#pink & blue heart ispahan

[iamfanfan]

@hiltontokyo

Strawberry heart factory 🍓❤️

[kissitbttr]

small prologue from frat!sukuna

*gojo finally has you!*

-

gojo satoru is a man with many things.

he’s rich, handsome, smart, popular. a number one heartthrob on campus and he’s enjoying every second of it.

and you’d think that a man who has it all wouldn’t be seen asking for more. because what could’ve he wanted more than what he has now?

well,

he wants you.

“i don’t understand why you keep resisting me. why do you keep thinking about him?! i can treat you better!”

gojo is in fact very much stubborn. soon as he heard what sukuna has done to you, he can’t stay silent any longer. he needs to save you. he needs to see you. he needs to hold and kiss you.

he needs you. period.

so he confesses everything. the bottled up feelings he has over the last few months. the only problem is that you don’t believe him. and even if you were, what are the chances of gojo is only here to play with your feelings?

but he’s determined to make you think differently,

“gojo you are not thinking straight—“

he scoffs, shaking his head at you being so hard headed. “y/n! for once, i have never been so sure and set for what i have in mind than i am right now! i care about you! i love you, why are you so—argh!”

“he’s your best friend! how could you so easily say all that to me knowing me and him were together at some point?!” you cross your arms, looking up at him with a hard look that he somehow loves.

again, gojo groans, flaring his arms up before bringing them down. “jesus, we still on that?! why is that pink haired mother fucker has you wrapped around his finger while i’m here begging to be wrapped around yours?!”

you stand still. trying your best to not to get his words affects you despite your unusual beating heart says otherwise.

you have never seen gojo satoru so worked up. hands on his hips, eye brows scrunched as if he’s thinking hard on which ass he has to beat

(keyword:sukuna)

“i don’t care if he’s my best friend” he says with a softer tone, pretty blue eyes looking intently into yours. “I don’t care if we’re in the fraternity and how that makes us frat brothers…because I cannot tolerate the fact that he hurt you”

and another thing? you have never seen gojo acts so soft,

so putty… so careful with his words… so..

in love

“the one girl who i have strong feelings for during the time he had you… the only girl who has me feeling excited to wake up each morning and look forward to see every day…the only girl who’s got the guts to call me out on my shit” he takes another step closer to you, and he finds a relief to see you’re not stepping back,

his eyes study your features. each and every single one of it.

you are so damn gorgeous, it is driving gojo insane.

“and i am in love with her” he says it again that night with confidence, his hands move slowly to cup your cheeks and make you look at him. “all i’m asking for is a chance… that’s all”

“tell me what i have to do to make you trust me… that i’m not here to play with your feelings”

speechless. is the only thing you feel right now. you can’t exactly form any sentences because it feels like everything is on halt.

what do you say to your old hookup’s best friend that he’s in love with you? and how do you feel about this?

it’s not that you don’t love him back, in fact? it could be the opposite.

he, among the many friends of sukuna is the only one who always checks up on you. during parties, he’d make sure to keep you hydrated because you don’t drink as much alcohol. he’d make sure to have you eat your meals. he’d make sure that you get home safe after class or your part time job. gojo also makes sure that you receive as much as praises you need for the time you got A on your criminal justice class or won a case,

and he’d be sure to tell you, he’s got a taste of your homemade soft cookies that you made. ispahan is his favorite.

maybe gojo satoru is made for you.

“you are so… dumb and pathetic, satoru” you shakily whisper, though make no attempt to remove his hands from you,

he lets out a small laugh, nodding.

“i can be that, baby” he replies, resting his forehead on yours,

“i can be whatever it is you want me to be as long as i get to call you mine”

[joannechocolat]

Scent and memory

(And here’s the piece...) 

My earliest memories are of scent. The corner shop in which I was born, with its atmosphere of fresh cardboard and old newspapers, and the coal fire that smoked, and the cellar in which my grandfather kept potatoes and pickles and home-brewed wine. The scent of the Mustela baby lotion that my mother used on my skin, and which she always brought home from France. The blue-green reek of the tidal flats on the island of Noirmoutier, where my family had a house; and which to me was the smell of the sea, so that every other coast seemed to me to be missing some essential ingredient.

Scent awakens memory; it speaks to the other senses; it seems to exist outside of time; it sometimes even awakens the dead. My grandfather’s pipe tobacco, Clan, has such a sweet and distinctive scent that, twenty years after his death, it still evokes his presence. And its colour is a faded red, like the fisherman’s smock he used to wear when we went sailing together, and the colour still smells of sunshine, and wind, and a hundred happy memories.

To me, most scents have colours. It’s a form of synaesthesia, in which the brain confuses stimuli, converting sounds to shapes, or sounds, or tastes, giving colours to days of the week, or in my case, converting colours to scent, so that sometimes I find it difficult to separate one from the other. Perhaps this is why, in my house, there are so many brightly-coloured things; and why I always like to keep my favourite perfumes close by, alongside my books and my paintings.

Perfume is my greatest indulgence. Not chocolate, not shoes, but bottles of scent; dozens - no, hundreds - of bottles, each one containing a genie that, when uncorked, can work everyday miracles of memory and mood. Some perfumes are little capsules of time; like the Ô de Lancôme I wore the year I first met my husband – I was sixteen, at sixth-form college - and its colour is the same bright-green as the pullover I used to wear, a fresh and vibrant citrus scent that still brings back those happy days more clearly than a photograph. Or Guerlain’s Chamade, with its dark chypre base, which I wore at university – being an impoverished student then, I couldn’t afford the eau de parfum, but used the bath oil as perfume instead and thought myself very sophisticated. Or Yves Rocher’s Ispahan, which somehow smells of our first home, a rather run-down terrace house, with colourful murals on the walls and a perpetual fog of patchouli and frankincense.

Our sense of smell is the first of our senses to develop. As infants, it is the sense of smell that first connects us to the world. I remember, in the maternity ward, when my daughter was born, holding her – just a few hours old – up to a vase of freesias standing by the bedside. Her reaction was immediate; her little head turned; her mouth opened in an immediate and instinctive desire to explore and to experience.

As adults, we can too often become jaded by the multitude of sense–impressions coming at us all the time. Traffic, televisions, radios, billboards, mobile phones, the constant comings and goings of other people – all can contribute to a sensory overload that can lead to stress and confusion.

But close your eyes, relax, and the sense of smell comes back into its own. Scent speaks directly to the subconscious, sometimes evoking whole scenes that even photographs cannot convey. It has strong emotional associations, too; often linked with memory. Nothing brings back the past like a scent; nothing speaks so clearly and directly to the heart.

             I once held a writing seminar in a women’s prison near my home. The women were all different ages and from wildly different backgrounds; at first I struggled to find a way to engage their creativity. Then I asked: “What smells do you miss?” Each reply was a story. By the end of the day, I had poetry; short fiction; essays; letters to the dead. The next time I came, I brought perfume samples. In that sterile and utilitarian environment, each one was like an oasis.

             Another time, a friend of mine suffered a stroke that left her completely paralysed, unable to speak or to swallow. I knew she dreamed of food and drink, so I brought her the closest things I could find; fruit-scented lip salves from the Body Shop; pomegranate bath bombs from Lush; chocolate-scented lotions to rub into her hands and feet. On her birthday, I made her a virtual birthday cake – a cocktail of scents in a bottle. I used dark chocolate, Kahlua, cinnamon and black pepper. It was inedible, but smelt divine. She kept it by her bed for six months, until she was be able to eat again – in spite of her doctor’s prediction that this might never happen. Such is the positive power of scent and the energy it can harness.  

I first became aware of perfumes through my great-Aunt Marie, an elegant old Parisienne, who had once known Chagall and Edith Piaf, and who until the day she died, always dressed in pink and white, and never wore any perfume other than Chanel Number 5. I remember the glass-stoppered bottle that stood on her dressing-room table, and the scent of impossible flowers, like something out of a distant dream. She was the one who taught me that scent is the oldest magic there is; a scent can change your identity; can bring back the ghosts of long-lost loves; like a fairy godmother, transform the most timid of wallflowers into a heroine, just for one night. Chanel Number 5 still brings her back, and she was the one who encouraged me to haunt perfume departments, to collect samples and bath oils, to discover the scents that would help me express my personality.

Nowadays, I tend to use scent much as I would my wardrobe. I have so many bottles that my husband bought me a cabinet as a gift, in which I keep all my perfume bottles, neatly categorized and ready to use. The top shelf is for gourmand fragrances, with their notes of gingerbread; vanilla; honey and chocolate. Muegler’s Angel; Rochas’ Tocade; Kurkadjian’s Absolue du Soir. The second is for florals; Chanel no. 19; Fracas; Trésor; Paris. The third, for herbal and citrus scents; Jo Malone’s Lime Basil; Acqua de Parma; Guerlain’s Mitsouko. The bottom shelf is for orientals: Habit Rouge; Coromandel; L’Autre; the lovely creamy sandalwood of Chanel’s Bois des Iles.

Every morning I choose a scent according to my mood. Wistful; exuberant; romantic; brave. Some days I look for an old friend; on other days I need a breath of fresh air. When I’m writing a new book, I often choose a scent on behalf of my protagonist. I wear it much in the same way that method actors sometimes use scent to get into character. Vianne Rocher was Aqua de Parma; Blueeyedboy was l’Heure Bleue; the seductive Zozie de l’Alba was scented with Guerlain’s Habit Rouge. The book I’m writing right now smells of a new Chanel perfume, Boy: a light and lovely unisex blend of lavender and vanilla, with which I’ve recently become more than a little obsessed.

For me, the most important aspect of attraction has always been about feeling good. There is a tangible radiance to well-being that no cosmetic can duplicate. That’s why I tend to give more thought to the scent I wear than to clothes or makeup, or even shoes. My wardrobe is made up of bottles, neatly lined up in my scent cabinet. Some are old friends; some, new discoveries. Each one fits me perfectly, tailored to my changing moods.

My little black dress is Coromandel; I wear it with heels and attitude. My sexy number is Bois des Iles, with its creamy sandalwood scent. Francis Kurkadjian’s Acqua Universalis is my favourite pair of jeans; almost, but not quite unisex, fresh and informal and effortless. I wear Fracas when I want to turn heads; with its blast of tuberose, it’s my strapless Oscar frock. Yves Rocher’s Ispahan is the hippy dress I can’t bear to throw out; I still have half a bottle (it’s now sadly discontinued) that I wear on special occasions. Houbigant’s Chantilly is there in the mornings for when I want to feel sixteen again. I wore it throughout my teenage years, and it always takes me back.

Besides, at 52, whatever I wear, it’s getting less and less likely that people will say in all honesty: “You look fabulous.” But very often, people do say (as did a grumpy Head Porter on a recent trip to my old college, startled out of his apathy by a passing whiff of Guerlain’s Samsara); “You smell fabulous.” Because beauty isn’t about how you look, but how you make other people feel. And whatever can make a Head Porter smile, on a dull autumn day in Cambridge, is surely a power to conjure with.

r