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shenglingyuan · 1 month

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title: in the heart, there grows flowers and thorns (ao3) pairing: togame jo/sakura haruka summary: A strange feeling creeps up Sakura’s chest as he watches the exchange silently. He rubs at the spot above his heart. Why was it suddenly difficult to breathe? “Is everything okay?” Togame asks him, ever so attentive. At times, Sakura is grateful Togame can pick up on his thoughts and feelings without him putting it to words. Today is not one of those times. “Yeah, of course.” *** for day 1 of wind breaker week 2024! established togasaku meeting the family + a bit of gardening + talking about feelings implied sideships: endochika, suonire

Sakura checks his reflection on the blank screen of his phone for the third time, patting down the top of his hair. Bedhead is no issue for him, but something about this day just makes him extra anxious about the way he looks. After all, Togame has invited him out for the weekend, and Sakura isn’t sure what to expect.

Togame didn’t specify the details, only that they should meet under the tracks early in the morning. Sakura even had to wake extra early today so he can pick up the polo Kiryu was lending him.

They were having dinner last night at Pothos, making plans for the weekend, when Sakura informed the group that he couldn’t join because he has a schedule with his boyfriend. Upon asking what clothes he’d be wearing, and Sakura answering, “Just the usual.” Kiryu raised a ruckus in panic.

“You can’t go on a date with your usual get-up, Sakura-chan!”

“It isn’t a date, though?”

A chorus of disapproval met his response.

“It doesn’t have to be called a ‘date’ to be a date.” Kiryu had added with conviction, confusing Sakura even more.

“Why does it matter?” Sakura grumbled, feeling offended that his very convenient and casual fashion was getting slandered. “We’re already together, I don’t have to impress him anymore, right?”

“And that’s the start of your relationship’s downfall.” Suo commented on the side, with Nirei and Tsugeura nodding in agreement.

A cold feeling settled on Sakura. Even though he and Togame were just starting to go out, he didn’t want whatever they have to be gone so soon. “Then…do you…guys have something I can borrow?”

“Don’t worry, I got you.” Kiryu smiled then, relief flooding his face. “I’ll message you my address; drop by tomorrow before you meet with your boyfriend, okay?”

And here he was, wearing his usual plain white shirt, layered with the plainest oversized jacket he could find from Kiryu’s wardrobe, if one can call faded floral prints simple. The colors and patterns of the other choices were just too bold and striking for Sakura’s taste, hence he went with this one. Kiryu seemed to approve anyway, so it shouldn’t look bad.

“It’s Sakura-chan!”

Sakura hears Tomiyama’s voice even before he sees him. When Sakura looks up, he finds the guy waving both his arms wildly in the air at the other end of the tunnel. Togame is closely following behind, smiling as they catch each other’s eyes.

“Sorry I was late, Sakura,” Togame immediately apologizes upon reaching him.

“No, Sakura-chan. It’s totally my fault. We’re halfway here when I realized I forgot my wallet at home!”

“Ah…no worries.” He didn’t expect to see this guy today. The way energy exudes off his small body always bombards Sakura that he thinks he should at least get an hour’s notice before encountering him just to prepare. “You’re…coming with us?”

“Huh? No way.” Tomiyama grins excitedly. “I’m meeting Ume-chan and Ragi-chan today, they’re treating me to Pothos, hehe! Kame-chan just asked to walk together because he said I might get lost again. As if I wasn’t able to go to Furin on my own before? Hmph. Kame-chan can be soooo overbearing.”

“Choji, I think you should go now. You don’t want to be late, don’t you?” Togame pushes at Tomiyama’s back, a wry smile etched on his face. Tomiyama giggles back, seemingly enjoying teasing Togame.

A strange feeling creeps up Sakura’s chest as he watches the exchange silently. He rubs at the spot above his heart. Why was it suddenly difficult to breathe?

“Right, right, enjoy you two!” Without even waiting for a reply, Choji skips away.

Togame looks after him with a touch of concern on his face.

“Pothos is just along this street. He won’t get lost.” Sakura reminds him.

“Just worried he might knock over something on his way, he’s too excited for today.” Togame shakes his head with a smile. He turns to Sakura then, regarding him quietly for a moment.

“W-what is it? Do I have something on my face?”

“Is everything okay?” Togame asks him, ever so attentive. At times, Sakura is grateful Togame can pick up on his thoughts and feelings without him putting it to words. Today is not one of those times.

“Yeah, of course.”

Togame seems to accept his response. He reaches out to ruffle Sakura’s hair, smiling at him warmly. “Let’s go?”

Sakura decides to bury the weird feeling away and takes Togame’s hand.

Throughout their walk, Sakura tried to guess what Togame might have planned for the day, but Togame neither confirms nor denies any of his guess. Togame leads them to the far end of the town until they reach one of the residential areas. The streets here are quiet, lined with bungalow houses, each with colorful gardens decorating the front. Finally, they arrive at one house which yard doesn’t bear the same liveliness as its neighbors. Togame stops right in front of it and opens the gate.

“Welcome to our humble abode.”

“Y-your house?” Sakura feels the heat rising to his face, his mouth struggling to form another word. What?! Isn’t this too quick of a development for two people who just started going out?

“Don’t get any ideas,” Togame smiles coyly at him as he steps inside.

“I’m not thinking about anything.” Sakura hits him lightly on his arm, his cheeks still burning. “Why’d’ya bring me here?”

“Don’t you Furin guys like to help around town? I thought you could help me with household chores today.”

Needless to say, Sakura has zero experience on anything romantic prior to Togame. He did have some ideas about what “dates” are. And yet, doing household chores together isn’t really a date activity in his limited knowledge bank.

“Were you hoping to go somewhere fancy?”

“I wasn’t.” Sakura pursed his lips. It’s not that he was expecting something grand, but if he knew he was going to do physical tasks today, he wouldn’t have bothered suffering under Kiryu’s critical scrutiny of his fashion choices.

“I’ll bring you somewhere nice next time. But for today, I want you to meet somebody important.” Before he takes another step, Togame faces him with a suddenly serious expression. “I’ll introduce you as my boyfriend, is that okay with you?”

“Oh, Jo, who’s this you brought over?”

Sakura turns to the source of the voice and finds an old man relaxing on a tatami on the front porch. His facial features are similar to Togame’s, as if he’s looking at Togame’s older self in sixty more years, only frailer and with more white hair. He even had the braid Togame used to sport before he had it cut.

Before Sakura had the chance to answer Togame’s question, Togame has already shifted his attention to the old man.

“Hey gramps, this is the person I told you who’s helping with the yard today, Sakura Haruka.”

“My, what a unique name,” the old man stands and strides towards them, his movements even slower than Togame. And yet, there’s a comfortable force in the way he clasps Sakura’s hand and squeezes. “It’s nice to meet you, Haruka. I don’t think Jo has told me about you before.”

Sakura could see where Togame takes his penchant for the slow life after.

“Nice meeting you…sir.”

“Just call me Uncle, no need to be so formal. Uncle Jiro. Now, where did Jo pick you up, hm?”

“A new friend.” Togame answers swiftly, laying a hand on Sakura’s shoulder.

“Really? You made a new friend?” Togame’s grandfather laughs heartily. “Here I was thinking you’re stuck forever with that Choji. Where’s he anyway?”

“Busy as always.”

“Ah, that kid. It’s been so long since I last saw him.”

Right. Sakura still hasn’t answered Togame when he asked if he could introduce him as a boyfriend. Something about the direction their conversation took made him uneasy and eager to stake his claim on his role in Togame’s life.

“Actually…,” Sakura cuts in, wrapping a hand around Togame’s wrist as if to make point. “I’m…his boyfriend.”

Both Togame and his grandfather look at him in surprise. Togame’s face quickly lights up, though, his green eyes almost disappearing behind his crinkled gaze.

“You heard him, gramps. Sakura’s my boyfriend. I wanted you to meet him.”

“Now that’s a shock.”

“That I have a boyfriend?”

“I thought you were with that Choji?”

Togame’s smile faltered, his eyes darting in panic between his grandfather’s confused face and Sakura’s flustered one. “Don’t be silly, gramps. That never happened.”

At that moment, Sakura has a realization: this is the most mortifying moment of his life.

“My apologies, Haruka. This old man doesn’t know how to watch his mouth. Now, this grandson,” he lands a chastising hit on Togame’s free arm, “I’d appreciate getting informed ahead of time.”

“Sorry, sorry.”

“Hah, this has been a very awkward first meeting. Jo, you go inside and prepare the snacks and drinks, will you? I’d like to talk properly to Haruka here.”

“You don’t have to —"

“I’d like to insist.” Jiro smiles at him so gently that Sakura doesn’t find the heart in him to further refuse.

“Okay then. Oh, Sakura, should I hang your jacket inside? I can lend you another long sleeve to use for the yard work. That isn’t yours, isn’t it?”

Of course, he'd know. In any case, Sakura doesn’t want to soil Kiryu’s clothes either. He takes the jacket off and gives it to Togame. “Thanks.”

“Come and sit with me for a bit while we wait for Jo.”

Sakura follows Jiro to the front porch hesitantly. After that brief awkward moment, he can’t imagine what kind of questions will this old man bring up. Jiro returns on the tatami, and pats on the spot next to him, motioning for Sakura to sit. Left with no other choice, Sakura yields to the old man.

For a moment, they both gaze at the quiet garden with its scattered patches of green, filled with overgrown, unkempt shrubs and weeds.

“Any experience in gardening, Haruka?” Jiro asks as he hands him the sun hat laying nearby. “Though you really can’t call this yard a garden now.”

“Just a bit. We cleaned someone’s yard some time ago.” Sakura gratefully takes the hat and puts it on. “There’s also a vegetable garden up on our school rooftop we help with.”

“Well, it's just some weeding today. Haven't been able to keep up with it the past few months, what with my back aching more and more. That's old age for you." He looks pensively at the view in front of him. “Look how messy this garden has become.”

“Shouldn’t you be leaving this in Togame’s care, anyway?”

“Well, he used to, you know. Him and Choji. Once or twice a month. Then, something must have happened. Choji stopped coming over, and Jo started carrying himself as if he’s some mafia boss. That’s why I mistakenly thought they had that kind of relationship before.” Jiro shakes his head with an amused laugh. “Young boys these days, really. But I’m glad he seems spirited enough now to pay attention to this yard again. So, Haruka, are you also part of Jo’s gang?”

“No. I’m from a different group. Bofurin.”

“Bofurin? Hanging out with other groups? That’s news to me.”

Bofurin’s name is really known far and wide.

“Yeah, we’re supposed to be friends now with Togame’s group.”

“Supposed to be, huh. I still remember, Bofurin’s reputation isn’t good. When we first moved here, Jo was still a little kid then, the neighbors warned us not to go too far into town because of those rascals always fighting with other gangs.”

“We’re different now,” Sakura finds himself saying, feeling the need to defend Bofurin’s honor. “These days we keep those gangs in check.”

“You’ve duked it out with Jo’s gang, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, they challenged us.”

“And Sakura totally floored me.” Togame finally appears from the house, carrying with him a pitcher of ice-cold water, a plateful of biscuits, and glasses. “He’s real strong, gramps.”

“You lost on purpose.” Sakura glares as he takes the long sleeve Togame brought out with him. “You still owe me a proper rematch.”

“Now, now, fix the yard first before you two go at it. Then you can roll around the grass all you want.”

After a few bites of snacks, Sakura and Togame finally start with the actual task at hand, with Jiro overseeing their progress. Instead of spreading out, they work on the same areas together to finish the process quicker. Prioritizing the weeds overtaking the path, they work their way to the edges of the yard. As a form of entertainment, Jiro tells Sakura of Togame’s exploits as a child, much to Togame’s embarrassment.

By noontime, Jiro calls them inside for lunch. The awkwardness from the earlier misunderstanding has completely vanished, and Sakura is able to even exchange banters with Jiro easily. Sakura realizes he’s not much different than the elderly people that frequent Pothos; in fact, Jiro reminds him of Grandma Sato.

“I’d love to show you Jo’s childhood photos, but I forgot where I put those albums. Do you know, Jo?”

“Even if I knew, I won’t tell you, gramps. You’re just going to embarrass me more.”

“Hmph. I’ll just look for it myself. Then Haruka, I’ll show it to you on your next visit, okay?”

A next visit. Just like that, Sakura finds himself a new place to return to in town. He gives an enthusiastic nod. “Okay, Uncle.”

Orange streaks have started to paint the sky by the time Togame and Sakura finished cleaning all corners of the previously unkept yard.

“Where’s Uncle Jiro?” Sakura asks as he joins Togame on the tatami, crossing his legs, and examining the job they’ve done with the yard. “Sleeping?”

“Nah, he went to his friend a few streets away. They usually play shogi or Othello in the afternoons. He should be back by dinner.” Togame absentmindedly reaches for his hand, weaving their fingers together, rubbing at Sakura’s knuckles with his thumb. “Hey, Sakura.”

“Yeah?”

“Sorry about gramps earlier.”

“About what?”

“When he brought up Choji.”

“It’s nothing. He already talked to me about it, too.”

“You still look jealous, though.”

“That’s—,” Sakura wants to deny it, but the matter of fact is, it’s true. He feels silly, though, feeling jealous over his closest friend. Is it because he never had anyone to call “his” until Togame that his possessiveness is a bit irrational? “That doesn’t matter anymore.”

Togame’s arms snakes around his waist then, pulling him close so that his chest is pressed against Sakura’s back, resting his chin on Sakura’s right shoulder. Sakura can’t help but relax at his touch, his body curving to fill the space in between them seamlessly.

“Of course, it does. I understand if you’re jealous. It’s not entirely baseless. I’ve devoted myself to Choji, to Shishitoren, to the point of ruin. You witnessed a part of it, after all.”

“Yeah, you sure did.” Sakura smiles wryly at the memory of their battles at Ori. They seemed so distant now.

“But at one point, I realized the feelings I held were not for my own,” Togame heaves a sigh. “I regard Choji as the sun – Shishitoren’s sun, that is. I want everyone to bask in his light. I did anything, everything, for everyone to keep seeing that.

“Yet,” his arms tighten around Sakura’s waist, “When I think of sharing you with others the same way, my chest tightens, it’s hard to breathe. It doesn’t feel good at all, Sakura. When it comes to you, I just want to be selfish.

“But I can’t do that. Hiding you away from the world would be a disservice to your person. You’re one of the most selfless people I know. You share your warmth to others as if it’s the breathing, and I can’t deny them of that. Not when it’s the same warmth that saved me.”

Sakura’s breath hitches at Togame’s words. Just a few minutes ago, he’s the one losing his mind over being jealous of someone else. But now, he realizes Togame is harboring the same concerns as him, the same pain, and yet he puts it in such a way that is still able to make Sakura feel so…treasured.

Togame has never lacked in expressing his admiration of him; Sakura didn’t think his feelings can get this strong. They were never overwhelming though, instead, his words always felt like finding the perfect solace in the middle of his own stormy thoughts. His own worries dissipate in a flash. There was never a reason to doubt, after all.

“You were jealous?” Sakura cranes his neck to look at him. “Of whom?”

“Are you really asking me that now?”

“You know I got jealous with Tomiyama. Should be fair enough to tell me a name.”

Togame closes his eyes, as if that hides him from answering. But of course, Sakura won’t let him run away from this. He cups Togame’s chin and pinches the side of his cheeks, forcing his lips into a pucker.

“Thishishabuse.” Togame struggles to say as he opens his eyes.

“One. Name.”

“Fine.” Togame pulls Sakura’s hand away from his chin but keeps on holding on to his wrist. “Where are you learning these tricks?”

“Suo did it to Nirei once. Seemed effective. Well, who is it?”

“…That tattooed bastard.”

“Ha? Why?”

“Because he’s always trying to hang around you, and when you give him the time of the day, he overdoes it with the food and gifts.” Togame finally let go of his arm, shrugging his shoulders as he leans back as if in defeat, “How can I compete with that? I’m just a simple man.”

Sakura looks at him as if he’s crazy. Endo is indeed a bit forward and obsessed with him, but Sakura attributes it to the fact that only he has given Endo a genuinely enjoyable fight, even if it was emotionally harrowing on his side. For this alone, he never really thought of Endo in any special way. Besides, that guy is truly and deeply taken by another person.

“That doesn’t count.”

“Oh, it sure does for that guy, I know those types.”

“No, really, it doesn’t. Every time he comes around Furin, he just mostly talks about Takiishi anyway.”

Togame scratches the back of his ear, his forehead crumpling in confusion. “Who’s that again?”

“…You probably wouldn’t know. Anyway, there was never a competition. Stop worrying about it.”

Togame smiles softly, “And there isn’t a competition with you either. So, you don’t have to feel jealous of anybody, okay?”

Finally, the strange feeling that encroached in Sakura’s mind earlier that day completely vanishes. Sakura leans back, lets out a huge sigh of relief that seems to have been stuck in his chest for the longest time, and rests his head on Togame’s shoulder. Both their eyes are directed at the view ahead of them: a newly revived yard, free from creeping vines and overgrowths. From here on out, it could only be more vibrant and splendid, and they’ll both work on it together.

But that’s a job for next time.

#togasaku #winbreweek2024 #wind breaker #this is now part of a togasaku canon timeline series of fics ;;#i write sometimes

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saiyansimp · 1 year

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Dating (some of) the Z-Fighters…

Goku:

You probably met while training! Maybe you met at a tournament and put up a valiant fight against him, or you ran into him in a remote yet gorgeous training spot outdoors. Either way you hit it off immediately! If you aren’t a fighter, then you probably were set up on a blind date through Bulma lmao

You aren’t able to spend much time together, but when you’re on dates or training together you feel like you’re in heaven. He makes you feel so incredibly special: I like to think that since the Cell Saga, he’s learned that not everyone is inherently a fighter and that’s okay! He makes sure to take an interest in your interests no matter what they are

Cooking. Lots of cooking. Or eating takeout. I’d say you can look forward to leftovers but I doubt there’ll be any lmao

Lots of laughter, whether intentional or not. Mans is a huge goofball and always tries to make you laugh, but some of his funniest moments are just him acting as his usual self hehe, he's so nonchalant when telling you stories about his past you can't help but laugh at how casually he describes getting shot and dying lmao

His love language is definitely touch! He’s very clingy so get ready for cuddles in the middle of the night after a looong training session, arms wrapped around your waist as you cook breakfast, or even just holding your hand as you walk down the street together!

I feel like he’d absolutely LOVE theme parks as a date, but he’d definitely force you to go on the biggest rollercoasters / death drop rides so be warned

Also enjoys any type of outdoorsy activity with you! Rock climbing, nature walks, even just fishing with you! Be ready to cook whatever he catches though

Despite not always being present he’s a 10/10 BF hehe

Vegeta

Cracks knuckles

You’d probably have to be the first one to make a move if you saw him at a coffee shop or a party and found him cute, even after you give him your number he waits like two weeks to text you

Once you two start dating though he switches his attitude REAL quick

He’d never admit it, but unlike Goku, he definitely prioritizes your dates and pleasing you over training. He’ll be in the middle of sparring with Goku and remember that you two have a date soon and make up a lame excuse to leave (probably claiming he’s hurt Goku enough for the time being or something along those lines) before dipping lmao

I love the headcanon that Saiyans love strong women because even if you’re not physically strong, if you’re snarky enough you and geets are gonna have LOTS of fun

Bullying is his love language.It’s constant but if you try and return it at all he’ll get all defensive and pissy

Can talk about your inferiority all day but you make a single height joke? Nope. He’s done he’s out go apologize to him Right Now

Actual love language is quality time! He’s not great with words or PDA but will always go shopping with you or take you out to eat. And don’t you dare think about paying how could you even think to damage his ego like that

Very cuddly in private though, won’t ask for it he’ll just sit at the edge of your shared couch/bed and stare at you until you go over to him and wrap your arms around him, running a hand through his hair.

If you’re an artist do NOT draw him/paint him/etc. unless you want his ego to increase exponentially

Krillin

I feel like If You Are A Woman, then you’re Krillin’s type.

Absolutely the type to make you food / homemade gifts to express affection even if they’re not great. You love them all anyways! He tries to make your favorite meal one day and it tastes burnt and raw but you can’t let him know that so you eat absolutely as much as you can without puking

You probably met by both being friends with either Bulma or Chi-Chi and therefore spent a lot of time at Kame house. Definitely a friends to lovers situation

Which adds an even more stable ground to your relationship! You’ve got friendship and history that makes your relationship even better, inside jokes that date back to before you were dating

Like Goku, he’s also a huge joker. Probably even more than Goku, but definitely more purposeful with his jokes and with

One of his go-to jokes is trying on brightly colored wigs and it never fails to leave you howling

Will literally do anything you ask him to, he just wants to make you happy. You need him to drive you somewhere? Hes on his way. You need cuddles? Always. You need to vent? Hes all ears.

pleasepleasePLEASE dont take advantage of this trait

Piccolo

HEAR ME OUT HEAR ME OUT…. Even though Piccolo is akin to plants in that he’s green and only requires water to survive, there are certain types of plants that do reproduce sexually!

Piccolo absolutely values intellect and morality over looks but hes a tough nut to crack so you’d better be in it for the long haul

Lots of your dates are just sitting under trees together meditating, reading or sitting in silence

Piccolos love language is absolutely gift giving and hes amazing at it. He knows what you want/need before you do. You wake up one morning and think to yourself about how you could use a cute new outfit and by the end of the day there’s a new dress on your bed that looks amazing on you. He also LOVES making you breakfast in bed, or any meal really if you’re too exhausted from your day to cook.

Don’t get me wrong, he can be intimate. He’s just emotionally constipated alright ! But when he opens up you better be ready to listen bc not many get that privilege

Absolute freak in bed

You have to be willing to get along with Gohan. Non-negotiable. If you start dating while Gohan’s a kid, you absolutely go on dates together with Gohan tagging along like your adopted child. If he’s older, then the three of you regularly get together to catch up and maybe act as adoptive grandparents to Pan!

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yeowangies · 1 year

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Blood Stains

CHAPTER X: If I bleed you'll be the last to know

❧

PAIRING: Raditz/F!Reader RATING: Explicit CONTENTS: Canon Divergence AU, Slow burn, Smut, Enemies to Lovers. WARNINGS: Explicit sexual content. WORDCOUNT: 4791

Summary:

You freeze in place. It has been a month since you had that argument with Raditz. What is he doing here? Even when weeks went by, you’re not sure you’ve cooled off enough to handle this yet. Or at all, since you were positive you would never see his face again.

Notes:

I feel like it's been a year since I've updated this, but it's only been a little over a month. I wrote this chapter like two months ago, and as I was reading this to check if everything is as I want it to be, I realized that I've written something that I wish I had in my life. I'm not gonna go too deep into this but it was weirdly comforting.

Again, I won't know when I'll post the next chapter, I'm currently busy with a lot of irl stuff, but hopefully it's gonna be in less than a month this time!

The lyrics in the title is from Taylor Swift's Cruel Summer. Enjoy!

You can check the tag #*bs if you wanna see the previous chapters.

A confrontation like that was not how you wanted to end things with Raditz. Because it was definitely over after that. You’re certain you won’t see him again.

You feel it in your bones, he likes staying with you and being with you. He has slept so much better the second time around, and he hasn’t been so tense. What he said hurt and you are still angry, so angry, but it was your fault he stormed out like that, you shouldn’t have said anything. You shouldn’t have talked to him as if he was going to break.

Then again, remaining silent didn’t feel right either. Even if you had agreed to only sleep together.

It was stupid to think you wouldn’t get attached. You never expected this affair to last for as long as it did, which wasn’t even that long to begin with. You even got to know him during his short stay, and even before that when he was staying at Capsule Corp; you know him too much for someone who you were just going to share a bed with every once in a while.

Lust was how all of it started, but it has transformed into something more, even if you don’t even want to acknowledge it yourself.

Would all that actually change anything?

You purposely had avoided the topic of his stay here on Earth, or about the Saiyans, before that day. But he said some things and you couldn’t keep your mouth shut. Nothing feels right, and you feel like punching a wall. Which would probably hurt less than when you slapped him, it’s like his face was made of steel.

You know for sure Raditz won’t ever come back, and you get more used to the idea as days pass by. It doesn’t hurt any less, though, and your heart feels tight whenever you dwell on it.

“I’m staying at Kame House for a few days, do you wanna come along?” Bulma asks over the phone one afternoon, in a cheery tone.

You haven’t told Bulma anything about Raditz at all; keeping it a secret was for the best, or so you thought. You were regretting it a bit now, all your emotions were bottling up inside and that couldn’t be good. But you’re not ready to share everything yet.

“No, it’s okay, I… have work to do.”

“Don’t forget the Saiyans are getting here one of these days, it’d be better if you’re here when that happens.”

“I know.”

“Do you know anything about Raditz?”

You inhale sharply before clearing your throat.

“I don’t.”

“That’s so weird, he just disappeared. I would assume he left the planet, but he doesn’t have any ship, does he?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Mmh, I’m sure we’ll know what he’s been up to once his two buddies come here. I know Goku can take them.”

“Yeah… Yeah, Goku is unbeatable, right?”

“…Are you okay? You don’t sound too good…”

“I haven’t been sleeping well. I’ve been thinking about this too much.” At least that part isn’t a lie. “Don’t worry, okay? Call me if anything happens.”

You hang up after that.

It has been almost a year since Goku died. It doesn’t feel like so much time has passed. Since you’ve been trying to avoid the topic altogether when Raditz was around, you actually lost track of time until Bulma called to tell you about it.

You’re reconsidering actually making a bag and getting to Kame House too when a loud knock on the balcony startles you.

“Open up.” Raditz’s loud voice demands from the other side of the balcony door. “Unless you want me to blast through the wall.”

Fuck. You know he isn’t bluffing.

Breathing in deeply, you open the door ajar to look him up. He’s still as handsome as ever even when he doesn't have his usual smirk, you want to gouge out your eyes because of how furious it makes you. You lock eyes with him for a brief second before moving to the side to let him in.

Raditz stands in front of you with his eyes fixed on your face, but your gaze is elsewhere. Now that he is here, you don’t want to apologize first. You’re hurt, but you’re still very angry too. You’re a lot of emotions together at once with him.

“Are you not even going to look at me?” He asks, annoyed.

You sigh, slowly, turning your eyes towards him. You can’t decipher the expression on his face, but Raditz is staring at you with such intensity you’re worried he might be seeing right through you. You avert your gaze from him after a second, unsure if you want to slap him again or jump right into his arms.

You’re startled when Raditz abruptly takes a few steps towards you and grabs your arms, pulling you closer and leaning down to capture your lips in a kiss. A surprised noise escapes you, melting a little inside when you feel him so close after all that time. It takes a second for you to remember that you’re still upset and that you don’t actually want to give in this easily.

“No…” You murmur quietly into the kiss, pushing urgently at his shoulders to get him off. “No, Raditz, I don’t wanna do this!”

“Your body is saying otherwise.” He says with a smirk, hands sliding underneath your shirt and making you shiver.

“I don’t wanna do this when I’m mad at you!” You clarify, pulling away from him the best you can in his embrace.

“Isn’t this the best way to make amends?”

That smug grin of his grows wider and your face heats up, but you still roll your eyes.

“I’m not doing this until you apologize. What you said to me hurt…”

Raditz pulls away, frowning deeply, his hands closing into fists then opening and closing again a couple of times. You realize that he probably won’t apologize first; you wonder if he actually can apologize at all, not because he’s incapable, but maybe it’s something he has never done before.

“Though I guess, I really hurt you too.” You say after seconds of silence, taking the first step. “I didn’t mean to talk to you that way… I’m sorry. What I said was true though, I do care about you…”

He nods, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“What am I supposed to say?” Raditz asks, with his eyes still on your face.

“I don’t know… tell me how you feel?” His frown gets deeper and you want to laugh because he looks like a petulant child who simply can’t have things his way. You offer him a small smile instead. “Do they not teach Saiyans how to apologize?”

“We do not apologize.”

You sigh, your smile turning sour because you expected that answer.

“It wasn’t my intention to upset you.” Raditz says, to your surprise, as he gets closer again with a smirk. “Let me show you how sorry I am.”

You huff, smiling despite yourself, when his hands reach for you again, pulling you closer by your shirt until you’re flush against him.

“You’re only saying that cause you wanna get laid!”

“I’m saying that because I want you.” He leans down to bury his face in your neck, pressing his nose to your skin and breathing in deeply. “If you do not want this, tell me to stop.”

Goosebumps form on your skin when you feel his breath near your ear, and you jolt when his hands trail under your shirt once more.

You don’t know if that apology of his is enough, but he did say he was sorry in a way.

When Raditz realizes you won’t stop him, he removes all your clothes urgently, and you help him get rid of his as he kisses you fervently. You feel his desperation by the way his hands gripped your body, pressing you as close as possible while his lips devoured you. You had to pull away for air, but he just kept planting kisses down your jaw and neck.

You soon forget why you’ve been mad all this time, and your mind goes completely blank when he lays you on the bed and kneels down on the floor, grinning cheekily as he throws your legs over his shoulders.

“I may not be good with words, but I know I’m damn good at other things.” Raditz purrs, tracing his lips on the inside of your thighs.

You laugh breathily because he’s obviously right, and you’re too weak to argue about whatever you were talking about before.

Whatever Raditz gets out of going down on you, you don’t know, but you don’t ponder on the thought when he coaxes you into coming twice with just his mouth in what must be record time. You’re still in haze when he crawls on top of you, kissing you gently as he pushes his cock inside you.

“Fuck, I needed this…” He grunts in your ear, once he’s fully sheathed. “I need you. I want you.”

Raditz sets a steady yet hard pace, slamming his hips against yours. You whimper, your body still sensitive, and after a few rough thrusts you get closer to the edge again. You don’t even try to fight it or to make it last longer; after having come twice already, you’re too weak to do much.

Wrapping your arms around him, you hold him close as your release washes over you, shuddering and letting out a stuttered moan. Raditz groans against your skin before biting down your neck, moving into you faster until his body tenses, coming inside with a guttural growl.

He practically collapses on top of you once he’s spent but you don’t mind it; it’s nice to feel him so close after so many days when you were getting used to the idea that you wouldn’t meet him again. Running your hands up and down his back and threading your fingers through his hair, you sigh contently until he rolls over to the side.

When he pulls you closer with an arm around your shoulder and his tail on your waist, you look at him with wide eyes. He rarely initiates cuddling.

“I thought I was never going to have you again.” Raditz confesses quietly, only for you to hear.

“I thought you wouldn’t come back either…” You respond softly. “I didn’t want that to be the last time we saw each other. Everything I said… You shouldn’t take my word for it anyway.”

“Didn’t you say you meant it?”

“When I said I care about you, yeah, I did, but everything else… I mean, you know me enough. I come home to an empty apartment every day. Who am I to talk about how you live your life…”

Your eyes are looking at the window, fixed on the sky, tinted with dark orange as the sun sets, but you can feel his eyes trained on your face.

“I still have a lot to apologize for, is that what you’re saying?” Raditz asks, pressing you closer.

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

He hums in response, and you shut up for once, not wanting to drag this along anymore. When he presses his nose to the top of your head, breathing in your scent, you close your eyes, relaxing for a minute, pleased that he has magically decided to come and stay for at least a little while.

“You didn’t ask me to clean myself this time.” Raditz casually says, and you snort. You’re aware that you didn’t, but you also didn’t catch any weird smell when he was close, so you don’t really care.

“I was just ignoring how dirty you are.”

“Is that so?” He shifts, moving even closer and pressing his lips to your neck again. “Do you want to take a shower with me?”

You’re only human, and Raditz is looking at you with eyes that make you want to sink and drown in them. He effortlessly carries you to the shower, and as water falls down both of your bodies, he kisses you heatedly when he slides inside you again, moving at a steady pace, and it doesn’t take long until you both come simultaneously.

Later that night, when he’s sleeping by your side with an arm draped over your waist, tears well up in your eyes. You don’t dare to think about it, let alone say it out loud, but you know how you feel. You know well what the word is for how you feel towards him. Anxiety about the upcoming days keeps you from reveling in your feelings because you know this won’t end well. This was supposed to be just casual but you had been naive to think it could remain that way as time went by.

Swallowing down your feelings, and telling yourself to keep quiet about them and how much it’s going to hurt once he leaves, you blink your tears away before they can spill as you press closer to Raditz, and try to sleep.

Raditz was honest when he said he thought he was never going to lay with you again. He was sure you wouldn’t want to work things out when he got to your place to talk to you, you were the one who told him to leave after all. Thankfully, he had been wrong; he figured he would have to say sorry even if he didn’t know how. But when he kissed you and your body responded to him, he knew not all was lost. He’s very aware he did the bare minimum, but apologizing is something he has never done, not like this, not when he’s actually sorry and has to show himself vulnerable to someone else. It’s comforting to know you did the same for him.

He feels you moving more than usual when the two of you go to sleep that night, as well as how tense your body is against his. He’s close to actually asking if there’s something wrong, but you end up falling asleep at some point.

After sharing a bed with you for so many nights, Raditz already knows you’re not a light sleeper, not like he is. He moves to press closer when he wakes up the next morning, and you don’t even notice, too deep in your slumber to respond to his gesture. He can’t see your face from his position; your back is against his chest, the faint sunlight filtering through the window highlights the line of your body, and he can smell your hair. Small benefits from lying down like that.

The desire to stay like this, with his nose buried in your hair and an arm wrapped around your waist while the sun rises, is unfamiliar and confusing, yet not entirely unwelcome. Since he never actually had sex and slept with someone before, especially not as many times, he’s not sure how normal it is to feel this way, but it brings him a sense of peace that he has never experienced before. The closest feeling to this one was the one he got after purging a planet, like satisfaction from having finished a job, and knowing he could relax for a bit. Yet at the same time, it’s unfair to compare the two, they were similar, but nothing alike.

Saiyans rarely mated for life, but it wasn’t completely uncommon. Raditz is well aware, his parents were one of the few mated couples on the planet. But it had been a long time ago, and the image of everyone else he may have known is fuzzy. Is this how his parents felt when they were with each other?

He knows he’s become quite fond of you; after you told him to leave last time and the prospect of never touching you again sank in, how important you are to him became much more obvious. But what's more surprising is that it doesn’t bother him at all.

Except for the fact that Vegeta and Nappa are coming to this planet God knows when. Raditz has lost track of time a long time ago, all he knows is that they are getting here someday.

He remembers well that he was looking for the Dragon Balls too. For immortality, or something. He’s been rethinking that wish for a few days now, but there isn’t any alternative that satisfies him.

His focus shifts when you stir, humming softly as you wake up. You look comically startled to see him staring at you when you turn to him with sleepy eyes.

“Hey,” You mumble, clearing your throat, “You should have woken me up if you were awake.”

“Why?” His tail that has been draped over your hip tightens, holding you closer to his body.

“I don’t know, aren’t you hungry, or bored?”

“I’m not.” Raditz chuckles; maybe he’s a little hungry, but he rather stays like this. “You snore when you sleep and that’s pretty entertaining.”

“I do not!”

“Yes, you do. Pretty loudly.”

“Well, you snore too, and even louder!”

You’re looking at him with drowsy eyes, rosy cheeks, and messy hair; he can’t resist.

Laughing quietly, Raditz brings the hand on your waist up to your cheek to stroke it, pulling you closer towards him and gently pressing his lips to yours. You make a surprised soft noise and squirm in his arms, making him smile into the kiss, completely pleased with your reaction. He plants another brief kiss before pulling awake, and you stare at him with wide eyes.

“Why did you do that?” You ask shyly, blushing deeper. He’s not sure why you’re blushing, you had kissed each other before, plenty of times.

But he’s never kissed you just because, with no intentions of sex.

Raditz remains quiet, only staring at your face for a little while before you move to sit up.

“I should get up… I’ll make breakfast.”

Your cheeks still have a faint pink hue as he watches you walk out the room towards the bathroom.

You stare at him more often than usual during the morning, while he eats, and he usually wouldn’t mind it, but you’re not even saying anything that would explain why you keep your eyes trained on him with such intensity.

“You keep staring at me, girl, what are you thinking?”

“I didn’t realize I was… Sorry.”

Raditz grunts in response, noticing that you look embarrassed for being caught. He doesn’t get it, though.

“I don’t like it when you call me ‘girl’.”

“What? Why? You are a girl.” He frowns, confused.

“I am but I’m not a child, I’m a woman.”

“I’m well aware of that.”

“How old are you, anyway? You look around Goku’s age.”

“I don’t know.” Raditz replies after some time.

“You don’t know how old you are?”

“No. I was seven when Planet Vegeta was destroyed. I stopped counting after that.”

You look sad for whatever reason; he doesn’t get that either.

“Goku was sent here as a baby…” You start after some time, thinking out loud and locking eyes with him. “Do you remember how old you were when he was born?”

“I was six.”

“So, a year later, your planet was destroyed?”

“More or less, yes.”

“Mmh… Goku was 24 when he died-”

“Can we stop talking about Kakarot?”

“-and he would have been 25 by now. And you’re 6 years older than him. So you’re 31.”

Raditz blinks, unsure of how to react.

“You’re not that much older than me then, I was a bit worried.” You smile cheerily.

“You were worried?”

“A bit, yeah. You could have been 100 years old for all I know. But I’m glad we are close in age.”

“Is age that important? How old are you?” He eyes you up and down; he doesn’t have any concept about how humans age, but you look young.

Do humans stay young for a long time, like Saiyans? Doubtful. Saiyans were built like that to fight for decades, but humans do not do that.

“I’m 28.” You smile wider, resting your arms on the table and leaning closer. “You also seem like a Scorpio.”

“The fuck are you talking about?”

“It’s a human thing, according to when you were born, you have certain personality traits.”

“You humans sure have a lot of free time on your hands.”

Raditz yanks your chair closer to his with his foot, making you jolt, obviously surprised, but you keep talking.

“Yeah, well, we were never involved in intergalactic wars. But I’m not sure if you’re more like a Scorpio or a Gemini…”

“I don’t know what any of that means.”

He effortlessly picks you, making you sit on his lap and holding you close as his lips find your neck, pressing kisses up your jaw.

“You can be a Scorpio because you’re a little stubborn, among other things…” You giggle when he presses his nose to the skin under your ear, taking in your scent. “Or a Gemini because you’re mischievous, and a little tense…”

Raditz isn’t really paying too much attention to what you’re saying, he’s too preoccupied with how your body feels, how soft your skin is, and how sweet your smell is to respond to your words.

“You’re not listening to me…” You say, quietly and breathily, as he sneaks a hand underneath your shirt.

“I’m busy.” He nibbles your jaw, and you shiver slightly in his embrace. “I don’t understand a word you’re saying anyway.”

Capturing your lips next, you’re finally silenced as he kisses you ardently, digging his fingers into your flesh to press you as close as possible. You hum contently, kissing him just as eagerly, and Raditz feels his chest tightening with adoration.

It’s a strange sensation, being aware of his affection for you, and the affection itself, having never experienced anything close to it. He could spend hours just sitting there, kissing you, touching you, and even more.

When he pulls away to take off your shirt, Raditz notices that the sky has turned pitch black, leaving your apartment in the dark. It’s morning, the sun was out just a minute ago. You gasp when you notice it too, and you stiffen in his arms. Looking at your face, even in the shadows, he immediately can tell that you know what’s going on.

“What is this?” He asks, staring at you.

He hears you swallow as your hold on his shoulders tightens, but you don’t answer.

Raditz stands up, helping you stay on your feet before he walks to the window to look outside. There’s nothing going on besides the sky being completely obscured. He focuses on detecting energies, but there’s no one who catches his attention.

The darkness only lasts a few minutes before the sun is out again, just in the same spot it was before. He has been on Earth enough to know that hasn’t been a common occurrence on that planet. And there isn’t any moon for it to be an eclipse.

When Raditz turns to look at you, you seem upset, with your brows furrowed and mouth slightly open.

“You know what’s going on. Tell me.” He wants to sound demanding, but he has grown too soft to even raise his voice at you.

You open and close your mouth a few times, and he waits patiently for an explanation, but before he can get one, your phone rings. He’s about to tell you to ignore it, but you quickly turn to pick it up. His eyes follow you, and he listens in to your conversation (as he usually does when you talk on the phone with someone).

“Oh, hi, Bulma… Yeah, I saw. I figured it was you. So Goku is back? Tomorrow? But that’s a month early! Yeah, I know. I’ll be there. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Raditz watches as you hang up, and slowly, very slowly, turn to him. You still look distressed as you lock eyes with him.

“The Saiyans are getting here tomorrow.”

He couldn’t hide the surprised look on his face. Tomorrow? Has it been a year? No, that’s why you said ‘that’s a month early’. It hasn’t been a year, but he has lost track of time to even notice how long it’s been. He’s been too distracted.

“And… They brought Goku back to life. Now you can’t use the Dragon Balls…”

Raditz frowns. He wanted the Dragon Balls to make a wish (immortality, was it?) but he doesn’t really care about that anymore.

You’re looking at him with big eyes, and he understands why you seem so upset now.

When Raditz takes a few steps forward he isn’t really thinking, he just knows that he wants to touch you and feel you close more than ever before. You’re startled by how fast he lunges towards you, and you even gasp when he kisses you. He presses you against the telephone stand, almost tumbling it over, but he really doesn’t care, wrapping his arms tightly around you. He kisses you as if he hasn’t been kissing you the past few days, the past few months, with intensity, tasting your lips and every corner of your mouth.

“Raditz-” You call for him against his lips, clinging to his shoulders. “Wait-”

“I don’t want to wait.” He practically growls, gripping your waist so tight he regrets it, thinking he might have hurt you, but you only hum in response. “I don’t want to talk. Just…”

At a loss of words, he trails off, but luckily you don’t try again.

You only moan his name, and the occasional curse, when Raditz presses you against the mattress moments later, moving in and out of you at a slow pace, kissing you heatedly the entire time, swallowing down all your noises and all the words that escape your lips. He groans your name against your skin every time he comes, holding you close, knowing this time that he will have to let you go once tomorrow arrives.

When he decided that this situation with you was just a distraction in what could only be considered a ‘pause’ in the usual pace of his life, he hadn’t been thinking clearly. He feels like he’s bleeding inside again, for different reasons now.

Raditz stays in bed with you for most of the day (he still knows you’re human, and you can’t possibly keep up with him if he were to actually fuck you all day long, and you both need to eat anyway). For once you don’t talk too much, and he realizes he actually likes it when you do, when you ask him questions or when you quip a witty remark at him.

He doesn’t know what he’s going to do tomorrow.

“You’re not going to go there, are you?” Raditz asks you the next morning, eying you up and down as you sit on the bed, tying up your shoes.

“No, I’m going to be at Kame House.”

“That pink house where we met?”

“Yeah…”

He nods. He doesn’t know why he even asked, if something were to happen to the planet, it wouldn’t matter where you are.

“I’ll take you there.”

“Oh, I can get there myself.” You show him a small smile. “Thank you, though.”

Raditz would argue but it’s better that way. He can say goodbye to you alone here.

As soon as you stand up, he kisses you. You get surprised every time, but you return it just the same. He glides his lips over yours, slow and sweet, as he holds your face. This might be the last time he gets to kiss you, so he makes it last until he feels you’re struggling for air. He’s going to miss that hazy look in your eyes when he breaks a kiss, the look you currently have as he leans his forehead against yours.

Unsure of what to say, Raditz just keeps his eyes locked with yours for a while. You said before you want him to say goodbye whenever he leaves. He doesn’t want to say it, but he does anyway.

“Goodbye.”

His body protests when he takes a step back, his hands on your face leaving you last. You still look distressed, and he waits for a minute, in case you want to say something.

When you don’t, Raditz finally turns to the balcony, opening the door and flying away.

#dbz imagine #dbz fanfiction #dbz fics #raditz x you #raditz x reader #dbz #raditz #my writing #*bs

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sesshy380 · 3 months

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Five Lines Tag

Thank you @late-to-the-fandom for the tag! Using this as an excuse to go back through longfic from the start in hopes that the passion I once had for writing it will re-ignite. I love my story, but I just haven't had the motivation to work on it like I used to.

Rules: Find five lines based on the prompts you are given, then change one of the prompts at the end.

A line about a building

A sad line

A line about the weather

A line about a drink

A line of your favourite dialogue

I'm gonna be a rule breaker and post more than a line. More like snippets from throughout that apply instead. Putting below a cut since this is gonna be a bit long bc of it. Also, not tagging anyone, but all are welcome to steal and do whatever with.

cw: vampirism implied for the drink portion

A line about a building

It took him a long second to recognize the remains of the ancient architecture. The last time he had seen the Colosseum, it was fully intact, covered in floral arrangements with a brightly colored velarium angled down around the outer edge to keep the sun off the spectators below. Now it looked like any other ancient landmark in this era, the obvious effects of time showing. The wooden floor had long since rotted away, exposing the network of tunnels that ran below. Scaffolding and railings had been put in place for the safety of the vast number of visitors the landmark received daily. When Bakura and Kat had spoken repeatedly of visiting Rome, Atem had pictured something else entirely. He had pictured flowing chiffon and bright colors, along with the heavy scent of flowers and perfumes in the air. Where were all the gold decorations? Floral arrangements hanging everywhere? Where were all the people that scurried about preparing for the day’s events? Right now none of that was present. Right now, he was being forcefully reminded that the world had changed in his absence.

A sad line

She tried to squirm and break free from the ghostly visions that were dragging her deeper and deeper, reaching her hands for the surface. She wasn’t afraid to die. She was afraid to be stuck in a never ending cycle of dying without a true death. To continuously live while knowing that another agonizing moment was just around the corner. An endless loop of suffering. The surface faded from her view, the figures having long since vanished. Salt from the tears she shed mixed with the sea of nothingness. No one was coming to her rescue. She would spend eternity alone in the void, only the ghosts in her memories to keep her company.

A line about the weather

Marik wasn’t certain how long he’d been walking, and he honestly didn’t care. He wasn’t even certain what part of Domino he was in. He stopped and looked around. Nothing looked familiar. He didn’t want to head back, but he wasn’t certain where to go either. He thought for a long moment, debating on finding his way to the Kame Game shop, but didn’t really want to have to deal with Imhotep. He could only imagine the teen would be thrilled to learn that his mom had practically thrown herself at his dad. While he stood there contemplating, rain began pouring from the sky. “Oh, c’mon! Are you fucking serious?!” he shouted at the sky. Now not only was he in a foul mood, but he was also soaking wet. He began stomping his way down the sidewalk, looking for somewhere he could stand out of the rain. He began to internally shiver as his soaked body tried its best to keep warm in the cold downpour. He gave up on his search, reluctantly turning around and heading back the way he had come from. Thunder rumbled in the distance. “I swear to whatever fucking god is in charge of the weather in these parts, you had better think twice before adding lightning to the mix! I may not be a god or an immortal, but that won’t stop me from trying to kick your ass!” he shouted loudly to the sky.

A line about a drink

cw: vampirism implied

She reluctantly pulled herself away from the source of sweet nectar. When she opened her eyes she found the world distant and out of focus. Her ears were filled with a pulsing that was growing faint. She felt herself being pulled back and away from the nectar source, and she reached out begging to keep hold of it. Something gold and red flashed before her, leaning over and reciting something by where she sensed her nectar was. “I think he’ll be okay now, but he’ll need rest. What the hell were you thinking?!” Kat continued to try to bring the world into focus, but the song was displeased with having its sweet meal taken from it. It cried out, throwing a tantrum. Give it back! GIVE IT BACK! It is OURS!

A line of your favorite dialogue

“Hey, Pharaoh…can you fly?” Atem barely registered his body hitting the wall that shattered around him, shards of glass momentarily hung suspended in midair as his mind tried to catch up with what had happened. He watched as the glass retracted back to its origin, the window reforming almost immediately as his body began to rapidly descend away from it. Panicked voices and screams from below filled his ears. He felt a cool gust of breeze that somehow moved differently from the air around his falling form. The screams and voices vanished, and he found himself upright. He was no longer falling. Instead he hung suspended in the air by the collar of his shirt, a pale hand the only thing keeping him there. Atem looked down, the building he’d been thrown from appearing far below him. Looking back over at the one holding him in place, he could see Bakura’s hair and clothing moving as though a gentle breeze were playfully toying with them. The elemental floated effortlessly among the clouds, appearing almost angelic in the golden rays of the sun. If it weren’t for the fact that he could obviously see Domino far beneath his feet, Atem might have thought he'd finally arrived in Aaru. “Why didn’t you just let me hit the ground?” Atem asked in annoyance. Bakura’s face was emotionless as his eyes moved over Atem, studying him. “Did you honestly think I would make your end that quick? You should know by now that I enjoy playing with my things long after they’ve broken…and you aren’t even remotely broken…yet.” “I don’t belong to you,” Atem scowled. Bakura brought Atem in close, grinning devilishly as he licked along the side of Atem’s face. “You do now.”

#five lines tag #my writing #longfic au

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polarbearaone · 4 years

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☔︎ Sayuri

✞ synopsis: Aone thought your life with him was supposed to be long and happy, but all good things must come to an end right?.....

✞ pairing: Aone x fem! reader

✞genre: angst :(

✞ warnings: character death! mentions of v*miting, pregnancy and health conditions

The look on everyone's face when Aone proposed to you was to die for. Within the crowd there were surprised team players of the VC Date team along with elated coworkers from the construction firm that Aone invited. Oh, failed to mention that Aone proposed during one of his volleyball games. Soon you would be (Y/N) Aone, married to Takanobu Aone. Dating for the past six years, Aone was the best partner you could ask for. He never left your side, even accepted you with you and your past. When he met your parents, Aone told your father a trick to keep his plants from freezing during the harsh winters from Japan, since that day, your father began referring to Aone as “son”. Five years later, Aone was sitting on his soon to be in-laws couch, asking for your hand. Your parents understood how amazing Takanobu was, they knew he would never leave your side and always protect you.

“What theme should we have for our wedding?” Aone blurted out one day while dinner was steaming on the stove. “Already thinking about themes huh?” the way you looked at him, wearing his shirt while you made your way to the stove. If it were up to him, Aone would marry you in that very kitchen. The kitchen was where there were so many memories waiting to be made. “A turtle theme would be nice” you jokingly said. Aone started to lightly tap his chin, considering the theme. “Babe, I’m joking,” you said giggling. “oh” Aone said, in his little voice. “(y/n), can I ask you something?” Aone asked, playing with the strings of his shirt. You gave him a quick nod as you continued cooking dinner. “Can we get a turtle?” he said, a soft blush appearing on his face. Putting down what you had, you walked over and cupped his face. “Is it going to be our first child?” replying with the biggest smile on your face. The blush on his face matched the red shirt he was wearing. His brain was going wild, his dream was always to have a family with you. Kissing his forehead, you replied, “We can go tomorrow to the pet store”

The headaches began around a month after the proposal. You thought it was the stress of planning your perfect wedding. Aone noticed you were hurting when you did not accompany him to feed Kame, your turtle. He did not open the curtains like he usually did, nor did he give you a forehead kiss in fear that he will cause more pain. He started brewing tea and gave you some medicine. He let you stay in bed that day, and the day after that, also the whole week. Aone was worried sick, he knew stress caused headaches but every single day? His mother reassured him that the stress of working, trying to plan a wedding but also being there for Aone was a lot and that he should pamper her. Aone cleaned the whole house that afternoon, he even cooked your favorite dinner. It was supposed to be a perfect night, but you came home with a pale look on your face. The mere smell of the food made you run to the bathroom. Anything you ate that day came out of you as you hunched over the toilet. Aone held your hair back, softly rubbing your back. After emptying your stomach, you leaned into Aone’s touch. You needed him, his support, his love. As you slowly fell asleep on his lap, one thing ran through Aone’s mind, what if you were pregnant? You two were sexually active, plus it would explain the nausea and headaches. His mind was going wild once again, Kame finally will not be your own child anymore.

“hey honey, can I ask something?” Aone whispered into your ear as he massaged your head, a common occurrence in the morning. You hummed an answer. “do you possibly think you could be pregnant?”. The question lingered in your mind. Could you? It would make sense. After taking some medicine, you booked an appointment to the doctor. With Aone next to you, you knew you would be ok. The days leading up the appointment felt like forever. You were still with nausea and headaches, but you were excited to find out if a mini Aone was formed in your stomach. Finally, the day arrived. Aone was nervous next to you, you felt his handshake as he held yours. “Baby, you are more worried than me” you said giggling at him, “I just want you to be ok” he replied. “(Y/N) (Y/L/N)” The nurse called. “Wait here ok?” you reassured him before entering the hallway. After many tubes of blood later, the doctor asked you to come back when the results were done.

A week later, Aone and you were waiting for the doctor in his office. All Aone wanted to hear that you were pregnant so his worries can subside. The doctor entered with a gloomy face. “Unfortunately, the blood test we did let us know that you weren’t pregnant but there is something more concerning” the doctor stated. The grip Aone’s hand on you faded away, at this point he did not care if you were not pregnant. He wanted you to be ok. “What’s more concerning?” Aone asked the doctor. “ We see some hormones that are way higher than they are supposed to be, we only see these types of numbers when a tumor is present near the pituitary gland, we would like to do more studies to confirm our suspicions” Tumor was the only word in your mind. You could have a tumor. The doctor requested more blood work, and scans. The weeks following, many of your symptoms began to worsen. Your vision began to blur, migraines began more and more frequent, even had a seizure. Aone was terrified, but even with fear, he never left your side. He held you every time you felt weak, he spoons fed you soup his mother taught him to make. The wedding was postponed until you felt better but you told Aone that both of you should get married legally before having any celebration just in case anything happened. “Nothing is going to happen (y/n), you and I will get through this ok?”

You seemed to get worse. You had to be admitted to the hospital due to your condition. After many more scans, it was revealed that the tumor in your brain was a mere 5 centimeters long. Despite being so small, it caused you excruciating pain. The physical pain you felt was nothing compared to the news you received two weeks later. “We have extremely bad news” the group of doctors who had been treating you said. “The tumor located inside your brain is too dangerous to live with, it cannot be surgically removed” Your sobs could be heard from across the hallway. Aone tried to calm you down, he held you so close to him, he could not lose you. Your sobs subsided when the doctor cleared his throat “That is not all”. “It’s not your fault that you didn’t notice since pregnancy symptoms are similar to your symptoms but you’re roughly two weeks pregnant.” The room had an eerie silence to it. The pain inside of you was so immense that crying was not an option anymore. “You have to do something! She cannot live like this! What about the baby?” Aone practically yelled at the doctors. Despite knowing him for 5+ years, you had never heard him yell. “Baby, shh, its fine. They did what they could” You said, trying to calm Aone down. “B-but” Aone was choking on his own sobs. Now it was you holding Aone. The doctors made it aware that the last weeks of your life should be spent at home, with your Fiancé. The baby would not survive much longer, therefore the both of you should cherish the small amount of time you had.

The following weeks were filled with smiles and pain. You were getting paler, weaker. Aone could see life leaving you as the days progressed. He saw how tired you were, each day you got more and more tired. You could barely walk over and see Kame anymore. Aone resulted into bringing him inside for you. Kame specifically liked when your soft blankets covers his shard shell, Aone loved seeing you two sleep with one another, well three. Aone remained strong for you. When you would sleep, he sat near you, crying. The love of his life, the one who was supposed to be there for him through it all, was dying. He felt that he could not keep his promise to protect you. You nor his child. He got into bed next to you and Kame, wishing you a beautiful night. That morning was like any other, except it was Kame who nudged him to wake up. He groggily got out of bed to make your tea for your medication. Something felt off to him. Usually you nudge him to wake him up. He ran towards your shared bedroom, turning on the lights. He knew you would kill him if he did but he needed to know your awake. Despite the bright light shining in the room, you were silent. Kame on the other hand was making an array of noises. He walked towards you, tears threatening to fall. “Baby?” he whispered. He fell to his knees. He felt weak, he felt empty. Aone began to shake you, trying desperately to wake you. “(Y/N) this isn't funny, wake up” Aone shook you one last time, before screaming into the bed. He ran to dial an ambulance. The paramedics looked at Aone with sorry eyes, he knew what those eyes meant. “Take her to the hospital now” Aone said, growing at them. “ Sir-”... “I SAID TAKE HER”.

The doctor who was treating you slowly sat next to Aone in the waiting room. “She was strong” Like you a couple weeks ago, the pain Aone felt didn’t allow him to cry. “I know that nothing is visible yet but here” The doctor handed Aone an ultrasound picture. “The baby is too small to see yet but they’re there. No matter how much it hurts, know that they will both be there, forever.” The doctor gave Aone one last hug goodbye, before walking back to the hallway you once entered through. Aone stood outside the door of your shared house. How could he enter without you? How could he ever live without you? His thoughts were erased when he felt something hit his leg. Looking down, he saw Kame rubbing his head on his leg. Slowly picking up Kame, he headed inside. Sitting on the couch with Kame, he showed the turtle the ultrasound. “This is your sibling Kame, I’m not sure what gender they were but this is Sayuri, my small lily”

a.n: NOT ME CRYING UNCONTROLLABLY AT THIS. also I wanna thank @nuttymouthful for this idea! It was originally an reincarnation au! but I got lost at the end :( so I closed it with a bittersweet (?) ending. Reader was supposed to reincarnate as Kame but idk kame is a himbo turtle but that’s ok. PLZ REQUEST MORE ANGST I LOVE THIS

tags: @elianetsantana @girlofdystopia @kara-grayson04

#haikyuu!!#haikyuu fluff #haikyuu x reader #hq #hq x reader #haikyuu angst #angst #aone takanobu x reader #aone #aone takanobu #aone angst #Aone Takanobu angst #aone x reader #plz i love aone #aone x y/n #aone x you #plz forgive me aone #PLZ I CANT STOP CRYIN G

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ichorizaki · 4 years

Text

02. just one glance

warnings obscene language, child abuse

word count 3.8k

It was one of those rare days that Tadāo felt weirdly generous. When you woke up, he was still asleep in his half of the bed. When you were making breakfast, he was still in bed. When you were done and waking Tarō up, he was awake and trudged to the kitchen with a somewhat fresh face. Your son was walking on eggshells as he crept to the breakfast table, eyes watching his father carefully like the façade could drop any second. It was a Monday, so that meant that Tadāo was bound to be back in the office, which was why it was a surprise to everyone at the table when he asked what time Tarõ’s daycare ended. You fought back the urge to bite back, to reprimand him that he should know as his father, so you gave him a practiced smile instead.

“He usually ends at noon sharp,” you looked at your husband, trying to look out for even the slightest twitch on his face that told you he was just asking out of curiosity and nothing more. “Why do you ask?”

“I just wanted to take him out for a couple of hours and spend time with him, is that so wrong?” There was an edge in the tone of his words, sharp and jagged to shield what may be the guilt of being absent in Tarō’s life catching up to him. You almost couldn’t believe it. Your eyes quickly flit to your son who was already staring nervously back at you from his seat next to his father. You felt the weight of your heart sinking down to your stomach. His earthy eyes that were once filled with the flames of mirth and mischief were now dampened with trepidation. “What, I can’t take my son out to spend time with him?”

Tadāo’s voice snapped your focus back to the table as a whole. Of course there was nothing wrong, you just didn’t trust him around your son without you around. He called for your attention once more but the way his twisted words somehow sounded like you and Tarō should be thankful that he even suggested it at all.

“Tarō, is that okay with you?” Stuck at a crossroads, you asked your son what he thought about it. You knew he wouldn’t be okay with it—why would he be?—but he and you had a system to protect each other when the other isn’t around. He despises his father with a burning passion but you couldn’t exactly fault him. His brows furrowed, very clearly against the idea of being alone with your husband.

“Give your mother a break. Lord knows she needs it. Right, Y/N?” Tadāo’s eyes found their way to yours and you swallowed thickly. What the hell were you even supposed to say? “Right?”

“Yes,” you quickly responded, your heart tripping over its own feet.

That was how you found yourself sitting in the exact same mall Tadāo had brought your son to with your two best friends by your side. The three of you were cosied up in a 4-star Michelin restaurant for afternoon tea and a lunch buffet. You were supposed to be relaxing but it stressed you out when you tried to. The table was empty, with you occupying one seat as the other three were temporarily homing personal purses and shopping bags.

Mai and Kame had gone ahead to grab some drinks and light starters. Your phone screen was facing you, placed by your plate where you could easily reach it in case Tarō called you. You didn’t even notice that the both of your friends had returned until you realised that you had a strawberry cheesecake parfait set on your plate. Your e/c eyes slowly drifted up to meet Kame’s piercing gaze. Behind the icy grey you knew she meant well, a soft sigh escaping her lips as she sat down across you.

“We know you’re worried for Tarō, Y/N.” Mai’s voice was gentle and soothing as she took your hand in hers. She cupped them both and your eyes trailed from your hands to her face, where a smile akin to a spring flower greeted you. “We can’t do much, but we’re in the same mall as they are, which means if Tarō ever needs help, we’re all here able to rush to him immediately.”

“She’s right,” Kame chimed in. She had already started eating her gyōza and chawanmushi with shrimp. “Plus, did you forget that I’m a taekwondo teacher or something? I can knock your bitch of a husband out, just say when.” While her intentions were nothing but pure, her violent comment did not go unnoticed by the table of pompous middle-aged women behind her.

“Kame, we’re in public!” Mai took the opportunity to kick her in the shin underneath the table upon releasing your hands. The auburn-haired woman scowled childishly and you couldn’t help but smile. Even when you’re all so different, your personalities complement each other well. They were right—there’s nothing much you could do. If you wanted to worry, you could, but you were just putting yourself in a state of pure unbridled worrying. The three of you were finally meeting up after three weeks, with Mia being busy with grad studies and Kame with running her classes.

So you tried your best to ignore the unsettling sensation brewing in the pit of your stomach like a hexing potion. You paid attention to the food, to the conversation, to the atmosphere, and soon you found yourself relaxing. The tension in your shoulders disappeared as you laughed for the nth time that afternoon. The three of you were reminiscing about your college days, making jokes, recalling old classmates and even joking about said classmates. While it had been hell for you as a public relations and business major, the experiences outside of classes made it worthwhile.

Then your mind couldn’t help but wander to Futakuchi Kenji and the incident that happened sometime last week. Your relationship with him extended a little further than just in-laws. He was a business major attending the same university both you and your husband did. Thanks to that, most of your classes happened to overlap and you just happened to be around him a lot. You nearly fainted on the day you found out that they were cousins—they were nothing alike, until you realised how similar they were in terms of their appearances.

Being classmates with Futakuchi was by no means a walk in the park. For some reason, during discourse sessions, it always ended up the both of you being at each other’s throats. Actually, it wasn’t just discourse sessions. If there was no discourse session, he would create one. Discussion panels would turn into debates and the both of you would end up being the last ones standing, too stubborn to stand down until it was just a battle of wits and personal attacks. Oh, how he loves attacking Tadāo.

“Your strategy is great, but what happens if the media suddenly turns it into something else completely? You know how they can get when they want something newsworthy. They’ll try to shove words down your throat like that crummy boyfriend of yours.” You couldn’t help but scoff and roll your eyes. Of course Futakuchi Kenji had brought up his cousin. You were beginning to wonder whether he had forgotten about him altogether.

The scoffs, snickers, and snide comments made by your classmates fell on deaf ears. While they were used to it and obviously desensitised, it got annoying when Futakuchi drags out the lesson even by just a minute.

“First of all, thank you for acknowledging my strategy’s worth. Second of all, you’re making up situations entirely based off of biases about the media. You know damn well the journalists in our uni are trained to be professional specialists. Lastly, that’s my fiancé, you sick son of a bitch.”

You couldn’t help but miss those classes. As much as he slandered your husband, he was actually a decent person. He helped out when you struggled, offered you notes, and he always arrived in class early with your favourite drink. The both of you were close, but at the same time barely knew anything about each other. Kame had mentioned something about one of the parties that all three of you went to and had to go streaking but managed to weasel her way out of it, which made your whole table erupt with laughter. However, your happiness was cut short by a loud ringing from your phone.

The caller ID on your phone was enough to send your heart racing against your chest. Tarō would never call you for no reason. The phone that you gave him—a model a whole decade older than he—was for emergency purposes and that only. Your thumb swiped the green icon across the screen and the second you put your phone to your ear, you could hear his laboured breaths.

“K-Kāsan,” his voice came out in choked sobs. “Tōsan is . . he tried to hit me. Please- Please come get me, Okāsan.”

“Where are you, baby?”

“Kiddy Palace in the mall nearby. Please hurry–” The last that you heard before an empty line were angry shouts in the distance. By the end of it, you had already gathered your items and you noticed that so had Mai and Kame, the latter digging into her purse for her wallet as she marched over to the counter to cover the payment.

“Where’s Tarō?” Mai asked, taking your hand in hers.

“Kiddy Palace. That’s the fourth level, right?” She gave you a nod of confirmation and that was all that it took for the both of you to speed out of the restaurant. Kame managed to catch up when you found the lift lobby. The adrenaline coursed through your system like a wave of flood; you could barely keep up with the way your brain was going off on tangents and trying to focus on the steps ahead of you. The worst had come true, and you didn’t want to think that it was just your brain blowing out of proportion.

Kame’s hand was on your back, rubbing soothing circles while Mai held onto your other hand. They were telling you that everything was going to be alright, that Kame was beyond capable of putting your husband back in line. They were trying their best to ease your worries but it could only do so much.

The second the doors began to slide open, you had to squirm past and your feet began to carry you to Kiddy Palace. Blood thumped in your ears, the fear sitting on your face like a pillow suffocating. It didn’t take you long to find Tarō, huddled among plush toys similar to a fortress. The second he saw you, he flung himself over to you, throwing himself in your arms. He was babbling and sobbing; you could barely make out any coherent words when you hoisted him up, holding him close against your body.

“You fucking dog!”

“Kenji, don’t get in between my and my son.”

You froze. Kenji? Futakuchi Kenji? Mai had appeared at your side, her gentle words and cooing to calm Tarō down. She offered to carry him so that “Okāsan’s going to fight Otōsan.” He had no problem shifting from you to her before you ran up to where Kame was, separating the two men from biting off each others’ throats. She stood right in front of him, looking him in the eye and ready to shove him back should he step out of line.

You didn’t even know where to go. To Kenji, or to your husband? Between the both of them, it was your husband who looked more beaten up. Kenji looked spotless while your husband suffered a busted lip and a bruised eye. What were you even going to say to your husband?

“What the fuck are you staring at me for?” You flinched at the harsh words. Mumbles and murmurs came from the onlooking crowd who were unsure on what to do or were too afraid to step in. “Come and help me, you useless bitch.” No sooner had the last syllable left his lips had Kame and Keiji both flung themselves at him, profanities running a mile a minute. Within the blink of an eye, Tadāo was tackled to the ground with both your best friend and his cousin on him.

It took you a heartbeat to realise what was happening. Your head was spinning, your body lurching forward until you were begging for Kame and Kenji both to get off of him. Your pleas and cries finally got through to the two. Weakly, you pulled them off of Tadāo’s body. You couldn’t even bear to look at your husband. With this many people watching– shit. You’ve caused a ruckus in the middle of a mall.

You spun on the heel of your feet and began to bow at a ninety-degree angle in all directions where there was a visible crowd, voicing out your apologies with a tremble in your voice and a shaking heart. Then, you turned to your husband with tears in your eyes and the choke of a sob in your throat. Your heart hammered threateningly against your chest, watching him carefully as he got onto his two feet.

“Don’t come home tonight.”

“Who the fu–”

“You wanna get fucking beaten up, you punk?!” Kame stomped a foot forward and that was enough to make him flinch the slightest. She grabbed Kenji by his arm and you by your hand, leading you away from the scene. You didn’t know why she dragged him, but it would be nice to know what had gone down and why he was even in the mall in the first place. Mai joined you three with a sniffling Tarō whose cheeks were wet with tears. She suggested that you headed out of the mall and to the McDonald’s across the street for some ice cream to cheer everyone up and everyone unanimously agreed.

So there you sat on a public bench, balancing Tarō on your thighs with a handheld fan in his direction while he happily ate his vanilla ice cream. Mai and Kame sat on either side of you, the former enjoying the seasonal yuzu ice cream and Kame a chocolate cone. Kenji sat quietly next to Mai, the only other person he’s familiar with having known each other since they were in high school.

You learned that Tadāo had been rather passive aggressive in his behaviour towards your son. He was impatient to Tarō’s needs and completely forgot—he probably never even knew about it in the first place—about Tarō’s love for wearing dresses and tiaras. He called his son a slur that is now ingrained in the poor child’s brain for the rest of his natural life and threatened to hit him over and over when Tarō was overwhelmed and threw a tantrum. Tadāo would have struck your child if it hadn’t been for Kenji who happened to be nearby. To your dismay, a fight broke out between them right before you turned up.

Perhaps it was time for you to pull up your socks and talk to Tadāo about his behaviour. Guilt found its way around your heart, wrapping its thick tendrils around it and squeezing it tightly like it was trying to milk an apology out of you. But who was that apology for? You? Or was it for your husband? It should go to Tarō, right? Thoughts raced through your mind, fogging up your vision and before you knew it, your mind was but an incoherent blur of emotions and thoughts.

“Uh, I think I’ll take my leave first.” Turning to your left, Kenji was getting up from his spot next to Mai. “Take care, okay? You need to do something about him.” His warm eyes then landed on Tarō and you couldn’t help but notice a certain glint of curiosity in them. Your son squirmed uncomfortably in your laps. You knew how he got around any adult male but it was a surprise altogether to see him hiss at Kenji.

“Oya, I didn’t know my favourite boy was a cat!” Mai immediately stole his attention. Tarō lets out a tiny humph, nose upturned before his lower lip jutted out into a pout. The five-year-old frowned at Mai, who teased him as she picked him up to settle him next to her. “You’re a big boy now and you still wanna sit on your mommy’s lap?”

“I’m gonna sit on Okāsan’s laps even when I’m bigger!”

“Even when she’s old and wrinkly like a grandma?” Tarō was left speechless as his baby browns darted between you and Mai who was laughing her ass off. You rolled your eyes, smacking her in the back of her head before getting up to talk to Kenji.

He had his hands in his pockets, kicking at the rocks that found their way from the asphalt and it reminded you of a small child feeling sheepish. You noticed how his muscles flexed and relaxed underneath the fabric of his fitted black shirt before noticing how he was so casually dressed for a Monday afternoon. Was he unemployed? Or maybe retired, even? You knew he owned his company and he’s earning himself an empire of gold but you didn’t know just how much gold he had in his tavern.

“Kenji,” you called out cautiously, staying a safe distance from him. He turned around, eyebrows raised in surprise. Did he not expect you to approach him? “Thank you for saving Tarō. Lord knows what would’ve happened without you there.” He didn’t make any move to close the distance between the both of you. The corners of his lips twitched upwards into a lazy smile.

“Guess it’s gotta be pure luck for you, huh?” You scoffed at that. Or at least, tried. You were relieved and you weren’t going to lie about that. You would thank him in some other way, a gift maybe, but you knew your husband would blow it out of proportion and that would be a whole other issue altogether.

“Luck, fate, whatever it is, I’m just glad that you were there, okay? I know what kind of person Tadāo is and what kind of person he can be. The last thing I’d ever let him do is lay his hand on my son.” He must have heard how earnest you were because when he took a deep breath, you saw how his features softened as he looked back into your (e/c) eyes. You didn’t know if he was searching for the right words to say, a delicate response to express that he didn’t mind at all, until you noticed a sleek black car pull up by the curbside. What was it with him being interrupted all the time?

“You know I’d do anything to make sure that that bastard’s out of your life. Hell, that’s probably the only agenda in my book right now,” he chuckled. Kenji lifted his hand to give you a gentle pat on your head. “I’ll get going now. You know I’m just a phone call away.”

You watched as he turned his back on you, waiting patiently as the car door slid open automatically to reveal an all-black leather interior. He ducked his head and entered the vehicle but not before giving you one last wave goodbye, the door sliding over and securing him safely in the car.

That was the longest interaction that he had with you yet ever since he had gotten home from Yokohama. Kenji leaned back in his seat, head rocking back against the headrest. He closed his eyes and the picture of Tarō formed in his head. There was just . . . there was just something about that kid that unsettled him. It was probably the way that he suddenly hissed when he was trying to find the courage to ask if he was okay. The kid didn’t really look like you.

Oh, you. All these years and he thought you’d have left the sick bastard of a human being that he had as a cousin that you have as a husband. Yet again he was proven wrong with the silver band on your ring finger. What bothered him was the lack of a ring on Tadāo’s ring finger.

The entire ride home, his mind was plagued with thoughts of you and Tarō. The dynamic that you both had made him miss his own mother. You were so caring, so gentle and so soft but in that kindness of you was a strength hardened by all of the shit that Tadāo had forced you into. You didn’t let your hardships define you, and that was something that he’s always admired you for.

Kenji fiddled with his phone as he alighted the car, thanking the driver as he made his leave. Maybe he should call his mother. But he already called her two days ago. He knew that she would tease him to no end should he call her any sooner. He only called once a week, but even then, his mother is usually the one calling in a mere day after he had done so.

His butler greeted him as he entered the threshold of his large and lonely household, a friendly greeting returned along with a smile. He immediately found himself headed into the direction of his library, where not only had he stashed archives of literature works but also archives of his own past. He wasn’t one to keep photo albums in his room, choosing to keep them safely and neatly tucked away in the library with the other books that he had.

Nostalgia in waves as he settled down in his chair, opening up the album to be greeted with his baby pictures. His phone was set on the table before him, the line ringing on speaker as he waited for his mother to pick up. He flipped through the pages slowly, a fond smile on his face as he watched himself grow. He was such an adorable baby. Cheeks red, full and always stuffed with rice or some of his favourite candy.

Then, he came across a picture that struck a chord through his chest. He couldn’t have been any older than seven years old in the picture, perhaps six. He was at the beach, sporting a gigantic toothy grin. His hair was wet and stuck to his skin, yellow goggles hanging loosely around his neck and the bulge of his tummy ever so visible through the navy blue of the swimming suit he was wearing. He would have been mistaken to be extremely elated to be at the beach if it weren’t for how red his eyes were. Wait a minute . . . this looked all too familiar. Where had he seen this before; this very expression of a young boy grinning with tear-stained cheeks and reddened eyes? Ah. Then it had hit him.

Masayūki Tarō looks exactly like him when he was younger.

PREV. | ML. | NEXT.

#꒰🖍꒱ ⨾ replica #꒰⚡️꒱ ⨾ zeus’ thunderbolt #hq #bbthots #tw child abuse #child abuse tw #child abuse #cw child abuse #futakuchi kenji #Futakuchi Kenji x reader #futakuchi kenji fluff #futakuchi kenji x y/n #futakuchi kenji x you #futakuchi x reader #futakuchi x y/n #futakuchi fluff #futakuchi kenji fic

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x-atem-x · 2 years

Text

@millenniumgod

He’s finally able to get out and see the market. It’s been a while since he’s been free from classes and the spirit of the ring. His kitchen is woefully barren, and he’s interested in grabbing a couple of things just to treat himself. He’s had a rough go of it recently.

He’s got a bag full of produce and is ready to start shopping for non-essentials when he spots a familiar shock of hair among the throng. Standing in front of a smaller stall, appreciating some of the jewelry, is... Yugi? Or no - he’s too tall, the posture is just slightly off. It’s Atem.

He hasn’t seen the man for months - hasn’t had time to stop by Kame Game. He should’ve called...

He attempts to shake off this aura of guilt, grips the strap of his bag a little tighter. He takes a deep breath.

And then he walks over.

“Atem! Hello!” He offers a shy smile, a little wave. “Sorry if I’m bothering you - I can, uh - I can leave. I just saw you across the way and wanted to see how you’re doing.”

Oh, god, he’s so awkward. It’s okay though. They’re friends, right? It takes a second, but he notices the bracelet that the man is appreciating, and focuses on it.

“That’s quite beautiful! It would look nice on you. Fits your general vibe, as well.”

Atem glanced up as his name was called and a small but warm smile instantly tugged at his lips at the sight of the white-haired boy who was greeting him so coyly.

Ryou had always been such a sweet little thing (at least, when he was sans his murderous parasite). It was good to see him out and about, enjoying the lovely sunny day and the market. Seeing those who had been affected by the millennium items able now to enjoy the simple domestic pleasures made his heart swell happily.

His smile widened as he reached up a hand to remove one of his headphones which vaguely continued to play some pop music as he said, "Hullo, Ryou. You're not a bother at all, friend."

He then looked down at the bracelet and added, "I quite like this as well. There are also earrings and a necklace. I am rather tempted. Though, I think that Yugi may have an aneurysm if I take up any more space on the bathroom counter with my jewelry. Perhaps it may be better to show restraint."

Atem set down the bracelet and fully turned his attention to the other and said, "It is really wonderful to see you. If you would like, I would be happy to wander the shops with you. Perhaps we could get a tea and catch up. My treat."

Before actually waiting for an answer, the man hastily turned back to the stand, grabbing the jewelry once more, as well as pulled his card from his pocket, musing as he paid, "Fuck it. I'm Pharaoh. Yugi will forgive me. They are too precious to leave behind."

#millenniumgod #ryou bakura #closed roleplay #roleplay tags:#millenniumgod1

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millenniumpuzzle · 4 years

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maybe them playing video games at yugi's place after school?

so i know this is three days late, but in my defense, i wanted it to be good, and election stress, and also i finished it yesterday but didn’t want to post it because of, you know. everything. however, i have finally finished, and i bring you: wishshipping where they’re playing video games, but it’s also a first kiss story :) (g-rated!) thanks again for the prompt!!

Having a best friend that lived above a game shop came with certain benefits, Jonouchi thought as he sat down on Yugi’s bed, N64 controller in hand. The one he was most concerned with at the moment was Kame Game’s early access to the latest video games, and the fact that Yugi almost always got a free copy of any game he wanted from his grandpa as soon as they came in. As such, the only reason he was at Yugi’s house was to play the new Nintendo fighting game (named Super Smash Bros, of all things), no matter what Anzu tried to insinuate as she saw the two of them walking in the same direction after school.

“Hey! Did it boot up okay?” Jonouchi nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of Yugi’s voice, but relaxed when he saw him in the doorframe, balancing two bags of chips and a two-liter of soda in his arms.

“Yeah, it’s ready whenever we are,” Jonouchi replied, before standing up and taking one of the bags and the two-liter from Yugi to set them on the coffee table in front of the small television. Yugi smiled gratefully, and Jonouchi carefully ignored the skipped beat of his heart as he watched Yugi set the remaining bag down. He was only here for Super Smash Bros. Nothing more.

“Ah, thanks, Jonouchi.” Yugi’s face was red, and he rubbed the back of his neck as he spoke. Jonouchi found himself fixated on the violet of his eyes, the movements of his muscles, the blush of his cheeks, even as he tried to put it aside and focus on the character-select screen. “Well, should we get started?” Yugi asked, clapping his hands together as he sat down on the bed entirely too close for Jonouchi’s liking.

“Sure thing, Yug’. What character do you want?” The urge to toss his arm over Yugi’s shoulders was almost too great to ignore, but he managed to push it down, instead swallowing and moving the joystick over the character portraits in a circle.

Yugi hummed, opening a bag of chips before grabbing his own controller. “I want…” he said, before selecting his character, with a cry of, “Kirby!” He reached into the bag of chips and popped a handful into his mouth, then, chewing at Jonouchi as though it were meant to be triumphant. Mostly, Jonouchi thought Yugi looked silly – and yet, whenever Yugi looked silly, he looked cute, so he couldn’t quite complain.

“The marshmallow, I should have known,” he said instead, arching an eyebrow at Yugi, who immediately erupted into laughter.

“Hey, don’t underestimate the marshmallow!” Yugi fixed Jonouchi with a stare that was surely meant to be intimidating, but was contradicted by the laughter sparkling in his eyes, and the twitch of his cheeks as he tried to keep them from smiling. “I can beat you with Kirby nine times out of ten, no doubt!”

“We’ll see about that!” Jonouchi laughed, selecting Link after not much thought. The guy’s got a cool sword, what could he say? Yugi hit the start button, and selected the first stage – thank goodness for that, Jonouchi had to figure out how the game worked before trying anything too crazy! After a brief loading screen, the game counted them down from three, and they were off.

***

“And that’s another win for me!” Yugi set his controller down and flung his arms into the air, eyes squeezed nearly shut from his smile as Kirby smiled from his first-place position, Link clapping politely in the background. “Yugi five, Jonouchi zero,” he continued, doing a seated victory dance that did little more than shake the bed underneath them.

Jonouchi only looked at the victory screen on the television for a moment before his gaze was drawn back to Yugi, unable to resist the magnetic pull of his bright smile. He didn’t much like losing, but it was worth it if he could see Yugi smile like that. “Guess I’m gonna need more time to get the hang of this game than you, huh?” he said, unable to keep the fondness out of his tone. “What’s your secret? How are you so good at everything you do?”

Yugi turned to look at him, then, cheeks immediately turning pink, which was cuter than it had any right to be. “Quit messing around, Jonouchi. There are plenty of things I’m not good at!” There was still laughter in his tone, like he was making a joke, but the way he rubbed the back of his neck told Jonouchi there was more going on.

“I wouldn’t joke about something like that! C’mon, you’re the closest thing to perfect I’ve ever seen.” Jonouchi put his hand on Yugi’s shoulder and shook it lightly. Yugi’s cheeks flushed even darker; whether it was because of the compliment or the physical contact, Jonouchi couldn’t be sure. He didn’t reply, choosing instead to stare at his lap and keep rubbing his neck. Jonouchi’s eyes narrowed; that had to stop. Without thinking, he grabbed Yugi’s hand and brought it to rest in the space between them, rubbing the back lightly with his own thumb to help comfort Yugi. “Hey, need me to run down a list?”

Yugi ducked his head, further avoiding eye contact, speaking his next words to the carpet. Jonouchi had to pause for a moment to fully comprehend what he said – it was always tougher for him to understand what people were saying if he couldn’t see their mouth move – but eventually he managed to process it. “No, you’re fine, I get it. You see me differently than I see myself, I guess.”

“Well that’s a shame, because I wish you saw yourself how I see you!” Jonouchi began holding Yugi’s hand with both of his, ducking his head so that he could see Yugi’s eyes under his bangs. “When I see you, I see the smart, brave, compassionate person who stood up for a no-good bully, even though he got beat up in the process.” Yugi opened his mouth to respond, but Jonouchi cut him off. “And I know you’re about to defend me, say that I was just trying to make you a man, or that I didn’t know what I was doing, and that’s the thing, Yug’! You always look for the good in people, no matter how deep you have to dig to find it. You have the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met, and it’s all focused toward other people. When are you going to find compassion for yourself?” He squeezed Yugi’s hand a little tighter, which made Yugi finally look up toward him, wide, violet eyes shiny with unshed tears. Jonouchi felt like his heart would burst at the sight, so he squeezed tighter still, until Yugi brought his neglected hand to join the other, squeezing back.

“I think I prefer to hear it from you,” Yugi finally responded, voice thick with the tears he had yet to shed. But he was smiling, now, and that made Jonouchi so happy, he didn’t think twice about leaning forward to close the distance between them and kissing Yugi.

As far as first kisses went, it could have been better. The way they were sitting, side-by-side on Yugi’s bed a foot apart, made the angle awkward, especially since Jonouchi refused to let go of Yugi’s hands. Not to mention, the way Jonouchi had rushed in made the press of lips hard and unyielding, and Yugi had gone stiff at their first touch. When Jonouchi pulled away, it was with regret, fear – had he ruined their friendship forever? “I’m sorry, Yug’, I didn’t –”

“Let’s try that again,” Yugi interrupted, pulling his hands free and scooting close enough that his shoulders and thighs were touching Jonouchi’s. He cradled Jonouchi’s face with a hand, and Jonouchi knew he must have gone wide-eyed, because Yugi laughed. Finally, he leaned in, and captured Jonouchi’s lips in a much gentler, less impulsive kiss. Jonouchi melted into the contact, reciprocating as best he could, before they both pulled away. Yugi looked fit to burst with happiness, despite the lingering tears in his eyes, and Jonouchi couldn’t keep the dopey grin off his face.

“Man, and you really think you aren’t good at everything? ‘Cause you keep adding to the list!” Jonouchi laughed, brushing a stray bang out of Yugi’s eyes. Yugi glared at him, but it was playful, and he combed his hand through Jonouchi’s hair as well. “Seriously, that was the best kiss I ever had! You oughta teach classes on this, I’m not kidding.”

Yugi raised an eyebrow at that. “Oh? You want me to kiss other people?” Jonouchi stared at him for a second, again taking time to process, before spluttering and taking things back. Yugi just laughed, and interrupted him with another kiss. “I’m just kidding, Jonouchi. If you’ll have me, I’m yours.”

Time froze around Jonouchi, the world reduced to nothing but him and Yugi. If he could, he would have sprinted out the door and ran through the streets of Domino, proclaiming that Yugi was his. As it was, though, all he could say was, “Yeah, of course. And I’m yours too.” Then, he kissed Yugi again, just because he could. And if pieces of Kirby’s victory screen were burnt into the television screen for some time afterwards, well, who could blame them for forgetting to turn the game off?

#my writing #i think that's my tag?#thanks again!#stabbymattress #wishshipping #this turned out way longer than i meant it to be lol

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duhragonball · 4 years

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Chi-Chi

I think I’m gonna wrap these up today so I can get back to work on my fanfic. For the record, I got Buu, Frieza, Jolyne Kujo, Father Pucci, and Jobin Higashikata left to go, and then I’m done.

But I hate to call it here, because this has been fun. Maybe I’ll bring this back some time.

Give me a character and I will answer:

Why I like them: I started watching DBZ back in the fall of 1998, and I didn’t get very serious about it until 2000. Chi-Chi didn’t have a very big role in the Saiyans or Frieza arcs, and I wasn’t making a point of watching every episode, so it took a while for her character to be fully revealed. Starting out, she was basically popping in every so often to remind us that she wanted Gohan to study. She stood up to Garlic’s henchmen in Movie 1, but didn’t really get a chance to do anything. In the Garlic Junior Saga, it’s stated that Chi-Chi is the strongest woman in the world, which sounds pretty impressive as long as you don’t think too hard about how many women are on the show.

I don’t think I really understood Chi-Chi well until I got to the part where Goten spars with Gohan, and he reveals that Chi-Chi had been training him while Gohan was studying. That was where it became clear to me that she only emphasized book-learnin’ over ass-whoopin’ because she knew Goku had that side of things covered. With Goten, Chi-Chi had to be both mother and father to him, and she didn’t shirk from that.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that Chi-Chi’s a great supporting character. She maintains a presence in the story whether she’s on-screen or not, and you learn about her gradually through these short appearances. And when she does show up, it’s just a treat to see. She’s always got something to say, and she’s cute and she can beat your ass. What’s not to like?

Why I don’t: Yeah right. Look, the biggest gripe people have with Chi-Chi is that she makes her son do homework, which is dumb. She explains this a number of times: There’s more to life than fighting, and she wants that for her son. And Gohan’s not exactly worse off for her style of parenting.

I think the disconnect here is that people watch this show and they want to see Goku and Gohan screw around and go on adventures, and they feel like Chi-Chi is here to kill their buzz. I guess it’d be like watching a football game, and every so often some guy wanders out onto the field and scolds everyone for playing football. But that guy would be right, because football is dangerous, yo. Everybody keeps telling Chi-Chi that the only hope for the world involves her little boy getting his ass kicked by aliens, and she’s like “no, that’s bullshit,” and she’s absolutely right. She’s a saint for tolerating it as much as she does, but I think a lot of fans refuse to look at it from her point of view. They just want the fighting.

I remember Lanipator observing that he used to hate Mr. Satan when he was younger, but the older he got, the more and more he appreciated the character. I can’t relate to that, because I was old enough to drink when I started watching this show, so for me, there is no “when I was a kid” perspective on Dragon Ball. I thought Mr. Satan was awesome from the start, and I never had much of a problem with Chi-Chi either.

They did tend to overexpose both characters in the anime, cutting to them when they needed a filler moment to pad out an episode or five. So maybe that’s got something to do with it. But that’s not the fault of the characters. But yeah, if I was watching the Cell Games at age 10 I’d probably get really sick of them constantly cutting to Mr. Satan or Chi-Chi for analysis.

Favorite episode (scene if movie): It’s probably hard to top the one where she fought Goku. That was one of the last Chi-Chi moments I got to see, because I didn’t get caught up on OG Dragon Ball until 2004. It’s an excellent use of the character and her lengthy absence from the show. By the time she reappears, no one recognizes her, and she’s upset about being forgotten.

Favorite season/movie: I think I’d have to go with the Buu Saga, on the grounds that she got more time to shine, mainly due to so many other characters being unavailable. It was a real roller coaster ride for her too. Her husband’s dead and she’s raising two kids on her own, then he comes back, then he leaves again, and maybe Gohan’s dead too, and now Goten has to fight, and then she’s dead, and then they’re all back together in the end. Wild.

Favorite line: In the Cell Games Saga, there’s a TV show where Mr. Satan drags three buses onto the set, cuts a scathing promo on Cell, and then punches one of the buses to put an exclamation point on the whole thing. Wait, I take it back, I’m pretty sure 10yo me would have loved Mr. Satan.

Anyway the live audience is marking the fuck out for Mr. Satan, but at Kame House Yamcha and Krillin are unimpressed, because they punch holes in like fifty buses every morning as a warm-up. But in the dub of that episode, Roshi remarks that Mr. Satan’s theatrics are “sad”, and Chi-Chi goes “It sure is. Somebody could have used that bus.” Classic, total classic.

Favorite outfit: It’s hard to pick, honestly. I like the Buu Saga yellow, but I prefer the way her hair looked in the Saiyans Saga. And that outfit she wore near the end of DBZ was pretty great too.

OTP: Goku. come on.

Brotp: I think Bulma sort of stepped into that role after Trunks was born, but Chi-Chi seems like a loner to me. She basically rolled in, got Goku to marry her, and then retreated deep into the mountains to interact with as few people as possible. I need me a freak like that.

Head Canon: I think she’s genuinely proud of Goku and the boys being so great at super-karate-laser wars. She doesn’t talk about it much, because there’s plenty of other people to congratulate them on that sort of thing, and I think they sort of look to her for as someone who grounds their family.

To put it another way, I don’t think Goku wants Chi-Chi to talk a lot about the androids or the Saiyans or whatever. I think he wants someone to bother him with household matters and chores and ordinary stuff. And Gohan and Goten just want a regular mom to balance out their alien monomyth dad. And she plays that role well, because that’s who she is. But she’s still proud of them for saving the world and so forth.

Unpopular opinion: Chi-Chi was right.

Look, how was Gohan going to make a life for himself as a fighter, in a world where Goku and Vegeta have that market cornered?

Where’s he live? In a big-ass mansion. Why? Because he married a rich man’s daughter. Where’d he meet her? In the school Chi-Chi made him go to. How’d he get in to said school? He aced their entrance exams. How’d he do that? Chi-Chi made him study.

What does Goku do all day when he isn’t training? He drives a tractor? Why? Because his wife has a thing for farmer aesthetics. Why does he just do whatever his wife tells him? Because he didn’t study.

A wish: I wish all the Chi-Chi haters would stay out of my soup, because it’s salty enough as it is. (Heyoooo!)

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: I’ve been seeing Manalorian spoilers lately, and I don’t want to give anything away, but it seems like every time something happens on Mando, all the chuds come out of the woodwork to complain about Episode VIII and/or IX. They’re like “thank you, Disney, for giving us the [Star Wars thing] that Disney refused to give us.”

My fear is that Star Wars has become balkanized into this thing where people praise half of it as fixing or undoing the damage caused by the other half. Used to be, people would either like the Ewoks or hate them, but they couldn’t ignore the fact that they were there. Now it’s like any movie that doesn’t feature Ewoks is done to cater to the anti-Ewok crowd, and any movie that does is solely for the purpose of keeping the pro-Ewok side engaged.

My point is that I worry that this will happen to all media franchises, and Dragon Ball Q will feature a Chi-Chi that gets turned into a hateful she-hag to satisfy the haters, and then Ultra Dragon Ball Deluxe will feature a more nuanced version of Chi-Chi as a make-good, thereby pissing off the haters. And they’ll go back and forth trying to please everyone while the character ends up becoming an incomprehensible mess from it.

5 words to best describe them: Adorable tiger mom/bus advocate.

My nickname for them: Cheech.

#ask duhragonball #dragon ball #chi chi #Anonymous

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sunny-flower-girl-01 · 4 years

Text

Ohana - A Hawaii-Five-0 fanfic Chapter One

Hey! So please let me know what you think! I have a plan for this story, but I'm not sure how frequent updates will be since school has started back and I won't have as much free time. Thank you so much!

I also have this published on Wattpad and AO3 if you’d like to check it out there! My wattpad has a small character description for both Thea and Nora that I will post later, but for now I will show you their faceclaims!

https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheUnknownSchuylerSister

https://www.wattpad.com/story/239804835-ohana

Thea Kenwood:

Nora Kenwood:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thea's POV-

I stared at the clock on the nightstand, watching 5:59 AM turn into 6:00 AM. I sighed as the alarm started blaring and sat up. I whacked the top of it to stop, almost knocking it completely off the nightstand. I caught it before it fell.

"Nice, Thea." I mumbled and walked into the bathroom to start my day. Normally, I would be ready to get up and get going but today wasn't going to be a typical day at the office. Today, I had to face a man I barely knew and tell him I'm pregnant with his child.

After a one night stand with a man that I met in a bar, who I later found out to be Steve McGarrett, the leader of the Five-0 Task Force that my best friend works with, 6 weeks later I learned that I was pregnant. And here I am at 12 weeks and I'm just now telling him. I took the whole day off from work to be able to meet up with him, go to the doctors, and run several more errands that have been neglected in the last month. I run through my mental checklist of the things I need to get done today as I started to brush my teeth.

'Breakfast with Steve, doctors appointment, grocery store, laundry, pay the bills, call Mindy, pharmacy-' A knock on the bathroom door interrupted my train of thought. I spit out my toothpaste and put my toothbrush back in its holder. I opened my bathroom door to see Nora, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her in for a hug. I'm shocked she's up already, usually I have to go get her up. "Good morning baby. Did you sleep well?" I kissed the top of her head.

She nodded, burying her face in my small bump. She was over the moon about the baby. I had to come clean about the baby when I couldn't eat chicken because of the smell the whole first month of my pregnancy. Between that and the morning sickness, the 7-year-old was aware that something was up. Whenever it came to telling people I was pregnant, they would typically guess and ask me before I even had a chance to say anything. Mindy knew before I even knew. She went and bought me some tests and went to the doctor with me afterwards. She has been my biggest supporter through this whole thing. I just haven't told her who the father was yet. I felt like he needed to know before I tell anyone who knows him. When she asked me who the father was, I told her I would tell her after I told the father. She was skeptical but told me she understood my position and respected that I'd tell her when I was ready.

I ran my fingers through Nora's hair to get some of the knots out. "I'm sorry you have to get up this early, but I have an important meeting to get to. So, Aunt Mindy is going to take you to get some breakfast then drive you to school. Why don't you go get dressed and I'll braid your hair before we leave, okay?" She yawned and nodded again.

"Okay, mama." She mumbled and went back to her room. Nora was actually my sister, but after losing our mother when Nora was a baby and our father only popping in and out of my life- he hadn't been around at all since Nora was born- I became her legal guardian. I've been the only parent shes known her whole life, so somewhere in the last year she started calling me mama and I've never felt the need to correct her. I've never hidden the fact that I'm her sister from her. But she always tells me, "But you take care of me and love me like a mommy would." Our mother died when Nora was a few months old. I was 21, so the courts placed her in my custody after I proved I could provide for her. I was planning to start the adoption process soon but given my current situation that might have to be pushed back a little.

I quickly washed my face and put on a little bit of makeup. Once I finished that I ran my fingers through my hair to get the knots out. It was still curly from yesterday, so I didn't plan to waste the time it took to style it.

I threw on my clothes as Nora walked back into the room in her Sacred Heart school uniform. I was blessed with a smart girl who got a scholarship to Sacred Heart. Tuition was still a little out of my price range, but I wasn't about to deny her the education she would get there. I glanced at the clock as I brushed through her chocolate brown hair. 6:34 AM.

'26 minutes. You got this. You're not asking him for anything, you're just telling him you're pregnant with his child.'

"There. All done." I said as I tied off the end of the braid. "Alright, lets get our shoes on and hit the road."

It took fifteen minutes to drop Nora off at the diner with Mindy and get to the shrimp truck. When I finally called him yesterday and told him that it was urgent that we meet up, he sounded rushed. The only time he was able to meet was early this morning. Usually I'm just now getting up to get Nora and I ready for the day.

I went over to the truck and smiled at Kamekona. "Hey Kamekona."

"Hey lil Sista! What can I do for you and the little one this morning?" Kamekona picked up quick that I was pregnant when I came with Mindy for lunch three weeks ago. Three garlic plates all by myself. Now whenever I'm here, he packs me up an extra plate to take with me.

"Just a coconut water. I don't have much of an appetite this morning." I said, having him the money for my water.

After he handed me the bottle, I went and sat down at a table. I grew more and more nervous as the minutes passed. I glanced down at the watch I was wearing. 7:09. I figured he be late. His attitude over the phone yesterday told me that I was calling at a bad time. And the fact that the only time he could meet with me was 7 AM. I slowly sipped my water, trying to calm my stomach. After about 10 more minutes, I couldn't sit down anymore. I got up and paced around the dining area, kind of thankful that it wasn't too crowded yet.

"Woah lil Sista, what you burning a hole on my turf for?" Kame asked me, wiping down a table. I sighed.

"I'm just waiting for someone. I don't think they're going to show."

"Who you waiting on?"

I bit my lip. I know Kamekona is close with Five-0. At least that's what Mindy tells me. "Um, Steve McGarrett."

"McGarrett? Let me make a call, I'll have him here in no time." He started to walk back to the truck.

"No, no. Don't worry about it Kame, I'm sure he's just busy. I asked him to meet me here at the last minute. I'll catch him next time." I said, but I knew if I didn't tell him today, I probably wouldn't have the courage to tell him ever.

Kamekona didn't look too convinced, but he nodded. "At least let me get you a plate to take with you." He said. I laughed a little and nodded.

"That sounds great, thank you Kamekona." I said, going to sit back down.

"I'll bring it out when it's ready." He went back to the truck.

Not even 5 minutes later, the place was packed. Surfers coming before or after they're morning in the water. People stopping by before work.

"You said it was an emergency!" I heard a voice yell over the crowd and break me out of my train of thought. I looked up to find Kamekona, Steve, and Danny Williams standing in front of the truck. That's another thing that made me realize how small our world actually is. Danny is Grace's father, but I've only ever met Rachel.

'Oh god. Did he call him?'

"You got a young lady here waiting on you McGarrett." Kamekona said to him. "It ain't polite to make a lady wait."

"What? What do you mean someone is- Oh shit." He sighed and ran his hand over his face. He turned to look out into the crowd of people sitting and eating. I quickly turned my head, looking out into the water instead. But I could feel the eyes on me. I knew he spotted me.

'Get over it, you have to tell him. You have no choice.'

I sighed and sat up straight and turned my head to see him coming towards me. He looked angry. Great.

"Hi." I said softly as he sat down across from me.

"Sorry I'm late. I got held up at work." He said.

'You forgot.'

I shook my head. "No, it's fine. I called you at the last minute. I just really needed to see you in person."

He nodded, looking slightly confused still. "So, what's up?" He asked.

I was silent for a moment. I had ran through my head several times on how I was going to say this.

"First, I just want to say I'm not here to ask you for anything. You have a right to know so I just, uhh..." I was stumbling to find the words to say. Doing this in front of my mirror was a lot easier than doing this face to face. "I'm pregnant."

Steve was silent and just stared at me. I couldn't read the emotions in his face. Obviously he was shocked, but I couldn't tell if that was anger mixed in or not.

"You-You're what?" He stammered.

"I'm pregnant. And it's yours." I whispered, running my hand through my hair. I leaned my forehead into my palm. "I guess we both weren't thinking about protection when it happened."

"Are you sure it's mine?" He asked, running his hand over his face.

I was a little hurt that he would even ask me that, but we don't know each other. "Yes, I'm positive it's yours."

He just stared at me again. I opened my mouth to say something again about not asking him for anything.

"How long have you known? It's been a while since..." He trailed off. He had his elbows up on the table with his hands crossed. He leaned in closer to the table, probably attempting to make this conversation more private than it was out in the busy morning crowd.

I looked down at my own hands on the table. "About six weeks. I was already six weeks along so I'm at 12 weeks now."

"And you're just now telling me?" He looked disbelieved.

I shot a glare at him. "This is just as shocking for me as it is for you! So far this pregnancy has been nothing but miserable for me so I'm sorry if it took me some time to track you down and contact you."

He shot me a confused look. "Track me down?"

I scoffed and crossed my arms. "Well you didn't exactly tell me your name when you put me in the cab that night. I had to figure out who you were."

He was silent for a moment. "How did you figure out who I was?"

"Mindy. She showed me a picture of you and your team when you went to Side Streets one night. I recognized you instantly." I sighed and picked at a splinter of wood sticking up from the table. "I might have uh, gotten your personal cell number from her phone one night."

Steve shook his head. "Wait, you know Mindy Shaw? One of our medical examiner's?" I could see he was trying to connect the dots in his head.

I nodded. "Yeah, she's my best friend. We went to school together. Elementary through college. Small world, huh?" I laughed softly.

He smiled a little. "Yeah, no kidding."

"Kono and I also went to high school together. And your partners daughter and my sister are best friends." I leaned into the table and rubbed my eyes. "Jesus, this world is getting smaller and smaller."

"So, you know Danny?" He asked, looking back at his partner who was leaning up against the shrimp truck.

"No, we've never met. I've only met Rachel."

He nodded and it was silent between us again. He looked over to the water which gave me a moment to really look at him. He was attractive. Very attractive. Even more than I remember him being that night. But in my defense, a lot of tequila was involved. His dark hair and green eyes were absolutely gorgeous.

'Jesus Christ Thea.'

"Mindy doesn't know by the way." I finally spoke up. "I mean, she knows I'm pregnant, but she doesn't know who the father is. I told her I needed to tell him before I told anyone else. She doesn't know about that night either."

He nodded and looked over at me. "You said this pregnancy's been miserable for you so far. Is something wrong?" I could hear the concern in his voice. It made my heart flutter a little bit.

"No, no. Nothing wrong. The baby is completely fine. It's just, morning sickness for me is more like all day sickness." I smiled a little. "And the baby doesn't like most food right now but seems to already have an addiction to garlic shrimp." I laughed. As if on queue, Kamekona walked over with a to-go bag with two styrofoam containers in it.

"Here ya go sista!" He said and sat the bag down in front of me. I looked at the bag and then up at him.

"I thought we said just one plate, Kame?"

"You and the keiki need to eat! Gotta stay strong for the little ones." He said as he walked away.

Steve shook his head. "So Kamekona knows?" The frustration in his voice was clear. I rolled my eyes before I could stop myself. We were just having a good moment.

"He knows I'm pregnant, just not who the father is. He figured it out a few weeks ago when I was eating like I hadn't eaten in several days. Which wasn't completely untrue. For a while I couldn't keep much down."

Steve nodded. "I'm sorry, I'm just trying to wrap my head around it still." He ran his hand over his face again and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I probably don't need to ask you this but... You are planning on keeping it right?"

I just smiled softly at him. "Yeah... Yeah I am." I reached into my bag and pulled out the first ultrasound picture and a piece of paper that had my information written down, as well as the information for the doctors appointment that I had later today.

"Listen, like I said I'm not asking you for anything here. I just know what it's like to grow up without a father, so I thought you deserved to know." I slid the piece of paper and the picture across the table to him. "The choice is yours, but if you want to be involved, there's no coming in and out. You're either here or you aren't."

He picked up the two items and read the piece of paper. "You have an appointment today?"

I nodded, my hand going down to my bump as I thought about the ultrasound. "Yeah. If you're available you're more than welcome to be there. I know it's last minute and that this is all still a lot to take in so if you aren't ready then I understand. But again," I looked him in the eye. "There's no coming in and out. If you want to be there and be involved then do that. But popping in and out just when it's convenient for you is not going to happen. That's how I grew up and I won't allow our child to grow up like that either."

Steve went to say something but glanced down at the picture. I could tell by the look on his face he was speechless the same way I was when I first saw the picture up on the screen in the doctors office. He had a softer look on his face, something he hadn't had the whole time we've been sitting here.

"Crazy right? One picture and you feel like your heart might explode." I said.

Steve laughed a little and was interrupted by Danny calling his name.

"Steve! We gotta go, babe! We got a suspect!"

Steve looked back at his partner. "Alright!" He turned to me as he started to get up. "I'm sorry."

I shook my head and stood up too, grabbing my to-go bag. "It's fine. I have some errands to run before I head to my appointment. It's okay if you can't make it, really. I figure you guys are in the middle of a case."

He sighed. "Yeah... Yeah and it doesn't look like its ending soon either. Uh, I'm really going to try and make it. Even if I don't, can I call you later?"

I nodded and smiled at him. "Yeah, of course. You have my information so call or stop by anytime. There's still a lot we need to talk about." I said. I moved my hand over my bump, which Steve stared at the whole time.

"Steve!"

"Alright, Danny!" He shot back. But his eyes never left my stomach.

"You better get going." I laughed. I smiled at him again before I started to walk away. "I'll talk to you later."

Steve stood there and watched me walk back to my car.

"Hey, Neanderthal, we got a case!"

"Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time."

#steve mcgarrett #Hawaii Five 0 #danny williams #danny danno williams #steve mcgarrett imagine #hawaii five o imagine #grace williams #chin ho kelly #kono kalakaua #rachel edwards #mindy shaw #hawaii #pregnancy

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lo-55 · 4 years

Text

Shattered Chains of Fate Ch.11

Silver and Steel

Ichigo holds his sword firmly, his eyes narrowed at the man in front of him. They’d separated. Ukitake stays behind, but Ichigo has no doubt that he’s just as powerful as the man in front of him.

Ichigo knows good and well that he can’t beat the both of them, but that won’t stop him from trying. Rukia still stands behind him, uncertain.

“I can see you’re determined,” hatman says. He changes his stance. “It’s unfortunate, but today my zanpakuto is feeling playful. She’s a bit picky, you understand, but you’ve gotten her interest.”

“Lucky me,” Ichigo says dryly.

That get’s the man to laugh.

“I’m Shunsui Kyoraku, the captain of squad eight, and you won’t find me so easy to pin as these young bucks here.”

“...are you aware that that sounds suspiciously like an innuendo,” Ichigo narrows his eyes at the man, Kyoraku, who looks startled but laughs a moment later.

“We’re going to have fun with you,” he predicts. There’s an undercurrent in his easy voice, something that is not quite malice but still not nice. Ichigo cocks his head.

“We’ll see.”

Kyoraku crosses his swords at the blade and changes his stance. The world seems to shift, just enough to set Ichigo’s teeth on edge. It’s a familiar sensation, one he’s missed in the past few months. He knows, as soon as this Katen Kyokotsu is released, what has been done.

They’re in a reality marble, or something akin to it.

Ichigo narrows his eyes. This is a man strong enough to warp reality itself to his whims.

“You have to know you can’t win,” Ukitake actually sounds gentle. “If you give up now, you and your friends won’t be hurt.”

“Until you execute us, you mean,” Ichigo shoots him a dark glare. He has the decency to wince.

Ichigo looks to the other man. Kyoraku, captain of the eighth. He’s a whole different kind of monster to Kenpachi. Not a claw in the throat but the shadows that lurked just out of reach.

“So. Shall we begin?”

“I suppose. However, I should explain now what it means for my Zanpakutou to want to play with you,” Kyoraku’s smile turns just a little bit sharper. “Katen Kyokotsu makes childrens games real.”

“... you’ve got to be fucking with me,” Ichigo can feel a twitch develop over his eye brow.

“Excuse me?” Kyoraku asks, cocking his head just so.

“No, no. See, I met a little girl who makes nursery rhymes real, and now you’re going to make a kids game real. That just. Yeah. That’s my life. Why the fuck not.” Ichigo shakes his head. “What game are we playing?”

Kyoraku looks intrigued by his admittance, but tells him all the same.

“Have you ever played Kagome Kagome?”

Ichigo was exasperated. “Which of us is the demon?”

Kyoraku started walking, clock wise, leaving a trail of copies behind him while shadows slithered up and locked around Ichigo’s eyes. He stiffened, but he knew how powers like these worked. Kyoraku was just as bound by the rules as he was.

The question was, now, what happened if he guess wrong? What damage would it do?

Kyoraku’s voice echoed around him. It circled him on all sides, front and back, left and right.

Kagome kagome

Kago no naka no tori wa

Itsu itsu deyaru

Yoake no ban ni

Tsuru to kame ga subetta.

Ushiro no shoumen daare

Kagome kagome, The bird is in the cage,

Ichigo tilts his head. The voice will be no help. This game is hardly fair.

When, oh when will it come out

In the night of dawn

On top of that, all of the space around them now feels distinctly like Kyoraku. The laugh on the wind, the shadow at his back, the scent of sake and, now, some type of bun. He can’t feel where Kyoraku is, and the song is coming to a close.

The crane and turtle slipped

Who is behind you now?

Ichigo swallows thickly. His instincts hum under his skin. He’s always trusted them. They’ve guided and protected him well for years.

And, according to the prickling along his arms, the greatest source of danger is to his right.

“A shadow,” Ichigo says with sudden certainty. “It’s one of the copies of you.”

He swings to the right, fast and hard, and feels flesh cave to the bite of Zangetsu.

It’s the last good blow he makes in the fight.

“So. What do you think is wrong with him?”

“Karin!” Yuzu frowns minutely at her sister from where she stands before the stove, a ladle in one hand. Sauce bubbles cheerfully in the pot in front of her,

“What? We both know there’s something weird about Ichigo. There’s been something weird about him since he got home. And now he’s even weirder. Does he really think we believe he’s our brother?”

“Karin!”

“What?” Karin is unrepentant. They both know. Ever since Ichigo came back he’s been weird. He’s up at all hours, he barely sleeps and he’s skittish as all hell. Karin has started walking louder to make sure he jumps less when she shows up in the room. Even their dad has started acting different and distant from Ichigo. On top of all that, Ichigo is more physically affectionate that she’s ever seen him in their lives.

“I’m pretty sure that the guy upstairs now isn’t even Ichigo. He’s a clone or something.”

“That’s a horrible thing to say!”

“But’s it’s true!” Karin insists. Yuzu falters, the irritated furrow in her brow easing. The spatula in her hand is brandished like a weapon until she sets it on the spoon holder beside the stove.

“But he looks just like Ichigo…”

“The one that came back from his trip is definitely Ichigo.” Traumatized, and Karin isn't’ an expert but is he supposed to be so traumatized from an explosion? Did he hit his head? Was it worse than he said? That sounds like Ichigo. “But the one we have now is definitely not our brother.”

“Karin… How is that possible?”

“Ghosts are possible,” Karin reminds her, ignoring the fact that Yuzu can’t see them. Still, Yuzu believes in them, more than Karin herself does. If she doesn’t acknowledge that they’re there they won’t bother her like they do her brother.

Yuzu bites her lip.

“Still… What do we say?”

“I wasn’t gonna say anything yet,” Karin admits. It’s too soon, and there’s too much weird stuff going on right now. She doesn’t trust that they’ll get the truth if they go after it without more facts to shuffle through whatever crap the adults try to feed them. They’re young, but they aren’t stupid, and Karin knows that they’re going to have to pull answers out like they pull teeth.

“Good,” Yuzu says with finality. Quieter, with a glance at the ceiling, she adds, “That Ichigo, even if he isn’t our Ichigo, he seems… lonely, Karin.”

Karin knows the look in her sisters eye. The one she gets with stray cats and the cast off friends that Ichigo brings home sometimes. It’s the look that lead to the entire year they’d spent devoted to guarding a single caterpillar in a jar until it was a butterfly. Yuzu is not the temperamental one, she isn’t the scraper, but there’s not doubt in Karin’s mind that she’s the real power in the household. When Yuzu puts her foot down that’s all there is to it.

“Then we just make him our,” she says with a roll of her shoulders. Simple as that.”

“Yeah!” Yuzu grins. “Oh! Did I tell you my doll is haunted?”

“... huh?”

* *

Shunsui Kyoraku is a dutiful man.

He does what is required of him, to serve his home and protect his friends. He always has, since he’d first felt the weight of the heavy black kosado on his shoulders. He is the second son of nobility, he was born to know duty . Even if he prefers to be lackadaisy, even if he bends the rules until they’re twisted knots, and lets events take their course, he will follow the orders Yamamoto gives directly.

He and Juushiro were some of his first students, and they are the only ones left from their class for a reason. He is perhaps one of only five who remain to remember the wolf that Yamamoto truly is, for all he falls to heel at the call of the Central 46 now under the guise of a loyal dog.

He has seen the fight it had been for Yamamoto to establish the shinigami in the first days of their existence, when the foundations of the world had been shaky and the throne had been empty. He had been there for the first quincy war, one thousand years ago, and then again for the second only two hundred prior.

That one had hardly been a war. It had been a slaughter, and he had raised his sword to it just as he had been told.

Now a child stands before him, desperate to save a girl who he can’t have known longer than a summer. She is one of Juushiro’s, one of his favorites in fact. He knows he’s been grooming her to be his next lieutenant for the last forty years, since even before Kaien’s death.

(Privately he thinks it should be the two of them trying to protect her, but they have seen Yamamoto incinerate men, they have witnessed his bankai first hand. If he presses the issue, what chance do they have? They have gone to the Central 46 as captains and nobles and been turned away both times, in spite of the ancient laws.)

This child, Shunsui thinks while he bleeds from his shoulder down to his sternum, is frightening.

He is young. He is human, he cannot be more than two decades old. But it is his eyes that are the most unnerving.

They are not the eyes of someone who knows defeat. They are the eyes of someone who knows that defeat means death. The eyes of someone who has not been beaten by the merits of his simple being alive right now. The fact that he stands before him, with Shunsui’s blood on his sword, is a testament to that fact.

It’s been a long time since someone had done so well in one of his games. They’re never in anyone else's favor, but now Kyokotsu laughs somewhere in the back of his mind, his swords thrum in his hands.

Truthfully, Shunsui would rather not kill this child. He would rather not kill any of the children in front of him.

He knows Juushiro feels the same way. Killing Rukia would be like killing a part of him, too.

They’ve both sent petitions to the Central 46. Both as captains and as noblemen, but none have been answered. It’s a violation of their own laws, but then the Ryoka had come and their investigation had been cut short.

According to Nanao, little Hitsugaya has taken over for them.

Kyokotsu switches games, and Shunsui sinks into the shadows.

The boy is good, for all he is young. He’s been well trained, he thinks on his feet. He fights like there’s something missing.

And that red ribbon on Rukia’s wrist. Her new clothes. It’s interesting.

Shunsui has never seen anything like it. It’s almost like a pseudo bankai, forcibly unlocked by the child in front of him.

Yes, frightening is really the right word for it.

The games change. Ichigo catches on quickly to each one, to the rules and the ways they are both bound by them.

He’s also accumulating more injuries. Cuts on his arms, his back, his chest. Kyokotsu is fond of the boy. It’s rather unfortunate, really.

Shunsui feels bad when he goes in for a hard attack, an emotion he ruthlessly crushes down. He can’t afford to be worried about an opponent in a battle.

Ichigo barely moves back. He’s not fast enough to completely dodge the blade the cuts into his shoulder, just shy of his throat.

Rukia screams, so does the boy from the forth and kid that looks like a shinigami but probably isn’t.

Blood erupts from the split in his skin, a deadly strike if a slow one. It won’t be a quick death. It might not be a death at all if he can, say, get seen by the fourth division member that’s not twenty feet away in the next ten minutes.

Shunsui is broken out of that idea when white overtakes red and it is no long blood that splatters out of the child's body, but a paste that looks awfully familiar.

What in the hell?

A half an answer comes a minute later, when a hand grasps Katen by the blade and yanks Shunsui forwards so Ichigo can try to cleave him in half.

Shunsui blocks with Kyokotsu. The boys reitsu has changed. It was once light and brilliant, a small sun in his young chest. Now it lashes out darkly, black and tinged with red. The eye that turns upon him doesn’t match the other.

One brown. One yellow, rimmed first in black and then in white.

A hollow eye.

It’s only the fact that rules of their current game mean that Shunsui can’t be cut anywhere where his clothes aren’t white, and the fact that his haori and kimono are already off to the side that save him from the brutal counter slash. The boy is fast, his movements vicious and harsh.

Shunsui separates from the attack. He can feel the wind and the faint crackle of lightning that gives away the presence of the oncoming storm that is Shihoin Yoruichi.

She crashes into the platform and knocks Ichigo unconscious with something that looks suspiciously like a very large baseball bat.

She stands before them, two of the old guard, surrounded by children. She cannot take them all, and Ichigo’s reiatsu is still dark and dank, an ocean of shadows that even Shunsui is weary to tread into.

Kyokotsu laughs softly. She wants to play with this boy. Katen inches forwards, her true nature flickering at the edge of his soul. Pure and holy, she wants to split the boy’s darkness with light.

Shunsui cannot allow it. He smothers her in the darkness of Kyokotsu and bids her sink further into his soul, a burden he still bears with grace and secrecy.

“The lost lady of the Shihoin,” Shunsui greets with a smile. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your return?”

Yoruichi doesn’t answer immediately, and her playful smile is tight around the edges. Shunsui remembers when she and her brother were still just children at their fathers knee. Yukihira hadn’t even been going grey in the temples when he’d died. It seems all Shihoin lived short, fast lives. They are quick shadows that burn away in the light. Disowned or not Yoruichi is now one of the oldest Shihoin on record.

“You certainly did a number on the boy,” she says instead of answering. Kisuke is involved with this, somehow, the mask is proof enough. Just what do they want with Rukia?

This changes things.

The banishment of half the upper echelons of the gotei 13 had never sat right with Shunsui. It was too much too fast, and Kisuke had never struck him as the type. Not to say Kisuke was a good man, but he certainly was not a good enough liar to fool someone like Shunsui for so long, or Shinji for that matter.

If there weren’t strict orders against it, he might have hunted them down in the living world and demanded answers himself. But Yamamoto had made it clear. No one was to launch any further investigations into the hollowfication incident.

(Now he wonders again ; why?)

“He did trounce little Bakuya over there pretty badly,” Shunsui points out.

“So he did. I’ll be taking him now,” she warns. Her body tenses, ready to flee. Shunsui steps forwards and swings lazily at her head.

He slices through open air and a few stray purple strands of hair.

She’s slower now than she was before, he notes, but still fast enough to flee his field of influence before he can cut her down.

Now all that’s left to do is see to the wounded, figure out what to do with their little turncoats, figure out what’s possessed their central government, find out why a child has been hollowfied, unlock the strange mysteries of Rukia’s new powers, and possibly get drunk.

Easy breezy.

An explosion sounds from where Yoruichi has run off to, and Shunsui figures his plans may have to change.

* * *

Kon paces the basement of Ichigo’s strange house in his borrowed body, wearing a trail in the cement floor.

He’s surrounded on all sides by the strange things that Ichigo keeps in here, the magical artifacts and tools that he’s accumulated.

Amongst all of them is the plain brown box that Kon had found on a table upstairs.

The weirdo from the dreams, Merlin , swears he gave it to Ichigo. Kon would normally call Bullshit but honestly? It’s Ichigo.

There’s just something about that kid that makes him feel like anything is possible. Even gifts from dream men who smell like too many flowers and don’t give straight answers.

Kon arranges the thick crystals on the markings carved carefully into the floor. He’d tried to make it look exactly like the picture in the book, but he wasn’t an artist. It didn’t matter. Ichigo’s body seemed to know what they were doing without him having to tell it. He could feel a strange power thrumming through his borrowed skin.

It sunk in from the world around him, filling up the empty spaces in the bone marrow, in the muscles, in the very pores of his body.

This vessel knows what to do, even if Kon doesn’t.

He sets one of the other items in the middle of the circle. There’s six crystals that shine incandescently on each corner of the design.

“Use the stones first,” Merlin had said, his lilac eyes curved with some hidden joke, “ You’ll need Ichigo to use the last bit.”

The last bit being a scrap of cloth that he’d left in the box. It was same shade as his hair, and tattered at the ends. Kon left it where it was and set in the center of the circle two more stones. One was a red crystal. The other was dull grey, and shaped like the head of a small serpent.

Everytime he touches them Kon feels his fingertips tingle with something .

Kon picks up a paring knife.

On Ichigo’s palm is a long scar, one that’s been opened over and over again. Now, Kon presses the blade to the same thin white line until it splits neatly under the sharp edge.

Red wells up. He barely feels it. Ichigo’s pain tolerance is insane.

He holds his fist out over the circle and let’s Ichigo’s body do as it apparently knows to. Blood drips into the careful lines he’s made and it spreads with a vermillion glow that crackles faintly.

“Let Silver and Steel be the Essence…”

* * * *

“Again,” Ichigo touches his forehead. It throbs horribly. “Why the hell does this keep happening to me?”

His groan of pain is met with silence. He can touch his forehead so he’s not tied up. And he can feel pain so presumably he’s not dead. That’s good. If he dies he can’t keep his promises.

On the other hand, if he was dead he probably wouldn’t feel like he was chewed up and spit out again.

When he finally peels his eyes open, he finds himself in the ‘inside’ again. Vertical buildings, and pieces of himself in the form of places he’s gone. The water at the street is a bit deeper.

Ichigo rubs his head and squints around him.

“Zangetsu?” he calls, looking around. The old man is nowhere to be seen. There’s something familiar about this entire situation. He can taste chalk and blood. His chest aches. What the hell is going on here?

“Zangetsu!” he yells louder. No response.

Fine then. Maybe if he focused on his zanpakuto? Zangetsu was the manifestation of it right? Or something.

Ichigo closed his eyes and reached out, taking a deep breath.

He focused on the feeling of his sword in his hand. The cool metal until sturdy wrappings. The wicked blade. The weight of the weapon. The comfort of Zangetsu against his back.

He closed his hands around something and opened his eyes.

And nearly had a heart attack.

“What the fuck!?”

Standing in front of him, no holding his hand, was him . If he’d been sent through a bottle of bleach. His eyes, the other him’s eyes (fuck this was confusing) were bright, luminescent gold. Where there should be white was instead black. When the other him grinned his teeth weren’t as sharp as Ichigo felt they should be.

“Hey there, Partner.”

Ichigo extracted his hand warily. “Who the fuck are you?” He asked bluntly.

A flicker in the corner of his eyes came from the side. His head snapped to the side to see Zangetsu, the old man.

“Zangetsu.”

Ichigo looked back at the other him. The one who spoke. His head throbbed. His chest ached.

“Huh?”

“Ichigo.”

“Yes, yes. Ichigo, Zangetsu, whatever,” he waved his hands impatiently. “What the ever loving fuck is going on here? Why am I here? I was just fighting and- Did I get stabbed?” Ichigo patted down his chest. There was no blood, and it didn’t hurt.

The other him scoffed. “Damn you’re dumb. Yeah ya got stabbed!”

“Don’t be rude,” Ichigo said absently. He lifted his shirt. There wasn’t even a scar on his chest. Just the same red circle that had rested on his chest since he’d been speared through. It felt like an eternity ago. The longer the wars went on the harder it was to keep track of everything and everyone. Sometimes he felt like he mixed up the order of operations. Did he go to London first? Or Oceanus? Fuck.

“ I’m rude!”

Ichigo has to jump to avoid being stabbed by the sword Zangetsu. Now wielded by the other him, and also reversed in color.

“You’re the one that made us wait that long before you heard us, asshole!”

“Huh?!” Ichigo ducked and dodged each slash. Finally, Zangetsu (the man) blocked Zangetsu (the sword (except they were technically both swords (and this was making Ichigo’s head ache))) to stop the fight.

“Ichigo,” Zangetsu intoned. “You were being beaten. Badly. We cannot allow this to continue.”

“Okay,” Ichigo says slowly. “So you suck me out of consciousness and throw me here while everyone else is back there? What about Rukia and Hanataro and Ganju!”

“What about them?” the Other Him. White Ichigo maybe? Shirogo? Espejo? Nieve? Speaks up. He leans on his sword, looping his arm casually over the bite under the curve of the blade. “Why do you think we give a shit about your friends?”

Ichigo scowls. “If I go down we all do.”

“Exactly,” says Zangetsu. “We all die if you do. If you lose. We cannot lose, it cannot be an option. So you must become stronger. You can hear my voice now. You can wield my blade. But there is power inside of you that you do not know. Prepare yourself, Ichigo. We will make you stronger now.”

“To gain that strength, you must fight. Take your sword back from yourself.”

“Huh?!”

He only has a second to duck a sword strike at his head. Neive (he’s going with that for now. Snow) comes at him with a wild grin and vicious intent. A berserker who swings Zangetsu by the ribbon like a demented yo yo.

There’s something weird going on here. Ichigo knows it. He knows there’s something not right about this. The whole thing feels too familiar.

He doesn’t have time to contemplate it before he comes back at Neive with the best counters he can manage whilst unarmed.

Zangetsu is calm and methodical. Ichigo can see in him the commander, the strategist and the pragmatist that he has had to be when war clawed at his throat and shadowed his footsteps.

Neive is wild and vicious. Ichigo sees in him the desperate strength he’s drawn out at the last seconds, the hail mary victories that he's ripped from the claws of defeat time and time again.

The careful planning of Zangetsu, the intricate steps of a dance of strategy, falls away in the face of Neive’s brute forced, deadly strikes. He aims to win, even if he has to cut himself-who-is-Ichigo down to do it. Ichigo’s blood sings with it.

Even though he steps away from death, even though if he’s just a hair too slow he’ll lose his head, Ichigo has to stop himself from tipping his head back and laughing. Fighting like this, he feels almost free.

Almost.

He steps in close, suddenly, regardless of the fact that Zangetsu-the-sword cuts into his shoulder from the sharp curved heel. Blood dots the blue beneath their feet and Ichigo catch’s Neive’s arm between his hands. With a vicious twist that threatens to break his arm he’s forced to let lose the sword. The ribbon keeps it stuck to his wrist, and Ichigo twists his body until he’s back to front to Neive. He grabs the swords hand and swings it around until it’s a hair breadth away from both of their throats.

“What the fuck?” Neive asks, too loud in his ear.

Ichigo shoots him a crooked smile. “You only said I had to take it back.”

Neive stares at him, the angle awkward and painful to his neck. Finally, his doppleganger relaxes and legs the ribbon slip free. He steps back, letting Ichigo hold the sword on his own.

“Well I’ll be damned. Not bad, boss.”

“Why are you so surprised,” Ichigo hoists the blade onto his bleeding shoulder. “Aren’t we all part of the same person? Me?”

“So we are,” something in Zangetsu’s voice doesn’t sound entirely pleased about that. “You’ve done well.”

“Yeah. Thanks,” Ichigo scowls at him. “There’s something wrong with the both of you, I want you to know.”

“By your own logic, there’s something wrong with you too,” Neive pointed out, far too cheerfully.

“Uh huh.” Ichigo rolls his eyes. “How was that supposed to make me stronger? It was a fight, I’ve been a million of them. “

Maybe more than that.

Zangetsu doesn’t answer right away.

Ichigo sits on the sideways building and motions the other him to do the same. Neive drops to his side, both of them criss cross and the blade long enough it covered both of their laps.

“Well?” he presses.

Zangetsu is not quite stoic enough for Ichigo to miss the way his mouth turns down and his shoulders draw together. He’s bracing himself for something.

“We are both… facets, of your power Ichigo. I needed to introduce you to him as well.”

“A simple hand shake wouldn’t do?” Ichigo scowled at him.

“We did shake hands,” Neive points out cheerfully.

“Not the point. Why the song and dance? Or are you all the drama in my soul too?”

Neive crows with laughter and slaps Ichigo hard on the back. Ichigo rocks with the force, hissing. His shoulder burns.

Zangetsu comes to crouch before him. He lays his hand on top of Ichigo’s shoulder and the pain eases minutely. The blood stops staining his shirt.

“What…?”

“I can stop your bleeding,” Zangetsu explains.

Ichigo nods, slowly. He remembers, faintly, injuries that weren’t as bad as they should have been, blood stains that were too small. Roman had commented on it once or twice.

“You’ve done it before, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

Ichigo looks between the two of them. Their words ring through his head.

“How long have you been with me?”

Neive grins. Zangetsu looks at him solemnly.

“ Always , Ichigo.”

* * * * *

It’s over.

It’s over and they’ve won. The price was high (it’s higher every time and Ichigo dreads the day that one of them does not return to Chaldeas) but they snatched victory away with bloody hands and desperation.

They’ve won. Nero is not there to celebrate their victory. Karna has faded away. Arjuna had never really been one of them but Ichigo knows they owe him. Billy the Kid. Geronimo. Scathach herself. All gone.

And how many yet to go, before this bloody conflict is ended? This is one war won, and three yet to go. They’ve come more than halfway, but done so by the skin of their teeth.

What else can they do?

Run?

Hide?

Chaldeas is the only safe place and even that can’t last forever. Even if it could, Ichigo would never stand by, safe within the walls.

Ichigo looks down at the cracked tile of the Whitehouse and finds the tips of his shoes glittering. The war is over. It’s time to go.

“Ichigo?”

He looks to Kyo. His impassiveness is finally gone. His expression is open and horrified.

“It’s time for us to leave,” Ichigo says solemnly. It’s time for you to forget .

“No!” Kyo lunges for him, grabbing his hand, and for the first time Ichigo can see it clearly. His brown eyes, wide and open, his hand grasping desperately at Ichigo’s sleeve. One feeling sings through the touch.

Loneliness.

The lion that stalks in Kyo(in Sousuke) ’s shadow. The yawning the maw of solitude.

He’d broken past it, Ichigo realizes. Had dragged him off of that isolated pillar that Sousuke stood so precariously upon and brought him to stand on solid ground surrounded by heroes and rebels, emperors and goddesses. And Ichigo, just a human.

His throat tightens. What kind of place is seireitei that someone like Sousuke is so utterly alone?

“I don’t have a choice,” he says. He’s gone up to his knees and the light is rushing swiftly to his midsection. Eating him up. He can feel the familiar pull of ray shifting.

“Find me!” Sousuke grips his hand all the tighter. “Promise me. Find me in the future! Make me remember!”

Ichigo feels his hand start to dissolve in his grasp and does his best to hold on for a few seconds longer

“I’ll find you.” He vows

Light glitters, air rushes, and the last thing he sees is the crushing sorrow on Kyos face.

(Ichigo will not break his promise)

* * * * * *

#Ichigo Kurosaki #bleach fanfiction #BAMF!Ichigo Kurosaki #Ichigo Kurosaki is Ritsuka Fujimaru #gin ichimaru #bleach #bleach/fate grand order #Merlin Fate/Grand Order #kyo (SCoF)#sosuke aizen #shunsui kyoraku #juushiro ukitake #rukia kuchiki

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