#pleasantly statful

[stat-101]

TAGS:

i decided to make these a seperate post! because why not?? I says and smile

anon list will also be made in a seperate post when someone. asks me something.

#stat thinks and talk - She Talks

#staintings - paintings, art. by stat

#pleasantly statful - things stat find pleasant

#stat reblogs - She reblogs things

#unpleasantly statful - things stat find unpleasant

#stat asks - posts where stat answers asks

#not stat / ooc - you get it

[yekokataa]

i've only been posting on this blog since 2020...

[vioshortforviolence]

Got the spotted horse!

I named him Cookie, short for Cookies 'N Cream 🍪

I may or may not have been eating a cookie while I got this horse and that definitely did not influence the name lol nope :)

If anyone else wants this horse, it's actually for a quest from Lester, the stable guy at Lookout Landing. It might take time to appear for you, depending on how much of the story you've done I think. And the mini-stable needs to be completed.

Sir, please turn around—

Also, I saw another spotted horse in the mini-stable after registering Cookie, which makes me wonder if I can find more spotted horses now? Hmm.

[hedgehog-moss]

I volunteered to help the florist with her Mother's Day deliveries today, it was fun! My favourite parts of the experience:

early this morning I delivered flowers to women who were busy with morning farm chores, usually out in the barn; some had forgotten it was Mother's Day and were pleasantly surprised to see me show up holding a bunch of flowers above my head (so it wouldn't get eaten by barn animals on the way)

speaking of: one woman let a cow smell the flowers, then said "they're probably treated with chemicals—better not have a taste" with an apologetic look (at her cow)

a little boy opened the door at one point and I said, flowers for your mum! and he called her and while waiting for her to come downstairs, he said, "I learnt a Mother's Day poem at school", so I said, let's hear it! And apparently he hadn't expected that, and he lit up upon realising he would get higher returns on his poem investment than expected. He thought he'd recited it once and it was over but here was a fresh new audience!

a woman whom I found at the back of her garden hanging out with ducks deplored the fact that she didn't have a coin in her pocket for a tip, then said "Do you want to see my baby pigeons?" Yes of course I want to see your baby pigeons. That's a good tip

I delivered a bouquet to someone and a woman next door, who was in her garden, turned to the open window of her house and said, "[Neighbour's name] got flowers! For MOTHER'S DAY."

I later had to return to that street after a last-minute order was placed to this woman's address. Whomever she was talking to inside the house got the message loud and clear :)

at one point I entered a barn that seemed empty (except for cows), said "Is anyone here?" and a goat SPRUNG UP out of nowhere and poked me with her hoof and gave me a heart attack

I returned to the shop and the florist let me pick a couple of plants as thanks, and we had the usual conversation—"Would this cheerful yellow plant thrive in my house?" "No. Your house is under 10°C. Try this one instead." Me: "This one isn't yellow :( It's more austere" Her: "So is your house" (She entered my non-heated kitchen in December once, and ever since I've been trying to convince her that it's not always like that) (just six months per year)

as I sat in the shop waiting for more bouquets to deliver, a man came in to buy roses and the florist started wrapping a ribbon around the bunch and the man asked, could you put a ribbon around each rose? I said aw they're for several mums? :) And he said yeah—that he was going to visit his mum at the retirement home and he wanted to get something "for all her friends too, why not!" It made everyone smile

admiring the florist's skill as she quickly put together a bouquet for a new order, I said something like "at least AI won't steal your job" and she said "with quantum computing, you don't know... not sure what it is but I read an article and it sounded scary." I said, I heard it's still impractical because the quantum computer particles need to be kept in very cold environments, like close to absolute zero, and she said "Quantum plants would thrive in your house."

Florist: "I'll accompany you for this delivery because the person who filled the form gave a 'turn left after the third mossy rock'-type of address"

I was invited at her house for lunch, and I asked warily "Does your husband still have swans?" She said "No, we only kept the geese. We have just 3. They're evil too but not as bad as the swans"

one of my favourite interactions was when I delivered flowers in a hamlet that could fit in my pocket, and a young girl who came to the door asked me in what village I lived, and I said, it's not a village, just a lone house in the woods, and she sighed "I wish I could live away from civilisation." I looked around us. Asked, how many people live in this village? She said, "Sixty." I said, "That's too many?" She said, "Yeah."

Final stats for today: I was offered a coffee 4 times, Mother's Day chocolates 2 times, and 1 meeting with baby pigeons; was startled by 1 goat and terrorised by 3 geese; petted 2 windowsill cats, and was asked if Pampérigouste was currently in her pasture 4 times.

[hawnks]

Takami Keigo doesn't want to see you.

Of course, he's too well trained to say it in so many words, but when he 'forgets' his session this afternoon, you get the message.

Unfortunately for him, you're stubborn. You show up at his apartment in the dormitories, ring his bell until your fingers numb.

Only then does he crack open the door, just enough for you to catch his forbidding smile, a caustic gleam to his eyes. "What can I help you with, this fine evening?"

"You missed our appointment," you say pleasantly. "This is the third time."

"Oh, must have just slipped my mind," he says with a dismissive little wave. "I'll catch you next time."

The door slams in your face.

Being so curtly dismissed by a top ranking officer should probably send you into a panic, but the stats you pulled up for him after his no-show are even more concerning. This is quickly turning into an emergency, and unfortunately it's your job on the line if he succumbs to corruption.

Who would blame the second most powerful Sentinel alive, when there's a feckless guide as a scapegoat.

"I'm going to ring the bell again," you say, loudly.

After a moment of silence, you think he must not have heard you.

Then the door swings open. "Fine," he snaps.

You follow him to the living room, watch as he drops himself on the couch with a sigh, eyes squeezed shut.

You'd never known guiding to be this much of a chore for Sentinels. Most of your roster is rather clingy and covetous of your time. None of them has ever been late to an appointment with you.

"Well?" he prods. "Get on with it."

You hesitate. The tension he seems to be holding will make this a lot more difficult, strenuous for you both. "Do you maybe want to talk for a bit? Or I could put on some white noise."

He opens his eyes just enough to give you a cutting look. "No."

You surrender with a sigh, coming to sit next to him on the couch. Every Sentinel prefers contact a different way; some want you to hug them, pet their hair, a few have even asked you to kiss them, fuck them, though you've never fulfilled that type of request, your boundaries in this job too firm for it.

You want to ask him what would make this easier for him, but you're sure waiting any longer will only set him off. So, delicately, you take his hand.

The first draw is always the hardest, the corrupt energy being nullified by your own. Some outside force reaching in, invasive despite the relief.

Takami flinches.

You go slower, a soft steady ebb, pulling the poison from him in silken thread.

His hand relaxes in yours.

You reach deeper, welcoming the full flood between you, warmth and light suffusing you both. And it feels how it's supposed to -- natural.

When your watch chimes, signaling the sessions end, Takami blinks out of his stupor. He'd melted during the thirty minutes you worked on him, body curled toward yours, face falling onto your shoulder.

He pulls away swiftly, shocked by his own willingness to lean on you.

You rise, marking off the details of your appointment on your tablet. "I can come back tomorrow, to finish up. You haven't been guided in a long time, so I couldn't get it all in one session. Does 2pm work for you?"

He's not prepared for the question. "Um. Yeah?"

You mark that down as well, then see yourself out.

It takes three more sessions for you to fully clear the corrupted energy from his body. In his haze he admits to you the reason he's so standoffish to Guides, why he dodges his sessions with such fervor.

"It's never felt good. Always felt like I'm being held down, trapped. Made me feel antsy, nervous." He buries his face against your throat, inhaling deeply. You'd started off just holding his hand again, but now he hugs your entire arm against his chest, your fingers twined. "It's not like that with you."

"I'm glad, Mr. Takami," you return. "Please don't ignore my emails from now on."

As you make your notes, you ask him his availability for next month.

He blinks at you. "You're not coming back tomorrow?"

You check your calendar. You'd had to push back several of your regular appointments to make room for the past few days. "I'm booked solid for the next two weeks, at least."

You glance at him, taking in his appearance, his general well being. You reach a hand out to cup his cheek, urging him to meet your eyes. He startles, first, before leaning into your touch.

"You seem fine," you decide, pulling away, already heading for the door. "I'll contact you later about our next session."

He trails after you, linger at the precipice as you take the elevator back down to your floor.

...

He never ignores you emails, after that.

In fact, he sends many of his own. He gets your phone number, somehow. Some days he shows up with coffee, or snacks, sits with you on the couch while you eat.

He's always touching you during those times, brushing hair behind your ears or straightening your shirt collar. Mostly he just holds your hand, playing with your fingers or clutching it in his own lap.

You don't guide him during any of these impromptu visits, too weary from the rest of your overfull schedule -- but you've heard of this type of attachment from other Guides.

Sentinels tend to imprint on guides they have a decent connection with. Part survival instinct, part status seeking. A Sentinel without a guide is doomed. A Sentinel with a high match-rate is likely to be stronger than their peers.

But that's the thing about un-bonded Sentinels, they're always on the lookout for a better Guide, their perfect mate.

Takami is overly attached to you now, but it will pass.

...

Or so you thought.

You're sent out into the aftermath of a battle that rocks the city. Dozens of Sentinels pushed themselves to the breaking point, on the brink of corruption, about to turn into the very monsters they fight to suppress.

You spot Takami in the midst of the wreckage. Exhausted, but giving you a shakey smile when your eyes meet. He limps toward you, so glad to see you, so ready for the safety and warmth of your arms--

Someone calls your name. Urgent, an emergency. Another Sentinel with no one to take care of them.

You turn away from Takami, and you go.

He'd fought hard, but his body has grown used to the abuse over the years. He's in bad shape, but it's not life-threatening like some of the others you help today.

It's hours before you can see him.

Slumped on a curb, hands folded neatly in his lap. Like he's been waiting so patiently for you this whole time.

You come to your knees before him, letting him take your hands, draw you closer. "Why didn't you go to another Guide?"

Surely he could have found someone else, despite the chaos of the scene. If not you, one of the high ranking Guides, slotted exclusively for S-rank Sentinels.

He looks at you, trembling, confused. "I don't want another Guide."

When he asks if you'll hold him, you do. You take him in your arms, let his weight settle on you. Feel his warmth all around you, his breath against your shoulder.

"And I don't want you to guide anyone else," he murmurs.

You stroke his nape. "I know. I'm sorry. You'll find your Guide soon enough, and then you can have each other all to yourselves."

His grip tightens. He braces you against him -- instead of a heady tightness, you're constricted.

"I already found my Guide," he whispers into your throat.

Then he bites.

[destinationtoast]

1/3 - Hi there! Three (I think) part ask incoming. You're the main person I know of who compiles tons of interesting fandom stats, so I wanted to ask you about it if you have the time to answer. :) I think a lot about how AO3 works great as a fan*fic* archive, but for other fanworks, like images, audio, video, etc., it's only as good as wherever the media is being hosted. With the way hosting sites come and go, or change their TOS to nuke nsfw or queer content, etc., it makes me wonder

how many broken image links litter AO3 at this point. I know it's not considered the primary place to find fanart, but a lot of folks do post images there—for events like Big Bangs, as standalone art, and even as decorative section breaks, etc. My question is: do you think there's a way to look at, say, works tagged with #fanart (of which there are 99,504 atm) and determine what percentage of those are broken links? From what little I understand, one would have to (perhaps with the use of a simple bot?) try to open any link bordered by the <img src> html, and see what portion of those return an error versus what ones actually load? I suppose it could even be something like looking at fanart posted in 2007, 2012, 2017, and 2022 to compare how many older links are broken versus newer links. Anyway, this may be completely unfeasible, but I figured I'd ask about your thoughts! Thanks!

Ooh, thanks for the great question! I took a while to answer because I wasn't initially sure what to recommend and ended up gathering some data to investigate. (If anyone else also has relevant data, please share in the notes!)

I liked your idea of looking at samples different years going back, and I decided to look through 100 AO3 works tagged "Fanart" (or a subtag) that were posted 10 years ago -- as a very fast starting point, I didn't even take a random sample of works, I instead looked at the first 100 multimedia fanworks posted in July 2014. (And August, when necessary; see more notes on methodology at the end.) Please keep in mind that this sample that may not be very representative of AO3 more broadly; to get better estimates, more sampling would be needed. Based on this initial data gathering (and the fact that most fanworks on AO3 were posted within the past 10 years), I would tentatively guess that that most fanart, fanvids, and podfic on AO3 still have accessible multimedia.

Given how many broken links and embeds there are on older webpages, I assumed that a ton of the links from 10 years ago would be broken. But I was pleasantly surprised by the results:

Wow -- 10 years on roughly 90% of the multimedia still works! I was honestly floored; I'd been originally planning to also look at 5 years ago to see how much better that was, but if ~90% are still working 10 years on, 5 years ago doesn't have room to be dramatically better. (However, I'd love to see more follow up sampling across different years to find out.)

There were a lot of AO3 users in this sample who posted multiple works -- some posted as many as a dozen multimedia works in July 2014. I didn't want the results to be overly skewed by any one fanwork creator, so I also redid the analysis with just one work from each unique creator:

Okay, cool, those results are pretty similar. I also did some further breakdowns on this smaller set of works to look at which hosts creators were using, and how many of the hosts were still working:

The most common fanart host used in this sample was Tumblr, then wixmp -- which I think from some very quick googling might be because Deviantart switched to using Wix for image hosting at some point? (i.e., I think most of those artists may have posted their art on Deviantart, then linked to/embedded the image on AO3, and the image's direct URL was was wixmp.) There were a few other hosts at the time that were used by 5+ different artists in the sample, and then there were a whole lot of hosts were used by just one or a few artists.

Most of the 10-year-old fanart is still up for all of these hosting categories! Photobucket is the least reliable of the most commonly used hosts. In the Other category, 25% of the links are broken, but that's still better than I expected (see full host list here).

This is getting long, so I'm moving the breakdowns for fanvids and podfic beneath the cut:

Fanvids were almost all hosted on YouTube, Vimeo, or both (the above categories are not mutually exclusive). All the Vimeo links still worked, whether they required a password to view or not. Most YouTube links were working, and the few missing ones had almost all been taken down by YouTube for copyright reasons (according to the errors I got -- I'm not rendering judgment about whether they were actually fair use), rather than by the vidder who posted it. And almost a third of vidders also linked to other hosts besides the big two, but many of those links were broken; 59% still worked. (see full host list here)

For podfic, mediafire was a popular solution 10 years ago, though many podficcers used it as a backup rather than the main link that they shared. A lot of podficcers made use of a fandom hosting site that specialized in podfic -- either parakaproductions.com or audiofic.jinjurly.com. Four podficcers used soundcloud (often as a backup). And once again there were a lot of less-frequently used hosts, often used as backup links; 69% of those still worked. (see full host list here)

Some methodology notes and further thoughts:

For fanvids and podfic (but mostly not from fanart), the fanwork creators tended to provide multiple links, and in those cases, I counted the multimedia as working if at least one of the links was still working.

I counted embedded media and links to other sites that host the media all the same way.

I counted the media as broken if I got a 404 when I tried to visit it, or if a site like YouTube had taken it down due to copyright issues, or if I got an Access Denied message for a site like Google Drive.

I counted the media as working if it required a password that was given on the page (common with Vimeo), or if an embed was broken but there were working links to other sites.

How representative is this data? Well, these samples contained most/all of the multimedia fanworks posted in July 2014; that month, there were 70 fanvids, 135 podfic, and 186 pieces of fanart posted that haven't been deleted since. So it's pretty representative of July 2014 specifically. :) But there could have been, say, a fanwork challenge going on in July 2014 that caused unusual uploading patterns then.

The above data gathering and analysis took me several hours over several days. If you want to follow up, you could do more data gathering similar to what I did (I'm happy to elaborate on my process as needed). Or you could write a bot to do something similar; you could have it fetch more AO3 fanworks and try following the links within each work. However, that would be slightly tricky; I ran across more kinds of errors and complicated situations than I expected (e.g., if a YouTube video has been taken down due to copyright, it still has a working YouTube page; sometimes an embed is broken, but if you open the link within the embed in a separate window, it still works fine; many Vimeo links require a password to test, and it could be hard for the bot to reliably find the password in the surrounding text). So you'd have to program your bot to be able to handle a bunch of different special cases.

Regardless of which path you are considering, if you or anyone else does any follow up work here, I encourage you to start by looking through a bunch of fanworks yourself and deciding which scenarios you want count as "working" vs. "not working," and any other things you want to pay attention to.

Hope that helps, and please feel free to DM me with follow up questions. And if you follow up, please share anything else you figure out in this space!

[tojiscrack]

𝐇𝐈𝐆𝐇 𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐋: 𝐉𝐔𝐍𝐈𝐎𝐑 𝐘𝐄𝐀𝐑

summary: 13.6k words — you and your friends have returned from a vacation trip in italy! but it’s now time to go back to school and kick start your junior year of high school, but straight off the bat, megumi finds himself immersed in gossip he's usually never bothered by…

notes: welcome to the first ever main-plot-starting chapter of liar, liar! *cheers in the background* FINALLY! we’re here. isn’t it ironic how this time last year i was writing the first ever chapter of liar, liar, and now an entire year later, i’m kick starting the main plot? 😧 time flies… here's my halloween gift to you all! (it's easily my most favourite holiday EVER). and it's also been a week since my birthday, ty for the wishes, kind messages, dm's, asks, tips, etc!! now enjoy this chapter <3

tw: swearing, gossip, mention of violence, threats, and that’s it lmao

i do not own any of the characters of jjk, i only own the character of y/n and her mother. the other characters belong to gege akutami.

previous chapter :)

next chapter :)

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・

september 2019 - junior year

"everyone open theirs at the same time, got it?"

"but mine's got tape on it!"

"shut up, yuji."

"i already opened mine."

you dived across the table to snatch the paper out of megumi's hands, throwing him a look of irritation because of how he'd spoiled the entire thing. it only irked you further when he had the audacity to fix you with a glare himself.

"you just couldn't help yourself, could you?" you snapped, placing his timetable face down on the table, refraining from looking at it before he could despite the devil on your left shoulder whispering sweet nothings in your ear.

you gave in and flipped the sheet over. he ruined the order of things anyway, what was the point of adhering to the rules he never listened to to begin with?

"megumi!" you gasped, feeling enraged as you stared down at his timetable.

out of the nine classes you had, pre-calculus was the only one you shared with megumi. to your disbelief, you didn't even share homeroom, so the only other chances to see him were during study hall, break, and lunch, which felt far too short to make up for the overwhelming imbalance.

it didn't make sense, now that you analysed it further. with all the classes available, how was it that pre-calc was the only one you had in common? you felt a nagging frustration, trying to wrap your head around the fact that your paths would now cross so little this year despite the fact that you used to be attached to the hip before. every other subject offered countless opportunities to stick together, yet here you were, navigating a maze of schedules that kept you apart.

you caught yuji and nobara in your peripheral vision, both comparing their own timetables and bickering simultaneously.

megumi was a genius, extremely academically gifted, especially in stem. when it came to any branch of math, the kid aced every exam effortlessly.

and you weren't the worst at it, some would argue..?

the more you thought about it, the more bewildered you became — how could you end up sharing the one class that exposed all your weaknesses, the same one that he excelled in?

he flinched when your voice suddenly rose once more:

"you're taking ap stats?" you demanded, only just realising that he had one extra lesson than you, yuji, and nobara. it was at the very top of the table, labelled 'period 0'.

"don't give him an opportunity to act more pompous than he already is," scoffed nobara, looking uninterested. you did not comment on how she still peeked over the sheet when she thought you weren't looking.

"wow," yuji began, looking pleasantly in awe at megumi's hefty schedule. he leaned back in his seat, careful not to pull himself too far back in the event that he might fall off. you secretly wished that he would, if only to stifle your current shock. "so you'll start the day earlier... won't you be exhausted when we get to football practice?"

that was a good question. since coach yaga had stubbornly given both megumi and yuji spots on the school's football team, it had since been announced that practice would take place every day after school unless otherwise mentioned. with megumi's mornings starting earlier than the rest of you, and his days finishing later, he was bound to be torn down with exhaustion. although he acted like a robot all the time (eat, sleep, make a rude comment about you, repeat) he was still a human who needed rest. more school meant more social interaction. more social interaction meant a drained megumi. things would only go south from there.

he shrugged at the question.

"i'll be fine," he answered, unbothered.

you disagreed. "you'll die —"

"— revive me with your mermaid abilities then —"

you hoped you pinched him hard enough to bruise.

"wait," you said, halting your attack on him with a slow frown. he took the opportunity to rip your hands off his ribs and shuffled away from you. you ignored him, sliding down to sit hip-to-hip with him. "if you do ap stats in the morning, we can't walk to school together."

for the nth time that day, megumi snatched back his timetable from you.

"good luck," he said, eyes half-lidded with that ever-present air of indifference. "you cross the road like you have nine lives."

"you basically just told her that you wouldn't care if she died," yuji intervened, quick to jump to your defence despite the many times you would argue with him, too.

you glanced at him, eyes naturally drifting down to the obvious tan line on his neck from the vacation the four of you had attended with your family in the summer.

nobara scoffed, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear before pointing, accusatory, at megumi. "this is what happens when you hype him up," said nobara, her finger jabbed at him with enough aggression, any outsider would probably assume that he'd committed blasphemy — you liked to think he had.

"i'm surrounded by idiots," you thought you heard him mutter, his voice low enough to almost go unheard, though the faint tightening of his jaw gave him away.

waving his timetable at him, you unknowingly creased the smooth sheet.��"speak up, porcupine."

"do you hate it when he mumbles, mother gothel?" said yuji, randomly turning on you instead.

your head might have had a fifty-fifty chance of snapping right off your neck with how fast you'd turned it to face yuji with a glare. of all the things he could have thrown at you, why did he pick a tangled reference, one that barely bit at your core?

"first of all, what the hell?" you responded, visibly and audibly startled. "secondly, you were supposed to be on my side —"

"yeah i know," he replied, breaking out of his character to speak to you in that usual, gentle and low voice of his, the one you were much familiar with, "but i just remembered that megumi might leave me behind after football practice, so i can't take any chances."

"you're a traitor!"

"it's every man for himself!"

to no one's surprise (except for yuji's), nobara, seizing the moment you had created, sent his head crashing forwards against the table. she'd apparently been waiting for the perfect opportunity for it, and you had handed it to her on a silver platter.

"y/n, swap," she said, sliding her timetable down and waiting for you to make the exchange, barely registering the groan of pain and annoyance yuji had followed her demand with.

you shrugged and complied, exchanging yours for hers with pursed lips.

as you scanned nobara's timetable, you found yourself pouting less, pleased. half of your classes aligned perfectly with hers, from pre-calc to english — even p.e and homeroom, matched. the thought of surviving junior year alongside nobara was a hopeful silver lining. leaving megumi behind wouldn't be too bad, you noted in your had, glancing at his unnecessary scowl.

maybe this was done for a reason. if you spent too much time with him, the grumpy attitude would probably become contagious and you'd be the unfortunate one to catch it.

you watched him glare at nothing.

yeah, you definitely didn't want to become that.

"but we all have gojo at some point, right?" said nobara, her voice drawing your mind away from the undiagnosed disease your mind had planted megumi with.

you lined each of your timetables at the centre of the white, circular table, flicking yuji's head away to create more room for it. he lifted himself back up, scowling when you flicked at his hands next.

"we're all in different classes with him," you commented idly, tilting yuji's timetable a little further to read it more accurately.

"oh, you and i have physics with him together," you informed him, content and satisfied.

"hmph," yuji grunted, rubbing his forehead and throwing dirty looks at nobara from the side. despite this, however, you could see the way his ears had straightened up at your comment, also seemingly pleased with the shared class — it reminded you off the ash-blonde puppy you had seen last year, when you were looking for totalityfor megumi's birthday.

"i wanted ieiri," said megumi, taking his timetable back and glancing down at it, then to yuji's, and back again, seemingly making a comparison in his head.

"we all have her for chem," said nobara, leaning the upper half of her body over the table to glance over his sheet. "don't you?"

"yeah," he confirmed, sounding displeased. "and satoru for every other science. ap bio first period — no one needs to hear his voice that early in the morning."

yuji beamed, taking his paper away from the line of your timetables you'd created with it and shoving it down towards megumi's side of the table.

"don't worry megumi!" he'd said, his pearly white teeth showcased as he grinned. "we have ap biology together!"

megumi's eyes slowly shifted from yuji's overly enthusiastic face to his timetable, and then back again, completely unamused. his expression didn't change, and no words were exchanged as he remained deadpanned, yuji patiently awaiting his response; the excited sparkle in his eye dimming as each second went by in silence.

megumi blinked twice, offering a dry, "great. just what i needed."

yuji took that personally.

"hey —"

"gojo might be incredibly annoying," said nobara, cutting through yuji without a care in the world; she was frowning down at her own timetable, brows furrowed, "but i've never failed a class of his. ever." she looked up at you all with a grim expression over her face. "don't tell him i said that."

"you've got a point," you added thoughtfully. "you think he pulled a couple strings to have us in his classes this year?"

"oh for sure," said nobara, her response quick and short. "we have — what — over twenty different science teachers in the whole school and somehow every year without fail we're in his classes? tell me that's a coincidence."

as your friends discussed the things that satoru must have done in order to have each and every one of you in his classes this year, you stared down at your timetable, eyes glued down as something suddenly hit you in your mind.

you were now going to be lonely in performing arts due to the fact that nobara had switched majors. her electives were now filled with fashion design courses, her dream ever since the end of sophomore year, and you were glad she had finally come to pick something she found genuine joy in, but it still stung a little.

you sighed, almost feeling silly for missing something so trivial, but the thought of no longer having those shared moments with her in drama class left a hollow ache. it wasn't as if she hadn't told you this would happen during your vacation in the summer, yet the reality was harder to digest than you had initially anticipated.

"fashion design," you stated, as yuji and megumi found themselves immersed in a pointless argument about satoru and his questionable teaching methods. "i think mai was saying something about that the other day."

"yeah," said nobara, her voice suddenly gloomy as she deflated in her seat, eyes half-lidded and lips in a pout. "there's a workshop in the first class. the seniors are helping us."

a small, amused smirk tugged at the corner of your lips as she sulked in her seat. her exaggerated pout and half-lidded eyes made it impossible not to find the whole situation a bit funny. you rested your chin on your hand, observing the way she dragged her finger absentmindedly across the table's surface, a clear sign of how unenthusiastic she was about the whole thing.

nobara's disdain for her was no secret — mai, with her sharp tongue and competitive attitude, grated on nobara's nerves like nails on a chalkboard. they'd crossed paths during seventh grade, and from that point on, nobara had made it clear she had no interest in mai's condescending remarks or constant need to outshine everyone, especially in the fashion design world. it didn't help that they were often compared to each other when shopping, fuelling the unspoken rivalry between them.

"y'know, she's not that bad," you commented thoughtfully. you had also grown to like mai a bit better throughout the years.

megumi thought it was appropriate to intervene and add his own unwanted input (during the middle of his stupid back and forth with yuji, too).

"you're only saying that 'cause she's your blackmail partner," he'd said, furrowing his brows at you with a look of obvious impatience.

you did not even turn your head to face him when you responded.

"it's not blackmail," you countered slowly, as nobara raised her brows at you expectantly. "it's... making someone do something... by using... pieces of information... as... leverage!"

"that's literally the definition of blackmail —"

"shut up," you smiled politely.

"megumi!" yuji interrupted, shoving his phone in megumi's face with such enthusiasm, you would have thought he just found out that he was the chosen one at camp rock. "look!" he shook his phone aggressively. "brazil likes tan lines! no you have to look, megumi! it says they associate it with beach culture!"

megumi grimaced at the screen, his nostrils flaring as he slapped yuji's hand away.

"yeah, 'cause nothing says 'beach culture' like looking like a poorly toasted sandwich," he retorted, scowling when someone on the other table had shot him a sharp look.

you laughed, met with the sight of yuji in a defensive stance, eyes wide and brows furrowed at the dark haired boy sitting next to you. he was pointing at himself, at the two shades of skin on his neck, his fist clenched which only emphasised the veins running up his hand.

"you keep saying that like i didn't wear sunscreen, but i did!" he snapped, drawing the attention of the people passing by your table. megumi pinched the bridge of his nose as yuji went on, uncaring of the fact that almost every eye in the cafeteria was drawn to the four of you, courtesy of yuji and his unnecessarily loud speech. "i wore the kids one, but it's still sunscreen!"

"what brand?" asked nobara.

"nivea!"

"didn't they run tests for that one and find that it's actually a leading cause for skin cancer in its consumers?" you said, watching his face comically pale as he glanced down at his own hands, a lot darker than what they used to be like before the trip to italy.

yuji's brows knitted together, and the corner of his mouth twitched as if struggling to maintain composure, but the fear creeping into his wide eyes betrayed him. you could see the panic in the way he darted glances between his hands, his arms, and even under the table where his legs were, as though expecting to see something awful already happening.

nobara had taken the opportunity to scare him a little further, making up random statistics about non-existent kids who had reached critical condition due to the sheer amount of the product they'd used, and as she continued, his expression grew more strained, the color slowly draining from his cheeks, leaving him looking almost as pale as the white cast left behind the sunscreen he'd used.

your phone vibrated on the table, the screen lighting up with a text notification. you pressed the button to read it properly.

coffee-hose victim: Check if final pay-check was received

mandy.

you'd check later. you were in no rush, you decided, as you stared at the message briefly, feeling a dull sense of finality wash over you.

both you and megumi had been made redundant after the café shut down over the summer — an abrupt closure that neither of you had seen coming. mandy, your old manager, had been sorting out the final payments for the staff, promising to get things wrapped up even after the little shop was cleared out. now that everything was nearly done, you'd finally be able to delete her number from your phone, erasing the last trace of that chaotic job, of her.

but it also meant finding new jobs, and you refused to work without megumi by your side.

"we need to apply for jobs this week," you told him, showing him your home-screen that had mandy's notification banner at the very top. his eyes followed each word smoothly before looking back up to meet your gaze. "probably not hospitality ever again."

"i'd work at miss B's if she ever let us," said megumi, as you placed your phone back down and silently nodded in agreement. "i like her."

"mind saying that again?" you grinned, lifting it back up and having it hover near his mouth that had been set in a straight line the second he saw your lip curl. "i want to make it my ringtone."

"shut up," he snapped, slapping your wrist away quite like he had done with yuji not even five minutes ago. you laughed but complied anyway. having megumi's voice as a ringtone would make it so that you would never actually pick up the calls. he frowned at you. "come over to mine and we'll apply then."

you threw him a sideways look. "no, you come over to mine."

he furrowed his brows at you.

"what difference does it make?" he asked, his eyes critiquing your every move. nothing out of the ordinary.

you sighed loudly; someone might have assumed you were in the middle of a chore.

"if i see toji, i'm going to be tempted to make fun of him. i'll get distracted," you explained, shaking your head at your friend as though it had been the most easiest thing, and he had failed to understand. "top of the class and yet you're not the exactly the brightest crayon in the box, are you?"

"shut up," he repeated for the second time in the very same minute.

nobara turned her head slowly, deliberately, her sharp eyes narrowing as they landed on megumi. there was a brief, almost theatrical pause before her lips curled slightly at the corners, (the way they did when she was about to say something cutting) as the dim light of the cafeteria above you all caught the sharp angle of her cheekbones.

"megumi, i can not argue with idiot number one," she began, lifting her chin to gesture at a pale yuji, "when you, idiot number two, keep telling someone to shut up. how about you shut up for a change, huh?"

megumi narrowed his eyes at her. "i'm the only one out of the four of us that only speaks when spoken to."

she gawked at him. "you calling us chatterboxes?"

"i'm saying that when either of your mouths open, the stuff that comes out of it is never relevant nor necessary."

the three of you sat in silence, each watching him with different expressions on your faces.

and megumi felt the need to clarify:

"none of your statements are of any substance —"

"we get it!" snapped nobara, her gaze cutting and sharp. she took enough care to kick him beneath the table, which only began the onslaught of physical attacks, one you joined in for the sole purpose of bullying megumi. you thought he deserved it this time.

as the assault continued, something clicked, and you pulled back from the friendly fire. watching megumi's face — strained and faintly exasperated — you remembered something nobara had mentioned weeks ago about the family's international dojo business, which was the zenin's main source of income and how they were so incredibly rich.

it was easy to forget sometimes; the quiet, slightly reserved megumi you knew now didn't quite fit the image of someone being groomed to run an international dojo and martial arts empire, but as he braced himself for nobara's next jab, you couldn't shake the thought: he was taking business classes, which only further supported your idea, and for a moment, you considered the irony of seeing him here, bickering with you all instead of learning the ropes of the large business awaiting him.

"hey," you said, tapping his shoulder and flinching when he turned to look down at you so suddenly.

"what?" he snapped, but only after swiping nobara's timetable off the table and onto the floor when she kicked him on his funny-bone. he was blinking hard at you, as though trying to clear his vision of the black spots contaminating his sight.

"oh excuse me for wanting to help mr dominant-alpha-wolf out," you shot back, hands raised mockingly. when he scowled at you and patiently (yet reluctantly) waited for you to continue, you went on. "talking about applying for jobs, why don't you just get some business experience at ten shadows?"

the zenin clan's dojo, ten shadows, specialised in jujutsu — a tradition they shared with the gojo's and, of course, the kamo clan too. it was where uncle ogi spent most of his time in, and where toji spent none of his time in.

megumi didn't seem to like that idea, regarding you with furrowed brows and a scrunched nose.

"so i can spend all day with uncle ogi?" he retorted, and despite your initial idea still standing tall in your mind, you had to silently admit to yourself that he raised a good point. uncle ogi was funny when he was angry (which tended to be ninety-nine percent of the time) but you could only take so much of that in one day. knowing him, he'd probably force you to work nightshifts with no breaks. "no thanks," megumi voiced, unimpressed with the suggestion.

"why don't you just lie on your application forms and stuff?" yuji suggested, his mouth in a straight line. it seemed that he had not got over the sunscreen scare just yet. "i did."

"you lied about working at ten shadows?" you asked, brows raised and eyes wide. "that's an international dojo. they go world-wide. global. your employers will find out."

yuji shook his head, raising his hand to wave it at you dismissively. "no, not there," he scoffed, smiling widely. "what do you think i am, huh? stupid?"

no one said anything; he sat up defensively.

"hey —"

"so what place did you lie about then?" nobara cut through him, literally pulling him out of his stance by his elbow.

he shrugged her off with a scowl, but answered nonetheless.

"gojo said i could say i worked at his family's pharmacy."

everyone around the table went still, eyes widening as they processed what yuji had just casually revealed. megumi blinked, caught off guard, while you tilted your head, brows raised at his unexpected response. it was only nobara, however, who looked thoroughly impressed, her lips curling as she nudged him with a newfound admiration and yuji, oblivious to the stir he'd just caused, seemed to enjoy the brief, astonished silence hanging over the table.

"it's cool, right?" he voiced loudly, grinning. "he said i should write that i worked at one of his biotechnology firms, but if the interviewer asked me questions about it, i'd never know how to answer 'em."

megumi shot him a look.

"what do you know about pharmacies?" he demanded, watching yuji shrug confidently.

"you gotta answer some calls, make requests. er... stock up on the medicine and stuff," he mumbled, rubbing his chin thoughtfully and nodding. it looked like he was actually thinking hard about it. "deal with old ladies... and old men... er... yeah!"

"i'm putting that on my application too, then," said nobara, nodding. she made eye contact with a stoic megumi. "and you should too. only, with your family's business."

"no," the dark-haired boy responded, glowering at the three of you. "it's not genuine."

"oh here we go again," you sighed, rolling your eyes.

it had been the same situation two years ago with his easy position on the football team, when yaga offered him a vacant spot without the requirement of turning up to try-outs. megumi truly believed that if the offer was given solely to him, it was disingenuous and unfair, therefore accepting what was rightfully presented would also be disingenuous and unfair.

lying on an application form with security knowing that his family would definitely vouch for him if asked was where he drew the line.

"i'm not the serial liar here," he reminded you all, purposefully meeting your gaze to prove his point; you could have murdered him right there.

"maybe not, but you are the porcupine-hedgehog-sea-urchin breed here though —"

"you'dknow all about sea urchins, mermai—"

he left school that day with a small bump on the side of his head and a lesson still unlearned: do not mention the mermaid incident of two-thousand and eleven.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・

the hallway stretched ahead, brightly lit by fluorescent lights overhead that reflected off pale, polished floors. blue lockers lined either side, their surfaces a mix of chipped paint and stickers left from previous years, giving a lived-in look to the corridor's otherwise sterile presentation.

as you and megumi walked past several groups of people — some leaning against lockers, others conversing on the floor — you nudged him on his side.

"where do you usually sit?" you asked him, turning a corner to enter the corridor with the descending stairs. the two of you walked down them with ease, careful not to trip over that one step at the very bottom that always managed to catch your undone laces and have you stack in front of everyone.

megumi lagged a step behind, and before you could question it, you felt a slight tug on your bag, shifting it side to side. as you neared his homeroom, the faint sound of your zipper sliding into place caught your attention — he'd just fastened it for you without a word.

when he came back to your side to match your pace, you grinned up at his scowling face.

"thank you, porcupine!" you said brightly.

he adjusted the strap of his schoolbag, simple and black, and grunted, his form of acknowledgement.

you nudged him again, this time with your hip. "you didn't answer my question."

he shot you a sharp look, as though warning you not to test his patience. it wasn't like you'd ever heeded the warning in all the years you'd known him for, and yet you were still living and breathing and walking, alive and well.

"shouldn't matter to you," he responded, but only when it had become clear that you were not going to budge on it. megumi continued to face ahead, watching his steps as he spoke. "we're not in the same class and you won't be allowed in."

"ah, but if my memory serves me correctly," you beamed, sliding in between several seniors who were blocking the hallway to get to his class, and he shadowed you, right by the back of your heels, "you said the exact same thing in kindergarten and then they changed my name in the register so i was in your class permanently."

"set my fate with that dumb decision."

"hey," you frowned, looking at him from over your shoulder and furrowing your brows, lips set in a straight line. "that's rude."

megumi didn't grace you with a response to that, only following in your footsteps as you managed to squeeze past the groups of people huddled in the middle of the narrow corridor.

"besides," you began, once the two of you were walking side-by-side again, "if that decision wasn't made, you'd have a boring life, porcupine."

as the two of you neared megumi's classroom, the energy of the hallway shifted — voices grew louder, students lingered in clumps near the door, waiting to slip in just before the bell rang. it did tend to annoy you when they'd stand in a huddle and make it difficult to walk properly, but you'd gotten used to it after the first couple of weeks starting high school for the first time.

the sharp lines of megumi's face settled into something halfway between annoyance and resignation, his brows pinched, and his jaw clenched slightly as though he were biting back a retort. he shot you a sidelong glance, and for a moment, a split second in time, his expression softened — if you didn't know him that well, you might have thought you imagined it — almost as if he were mulling over what you'd said before huffing quietly, that familiar scowl reappearing on his face as he straightened his posture, ready to brush you off as he always did.

"you don't believe me?" you questioned, amused.

"it'd be stupid of me to believe someone who has a criminal history of lying," he grumbled, eyes half-lidded as though the answer had been obvious enough for a five year old to guess. arguably, you thought the five year old version of him probably would have said the exact same line, word for word. he had been too grown to actually be a kid.

"lying is part of my major," you reminded him, brows raised. "that's why i'm always the lead in the plays."

megumi averted his gaze, grumpy. "my bad. i thought you threatened everyone for the role —"

"i'm not a delinquent like you," you told him, smiling, and when he made a move to pinch you on your side, you dramatically flattened yourself against the lockers."i'll yell for help!" you hurriedly warned him, eyes cautiously wide as you followed where his pale hand was left outstretched near you.

he narrowed his own at you, contemplating. you could see the cogs turning in his head, thinking, deciding. you helped him make his decision faster by parting your lips, a silent threat. wisely, he retracted his hand, walking to his classroom which was at the end of the corridor, not looking back to see if you would catch up to him.

you did, in fact, catch up to him, if only to prove your initial point:

"if you weren't friends with me, what would you keep yourself entertained with, huh?" you asked, slapping his bag. he threw you a dirty look despite the fact that the hit wasn't enough to even make him stumble. "your non-fiction books? oh, i know a great non-fiction joke for you!"

"leave me alone," said megumi, glowering. "isn't your class down there?"

he gestured to the other end of the corridor.

you ignored him.

"why can't you trust an atom?" you asked, and when he refused to answer, instead choosing to duck under miss zaid's oustretched arm to go inside his class, you answered anyway, halting by the door because she stepped in front of you. "because they make up everythi— oh hey miss zaid!"

the teacher in question took back her arm and folded it over her chest, leaning against the door frame to block your entrance. you looked around, over your shoulder and around the corridor, before looking back up at her and smiling.

"who are you standing guard for?" you asked brightly. "can i help?"

"you can," she nodded, jutting her chin in the direction of the end of the hall, her expression half amused and half firm. "by making your way to mrs jenkins's class."

you shook your head firmly.

"but mr gojo said i could stay here instead," you said, expression grave. satoru had said no such thing, but that didn't matter, not to you at least.

"okay," said miss zaid, letting out a long exhale through her nose. "and is mr gojo part of the student advisory?"

your eyes darted left and right, momentarily speechless.

"he owns the pharmacy down the block," you tried, smiling pleasantly.

"and what does that have to do with the school?"

"erm... the first aid stuff in the school —"

the more you blabbered, the more unconvinced she became. you raised your brows at her, stern and serious.

"but my timetable's changed," you informed her, watching as the crease between her brows began to deepen as you spoke. "yeah, it says i'm in this class now."

miss zaid stepped aside to let two other students through. you took the opportunity to try and follow in right after them, only to be stopped when she rapidly stood back in that defensive position again. you frowned — what were you, a danger to the class?

"does it say my name on your timetable?" she asked you, curious.

you nodded.

she extended her hand, making a come hither motion.

"show me your timetable," she'd said, and at that, you froze.

it had been a lie after all. you were hoping to gain entry without the necessary proof. it had, after all, worked last year.

you watched her brows unknit themselves, tilting her head at you expectantly.

you paused.

"miss i really like the colour of your hijab today —"

"go," she interrupted loudly, pointing at the room you were meant to be in, all the way on the other side of the country, "to class, y/n." she looked up and nodded. "hi, yuji — come inside."

you turned and looked over your shoulder. sure enough, yuji was right there, walking alongside junpei, a tall, skinny boy who you had met during middle school in one of yuji's classes. the two were close, and when neither you, megumi nor nobara wanted to watch the weird movies yuji was always invested in, junpei had always been his go-to.

junpei was also in your homeroom class with nobara.

"what're you doing here?" yuji asked you, nodding at junpei when he walked off in the direction you were meant to be going in.

"what am i—" you repeated with a scoff, looking around as though that had been the stupidest question ever asked. "this is my class!"

miss zaid sighed. "y/n," she uttered your name sternly.

"miss, i can knock her out and then carry her to her actual class," yuji offered seriously.

you turned slowly, fixing yuji with a look that could curdle milk, disgust etched across your face, brows pinched and lip curled as though you'd just been asked to eat a pile of socks.

without missing a beat, yuji assumed a playful but overly dramatic fighting stance, feet squared and fists up like he was in some action movie. he bounced lightly, eyes narrowing in mock seriousness as he sized you up. perhaps it would've been almost intimidating if he hadn't grinned halfway through, flashing his teeth in a way that revealed he was completely unserious, and only had you staring at him with that unmoving disgusted expression.

"i appreciate your efforts yuji, but that... won't be necessary," miss zaid added, stepping aside to let him go inside.

"you have a bunch of weirdos in your class," you told her, scowling at the top of his pink head as he ducked under her arm and waved enthusiastically at megumi, who was slouching in his seat at the back of the classroom. "that's why i'm not in it."

and before she could order you to leave again, you stood on your tiptoes and waved at your grumpy friend, blowing kisses and beaming at him.

"bye megumi elizabeth fushiguro!" you yelled, smiling from ear to ear, and bouncing on your toes excitedly. "i'll miss you megumi elizabeth! bye megumi! i love you megumi! i'll miss you megu—"

"all right, i think he heard you," miss zaid nodded, looking over her shoulder to be met with the sight of the dark-haired boy facing the board with such seriousness, it appeared as though the class had already started and he was listening attentively to the non-existent teacher. his eyes would dart back to meet yours, and each time they did, his gaze would harden and his scowl would deepen.

"did i tell you how much i'll miss you, megumi?" you added loudly.

"y/n, don't make me write you up and give you a detention," said miss zaid, watching as you waved a hand at her and walked off.

"all right, all right, i'm going," you grumbled, turning on your heel and strolling down the hallway.

as you moved farther away, miss zaid's voice echoed faintly behind you, catching you off guard as she questioned whether megumi's middle name was actually elizabeth, her tone somewhere between bemusement and scepticism.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・

the boys' locker room was a space with rows of navy-blue metal lockers, their surfaces chipped and dented from years of use. megumi unlocked his and shoved his school pants inside, the overhead fluorescent lights casting a sharp, sterile glow over the room, bright enough to reflect off the scuffed tiled floor where several of his teammates were sitting, tying their shoelaces. other members of his team, including yuta, yuji, and toge, sat on the wooden benches that ran parallel to the lockers, worn and slightly uneven in places, each spot marked by countless cleats and gear bags left by players.

chad had been complaining about the faint smell of old sweat and disinfectant that clung to the air, mingling with the metallic scent of the lockers, and despite megumi not conversing with the rest, he silently agreed.

where the few hooks were attached along the walls (each draped with stray jerseys, hoodies, and extra uniforms) megumi glanced down at his own, a slight frown tugging at the corners of his lips. he would need to get a new one — he had outgrown the one he'd just got over the summer.

he didn't know whether he should be pleased or annoyed: perhaps both.

"yaga's gonna murder you if you don't have that game plan ready for today, todo," one of the guys — oliver martin, megumi realised — had said.

todo had been quick to retort:

"this was way more important!"

in the back corner where todo stood tall, a whiteboard was propped up with play diagrams still faintly visible from last practice, but the deep lining of blue marker that formed a surprisingly accurate drawing of nobuko takada (a japanese pop idol who todo had mentioned several times that he'd die for) took up the rest of the board.

he kicked a couple of duffel bags that slouched nearby, stuffed with tangled shin guards, socks, and forgotten water bottles, before speaking in that excessively loud voice of his.

"if any of you, except for my brother yuji, can give me your type of woman that's valid," he began, only warranting several groans and protests from every member in the room, "i'll come up with a game plan so you don't have to!"

kamo, who had been minding his own business up until now, slammed his locker door shut and stared up at the demanding team captain, eyes half-lidded.

"you did this last time and then tried to attack chad," he reminded him, and chad, who had been sitting on the bench slouched over, sat up and shook his head, disappointed.

"yeah, dude," he spoke breathily, visibly upset, "and that wasn't cool."

"YOUR TYPE ISN'T COOL —"

"relax," said kamo, which prompted everyone else to follow and agree.

todo's gaze snapped towards kamo, lingering a beat too long, his eyes narrowing in an expression that balanced somewhere between irritation and threat, his jaw clenching as he sized him up, lips pressing into a thin line, as though silently daring him to say more.

"what's your type then?" demanded todo, pointing at an unfazed kamo who simply raised a brow and turned away, seemingly uninterested in participating in this game todo enjoyed so much. "HEY! I'M TALKING TO YOU!"

kamo stared at him again, deadpanned. "sorry, didn't notice."

"every single one of us have said our type except for you, man," andre johnson added, momentarily shirtless just to speak before pulling his head through his blue jersey. "just say it."

"i actually wanna know what your type is," said yuji, interested. "i can't imagine you with anyone, kamo."

majority of the guys in the room collectively voiced their agreement. megumi silently agreed too — kamo never showed interest in anything other than his hobbies, like football. the hum of the vent overhead was steady as the low, animated chatter continued, todo waiting for an answer impatiently by the whiteboard.

"loner."

kamo placed one foot on the bench, bending down to tie his laces together. "liked you better when you were mute, toge," he said, though not unkindly.

"he likes a tall girl with a big ass, okay?" logan parker intervened, sighing audibly. "he told me, all right?"

kamo turned to logan, his expression deadpan, unimpressed by the sudden revelation. the lack of humour in his gaze spoke volumes, making it painfully obvious to megumi that kamo had never confided in logan about such a preference.

his straightforward nature, megumi had decided, left no room for such casual gossip, and it was hard to believe that he would ever engage in a conversation about his personal preferences with someone as prone to exaggeration as logan.

"is that true?" todo demanded almost immediately after logan had added his false input.

kamo tied his hair back, looking uncaring and tired. "no."

todo clenched his fists.

"your type can't be that bad," he said, looking around before his eyes landed on megumi, who was now sitting on the bench beside yuta, staring at nothing in particular. "bet it's not like fushiguro's — which is BORING,by the way!"

megumi looked up at the mention of his name and scowled.

everyone had immediately come to his defence, telling todo to 'cut it out' and to 'leave him alone', but it still didn't remove the absent sting he felt on the side of his head when todo had made an attempt to attack him (and had also been very nearly successful in doing so).

during freshman year of high school, when the football team had been formed and established, everyone was made to introduce themselves to each other, which was where the drama had begun. long story short: todo had asked for megumi's type in women, megumi answered unsatisfactorily ('i don't have a preference, so long as she's compassionate and has an unshakeable character') which resulted in a traumatic experience of attempted murder — as yuji had called it.

"todo, get over it!"

"yeah, dude, you literally pressured him for it!"

"it just wasn't cool, dude..."

"man, you a weirdo!"

"HIS TYPE IS BORING!" todo roared, throwing the marker he had in his hand somewhere behind himself. "NO IT'S STARTING TO PISS ME OFF! NO IT'S STARTING TO— I SHOULD —"

he rolled his sleeves up threateningly.

megumi furrowed his brows at him as everyone scrambled to stop the team captain from making a decision that would get him suspended from the school entirely.

"WOAH, WOAH, WOAH —"

"— TODO MAN —"

"— BRO CHILL —"

"— CALM DOWN —"

"stop, you're gonna make megumi sad!" yuji added fiercely, before extending an arm past both toge and yuta to grab his arm. todo had turned away, chest heaving and shoulders shaking as logan and chad patted his back as though trying to silence a wailing baby. "are you okay, megumi?"

the exaggerated, pouting look on yuji's face made megumi want to punch him.

"i'm fine," he grumbled, shrugging yuji's hand off of him, but yuji had remained persistent, forcefully gluing his palm on his front and deepening his look of pity. megumi glared down at his pesky hand.

"it's okay megumi," yuji sorrowfully informed him.

"i said i'm —"

"you don't have to be sad, megumi —"

megumi took his hand and twisted it; yuji yelped and snatched his hand back, frowning as he threw his grumpy friend a pained look.

"little harsh," yuta commented, rubbing the back of his neck with a sheepish smile.

megumi averted his gaze, half annoyed. "he deserved it."

when toge let out a small chuckle, megumi looked up at the scene before him, half-listening to todo's persistent questioning (he seemed to have got over megumi and his type), the chatter weaving through the room in an easy manner, almost as though megumi hadn't just been targeted for no apparent reason at all two seconds ago. his gaze drifted over to kamo, who, as usual, remained largely unfazed, his expression somewhere between calm and indifferent as todo's relentless interrogation continued.

watching them, megumi's mind wandered slightly — his teammates' voices ebbed and flowed, equal parts curiosity and exasperation filling the space. it was only towards the end of the conversation did megumi actually find something he believed he had mild interest in...

"what's it called when someone doesn't like anyone?" saidoliver, holding his helmet against his side, beneath his arm. "like, when a person just doesn't feel anything?"

"depression," megumi answered bluntly.

every head in the room turned to look at his, some were laughing and some looked unsurprised.

oliver furrowed his brows, disappointed. "dude."

"stop projecting, man."

"bro, you good?"

megumi ignored them, mentally cursing himself for participating in the stupid conversation to begin with. he silently reminded himself to never do so again. perhaps he would note it down somewhere when he got home.

"nah, i meant when like — y'know a guy or a girl — like when they've never liked someone. or had a crush," oliver continued, turning to kamo with a shrug. "maybe you're that. whatever the hell it's called."

"not good enough," todo shook his head, arms folded over his chest in another obvious attempt to look intimidating. "if all you PATHETIC excuses for men, EXCEPT MY BROTHER YUJI, won't give me a valid type right NOW —"

"i like someone," said kamo, pinching the bridge of his nose with an obvious scowl.

everyone froze, looking up at him as though the mere idea of kamo showing interest in anyone was foreign. megumi believed they all had a right to act shocked, not that it was any of their business to begin with.

because it wasn't.

and yet, even to him, it was surprising.

a few of the guys exchanged wide-eyed glances, eyebrows raised, and mouths slightly open, the disbelief clear in their expressions. even todo, typically unshakeable in his boldness, seemed momentarily thrown off balance, his stance faltering as he processed the unexpected confession. a hush seemed to settle over the group of boys, broken only by the quiet sound of kamo's gear as he slung it over his shoulder and moved towards the exit, leaving a wave of curiosity and shock in his wake.

"c'mon man, you can't just say something like that and then leave!" andre said, hurriedly collecting his own gear to follow the stoic boy out of the locker room.

"it's mai, isn't it?" said ethan miller, slamming his locker door shut and staring at the back of kamo's head.

yuji looked at megumi and then back up at ethan. "mai zenin?"

"there's only one mai in the entire school," said ethan, nodding. he called out to kamo again. "i saw you and her speaking like a week ago or somethin'."

kamo turned around, his back to the door as he furrowed his brows, seemingly offended by the accusation.

"no it's not —" he began, letting out a sigh of exhaustion before rolling his eyes. "it's not mai."

"give us SOMETHING, then, and i'll take it!" todo demanded, slamming his hand on the whiteboard with takada on it. uncoincidentally, it landed on her behind.

kamo considered the proposal for a moment, his eyes glancing over every face in the room, nearly all of whom seemed relieved at todo's statement, before he sighed again, muttering something under his breath.

"you know her pretty well," he said, glancing at yuji and then megumi. they barely had the time to register his response before he turned away, pulling open the door to leave. "and that's all you're getting out of me," he added calmly. "so don't bother trying for more."

he left without another word.

the entire room shifted their attention to megumi and yuji, eyes darting between the two as if expecting one of them to unravel kamo's cryptic hint. a few of the guys raised their eyebrows, curiosity and intrigue plastered across their faces. logan nudged chad with a knowing grin, while toge and yuta exchanged speculative glances.

megumi could feel their gazes like a weight, pressing him to acknowledge that he, along with yuji, might know the answer everyone was dying to hear.

he turned his head to face his friend: yuji simply blinked, apparently still wrapping his head around kamo's words. but megumi believed yuji had a better shot at guessing who the mystery girl was. yuji was, after all, a million times more social than him.

as the silence lingered, megumi found himself lost in thought, trying to recall any recent interaction that could hint at kamo's mystery interest. he sifted through memories, wondering if there had been any subtle clues he'd missed — any glances, moments, or lingering exchanges that might narrow it down. kamo's calm, almost detached nature made it hard to picture him in the throes of a crush, but megumi couldn't shake the curiosity that now gnawed at him.

he only knew two girls 'pretty well', and that was you and nobara, but he could not imagine either of you hanging off of kamo's arm. in fact, if anything, he imagined kamo hanging off of nobara's arm (which didn't make sense, seeing as that would be out of character of him). similarly, megumi couldn't imagine you willingly being held back by his arm, instead choosing to skip off into the distance which would surely annoy the serious, long-haired male.

but he was well aware of the fact that nobara and kamo had shared several classes together...

he could still feel everyone's gazes burning holes all over his face, and he scowled, unwilling to give anyone the satisfaction of entertaining the idea too openly.

but it seemed that the team captain did not happen to agree with this sentiment.

"right, new task!" todo called out, clapping his hands to draw everyone's attention away from an unwilling megumi and a confused yuji to himself instead. he had already rubbed out the takada drawing and had begun the game planning. megumi had not realised it until now. "FIND KAMO'S GIRL! and this time next week, we'll gather 'round and narrow it down!"

as everyone nodded and cheered, some making their way out of the room while others lingered and chatted, he called out to both yuji and megumi.

"BROTHER!" he bellowed, pointing at him with the blue marker. "i'm leaving it to you and fushiguro!"

a pause.

"mainly you because i don't trust fushiguro!"

yuji and megumi had already stood up by that point, and megumi's scowl had deepened. it wasn't as though he cared enough to be part of this operation anyway. it was something he'd most likely think about alone, where no one could put in their unintelligent claims and disrupt his wise way of thinking. what did todo know about that anyway?

he looks like a pineapple, megumi thought to himself as he watched him demand both himelf and yuji to deal with the stupid task. and he's about as smart as one too.

"UNDERSTAND?"

"yeah!"

"sure," megumi answered, but he hadn't been paying attention at all.

todo had left the changing room, followed by majority of the team. yuji was the only one left in the room with him.

"i think it's nobara," he said, placing his helmet on his head. "she's extra mean to him 'cause he acts like he knows everything. she hates guys like that."

"that... contradicts your point," said megumi, furrowing his brows.

"no, don't you know that girls act really mean to the guys they like?" yuji chuckled, shaking his head at him as if megumi had very little knowledge. it made the dark-haired boy want to attack his friend. "hey... maybe that's why all the girls on the cheer team are so mean to me! yeah!"

megumi did not remind him of the time yuji had accidentally flashed the cheer team, and that from then on, every member, including the substitutes, would be extra harsh towards him.

"yeah," he said, putting his own helmet on and following yuji out of the room. "that's the reason."

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・

exiting the theatre classroom, you caught sight of megumi waiting on one of the benches outside, still dressed in his football uniform, his untamed hair still findings ways to stand up on its own despite the fact that it must have been forced down during practice. you almost laughed out loud at the broad shoulder pads and the snug navy-blue jersey that made him look slightly out of place in the hallway, but it was the way his helmet balanced awkwardly on his lap as he stared down at it, clearly impatient, that had you grinning.

you couldn't help but laugh, your voice echoing lightly off the walls as you made your way towards him, amused by how tense he looked even off the field. he looked up at the sound, his eyes narrowing in mild annoyance as he rose to meet you, a faint crease forming between his brows.

"you look angry," you commented teasingly.

"shut up," he muttered, scowling as he lifted the helmet and carefully placed it over your head. it wobbled slightly, oversized and unsteady, making you nearly lose your balance when he gave it a firm pat on top — a solid thump, just hard enough to send a warning, though not enough to hurt.

"it's so uncomfortable," you said, as the two of you made your way to the school gates to leave. "how the hell do you football players wear this for hours on end?"

"with breaks," he answered, and you had to physically move your head upwards to actually be able to see his face, for the lines going over and under the front gap limited the scope of your vision. "you get used to it."

you hummed in response, looking over your shoulder and around the area with curiosity.

"where's yuji?" you asked casually.

"ran for his bus," said megumi, as the two of you had gone past the gates and onto the main road leading to your neighbourhood. "said he didn't wanna take the late one 'cause then he'd have to sit for most of it with todo."

"should've made him late so he'd have to take the late one," you tutted, nearly walking into a lamppost — it was megumi's quick actions that had saved you, tugging you away by your elbow.

"the hell's wrong with you?" he demanded harshly. "your vision isn't completely gone with that on. you're not blind."

"it takes a while to get used to!" you protested, rubbing the top of his helmet as though it were your own scalp. "you said so yourself!"

megumi's expression hardened, his brow furrowing as he shot you a look that seemed to question every life choice that led you to nearly walking into a lamppost. he didn't need to say a word; the look alone was enough to convey his frustration, his mouth set in a thin line as he continued to stare at you with a sort of weary patience that he seemed to reserve just for moments like this.

"stop acting drunk," he ordered, walking a step behind you now. it was as if he assumed that watching over you would prevent your free will from prevailing over his demands.

at some point during the walk home, the conversation had shifted from the limited vision with the helmet, to gossip you had heard during stage practice, to toji and the unethical ways he kept a steady income, to what his teammates were saying in the locker room earlier, something you found yourself quite fascinated with.

"i'd hate to be you, not gonna lie... but what would you have done if todo did attack you?" you asked him, drumming your fingers on the helmet which you still hadn't taken off despite how uncomfortable it felt wearing it. you turned your head (fully) to look at your own reflection in a car mirror by the crosswalk.

you thought you looked ridiculous.

you didn't care.

megumi placed a hand on the centre of his helmet and forced your head to face the front again.

"this is how you end up walking into lampposts," he lectured with a scowl, before placing his hand in the pocket of his shorts and answering your question. "i would've defended myself."

"against todo?" you gaped, stupefied. "no offence, but he'd crush you. he's — like — your dad of our generation."

"don't ever say that again," megumi had been quick to counter, and though you couldn't see it, you knew he was glaring down at you. despite the thick material of the helmet you were wearing, you felt the heat of his gaze, like lasers burning holes where they landed.

he did not like that comparison at all.

you apologised. "sorry. you're the only copy of your dad there is —"

"watch it."

"am i just not allowed to say anything then?" you snapped, your arms flailing about dramatically.

"it's a preference," megumi began, the tone of his voice sly in a way you were very much familiar with and did not like at all, "but i know you won't do it."

you raised a pointer finger defensively. "megumi, if i could see you right now —"

"— it's not that hard —"

"— and if i was as tall as you," you continued as though he hadn't interrupted, "i would head-butt you so bad, you'd wish todo was the one dealing with you."

as the two of you stepped up to the crosswalk, megumi reached out and firmly took hold of your hand, steering you with a purposeful grip so you'd follow his lead across the road. his hold was steady, guiding, yet the pointed glare he cast downwards made it clear he wasn't thrilled with the direction the conversation had taken. even as he glanced from you to the road ahead, his gaze lingered, sharp with irritation, and each time he looked back, it was as if he had been silently reminding you of the absurdity of comparing him to todo — or worse, his dad.

his hand stayed firmly around yours until you were safely on the other side of the street. he let go, only to hit you on the helmet again.

"ow!"

"shut up, that didn't hurt."

you ignored him.

"what happened next?" you queried as you tugged on his jersey and pointed at buttercup brew where miss B was waving at the two of you from behind the glass, entry doors.

you waved back, making sure megumi had too — he was much less enthusiastic, but it was still enough to please miss B, who went back to working, leaving the two of you to continue the short walk home.

megumi answered idly. "kamo said he likes someone."

your eyes widened, and if it hadn't been for his outstretched arm once again, you would have tripped over your own foot.

"WHAT?"

"for fu— be careful —"

"noritoshi kamo?" you gasped, walking alongside megumi in visible and audible shock.

the best way to describe noritoshi kamo, you decided, was a guy who had no care in the world for anything: he lost a shoe? he'd buy a new one. you lost his homework sheet you'd been copying from? he'd quickly make a new one. he lost a football game? the next one would be better.

noritoshi kamo was no optimist, but he was definitely not someone capable of romantic feelings for anyone.

or so you had thought...

"everyone just started guessing who," megumi added, frowning.

"and did they guess right?" you pressed, intrigued. "who is it?"

your dark-haired friend shrugged, which resulted in your shoulders deflating, immediately disappointed before he'd even said anything.

"that's the thing," megumi said, unbothered. "he didn't say anything about it."

"well that was anti-climactic," you mumbled, turning a corner and seeing both your houses in the distance.

the walk was nearly over, so you lifted the helmet off your head, shook your hair away from your face, and held it beneath your arm. you appreciated just how large your field of vision was now. the helmet had been pesky, hot, and annoying.

"and i'm out of gossip," you sighed, allowing the summer breeze to flow past your face, the air feeling nice against your skin. "wish nobara was here. she always has something to talk about."

"he said something in the end though. when todo forced him."

you were surprised your head hadn't popped right off your neck with how fast you'd turned it to look up and lock eyes with him. megumi needed to work on how he told and relayed stories — this was by far the worst one he'd ever done.

"well?" you prompted, stressed that the walk was shortening the closer you got to your houses.

"yuji and i know her pretty well," said megumi at last, brows furrowed as you handed him his helmet. when you raised a brow at him, visibly confused, he scowled. "his words, not mine."

the thought lingered, growing heavier as you replayed kamo's words in your mind: someone yuji and megumi know pretty well...

your brows knitted together as you tried to piece it together, replaying moments you'd seen kamo interact with people you that were close with both yuji and megumi. the issue here was that megumi's anti-social nature narrowed it down to two people:

you or nobara.

you knew with certainty it couldn't be you. you had had a fair few conversations with the male, but nothing that you could pick apart and decide that he had any interest in you. it was mostly just random, fun situations, like the time you had accidentally triggered malakai and requested kamo to support your statement that it hadn't been you, only to blame it on him (kamo) in the end.

that should make him dislike you, if anything. at the time, however, he didn't seem to care.

could nobara be the girl he liked?

that was something you'd have to ask her, though you highly doubted it. you knew her quite well, and no guy had caught her interest. at least, not at jujutsu high, where she mainly criticised the male gender and grew new icks every day that went by.

for the fun of it, you still asked megumi whether it could be possible that someone could have a crush on you.

his reaction, however, had you visibly startled.

he averted his gaze, his shoulders stiffening as though unsure of how to respond. you waited, but his silence lingered, and his eyes seemed to dart briefly to the ground, almost as if he'd been caught off guard by your question.

your brows raised as you bit back a smile. it was rare to see him hesitate like this — normally, he'd offer some blunt response or scowl and move on, but now, an uncharacteristic awkwardness settled over him, and it looked almost as if he was bracing himself, unable to fully meet your gaze.

"no," he finally settled on saying, walking you to your door as he always would when going home together.

"you hesitated," you informed him knowingly.

"i was thinking of how long it'd take for you to scare them off," megumi shot back, ringing the doorbell for you.

you watched him walk off the porch, hearing footsteps echo from behind the front door as you hummed, nodding.

"nice save," you told him, relishing in his scowl, the last thing you saw on his face before your mom had opened the door and allowed you in, closing it behind you after telling megumi to come inside — he had refused like the delinquent porcupine he was.

and as megumi made his way over to his own porch, he realised that for the first time ever, he couldn't help the feeling of relief after ending a conversation with you.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・

bonus scene:

the helicopter incident of 2016...

"what the fuck?"

megumi staggered away from the three of you —yourself, yuji, and nobara — craning his neck in a desperate attempt to peer over his shoulder at his own backside. bewildered, he muttered to himself, trying to comprehend why his so-called friends had just collectively ambushed him, each having touched his bottom once before guffawing loudly. what had you all done to him?

he made his way to the back door (but not before throwing the three of you a menacing glare) using the reflection of the glass as a mirror.

he was left horrified at the sight of three different handprints made out of neon paint colours (bright yellow, vibrant pink, and an intense lime) on the most compromising part of his pants:

his ass.

"shit — look at his face," you gasped, chest heaving at his expression. "take a picture with — catch it! — my phone."

you tossed your phone to nobara, who, unlike you and yuji, had the least amount of paint coating her delicate hands. meanwhile megumi's had shot to cover his behind as he whipped around, fixing the three of you with a glare so fierce, it might have turned a lesser person to stone.

flash! flash! flash!

nobara had captured his expressions, postures, and stances before he had a chance to compose himself into something less revealing.

as you took your phone out of nobara's hands, your attention had been drawn to a growing commotion behind you, distant shouts and laughter cutting through the playful chaos around megumi. you tossed a quick, amused glance back at nobara and yuji, both of whom were doubled over in laughter, still entirely focused on your collective attack on megumi, before aiming the lens on your phone not at your porcupine's flustered face, but at the source of the noise in the distance, recording just in time to capture a particularly raucous burst of laughter that had echoed around the backyard.

toji, towering and muscular, stood with his arms flat against his sides, looking both impatient and exasperated as satoru (in front of him) and suguru (behind him) launched paint-filled balloons at him. each balloon splattered bright colours across his chest, only to be rebuffed by his broad, muscular torso in what seemed like a defiant bounce.

splashes of paint exploded across his 'man-tits,' as satoru had so eloquently called them, left bright patches on his shirt as he glared at the two childish men surrounding him, chest heaving and fists clenched.

"shit!"satoru took several steps back, looking down at his own chest where the balloon he'd thrown at toji had bounced back at himself instead, splattering his white shirt with bright blue. he looked up at suguru, eyes wide behind his glasses. "that one came from his right titty —"

suguru laughed, throwing a paint balloon up in the air, catching it, and then launching it at the oddly-silent toji.

only for it to bounce back, just as expected. he had stepped aside just in time. "and that one came from his left breast —"

the veins running up toji's hands and arms grew more prominent as the two continued.

"HA!" satoru pointed at his chest. "toji? more like titty —"

suguru shook his head with a sigh. "satoru, don't be childish," he said, and his best friend actually paused, brows raised in surprise. that was before suguru had clarified: "he's big titty toji —"

SPLAT!

when satoru swung his arm around in a dramatic manner while laughing, he had accidentally released another paint ballon straight at the ticking time bomb that was toji fushiguro.

he only laughed harder at that.

"look guys!" he called out to the rest of you. you zoomed in on the scene — satoru's arms were outstretched, presenting toji as if he was some special, endangered animal, rare and one-of-a-kind. "it's toji titty-guro—"

without warning, toji's arms shot out, his hands seizing both satoru and suguru by the collars of their shirts with effortless strength. you couldn't see his face, so you were unsure of whether he had been grinning, or neutral, or angry, etc, but you watched in both horror and amusement as he began to spin, dragging them with him in a rapid, dizzying circle.

every other commotion around the backyard had stopped, everyone turning to look at the odd scene, equal parts confused and terrified.

toji's feet dug into the ground, kicking up small clouds of dust, while satoru and suguru both flailed helplessly at his sides, their limbs whipping outwards as if they were rag dolls caught in a whirlwind.

a whirlwind...

"it's a tornado!" you yelled, looking around and trying hard to keep your phone steady, but the scene was so funny, your hands were shaking with the effort.

toji's powerful grip and force turned their attempts to wriggle free into nothing more than frantic gestures, their faces a mix of shock and a hint of terror as they were spun around faster and faster...

you zoomed out to capture mamaguro at the back, watching the scene with narrowed eyes and furrowed brows.

"are you gonna stop your... husband...?" you heard your mom question, sounding completely weirded out. and honestly — who could blame her?

what the hell was happening in the fushiguros' backyard?

"i... would," mamaguro muttered, carefully watching the scene continue to unfold before her, getting worse as time went on, "but... how?"

there was no opening for her to enter, you noticed. if she tried, she'd get caught up in the spinning andget severely injured too...

you couldn't believe what was happening before your eyes. you didn't know what was happening before your eyes. you didn't think you'd ever know what was happening before your eyes.

from your peripheral vision, you could see a stick of yellow just lingering awkwardly, and when you turned your head to glance at it, you nearly face palmed when you realised it was your father in his banana body-suit outfit. the only thing visible about him was the gap where his face rested. everything else, from his head, to his figure, to his shoulders, to his thighs, and to the majority of his legs, were all concealed by the thick material.

"that looks fun!" he commented brightly, a dopy smile over his face. he made an attempt to waddle over to the unnatural disaster. "i'm gonna join —"

"no, no," your mom was quick to hold him back by his banana-shaped body. she ushered him to the side, shaking her head violently. "no, honey, no. just... you're not going over there."

surprisingly, despite several minutes having gone by, the disaster was still going. in fact, everyone had believed it to be finished when toji had stopped (revealing the other dishevelled men stumbling over their own footsteps) only for the man to spin himself around only and charge at the duo again.

violently.

"round two!" you called out, startled. "round two or — or — er — round one point five since it never... it never finished, technically — oh my god —"

you focused your camera around the backyard, spotting mai climbing over the fence. her eyes met your phone, and she disappeared behind the wall without a second thought.

wise, you thought to yourself, wondering if mimiko and nanako had done the same, for despite several pans of the large area, your camera could not seem to find them.

a bellow erupted across the scene, stopping everything and everyone cold in their tracks. you turned, a jolt running down your spine at the sight of ogi and the sound of his voice thundering through the air — you fumbled to stop your recording in a panic, heart pounding.

a wave of silence blanketed the chaos.

toji froze mid-spin, his arms still outstretched, while satoru and suguru, dishevelled and breathless, stared up from the ground, shock and trauma wiping away their usual confidence. megumi, still clutching his rear, went pale, his expression stiffening as he shrank further into his hiding place. your dad, in his ridiculous banana costume, managed a sheepish, guilty smile, while mamaguro blinked, bewildered, glancing between her husband and the mess of people sprawled about. tsumiki giggled softly in the corner, the only one unfazed, her amusement uncontained. in the abrupt stillness, ogi's glare was sharp enough to cut through steel, as if daring anyone to make the next move.

"WHAT," he demanded, voice booming, "IS GOING ON HERE?"

there was only silence that followed his question as he slowly entered the backyard, paint and balloons all over the grass and fences, a mess.

"AN EVENT ORGANISED TO ENCOURAGE NORMALCY, AND THIS FAMILY CAN'T EVEN DO THAT!"

his eyes, cold and sharp, darted to megumi, whose back was flat against the fence.

"THE VERY PROGENY OF THE ZENIN CLAN — WITH RAINBOW HANDPRINTS ON HIS GODDAMN ASS!"

megumi's cheeks burned as he scowled. it didn't help that yuji and nobara were still holding back their laughter too.

"AND YOU!" ogi turned to a normal (now?) toji, looking him up and down with such disgust, you'd think he were staring at a homicide scene. it might have actually been one, to be fair. "I CANT EVEN SAY THAT YOU'RE PART OF MY BLOODLINE! WHAT WAS THIS, A RE-ENACTMENT OF KAMIKAZE?"

toji scoffed, throwing satoru a glare. "he was the pilot —"

satoru stood up almost immediately. "you were the helicopter —"

"SIT DOWN."

despite his obvious reluctance, satoru silently complied.

ogi took this as a sign to continue, glowering menacingly at the white-haired, dark-haired duo. now, literal partners in crime.

"WE GOT SPONGEBOB AND PATRICK OVER HERE, DOING GOD-KNOWS-WHAT. WHY IS YOUR HAIR A MESS AND WHY ARE YOUR GLASSES BROKEN?"

satoru reached up to take his glasses off, hanging in an odd, desperate position over the bridge of his nose, a pout on his face at the sight of the irreparable damage.

he glared at toji from over his shoulder. "HEY —"

"OI LEAVE HIM ALONE!" ogi was quick to add, irate. "IF YOU HADN'T BOTHERED HIM, MAYBE HE WOULDN'T HAVE MADE AN ATTEMPT TO ELIMINATE THE TWO OF YOU FROM EXISTENCE!"

he rubbed his hands over his wrinkled face, before starting at the two men again.

"NO, I'LL TELL YOU WHY THE BOTH OF YOU LOOK LIKE THIS, IT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE BEHAVING LIKE MONKEYS — I DON'T WANNA HEAR IT GETO!" he added harshly, for suguru had an oddly deep hatred for the animal and whichever family it comes from, and had seemed particularly offended with ogi's comment. "I MEAN LOOK AT THE STATE OF YOU! YOU LOOK LIKE MAI'S FIRST GRADE ART PROJECT THAT I THREW IN THE TRASH —"

maki, who had been lingering at the back with your mom stepped forward despite your mom's silent actions not to.

"you threw that away?" she questioned, eyes narrowed behind her round, clear glasses. "she spent years attacking me for it —"

ogi's hardened expression had faltered slightly, a look of pain crossing his features. you were certain it was more about getting caught than the actual issue at hand.

"yeah, yeah, it was you that threw it," he mindlessly replied, before his jaw had clenched harder than before. "SPEAKING OF, WHERE THE HELL IS YOUR SISTER?"

maki sniffed, irritated. "i don't —"

"this has that luke kid written all over it," ogi interrupted, uncaring of maki. "GREAT! SO I'VE GOT A RUNAWAY BRIDE, AND TWEEDLE DEE AND TWEEDLE DUM ARE MISSING. PROBABLY AT THE ZOO ACTING LIKE THEIR FATHER — SHUT IT GETO."

he swivelled on the spot, his long hair whipping behind himself as his eyes zeroed in on your father, still in that banana costume of his.

"AND YOU — GET RID OF THAT RIDICULOUS COSTUME! THEY MIGHT WANNA EAT YOU NEXT — TRYNA JOIN THE HELICOPTER WITH HIS IDIOCY!"

your father frowned, but still made an attempt at trying to unzip himself. his arms, however, were much too short to go around the costume and reach the zipper.

"well it's kinda..." he murmured, bending his knees for a better angle, "stuck... i need some... help... here... honey?"

your mom turned away, drinking her lemonade with raised brows. "who's honey?"

uncle ogi had had enough. "G-GET BACK HERE AND TAKE HIS STUPID COSTUME OFF OF HIM!"

your mom turned back around, but her eyes were darting over the place as though ogi was speaking to anyone but her.

"IT'S YOUR CARELESS BEHAVIOUR THAT'S MADE HIM BELIEVE IT'S OKAY TO WEAR STUFF LIKE THAT. I'M GETTING A HEATSTROKE JUST LOOKING AT HIM!"

she glanced at her husband, watching him fall backwards due to his failed attempt at bending his knees to reach his own zipper.

she muttered under her breath: "you'd think that men would have a mind of their own..."

"YOU'RE NOT OFF THE HOOK EITHER TSUMIKI, I EXPECTED MORE FROM YOU. LAUGHING — ENCOURAGING THIS BEHAVIOUR?" he started, typically unusual, for tsumiki was never the one in trouble. today was full of surprises. he raised an accusatory pointer finger at her. "YOU WANNA BE A MOTHER SOMEDAY? YOU BETTER HOPE THEY DON'T TURN OUT LIKE THESE IDIOTS."

his eyes darted over you all in one massive circle, his mouth in a straight line.

"THIS FAMILY'S A DISGRACE TO THE ZENIN NAME —"

"not even a zenin," satoru grumbled to himself.

"yeah, neither am i," suguru agreed, blowing his bangs away from his face.

"i'm literally a l/n," you mumbled to yourself.

toji dusted himself off. "my son's not a zenin."

"THE POINT IS... YOU'VE SUMMONED THE WHOLE OF BIKINI BOTTOM TO RECORD US!" uncle ogi roared, pointing at the neighbours peeking over the fences with their phones at hand. you couldn't bring it in yourself to blame them. if you had seen the same scene happen elsewhere, you would have recorded it too.

you had recorded it, not that uncle ogi needed to know that...

"WHY ARE WE LETTING PEASANTS MAKE A LAUGHING STOCK OUT OF US?" he demanded loudly. he aggressively turned to mr smith, a white, bald man from just down the block. "OI YOU, GET RID OF THAT CAMERA BEFORE I GIVE YOU A REASON TO TAKE ME TO COURT!"

he turned to mamaguro, eyes widening at the sight of her.

"i nearly forgot about you..." he began, before taking everyone by surprise by the sheer volume of his voice, as though he hadn't been speaking that way for the past five minutes. "YOU WERE THE BRAINS BEHIND THIS ALL. WHAT MADE YOU THINK THAT THIS FAMILY COULD DO ANY EVENT WITHIN THE REALM OF HOW NORMAL OR MESSY IT SHOULD BE? THAT THEY WOULDN'T PUT THEIR STUPID TOES OUT OF LINE? THAT THEY'D BE SENSIBLE —"

"now hang on a minute," said mamaguro, her kind voice shaky, "this is not my fault! my colleague recommended a —"

"WHAT DOES YOUR COLLEAGUE KNOW ABOUT THIS FAMILY?" ogi snapped harshly. "NO BETTER THAN YOU, CLEARLY!"

he let out a deep exhale, but the tension in his temple and shoulders remained as he slowly turned around to face you. you were stunned in place, unmoving, unsmiling, unsure of what to do with yourself, in fact.

you only carefully made sure the camera was out of his sight, hidden in your back pocket where he'd have no clue that you had been recording earlier.

"AND FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE-TIME, THIS ONE WASN'T INVOLVED IN ANY OF IT!"

you nodded proudly, mimicking his words silently behind him, pointing at satoru, pointing at suguru, even pointing at your mom.

"DIDNT EVEN START IT!" he continued loudly.

for this one, you specifically made sure to mouth the words to megumi, who you could tell, just from his cruel facial expressions, wanted nothing more than to out you right then and there, but for the first time ever, it was your word against his, and with the way things were going, you were bound to win, no difficulty.

"THIS WILL GO DOWN IN THE HISTORY BOOKS, I TELL YOU! how SHE became the role-model for you dimwits."

"role model," you mouthed, pointing at everyone. "for you, for you, and especially," you made sure to swivel your finger in a circle this time, "you."

toji gritted his teeth at you, but said nothing. you grinned confidently.

uncle ogi turned away again, eyes closed shut as he sighed audibly, a vein on his forehead threatening to burst. it only popped up again when he found yuji and nobara staring back at him.

"AND WHO THE HELL ARE YOU TWO?"

"damn... you'd think he'd know our names by now," yuji commented, rubbing his neck with shame.

"right," nodded nobara, shaking her head. "so rude."

"friends of yours?" uncle ogi turned to you, speaking in that gruff tone he usually had. but it was significantly different to the way he had been speaking to the rest of the family today. you mentally giggled to yourself as you nodded. "fine."

he glared down at satoru and suguru, eyes twitching at the mess of pain all over their white shirts, brows furrowing at the mess maid of their hairs, and lips pursing at the broken glasses satoru was still clinging onto.

"you two..." he began, voice rough and firm. "go to shoko, just go."

satoru sat up defiantly. "i don't need —"

"NOW."

satoru and suguru did their walk of shame out of the backyard.

everyone had done theirs at some point.

everyone, you noted with a pleasant smile, except for you.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・

notes: the scariest event for halloween imo, is the helicopter incident. the zenin-fushiguro-gojo-l/n-geto family would agree. wbu guys???

previous chapter :)

next chapter :)

taglist (send an ask or comment to be added):

@1l-ynn @shaigimo @shuupiu @nappingnai @momoewn @xbarrjallenx @reinaswrld @anintrovertedechoe @cherriee-ee @hfuensiekabhsufnd @k0z3me @laughingfcx @jelly-fsh @anonymity-222 @blubearxy

© tojiscrack (previously ack4rwoman)

if you enjoyed my writing, i’d really appreciate it if you tipped me — tumblr no longer has the tip function, so maybe here in my tip jar :)

i do not own any of the characters of jjk, i only own the character of y/n and her mother. the other characters belong to gege akutami.

[grimmsbride]

❛Stuck to the screen, your words repeating. ❜ ⸺ Kamo Choso

【⠀♱⠀】 SYNOPSIS. after a long night of gaming, choso helps you fall asleep with his.. soothing voice.

【⠀♱⠀】 WARNINGS. ooc choso | soft dom! choso | phone [more like voice chat] sex | not public sex but there was the threat of reader’s friends joining since it’s a public vc | porn no plot | reader & choso are gamers | mutual pining | mutual masterubation | overuse of pet names | choso is a tease | choso uses “mama” idc idc, it fits him [TO ME] | etc. if i forgot something let me know.

【⠀♱⠀】 AUTHOR’S NOTE. it’s the way i’m thinking about other things except piv sex, which is very exciting cause the shit got repetitive on my other acc. PLEASE EXCUSE ANY GRAMMAR MISTAKES.

People that claimed gaming was a perfect past time were either naive or just plain stupid. How could one find the competitive, and nerve wracking hobby peaceful? There was always something going wrong. Whether having an awful teammate,a a bad day, or even— something as silly as bad luck.

Personally you didn’t love video games. You had no plans of getting shouted at by grown men over a digital creation, which stats didn’t affect you in real life. But.. as your friends usually did, they lured you into gaming.

Quickly too, giving you tips and tricks to assure you didn’t drag the rest of them down. And as much as you hated to admit it, you actually enjoyed it. Clicking with the rest of your friends, especially a man around your age named Kamo Choso.

During group meet ups you and him spoke pleasantly on just about everything. Life, his siblings, shared music interest.. you two clicked deeper then you have with anyone else.

An innocent connection you felt were developing into feelings..

Manicured fingers slammed into the keyboard rested on the desk, whilst soft swears escaped your lips. You blinked at the bright screen, sighing heavily the moment defeat in bold red letters flashed across it.

“This is our fifth loss in a row..” You moaned in annoyance, leaning back in your chair; adjusting the black headset you wore carefully. A soft chuckle came from the other line, taking you away from your annoyed thoughts.

“You suck when you’re tired..”

“I’m not tired, Choso.” You countered quickly, rolling your eyes the moment another chuckle came from the man. You breathed softly, clicking off the game screen and switching over to discord. Your eyes traced the computer for a moment.

Choso and you were the only ones currently awake or rather currently in the voice chat, and have been for the past hour and thirty-minutes. You hadn’t meant to play this long, however you sometimes got carried away.

You heard shuffling on the other side of the headset, causing you to gently grab your mic. “Are you going to sleep?”

“Are you?” Choso asked in a soft hum.

Your lips twisted in uncertainty, thinking over your options. The two of you could play another round and risk losing for the sixth time— or maybe try another game.. and still lose. Either one didn’t seem like good choices, but, you didn’t want to get off the chat with Choso; just yet.

So, with a soft hum you shook your head before replying with a quick “No,” when you realized he couldn’t see.

The man gave a curt sound, one that was surely of confusion. “Then.. do you want to go another round?”

“No..” You sighed, rising from your chair to waltz over to your bed. You landed upon the cushiony mattress harshly, rolling onto your back and laying in a starfish position. “You should read me a bedtime story or something.”

“I thought you weren’t tired?”

You could practically hear the smirk in his words, causing your lips to twitch— attempting to force down a smile. You rolled to your side, closing your eyes. “I’m not,” You said defensively, adjusting yourself into a comfortable position on the bed. “—but I do need to go to sleep, and you have a soothing voice.”

For a moment you couldn’t hear a thing, only your own breathing— making you worry the voice chat had lagged out. But as quickly as those thoughts came they left even quicker, given the man was replying with a simple;

“Yeah?”

You smiled slowly, smoothing your cheek into the soft pillow. “Yeah..”

Choso paused for a moment before uttering, “Hm.. I’m sure you just have a voice kink.”

Your eyes opened wide at his statement, eyebrows pinched close as a warmth spread across you. Did.. did he just read you like a book? Was the single thought in your mind, causing you to slowly sit up to think it over.

And yet, he didn’t give you that moment, interjecting before you could even think to reply; “What, did I hit it right on the mark? I was only joking..”

You’ve talked to Choso many times to know when he was joking or not— plus you weren’t an idiot, he was being dead serious.

So, you slowly cleared your throat, scooting back to rest against your headboard. “No, what even makes you think that?” You questioned, lying straight through your teeth. You bit back a grin the moment you heard an airy chuckle, ignoring how such a sound caused shivers to dance down your spine.

“It’s obvious. Every single time I talk to you, you have this same look in your eyes.” He hummed into your ear, causing your eyes to flutter shut. “Always listening, far too intently.. Eyes focused completely on my voice rather then my words. No wonder you always say huh, whenever we speak.”

Read after read— Choso wasn’t giving you air to breathe with these completely correct accusations. It wasn’t enough you were physically attracted to the man, no; you had to be head over heels for his voice too.

You opened your mouth to speak, only for Choso to cut in;

“Deny it, and I won’t help you fall asleep tonight..”

Your eyebrows rose, teeth biting the inside of your cheek as you fiddled with your pajamas. “What, you’re gonna read me a story after all?”

“Nah, I was thinking of something else,” His breath was airy, and you swore you could hear the rustling of fabric.

Such a thought caused the heat to pool down to your belly, thighs pushing together as excitement began to sprout. “..Thinking of what?”

Instead of answering you the man gave a soft, “Lie on your back.”

That same heat swept over you, almost daring to question him again but deciding against it. Instead, you were quickly sliding to you lay on your back; hand spreading across the sliver of stomach exposed from your rising shirt.

“I’m.. on my back.” You spoke, nibbling on lip your as your fingers absentmindly traced patterns upon your skin. Your eyes fluttered shut, head rolling back onto the pillow as anticipation welled in your stomach.

“Take your pants off,” Choso spoke again, before quickly adding, “—just your pants.”

You didn’t know whether to continue to be excited or annoyed he was dragging the obvious out— yet, you obeyed, again. Your thumbs hooked onto the elastic of your bottoms, tugging them down your body and kicking them to the edge of your bed. You laid there half-bare, waiting so impatiently for his next request.

“Now.. touch yourself.”

Your eyebrows pinched close for a moment, adjusting your position as your legs rose. “Won’t I need to take my panties off?” You asked playfully, fingers sliding under the fabric for a moment before his curt response caused your hand to retract;

“I never said to take them off. I only said to touch yourself.”

You hissed softly, fiddling with the waistband of your undergarments for a split second. You could just push them down now.. there was no way he could tell, right? It was only voice chat.

But, for some stupid reason.. You decided to listen, hand slithering between your legs to slowly stroke your covered folds through the thin fabric. The motions continued as the pleasure set in, your legs widening and soft breaths escaping.

From the other side you could hear Choso’s breathing become shallow with even more rustling following. You could just imagine it; him on his back, hair a mess from laying down and the headset, whilst his strong hand was slowly stroking himself through his boxers.

You wondered if he was leaking already; how there might be a wet spot slowly forming, darkening the fabric. Such a thought had your thighs clenching, finger delicately finding your bud below your panties.

The action caused your head to tilt back, lips parting as an audible gasp escaped.

“Oh, you sound so pretty, princess. So, so pretty..”

You whined softly at his words, feeling far more aroused despite the covered pleasure. Your other hand rose to slink under your shirt, grabbing ahold of your breast to roll your thumb on your slowly erecting nipple. The pleasure was increasing by now, yet still not enough— causing your frustration to build.

“Choso, please..”

“What, what’s wrong?” His voice was taunting and low, clearly aware of what you were practically begging for. “Don’t tell me you wanna take your panties off already?.. So impatient, sweetheart.”

Choso’s words were going straight to your pussy, wetting up the lacey fabric even more. Your hips rose to meet your hand, “Choso, fuck.. Just please, I need to take them off.”

He thought it over for far too long, even humming just to irritate you further. Though, you also heard more rustling and his bed.

Fuck.. how you wished you could see what was happening right now.

“Take ‘em off.”

You didn’t need to be told twice, practically shoving off the garment as if they had personally offended you. You then wasted no time in spreading your legs wide, hand falling between them to slowly separate your damp folds. There, your middle finger reached out; swiping across your swelling bud for a split moment— before beginning small, tight circles on it.

With nothing left to restraint you, your sounds were more vocal now — airy and sweet— driving right into Choso’s awaiting ears. This caused the man to breathe heavily right into the mic, followed by the sounds of wetness.

A flush of warmth escaped as the pleasure continued, moans waning as your combined actions dawned on you suddenly. Here you were, having voice chat sex with a friend, in a chat where just about anyone else could join— at any time. Sure, it was currently three in the morning but the threat still loomed over your head.

It seemed the man had sensed your nervousness given his sudden; “It’s only us on here, mama.. use that pretty voice, let me hear you while you fuck yourself.”

Just from his voice and the vulgarity you were keening, back arching as a finger slowly pushed into your awaiting entrance. The moment you adjusted you were curling the digit, moaning out as your stomach stirred with pleasure.

Choso was praising you at this point, “That’s it, good girl.. Keep playing with yourself,” He spoke, breath rushed with soft groans interrupting. His hand was tight around his throbbing length, thumb swiping at the slit and smoothing his pre-cum across his dick. “Bet your pretending your fingers are mine, huh?” A soft chuckle escaped him— “Or maybe my tongue?.. Or maybe even my dick?”

You swore at his words, a second finger pushing in as your thumb began to rub harsh circles on your clit. “Ch—Choso, fuck..!” You pinched your nipple between your fingers, legs threatening to close as your throat nearly became raw from your voice.

You were close, pussy throbbing around your fingers as arousal leaked down them. Your pace quickened, soft sounds surrounding the room and serving as background noise to the sweetest moans escaping your wet lips.

If only you could see Choso; his eyes rolling back, hips rising into his hand and pretending it was you. His groans were deep, bordering on whimpers each time his hand slipped up to his sensitive tip. He was close too, hissing as his eyelids fluttered shut.

“Come with me, mama.. wanna hear you, fu-fuck.. lemme hear you.” Choso spoke on shaky breath, tensing as his orgasm drew.

You whimpered into the mic, eyebrows pinched close as your fingers never stopped it’s thrusts. Far too quickly you were creaming, staining your skin with your essence which trickled down your taint to your soft blankets. During this you heard a sharp gasp, warmth covering your body and enjoying the soft sounds that followed.

You simply laid there, heavy breathing coinciding with Choso’s own. Your fingers slowly withdrew from between your legs, slick smoothing across your thighs.

“You sleepy now?”

You bit your cheek, “No. No I’m not.”

“Good, I’m coming over in te— five minutes.” Choso spoke rather quickly, before the familiar sound of the voice chat ending entered your ears.

COMMENTS & REBLOGS ARE APPRECIATED <3

[evertidings]

it’s your time to shine.

play chapter ten now and dive back into the world of the midnight hours. revisit old friends, learn some things about them that you didn’t know before, make progress (or don’t, i suppose) and oh, try not to lose your mind, yeah?

that’s crucial.

IN THIS CHAPTER.

learn a little more about what goes on in A's head

experience an (almost entirely) nice Blane

officially meet N's dog and get a glimpse of domestic life

be pleasantly surprised by K's kindness

question your relationship to Rylan

perform an interrogation on Ciel, the drug dealer from chapter 9

STATS.

word count. 472,000 (+51.4k)

LINKS.

ko-fi

patreon

[themeraldee]

Reader who's a loner, regularly has hallucinations that they just sorta deal with. One night they were on the roof of a skyscraper, kinda high/drunk (whichever your more comfy with) they hallucinates homelander, the convo kind goes like this

H: *clenching fist* wasn't expecting to see another person up here.

R: OH SH- hiii omigosh sorry you startled me, but hey how ya doin?

Homelander had come up there for some peace and quiet but was pleasantly surprised that this person didn't just annoy him, but actually had a good heart to heart with him, as they related to each others loneliness, he feels a sense of comradery he hasn't ever felt, making him emotional. homelander pulls out the old "I should go now, I have to fight crime." Excuse so he can go home and think about it. Over the span of two weeks he couldn't stop thinking of them. He didn't even know their name but hes like "their the one." Leading him to tracking them down. Now remember in the first half when I said they hallucinated him? Well It turns out they weren't hallucinating, he was completely real and they were actually talking to him that night, thinking "this HAS to be a hallucination". But no, now they have to deal with an obsessed homelander.

One of my favourite tropes is Homelander falling for someone with absolutely zero thought. He doesn't need a slow burn or get to know them better. Nah, he's all in. Whatever it is that clicks with him takes no time to settle and he's pursing them full throttle STAT.

The idea of reader continuously thinking that he's a hallucination would lead to some funny moments. Of course he's not real, this Homelander is a jerk, a real crude asshole. Only you would come up with something like that. Nothing like the sickly sweet persona they parade on the TV. And of course Homelander would be getting increasingly frustrated because you should be getting yourself just as obsessed with him! And you can't do that if you don't think he's real!

"Of course my hallucination of Homelander is a more fucked up version of him."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"Well, look at yourself. You're a little crazy. Don't act like you do on TV. And that's a good thing really, so my hallucination gets a 1, real Homelander 0."

"For the tenth time I'm real!"

"Yeah yeah you've said. Still not done anything to prove it though."

So naturally, he kisses you, like he's been itching to do. And what was that if not a blanket permission.

"Woah woah woah, what the hell?!"

"You wanted proof. You got it."

And because your hallucinations never felt corporeal before you start freaking the fuck out. Because what do you mean it's been the real Homelander all along that you've been making yourself a fool in front of??

[dreamsofjianghu]

So.... I have been playing Eureka with the @anim-ttrpgs RPG Book Club, which has been overall an excellent experience, but this last session truly surprised me, with the systems in place for combat, which FLOORED me with how effective and fun they were!

I had read the manual of course, but I am not very good with just that as a basis to know how something will feel while playing... and what's written right in the manual? There are so many rules... because fighting and guns are deadly! What if it was too much? I am not generally very good with tension... nor with fights in rpgs outside of more straightforward ones... so I was SO pleasantly surprised that this was awesome.

It's tactical, but not in a wargame kind of way, the character just has to use their environment! It immediately clicked with me, because every single rule worked in such a way that it was so, so reasonable for the situation. And it was fun! This was the most fun I had in a fight since FOREVER. And my character didn't even have to attack! It was tense, but there were so many things one could do, my character that has no good stats for a fight still acted in a useful, engaging way, and the other pc, who also did not have good stats, was an absolute MVP while not hitting an enemy once. I'm just... so impressed.

[deakyjoe]

Somebody’s Watching Me Masterlist

Simon “Ghost” Riley x Reader (she/her)

Sarge and Simon’s story.

Individual warnings can be found in each chapter along with word counts, A/Ns and summaries.

This story can pretty much be described as a slow burn coworkers to friends to lovers/idiots in love story with a grumpy x sunshine dynamic. There’s fluff, there’s angst, there’s smut, there’s whatever. 18+ chapters marked with **

Enjoy reading Sarge and Simon’s story!

Part 1

You sense someone following you after returning home from active duty.

Part 2

On a night out with your friends, you’re pleasantly surprised to run into your secret observer.

Part 3

There’s another run in with your lieutenant and secret observer at the last place you expected to see him.

Part 4

Your lieutenant acts as your awkward date to a Christmas party held by your friends.

Part 5

Your friendship with Simon begins to blossom even further as you hang out alone for the holiday period.

Part 6

The New Year brings new emotions and spending time together becomes unbearable as you cannot ignore your feelings any longer.

Part 7**

You and Simon take the next step towards happiness.

Part 8**

A slice of heaven is created as you get a glimpse at what could be.

Part 9

Good things can’t last forever.

Part 10

Tensions arise when a secret is revealed.

Part 11

Feelings are finally revealed in the face of mortal danger. Some good, some bad.

Part 12

Can the two of you fix the damage that has been done? Or is it too late?

Epilogue

Five years later.

Deleted Scenes:

Tea For Two

Halloween

Extras:

Their playlist

Pinterest board

Quote inspiration

Character Analysis Ask

Deep Dive

Cover

Random Simon things

Stats

[starflirts]

Hiii im sorry i forgot to put an au for prompt 70 and tbh none!!

hi anon! i ended up choosing an au that fitted the prompt! hope you like it <3

tennis player! percy jackson x tennis player! fem! reader

Percy Jackson and Y/N L/N, rising stars of the tennis world. That’s what every headline had to say about you. Fierce, competitive and unstoppable were the adjectives used to describe you and Percy. With a few trophies already under your belt, you could only grow and win more. The same thing applied to Percy. But although the two of you were seen as superstars, able to match each other’s strength, things weren’t as smooth off the court.

“Are you kidding me ? There’s no way I’m playing with him!”

Your coach sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose to avoid an oncoming headache. “Listen, there’s no other player your age with the same stats as you who can replace him. This is also, let me remind you, the opportunity of a lifetime. You told me you wanted to play in the Olympics and those doubles are just the beginning.”

“But he’s a jerk ! He was insufferable even when we were in boarding school together ! Doubles are all about understanding your teammate and working with each other ! He's so stubborn and so annoying! Do you think he’s going to even want to listen to me ?”

Pulling her chair back, your coach stares at you, a small smile on her face. “I think you’ll make him work just fine.”

The first time you step foot onto the court for your first practice, you hear him before you see him.

“Believe me, I don't want to be here either.” he bites and you roll your eyes

“I didn't expect anything else from you Kelp Head.” you answer as you turn around, putting a couple of tennis balls in the pocket of your shorts.

Percy scoffs at the old nickname.

“You’re still calling me that ?”

Ignoring him, you went to your designated position behind the net.

“Practice isn’t gonna start by itself.” you sigh, bouncing a ball with your racket.

That first practice was almost catastrophic. Hadn’t your respective coaches been there, the whole thing would’ve ended in endless bickering. You both reluctantly promised to make it work, for the sake of the whole team.

And you did, to some extent. The arguments were limited to the beginning and the end of practices and you were pleasantly surprised to see how well you played with Percy, looking forward to the actual competition.

After postgame interviews and celebratory pictures with your gold medals, you and Percy rush to the rest of the team who’s excitedly pulling the two of you in a bone crushing embrace. As the entire team cheers and celebrates the well deserved win, you pull back, admiring the sight in front of you. You’re moving away when Percy catches your wrist.

“Hey,” he calls out your name. “I uh, I wanted to apologize. I haven’t been that nice and… I guess I feel bad because you’re an amazing athlete and a great person too. Do you think I can make it up to you sometime soon ?” he shyly smiles.

A small grin is etched on your face when you answer him.

“Sure! I guess I haven’t been really nice to you either, Kelp Head.”

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

‼️ I just looked at my ao3 stats while trying to find something and realized that I've passed 15k total kudos! I wasn't expecting that for a while! I was vaguely planning to do something for this milestone but I have nothing planned now because it feels like I JUST hit 10k a little while ago! I was so nervous to start sharing my work (apologies to my poor user subs who are probably getting tired of those near-daily emails by now) and I'm so pleasantly surprised that some people like my work.

If you've ever read any of my fics and left a kudos or a nice comment, please just know:

I love you

In your hour of need, I will be there (can't promise how much help I'll be, but I'll be there)

[pixeldistractions]

Jordan had been distracted since Maria and JoJo came to join his adventure. He had skipped more climbing sessions than he wanted to admit. But now that they were settled, it was time to pick up the slack. “Go climb, my love,” Maria told him. “You’re not quitting this thing on my behalf. Isn’t it the whole reason we’re here?”

Another bonus was the free family passes to the park, already bought and paid for as part of his climbing package.

“So you guys check out the park. Nessa will show you everything, and I’ll meet up with you later for dinner.”

Jordan was quite proud of the skewers he’d grilled for the group tonight. It was his turn to make dinner for climb club after hours.

So Maria met Nessa by the pool, and the kids enjoyed the warm, heated water. In November now, the dry northern desert took a sharp turn for winter. They didn’t stay in the water for long, especially in the late hours of evening when the heat of the day dispersed quickly. They were happy for as long as they were submerged, but quickly after, they had to get dressed and moving again to keep warm.

Maria took an instant liking to Nessa, a woman ten years her senior and so accomplished and cultured in life. Maria couldn’t help but feel a little star-struck, but Nessa was so welcoming and easy to talk to, and she never made Maria feel inferior for anything—not finishing college, not having a career, not living in a proper home with her daughter. In fact, she even took an interest in Maria’s hobbies and music, and it felt genuine, too.

Meanwhile, they were also pleasantly surprised at how well Johanna and the boys got along.

With the children playing nicely, they went to check in on the guys.

Jordan’s training had been fragmented by travel, but the last task on his to-do list was to attempt the medium wall. There were only three weeks left in this climbing session before they broke for winter. If he didn’t make this attempt now, he might as well start over from scratch in the spring. And that sounded demoralizing. So he gave it a shot.

It was challenging in the best way. Jordan was meticulous and careful, and he did great, surprising even himself!

He reveled in his success for a moment, then he started his equally meticulous descent.

That was where Maria found him, dangling from the highest point of the cliff face, one-handed, swinging his body from one handhold to another.

She heard her mother’s voice in her head, Oh, God, she’s going to be a widow again!

“I know, right?” Nessa said, “I think it’s better not to watch.”

When he reached the bottom, Maria didn’t have to explain what she was thinking. Her face said it all. Perhaps he should have gotten her used to the little wall first.

“Hey, I have an idea,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

“Is it up there?”

“It is, but we can take the stairs.”

— “boxes and squares #5.2: come down from the clouds” (7/10)

note: she was so upset by the climbing, she didn’t even notice the bee, lol!

Funny story about their sims, in gameplay, they can talk about almost anything and everything, but if he tries to talk to her about rock climbing, half the time she doesn’t like it and gives up negatives and the conversation sometimes turns sour. She doesn’t have a dislike for it in her preferences. Maybe it’s the squeamish trait? But if not that, I can only conclude that she dislikes the risk and worries about him getting hurt.

Climb club stats: Maya 8, Darren 6, Kristoff 6, Tyler 5, Jack 5, and Jordan 3! (Jordan is the runt of the litter, but he’s doing so good, lol! Remembering that Jordan and Jack are newbies this season, and the others have done this before.)

Next -> // 5.2 start // index

[rbbrbikerthorp]

A Room For The Night

“Urgh!” I said to myself as I walked down the dingy corridor looking at the numbers on the doors. A sign points the way; up another flight of stairs.

“Room 507 - here it is,″ I said to myself..I put an actual key key into the lock. I turn it to the door to the attic bedroom, I still can’t believe that all the known chains in town were full for the night. After. a really long day trudging around the city from meeting to meeting and then entertaining a customer, I’d missed my last train home. I must’ve checked out two dozen hotels online before I managed to find one with a room. I guess ‘beggars can’t be choosers’.

As I opened the door the stench hit me in the face; a mix of smoke, damp and old furniture offended my nose. No point complaining; there was no alternatives and it would only be for one night.

I dropped my bag on the bed and walked over to the sash window to see If I could open it, but it wouldn’t budge. Years of painting had sealed it shut.  

I looked around the room to see if there was another way to get some ventilation in. There was ventilation panel and a switch on the wall below it. When I flicked the switch, I was pleasantly surprised that hotel had fitted one of those silent air-con units you can hear faintly as opposed to one with a fan that creates an unbearable noise. I looked around the room and spotted a TV on the wall, there was a fridge and kettle. I also noticed a wardrobe, but as I was only staying one night I wouldn’t unpack my bag. 

I guess the day was catching up with me, because I began to feel very tired. Just then I remembered I had to send a couple of emails before the end of the day. So I grabbed my laptop and sat at the desk. As I typed away, I could hear comforting sound of the air conditioning whispering away in the background . “Mmmm perhaps this wasn’t so bad for one night,“ I thought. The two important emails were sent plus, I sent another to my department head summarising meetings - not something I’d normally do, but I felt compelled to do it on this occasion. I logged out and closed my laptop.

I decided to take a shower before bed. I stripped out of my suit trousers and shirt and head into the bathroom. I turned on the shower, and stepped in, the hot water immediately relieved the tension in my muscles. Not having planned to stay away for the night I didn’t have any toiletries with me, but I was amazed to discover a hotel of this standard actually provided a selection of bathroom amenities for guests.

I cracked open the shower gel and rubbed it into my hair. I whiffed the scent, “wow that’s really overpowering,” I thought. I tried to figure out what the scent was but for some reason my mind wandered onto other things. I massaged it into my hair, lost in the smell, closing my eyes. I stood under the water raining down from the shower head feeling the suds wash out of my hair.. I reopened the bottle of shower gel and applied it everywhere, wanting the smell to cover me entirely. The smell is making me feel soooooooo relaxed and sooooooo horny. Eventually, I know I’ve left the soap on me for long enough and rinse myself off

Turning off the shower, I step out and grab one of the towels from the rail and dry myself off. I felt so drained but also so relaxed. I walk out of the en-asuite and drop the towel on the floor and, fully naked, I climb under the covers. At the side of the bed is the remote control, I grab it and turn on the TV. 

When the screen came alive there was just static. I flicked through the channels, but it was the same. “Urgh”, I thought, “here we go, the TV doesn’t work.” I was about to get up and see whether the cable had come loose but I found myself captivated by the colours on the screen. There was also a strange humming noise emanating from the television that made it hard to think. I laid there, watching the pretty colours,”sooooo beauuutifullll…” As I watched I became hornier and hornier but I found couldn’t move a muscle. I began to panic, the static was interspersed by coloured spirals and then there were flashes. the flashes grew brighter and more frequent - I’m sure the flashes were actually words but I couldn’t tell. I kept staring at the screen, open-mouthed. 

All I could do was stare at the screen. Sometime later the screen finally went blank. I reached to the bedside table and switched off the light. I quickly drifted off to sleep listening to the soundtrack of the whispering air conditioning.

I vaguely recall having this weird dream when suddenly I came around. Rolling over I tapped my phone to check the time, it was only 3:30am. A thought entered my head - I needed to get up and check the wardrobe. “What? Are you serious?” I laid there for what felt like ages , but the thought didn’t go away. In fact the voice in my head kept getting louder, Check the wardrobe...Check the wardrobe...Check the wardrobe..It kept getting louder still. Check the wardrobe... Eventually the compulsion took over. I climbed out of bed and walked over the wardrobe, and opened the door. 

As I pulled the doors open, right away there was a rank smell of old leather and cigarette smoke. Hanging inside the wardrobe were some clothes and a pair of boots. Even though I knew thugs wore clothes like these, I couldn’t help myself, I had to touch them. My hand brushed against the green bomber jacket; I felt a static charge that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I picked up the boots, lifted them and held them to my face. They looked as though they’d been well worn. I took a deep breath. Inside each one, someone had stuffed in a sock. At first the smell of foot odour and leather was overpowering, but after inhaling the scent for a few minutes I felt intoxicated and started feeling horny again. 

I picked up the pair of jeans that looked like they’d been splashed with bleach. They looked like they’d been worn a few times since the last wash. There was also a black polo shirt on another hanger. “Hmmm,” I thought, “The last person staying here must have left this behind. I’ll have to mention this to reception when I check out. I put everything back in its place, closed the wardrobe door and went back to bed to try and get some more sleep. 

Back in bed I laid staring at the ceiling listening to the whispering air con. “Was that a voice I could hear? Was it telling me I should try on the clothes hanging in the wardrobe. Why on earth would I want to try on another person’s worn, actually well-worn clothes?” I laid in bed contemplating what the voice in my head was telling me to do. After a while i thought, “maybe I could try the clothes on - it would be a laugh. No, what am I thinking?” I was restless in bed. In the end the voice was becoming unbearable, I caved in. I got out of bed, opened the wardrobe again, and inhaled deeply. This time the smell didn’t offend me. I took out the contents put them on the bed and looked at them closely.

I grabbed the bleached jeans and slid them on, one leg at a time. I struggled to get into them as they were skin tight, probably a size too small compared to any trousers I’d normally wear. I stood up and walked to the mirror. The jeans had been cut short, so they just covered the knee. There was a clear bulge at the front. I turned around; the jeans were nice and tight around my arse. “Where did that thought come from?” I walked back over to the bed and picked up the black polo, with yellow piping on the collar. I raised my arms, slid it over my head. I looked okay to say I’m not the slimmest I could be.. My horniness was increasing.

The boots were next. I felt a definite tingle all over my body as I picked them up. I pulled the socks out and one at a time, I rolled up them up my legs. I studied the boots; the white laces were pristine. This was a total contrast to the rest of the clothes, which had been used multiple times. I could tell there was a certain way the previous owner had set about lacing them up.  It took me a few minutes to work out how to copy what had been done before that would, in the end, create a ladder effect. Instinctively knew they needed to be laced tightly onto my feet, so I started with the left and then moved onto the right boot. After a short while I’d got the the boots on my feet. I stood up and walked around. The boots felt heavier than anything I’d worn on my feet. 

Walking around the bedroom in these tightly laced boots than went all the way to the top of my calf muscles was amazing. I was getting hornier than ever. I could see my growing bulge in my bleached jeans. I walked over to the wardrobe, taking the green bomber jacket from the hanger and slipped it on. I noticed a lump in one of the pockets. Lifting out the contents, I held an unopened packet of cigarettes and a box of matches in my hand. I stood staring in the mirror for ages. I was experiencing a ‘sensory overload’ - that’s the only way I can describe it

The reflection in the mirror was obviously me, but it also wasn’t the me I’d known all my life. For the first time I felt different like a different person, but something didn’t look right. I stared and stared, then I had a revelation. “It’s the hair,” I said out loud, “You don’t wear clothes like this with a head full of hair.” Without thinking I went into the bathroom and looked through the amenities that the hotel provided. Sure enough there was a brand new Mach 3 razor and a tube of shaving cream. I slipped the off the jacket and removed the polo shirt.

Although i kept my hair relatively short, it was going to take some time to shave my head without being able to use any clippers to remove the bulk of my hair. In the whispering air con I heard a voice, so quiet you could barely make it out. It seemed to be whispering “desk drawer, desk drawer”. I walked back into the bedroom and opened the drawer. Inside was a solitary item; a pair of scissors. “Well,” I said to myself, “these will make things easier,” I went back into the bathroom and set about hacking at my hair with the scissors. Clumps of hair were falling into the sink. I kept snipping until there was almost nothing left to cut. 

I turned on the tap and ran the water until it got very hot. Next I squeezed plenty of shaving cream into my hands and applied it evenly all over my head. I rinse my hands of the foam and picked up the razor.

Instinctively I knew what I needed to do. I put the razor at the back of my crown, and pulled it towards my forehead. I rinse the razor under the running hot water. In steady strokes I went from front to back in the direction my hair seemed to be growing in.

I could feel my the bulge in my jeans getting harder and harder. I’d completed the top of my head. Time to do the sides. I put the razor just above the left hand side, pull it down in an even stroke, only stopping when reach the top of my cheek. When I’d finished the one side, I switched to the other side and did it all over again.

Between each stroke I’d rinse my razor in the hot water to keep the blades clean. When that was done, it was time to do the back. I took my time because I couldn’t see what I was doing. I carefully placed the razor at the back of my crown, then pulled it down toward the nape of my neck. I made very slow, even passes with the razor, repeating it until I could was happy that all my hair was gone.

One last scrape...done!

I looked in the mirror and could see my head was fully shaved and gleaming. At that moment I felt different. A ‘switch’ in my head flipped. I stared at myself in the mirror - I sensed I’d evolved. A new character had emerged, I was become mean and aggressive.

I was shaken from my thoughts by a knock at the door. I look through the peephole to see who was at the door. Whoever was standing on the other side of the door had obscured my view.

“Oi! Oi!, lad, open the door.”

It wasn’t a request, it was an order. I had to comply.

I opened the door, standing in front of me was a huge skinhead. He didn’t say anything nor did he smile. 

I spent a few seconds taking him in; From the tightly laced boots on his feet and the obscenely tight bleached jeans to the black bomber jacket, black gloves and shaved head. Not only did I feel tiny by comparison, I also felt intimidated by his appearance. 

He walked over to the other side of the room. Lit a cigarette, inhaled and blew the smoke in my direction.

He took another drag on the cig, exhaled and then spoke. “Right, let’s take a look at you.” 

I walked towards him, inhaling the second hand smoke. He studied me like a scientist looks at bacteria under the microscope. He smiled.

“Yep, it seems that you’ve responded exactly as you were instructed boy.”

All I could do was smile. If I’d have been a dog I’d have been wagging my tail; happy to have pleased my skinhead Boss. “Boss, where did that thought come from” I wondered? 

With that he took another drag on his cigarette. “Boy, I think you’ve already found a pack in your jacket pocket, get one out and light up, ...now! 

Again it wasn’t a request it was an instruction to be obeyed without question. I got one out of the pack, put it in my mouth. I got a match out of the box and, as I pulled it quickly along the side it ignited. I brought the light to my cigarette and instinctively inhaled. I held it for a few seconds and then exhaled.

He took another drag on his cigarette, exhaled in my direction and spoke. “Right boy, get yer wallet and phone and give ‘em to me.”

I walked across to the bedside table where my phone was and then went into my suit trouser pocket to get me wallet. I handed them over without question. 

He watched me finish my cigarette and then spoke, “I want you to get through that pack today boy.”

I didn’t say anything, I nodded still in shock as I realised for the first time in my life I’d smoked.

“Stay there boy, there’s one more thing to do.”

With that he took some red braces out of his pocket and attached them to the top of the jeans I was wearing. He handed back my phone. 

“That’s better - red braces to hold up yer bleachers. Take a selfie boy, and then give the phone back to me. It’s time to tell all your friends, family and workmates yer a skinhead now.”

I took the picture and handed him the phone. I watched him type out a message, attach the picture I’d just taken and select ‘send to all’. “Done,” he said, putting my phone back in his pocket. “Can’t wait to see the responses you get boy.” Now he had a big smile on his face, “Now put your shirt back on and grab yer jacket. Leave everything else behind, we’re leaving.”

He watched me pull the braces off my shoulder so I could put the polo shirt on. I was about to pull them back up when he said, “nah, leave them down. He paused for a few second, “now yer might be dressed like a skinhead boi, but you’ve got a lot to learn about the skinhead code. Yer gonna live with me and I’m going to show ya, but we need to make a few modifications first in order to finish your transformation. Let’s go...”

Without questioning my new Boss I grabbed my jacket and followed him out of the room. The door slammed shut behind me - not turning back. 

Walking down the corridor, we passed a room where someone had left a pair of black boots and some other gear outside. The skinhead turned around,“Ah good, looks like they’re getting ready for the next 'guest, who will join the growing skinhead ranks.”

At which point I grabbed the growing bulge in my bleachers and followed two paces this brute of a skinhead Boss ready to embark on my new life and the final stage of my transformation.

The End?

[All of the pictures used to illustrate the story have been found online. If I’ve used someone’s by mistake, let me know and I will remove it.]