Whether it was getting boba from the newest tea shop to something a bizarre as paint ball. Rafe loved surprising you with cute little dates.

Today was no different as he took you out on a trip to Koreatown. He wanted to try the new fried chicken place people were raving about. It was in this food gallery like place. Full of cute decor and soft kpop songs playing on the radio.

On the corner of your eyes you spot a couple leaving the photo booth giggling as they hold a photostrip each. Something in you made you want to do it with Rafe but you were too shy to ask. As you both finish eating the fried chicken, Rafe made mental note on how your eyes lingered back to the photo booth.

As the two of you are nearly about to leave you finally gained the confidence to ask him to take some pictures.

“Hey Rafe…can we take some photo booth pictures be for we go?” you said very timidly. “It’s…just I’ve been eyeing the photobooth recently—” but before you can finish to it ramble explaining why you wanted to Rafe kissed you to shut you up.

“You know you don’t need to explain sweet cheeks. I’ve seen you eyeing that machine for a while. If it makes you happy I’m willing to do so” he says. As he says that your cheeks go red over the nickname and the kiss.

“Come on princess don’t go all shy on me now? We still have pictures to take” he says feigning concern but the smirk plastered on his face gave his real reaction away. As he says this you start to drag him into the photo booth.

Inside the photo booth was a screen which displayed a start button. As you click the button, the screen turns into the styles of photos you can get from 2 2x6 photo strips with 4 frames for $5 or 2 4x6 sheets with 6 frames for $8. You choose the option for $5 and the screen tells you to insert a $5 bill in the slot under the screen to begin. Rafe hands you a $5 bill from his Hermes wallet for you. As the machine takes the bill the screen mirrors the you and Rafe, letting you see what the poses would look like. You guys had 8 takes for poses and 15 seconds to do them.

The first pose you wanted to do was a cute one so you put your hands in the shape of a heart to you cheek, Rafe on the other hand flipped of the camera but before you could react the camera shuttered and you’ve used up one of the frames.

The next pose was you doing the same pose but Rafe this time following in suit.

After that, y’all did peace signs with both of your hands.

Each frame was different from silly to cute and much more.

For the last one, Rafe wanted to do something. He pretended to do another pose but right before the counter reached 0 he grabbed your chin and leaned you in for a big kiss. After pulling away from the kiss your face turned bright red.

“Rafe!” you whined. “What? Don’t tell me you didn’t like it princess. Come on let’s choose the frames before the timer runs out love” he states.

After he said that you both looked at the screen and looked over the poses you want. You choose the peace sign one first. Rafe says, “ we should do this one. I look bad ass.” He points to the one where he flips off the camera. “But it so vulgar”, you said. Rafe chuckles as he heard you say that. “C’mon princess, I’ll let you pick the next one okay?” Rafe says. You nod as you pick the one where you both did the hearts.

The last photo was the one you had struggle with. Do you choose the silly one with both of you sticking out your tongue or the cute one where you both did animal ears? Rafe then butts in, “We should do the last one where we kissed.” You looked at the last one and blush.

“But it’s so unexpected I don’t look ready” you said. Rafe just smirks, “You’re not supposed to look ready. That’s why it’s good. Plus the kiss was pretty nice.” “No it wasn’t” you said blushing like crazy. Rafe looks you up and down, “Don’t lie to me princess. I like it so I’m choosing it” he says clicking on the photo.

After that you got to choose the frame, you went with the pastel pink and blue ombré frame. You both waited for the photos to print and got out of the booth enjoying the rest of the day around town.

[sourcherryandsprinkles]

Topper’s sister (one or two years younger you pick) who does Only Fans and Rafe finds out. He subscribes and watches her content (because she’s hot and off limits since she’s Topper’s little sister) in secret, then blackmails her saying he’s gonna tell Topper. One weekend, she comes to Rafe and Topper’s place to surprise Topper for his birthday, but he’s not there and rafe blackmails her into giving him a blowjob

This is the longest work I've written in a while, I hope you enjoy

p.s. There is a possibility to make a part 2 for this one. Let me know if you are interested

Warnings: 18+, smut, blackmail, oral (m receiving),

—

After showering, Rafe tossed his towel into the hamper and fell on his bed. Topper was out with Cynthia — or maybe it was Vanessa —, which left him alone for the night. Rafe wasn’t complaining though, being alone was nice sometimes. Especially when he wanted to jerk off. 

He could have done it in the shower, but having visual material made the release better. 

Phone in hand, Rafe scrolled for something to watch. Sadly, none of the girls he was following had put up new content, so he looked for new accounts. He found a cute one, brunette with blue eyes, but she had overly huge tits and Rafe wasn’t into that — no offense to the girl. He almost went looking elsewhere when his eyes caught a familiar face.  

Rafe hit the profile and the biggest smirk turned on his lips. 

No fucking way. 

‘’Caught your dirty little secret,’’ he said to himself, his blue eyes staring at the free photoset you had to attract subscribers. Your sheer white bra left not much to the imagination and the curve of your ass had Rafe’s cock twitching. He’s been wanting to hit it since you wore that bikini at this beach parry last summer. 

Without hesitation, he subscribed and opened the first video.

You were sitting cross-legged on your dorm bed with nothing but a baby pink bodysuit, which hugged your figure perfectly. Your hard nipples were poking through the thin fabric, as if they were trying to say ‘hello’ to your viewers. You winked at the camera as your right hand slowly went down your chest, making a show of pinching your covered nipple and catching your bottom lip with your teeth as you let out a little moan. 

The sound made Rafe grip his cock and start to slowly jerk it. He was weak for nice tits…and yours were very nice. 

You pulled your other breast free from the fabric, your delicious nipple popping free as you asked the camera if they'd like to suck on them. Without waiting for an answer — not that you would be getting any since it was pre-recorded —, you looked down at it and dribbled spit onto yourself. 

 If Topper knew he was jerking off to his little sister, he would rip his head off. 

And your parents? If they knew about your secret online business, they would cancel all payments to your prestigious college and bring your ass back to Kildare. Dr. Cynthia Thornton’s daughter could not be part of the world of prostitution. It would look terrible for their name. 

Normally, Rafe loved to ruin people’s lives just for fun, but he was enjoying the view too much. All the photo-sets of you in delicate lingerie, the occasional topless ones, the close-ups of your fingers — and sometimes toys — in your pussy and the sweet moans that came from your mouth every time you were pleasuring yourself were part of his night routine. As perverted as it sounded. 

Weeks passed, and soon Topper’s birthday was coming up. The boys planned on going out to a club and celebrating there, but the plan changed when you showed up to your brother’s apartment for a birthday surprise.

‘’Where’s Top?’’ you asked, walking in like it was your own place. 

With a frown on his face, Rafe watched and closed the door behind you. ‘’At the gym with Braxton,’’ he replied. ‘’What are you doing here?’’ 

‘’Am I not allowed to surprise my brother for his birthday?’’ 

‘’We already have plans, and you’re not part of it.’’ 

Although Rafe had reserved a private booth, there was no way Topper would allow you to come to the club. 

Brushing off his objection, you grabbed your small suitcase and scanned the apartment. ‘’Where’s the guest bedroom?’’

‘’Here,’’ Rafe said, pointing at the couch. 

‘’I’m not sleeping on the couch.’’ 

‘’We turned the third bedroom into a gaming room. It’s the couch or the floor. You pick.’’ 

You raised an eyebrow, considering your options. The floor got crossed immediately — women do not sleep on floors. The couch, although soft and comfortable looking, had probably been used to have sex. It was a college boys apartment. 

‘’Then, I’ll be taking your bedroom.’’ 

 ‘’Absolutely not, Princess. This is my apartment, I'm not sleeping on the couch.’’

You crossed your arms, challenging his resistance. ‘’Come on, Rafe. I’m only staying for two days. I need to be back for Sunday, I have—’’ 

‘’Video content to film?’’ 

You gave Rafe a confused look to conceal your inner panic. ‘’A paper due Monday,’’ you said.

Rafe leaned against the couch, his eyes scanning you up and down. ‘’I know about your dirty little secret,’’ he said smugly, explicit images of yourself flashing in his head. ‘’I found your Only Fans account last month. By the way, you look better in light pink than sapphire blue, it washes you out.’’

At this very moment, you wished you could disappear with a snap of your fingers. With the details he was providing, it was impossible that Rafe was bluffing. You thought your account was well hidden, that your username was well thought and would never give you away. How did he find you? 

Your cheeks flushed in embarrassment, looking at Rafe with knives for eyes. 

‘’You didn’t think anyone would find out, did you?’’ 

‘’Did you tell Topper?’’ 

Fear started creeping in your stomach at the thought of Topper knowing about that part of your life. 

Rafe shook his head. ‘’Your secret’s safe with me…on one condition.’’ 

You rolled your eyes. Nothing was ever free with Rafe. He always wanted something in exchange. 

The corner of his mouth curled and you shook your head immediately, easily guessing what he had in mind. ‘’Absolutely not.’’ 

‘’Come on. I’m keeping my mouth shut, the least you can do is open yours.’’ 

Your jaw dropped at his crude words. ‘’That’s blackmail!’’ 

Rafe shrugged, not caring that he was playing dirty. ‘’You do what you want. I’m not gonna be the one in trouble after I make a little call to Topper to tell him his little sister opens her legs for money—’’ 

‘’Fine,’’ you said, gritting your teeth.

Somehow, this was more embarrassing than anything you had done on camera. 

Swallowing your pride, you kneeled before him, trying to ignore the cocky winning smile on Rafe’s face as you came face to face with his clothed lower region.  He was already thick behind his sweatpants — you could see the outline through the gray fabric.

Taking a deep breath, you pulled his sweatpants down, uncovering his cock and balls. You gulped at the sight. He was long and thicker than average, which explained where his confidence came from — aside from his daddy’s big money.

‘’Like what you see?’’ Rafe asked, proud of his appendage. 

Without breaking your annoyance, you rolled your eyes. You couldn’t let him know that you were impressed by his size. He would never let you live this one down.

You wrapped a soft palm around his shaft, letting your thumb stroke over his tip and back down until he reached full hardness. Reluctantly, you dipped your head and took the head into your mouth, swirling your tongue and tasting the pre-cum that leaked from it before going to the base of his shaft. You didn’t take everything into your mouth — yet —, but tried to fit as much as you could. 

A soft groan left Rafe's mouth, feeling the pleasure of yours. His hand came to the back of your head, gripping your hair into a ponytail and encouraging you to continue your movements up and down. You sped up your pace, saliva spilling from your mouth as precum leaked into your mouth and ran down your throat, secretly starting to enjoy yourself. 

You clenched your thighs together, wetness slowly pooling in your panties. 

Above you, Rafe moaned, his grip tightening on your hair as you slid down as deep as you could manage. ‘’That’s it, baby. Put that mouth to good use.’’ 

Had your mouth not been busy, you would have told him to get fucked. Instead, you let him fuck your mouth like you were a inflatable doll from a sex shop until your jaw was starting to ache and you had to pull away. 

Unsatisfied with your ungranted break, Rafe tapped his cock against your cheek, smearing pre-cum and saliva on your face. ‘’Did I tell you to stop?’’

‘’No, but—’’ 

‘’Then get back to business.’’ He pressed his cock against your mouth, but you didn’t let him in. ‘’Or…maybe I should call Topper and send him a link to your side business?’’

You sat on your heels, letting out a defeated sigh. ‘’My jaw hurts, okay? I can’t anymore,’’ you explained, although doubting Rafe would be compassionate. He didn't care about you, he just wanted to empty his balls. ‘’But maybe we can’t look at other options?’’ You pulled down the front of your shirt, exposing your bra to him.

Rafe's eyes darted down your chest, catching his bottom lip between his teeth knowing what was beneath your bra. ‘’I'm listening.’’

But before the negotiations could begin, you heard the apartment door opening: Topper was back. Quickly, you fixed your shirt and wiped your mouth with the back of your hand while Rafe pulled his sweatpants back up.

—

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[gravid-transluna]

Commission for @birthedstars, I adored this prompt!

Melanie, a popular cosplayer, has been keeping pregnancy a secret from social media and her fans. It's con season and she is currently at the final one before she is due to give birth along with her non-cosplaying friend Lea. As she's taking photos with her fans, she feels a trickle in her pants and a pain stronger than any she's had before hit her belly. It's a week before she's due; panicked and struggling to keep her composure, Melanie has to rely on Lea to shoo away people begging for photos and conversation. Melanie doesn't want an audience for this, but as each contraction passes it becomes less likely. Lea either needs to get her out of the convention center or find a secluded spot for her friend. If she doesn't, this baby is going to come out in a room filled with hundreds…

Cons, Cosplay and Crowning

words: 3158

content: clothing birth, inconvenient birth, birth denial, fpreg

Melanie had told herself that this would be her last convention before the baby arrived. Giga-con was one of the largest cons in the country. Packed from floor to ceiling with fans, cosplayers, collectors, artists, photographers; lines out the door, every booth crowded, a sea of vibrant anime-hair… It was a sight to behold, and something Melanie had no intention of missing, pregnancy or not. She had quite a few fans as well. Enough to have a pretty constant stream of attention focused on the booth where she sold autographs and photos and voice recordings.

A minor detail: her fans didn’t know that she was nine months pregnant, due in a week. Her baby bump had remained small throughout her pregnancy, allowing her to hide it fairly well, relying on cosplays involving belts or flowy skirts and dresses. Her various social media accounts mentioned nothing about a coming baby, only her next convention dates and wig ratings.

“You’re seriously doing Zero Two for your last con before the baby?” Lea, her friend, had asked Melanie. This character, a mech pilot, wore a skintight suit.

“It’ll be okay,” Melanie said, patting the tight curve of her abdomen. It was smooth, and only nude it was obvious that there was a stretch to her skin that could only be from a swollen womb. “People notice the cosplay, not the person behind it. Besides! This is the biggest con we’ve ever done. I want to do something that’ll steal the show!”

Lea sighed. “Just don’t be walking around too much. And let me know if I need to yell at some fans. I know you’re too nice for that.”

Melanie had smiled. “What would I do without you?”

“Whatever. Here,” walking over to Melanie, who was busy struggling with her suit in the mirror. “Let me zip you up.”

This was a week ago. The night before the con she’d been experiencing Braxton Hicks, small irregular spasms in her back and belly. When she woke up in the hotel, padding to the full-length mirror in the bathroom, she couldn’t help but gasp. Her belly had dropped overnight, the head of her baby nestled deep in her hips now. When she placed her hand under the taut surface, she could feel the weight, low. As she watched the mirror, the muscles around her womb clamped in a fiery band. She winced, doubling over.

Is this… a contraction?

“Mmn,” she moaned quietly under her breath, cupping her small bump. Lea yawned and rolled over in bed. Sleepily she lifted her head. “Mel? You okay?”

“Um.” Melanie straightened as her belly relaxed. “I’m not sure, but I think I just had a contraction.”

“Jesus, Mel!” Lea was awake now, trotting over to the bathroom. “Wow, your belly. It looks lower. Should we head to the hospital?”

“No!” Melanie shook her head. “No way. We dropped so much on these tickets, they’re non-refundable, you know. Besides, that was my first contraction. Labor can take days.”

Lea hesitated. “Are you sure you’re even gonna fit into that suit now? It was a challenge before your belly looked like, well, that.”

“It’s a stretchy material,” Melanie assured her, and sure enough, it fit—barely.

They waited in line at the center and got checked in, and by the time they set up the booth, Melanie had been enduring constant regular contractions. They wrung her womb, squeezed the breath from her lungs. The baby’s head was ramming against her cervix with nearly unbearable force, and soon she couldn’t keep sitting at their booth, gritting her teeth behind a smile for her fans, hand trembling as she signed autograph after autograph. She was getting nervous now. The convention closed at eight, and it was barely two. She and Lea hadn’t even had a snack yet. All she could think about was the baby in her belly, the movements, even more forceful as her belly shrank and squeezed her restless child on all sides. No, she had to stand and pace. The pressure was too bad to be sitting, it felt almost as if she was seated on a bowling ball, lodged between her legs.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Lea knit her brows. Sweat beaded on Melanie’s forehead and her cheeks were red with exertion, but she could blame those things on an overheated scalp and too much powdered blush.

“Fine!” Melanie chirped, a little out of breath. “Just feeling very, very pregnant.”

Lea looked apprehensive. “Not long now.”

“Long enough,” Melanie said. “Hey, let’s walk around for a bit.” She painstakingly climbed to her feet as Lea assisted. Standing, the pressure was so much worse, and she had to resist a low groan.

“We’ll be back later,” Lea told the people lingering around the booth. “Hey—c’mon people, give her some space.”

Already overwhelmed with the sensations in her body, the pain and pressure and urgency she’d been ignoring for so long, fighting her way through the press of bodies was downright dizzying. She was sorely regretting the body suit now. She was streaming sweat, blinking it out of her eyes, and yet the suit didn’t permit the slightest bit of room or air, practically boiling her alive. The hot pleather irritated the skin of her stomach, taut and sensitive, broiling with her impatient baby. Worse, the pleather rubbing against her tender, pregnancy-swollen nipples sent shivers coursing down her spine. The stimulation wasn’t exactly slowing her labor.

Lea, her knight in shining armor, led her through the crowds to the nearest restroom. Suddenly their path was interrupted by a troupe of Mandalorian cosplayers, and one of them passed between Lea and Melanie, breaking their grip. Suddenly, Melanie was alone and couldn’t spot Lea anywhere, couldn’t even spot the restrooms anymore.

A contraction was coming on, a strong one. The pressure was nearly buckling her legs. “Oh no….” Melanie said under her breath. 

Then her body clenched violently. A low mooing noise was drawn from her throat, nearly unrecognizable from her usual pitch. The constant murmur of the crowd was enough to drown her sounds out, but she could scarcely believe they were coming from her in the first place. Teased pink strands of hair fell into her face, disguising her strained features. All people noticed was a Zero Two standing strangely wide-legged in the aisle, with an odd curve to her midsection.

The pressure surged and Melanie gasped. Instinctively she widened her stance even more. The pain clasped her, then suddenly— a release.

“Oh, god,” Melanie moaned as fluids trickled down the seams of her body suit. The contraction faded, leaving her thoughts racing. Those are my waters. Shit! Shit!

“Mel! There you are!” Lea’s face appeared from the crowd. Melanie looked at her, clasping her round bump, and Lea noticed her stricken expression.

“What is it?” She leaned in and cupped Melanie’s cheek. “Hey, what happened? Who do I need to kill?”

“No,” Melanie said breathlessly, closing her eyes under Lea’s touch. “I think—I think my water just broke.”

Lea’s eyes widened but before she could say anything they were interrupted.

“Excuse me?” A younger teenager brandishing an iPhone. “Could I get a picture? I love Zero Two.”

Melanie plastered a smile on her face and smiled before Lea had the chance to shoo the girl away. She just couldn’t say no to fans. The girl’s friend backed up to get the shot, and as Melanie posed, she felt another contraction brewing in her stomach. She could tell it was a bad one. Without the cushioning of her waters, the skull of her baby drove mercilessly down through her cervix, the pressure mounting by the minute. Hold the pose, she told herself, panting through it. Hold the pose, legs shaking, sweat pouring from under her arms, she couldn’t believe that the girl didn’t notice her violent trembling, didn’t notice the way her thighs spread and her knees bent slightly….

Fuck, she almost wanted to push.

Snap! The girl’s friend trotted back to them, smiling. “Thank you so much!”

Melanie’s smile was slipping. She tried to answer, and instead let out an acknowledging grunt. The contraction was releasing her now but she could barely remain standing with the immense pressure of the head dipping into her birth canal.

The girls receded back into the crowd, and Melanie heard Lea’s voice in her ear. Her hand went to her back, steadying. “You okay?”

“The baby’s trying to come,” Melanie whimpered back. “I can feel it.”

“Shit, Mel!” Lea hissed. “I told you!”

“Just—please, get me out of here.”

“Alright,” Lea breathed. “Okay.” Trying to look casual, Lea scanned the convention hall for exits. Even if they were to make it outside, Melanie thought, what then? Squat down and pop her baby out on the sidewalk? In the summer heat? No, they needed somewhere private, away from all the eyes and cameras. 

Heat flashes. She was shivering, legs swaying. The mass filling her canal was nauseating and the pressure was almost enough to collapse her. Lea yanked her shoulder suddenly and Melanie was jolted back into reality. “Restrooms! This way!”

The main hall had become quickly congested since they took the photo, and they were forced to double back and pick their way around the edges. Along the way Melanie suffered another contraction that had her stopping to brace herself against the wall. The pressure was blinding. It was as though the baby was filling every part of her, slowly, an all-encompassing descending fullness that was impossible to ignore or stave off.

“I gotta push,” she gasped to Lea before grunting and bending her knees.

“No! No way! We’re so close.”

“I’m trying not to…. Oh, god.” She tried to resist the urge. Her body was demanding that she bear down.

Some passerby called over to them. “Hey, is she okay?”

Lea sprang up. “Oh yeah, perfectly fine,” and Melanie recognized the nervous lie. “Just some cramping, you guys had better avoid that sushi truck outside.”

Would Zero Two just give up like this? Lose control so easily? Melanie shook her head. No, she wouldn’t, and neither would Melanie. With an almost superhuman effort, Melanie took her palms from the wall and straightened and tried to pinch her thighs as close together as they would go. The fullness peaked, stretching her wide from within. “Fuck!” She felt tears forming in her eyes.

She leaned heavily against Lea, blinking the tears from her eyes as she glanced up. “Oh no…. mm, the line is that long?!”

People were lined against the wall and crouched by outlets, plugged into phones as they waited. She couldn’t wait that long. Her body was already utterly fatigued from fighting her most primal feminine instincts. She couldn’t imagine undergoing even one more contraction without giving in to the need to birth.

She spun Lea and held her shoulders, trying to convey the impossibility of such a task. “Lea, please, there’s no way in hell I can last that long. Mmgh, it’s coming, I’m gonna have to push, I can’t not push.”

Lea raised a hand to cup Melanie’s cheek, her touch light and tender. “Oh, Mel. Just hold on to me, all right?”

They took their places in the abysmally long line, Melanie fling, bowlegged, and clinging onto Lea for support. When another contraction struck it arrived with violence, and immediately every other thought deserted Melanie’s head except for the need to push. She buried her face into Lea’s shoulder, hanging onto her for dear life, and planted her feet wide. Then she PUSHED, with a long, breathless groan.

“I’m pushinggg-mmmgh,” she sobbed in Lea’s ear as she bore down.

Lea rubbed the small of Melanie’s back in soothing circles. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

Every push shoved the baby further down, filling her birth canal more and more with its immense mass, and she couldn’t stop the descent, couldn’t even keep her thighs together any more, her legs permanently spread in preparation for the coming baby. Contractions wracked her belly; her womb clenched and seethed. With each one she was forced to stop and squat and bear down as subtly and silently as she could manage. It was all she could do to stop from releasing guttural roars as she pushed.

Twenty people down. Ten. Five. They were almost to the restrooms now, leaning against a vending machine near the doors. Unfortunately, Melanie just couldn’t hold it back. She and Lea had their back to the others, pretending to examine the vending machine for snacks when in reality, Melanie had both hands braced against the glass, pushing with all she had. Her powerful internal muscles thrust the baby down, and her tight groan sharpened the head shoved through her hips and began to fill her vagina. She fumbled between her legs with one hand, crying out at the sensation, and felt the slightest bulge in the leather at her crotch. The head was so close to emerging, the fullness was nearly unbearable, and it had her panting, open-mouthed, lolling her head even after the contraction had ended.

“Oh god, Mel,” Lea whispered, half in horror, half in awe. “I can see it! It’s starting to come out!”

“Can’t—” Melanie gasped. “Not, guh! I-it can’t come out yet!”

“Excuse me,” Someone behind them in line said. “I think the woman’s bathroom is free now.”

Lea ushered Melanie from her position against the machine; she could barely walk now, stuck at nearly a half-squat, toddling into the bathroom with the head trapped between her legs.

As Lea closed the door and flipped the lock, Melanie had already clamped her hands against her thighs and dropped into a deep squat, grunting the baby deeper into her bottom. The fabric at her crotch strained even more, and she could feel her lips distending outward, tautly enveloping the head but beginning to open. Her most intimate part, now being unrecognizably stretched. The burn had her panting in tiny, whimpering grunts, trying to hold back but failing altogether.

“Ohhhh,” she moaned. “OH. It burns, Lea! I’m giving birth, it’s coming, oh fuck, that HURTS.”

She doubled over with vigor, utterly consumed with pushing, with the desperate, overwhelming need to get this baby out of her. Her body suit stretched more and more, and the damp tent between her thighs grew until her lips were parted in a tight, fiery circle around the head, finally reaching full crown.

“Ah!” She gasped, and then Lea was by her side, cupping her face, murmuring into her ear how well she was doing, telling her, “I need to take this off, okay? Baby needs to come.”

“Yes, please, get it off!” Melanie pleaded. She wasn’t Zero Two anymore, wasn’t anyone right now except a birthing mother, giving into her natural instincts.

Lea circled around to her back, parting the pink hair of her wig to locate the zipper at her neck. She fiddled with it, struggling to fit it into the teeth. “C’mon, stupid thing!”

The next contraction was quickly taking hold. “Hurry!” Even as Melanie said this she was already settling into her squat again, readying herself to birth. 

The crown in her bodysuit was unforgiving, the fullness and pressure driving her nearly to her breaking point. She just needed the head out, then she could focus on getting the suit down. “I gotta push again!”

“Just—wait,” Lea commanded her, fingers scrabbling with the zipper. “Ugh, I knew it’d be too tight for you.”

Melanie was panting, shaking her head back and forth, trying to escape the pressure and urge to push. Then she suddenly growled, mind going blank, stars spiraling behind her eyelids as she squeezed them shut and bore down. The head shunted forward, only to meet the sudden resistance of the unyielding leather. Stretched to its limit, it wouldn’t permit the head to move any further out of her. She was stuck at a full-crown.

“Lea!” She shrieked. “Get it down!”

“Trying,” Lea muttered. “Hold on—got it!” The bodysuit parted down Melanie’s back, exposing her smooth, slick skin. She reached the end of the zipper, just above Melanie’s rear. “Mel, hon, you’re gonna have to step out.”

“No,” Melanie was already shaking her head. Every part of her was trembling. ”No fucking way.”

“The baby can’t come until you let it,” Lea said, stepping close and wrapping her arms around Melanie’s convulsing pregnant stomach.

“Mmgh,” Melanie moaned, and raised one leg from the suit draped around her waist, feeling her vaginal walls twitch and pulse around the head splitting her apart.

“One leg out, that’s it!”

Melanie shook loose her other pant leg, feeling her thighs brush the dripping head, then fell back against Lea, moaning, and then pushed with all her might. Her lips slipped around the head, then she shuddered as fluids spurted from her opening and it popped free.

“Oh my,” Lea said, reaching down between Melanie’s legs to hold it. “Oh, Mel, you did it…. you’re almost there.”

Mel couldn’t speak, could barely remember to breathe. She’d come here this morning to dress up, have fun, and meet fans. Now there was a baby coming out of her. Get it together, she told herself as she moaned uncontrollably, tossing her head as the shoulders rotated. Get it together and PUSH!

One more push, shoulders spreading her wide, opening throbbing around them, then— a rush; the baby slipped out into Lea’s waiting hands. Melanie sagged to the bathroom floor and Lea lowered with her, holding her in her arms. Melanie looked up at her as she took her baby and held it to her leaking chest. Her anime bangs were matted to her forehead, face flushed even behind her false blush, eye makeup stained and running. Lea smiled at her and she smiled back tiredly.

“You were beautiful,” Lea said.

Melanie glanced down to her chest. “I wonder what baby’s first cosplay will be.”

[endless-ineffabilities]

For His Eyes Only (a Chemical Override minishot)

Ewan Mitchell x actress!reader

a/n: credit goes to this genius anon! This one is set right before part 7, when they've just started their fwb arrangement. Again, no taglist for minishots. I trust that this will find you when it finds you <3

series masterlist ▪︎ main masterlist

Fabien hoped to comfort Ewan over his recent heartbreak with the reader, but soon discovers that things between them have taken an unexpected turn.

Fabien and Ewan slid into a booth at their usual pub, the ambient noise of clinking glasses and laughter surrounding them. The two lads were incidentally in the same part of town for respective meetings, and thought to meet afterward.

Fabien couldn't help but eye his friend with a mix of concern and curiosity. The last time they’d met, Ewan had been putting on a front, dismissive about his past involvement with you. But Fabien saw right through him.

“So, how’s it going, mate?” Fabien asked, trying to sound casual but clearly probing. “How’s it really going? I’ve been meaning to have a proper one-with-one with you, you know?"

Ewan, who had been looking unusually cheerful, took a long swig of his beer. “Yeah, I’m good. Really fucking good, actually.” The statement was loaded, and while it wasn't exactly insincere, Fabien could sense something lingering underneath.

Ewan’s upbeat demeanor felt too polished, too forced. Fabien asked, “Did you find some magical cure for heartbreak?”

Ewan’s lips curled into a mysterious smile. As he leaned forward to grab some peanuts from the table, he tilted his head slightly, revealing a conspicuous hickey on his neck. Fabien’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Well, well,” Fabien said, trying to suppress a grin. “Looks like someone’s been busy.”

Ewan caught on, freezing in place as if a deer in headlights. But he quickly rolled with it, his smirk widening, eyes glinting with a mix of amusement and defiance. “Yeah, you could say that.”

Fabien leaned back, feigning shock. “So, did you find a new lady to help you get over things, or is this just a new accessory? Anyone I know?”

Ewan replied, “It’s not what you think. Things are a bit… complicated.”

“Complicated?” Fabien echoed, his curiosity piqued. “Like, how many people are we talking about?”

Ewan shrugged nonchalantly, but his smile betrayed a hint of pride. Or was that bitterness? “Let’s just say my lips are sealed.”

Fabien laughed, shaking his head. “C’mon, don’t leave me hanging. I’m dying to know what’s really going on.”

Ewan just raised his glass. “Trust me, you’re better off not knowing.”

As they clinked glasses, Fabien couldn’t help but marvel at how Ewan had managed to move on so quickly and intriguingly. Last time they met, in the pub with the other lads, Ewan could not conceal each flicker of emotion on his face when Fabien told him about meeting you. That glimmer of hope when Fabien hinted that you and Jacob didn’t seem like anything more than friends.

Whatever was happening in Ewan’s life, it was clear he wasn’t about to reveal all the juicy details just yet.

Ewan offered to buy another round, gesturing to the bartender while pulling out his wallet.

Fabien glanced down, his eyes catching on a familiar photo peeking out - a sweet, old picture of a younger Ewan with his nan. It made Fabien smile softly, but as Ewan fished around for his card, the photo flap flipped open a bit too far, revealing something else entirely.

Fabien blinked, doing a double-take as the new image came into focus. It was you. And not just any picture of you - oh no, this one was definitely… memorable. You were seated sideways to the lens, twisting provocatively to meet the camera’s gaze, your arms draped alluringly over your bare chest. A duvet, blessedly, thank the gods, covered your lower half, but the whole scene was just shy of being a full-on scandal.

Fabien’s mind raced between wanting to laugh and praying for divine intervention to erase what he’d just seen. “Uh, Ewan...” Fabien swallowed nervously, trying to find the right words to address the situation without making it even more awkward.

Ewan, still busy with his card, finally glanced up, noticing Fabien’s expression. “What?” he asked, his brow furrowing in confusion before following Fabien’s gaze to the open wallet. The moment he realized what was on display, his eyes widened, and he snapped the wallet shut with an embarrassed exhale.

“Fuck's sake,” Ewan cursed, trying to play it off, though the pink tinge in his cheeks betrayed him. “Yeah, that’s, uh… a private moment.”

Fabien stifled a laugh, raising an eyebrow. “Private? No kidding, mate. But aren't you holding on to the past?”

Ewan shot back with a protective edge to his voice. “Look, this is between me and…” He trailed off, giving Fabien a meaningful look. “And it’s not for public viewing.”

Fabien held up his hands in mock surrender, a grin still tugging at his lips. “Hey, your secret’s safe with me. But you might want to keep that flap under control, or you’ll give someone else a heart attack.”

Ewan rolled his eyes, but there was a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, yeah. Just… forget you saw anything. That view is for my eyes only.”

“Oh, trust me, I’m trying,” Fabien replied with a chuckle. Ewan’s reaction just about gave away the lone culprit for the fresh lovebite on his neck.

As they continued their conversation, Fabien couldn’t help but think that he was right all along - whatever was going on between Ewan and you, it was clearly more cherished than he’d realized.

“You better erase all trace of that picture from your brain,” Ewan smirked at some point later, humorously warning.

Fabien incredulously responded, “Mate, I have a girlfriend! Damn, I worry about the poor sod who will ever try to properly steal her from you.”

“So do I.”

Good ol' blast from the recent past! See you for part 9 💙

What did you think of Ewan's precious little picture? If you have more minishot ideas, let me know below!