#still wish i could unread to read for the first time

[r-eatyourfriends-n]

SMOKED | l.hs 이희승 | Collide pt. 2

bestfriend!heesung x bestfriend!reader

READ PT 1 HERE.

warnings: smut (mdni), pwp (plot's there if you look hard enough), unprotected sex, overstimulation (sort of?), no use of "y/n", light switch!dynamics from both reader and heesung, car sex, unsafe driving lowkey, dryhumping, minor argument, heesung is down bad honestly.

wc: 3.8k

synopsis: days have passed after your first hook up with Heesung, though neither of you have said anything about it. Instead, you continue your search for a good one night stand somewhere else, but your mind and body know where you should be.

a/n: wow! the moral obligation I had to finish this before posting anything else was crazy, but after a huge block it's finally here. If you think this is better than pt1 it's because it is, but it's also because it has been approved by the one and only @molloygendered !!!!! my bestfriend and editor. he wanted to review this again before posting it but I'm a kid on sugar so I held him at gunpoint to approve this. any feedback is appreciated !!! hope you enjoy.

4 unread messages.

sorry to bother u so late

can u pick m up? pls

[Address]

idk if ure awake sorry

Heesung's screen lit up on his desk, breaking his focus from the heated game in front of him. He unlocked his phone, the other hand still gripping the controller tightly. His eyes moved quickly from the texts popping up and then back to the screen, which nearly got him killed. 

The team won eventually, but just barely. Heesung logged out as soon as it was over. He spent the whole time wanting to check his phone.

“Dude, what the fuck are you doing?”Jake yelled at him through the call. “We almost lost."

“My bad. Gotta go,” he said in a monotone voice, showing no remorse as he hung up the call despite Jake's groans.

He looked back down at his phone and texted back a short "omw" before getting up from his chair, stretching his arms. His bones cracked, so loud it made him wince at the sound.

With quick steps, he changed into something a bit more decent, just a plain white t-shirt on top of his cargo pants, which had been slowly losing their black tone after each wash. The chains on his thick belt dangled as he walked out of his room and began to head out of his apartment, taking his keys from the cat-shaped key holder you had put on his wall. He had been surprised the first time he hung his keys and a white cat popped up. It was supposed to be a prank, but Heesung never found it in him to take it off despite the fact that it didn't match with the overall vibe of his room one bit. The kitten disappeared inside the box as he left.

The distance to your location was short, or perhaps Heesung was driving a little too fast. Either way, he arrived about fifteen minutes after telling you that he was on his way to pick you up. He parked in front of a small, black gate which led to some stairs. The complex seemed fairly little, but somewhat cozy, with small balconies filled with pots and all kinds of houseplants. Although it was past midnight and dark, he could still make out the colors of the flowers that were placed by the edges of the windows, leaves moving along with the wind.

Leaving the car on, he hopped out, leaning back against  the driver's door to wait for you. Admittedly, it was ill-intended. He hoped your date would see him and would be thrown off. 

The wait felt like eternity. When the door opened, your figure finally appeared in a white dress with black dots, just a bit above the knee. The cleavage allowed for the black choker to stand out, your name's initial dangling softly. Heesung had always wished it was an H instead.

You smiled at Heesung when you saw him, tilting your head in confusion because why was he out of the car? Heesung smiled back at you, a soft beam on his lips. Then looked to your side when a boy appeared next to you.

He eyed your guy up and down as he said goodbye to you. He was tall like you liked them, with flawlessly tan skin and a face that was nothing short of charming, with a sort of boyish appeal to him, and it was obvious why you had said yes to a date in the first place. Heesung swallowed hard, his own jealousy burning down his throat.

You didn't seem too enchanted by the guy, though, looking almost uncomfortable as he leaned in to kiss your cheek. You fake-giggled (at least, he thought you did) and grinned at him politely before making your way to Heesung. The guy appeared to be a little turned off by you getting picked up by another man, for he did not take his eyes off of Heesung as he walked to the passenger's seat to open the door for you, a gesture that you were used to. Before hopping back in, Heesung winked at him, a smug grin forming. After that, you two were off speeding down the road. He'll take the long way home, he decided.

“Thanks for picking me up,” you broke the silence after a few minutes of driving. “You didn't have to wait outside though, it's freezing.” 

"I was trying to scare him off,” Heesung chuckled, a half joke that managed to pass as just something playful, making you laugh and hit his arm.

“I don't think he liked that,” you said after your laugh subsided.

“I think it was you who didn't like him.” 

You went silent for a bit, sulking on your seat.

“So, how was it?” 

“I liked him,” you mumbled, biting your lip in thought. “It was good, yeah.”

“But?” Heesung inquired, raising an eyebrow.

“I guess I was hoping for something more... intense?”

Heesung turned his face, pretending to check something on the rearview mirror so that you wouldn't notice him biting his lip. He hoped you were referring to him, about the intimate moment you two had shared a few nights before, about the bite that was still decorating your shoulder so beautifully. A purple light enough to resemble a bruise; poor clumsy you, tripped and hit yourself with his mouth.

“Intense how?” he asked.

“To hell if I know,” you shrugged.

He furrowed his eyebrows, glancing your way quickly. 

“You clearly do know.” 

“I don't. If I did I would tell you, Hee,” you said, confused.

“Like how you told me you were off to see another douchebag?” Heesung spat. 

His words made you quickly turn your head. And although he wasn't looking at you, you knew he could feel your glare burning through his skin. The sudden change in attitude had been nothing short of baffling. He seemed to keep his eyes on the road to avoid your stare rather than for safety. You couldn't tell if bouncing his leg was anger, anxiety, both, or something entirely different.

“How do you know he was a douchebag?! I told you it was fine!” you whined.

“Did he even make you come?” he asked. 

You opened your mouth to fight back, but the only sound that came out was your breath hitching. It had been such a simple question, but it ignited the memories of your one time affair with him. The soft promises, the surpassed expectations, the sweet, sweet release. Your body began to tingle in the places where his hands had lingered, and you found yourself shuddering on the seat. Of course Heesung had asked that, while knowing your answer, too.

“Sex is not all about that.” you said finally, voice low with uncertainty. 

“Oh, so that's why you fuck every idiot with a mushroom cut.” Heesung mumbled.

“What the hell is your problem? You don't even know him!” your ears rang as your voice raised in pitch.

“Oh I know him; clerk job moron who thinks sticking it in is enough.”

You tried to ignore the fact that he was a receptionist at your esthetician’s clinic who you happened to make conversation with during a long wait. He had been bold enough to ask you to grab dinner and two days later you were kissing in the elevator of his one-bedroom apartment. 

That kiss had set your expectations through the roof, hoping that you had landed your perfect match. And it had been nice, sort of, but not like you had wished for, or had imagined. The way you had envisioned things and the way said things happened were complete opposites. Maybe it had been your fault for already having something in mind.

The conflict his words caused reflected in your face, a turmoil evident as you stumbled out your next words.

“I still don't understand why it bothers you so much. I know I'm sleeping with a bunch of idiots.” 

“You're hellbent on letting these assholes touch you.” he grunted.“ I can't stand it, I don't get it. It's pointless, it's…”

You were barely able to make out the words; he was just rambling, or so you concluded.

“How is that your problem?” you cut him off, bringing him back from his thoughts.

Only then, Heesung realized the slip up. Yes, you were right, and regardless of how close the two of you were, it was ultimately your call who you slept with, which bothered Heesung to no end. Why were you so against calling him again? Why didn't you ask to have sex again? Why did he finally have you, only for you to slip through his fingers? 

He hoped you hadn't caught onto it, but you knew him too well not to. Everything made sense after; his seemingly sudden offer, waiting for you outside of the car, this angry fit.

“I said, how's that your problem? What about it?” you pushed, in response to Heesung's answer, which had been silence.

“You can do so much better than that.” he finally said.

“So,” you smiled at him. “Think you can be my better?”

Heesung pulled the car over, so quickly your body flew towards the door, and he almost hit his chest with the steering wheel. His grip on it was tight, and he began panting. You thanked god about the empty, dark road, otherwise it could've ended in a nasty crash.

Both of your eyes meet, his pupils blown out with a hint of a gleam in them. There was hope, a tad bit of anger, and an undeniable desire. His hands were twitching, itching to touch you, and you didn't remember ever feeling so wanted.

Heesung's gaze slowly drifted to your lips, almost involuntarily. Your mouth fell open to breath, uneven and quick. The car was cold, but your temperature went up like a fever.

“Are you going to kiss me?” 

His gaze met yours once more. “Can I?”

You nodded. It was all he needed to pull you in, holding your face with both hands as gently but firmly as he could. Afraid, in a weird way, that you would disappear if he let go. That this was all a sick dream from his hungry mind and that he was soon to wake up alone, in bed, with you far away from his grasp.

Despite how much he wanted to keep it slow, the kiss was just plainly instinctual. It had started soft, as if he wanted it to last forever, which he did. Then it was relentless, like nothing was enough, with your faces pressed so tightly together that you almost felt you couldn't breathe properly. Heesung allowed you a few seconds of air before he was onto you again.

It was hard to keep up with him, but you managed, because this was what you wanted anyway. It was hard to tell if you would ever get to feel something like this again; the desperation, your blood pounding in your ears from the anticipation before he made the move, and your whole body shaking in excitement as if it had a memory of its own, and could recognize the touch. 

“Backseat,” you muttered between kisses. 

He heard you, loud and clear, he just couldn't stop himself. He wanted more. Heesung wanted to do so much with you, and to you, that he was unable to do anything at all. He couldn't bring himself to separate his mouth from yours despite needing the air, and his hands roamed mindlessly and only for the sake of getting a feel. The once deliberate and calculated Heesung was now a wreck in your hands, melting in the heat like a popsicle. Sweet.

But you really had to pull him off, otherwise you'd turn blue. Your nails scratched his scalp as you yanked him back, making him whimper in the process. The way he looked burned in your memory; eyes half-lidded, lips pink and swollen, parted, panting. Even with his eyes nearly closed, you could see his darkened eyes.

“I said backseat, Heesung,” you repeated, letting go of his hair. “Do you want to fuck me or not?” 

In every single position there was. Fingers, tongue, cock, he wanted to give you everything and more, so he scrambled to the backseat as you had ordered. 

This is who you were; demanding and controlling. That one time he manhandled you? Only that, a one time thing, now you wouldn't give in so easily. Not after the little jealousy number he pulled, at least. You weren't all that resilient yourself, but you would drag it as far as you could.

Heesung thought that he had chosen the worst type of clothing possible. Had he kept the sweatpants instead of changing into something else, then maybe the friction would've been more bearable. The rough material of his pants brushing against his cock made him groan whenever he slightly shifted. And when he finally found comfort, you seated yourself on his lap and grinded, hard. 

“Ohfuck,” he whined, his hands flying to your hips to find some leverage. His nails dug into your sides. “You're gonna— I'm not gonna last.” 

You grinded down again. And again, until you set your pace, ignoring his cries. The nails trying to claw at your skin drove you further despite the sting. As much as he tried to slow you down in the name of ‘lasting longer', he still thrusted his hips up to meet you halfway, though his eyes were tightly shut, and lips pressed in a straight line.

“Please, please baby, I don't wanna come yet, please.” 

“Did I just hear The Lee Heesung begging?” 

He looked up at you, teary eyed. His bangs were stuck to his forehead, as sweat had already begun to drip from his hair. That had been enough of an answer.

Yes, you had. It had been about the hottest thing you had ever heard as well. Usually confident Lee Heesung, always took the lead Lee Heesung, would rather die than humiliate himself Lee Heesung, whining and whimpering about coming too fast after some kissing and humping. That same Heesung that had been able to get not one, but three orgasms out of you before even getting close. It was a sight to see.

You stopped, and Heesung sighed in relief, although the calm didn't last long. As a smirk formed on your lips, his eyes grew panicked. 

“If you come, I'll leave this car,” you said, rolling your hips again.

“No, no, no, no, no,” he whimpered. He squeezed his eyes shut again, the shape of his fingers imprinting onto your skin. Back then, when the two of you first had sex, this was the reality of what Heesung felt, even when he did a good job at not letting himself seem so desperate. 

He'd be damned if he looked like a loser in front of you, or so he thought. Because now that your wet underwear was soaking his pants, he was a mess. A hard, pathetic mess, desperately trying not to burst in his jeans from having you on top of him.

You yourself didn't believe you could keep torturing him, only because you were also torturing yourself in the process. His hard length along with the rough fabric of his pants brushed against your clit in a way that sent jolts through your body. It was harsh and uncomfortable while still feeling good enough not to stop.

Heesung's hips twitched with a mind of their own, searching for release against his wishes. You halted, leaning your body back to unbuckle his belt. He groaned at the loss of contact though didn't complain any further, and instead helped you get rid of his restraintments quicker. His breath ghosted over your skin as he sighed in relief, which made you shudder. 

His fingers went down to tease you under your dress, rubbing over the wetness seeping through your panties, and even with the layer in between, he could feel his fingers dampen. Heesung continued until you were left whining and attempting to grind your hips harder onto his hand. Only then did you feel him push the fabric to the side, and the tip of his cock pressed against your cunt.

After Heesung had you the first time, he knew that he couldn't let you go. Days went by where he would still feel your lips against his; the skin of your thighs, hot and sweaty, burning his cheeks as you closed your legs around his head while you came on his tongue. Not one day went by where he didn't fantasize about pushing himself inside you, and in some dreams, he would just stay there. 

But nothing was able to prepare him for when it actually happened. He thought the desperate way in which you lowered yourself on his cock might be too much for you. In reality, it was almost too much for him, as it forced a deep moan from his throat.

It was a little painful, walls tightening and loosening around him to accommodate the quick stretch, though the sting was worth Heesung's debauched expression. You wondered why,despite the uncomfortable, small space, it felt so much better than the first time. Maybe it was how much both of you had seemed to crave it, or the car forcing even more proximity between you two, as the things you could do were limited. Regardless, you could feel your lower region sticky and warm with the slick that had, apparently, dripped out of you and spread around your thighs and ass. 

You could barely hear your over breathing over Heesung's heavy one. His hands massaged the skin of your waist where he held himself, mostly to ground himself to earth, or so you guessed, because he looked completely gone. His cheeks cherry red and his lips a peach pink, and you succumbed to the urge to kiss him. 

This time, it was slow and calculated. He took the time to feel the rest of you, from threading his fingers in your hair, to ghosting his fingers over your spine from under the dress. You didn't fall behind, though, raising his shirt as much as you could to run your nails over your stomach, stopping to feel his muscles tense beneath your hands as you began to move your hips.

“Slow, baby, please,” he breathed out, it came out way more high pitched than he intended to. 

As much as you wanted to keep messing with him, the world had seemed to fade away, leaving you two alone with the car and the small piece of road that you were parked in, and you didn't feel like breaking the moment just yet. You placed your hands on his shoulders for better stability, and rested your forehead on the crook of his neck.

Whispers of praises poured from his lips. You're beautiful, you're amazing, could stay here forever, and another handful that got lost between all the shit's and fuck’s that also came nonstop. He followed all of his words and phrases by kissing your neck, sometimes even biting. You might find a mark when you look in the mirror, but you cared little about that. Instead, you decided to leave a mark of your own, sucking and biting on the most visible place that you could think of. That's when he began to meet your movements, thrusting up messily in an attempt to pick up a pace. 

“Say you're—,” he gulped, interrupting himself. “You're mine.”

“Always have been,” you smiled against the light red bite mark. 

Your voice as you rode his cock kept driving him closer to the edge. Every moan and whine just made him go faster, having already been close to his orgasm from the grinding before. And as you grew tired, it felt as if he was regaining some form of control. Heesung smirked when you laid, practically limp, against him, allowing him to set the speed that he wanted. He remembered that he loved being in control as much as he had loved giving it to you.

“F-faster,” you pleaded lowly.

Heesung pouted, even when you couldn't see him. “No manners, sweetheart?” 

Most likely, you were about to pay a small price for threatening him to leave. 

You swallowed, so loud you were sure he had heard. “Please.” 

“What? I didn't hear you.” 

“Go faster, Hee, please!” you nearly yelled. It had been hard to get the words out after getting him where you wanted.

“There we go!” 

Were you being pushed down on his cock or was he pushing up into you? By this point, you weren't really sure. What you were certain about, though, was that he reached wherever you needed him to, and the squelching sounds were at its loudest.

“Was he good like me?” Heesung asked, grunting through his teeth. “Were you thinking about me while he fucked you?”

He wasn't expecting to get answers, and he didn't. You were too focused on the feeling of your body overheating from the inside out, and all of your muscles tensing. Your walls clamped around him involuntarily as pushed you closer to the orgasm that you had been chasing since the beginning of your date a few hours ago.

Heesung wanted you to finish first, he truly tried, but there was no way to stop the waves of pure pleasure that hit as he came, and the fact that he got to come inside of you just made it hit harder, and you had to help him ride out his climax because he really couldn't move, just kept himself there with his brows furrowed.

You were close as well, so you didn't really stop despite Heesung reaching his orgasm first. Even through his over sensitivity, he helped you reach your own high. He sneaked his hand between your bodies to rub messy circles on your clit. You kept it slow on him, but he went fast. 

It didn't take long for you after that. Feeling you on his cock as you orgasmed almost made him hard again, if it wasn't so late and you hadn't been going at it for what felt like forever—not that he was complaining—. He got to watch your face contort into pure pleasure, better than any daydreams.

Heesung pressed his forehead against yours, unable to do anything other than show you something, whatever that something was. It lingered in the air, in the way he looked at you through his teary gaze. He kissed you, slower than ever before.

Whatever was going through his mind was deeper than lust, you could feel it in the way his lips moved so softly against yours, holding your face with both hands. You wondered if he knew that you didn't plan on slipping away again.

[shyamanuensis]

The Grief of Gaunt

“I miss you.”

The storms brewing viciously in the skies still remind me of your eyes. The grey wash on tombstones that surround me with names I’m not familiar with a comfort while I sit here and cry. My tears are akin to a symphony overture which only just rivals sound of your voice. A remembrance of each carefully selected, eloquently spoken word we’re share lost in the privacy of our own little world. You were always telling me about how nothing was ever permanent. ‘It’s all temporary my dear.’ I wish you were still here to be corrected. Permanency is something I still struggle with. I’m happy to admit it. Of misery. Of grief. Of love, now lost.

“It gets easier my dear.”

Dealing with October 12th really hasn’t. I dread the date, even this many years on. What I would give for one last touch, one last embrace; one last opportunity to spill to you the truth about what you really meant to me. All the words I should have said. The concoction of nearly mentioned thoughts have been since smothered by silence. They are of not use anymore. You had always prompted me to just go with my gut – say what I thought, how I felt, what I wanted. Regrets a funny thing. You always were one to tell me that I shouldn’t live life with the possibility of regret yet every decision I ever made; ever choice I ever faced, brought me closer to the life I’d always wanted but now couldn’t have. The solemn, earnest secrets I’ve still got under lock and key burn away in journals unread; in the back of my head – it all feels like a waste.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

You lied. I didn’t think you were capable of it. I swore black and blue and cursed your name before I really knew. It seemed that the sunlight of that morning never came outside to play. A darkness weaved looking to loom anyplace happiness tried to hide. My eyes were tightly shut. Burning. Desperate to rewind time and go back only moments before Sebastian had arrived at my door to deliver the news. It wasn’t fair on him. Not to carry this burden. Chagrin. I could tell by his expression that he’d never heard a scream like he had on that day before. Of anger. Of volatility. Of loneliness. Pure sorrow. It was the first and only time I’d ever seen him cry.

“Just stay a little longer.”

My bed is still cold without you. I don’t think I’ve slept a full night since the day you were taken away. Nightmares whisper careless lullabies to me each night and are forever fighting me in my dreams. I haven’t bothered to clean up the bedside table. Empty water glass and the last book we read together still sit there. Untouched. Wishful. Yearning for another chance to bring a comfort I don’t think they could share. Every breath is heavy. Each goodnight murmured and met by the reply of only silence. I hate this, I hate being alone. I hate what you’ve done to me. I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate, I hate you. No, I could never hate you. I just hate that I need to go on without you.

“Forever Ominis?” “Always.”

 You said it was rare to meet someone with a mind just as beautiful as their face. That sometimes, you’d have to lose yourself in order to find what you really need. I know there’s something in my heart for you that will only ever die once I do and until we meet again – wherever that may be. I love you. I miss you. I love you.

Needed some sap and sadness in my life to balance out any form of happiness I had today. Inspiration pulled out of the head of the lovely @eva-fitzgerald thank you, thank you, thank you once again. Hope everyone enjoys the read xo

[caffeinated-bibliophile]

Hello?!

I don't think I've seen anything on here about Never Been Kissed by Timothy Janovsky, and I demand to know why 😭 (I'm kidding!)

This! Book! Is so freaking cute and funny and sweet and oh my gosh I want to unread it so I can read it for the first time all over again.

Do you know how long is been since I've felt that way about a book? No? Neither do I! It's been quite a while, though.

[b1rds3ye]

AAAA i loved that 141 + masked reader one!! omg you're filling my head with mask ideas now...

what if reader had one of those LED masks that showed different facial expressions? just walking around going ":D" ":]" "^-^" "?" ">:(" as a substitute of their real expressions. omfg imagine them coming back from a mission and price is praising them on their work or smth and they just hit him with the "uwu"

I'm glad so many people are liking the prompt, I had a lot of fun with it too!! This is very much giving me Watch Dogs 2 Wrench but also Rina Tennoji omg there are so many legendary masked characters-

The rest of the 141 were confused at first. While the mask provided anonymity, there was also the benefit of hiding facial information to an enemy. But now with these LEDs your emotions could be read like an open book, but ultimately they found it endearing.

Soap in particular loves your mask. Johnny loves surprising you to generate "!"s over the eyes and finds himself smiling every time your mask switches to a new emotion. As demolition expert, he prides himself over the one time he got you so riled up that an error message flashed across your mask. He's also genuinely curious about the mask and will gladly try to help if there are any technical difficulties or if you want a hardware upgrade. He's also the most unnerved out of the 141 if you ever turn the LEDs off, immediately by your side to comfort you as he can no longer read your mood.

Gaz doesn't often provoke you but he does find himself snickering whenever your expressions change from others. It's also an easy way for Kyle to keep track of how you're feeling, even when no one's around your mask automatically goes ";-;" when you're feeling down and he'll check up on you. Whenever he does make a joke though, he's immediately looking to your mask to see if someone will appreciate his humour. He also wishes you turned off your mask more during missions, the little angry face your mask makes isn't intimidating in the slightest and he can't risk getting distracted cooing over you during an op.

Ghost is very curious. Your own mask has him wondering if his own needs a bit of an upgrade - perhaps an LED skull mask with a moving lower jaw. Simon's heart warms up a bit at how you've picked a mask that's still so comically expressive, he enjoys interacting with someone that's so upfront with their emotions. He won't admit it but he finds it cute how your mask goes "-_-" whenever he says one of his horrendous "military humour" jokes. He's considerate of your mask and ensures that there is no water or liquids nearby.

Price's first concern was practicality (how the hell were you going to use night-vision?) but once the mask seems to work without a hitch, he now checks on your mask to not only gauge your mood but as a visual indicator of the overall atmosphere among the rest of the task force. You're now his favourite person to praise. He doesn't give it freely of course, but most of his subordinates will try to hide their smiles as they glow under his praise as they keep up their tough soldier persona. You though? The sudden "! o !" and then consequential "^_^" as you walk away with a hop in your step is probably the sweetest thing he's seen in his entire military career.

It's all fun and games until you turn off the LEDs - usually done in dark/covert missions or when you're interrogating the enemy. That's when you're truly unreadable, a masked terror. As you eliminate enemies in close combat the last thing they will see is their own face contorted into absolute terror as it is faintly reflected like a memory against the bottomless darkness of your visor.

Masked Reader Masterlist Call of Duty Masterlist

[rinneroraito]

L x Reader: You ask if you could give him a hug. Almost 800 words, mundane fluff

~~~°~~~

It's the middle of the night in the headquarters. The rest of the Task Force had already retired to their rooms meanwhile you've taken it upon yourself to not leave your desk until your job was done. You weren't alone, though. L was also there doing pretty much the same thing as you. The last time you checked on him he was hunched over his screens. When you got up to take a short break, you find him on the glass windows overlooking the cityscape.

There was something lonely and haunting about his figure and where he stood, the darkness of the starless night sky and the empty office seemingly enveloping him in it's abyss. The title of "Greatest Detective in the World" isn't an ordinary feat and looking at him like this puts things into incredible perspective. He's just a person, too. Behind the screen and the garbled voice was just another man doing what he could.

You walk closer, standing alongside him staring at the cityscape below, the lights looking like stars that fell from the heavens.

"Have you ever been hugged, Detective?"

He turns to look at you and you meet his gaze. He's still wearing that usual stoic expression. Unreadable. Unsure of how to read him you're now wondering if maybe that wasn't a question that needed to be asked. Even if the reason was for a good cause, maybe it was too personal, especially for him.

"The last time I tried to 'hug' someone, I got kicked down a flight of stairs. Offering that gesture hasn't crossed my mind ever since so to answer your question, no. I have never been hugged. I also think my lifestyle has a lot to do about my lack of experience in that part, I'm sure you've thought about that."

Your eyebrows raise at his answer. Kicked down a flight of stairs? But more importantly, you were stuck thinking about the latter part of what he said. He was right, that possibility was also a thought that you've been speculating on. You turn to face him, pressing a hand to your cheek before you reach out, beckoning him to you.

"Would you like to experience it?"

You could see his eyes widen ever so slightly as he turns to face you, too. Maybe he was confused that it was something you'd offer to him, but it's just a hug, isn't it? And if he refuses then...

"I would, actually."

L shuffled closer to you and your hands slip through his limbs as you bring your arms around his waist, pulling him in.

He's cold.

L's entire frame is cold when you embrace him. He spends most of his time in front of his screens during the investigation, the frigid atmosphere provided by the air conditioning being his natural habitat. His clothes are cool, his jeans colder as you feel them brush against your thighs.

And then you feel his warmth. It's gradual, but the longer you hold him, the warmer he gets.

You can feel his lean muscles through his shirt as your arms circle his waist. He's skinny, making it easy to wrap your arms completely around his body, holding him firm and close.

You can hear his heartbeat as you press your ear to his chest. It's a gentle thrumming, as steady and as level as his demeanor. You can feel the rhythmic rise and fall that he makes as he breathes, and you wonder if he feels your rhythm, too.

L is hesitant, but he wraps his arms around you. Loosely at first, like he's testing the waters. And then you press him closer to you, reassuring him that he can do the same. He reciprocates. His hands press your back firmly, then he moves them to your shoulders, squeezing you to him. You can feel his breath as he rests his face on the crook of your neck.

You hold each other silently for a few moments that feel like an eternity. An eternity you wanted to prolong. Because in this little pocket of time, there was no Kira, there were no mysteries to be solved, no deaths to be brought justice to. In truth, time is not as forgiving as you wished it was. Yet you're here, L is here, and you both exist. Persisting through it all. You're holding him as he holds you. He's holding you as you hold him. And you're hoping to whatever higher being there is that at least, in this little pocket of time that you're hugging him, he feels some sort of solace in it.

"How does this feel, Detective?"

His monotonous voice comes out quiet, almost whispering, breathy against your ear.

"Comfortable. Thank you."

[ja3hwa]

♡ 𝐒𝐢𝐭 | 𝐂.𝐉𝐇 ♡

Day Ten - Thigh riding

【Synopsis】 : You couldn't sit still the moment you started drinking. Jongho ended up dragging you home to punish you by the end of the night.

『Word count』 :  1.21k

-> Genre: Smut.

Pairing: Boyfriend!Jongho x Girlfriend!Reader

[Warnings] : Driving while drunk [don't do that, don't be an idiot]. Power play. Filth. Use of the name Slut. sir kink. Dirty talk. This man knows he’s good. I'm adding dub-con since they are both drunk but they’ve done this before so idk. Read with caution.

Networks: @cromernet @illusionnet @atzhouse @wonderlandnet @k-vanity

Masterlist | Navigation | Kinktober List | Tip Jar ♡

You could feel the coldness dripping from your lover as he drove you home in silence. If it wasn't for your tipsy brain you might have barked at him for taking you home so early. But alas, you were tired since liquor makes you sleepy. And incredibly horny. Jongho knew this very well of course, and yet he kept handing you drink after drink, as much as your heart wished for. He might have spoiled himself also, blinking rapidly every now and then so he could keep his focus on the road. It was a night of celebration after all. A night to wish all your friends congratulations for yet another successful year... 

But the more you let the harsh, burning liquid spill down your throat, the more you craved for your boyfriend. You craved his touch, his lips, his tongue, fingers, cock. anything you could get you’d take. Jongho had to fight his own composure as you slipped onto his lap to whisper filthy things in his ear. He was lucky everyone was too busy focusing on Yeosang and Yunho doing a drinking contest or how Wooyoung was singing at the top of his lungs to whatever was playing in the surround sound speakers in the club. But when he felt your hips stutter against him, feeling his crotch brush against the wet patch that soaked through your panties and jeans, he was done for. 

He had gotten up without so much as a word, dragging you by the forearm outta the club before anyone would notice. Luckily you had time to grab your bag before Jongho shoved you into the passenger side of one of the cars he and his friends came in. He has to remember to apologise for taking it but that was a later problem. Right now all he could think of was getting into the safety of his home so he could punish his little minx of a girlfriend. 

“Jjong…are you going to speak to me.” Normally your cute pout would make him fold but in this moment, he remained focused on his mission, turning to drive into the driveway before swiftly parking the car. He didn't give you another moment to protest, as he got out of the car with a cold expression. You gulped, your heart racing as you watched your lover take the bend of the car before opening your door.

“Come…” The first word he had muttered to you since the evening began. You took his hand without a second thought, letting him lead you inside. By the entrance of the door, he knelt down to help you unstrap your heels and slip them off, rising once he was finished. He towered over you, his eyes boring holes into your soul. His expression was unreadable and it excited you. There were no words exchanged as he led you to the lounge room. You watched him as he sat with a slight grunt, spreading his legs wide, like readying a throne for its queen. “Strip.”

You tugged off your shirt before unbuttoning your jeans and slipping your belt through its hoops. All the while Jongho sat there, intensely watching your every move, making sure you obeyed him completely. Once your jeans were gone and you were left in your undergarments, your lover patted his thigh, signalling you to take your deserved seat. You placed one knee in the middle of his spread thighs while the other fell to the outer side of his right. You knew what he wanted from you, even in your foggy brain you knew the punishment card you had dealt. “Sir, I-”

“You throw yourself all over me…” He cut you off with a deep grumble, his fingers trickling down your bare back, gently brushing along your spine. “Act like a slut in front of our friends...” he bends his neck to give your shoulder a light daring kiss, one that leaves you shaking in anticipation. “All because you can’t wait to get me all to yourself.”

“P-please Sir I’m sorry…” Your pleading eyes did nothing to soften the blow of Jongho’s words, making this situation all the more pleasurable.

“Sorry?” He scoffs, “You’re not sorry.” His finger twists the band of your panties pulling the fabric taught before watching it snap back into place against your soft skin making you whimper in the slight bit of pain, “You’re my pretty little slut. You’re never sorry for being horny.”

He knew you all too well, the way your body works. How to get to your heart. He knew you inside and out, sometimes you feel he knew you better than yourself. And with the crack in your expression from doe eyes and a pout to a suddenly mischievous smirk, he knew you had dropped the act and given in to temptation. “Be a good girl now and fuck yourself on my thigh. Maybe then I'll let you have my cock.”

You gulped, widening your legs to place your soaked cunt on his thick thigh. Jongho shifted slightly, lazily placing a hand on your hip while the other rested on the nape of his neck as he leaned back. You start off slow, stuttering your hips to find a good rhythm. The way Jongho’s jeans are rough enough to add simulance to your sensitive clit makes your eyes flutter close as you focus on feeling your own pleasure. Your mouth parted slightly and little sighs started to spill out. This was what Jongho wanted, what he had been craving all night. To see his sweet honey get off on his thigh. Take her own pleasure from him. Sure this was a punishment in simple words but in truth, he could watch you for hours, taking your high one after the other until you were crying for more. He would never get enough of it.

And as your hands flew for his shoulder, stabilising yourself to snap your hips in a steady pace. Seeing your focused expression turn into one of bliss and indulgence. He knew you were already close, just a few more strokes. His hand tightened on your hips, helping you quicken the pace. Your brows crossing, your moans increasing. Everything was coming all at once, like a freight train until…. A snap.

“J-jongho…” You fell forward, your head buzzing and hot beginning to overheat. Jongho gently patted your head, soothing you while your high slowly lessened. But he didn't give you much time to relax into his loving embrace, as he pulled you up but the nap of your head, making you hiss.

“Come on Honey. Give me another.” You were in for a long night.

- ♡

[syoddeye]

consequence / hyacinth

price x f!reader | 1.9k words series directory tags: exes, angst, references to depression. a/n: an ex boyfriend. a story. a kiss. ☕

a surprise trap door. an errant self-driving car. a jet engine falling from the sky. anything to get you out of this.

hyperbolic? maybe. necessary? absolutely. forty-five minutes, and you haven’t gotten a word in edgewise. ben drones on about his studio and his upcoming exhibition. you brought this on yourself by doing the polite thing and asking him how are you?—lesson learned. 

it hurts. it blisters to hear how happy and successful he is and how he’s moved on from the breakup. as if he didn’t leave you hanging with a dinner you couldn’t afford after admitting that he cheated. he hasn’t asked about your wrist, your old flat, or your art career.

eventually, he stands. sets you free.

“i should go, long trip home,” he says, eyes glued to an incoming text. “it was lovely to catch up. thanks for holding onto this junk for me.” he hoists the box off the seat beside him and tucks it under an arm.

you let him kiss your cheek. “yeah. of course.”

he doesn’t look back. you wish you could do the same. 

you order another cider and resolve to not remain looking like the miserable slump you are.

~~~~

>> are you in town?

>> if you are, i could use a drinking buddy

john’s hair is still damp when he spots her at a two-top in the garden, nursing a cider. he waves, then ducks inside for his own drink. his head buzzes with whatever this invite means.

he checked with the florist twice to ensure the flowers arrived intact at her place. made the woman on the phone read back his apologetic note and bit his tongue when she reminded him it wasn’t her ‘place to say whether it sounded good enough or not’. he never heard if she liked them.

there’s a stiffness to her smile but relief in her voice. “you came.”

“‘course.”

“how’re you?”

in six words or less, he knows something’s off. he eases onto the seat, trying to exude a sense of humor and not telegraph his one hundred questions. “undercaffeinated, but i’m more interested in how you’re doing.”

“i noticed you hadn’t stopped in.”

“didn’t think you wanted me to.”

“about that. it was rude of me to kick you out without warning.”

guilt isn’t what he wants. he adjusts course to shoulder the blame. “i crossed a line.”

she isn’t having it. “please, it was rude. i know you weren’t trying to…”

“cross a line? overstep?”

her mouth wavers undecided between a frown and a smile. “you didn’t know. i could’ve explained. spare you £45.”

you. little.

“so you did get them. the note, too?” she nods. “then why the radio silence? hyacinths a bad choice?”

“no, they’re perfect. i just. i sort of froze. i had a rough couple of days.”

the hangdog expression she hides with the glass makes his chest hurt. “i’ve been told i’m a decent listener.”

“it’s a long story.”

“i got time.” he offers quietly. “just got back. caught me in the shower, actually.”

her eyes narrow, curious. “did you dress and come straight here?”

“well, it’s generally frowned upon to walk around naked.”

he beams at her laugh, her shaking shoulders. for a moment, her whole face lights up. it relaxes her posture as it peters off, leaving her looking less like a cornered mouse than when he initially sat down. 

“so.” john pushes carefully. “the paintings.”

her smile lapses into something unreadable, a pause to find the right place to begin. her fingers trace the table’s grate.

when she finally speaks, she refocuses. meets his eye. good. he doesn’t want to twist her arm to get the story. the tale starts innocently enough.

the woman is hannah, her best friend and a ceramicist. they met on the first day of her mfa and were paired for the terms project shortly thereafter. they quickly became inseparable, until his girl met ben.

~~

“i can’t talk about hannah without talking about ben. to talk about ben, you need context.”

john leans in. his thick eyebrows lift in a silent go on. 

“they say it happens when you’re not looking, right?” you nervously laugh, smiling at the table sheepishly, unable to meet his eye. “well, i met ben at a networking event. last place i thought i’d find a date, rubbing elbows with alumni. but he introduced himself, said he liked my portfolio book. told me about his work and all these shows he’d done. he took me to lunch the next day.” 

you wince at the memory, crystal clear and acutely embarrassing. how starry-eyed you’d been. your throat dries, sandpaper scraping down your esophagus at the thought of ben scribbling his number on your wrist. you clear your throat.

“then he asked me to dinner. during lunch.”

if john’s disgusted or disappointed, he doesn’t show it. his self-control is infuriating yet reliable. steady where you’re shaky.

why can’t i be like that?

you push on.

“without diving into minutiae, i eventually had to introduce hannah and ben. they hounded me, because if i wasn’t with one, i was with the other.” 

“jealous of each other.”

“i think so. i agonized. they’re big personalities, i thought they’d clash.” you replay their first meeting in your head. you have a thousand times. “and they did.”

~~

‘differing artistic opinions’ and ‘absurd expectations’ are the root causes of the squabbling she describes. her words, not his.

(he thinks of less charitable ways to characterize interpersonal conflict.)

barrages of text messages competing for her attention. underhanded attempts to get her to cancel plans with the other. emergencies that turned out to be trivial. guilt trips. one particularly ugly screaming match at a mutual friend’s birthday.

(if it were him, he thinks, they’d’ve lost privileges long ago.)

“it took weeks for them to come around to the idea of each other.”

“what was the catalyst?

“me again.”

john hums. he watches her rest against the back of her seat, her arms crossing and tightening over her chest. compressing herself as much as she can. embarrassment rolls off her in waves. he doesn’t say a word, afraid he’ll cut what courage she’s mustered off at the knees.

she has her own idea.

“can we—are you finished?” 

his glass is two-thirds empty, and he polishes off the rest. a fist squeezes his heart when her lip twitches at his abruptness. she makes it difficult to be collected with his interest.

“where to?”

“where else.”

it’s a challenge, defending oneself from an insistent, bullying cat. cece shows no mercy.

“she likes beards.”

“does she see many beards?”

“just a theory.” she leans against the cushions, watching him and the cat, a glass of water held in both hands. “yours is the only one she’s tried.”

in the end, after negotiations, cece loafs between them. her purr a white noise.

“where were we?” her tone suggests she knows precisely where.

“the truce and you.”

her eyes find a spot past his head to rest. he’s tempted to tilt his head into her line of sight, assuming that nudging her on home turf’s a safer bet than in public. but the hesitant, almost imperceptible exhale that leaves her keeps him still.

“alright. so. me.” her chest expands with another sigh. “i was already struggling two terms into school. really struggling. when i applied, i had this clear vision, but then classes started, i met my peers, and suddenly it felt like everything i thought i knew just disappeared. nothing looked right, nothing felt right. i pulled constant all-nighters. sat through brutal critiques. i’m lucky i had thick skin from my job, otherwise, i might have dropped out to join a convent or the circus.”

immediately, his mind conjures the image of a tattooed nun, swiftly followed by a tattooed strongwoman. his lip quirks. he hastily buries what those do for him. later. 

their gazes meet briefly to share a smile.

she licks her lips after a drink and sets the glass aside.

“they realized their bickering wasn’t helping, so they put their heads together. kind of forced us to become the three musketeers. they helped me where they could, and things smoothed out between them in the process. he found her ceramics shows to exhibit. let her move her wheel into our joint space. we were in close quarters, and i needed it. i needed them.”

a couch width is suddenly too far a distance with how she crumples. something difficult passes over her face, and she excuses it with a shrug.

“despite their joint efforts, i barely scraped by that first year. i was burnt out, miserable, and i spent two weeks holed up alone, trying to not go off the rails.”

oh, sweetheart.

“where were they?”

“hannah was visiting family stateside, and ben was traveling for work.”

not that his schedule allows flexibility, not that he’s behaved the perfect partner in the past—but john knows instantly that he would not have left her. he’d’ve been there. the more he hears about ben, the more he wants to meet him. come to a violent understanding. impart a lesson or two on loyalty.

“when ben returned, he told me he decided to move here to ‘reconnect with the country’. something about ‘capturing and celebrating the bucolic’. he wanted long-distance, but i, uh, i said i’d rather quit and move with him. we fought and he called in reinforcements. at hannah and ben’s…encouragement, i finished out the term. and it nearly killed me. as you know, i withdrew.”

john often reads between the lines. a vital skill, interpreting indirect and unintended communication. what’s unsaid. shame pulls her inward again, a moment where she seems smaller. swallowed by the enormity of whatever she doesn’t say. can’t say.

“i know they were disappointed. they didn’t need to say anything. hannah felt abandoned, and ben burdened by my tagging along. i got this awful feeling the morning we left and i ignored it. i was convinced leaving school behind and taking a break from art would fix me.” 

cece stretches, stands, and allows herself to be scooped up. 

she holds the cat under its front legs, bringing their faces closer together. “but it’s like that saying or whatever. ‘wherever you go, there you are’. i got here. settled in. and i was still a loser.”

it’s instinct.

“you’re not–”

she bulldozes.

“i started working at the café. ben booked murals. he painted the big one a few streets over.”

he’s familiar. “the one with–?”

“yep.” she releases cece. “he tried to get me to paint. he begged me. but i couldn’t do it. things took a turn last summer when ben won a huge job in the city, which snowballed into an invitation to exhibit. hannah got busy with the final stretch of the program, and couldn’t visit much.”

“so you were alone again.”

“yeah.” her voice thins, then breaks. “alone again.” she digs the heels of her palms into her eyes before a single tear drops off her lashes. 

john’s beside her before doubt seeds itself in his mind. one arm gathers her to his side, his chin lifting then settling atop her head when she tucks closer. his other arm winds around her, and the slight tremors of her distress ripple through him. she’s quiet, not quite sobbing, but sucking in deep breaths. he rubs her back in a slow circle, murmuring nothings.

“what do you need?” he asks as she gradually stills.

she sniffs. 

“sleep.”

without thinking, he kisses the crown of her head. “okay.”

john only catches a glimpse as she hands him a quilt. but he sees them. blue hyacinths, pinned and drying above her bed.

“sorry. this is all i got. you set?”

he smiles at her sweet, tear swollen eyes. 

“yeah. i’ve got all i need.”

[dandylovesturtles]

havin' all these Splinter and Leo thoughts. augh.

this is partly the fault of @/turtleblogatlast's post about Leo just wanting to make Splinter proud.

post-movie

...

Seven days post-invasion, and Leo is feeling (relatively) pretty good. Sure, he's still on a truly ridiculous amount of painkillers and he can't walk two steps without collapsing, but he's able to stay awake and talk to his family and considering where he thought he would be right about now, well... that's everything.

So yeah, he's feeling pretty good. He just finished his lunch of soup and a protein shake, warm and a little drowsy while he listens to April talk about some of the more ridiculous conspiracy theories that have started spreading on the surface. Donnie's tinkering with one of his smaller inventions while he listens, Mikey is nestled in Raph's lap, and everything is calm and cozy in their makeshift medbay.

And then his dad walks in and says, "I would like to talk to Blue, please. Alone."

And suddenly Leo doesn't feel so good anymore.

"Aha, wait," he says quickly, reaching out and grabbing April's sleeve just before she rises from her chair. "Whatever it is, you can say it in front of everyone, right?"

Splinter shakes his head. "This is a conversation I think it is best we have in private." He makes a shooing motion at the others, and April pulls her sleeve from Leo's fingers with a helpless shrug.

"See ya in a few, Leo," she says, then walks out. The others look from Splinter, to him, then back to Splinter, and one by one they each get up and shuffle out, too, with their own hasty farewells.

Traitors, every single one of them.

The door closes, and Leo finds himself alone with Splinter for the first time since coming back from Staten Island. Or at least, the first time he can remember. He was pretty out of it the first few days; most of what he remembers is muddled and confused. And embarrassing. He cried a lot more than he'd care to admit.

Splinter hops into chair April was sitting in and pulls it closer; he has to stay standing to be anywhere near eye level with Leo. He wishes he could read Splinter's face, but his expression is giving nothing away. Sometimes it's easy to forget he spent a not-insignificant part of his life as an actor, until something like this happens.

Leo decides to speak before he can. Head him off at the pass, or something.

"If you're going to yell at me, just remember my eardrums are already damaged."

Which is true - turns out being 1, too close to an exploding alien spaceship and 2, getting punched in the head repeatedly by an alien very mad about said exploding spaceship is bad for the ears, even when you don't have outer ears like a human. So super loud noises are a bad idea right now, and thus Leo cannot be yelled at. Flawless logic; maybe he can keep using that every time he gets in trouble.

For the first time, his dad's expression shifts, just a little. A deeper frown, a heavier set to his brow.

"You think I came in here to yell at you?"

Leo feels his stomach twist. Does he have to spell it out? "I mean, didn't you? That's usually what kicking everyone else out is leading up to."

"I see..." Splinter is still unreadable, looking a little too intensely at Leo. "And what do you think I want to yell at you about?"

He really does want it spelled out. Leo suddenly realizes that there won't be any yelling because this is his punishment: to admit everything he's done, to speak all his sins for his dad's ears. Lay it all out in his own tongue and show that he understands, really and truly, the depths of his screwups.

Oh, he understands. He understands it so well he may choke on the words.

"...For losing the key," he says finally, and it stings on its way out. He hasn't talked about it since it happened; every time he tries to say anything to the others, they shush him, saying, "It's okay, Leo, everything is fine now."

It's not okay, and everything isn't fine, and this is when he finally hears about it.

Finally, an identifiable emotion on Splinter's face: horror, dawning clear and present. And Leo doesn't understand that, because doesn't Splinter know he lost the key? He was there for that conversation, wasn't he? Leo's memories of that day have grown a little hazy between the drugs and the recovery and the fact that thinking about it for too long makes him go fuzzy around the edges, but he's pretty sure he remembers Splinter being there. He flicked popcorn at Leo's head. He probably should have done more than that; maybe then Leo wouldn't have made such a mess of things.

Splinter doesn't say anything right away, just stares at Leo with that horrified expression, and the silence is so scary that Leo starts filling it without even thinking.

"I was kidding about the whole... not yelling at me thing. I know I deserve it. I mean, I was fooling around, doing what you and Raph told me not to do, and I doomed the whole world doing it! Some leader I am, right? And I know I'm not exactly your favorite son to begin with, and that's fair, because I keep letting you down, but this is definitely my worst screwup to date, and you yell at me when I don't close the fridge door all the way or throw balls around the TV room so why wouldn't you yell at me for destroying the planet, right...?"

His voice peters out at the end, too hoarse to continue. That's the most words he's strung together over the last week, and for the first time he's glad for his injuries, for stopping him from spewing any more embarrassing word vomit just to fill the air.

Splinter is still looking at him with that same horrified expression. If anything, he just looks more upset, which means that Leo at least accomplished his goal.

Leo's waiting for the yelling to start, but when Splinter finally says something, it's, "You think I have a favorite son?" throwing Leo for a loop once again.

"Uh, yeah?" he says, because that's all there is to say. He's always assumed it's Donnie - the "funny one", the one who fixes Splinter's TV when it's broken, and the only one of them likely to get a real job and move out of the house. But even if it's not Donnie, it's gotta be Mikey, or Raph. His brothers are amazing and talented, and all Leo has ever been good at is winning the Lair Games.

Splinter closes his eyes a moment, and when he opens them his face moves back to a more neutral expression. "I do not have a favorite son," he says, firm and serious. "I love all of you just the same."

Leo thinks that can't be true - if it is, he feels bad for the other guys. But he doesn't think he can just say that, so he says, "Yeah, Dad, of course," instead.

Splinter looks a bit crestfallen. "You don't believe me?" he asks, and shoot. Leo has no idea how to respond to that.

"...I know you love us," is what he says. And that's true, it is! He just doesn't know how his dad could like him as much as the others.

Splinter's expression turns sad. He reaches out and lays a furry hand on Leo's arm, careful of his bandages and all the many wires he's hooked to. "You think you doomed the world?"

"I lost the key," Leo repeats. "It was all my fault. It's why I had to..." His voice fumbles over the words, and he revises. "It's why it had to be me."

Splinter's mouth twists. He climbs out of the chair and onto the mattress, careful not to jostle Leo as he settles down on his knees.

"Blue," he says softly, gently palming Leo's face this time. "None of this was your fault."

Leo's stomach twists again. He thought he was being punished, but somehow this is worse.

"Yes it was," he argues. "I lost the key," for the third time, "and... and I ignored the order to retreat, and got Raph captured, and and and, I ignored the guys and tried to force our way into Metro Tower, and it was me who told Donnie to try to fly that stupid ship, and because of me Mikey had to-"

"Leonardo," says Splinter, sharp, and Leo goes silent. His dad looks devastated, but he keeps his hand on Leo's cheek, brushing with his thumb, and for the first time Leo realizes his skin is wet. Splinter sighs heavily, his entire frame seeming to droop with the weight of it.

"Leonardo," he repeats, softly this time. "You did not doom the world."

"But-"

A furry finger on his lip quiets him.

"You did not doom the world," Splinter repeats, once again firm and serious. "You did not take the theft of the key seriously, because you did not know what it was, the threat it represented. But it was the Foot Clan who chose to use that key, fully knowing what evil it would unleash. That is not on you, my son. The responsibility falls squarely on them."

Leo doesn't know how much he can believe that - isn't it their job to stop the Foot Clan? But Splinter looks so sure as he says it, and his hand is still tender on Leo's cheek, and for the first time a little bit of doubt seeps into Leo's heart, telling him that maybe, just maybe, this wasn't all his fault after all.

But still...

"Even if that's true," he says, with heavy emphasis on the if, "everything I did after that-"

"You are young," his dad interrupts. "You are inexperienced. You are learning. And the amount of growth you showed us all, even over just that one day... You shined as brightly as I know you can."

Again, Leo's stomach does a twist - but it's a happier one, this time. Splinter's voice is sincere, leaving no room for doubt, and Leo can almost, almost believe that this is true, that his dad has believed in him from the very beginning. Has seen something in him, whatever it was that led him to make Leo the leader, that lead to him putting trust in Leo.

He just wishes he felt like he'd done more to earn it.

"You did not doom the world," says his dad again. "You saved it. But, it never should have been like that to begin with. You should never have been facing down such a fierce foe so young, especially as alone as you boys were. And you-"

His voice becomes choked up, and Leo's heart lurches.

"You... sacrificed yourself to save us all. I... I am your father, and I... could not protect you."

He's crying. His dad is crying, and Leo feels panic, reaching out to try and stop this.

"Dad-"

"No." Splinter holds up a hand, giving his head a hard shake. "All I ever wanted for you boys was to save you from the sacrifices asked of our family. And yet I could not - and for that, you paid dearly. You almost paid the ultimate price, and we almost lost you forever."

A thick knot forms in Leo's throat, and he can barely get out, "I'm okay, Dad, I'm here."

"Yes you are." Splinter squeezes his shoulder desperately. "You are here. You are safe. But that doesn't change that it should not have been you to begin with."

Leo watches in dawning horror as Splinter steps back, then kneels over on the mattress.

"This is why I came in here, Blue. Not to yell at you. To apologize."

He presses his forehead against the sheets.

"I am so sorry that I could not protect you."

He's crying. So is Leo, openly now. He reaches out for his dad, fumbling for his shoulders and urging him to straighten up.

"No, Dad... This wasn't your fault!"

"But-"

"No! It was just... it was just a really, really shitty thing that happened, okay? It was the Foot Clan, and the Krang, but it wasn't- it wasn't..."

Splinter raises his face and looks at him, and suddenly the words he's been trying to get Leo to believe for the last several minutes barrel into him and Leo crumbles.

"...I didn't have to do it," he says.

"No." Splinter gets up, coming closer. "You had nothing to atone for. You did it because you are brave, and you are kind, but this was never yours to fix."

Leo sucks in one harsh breath, then another, and then he's sobbing harder than he ever has in his life, and his dad hugs him tight, his arms warm and his fur soft where Leo buries his face in his shoulder.

All the feelings he's pushed aside - the ones he didn't think he had the right to feel, because he'd had to do it, he had to make up for his mistakes - bubble over, gripping him with grief and despair but also relief, that he's still here to cry and be hugged by his dad.

"I was so scared."

"I know."

"I thought I wouldn't see you guys again."

"I know. We thought we had lost you, too."

"I just... I didn't know what else to do... I couldn't let him... I couldn't..."

"Shhh, it's alright. It's over now. We're all safe."

Leo hugs his dad back, as tightly as he can with his injuries, and sobs and sobs until he's all out of tears. And all along, his dad tells him he is safe, he is good, and he is loved.

Later, Leo feels even better than he had before.

[lale-txt]

❈ 𝐬𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐰/ 𝐍𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐢 & 𝐠𝐧!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

where Nanami and you spend the first morning in your new house by the seaside...

a/n: happy, happy birthday @bas-writes!! another year around the sun, another year closer to dilf age. either way i hope it will be a good one for you! wishing you all the best and sending warm hugs (´,,•ω•,,)♡

cw: brief mention of alcohol, rest is pure fluff word count: 1.4k

Never would you have thought to wake up in a house by the seaside, but here you are. Your house, to be precise. It still feels like a dream, and it probably will for a long time while you settle in and really make this place a home.

It’s still early, the sun is barely up, and all you can hear are the waves crashing against the shore outside, and the soft breathing of your partner in bed next to you. Peaceful, his face relaxed, as it has been ever since you finished packing up the last moving box. You’ve fought enough in the past. There were times when you thought you wouldn’t make it; rope dancing on the verge of death and crawling back towards the light with bloody palms. It’s what you do as jujutsu sorcerers, it’s what’s expected of you.

Nanami had always dreamt of settling down somewhere by the sea, of leaving it all behind. He told you about it one night in the corner of a dark bar, after a perilous mission neither of you knew how you made it out alive, the aftershock still rattling in your bones and soothed by too much whiskey. 

His fingers were dancing over the rim of his emptied glass, and he didn’t look at you, because he knew he’d spill the words all over the counter, about this deep, ravenous affection he felt towards you. Instead he spoke softly about his dream house, his voice low and raspy. How he imagined blue window frames and kitchen herbs growing outside, and a back door that always creaked a little leading towards the shore, and shelves up to the ceiling filled with books in the bedroom and having all the time in the world to finally read them.

You had your eyes closed while listening to Nanami, your hand slightly resting against his on the bar counter, your knees touching, neither of you pulling away. You could picture it all so clearly–picture him so clearly. Nanami didn’t belong to the jujutsu world; his heart was too kind, shining way too bright, and that’s what attracts those who want to diminish it. No, Nanami clearly belonged in this house by the seaside, his only worries being which of his unread books to pick up for reading next and if the dough for his bread has risen enough to put it in the oven.

“Am I allowed to visit you there?”, you were asking with an amused smile, resting your head on your elbow while looking at him. Despite the playful teasing in your voice, your heart felt so heavy, torn apart by deep longing and a fear of losing who wasn’t even yours. Silence fell between you. Nanami had loosened his tie before running a hand through his hair, sighing deeply. There was something on his mind, as if he was pondering on his next words. 

“No,” he had mumbled before looking up from his glass, seeking your gaze. For a brief second, his eyes were flickering to your lips, then to your eyes again. Thinking back, this was probably the moment his resilience within him crumbled, his equally tired heart giving up on denying his true feelings towards you. A smile had tugged on the corner of his mouth. 

“No, because I imagine you living there with me.”

What followed were thousands of kisses, countless nights of keeping the loneliness ashore by holding each other in your arms, mumbled confessions against every inch of your bare skin, you moving into his apartment and packed moving boxes a few years later… everything leading to waking up after the first night in your seaside house of your dreams. 

You are finally free. 

Nanami’s arm rests around your middle, instinctively pulling you closer even in his sleep, as if his body remembers the shape of you. The only thing he’s fighting now is sleep; torn between stirring awake and wanting to keep his eyes closed for a while longer. When you brush your lips gently against his forehead, Nanami lets out a small groan and his eyelids flutter a little. 

“Shh,” you whisper and run your fingers through his hair. “Sleep, it’s still too early.”

“Up already?”, he mumbles, his voice still drowsy and hoarse. He forces his eyes to open a bit more, big hands cupping your cheeks. “Did you have a bad dream?”

You shake your head slightly and nuzzle your face into his palms, taking a deep inhale and laughing quietly when Nanami gently pulls you to his lips, humming a little. Even half-asleep his ways of showing you his affection know no limits; as if every second he spends not kissing or touching you is a wasted one.

“We made it,” you speak gently against his lips, brushing a few strands of blond hair out of his face, tracing his cheek bones. Nanami lets out a content sigh, visibly melting under your touch. You spent many mornings like this together, limbs intertwined and whispered sweet nothings in your ears, but today feels special somehow. Even though most of your belongings are still in boxes, this place feels like a home already.

“We did, my love,” Nanami mutters back and brushes his lips against yours once more. It seems like he doesn’t want to fall asleep again either, rather be awake with you at dawn while listening to the sound of the shores while the sun slowly rises. You smile softly, your hands wandering over his torso, his skin warm and velvet under your fingertips; and Nanami kisses down your jaw and your neck in return, nuzzling his face in the crook above your shoulder where his breath is hot and heavy against your skin.

You stay like this for a while, your hearts finding a steady rhythm. Neither of you feels the urge to get up, not even to grab some coffee and tea (you’d have to find the box with kitchen stuff first anyway). It’s like the reality has to sink in first, that you are finally free of your shackles; that the heaviest decisions from now on will be which sweet little treat to get from the bakery down the street and where to built another bookshelf in your house, because you will run out of space inevitably. 

“Do you ever think about the mysterious ways life works?”, you think out loud while staring at the ceiling. “Like, if you hadn’t kissed me at that bar one night–”

“Then I would have kissed you another time, another place. Everything led me back to you,” Nanami interrupts you, tenderly, and pulls you closer so your head rests against his chest. His fingers run up and down your spine, enjoying your bare skin against his. “My heart was orbiting around you. It still does.” He kisses the top of your head and sighs deeply. “You were always the light that guided me. For the longest time, I didn’t dare to think much about the future… until you waltzed into my life. And changed pretty much everything.”

You look up at Nanami. His expression is soft, apologetic almost. He looks at you with pure adoration and a gratefulness you can feel deep in your soul.

“I really love you, utterly and entirely, with all my being,” he mumbles before tilting your chin up with his fingers, gazing into your eyes, before kissing you again. Your lips part for him so willingly, they always do. Nanami has his ways of making you fall apart in the best way possible, cracking even the hardest bits of you open like a pomegranate, every bit of you shattering into the loveliest mess.

“You have my whole heart,” you whisper back, blinking back a few tears. Nanami is never overly sappy, but he always speaks what’s on his mind, and in this moment these words had to fall out of his mouth like a vow. As if these bedroom walls will remember the love they held, even long after you two are gone; like a momento for times to come when the two of you will return to being stardust, a tiny glimpse of ‘We were here, and there was nothing but love between us’.

For now, you’ll stay in this bed for a little longer. When you’ve been on the run your whole life, you deserve to rest and to let calmness wash over you. The future is always unknown, but you have a feeling that yours will always be golden; with specs of blue when you’re dancing under the stars together, your feet in the salt water and your hands entwined, hearts ablaze.

[apclyptc]

TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN PT.2—matt ver.

foreword: please read the first part linked here for this to make any sense! i mean technically u could read it as a stand alone but it’s best read with part one 😇

warnings: nice little makeout sesh, fingering, love bites, praise, lots of praise, erm insert more warnings here

༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶

“i pick… matt.” you spoke.

matt’s eyes widened, but only for a moment. you suddenly felt like a fool, he was one of your best friends, you’d known him forever.

but at the same time, this had been a long time coming. it was going to happen sooner or later, right?

nate’s voice brought you out of your thoughts.

“i was not expecting that! i think this game has been my best idea ever so far.”

you rolled your eyes playfully, “don’t get so ahead of yourself, this game is still stupid. but i will admit that it has been funny.” you turned to matt again, his face unreadable and it made you nervous.

“so uh, which room are we even going in?” matt’s eyes averted from yours. oh god, is he going to let you down gently? was his hand on your thigh just a friendly pat and you’d read into it too much because you wanted him to touch you just once?

you’d simply die if that was the case. was it too late to choose waylon?

nate pointed towards upstairs. oh god.

“pick any room. well maybe not mine, i still have to sleep in it tonight.” nate winked, causing a few of the others to laugh.

“cmon, we’ll only be up there for ten minutes. don’t be ridiculous.” matt shrugged off his friend’s suggestive comment and stood from his chair, signalling you to stand too.

‘we’ll only be up there for ten minutes’. you wondered what you’d get up to if you had longer.

you followed matt up the stairs into what looked like a spare room, and he shut the door.

“nate has really outdone himself this time, don’t you think?” matt asked, as if he was putting himself off of an inevitable and awkward conversation.

“yeah… it almost makes me scared to think he’ll try to one-up this next time.” you responded. now that you were up here alone, you were realising the errors of your ways and you desperately wished that ten minutes would be over as quick as it started.

“listen, y/n. we’ve been friends for a long time now, so i understand if you want to just sit here and wait out the ten minutes.” he explained.

the way he worded it made it seem like he didn’t want to just sit here, but he was okay with it if you were.

surely not…

“we could do that,” you began, mentally noting that his face dropped ever so slightly, “or maybe we could… never mind.” you realised half way through your reply that you couldn’t bear to hear yourself say the words to him.

but matt wasn’t going to let that happen, not now, knowing that maybe what he was feeling was reciprocated.

“we could what?” he stepped closer to you, the room feeling smaller than it was when you first walked in.

“it doesn’t matter, it was stupid.” your breath hitched in your throat, he was getting closer and closer to you until there was barely any space left between you.

“tell me. i just want to hear you say it, once.” matt’s hand came up to rest on the side of your neck, the hand that was adding pressure to your thigh not long ago.

“i mean, it’s just a game, right? so we could… just…” you trailed off as his lips came into contact with yours. it was a soft, slow kiss, that melted your brain into mush.

“this isn’t just a game to me.” he spoke before reconnecting his lips to yours. soft and slow was no longer how your kiss could be described. no, this time it was desperate, charged, with clanging teeth and roaming hands.

you couldn’t believe one silly card game could put you in such a position.

matt walked you to the edge of the bed, sitting both of you down and placing his hand back on your thigh. you pressed them together, trying to distract yourself from the arousal that was no doubt pooling underneath your skirt.

pulling away from you, he mumbled, “i was hoping you felt the same way.”

the needy expression on your face was more than enough of an indicator, but if there was any doubt in his mind, it was instantly quelled when you took his hand and let him touch the dampness of your underwear. he sighed with want, dragging his fingers along the wet spot.

“please, we don’t have long.” you pleaded, and who was he to deny you?

tugging the waistband of your panties down your legs, he admired the glistening of your pussy, begging to be touched.

“so pretty.” a single finger swiped at your core, and you let out a short breath.

matt slowly increased his pace, stroking up and down at your leaking cunt, as if mesmerised by it.

truth be told, he couldn’t believe such a thing was happening. he’d had only the smallest of feelings for you when you were younger, but they had quickly blossomed into something much more, or rather they had torpedoed into a carnal desire for you once you had traded hoodies for tube tops.

he couldn’t control his urges for you any more than you could.

“matt,” you pleaded again, aching for more, “please.”

matt could cum solely from the sounds escaping your throat alone, but he had decided to use his ten minutes to make you feel good rather than himself.

using his fingers already coated in your slick, he pushed them inside you. the moan you let out had surprised the both of you, and you quickly covered your mouth with your hand, letting your other stabilise yourself on his shoulder.

“keep quiet, you don’t want everyone downstairs to hear, do you?” he spoke softly, and you weren’t sure if he actually wanted an answer to his question, though you weren’t in any position to answer. you were too focused on muffling your moans with your hand.

just like he had done downstairs, matt attached his lips to your neck, leaving another bite next to the other, this one darker than the first.

he pulled his head back to admire his work.

“i’d love to cover you in these,” he continued thrusting his fingers into you, “they suit you.”

you felt a twang in your stomach.

“you, fuck, you should leave them in places where no one can see but you.” you panted, struggling to speak without whining expletives.

“yeah? you want that?” matt glanced down at where his hand connected with your pussy, and used his thumb to touch your clit.

“ohhh fuck, yes i want that, keep doing that.” you felt yourself already slipping over the edge, getting closer and closer to sweet release.

“knock knock!” nate’s voice taunted from outside the room as he thudded on the door, “times up!”

you instantly felt embarrassed. did he hear all of that?

“i guess we weren’t quick enough.” matt pulled his fingers out of you.

“yeah i guess no-” your words were cut short by matt sticking the fingers that were just inside of you, into your mouth.

“clean my fingers for me, would you? i got them all messy.” he smirked at the implications of his words.

you did as you were told and licked your own arousal off his hand, feeling your cunt clench.

“there’s a good girl.”

straightening yourself out, you opened the door to a beaming nate.

“so? did you keep my sheets clean?” he asked.

“shut up, dude. we didn’t even do anything.” matt denied, walking past nate and back downstairs with you to the others.

nate followed behind, “then how come y/n has another hickey?”

like a deer in headlights, you stopped in your tracks.

“no comment.”

༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶

a/n oh my god this is so so so ass. this is what i get for getting drunk instead of updating and having to rush writing this bc everyone’s waiting.

regardless, i hope it was worth the wait! now all i have to do is write the whole chris chapter and pray it doesn’t come out as terribly as this

bye….

© APCYLPTC 2023. do not repost, translate, or duplicate any of my works here or any other websites.

[azu1as]

tangcheong au where the tang elders set up an arrange marriage for their dark saint to make sure he doesn't run off and become part of another sect.

they want his power to remain with the tang and be used FOR the tang so they find a suitable marriage partner for him.

when he hears of the potential marriage, chung myung absolutely laughs off the idea.

tang bo agreeing to settle with some random girl? TANG BO?

Absolutely ridiculous.

He can't wait to meet up with Tang Bo again and hear him whine and talk trash about his family.

"They're really serious about it this time, hyung..."

Chung Myung doesn't know what to make of the unsmiling expression Tang Bo's face fell into when Chung Myung brought the topic up.

"I think...hm...."

Chung Myung doesn't know why his body suddenly felt cold all over. His eyes fell onto the tea that Tang Bo held.

Tang Bo absently swirls the drink around as an unsual tense silence fell between the two of them.

The liquid's swirling motion mirrored the emotions moving quickly through Tang Bo's eyes.

Chung Myung let out a snort that felt out of place, "Why are you thinking so hard about it? We both know you're going to reject it anyway."

Tang Bo looks up and catches his eye. He gives Chung Myung a long, searching look.

And if he really was trying to look for something in Chung Myung...

Tang Bo didn't find it.

"I'm—"

"We both know you're going to reject it, right?"

Chung Myung doesn't understand why he felt such a strong wave of emotion—why he was being so insistent about this.

Tang Bo drinks his tea in one go as if it were a cup of alcohol. His laugh rings oddly in Chung Myung's ears.

"I agreed to it."

"You..."

Tang Bo shrugs. "It was a good match."

"Since when have you ever cares about good matches?" Chung Myung asks, more accusatorily that he thought it would sound. "You've never cared about the Tang Family's orders before. Why care now?"

"We're getting old, hyung. Haven't you ever thought about settling down?"

Yes, Chung Myung doesn't want to admit, didn't you promise we would at the end of the war?

If Tang Bo meant it as a joke, Chung Myung didn't want to be seen as the idiot who took it seriously.

Why was Chung Myung even making such a big deal out of this in the first place?

Marriage wasn't going to stop their friendship. They could still hang around. It wasn't going to stop him from occassionally dropping by the Tang Estate when he was in town.

It wasn't a big deal.

But then Chung Myung thinks about Tang Bo asking to leave early because he had a wife to go home to.

He thinks about Tang Bo telling him he can't go outside Sichuan because his wife wanted him to stay.

He thinks about Tang Bo refusing a spar because his pregnant wife needed him.

Chung Myung never realized how possessive he could get with his friends. Would he act the same if Chung Jin or Chung Mun got married?

....he doesn't think so, but he doesn't think any deeper because of the unreadable look Tang Bo was giving him.

Chung Myung doesn't read too much into his sudden wish that they were drinking alcohol instead of tea.

"Never thought I'd even see the day that the Tang Dark Saint would allow himself to be a kept man."

Chung Myung tries giving Tang Bo an ugly expression, but the way his face twisted and stretched felt uncomfortably stiff and just wrong.

Tang Bo didn't seem to realize though as he turned his attention back to swirling his tea.

Tang Bo wore a small smile on his face that, if they weren't talking about an event like a wedding, Chung Myung would say looked a bit sad.

Chung Myung, with a grin that felt too tight on his lips, clinked his cup against Tang Bo's.

"Congratulations, Tang Bo."

"Thank you, hyung."

[morownic]

now one is too many, but it’s never enough

Don’t tell me you’re happy, because this isn’t love. (So be careful what you wish for.)

warnings/tags: NSFW MDNI (non-graphic smut), non-ultraman AU, afab + fem pronouns, mentions/implications of drug overdose and alcohol abuse

prev. // next — series masterlist · my other works · ao3

a/n: there is a specific feeling im trying to convey while writing this and its the vibe from oh no (peep the chorus lawl) and just kiss her (this one esp in the prom scene + only friend tbh) so i do recommend listening to them while reading this part! so far my writing is very narrative based, i need to work on writing dialogues lol

Surreal was one way to describe the mise en scene before him; Ken felt as if he had and had not seen this before, and that unease pooling in his stomach threatened to grow into constant anxiety as he stayed still.

Now, Ken was just seated on one of the VIP tables near the far back of that same club in Shibuya, the one some of his more rowdy teammates had dragged him to after signing his contract with the Giants, leaning back against the cushion with his left arm on top of the backrest and his right hand holding a glass of whiskey. He was nodding along to whatever Fucile was saying, obscured by the loud music, and it wasn’t long until the foreign player was called into a different conversation by another teammate. Ken took a sip of his liquor to soothe the gnawing coldness in his chest, one he couldn’t quite tell if it was because the beat of the music only served to louden his silence, because he felt out of place even in a room full of people who had practically revered him, or because that feeling reminded him of something from the past that he could not and would rather not recall just yet. Under the dim, multicolored lighting and amidst the thumping of the bass that rivaled his heartbeat, Ken hoped that no one caught on his restlessness while he downed his whiskey in one go, trying to figure out just what was making him restless in the first place.

Realization didn’t hit him like a truck when he saw her approaching the table where he and his teammates were seated, the sleeves of her dress shirt rolled up to her elbows and its first two buttons undone. She was holding her own glass of whiskey as she walked toward his direction without breaking eye contact, her gaze stone-cold and too unreadable for someone who had laid herself bare for him in the past. She looked even more beautiful under this kind of lighting, he thought, and he immediately remembered all those times he had seen her just like this. Still, realization didn’t pour and wash over him like cold water, and he wished it would, because it hurt even more when it didn’t, because it meant that he had been through this one too many times. Instead, it dawned on him slowly, like when he stood in front of her house with a corsage in one hand and a bouquet in the other and somehow understood that she, dressed in a gown that he thought made her outshine an angel, could never be his. It dawned on him slowly, like when he felt as if the world had slowed when she turned around after he hesitantly called out her name, her eyes gleaming in recognition yet her body unmoving from the hold of another guy whose name he couldn’t even remember while he was just there. It dawned on him that what he was feeling was just not the dread that came with feeling out of place in a world that both sang his praises and damned him with faint praise; it was this dread of knowing that, even in her world, he was still out of place.

“Sato.”

It was his first time in almost half a decade hearing her address him by name, and his first time ever hearing her address him by his surname and an honorific. He wasn’t sure if he should be happy that she remembered him or if he should pick the pieces of his heart that broke when she called him with such a degree of unfamiliarity.

“You shouldn’t even be here,” she continued. “You have an injury.”

Her hair was a little tousled, and under the dim lighting, he could barely tell that she hadn’t bothered to cover up her imperfections, something that she would have only done around him in the past. There was only a hint of red on her lips that had begun to fade, with a slight smudge on the left corner of her lips that made his mind wonder. He asked himself how the hell he could even see that and, out of habit, whether she had just left some dingy restroom after a quick hookup with some guy he didn’t even want to know. There were other times when he saw her like this, he thought, all pretty and cheeks slightly flushed from alcohol and practically glowing in the dark and always too far from his reach and never, ever his.

Ken Sato could be a selfish, selfish man; he could have anything in the world, what with how good-looking, well-off, and exalted he was. Yet, she was his first real lesson in ‘You can’t always get what you want.’

“Oh–huh?”

There was a scowl on her face as she leaned in across the table, and Ken could only think about how she still wore the same perfume all these years. He was growing lightheaded from her scent, failing to notice the way his teammates were staring at the exchange between them. There were too many thoughts running in his head at that moment. One was that, of course, she smelled as good as she looked, and it only brought the memories of nights spent in either of their bedrooms to the forefront of his mind. Then, there was the more rational thought of ‘How the hell did she know I was injured?’ that he interjected with another thought of ‘Anyone could tell, dumbass.’ And then, there was this awful, gut-wrenching realization that whatever this was, it was real. What was happening before him, the feelings suffocating his chest—all of them were real. His past with her and the present day where she made her way into his life again were not just one bad dream.

He hated it.

“Get yourself out of here before I tell Coach Shimura to bench you,” she snarled, and he didn’t know why. Vexation he understood, but resentment he did not. If anything, he should have been the one resenting her to death. But he couldn’t, could never. Not even with how egomaniacal he could be, not even with how he felt entitled to rage at the fact that she left him for Japan, just like his father did.

So, for the first time in a while, Ken found himself at a loss for words and only watched as she stood up and turned to address his teammates, her posture much more composed albeit with an air of disdain that was just as telling as his was—that they were both raised in a much different culture on the other side of the world. He briefly wondered if everyone else also damned her for it. He was, however, taken aback by her curt and polite forty-five degree bow toward his teammates, another contrast to her behavior toward him, as she spoke to his teammates in a much calmer and more dignified manner.

“Please remember that you have a game coming up. Take care of yourselves.”

He couldn’t find the courage to stop her as she excused herself and downed her whiskey in one go before disappearing into the crowd. It felt just like this, he thought. He would look at her, realize that there was no way anyone in the world could fill the hole in his heart when it was shaped to her exact likeness, and had to come to terms that, no, even she could not fill that hole. Ken, too, found himself pouring another shot that he downed in one go, hoping that the alcohol could at least outburn the pain searing in his chest. (It couldn’t.)

“Did you know her or something?” Fucile’s question pulled Ken out of his pity party, and he barely registered it as he craned his neck only slightly toward his teammate’s direction, eyes still glued to the empty glass he was holding.

Ken didn’t want to reveal that he did know her for several reasons. He didn’t want to get hurt again, and he selfishly thought maybe, just maybe, if he had kept some semblance of distance and indifference toward her, it could affect her just as much as it had affected him. But even if he wasn’t going to admit it himself, he knew that wouldn’t happen because she still had him wrapped around her finger even after all these years. He thought of the lonely nights he spent thinking about where she was, who he was to her, what they could have been. So his mind settled on the next best—or worst, depending on how you look at it—reason: that even if they were “friends,” even if the arrangement they had was a measure of closeness, even if they had laid themselves bare to each other, with him placing her in his heart next to his mother, there were days when he felt as if he barely knew anything about her, and now, it felt like he probably never did.

“Oh, no,” Ken exclaimed with a little exaggeration, to compensate for the silence that brought the attention of his other teammates. He shook his head, trying to ease the awkwardness and hide his unease by pouring himself yet another serving of whiskey and taking a sip of it. He hoped that his teammates would stop looking at him with suffocating scrutiny.

“We just went to the same high school.”

For the past four years, you found that it had become increasingly hard to put up a proper facade. There was no use for it at home; you no longer lived in Los Angeles where everyone thought you were perfect, and you no longer had to play the role of the good daughter anymore because your parents were long gone. Very few people had ever seen you past the pretense of the popular valedictorian. Your and Kenji’s mothers had passed away, you hadn’t spoken to your college roommate turned friend turned strangers after your falling-out, and he broke your heart into pieces that you had yet to pick up and glue together again to this day. There was another one, if you count his daughter as an extension of himself, which you did at some point as you bitterly laughed at the realization and irony that you could never get rid of him from your world, no matter how many times you tried to. But then you grew to love your daughter too much, even more so than you loved yourself, to think of her as a mere byproduct of failed love, and you didn’t want to turn out like your mother nor did you want your daughter to end up like you.

So, you named her after his mother instead—Emi—because you didn’t want to name your own daughter after your mother, who once invited some bashful younger man that came out of the foyer with disheveled hair, shirt untucked, and pants unzipped while she was lounging in the living room in her underwear, a glass of wine in hand, as she watched another episode of Love Island. Although everything about your daughter would inevitably and endlessly remind you of him, you still did what your mother had taught you best: curse the existence of the man who had taken away and given everything to you.

It was why contempt naturally came and etched itself on your face the moment you saw Kenji Sato since the last time you exchanged bitter words in front of that old diner somewhere in downtown Los Angeles. Years of trying to erase every trace of his existence went down in the drain, because the moment you saw him, you could only think about ‘What if we fuck it up again?’ knowing very well that there was nothing left between the two of you to even fuck up. You spent your first observation of the Giants during practice with a sour expression when you thought no one was looking at you. If Kenji was wondering to himself why he even left his career with the Dodgers behind for a father that was never there, then you were wondering to yourself why you had to come to Japan to escape from someone who ended up always being there anyway. You thought of what to say if he came up to you, or whether or not you should tell him that he had a child he didn’t even know of. All of that was put aside when you moved away from your conversation with Coach Shimura as he nodded in Kenji’s direction, when all you could feel at that moment was deep, indescribable longing and sadness that gnawed at your bones yet your face could only contort into an expression of scorn.

The next day, you didn’t come to practice for another observation, choosing to watch the game recordings in the comfort of your home and your daughter’s company. It was the first time in a while that you couldn’t look your daughter in the eyes properly because she reminded you of that doe-eyed boy you met in sophomore year of high school, and you were glad that she was at least preoccupied with talking your ears off about her new friends.

“The team is here, too,” a voice, one that you recognized had belonged to your senior shortly afterward, pulled you out of your train of thought. “Try to smile when you mingle, okay?”

Ms. Kudo—‘Just call me Eri,’ she said—was less uptight and less traditional compared to some of your previous colleagues. You didn’t know if it was because you were closer in age, because Eri was being considerate of your background as someone who spent almost half of her life in the States, or because she was just simply that carefree of a person compared to the typical office workers that you knew. She reminded you a bit of your roommate in college, and your heart tightened a little at the thought. Still, you weren’t sure how you ended up going along with your senior’s whims, or how you could even get your neighbor to agree to look after your daughter after a rushed phone call. You made a mental note to build your fortitude when it came to rejecting invitations to social outings and to buy something on your way home as a thank-you gift for your neighbor. A part of you reasoned that, since you had had your share of Japanese work culture, you knew better than to turn down a senior’s invitation to have a drink together. But you also knew that Eri was not that kind of person, that she would have understood anyway if you had said no, and then you were faced with the fact that you could use a drink or two considering what you had to deal with on a day-to-day basis. That, and the fact your face twitched at the mention of his name.

“I’ll… try my best,” you answered, forcing a smile. “I’m not sure if I could stay for long, though.”

Eri, who was leaning close toward one of the restroom mirrors and was about to apply her lipstick, paused her movement as she met your gaze on the mirror. She wore a frown that wordlessly asked you whatever you meant by what you said. You chuckled sheepishly as you crossed your arms.

“I have someone waiting for me at home.”

Her face lit up as she exclaimed an elongated ‘ooh,’ completely diverting her attention toward you. “You have a boyfriend?!”

You considered whether you should tell her or not. Maybe it would do you good to have at least someone else in your life other than your daughter. There was no one else left in the world for you, you thought.

“A kid.”

Eri’s eyes and mouth both widened as soon as those words left your lips. “You’re married?!”

“Uh, no,” you interjected almost too quickly after Eri’s exclamation before breathing out a deep sigh. “I just have one kid. A daughter.”

“Oh,” Eri’s response was soft, and if you didn’t know her a little past her cheerful persona, you would have thought it was out of character for her to look as pensive as she was. Still, the silence that lingered between the two of you was awkward enough for her to distract herself by finally applying her lipstick. You simply stood there, staring at the sink in front of you, noting how some of the droplets of water hadn’t dried yet.

You looked back at Eri when she cleared her throat as she put her lipstick back in her purse. “Dad’s not in the picture?”

You shook your head. “Nope.”

“Okay, then,” she said, now turning back to you, her voice gentle and with a small, genuine smile on her face. “Just until 12 AM at most, I promise.”

You smiled back. “Okay.”

She gave you a gentle pat on the shoulder before grabbing her purse and making a beeline for the door. You followed her shortly after, opening the door for her to which she responded with a quick ‘thank you.’ As you exited the restroom area, you heard her ask for your daughter’s name, and you told her. You smiled when she said that her name was pretty, and she was sure that Emi herself was even prettier.

“Also, just drop the honorifics! I’m not that much older than you, you know.”

“Eri, you’re almost thirty.”

“Eek!”

Ken Sato might be prideful, but he was not stupid. He was well aware of his feelings for you. He simply didn’t act upon them when he could have very well done that, considering how often he did things his way anyway, but he pushed away the thought of acting upon them after that night when you asked if the two of you would be friends forever. If he could not have both of your worlds colliding, he’d take any chance he could get just to be a part of your world. So, while he was used to that somber realization and the little heartbreaks that would build up after, he had never felt so hopeless when he saw you walk down the stairs of your house dressed in a soft blue tulle dress that made you look like you came out of a fairytale. Or heaven, he couldn’t choose. You were like an angel, if not more beautiful. And it was at that moment, when Ken should have felt something akin to elation that you were coming to prom with him, that he could only feel the crushing weight of the reality that you could never be his. He forced a smile as he let you loop your arm around his and bid your goodbyes to your mother, and on your way to school, he didn’t know if you could tell that he wasn’t fully listening to your chatter about whoever had been causing drama among the circles you were in.

It wasn’t as if you did not know at all. As a matter of fact, you probably knew that he had feelings for you before he had even realized it. You were used to boys misunderstanding your words and gestures as an invitation, as a hint that they could lead to something more. Most of the time, you would have just ignored their advances until they were bored of you or tired of trying, or you would have turned them down as amicably as you could, unless they had somehow seen you past your sweetheart persona. (Not like anyone would have believed them if they told others that you were actually a total bitch.) But this is Ken, this is Kenji, the first person that you truly thought of as a friend, the first person that you ever let see through you, the first person that you had laid yourself completely bare to, literally and figuratively. You didn’t want to lose him, but you didn’t want to pursue something that could make you end up in the same position as your mother and him turn out to be a man as bad if not worse than your father. You didn’t want him to not be a part of your world, but you didn’t want to depend on him because your mother had taught you to never trust a man, let alone depend yourself on one. So, you did what you do best with all the things you wanted but could never have: you keep them at arm’s length so you could still have them, yet you never settle.

(Years later, you found out that it was exhausting to live a life like that, and you would finally learn to settle once you have a daughter of your own.)

You noticed how he looked at you when he thought you weren’t looking. It was nerve-racking, the way his gaze felt as if it was burning a hole through your back. You had been crowned as the prom queen and was called to have a dance with the prom king, who was some popular guy from the basketball team whose name you could barely recall a couple years later. There was no way you could remember him when you could only think about Ken while dancing with him; you could only think about Ken’s uncharacteristically solemn expression throughout the entire dance, you could only think about how Ken’s body was practically twitching when you had no choice but to laugh at some actually smart joke that the prom king had whispered to you, you could only think about what Ken would do once you were done with your stupid formal dance. You had expected some sarcastic remarks, as he would sometimes give, or for him to drag you to somewhere more secluded to do God-knows-what, but what came after only made your heart tighten in anguish. Ken only smiled sadly at you before asking for a dance himself, holding you close to his chest from the beginning to the end without so much as uttering a word. Rather than feeling awkward, you only felt this strange bittersweetness; the deep, comforting warmth and the profound, inexplicable sadness that both came just from him simply being there.

“Are you going to college?”

Ken had made a quick trip to that one burger joint you loved near your school and brought you to the bleachers to eat together, away from the meddlesome crowd of teenagers that wanted a piece of him or you. You were taking a bite of yours when you asked the question, distracting him from unwrapping his burger as he thought of an answer.

“Probably,” he said before shrugging. “But, like, we’ll see if I can get to the Minor League without college baseball.”

The snort you let out was anything but graceful, yet he found it endearing. “You’re Ken Sato,” you said while chewing, to which he responded with a disapproving look. He was just like his mother in that sense. You swallowed your food before continuing. “Of course you can.”

He chuckled. “You’re right.”

Ken had shared numerous comfortable silence with you, even if half of them were encumbered by an unspoken sadness that the two of you somehow understood. This time, though, he was on edge when you had kept quiet. Anticipation bubbled in his stomach almost violently, to the point where he nearly felt sick and just wanted to put his burger aside before you could say anything that would make his heart drop yet again.

“I don’t know if I’ll go to college here.”

Too late.

“Are you…” He trailed off, pausing for a moment. “Are you going back to Japan?”

Your hum was drawn out before you finally shrugged. “My parents said I’m next in line. It’s not like I can just say no.”

He frowned. “But you can, though?”

“That’s literally not how it works, Kenji.”

The way you deadpanned would have been humorous if it wasn’t for the way you addressed him by his full given name and emphasized the last syllable in mock annoyance, the way you rolled your eyes that contrasted the layer of sternness in your voice, the tone that you would use with him when you were trying to be serious yet lighthearted for the sake of his (or perhaps your?) comfort. He glanced at you, and you were chewing another bite as you looked to the distance. If he didn’t know you well enough, he would have thought that you were just blankly staring at nothing, but he could tell by the slight furrow of your brows that you were having some kind of battle with your own thoughts. He realized right then and there that you might be leaving. You could be leaving. He wasn’t sure what he should feel and when he should start feeling it and where he should even start dissecting it all.

“Well,” he cleared his throat nervously. “Will you be visiting?”

Another shrug from you. “Probably. Probably not.”

So much uncertainty from someone who hated uncertainty. Ironic.

“Are we…” Are we okay? Will we be okay? We won’t fuck this up, right? He didn’t know which question to ask. You were always vague. Untouchable. If he had asked one of those questions, you would just say things in an effort to soothe his worries rather than things you actually mean. “Can we still be friends?”

You remembered asking something along the same lines one night in junior year, within the confines of your bedroom and under the dim lighting of your old star projector. You had asked for reassurance. Reassurance that neither of you would fuck this, whatever the two of you had, up. Reassurance that he wouldn’t let you fuck him up. Reassurance that he wouldn’t fuck you up. But deep down, you already knew that the two of you had gone past the point of no return, of fucking each other up, that if something was to truly happen between the two of you, the pain that you kept contained in your chest, suffocating, would finally course through your veins and gnaw at your bones like some cancerous entity you were forced to live the rest of your life with.

“Yeah, of course,” you lied. Of course you did. You always did. “But what’s going on between us, that’s…”

He nodded, already understanding what you meant. This time, you turned to look at him. You saw him hang his head, seemingly losing his appetite as he stared blankly at his half-eaten burger. You were always like this, he thought. Always vague. Untouchable. He hated it. He hated it so much. You, on the other hand, were trying to decipher the solemn look on his face and suppress the guilt that was pooling in your stomach before you started throwing up the food you just ate. It wasn’t as if you didn’t want him. You’ve always wanted him. He was always the only one you ever wanted. But—

“Yeah,” his soft reply pulled you out of your trance. He was still looking at your burger, absentmindedly nodding. “Yeah, okay.” He took another bite, and you could tell that he was forcing it because he had a slight grimace as he chewed his food and swallowed it. “Be sure to text me about all your… stuff, yeah?”

You nodded, humming as you crumpled the empty wrapper in your hand. “I would say shit like, ‘You have to come to my wedding and my childbirth,’ but you know that I probably won’t even get married.”

He knew. So much uncertainty for someone who hated uncertainty. He knew you were not only going to not get married, but you were not going to let yourself be tied down to one particular person. He knew that even though you had placed him somewhere close to you in your world, he was still not a part of it; that he was not an exception. Ken knew all that, yet he still fell for you anyway. (He knew he had no right to call you stupid then.)

“Yeah, yeah,” he said coolly. He tried to feign indifference, he really did. But the way you looked at him made him realize that he had worn his heart on his sleeve for a moment too long. So, he wore a half-hearted grin as he held out his little finger and asked, “So, friends?”

At that moment, you cursed yourself for the person you were as you linked your own little finger with his, that familiar warmth and a heavier, agonizing weight blooming in and crushing your chest. You could tell he felt the same, somehow, if the way his hand slightly trembled was anything to go by. But you didn’t dare offer comfort that you could not sustain. You didn’t dare let another lie slip through your teeth just to break his heart again and again and again. You didn’t dare to tell him that you loved him, because your fear was far stronger than your love.

“Friends forever, bro.”

And so, the two of you spent what you thought was your last night together as blithely as you could. There were a lot of firsts and lasts that made your heart swell and tighten at the same time whenever you thought of that night. You rode his bike for the first time, and that memory alone made you purchase one for yourself after you enrolled in college. He told you that you looked silly with your dress bunched up carelessly around your hips, even though he himself was staring shamelessly at your bare thighs, but he didn’t tell you that when you took off his slightly oversized helmet and shook your head to untangle your hair was one of the times where he thought you looked the most beautiful. He smoked his last cigarette that night, and the lightheadedness he experienced almost made him try smoking again when you left for Japan. He wondered how did you even manage to smoke at least two a day. You told him that there was a reason why you didn’t mind that he didn’t go down on you, and he realized not only did you make him feel bitter, you also did taste a little bitter. He did eat you out for his own pleasure later that night, thinking it was the last time he could do it anyway. He still thought you were the best he had ever tasted.

And so, you let him sneak into your house for the last time, and you noticed how your mother was seemingly fast asleep on the couch, yet another Love Island episode playing on the television. She wasn’t, you knew that, he knew that, but you led him up the stairs anyway. He made love to you for the first and last time. Made love, not fucked. You knew because it was his first time holding you this gently as if he was afraid you would break or slip out from his grasp yet his hips collided with yours with a force that could knock the air out of your lungs and make you see all the constellations in the universe. You knew because it was the last time—and you just realized that after you let him into your world again in college—that he kept kissing you throughout the ordeal, as if taking a breath was the most unforgivable offense you could have ever done. His kisses weren’t rough either; not the clashing of teeth and borderline painful bites of the lips that you would sometimes get from him. They were slow, passionate, as if he was trying to tell you something wordlessly. You knew what he was trying to tell you. You felt the same way, too. But you simply kissed him back with the same fervor, taking his breath away with you.

The next morning, it was the first time he left without so much as waking you up, and the last time you ever laid yourself completely bare for someone else. It was the last time he let himself think of a future with you where he could finally be a part of your world, and the first time you cried, screamed, upon realizing that you loved him even more than you loved yourself.

There was always something about house parties that would make Ken retch whenever he stepped into the room. He used to think that it was probably the smell of sweat mixed with alcohol and puke somewhere in the corner, or how packed, poorly air-conditioned, and humid the room was that it was surprising no one had died yet from overheating. But the moment his eyes landed on her, he realized that it wasn’t the smell or the humidity that made his skin crawl. It was the fact that every time he stepped into one of these parties, he would either make an entrance with his arm looped around her waist or end up finding her making out with some other guy. It was the fact that every time he showed up to one of these parties, he would either have the time of his life and hook up with her in one of the bathrooms or drink his sorrows away for the whole night while she danced with her friends and some guys from the football team. It was the fact that every time he came to one of these parties, he would almost always come home with a freshly patched up heart broken into pieces again no matter what.

He couldn’t believe his eyes at first. The last time they spoke properly was on prom night, when they had ended the arrangement they had throughout high school. He didn’t have the heart to drop by her house anymore, and she stopped coming over to hang out with his mother. He even had a small argument with his mother because of that. They had kept texting each other at first, but as weeks went by, he stopped sending her memes at random hours of the day, and she stopped telling him small things that happened throughout her days. He didn’t tell her that he had ended up choosing college baseball and enrolled in one of the top universities in Los Angeles known for its varsity baseball team. He spent his days exercising, practicing, going out for a drink or two with his seniors, and coming to a few frat parties that he had been invited to. There was a girl or two that had wanted to involve themselves with him, but he brushed off one of them and scared off the other by muttering the wrong name when she went down on him. Ken did what he could to try to forget his high school days, sometimes drinking one too many to do just that, and that was exactly what he had in mind when he saw her giggling on the lap of some other guy in the middle of one of those frat parties in his freshman year of college.

Ken hesitantly called out her name once he arrived near the crowd of people around the couch, and he swore the world felt as if it had slowed down when she turned around. Her hair swept over her shoulder as she turned, and even with the unbearable anguish settling in his chest, he couldn’t help but think just how beautiful she was. Her lipstick-coated lips parted and her eyes widened with an array of emotions when she finally saw him. He recognized some of them. Realization. Surprise. Delight. Sadness. Guilt. Longing. (He hoped he hadn’t mistaken the last one.) Ken thought he couldn’t ever feel more brokenhearted than when he left her house without even sparing a glance at her front door while he revved his engine and sped back to his place, but holy shit—he thought he genuinely would rather die at that moment.

“Kenji?”

God, he wished he could hate her for how easy his name rolled off her tongue, or how she called out to him with his full given name instead of the name he used to detach himself from his reality. He almost shuddered at the sound of her voice. He berated himself for still being wrapped around her finger.

“Oh, hey,” he replied weakly, yet he willed his body language to be as normal as possible. “I didn’t know you also got in here.”

“Oh, yeah! Totally forgot to tell you,” she said. Ken knew that she didn’t forget. She knew that he knew. A moment passed before he noticed how she didn’t even bother to move off from the lap of that other guy, who was practically staring him down as he spoke with her. If he wasn’t a better person, he would have just abandoned himself to anger and start a fight right then and there simply for the way the guy was looking at him. Ken settled with an awkward nod in the guy’s direction, who didn’t even bother returning the friendly gesture. Asshole.

“No problem, uh…” He trailed off, unsure of what to say. There was so much he wanted to say, but there was no way he would ask for a conversation in the middle of one of these goddamn parties, not when she seemed like she was doing just fine after that whole ordeal on prom night and especially not when he felt as if he was going to punch the teeth off the guy who was holding her as if she was his. (Ken selfishly thought, if she couldn’t be his, then she could never be anyone’s.)

“See you… later?” Ken wanted to hit himself in the head for how unsure he sounded, again.

She exclaimed almost too quickly for his liking. “Yeah, totally!”

Ken was reeling, yet he managed to give her a half-hearted wave and even catch bits of her conversation as he slowly made his way back to the group of guys he came with.

“You know that guy?”

“He’s…” She paused. “We just went to the same high school.”

As he disappeared into the crowd, Ken caught the way she giggled as that guy whispered something to her ear. He stilled when he realized for the first time that, no, this wasn’t just a bad dream. He was there, she was there, and there was still a distance between them that not even an act that was supposed to be reserved between lovers could bridge. She looked beautiful, too beautiful even in the arms of another. He didn’t know how much he could take before his heart actually stopped beating because of some broken heart syndrome, so he looked away and turned somewhere else. He really could use a drink right now. Hell, he could down a bottle of liquor in one go right at that moment just to escape from and forget everything. He only thought of one thing as he shoved his way through the crowd of drunken college students.

I need to get away from her.

“Sato.”

There was a hardheartedness in your voice that even made you shudder when you called out to him. It was weird to call him by his surname when you’ve spent all those years addressing him by his full given name, a right he had only reserved for his mother back then. It was even weirder to add an honorific at the end of it because you knew him too well to be using any sort of honorific, because you were used to whispering pet names in either one of your bedrooms, with lighting as dim as the club you were in. You wanted to throw up at the absurdity of it all. Why did you even come to his table, anyway?

You recalled getting out of the restroom with Eri and was greeted with the sight of a sea of people that just made you want to go home. Eri held your hand as she navigated through the crowd and found the staircase leading up to the VIP section, showing her ID to the bouncer before dragging you upstairs. Her hand felt clammy as she led you to one of the tables where some of the staff members you recognized were seated, along with some new faces that you didn’t bother asking about. Eri patted the spot next to her as she poured you a glass of whiskey, while your eyes darted around and landed on the table near the far back to shake off the thought of just how similar she was to your roommate. The sight of a familiar face, one you knew all too well, successfully did just that; although you hadn’t even started drinking, you genuinely wanted to throw up right then and there. It didn’t take long for you to down the whiskey Eri handed to you in one swift motion.

“Hey, hey, pace yourself,” she said, leaning closer to you so you could hear her over the loud music and chattering. “Don’t come home to your daughter drunk.”

You wanted to snark out of habit, but as you had done for the past four years, you told yourself that you were no longer in high school or college, that you were supposed to be a responsible adult and mother and not some broken teenager trying to cope with your parents’ fucked up marriage and parenting, their eventual deaths, and your complex with your ex-best friend and friends with benefits by having sex with anyone that walked on two legs, smoking until your lungs turned black, and overdosing in the middle of a goddamn frat party. So, you took a deep breath and muttered a ‘sorry’ to Eri, which she only responded with a concerned stare before she was distracted by one of your other colleagues asking her about something. You wiped the damp trail of liquor from the corner of your mouth and shook your head, pouring yourself another glass when Eri wasn’t looking and turning your gaze to the table where Kenji was seated.

Say, perhaps it was liquid courage, even if it was weird to have it when you just had one drink. Perhaps it was your brain trying to trick you into old habits that you had to grow out of years ago, or perhaps it was your heart simply telling you to just go after what you want, like you used to all the time, without caring how others would feel after you’ve laid them bare and take and take and take. Perhaps it was the realization that he was there, he had always been there, and there was no telling how much longer you have until you would have to let him go again because you thought he deserved better. Better than you, who only kept him at arm’s length because you didn’t want to end up like your parents but you also didn’t want to be alone either. Better than you, who repeatedly broke his heart because you could never give him what he wanted, too scared of what ifs, yet you still craved for a place in it. Better than you, who couldn’t even open your world to someone who would give you his world if you had asked.

You were once a good daughter and you might have been a good mother, but you were never a good person, you thought to yourself as you absentmindedly made your way toward his table.

It was hard trying to keep a straight face, but even if you wanted to show your heart on your sleeve, you wouldn’t know where to start. There were millions of thoughts running in your head and feelings brewing in your chest, and there was no time to navigate through all of them in the middle of a packed nightclub while you were trying to confront your once best friend without any clear reason why. Your breath almost hitched when you saw how realization slowly dawned on him, how his expression turned from one of surprise to one that you could liken to your own anguish. You’ve lost count on how many times you’ve seen that expression before. Perhaps once, when you saw him staring at you sadly from the corner of your eye when you had your formal dance with the prom king and talked with your friends while he was mingling with his own circles. Or twice, when you caught how devastated he was to see you sitting on the lap of some guy that had said a pick-up line so corny you didn’t have another option but to laugh. Or when he found you lying on your side next to your roommate in some frat dorm bathroom, barely breathing after snorting lines of cocaine. (But maybe the one time you remember the most was when he used the stuff of your sleepless nights against you in front of that old diner before you could even tell him that your pregnancy test came back positive.)

You ignored the stabbing pain in your chest and willed yourself to speak once you stood in front of him.

“You shouldn’t even be here. You have an injury.”

“Oh–huh?”

You knew how much Kenji loved baseball. That was something that even you couldn’t take away from him, and you were glad that you couldn’t. So you supported him in any way you could; in high school, you practiced batting with him, you came to his games whenever you could with that stupid banner you made, you cheered the loudest for him whenever he hit a home run. In college, you watched his rival teams’ games and analyzed them for him, you helped him come up with an effective training regimen and even joined him on days you were sober, you gifted him a new glove for his 21st birthday that he still used to this day. (You still watched all of his games even after you stopped talking to each other.) Perhaps it was that instinct kicking in, in addition to all of the unease wedging in your chest, that made you lean forward, dismissing his confusion and snarling at him to basically watch himself.

“Get yourself out of here before I tell Coach Shimura to bench you.”

There was a flash of anger in his eyes that only you could see, but he was rendered speechless otherwise. At that, you quickly stood up straighter before he could blow a fuse right at you and turned toward his teammates, trying to appear more dignified than you had been mere moments ago. You bent a little in a curt and polite bow to appeal to them, unclenching your jaw and relaxing the muscles in your face before you spoke calmly.

“Please remember that you have a game coming up. Take care of yourselves.”

You didn’t wait to see their reaction or hear their response, quickly excusing yourself and downing the glass of whiskey in your hand as you turned around. You could somehow hear the clicks of your heels echoing on the floor amidst the loud thumping of the bass, and you swore your heart was about to jump out of its place when you finally returned to Eri’s table. She saw how distraught you were and tried to ask you what was wrong, but you dismissed her by saying you needed to go home because of an emergency and yanked your bag from the seat so harshly that you were even surprised its contents didn’t spill out. You only thought of one thing as you squeezed your way through the sea of bodies.

I need to get away from him.

[starryhologram]

CCCC Band AU Master Post

AKA I made a crack AU where Heart, Mind, and Soul become famous. But now, it’s a more serious and loved AU.

Disclaimer: Like the SCP AU, the HMS in this AU exist in the “real world” as opposed to a psyche/headspace. When the Whole splits, the three replace him. Also, warnings of canon typical v10l3nc3. These versions of Heart, Mind and Soul have been caricaturized, and are fun house mirror versions of their album/canon counterparts. Hope you like if you read!

Heart takes his g. un, the same one he missed Mind with, and he places it to the back of Soul’s head.

“Soul.” Heart bites the other’s name hard. Spits it out with disgust. Soul feels the cold metal press against his skull. They were truly going to usurp him. He didn’t think it would end like this.

“Heart. Please. Put the gu. n down.” He begs, eyes sliding over to where Mind watches from a distance. His face unreadable, Soul wishes he would help.

“Shut the fuck up.” Heart jams the barrel against Soul, knocking him slightly forward.

Should he fight? Continue to beg?

“You can threaten to kill us all but I can’t return the sentiment?!” Heart shouts.

Should he let it happen?

His blood goes cold as he hears the trigger shake in Heart’s grip.

BANG.

Soul falls to the ground.

Heart steps back, dropping the g. un.

Mind walks over to Soul and puts his hand against his neck. “He’s still alive.” He comments.

“That’s fine, I wasn’t trying to kill him, anyways.”

“You’re a bad liar.”

Heart doesn’t say anything in return.

Mind sighs, shaking his head. Best to let Soul recover, then. He wasn’t going to be the one to put him out of his misery, and he had a feeling Heart wouldn’t either.

Mind picks up Soul’s limp body gingerly, his head dripping blood onto his hands. Seeing his face, the skin had torn around where the bullet had exited. Soul’s eye was completely gone.

It was morbid, but Mind continued to carry the other to his room, laying him down on the bed. A few moments later, Heart shuffled in, shoving first aid supplies into Mind’s hands.

“Like this will help.” Mind says sarcastically. Regardless, he begins bandaging up the side of Soul’s face.

The computer in the corner of the room dings with a notification.

“Ugh. I thought we turned those off.” Heart frowned.

“We did, but I kept them on for emails. Stand with him, I’ll see if it’s important.” Mind moves to the desktop, jiggling the mouse to turn it on.

“No way this is real.” He scoffs after a few moments.

“What? What does it say?” Heart demands impatiently.

Mind reads out the contents of the email for the other.

“You’re kidding. Do some background research! Look it up!” Heart raised his voice frantically.

After a few more moments of key strokes mouse clicking, Mind turns back to Heart. “It’s real. What do we say? Should we decline? Accept? This is a very big decision.” He glances at Soul once again. “And honestly, he should decide too.”

“We could let Whole decide.” Heart offers meekly.

“You shot Soul, Whole is probably out of commission as well. We will have to wait. I will let them know to give us time to make the decision.”

Over the course of the next few days, Soul floated in and out of consciousness, the pain in his head ebbing and flowing. He wished he could have had nice dreams, but it was dark and hazy. Something haunted him about how he had gotten hurt. Mind and Heart refused to tell him, and Soul couldn’t bring himself to remember.

The bright side of his dull situation, however, was that Mind and Heart were being so nice to him. They gave him warm food in bed as he recovered, and even spared him from sarcastic quips. He wishes it could always be like this, getting along.

Eventually, Soul was able to remain conscious for a longer amount of time. And Mind and Heart finally decided to tell him once he proved cognizant enough.

“Soul.” Mind announced as he entered the other’s room, Heart trailing in his shadow.

Soul smiled at the other two. “Good morning.” He said softly, his voice had been nothing but kind to them in return these past few days.

“We have to tell you something. And we need… you to help us decide.” Heart stammers, “On what to do about it.” He walked over to stand at the foot of the bed.

“Yeah, of course. What’s up?” Soul asks.

“While you were… recovering. We received an email.” Mind began, sitting at the desktop once more to pull up the page.

“It reads as follows.

‘Dear Tridential Sovereignty, us at Galaxy Star Records have recently found your music and think you have just the talent we’ve been looking for.

We are pleased to offer to sign you as one of our many talented artists. We would be honored to represent you, and help you reach your full star potential.

Kindly, Galaxy Star Records. LA, California.’ “

Mind turns to look at Soul once more. His mouth is agape in shock. “We’ve been offered a record deal?” He asks in disbelief.

“It would seem so.” Mind replies.

“Of course we should go for it!” He exclaims. Mind and Heart almost seem surprised by his answer.

“Uhm.. are you sure? This is crazy.” Heart digs his toe into the carpet absentmindedly.

“I mean, this can only be good right? As long as its reputable! What could go wrong?” Soul looks like he got everything he could have ever wanted for Christmas.

~~~

A man tears himself apart in the dead of night

Grasping at lyrics that aren't quite right

But you’ve head this before

And I’ll never again

Because the spotlight is blinding

And the audience is screaming my name

Please don’t let me lose myself in the fame

~~~

Private Emails are uploaded. Subject: Sign On Offer From: galaxystarrecords@contact.com To: tridentialsovereignty@gmail.com

Thank you so much for accepting our proposal! We can’t wait to start working with you!

First order of business we do need to get settled is the contract. You can access it here, and we will need all of your E-signatures.

Next you can also take a look at a list of preordained names that you can choose to go by as per our guidelines. Your band will still be called Tridential Sovereignty under us, but your individual names will be pseudonyms (No real popstar doesn’t have a stage name!).

You can view our list below.

Luna

Callisto

Oberon

Nova

Kepler

Aristarchus

Metius

Tycho

Voib

Pulsar

Orion

Asteroid

Comet

Thebit

Nebula

Rigel

Quasar

Antimar (antimatter)

[File attachment contract.pdf]

~~~

Private Emails are uploaded. Subject: RE: Sign On Offer From: galaxystarrecords@contact.com To: tridentialsovereignty@gmail.com

Apologies, there was a misspelling in the list of names.

Voib is meant to be Void.

Thank you.

~~~

BREAKING NEWS! Introducing TRIDENTIAL SOVEREIGNTY! VIX NEWS keeps you updated with up and coming artists that you should be aware of!

Your favorite niche internet micro-celebrities become famous! Who would have thought their covers of cult classic Tally Hall songs would have skyrocketed their stardom?

Meet Comet, Nova, and Pulsar! The ‘Heart, Mind, and Soul’- they call themselves- of Tridential Sovereignty. Sweeping the globe with their new music to rock your socks off!

Recently signed on by Galaxy Star Records, after an interested team heard their individual covers of “The Mind Electric” by ミラクルミュージカル (also known as Miracle Musical). These young artists are rising through the charts, and concerts are selling out fast internationally!

We here at VIX NEWS are excited to see where they go from here! Follow us for more updates on Tridential Sovereignty!

~~~

A video titled ‘Late Nite Show Interview with TRIDENTIAL SOVEREIGHNTY’ is uploaded.

The video opens with a studio audience cheering as the host waves at them thankfully, smiling warmly.

“Good evening ladies, gentlemen and other lovely people! We have a special guest for you tonight- at their first television appearance- Tidential Sovereignty!”

The host gestures to curtains that three figures emerge from, the one in a red jacket is waving and smiling just as much as the host was. The two following him are much less enthused.

The crowd cheers as they walk across the stage to sit at a long couch adjacent to the seat the host had taken.

“Thank you so much for joining us this evening!” The hosts says, “Yeah! Thank you for having us!” The one in red responds.

“Now, you guys have been taking the scene by absolute storm- ahaha, pun not intended.” The hosts pauses for the audience to laugh. “But, I’d love to get to know you guys a bit more. You guys all look very similar, is that intentional? Or are you guys triplets?” He asks.

“Triplets is the closest word.” The one in blue states plainly. “Ah yeah! We’re all kind of like brothers, sure.” The one in red adds.

“What interesting responses!” The host laughs. “Now, Pulsar,” he gestures to the one in red, “You call yourself the Soul? What does that mean?”

Pulsar’s smile doesnt faze, but his eyes scan to his other two counterparts nervously. “Yeah, I’m like the Soul… its just… a way of referring to myself, like Nova is the Mind- eh the brains of it all. And Comet is the Heart, you get it? It’s just… the way we make up the Whole… band. Tridential Sovereignty.” He stammers out quickly.

Comet shoves him.

The host is laughing again. “Well that’s certainly a way of thinking about it!” He says, and it eases Pulsar’s nerves. “You guys were pretty popular on the internet at first, right? How’s the transition from the screen to the stage been?”

“It’s been fine, we still do all the main stuff behind the scenes; the music writing and stuff. But seeing fans in real life? Cheering for us on stage? I… don’t think any of us could have imagined it. We assumed we would be stuck in our mom’s basement doing this for a niche audience for our whole career, honestly.” Comet replies.

“It’s crazy how quick things can change!” The host quips, “Hey! Would you guys like to play a song for us?” He asks, the crowd cheers in enthusiasm.

The three nod in agreement, stand up and make their way over to instruments set up for them. Pulsar stands at the middle mic, holding an electric guitar. Nova stands at an electronic keyboard. A blue bass is propped up next to him. Comet sits down at a drum set.

“Ladies, gentlemen, and everyone in between, this is Tridential Sovereignty!” The host announces as the three begin to play.

Pictured: (left) Pulsar with no make up, wig or mask, in casual clothes. (Right) Pulsar within the first few months of rising to stardom, before his outfits became more pink.

~~~

A video titled ‘VIX NEWS: Exclusive interview with TRIDENTIAL SOVEREIGNTY FT. Your questions!’

The video opens with Pulsar, red wig, feathered boa and pink dress in all, sitting on a stool in a white room. He smiles, introducing himself, “Hi, babes! I’m Pulsar, but you know that!” He laughs

The camera cuts to Nova, sitting in the same room, but clearly shot at a different time than Pulsar’s takes. He sits square and upright and says, “Hello. I’m Nova, of Tridential Sovereignty.”

The video cuts again to Comet, slouching on the stool. He waves meekly to the camera. “Hey, I’m Comet.” He says flatly.

A voice from behind the camera calls out, “So, we sent out a form for fans of your’s to ask! And here are the ones we thought would be best to ask you guys!”

“How exciting!” Pulsar claps his hands together. “What’s the first question?”

“Your-claimed- ‘Number one fan’, Pulsar, asks: what is your favorite song?” The voice off screen laughs aloud as she reads it.

“Oh, I have so many favorites, you know! But I think a special one in my heart will always be The Bidding.” He says.

“Nova, an unnamed fan asks ‘if you could go solo, would you?”

“Hm. I do shows on my own often enough. If you mean officially leave Tridential Sovereignty one day? That is yet to be determined.” Nova’s face shows no change in expression as he answers.

“Comet, Rio asks ‘if you could change anything about your life now, what would it be?”

Comet barks out a laugh and then frowns as he collects himself. “Right. Yeah. I mean, is anyone really happy with where they are? I messed up a lot in the past but I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t. Dunno. I don’t think I care anymore anyways.”

“Pulsar, Twine- of course-?” The announcer sounds confused as she says the name. “Do you have a PR team yet?”

“What? Twine? How did… how did you get that question?” Pulsar’s brow furrows in shock and confusion, “That’s a joke… right? I think. Ah, yeah. A joke.” He laughs unconvincingly.

“Nova, what do you do when you encounter writer’s block? From Hayley.”

“I simply don’t. If I don’t feel like writing, I don’t write. Let it come to me. I know what I write is good.”

“Comet, Jedas asks ‘what is your favorite show you’ve performed at?”

“The VMAs were cool. Or the Bubble Dome. I dunno, as long as the crowds are big they’re always great.” He grins.

“Pulsar, Ciddle asks ‘care to show us what’s behind the mask?”

Pulsar puts a hand up to his mask, holding it down to his cheek. “Yeah, no. Not right now. I wear it for a reason.” He looks away.

“Nova, do you guys plan on doing another make-up collaboration? Asks Lori.”

“I think we’ve got some eyeshadow coming out soon. This is better a question for Pulsar.” Nova sighs.

“Pulsar, Faust asks, if you were a cat, what kind would you be?”

“Orange. Definitely.” Pulsar laughs.

“Nova, ‘Bold move straightening your hair, any reason?”

“It’s a wig. And it differentiates me from the other two.”

“Pulsar- or as ‘Smouul’ calls you ‘Pulss,- insert joy emote- te- tec-ah? Muciss? Teach music? Is that what this says?” The announcer struggles through the question.

“Smoul? I know him… too, like Twine. Ah Smoul! I could teach you music! All you gotta do is ask! But I also offer courses on music too! They should be linked in my Instagram bio!”

“And finally, one more for you Pulsar, from another unnamed fan, ‘Are you going to answer for your growing list of controversies?”

Pulsar frowns. “Hey, I apologized for those. And I promised to do better. That’s all I can do.” He huffs. “Are we done now?”

“Yes, I suppose we are! Thanks for joining us-.” The announcer is cut off as Pulsar gets up and walks off screen.

“Cool, thanks bye!”

The video ends.

~~~

List of things Pulsar has done

Been paid to support NFTS {a lot of other celebrities were doing it at the time! It was a cute picture of a chicken! I didnt know it was evil!}

signed a merch deal with a company that runs a sweatshop to produce the merch {Look- I’ve been over this- I even uploaded an apology video! I didnt do my research and I promise to do better!}

uploaded an apology video {Hey! My fans know that it was an honest mistake! Plus I followed the guide on how to make a good apology video! I even made one of my own guides!}

made a guide on how to make apology videos {Only 50$!}

Doesn’t have a PR Team {My PR team is my best friend, Twine, he’s a Soul like me!}

got scammed by someone in another universe than him {Alice is my friend! And he said he needed the money!}

Almost was convinced to join the Church of Scientology {I was not almost convinced it was for the celebrity gossip! But Paladin said I shouldn’t do it}

is there anything else you’ve done? {not yet- I mean, No!}

~~~

Pictured: (Fake) Tweets talking about the perceived decline of Tridential Sovereignty or #TriSov, and how their original fans dislike the way their music sounds nowadays.

~~~

Pictured: The updated outfits of Comet, Pulsar, and Nova! At this point in their career, the three dont perform together as much as they used to. Before this change, Nova would often pick up DJing Gigs around the world. But, now he performs solo songs that sound like theyre meant for Old Navy Advertisements… theres no Heart and Soul to his music, just the melody and baseline lyrics that will appeal to the widest audience.

~~~

Pictured: Nebula, the Whole. He acts as the manager and agent of Tridential Sovereignty. He isn’t seen much nowadays, some say it’s because he can’t handle what they’ve created. They took over his life. This isn’t what he wanted. This isn’t what we wanted to become. But, it’s much too late now.

~~~

OOC STUFF

ive reached the ten photo limit on mobile and ive got so much written that my tumblr is lagging. Theres still some more long written posts ill add in reblogs and such. Characters mentioned such as Twine, Smoul, Alice and Paladin belong to @disruptivevoib @shxwrunner @socialc1imb @calamarispider @b0vidine

Feel free to send asks about these guys! Or even my scp au!

All art in this post is mine

[trulybetty]

honey, I won't be home.

pairing: jackson!joel x reader word count: 1,712 warnings: tlou2 spoilers, angst, mentions of a wound, mentions of blood, neither in graphic detail, bee stings, mention of alcohol, no descriptions of reader, use of a nickname, no y/n estimated reading time: 9 minutes summary: ellie arrives at your door with news that turns your world upside down ao3: linked

a/n: I went back for a rewatch of tlou2 play through for research and ended back in my jackson!joel feelings and leaning into what I want to write as opposed to trying to make other things work and this was the result. if you want to read it in relation to Drip you could read them as the same reader.

honey, I won't be home.

It was early evening, you were drying dishes when the first shouts could be heard through Jackson. The glass in your hand slipped out of your wet fingers, hit the lip of the sink. The crack of glass on ceramic sounded like a shotgun in the quiet of the kitchen while the screams and shouts from outside echoed. Your attention torn you reached into the sink and recoiled instantly when the bite of cut glass hit your open palm. 

“Son of a bitch,” you hissed as you pulled your hand back, the soapy water already turning pink, the gash on your hand hard to see for the blood muddled with the watery suds. 

As you rinsed off the soap and inspected the wound, you winced at the sight of the jagged cut as the metallic tang of blood tickled your nose. Your eyes darted around for a clean dishcloth, panic at your heels for both the open wound on your hand, and for whatever it was going on outside as the shouting sounded like it was getting closer. 

Just as you found a dishcloth there was a booming knock at the door. 

“Dammit,” you cursed again as you wrapped your hand with the cloth you’d just been using, wishing you could have found a clean one. But the shouts were coming from behind the door now and with the continuous banging of the door, it felt like if you didn’t let them in they’d knock the door down. 

“For Christ's sake,” you muttered as you unlocked the door swinging it open, half expecting to see Joel there sheepish for being gone so long for the patrol he’d left in the early hours for and then for forgetting his key again. 

But instead, it was Ellie. 

Maria was at the bottom of the steps, frozen in a shout she’d been poised to let out at Ellie, but with your arrival, she’d fallen silent. 

You looked at Ellie, her face pale and bruises blooming at the side of her face, her lip split. If it weren’t for your hand wrapped tightly in the damp dishcloth pressed against your chest coupled with the intensity of the moment, you would have reached out to take her face in your hands to inspect her injuries. 

The usual spark in her eyes was gone, left was just a hollow emptiness that seemed to age her beyond her years. You looked down to the bottom of the steps, Maria, usually the picture of authority and composure within Jackson stood as a silent sentinel, her expression unreadable and her eyes avoiding yours.

“Honey,” Ellie’s voice cracked.

You still inwardly cringed still at the nickname all these years later. You wished you’d adopted it through a means of a term of endearment, something sweet bestowed upon you as the name suggested.

Eugene had christened you with the name years ago. You’d tried to remove a beehive from a property being prepared for new residents. You’d thought the hive was dried and inactive, but no — you were wrong. In the process of trying to remove it, you’d been stung multiple times, earning you a painful trip to the infirmary.

Then, that night, under the dim lights of the Tipsy Bison Eugene’s deep voice had carried over the general chatter as he regaled the tale. The clink of glasses and laughter had echoed around you as you sat centre of unwanted attention. Eugene had raised a glass of whiskey, sweetened with his prized honey salvaged from the hive, and toasted to you with a mischievous glint in his eye, using the new nickname he’d bestowed upon you.

It was also the night you’d first met Joel.

Your heart, already racing from the accident in the kitchen, now threatened to beat out of your chest. Your throat felt tight and your mind was swimming with possibilities of what the tension between Ellie and Maria meant, what the shouting before you opened the door was about. Then came your sudden realization that Joel should have been back from patrol with Tommy by now, especially if Ellie was back.

It all accumulated in a fear so intense, that it was nearly paralyzing.

���Ellie,” you spoke cautiously, breaking the heavy silence. It took a moment or two to control your breathing with the new weight that sat on your chest, so heavy it threatened to have you on your knees, “Ellie,” you said again, your voice strained and barely above a whisper, “what’s happening?” the weight was crushing, the tension in your body only serving to keep you on your feet, “Where’s Joel?”

Ellie’s tear-rimmed eyes looked up at you, she looked as if she was carrying all the weight in the world. For a brief moment, you mourned the childhood she should have had. That she shouldn’t be outside of the walls of Jackson on patrol, that she shouldn’t have witnessed the things she had in her short eighteen years. 

“Joel,” she started, her voice a volatile cocktail of grief and anger and you felt the heckles of panic at your heels again, working their way up to your chest, the moment stretched out so far it felt like hours before she spoke again, “He… he’s gone.”

The simplicity of her words belied the complexity of emotions they unleashed.

Gone. 

Gone.

The term was too small, too simple for the enormity of what it implied. Joel, your Joel, the man who had been a constant in your life since arriving in Jackson. The man who had seen you through so much, who had become not just your partner, but a part of you, could simply not be ‘gone’.

Your mind reeled as you tried to make sense of Ellie’s words, but it was like grasping at smoke. The world was suddenly tilting, just falling into confusion and disbelief. 

“Gone? Ellie, what do you mean gone?” The urgency in your voice rose, the panic evident, the grief in your throat growing, threatening to choke you, “What happened? Ellie?”

Your voice now a desperate plea for this to be a misunderstanding, just all a mistake.

Ellie’s eyes flooded with tears, spilling over as she looked at you, a tempest of tragedy on her face.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice barely holding it together, trembling with the weight of the news she was delivering, “I– we… we were too late. The weather delayed Dina and I. Something went wrong. He–Joel… he was attacked. He was attacked. He… he,” she bit her lip as she tried to force the words out, “he didn’t make it,” her words broke, shattered by the sheer force of her grief.  

The cold winter air around you felt thick as time itself paused in the face of such inconceivable news. Ellie took you through what had happened, you tried to listen, but the pounding of your heartbeat in your ears threatened to drown her out. Left only with your thoughts of Joel, Joel Miller, the pillar of strength and safety in your world, the man who had survived against all odds, whose resilience and will to protect had been unbreakable, almost stubborn, was no more.

The newfound foundation of your life in Jackson, built together with him, had been ripped away in an instant. 

The pain in your hand, from just mere moments ago in what felt like another lifetime, once sharp and demanding, faded to nothing against the gaping wound in your heart. 

But as you clutched to the doorframe for support, the world spinning out of control, you saw Ellie. Really saw Ellie. Not as the bearer of some of the worst news possible, but as the young woman who had been thrust into a world of loss and survival from too young an age. The girl who had lost so much, yet fought so fiercely for those she loved.

The girl who in that moment, needed you just as much as you needed her.

Instinctively, without even realizing it, your stance softened, your grip on the doorframe released. Ellie, who had seen Joel as a father figure, even through the hard moments, who had been a constant presence in your lives, was now a part of your family through shared grief as much as shared love.

With a shaky breath, you reached out with open arms. She paused, just for a moment, causing you to hold your breath in anticipation. Then before you could say anything she collapsed into your embrace, her body wracked with sobs. You held onto her so tightly, as if your hold on her would keep you together, that as long as you were holding each other, the world around you couldn’t completely fall apart.

You stroked her hair, whispering words of comfort, that felt hollow in your own ears, but it was all you could offer, “It’s going to be okay,” you lied, because in that moment, nothing felt like it would ever be okay again.

But for Ellie, you could be strong. You had to be because if you couldn’t, you knew you would surely fall apart.

The cold Jackson air whipped around you, your bare feet were numb a contrast to the warmth of Ellie’s body pressed tightly to yours, her arms tight around you. You could feel her heart beating against your chest, fast and frantic, mirroring your own despite your seemingly straight face.

“You did everything you could, Ellie,” you whispered into her hair, knowing full well that nothing you could say could possibly erase any of the weight of guilt or responsibility she felt for Joel’s death.

Maria, who had silently been observing until now, approached cautiously. You glanced up, meeting her eyes, a silent exchange passing between the two of you tears glistened in her eyes mirroring the ones threatening to fall from your own that you were fighting to hold back.

The night was falling fast, the shadows of Jackson stretching long across the ground, it felt like an ominous presence mirroring the grief that had crossed the threshold of your home, a sanctuary no more. 

As the first stars of the evening began to peek through the dark clouds you squeezed Ellie a little tighter.

For now, you hoped it was enough to get you through the night.

[liorae]

No More Pretending ୨୧ 𝓢im 𝓙aeyun

pair: bf!jake x fem!reader | genre: angst, heartbreak | warning(s): heartbreak lol | wc: 617 | synopsis: your boyfriend breaks up with you at the same place he once confessed his love.

The old playground stood as a testament to time, a place where memories lingered like ghosts. You walked along the rusted swings and faded slides, your heart heavy with nostalgia. It was here that you and Jake first fell in love, where laughter and whispered promises once filled the air. The swings creaked softly in the breeze, and you could almost hear the echoes of your younger selves.

The once vibrant colors of the playground equipment had faded to dull hues, the bright reds and blues now ghostly and worn. Weeds sprouted between the cracks in the concrete, and the merry-go-round, which once spun with joyous abandon, stood still, a monument to the past.

Jake was already there, sitting on the swing where you had shared your first kiss. His eyes were distant, lost in thoughts you couldn’t read. He looked older, wearier, as if the weight of the world had settled on his shoulders. You approached slowly, each step weighed down by an unspoken dread. He glanced up as you sat on the swing beside him, his expression unreadable.

For a while, you both swung in silence, the gentle rhythm soothing yet laden with unspoken tension. You stole glances at him, hoping to find a spark of the love you once shared. But his gaze remained fixed on the horizon, lost in memories that seemed to drift further away with each passing moment.

“I’ve been thinking a lot lately,” Jake finally said, his voice soft yet heavy. The words hung in the air, a prelude to something inevitable.

You held your breath, your heart pounding. “About what?”

Jake stopped swinging, his feet dragging on the ground. He turned to face you, his eyes filled with a mixture of sadness and resolve. “About us. About how things have changed.”

You felt a lump form in your throat, your hands gripping the chains of the swing tightly. “What do you mean?”

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t feel the same anymore. I’ve tried, but I can’t find that spark we used to have. It’s like... it’s gone.”

His words hit you like a punch to the gut, leaving you breathless. You had feared this, but hearing it out loud made it painfully real. “Jake, please... we can work through this. We can find a way back.”

He shook his head, his eyes filled with a sorrow that mirrored your own. “I wish we could. But I don’t want to lie to you or to myself. It’s not fair to either of us.”

Tears welled up in your eyes, spilling over as you looked at him. “So, this is it? This is how it ends?”

Jake’s expression softened, a tear slipping down his cheek. “I��m sorry. I never wanted to hurt you. I loved you so much... but something changed, and I can’t pretend anymore.”

You stared at him, the boy who once held your heart now slipping through your fingers. The pain was raw, an open wound that throbbed with every beat of your heart. “I don’t know how to let go,” you whispered.

Jake reached out, his hand warm against your cold skin. “Neither do I. But maybe, in time, we’ll find a way to heal.”

You nodded, though the words felt hollow. The playground, once a sanctuary of love and laughter, now felt like a graveyard of memories. You stood up, your legs trembling, and Jake followed suit. For a moment, you stood there, facing each other, the weight of lost love pressing down on you both.

Without another word, you turned and walked away, leaving the playground behind. Each step felt like a thousand, your heart breaking with every stride. As you glanced back one last time, you saw Jake standing there, watching you go, his own heart breaking in silence.

[0bees-knees0]

(One sided! Satan x Gn!Mc/reader)

Also small A/N( I'll probably have another at the end lmao 😭) this MC is a reader and the whole little fic sort of pertains to that. You can still read this even if that's not your forte ofc, but I thought I would leave a note bc some ppl don't wanna read about an Mc that's nothing like them 😅. Also Mc in this fic does NOT crack the spine of their books.(This is relevant I promise) And personally I don't either but to each their own.

Where Satan casually walks into the library at RAD, and sees you the book that you're reading and he is just completely obsessed with the sight, forgetting all about his original reason for entering the library in the first place. It looks so interesting you look so interesting. He sits and watches your facial expressions to see what you think of it. You notice him after some time, how could you not I mean he's literally just staring at you, and when you do realize that he isn't spaced out or anything you decide to see what was up.

"...Satan?"

"...yes Mc?"

"i-is there a reason that your staring at me so aggressively? Did I do something to annoy you?"

What?! The look on his face in that moment was absolutely unreadable. He was so red. He had been caught staring at you for crying out loud! But he also looked kinda shocked or offended. How in the world could you possibly think you could do anything to annoy him?! (It definitely isnt like he has a serious case of rbf or anything!) He was appalled, though he tried his best to hide it.

"what?! I-i...um no. I was just... interested in the book you were reading. I didn't want to interrupt however so I just...kinda stood here."

Yes! That was it! That was most definitely why he was there, no particular fascinating human or anything, and he had to make sure you knew that this was his only reason. Nothing else! Goodness, when did you start becoming so important to him that he was out here stuttering up excuses, becoming all red and shy, just from being around you? He didn't know but what he did know was that his sorry excuse for an explanation did seem to take hold in your mind and that was all that mattered.

"oh the book! It's actually one of my favorites...I've probably read it more times than I can count! Do you wanna read it? I can lend it to you for a few days."

Wow. Your book. Your favorite book, so good that you've read it countless amounts of times, and you're going to lend it to him?? He was ecstatic.

"...yes that would be good. I want to know if it's actually worth reading as many times as you say it is."

Of course he couldn't tell you or show you how ecstatic he was, that would blow his cover. If it wasn't blown already thanks to the recent display of events.

Oh how he wished he could just tell you how he felt for you. Really, there was nothing stopping him, just himself and his thoughts, his fears. Maybe he might do something cheesy like write his opinion on the book, as well as an invitation to hang out together(if you could call this hanging out) again like a date like how you were now. Yes maybe, he'll even write his feelings to you right then and there on the paper, in his pretty handwriting it has to be pretty for you, and then fold it and put it in the back of the book.

"it really is that good, I think you'll really like it Satan, here just bring it back to me in like...three days? Is that enough time?"

He's so happy he might burst. So he just nods to keep his cool. He is going to learn so much about you, and you might talk to him even more than you already have just because of this book. you place the book in his hands that he is willing to stop shaking and tell him that you have somewhere to be.

Three days come and go. He read the entire book on the night you gave it to him, and did research on everything involving the book the next day. The book itself was pretty good, though he really wanted to know why it was your favorite. He thinks there is probably some reason in your mind that he can't read on a page that will help him understand, but in order to get that he'd have to actually ask you. He spends the last day trying to decide whether he should write the letter or not. He decided no, that if he really wants to go on a date hang out with you, then he should ask you in person. He didn't want you to think he was a coward.

He shows up at your door a few hours after school, book in hand. You open the door and happily invite him in. He hands you the book and immediately starts talking about it and telling you his opinion, in hopes that maybe you would talk to him about your thoughts as well. Normally you would have, so happy to have someone to discuss your favorite book with, except this time is different. Something is off and Satan can tell, though he doesn't know what.

"hey Satan?"

" yes Mc"

"can I ask you a question?"

A question? Of course, you can ask him anything! And he tells you as much.

"why did you break the spine of the book? It's my only copy and well...it's not that big of a deal I guess, and it does make it easier to read I suppose..."

You keep talking, trying to justify his actions but all he can think about is what you just said. He can't believe it! He always breaks the spines in all of his books before he reads them. He didn't think of anything different, doing the same to yours. He was trying so hard to be considerate and careful with the book, even keeping the bookmark you left in there in its place, careful not to dog ear any pages(another bad habit of his).

He's so upset with himself. You're never going to let him borrow anything from you ever again. How long will you hate him for? He wasn't sure but he was ready to suffer in silence for his actions despite how upset it will leave him, and he will probably never talk to any-

"Satan?" You call for him for the 5th time, trying to regain his attention.

"...h-how long are you going to hate me for?" He asks the question before he can think rationally about it. You seem to have that effect on him.

However, when you burst into laughter he is confused.

"hate you? Satan it's just a book!" You say through your laughing spells.

"but it's your favorite..."

"I can just get another one, in fact I was thinking of going to the bookstore anyways."

"then let me come with you and pay for it! As an apology for ruining your first one." You smile and nod and he swears his stomach could qualify for the Olympics the way it's flipping and turning. You tell him to meet you outside of the HoL in 30 minutes and he gets there 10 minutes early (not that he'd ever tell you that) and when you meet him you smile and wave. He tries so hard not to look behind him to see who you're waving at, not fully trusting that it's him.

"You know, I've never really been to this bookstore before, so you'll have to show me around." You say to him as you both walk in the bookstore in front of you. As it turned out for Satan, he didn't even have to ask you on a date to hang out again, because here you are now. One of his favorite places, getting to talk about one of his favorite things, with one of his favorite people. He had to try so hard to keep his cool.

You both ended up getting a few books, and obviously when you got to the checkout you weren't allowed to pay a grim. Although you didn't mind paying, you also didn't protest(free books am I right?) and as you're walking back you guys talk about the books you got. When you find yourself at the door to your room that Satan had walked you back to(like the true gentleman he is) you say your goodbyes.

"this was super fun Satan. I really appreciate it! We really should hang out more, I like the way you think about things, and I also like your taste in books."

And he thinks that if he were killed right then, he would be okay with that. You tell him that there is a movie to the book you let him borrow, and ask him if he would want to watch it with you one day. And once again he is reeling.

"Uh...yeah I mean, I guess I could possibly find the time for that. I'll need you to tell me when though so I can check my schedule" he absolutely has nothing to do and if he does he will reschedule it for as long as he needs to if it means another date hanging out with you again. He says his goodbyes and heads back to his room.

He thinks to himself that he would love to read another one of the books that you like or continue the discussion from the last time.

As long as he doesn't break the spine again of course.

A/N: hey guys had this in the drafts for a good zillion years but I finally decided to get it done yay! I hope you enjoy even though it's one sided lmao. I didn't say earlier but this is set in like the first few weeks or so once mc gets to the devildom so they're not great friends with everyone yet. Also was thinking about making a pt.2 where Satan confesses but idk if anyone would be interested 😭 if I did it would probably be another eon or two before I publish it 😅😅😅 but please give me your thoughts, as this is one of the first really big things I've wrote on this acc. Anyway that's all I think thanks for reading!!