#suddenly remembering I am terrible at recommendations

[rocketonthemoon]

ask meme 21, 26, 37!

What book needs to be a movie: Actually you know what? I would really like to see Mexican Gothic as a movie. I think that could be a lot of fun. Small cast, big haunted house and some potential fun CGI stuff at the end. Call up Mr. Del Toro I think I've got a story for him.

Give a recommendation: Jay, my friend, my comrade, I really want you specifically to read Santa Olivia by Jacqueline Carey because I feel like you probably would really like it but I could be totally projecting here. But anyways, mildly supernatural coming of age boxing story but it's so much more than boxing??? I dunno how to describe it other than that. And then the second book is just "but what if they were body guards" and it's even more fun and silly but you just gotta read Santa Olivia if you haven't already.

Oh and The Wager by David Grann if you haven't! Non-fiction that reads like fiction about a shipwreck. I did the audiobook for that one too and it was absolutely fantastic. I hear the physical book reads really well too!

[lurkingshan]

Every You Every Me

The Final Story (Part 2)

Time to finish this! [Edit from the future: I did not like this finale, so there's your warning!]

Ngl once the reveal was done and we were just in a bl about two annoying actors with a bad relationship this got less interesting. Still love the narrative device of this being about an actor pair across shows, though, that was clever. I just wish this actual story about Pun and Inn was better.

Part of my issue with this final plot is I still don't even know why Inn broke up with Pun in the first place. I don't really know what Inn's supposed to be apologizing for, other than this vague idea that he was self-absorbed. Meanwhile we actually did see Pun shut Inn out of his career decisions which directly affect him, so this one-sided apology feels weird.

I also don't love the connection they drew here between their personal and professional relationships, like they couldn't do their jobs if they weren't getting along. We know actors can act through a ton of BTS strife and still turn in good performances (EarthMix MLC divorce era, anyone?).

Like, why is Pun sobbing this hard after dumping Inn? Why dump him if he's still this attached?? Why ditch him for a new partner without ever discussing it? I don't really get Pun's deal here.

"Years later" well that's nice and vague, thanks chyron.

Why are the bad actor side pair here in this film? We saw them together and they were terrible, it was part of the plot!

Suddenly, a flashback? Inn is drunk so it's def time for a bl white towel sponge bath.

I am... so confused. When did this drunken heart to heart take place? Before or after the dramatic breakup? And why would they have to wait years to be together? But Pun assumed Inn didn't even remember??

Okay so if I have pieced this together right, they had this drunken convo the same night we saw them out with their friends, then wrapped the show, then had a dramatic breakup despite having already had this conversation and Pun knowing that, but Inn didn't remember/thought it was a dream, and they just didn't speak for years until Inn showed up with the flowers. This is so convoluted and I am just baffled over here.

Anyway, I guess they're gonna get married now even though they have a really bad and non communicative relationship. Sure!

Quite a choice to skip any physical intimacy scenes for the "real" couple after all that. I don't think I like it.

What a mess of a final episode. It's so strange that they went to the trouble of coming up with this interesting and creative narrative and executed it pretty well only to falter on coming up with a basic romance arc to finish the story well. I'm disappointed this didn't end stronger so I could recommend it to people. Ah well, at least Mick and Top are a good pair; their chemistry did a lot of the heavy lifting. And it was fun watching the shows within the show and puzzling out what was going on. I'm glad they tried something different even if they didn't land it in the end.

[steddieas-shegoes]

"Where did we put the freaking bag?!"

DM request from @lillemilly: "Where did we put the freaking bag?!" Can't remember if you've written ftm pregnancy Steddie before. But i have a mini promt of either Eddie or Steve freaking out because they can't find the hospital bag when its time to go. I keep joking about forgetting my own bag (do date saturday) 😅 I promise you even if you do forget your bag, there is nothing in it that you can't send someone to go back for or that can't be bought in an emergency at the hospital! Also, I literally (and I am not recommending this at all it's just a funny lil story) packed as I was having contractions at 5:40 in the morning on the day Liam was born. My mom came into my room and asked what I was doing and I said, "just like, things, ya know?"

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

"This is terrible and I hate you and I hate this and I never want to do this again. You have the babies."

Steve was in pain.

Everyone told him labor usually started slow, there was plenty of time to get to the hospital before the pain got unbearable.

Everyone fucking lied.

He'd woken up from a dead sleep to a wet bed. Eddie, of course, slept through his water breaking and the immediate panic that he was still not due for two weeks coming over him.

But only until Steve woke him up by slapping him multiple times on his arm and yelling that they had to go.

Eddie was currently trying to remember how to function as a human being while Steve was breathing through another contraction, the pain piercing and getting worse every single time.

"This isn't normal is it? Like, this should be slower?" Eddie was asking as he tried to lace up his boots, grunting when he had to start over.

"I don't know, maybe I'm just lucky," Steve gritted through his teeth.

"Okay. The bag. Need the bag." Eddie stood and turned around in a circle. Turned again. "Where is the bag?"

Steve was going to kill him.

He was going to have to be a single father because Eddie was an idiot.

That must have been written all over his face because Eddie suddenly clapped and started running out of the room.

Steve pulled his jacket on, already mentally preparing for the next contraction, certain that if they didn't get to the hospital within the next 30 minutes, he would be having this baby in their bed.

"Where did we put the freaking bag?!" Eddie yelled from another room, possibly the bathroom.

"Please, my sweet angel, please do not have your dad's forgetfulness," Steve sighed, hand on his stomach. "Is it in the living room?" He yelled out.

Eddie was quiet for a minute, then appeared in the doorway.

"Not there. Not anywhere. Do we even have a bag?" Eddie asked.

Steve blinked at him.

"I'm getting in the car. If you aren't there in five minutes with the bag, I'm driving myself to the hospital and you're not invited," Steve said as he slowly waddled out of the room.

"Oh!" Eddie yelled, brushing past Steve in the hallway and right out the door.

Steve just barely made it to the front door when another contraction hit.

"It's in here! I found it! See how prepared I was?" Eddie yelled from the car, proud smile on his face.

"So prepared," Steve snarked back.

Eddie helped him into the car and drove much faster than he should have to the hospital.

On the ride there, Eddie was holding Steve's hand, singing along to some music, and through the pain, and the frustration, and the fear, Steve smiled over at Eddie.

"I'm glad I'm doing this with you, Eds."

Eddie lifted his hand to his mouth, kissed the back of it, and smiled.

[moonspirit]

What do you think about Annie's father? Was he justified in what he did to Annie? And how did he feel afterward? I’d like a debate on this topic.

Hello again!

Straight up, I don't have a good opinion about Mr. Leonhardt xD To borrow a beautiful name coined by the Noragami fandom, he is simply a "trash dad" xD

I recommend a reading of this post by @distortedclouds, her take on Annie's father is very sensible and I agree with everything there; it also covers all your questions, honestly.

For me, I feel that no, he was not justified in what he did to Annie at all! That was a child he abused with his rigid principles and harsh training and terrible physical and mental stress. Annie's father, who well understood that he would be the only parent figure to a small child -- a blank canvas -- chose to be a source of pain and terror instead of being a loving father.

Sure, all the warrior-parents were terrible (with the exception of maybe Pieck's father, but then again we don't get much information about him; he seems nice based on the little we know though). We can say that pretty much all the Eldians in Liberio had their surroundings shape them into who they were. I won't argue with this, they were victims of propaganda and brainwashing and when you're so far removed from reality and fed only one type of story, you can become Karina Braun yourself. But here it's important to remember - Mr. Leonhardt was not someone who bought into any of that Marley Supremacy bullshit, Mr. Leonhardt was motivated by what he could get in terms of comfort and a good life in exchange for his daughter's life. When he adopted Annie, he saw her as an entry card, not as a child he would love.

As for what he felt afterward, I think Clouds explains it very well in her post, but I too am not inclined to feel like any of his apparent remorse was genuine. It's kind of like when an animal trainer who's been dealing harsh training to an animal over the years becomes accustomed to having it around, and when suddenly faced with the possibility of losing it, expresses some warmth. I'm not saying all of it was bullshit, but it certainly wasn't love. However that scrap of emotion was enough for Annie to latch on to and you can't blame her; starved for affection so long, it was the first bit of affection coming her way and she grabbed it.

I can't say for certain what kind of person he becomes post-rumbling. No human being is above good change, so it's possible he changes for the better. He might become a loving father, or he might not, but perhaps we should give him the benefit of doubt in either case.

That said my personal headcanon as to this is that parents who have never known the "good way" to raise a child do not become wonderful parents overnight. Sure, the Rumbling was a catastrophic event, the parents of the surviving warrior kids are no longer prideful about their status but simply hope for their children to return; would Annie's father finally realize the worth in her existence instead of the worth in her skills? Maybe. It's possible. Maybe he's a different man, after all these years. But again, personally, I like to imagine that even if he is a new person, there is still damage he deals to Annie, in different ways. Perhaps unwittingly. Unintentionally. Unconsciously. But he's never known Annie as a person, only as a tool, and then, it is damage, nonetheless.

[spiribia]

i'm looking at old school documents i have saved through my email, and here was a letter i wrote to myself in middle school as part of an English class assignment. the intent was it would be redelivered to us when we were graduating high school

It is very awkward to begin a letter to yourself. You don’t know where you are in x number of years – graduation from high school is not even really something that you think about as of now. You don’t know what to say because it’s weird to think about changing, and you don’t want to say anything that will make you sound the same.

So here’s a compromise: if you respect me, then I will not embarrass you.

It is actually more of a psychological thing going on and I am just trying to sound really smart, which should be pointless enough to prove that I don’t have any ill intentions.

I honestly don’t know what could be said to you; apparently when we grow up we are suddenly wiser and therefore any piece of knowledge I can impart to you is rendered– quote unquote – useless. But remember that I am older than you think, and you are younger than you think, and we are not that far apart in terms of years, seeing as time is a concept that humans created, and without that we are just floating in the void, and then I become you.

Middle school is a deeply unhappy part of life. It is two out of five stars. Would not recommend. Seeing as you have already gone through, it I find little necessity in reiterating any points about it; you had teachers, they tried to teach you things; the American schooling system, as refined as it tries to be at times, is flawed; you learned things for the sake of doing well on tests instead of retaining information, and largely succeeded in doing so. Middle school, among other things, made you a deeply unhappy person. I don’t know how you feel, because I suffered from nostalgia and the general ache of living three years ago, and I thought it would be over with by now. But it is now quite evident that the human brain is prone to only holding onto things that the body wants to dispose of. If you are still very much a sad, lonely person that I am now (I bet that you are) and even if you are not – I hate to say this, but you are loved. And if that in itself does not suffice, some stores sell cheap candy, and there are books in the world that you have not read and movies in the world that you have not watched, and by now you may or may not have a cat or something (congratulations prematurely), and even if you do not you have managed to live through high school, and you are off to college now, and you are about to grow up and experience all the parentless freedoms of living in a dorm and having people not tell you what to do. Is that not absolutely terrifying?

But it will be fun.

So, yes – I hope that you are happy. I cannot guarantee that you will be, but maybe something changes in your life, and you are, and maybe you have a cat or a dog or a horse, but a bird or two will do. Maybe those little baby turtles that can both fit comfortably in the palm of my hand, have grown up by now. There’s a book I’m writing, and the protagonist is a girl named Valerie, and I don’t know if I ever finish the book or if I start a new one, and if it sounds terribly juvenile to you now then I apologize, but it is the best that I can do. If you’re still working on it then you are most profoundly a slowpoke. Go get something done.

And maybe you’re not a writer. Maybe you end up in engineering or marine biology or zoo keeping, of all things; maybe you find your roots in mathematics, if you want a plot twist. What I’m trying to say is that this is totally strange and I have absolutely no idea what happens in the future – it’s all up to you while you still have the choice. It’s strange that you grow up and it’s strange that one of these days I will be old, possibly older than you. And maybe this letter never gets to you; maybe something happens and it ends up lost or read by someone who never was meant to read it (if that is the case, hello) and maybe you burn it as soon as you get it because you can’t stand my little childish voice because perhaps you’ve developed so much that you are suddenly beyond these things. Bear with me for a moment.

I am fascinated with the little things that could have happened and might have changed a lot of things: if I said one sentence off in a conversation, which way it would have gone. Maybe these things are the little parts that make up life, because it’s choked with more choices than you or I even realize, and I hope you’ve chosen the right ones, or at least the ones that make you happier. Instead of sitting on the right side of the bus all of the time, try the left. Of course you don’t take the bus and have not taken it in years, but it was something that took up a massive part of your academic life, little did you know; I have not even stopped taking them by the time I am writing this, but tomorrow is Friday, and then I will never ride a school bus to school again.

People tell you to live life to its fullest. That does not mean you live it to the standards of other people. You do not have to live through action and travel to every town in the world. You can sit in your room, and eat an apple, and like its taste and really, that is all. I wrote this as a bet into the future. I feel like I am talking – it’s strange to describe – to someone that I desperately want to impress. I was so disappointed in past reincarnations of myself that I am afraid that I will disappoint a future Self, and I feel inclined to make these last ties while I still can.

That is actually partially a lie. The real reason I wrote this was because my English teacher made me. It was a homework grade and I have likely already written a letter addressed to a future self in other parts of the year, so you are most likely about to see a good bit of me around. I am not completely dead. I will be with you always, whether you like it or not, so you might as well.

But once you get these letters, I’ll establish first: I am not dead. I am gone. You have taken my place. I don’t know in which direction you’ve taken it, but you’ve taken it nevertheless. Perhaps there’s still a part of me left, but really, only time can tell; there are always haphazard, oddly collected parts of people, and who knows if I am one of them.

Personally, I’m really excited to see where this goes.

Sincerely, You / Me / Us

[ocelot-t]

do have any Hazbin Hotel or just RadioRose headcanons? Like Rosie being a really good painter or Alastor technically being younger than he seems or something? (I just like reading other people's ideas on their favorite characters lol)

You arrived just in time.

There will be a lot of words I have mostly a lot of disconnected thoughts in my head, which I sometimes consciously or unconsciously implement in drawings. besides, I don't remember what the canon is, and what the old fanon is, to be honest. If you would like me to, I can share not only my headcanons, but also some of the AUs I have.

I understand where the theory comes from, but I don't like the idea of Alastor being forced to smile all this time. I think he wants to keep everything under his control so much that he smiles even in death. The idea that he is just a sick man, serial killer makes his eternal smile even more unnerving. I don't want to justify him.

I think Al would have enjoyed reading H.P Lovecraft’s works. The tentacled creatures and descriptions of people as nonentities suffering defeat in a fight with chthonic creatures... btw, some of Lovecraft's stories were published during Alastor's era. I have a small headcanon about Alastor's death, and I plan to create a comic in the future (if I can actually get it done).

There are 2 possible deaths of Alastor's mother in my mind, and I’m uncertain which one I want to illustrate. maybe both continuing the theme of Alastor’s human life. I sincerely believe that even if Alastor had really had an abusive father, Al would have been cruel since childhood. Guess what? I have an unfinished little comic with a hum!Al by another artist, and I'm uncertain when I’ll manage to complete it. The headcanon that suggests Alastor’s father is an abuser already seems like a canon; however, I don’t want to portray him as a completely terrible person. I like the idea of Alastor enjoying hunting, so let's say he learned it from his father. Just like all the dad jokes. on the other hand, as for the scars on Alastor, some of them probably came from his father, since domestic violence was a common problem. Regarding art, as you might have noticed, I have a headcanon that Al understands the arts in general, whether it's painting, cinema, or music. Perhaps I think this way only because I am trying to combine things I love very much. I imagine him as a person you could have a discussion about these topics with??? It seems to me that Alastor and Rosie would often discuss these topics over a glass of wine or a cup of tea. Suddenly, Alastor would show up at Rosie's and instead of hello I READ ABOUT FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. DO YOU HAVE AN HOUR FREE? BTW I HOPE YOU WATCHED THAT DZIGA VERTOV MOVIE THAT I RECOMMENDED Rosie would love art nouveau and I don't know rococo? and Alastor would be like no art nouveau is okay, cute, but rococo is bullshit. *2-hour episode of drunken dad teaching life* Continuing on the topic of artists, I repeat myself, I have a silly unfinished series of mini-comics about Alastor and Rosie as art academy students, the plots of which are based on real life (almost). I have thought about what kind of styles they would draw in, what kind of themes they would focus on, and so on. Again, there is a lot of text here already, so I'll wrap up this topic for now. P.S. I have a strange idea in my head about how to imagine Alastor in the USSR in the 10-30s. It was quite fun there: the World War I, the revolution, the civil war, the post-revolutionary years, famines and so on, and so on. For fun, of course, but Alastor the Communist has a good reason to hate Vox the Capitalist and his MMM I mean VVV or Lucifer the emperor of hell, if you know what I mean. Instead of telling dad jokes, he would say that life under Stalin was good and quote Lenin. Of course, these are all jokes, but I did have some abstract thoughts about how his life and his family's life would be arranged. However, I don't know enough about the history of USSR to actually implement this properly. so yeah

[justajsworkshop]

I feel like I am stuck because all I care about is manifesting what I want. I see blogs talk about taking time to know SELF but all I want is my desires. does this sound stupid😭 I think this makes things hard for me, I don't feel like I'm at a point in my journey where I want to delve too deep into this. I know it would come eventually but right now, I just want to get out of the situations I am in😭

hey, anon. breathe, breathe, breathe. you're doing ok. you're going to be ok. i promise, i promise. okay, so i'm going to give you some advice/thoughts here like i would to anyone else—like i would to a friend or myself even.

to preface, you do not have to take any of it. so, take that pressure off now that this is scripture lmao. just consider what i'm saying as an alternative perspective on where you're at—from someone who's so been there and is kinda there now at times, ngl—and take what's helpful for you, discard what isn't!

k, so first, let me start by saying you don't have to get deep into the law. i know my blog might sometimes make it seem like you need to, but you don't. i just do because i've been curious about consciousness and god, so it brings me immense pleasure to learn more. there are people out there who just affirm themselves to death, and that works for them without even taking other stuff into account. like, you don't have to put that pressure on yourself to be a philosopher, frfr. that's not a condition/requirement for you to get what you want.

i also want to say that it's okay for you want things to be different for you. in fact, i'm HAPPY you do. because that means you don't want to settle for what you're currently experiencing. so, don't demonize yourself either for wanting a different life/experience. that in and of itself is worthy of celebration. i remember going through terrible experiences and not even allowing myself to want more because i truly thought there was no other option for me than to endure awful conditions.

next, i'm going to invite you to literally just forget about the law and trying to manifest. it's clearly stressing you out, so i would advise to anyone that if it's not benefitting you—and i can tell you've really been trying—let it go for a bit. the law will always be here and working, and you will always be god/consciousness. however, in my experience, when i try manifesting my way out of a situation, i get so fixed on resisting that very situation, i continue to do nothing but breathe life into it.

to be honest, i recommend just taking a moment today or this weekend or whenever you're ready to get clear on your goal. what do you want? what's your ideal? then (and please don't crucify me for this), i invite you to get practical about what next steps you can take that will help alleviate the pressure you're feeling and that will help move you toward your goal. small steps add up. i understand and absolutely empathize with the desire for your life to transform overnight. it can; it absolutely can. but not from the state of waiting for the law to save you.

am i saying work hard? no. am i saying hustle and force yourself to do stuff you hate? no. am i saying the only way to get your desires is through 3D action? no. so, if your ego is going bonkers and spitting fire at me, really digest what i'm suggesting here.

get clear on what you want: one area of improvement that you'd like to alchemize.

what's one step you can and are willing to take today to move yourself toward that goal?

i say this because sometimes it's the best way to get out of your victim/waiting mentality, and then suddenly, all this other stuff opens up because you're not waiting for a miracle. you become the miracle.

if you want me to be your accountability buddy, you're welcome to keep me updated on your progress, too!

[nonmurdery]

A THOUSAND KISSES DEEP

reader x yoosung | part one

summary: reader escapes rika’s apartment before the bomb goes off in yoosung’s bad ending 1. this uses his dialogue from the game.

author’s note: why am i obsessed with bad endings? i’ll never know! the mc’s personality is derived from how they were in that route. had this in my drafts for a minute, i don't know who'll be her end game, just take this as some angst!!

ps. chatroom formatting probably looks cuter on mobile devices

trigger warnings: major character death

word count: 1,444

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

You technically met Yoosung Kim last week.

The same could be said for the entire RFA. Jumin Han, V, 707, Jaehee Kang, and Zen. You've learned that the RFA is short for Rika’s Fundraising Association. You started texting them after receiving mysterious messages from an Unknown contact to go to the apartment you'd start living in. Yet you haven't met any of them in person.

Being separated by a phone screen didn't stop you from pursuing Yoosung. He's a cute SKY University student around your age. His inexperience kindled the spark between you two. You couldn't have been expected to pass up the opportunity! Not when he was clearly desperate for a partner. As were you. Your self esteem was in the gutters and the loneliness within you had become so voluminous as of late. The RFA has helped out with that.

Chatting with the RFA throughout your day wasn't difficult. Although planning their next party had its challenges. They helped you with whatever they could. Mostly with recommending guests while you picked the theme and most everything else. The best part? You were getting paid for your services.

In short: plenty of unexpected things happened to you this week. Most of them being new beginnings for yourself and the RFA. Yoosung showing up to the apartment by himself proved itself to be the most unexpected.

Intruder found. Special security system attack mode initiated.

“Did you hear that?” Your eyes wandered the room.

The bomb. You remembered it, well, you didn't forget about it either. It terrified you and made it difficult for you to get a full night's worth of sleep. No RFA member was supposed to enter this apartment—707 was still working to deactivate it. Your throat suddenly felt tight. Instead of feeling excitement upon meeting Yoosung, terror swamped your senses instead. Every fiber in your body yelled that you run. There's still time to get out of here.

Yoosung paid no attention to your words nor the alarm. “Reader … But you’re not blond like Rika … ?”

Sensing location of intruder … adjusting target …

“You cannot be serious! I was kidding about that.” You yelled, your eyes saucer-wide.

Is this his truly greatest concern? Your hair wasn't made up of the same lion's mane of loose curls as Rika’s was. Regardless, the ticking bomb that's about to go off was of more importance, to you, it seemed.

He stared at you with his large violet eyes, a cloud of confusion passing over his face. He looked exactly like the photographs he’s shared in the messenger. Short blond hair that pointed in every direction, a lithe build, and baby-faced. Your heart thrashed against your ribcage, thumping at a terrible pace. If you didn't start moving, you'd faint. Or worse, you'd die.

“And you don’t have her eye color … Your hands and face look different too … Is it really you, Reader?”

You answered with a shaky nod. “Yes! It’s me! I’m not some doppelgänger or any other look-alike. None of that matters, we need to get out of here, Yoosung.”

This changed from what you said in the messenger earlier. You spoke about how you'd need to become like Rika in order to be someone special to him. It shocked you to know he processed all of those texts you sent. For some reason, that made you like him even more than you did before.

Orders to destroy all information for the sake of protection. Activating system destruction.

“Oh … I’m sorry. I guess I just thought that you’d look exactly like Rika. But you don’t.”

You were beside yourself with frustration. “I still own you. That means we'll do what I say, let's go.” You slipped your arm through his elbow and yanked him toward the door.

It was mostly your fault for why he’d come to such assumptions. You told him that you'd be his Rika and replace her. Still, they made you a little queasy. Physically being here with him felt different than typing letters on a screen. You felt a connection to him.

“We’re not going anywhere! I ran over here because no one in the RFA helped Rika when she took her life away.” He wrenched himself out of your tight hold.

15 seconds left … 14 seconds …

Stand here and listen to his spiel, or run now and have a chance at living? You told him that you'd take care of him. That he'd be your pet and that's what you wanted. In the face of life and death, you knew what to do. You weren’t going to die for someone who looked at you with disdain for not matching their cousin in appearance. Someone who barely knew or liked you. Two days ago, you would have done anything to be accepted by him and be in charge of his life. The truth is, you barely knew Yoosung beyond the color green, LOLOL, and Rika.

Dying wasn't worth it. Not here, your life has just started.

“Yoosung, come with me. Running here won't matter if you don't run now! We’ll talk about everything after.” He looked unphased by your words, as if they held no weight to him.

Throwing one final glance at Yoosung, you darted out of Rika’s apartment as quick as a shooting star. You could only hope that he's shortly behind. Your heartbeat thrummed in your ears while the sounds of your footsteps pounded with them. Or they might've been his footsteps, listening to what you had to say after all.

Taking the elevator would've been a foolish decision. You ran down the hallways, knowing that 707 watched them through the CCTV. That explained the notification that made your phone buzz in the back pocket of your pants. It had to wait. You made it to a large stairwell that descended to the lower floors. Did V really have to purchase an apartment on the 14th?

Sucking in a breath, you headed down the staircase. You ran down the stairs faster than you knew that you could. The seconds counted down in your mind until a loud bang issued from behind you, startling you enough to fall. You hit the ground hard. Even with your eyes squeezed closed, you saw the light of fire beyond your eyelids.

None of this would've happened if he listened to you. You held your consciousness and managed to get to the 1st floor. When you got down there, firemen were making their way up, up, up. Sirens and screams glided to your ears as you fled the building.

A cold breeze lanced into you. From your peripheral vision, you saw ambulances, more fire trucks, and police cars coming down the streets. Nighttime stretched over the sky, littering it with glittering stars and fluffy see-through clouds. When you lifted your eyes up to Rika's apartment, there were fat tendrils of smoke rising into the air from the building's roof, like a soul ascending from their body.

“Yoosung! Yoosung, you idiot!” Your scream got gobbled up by the street’s cacophony. Tears pricked your eyes and you let them slide down your face. His death is on your shoulders. That's if he died. But you couldn't see a way that he could've survived.

You held yourself, squeezing your upper arms. Interviewers raced to the scene with their cameras and microphones. Your neighbors sprinted outside with some of their belongings, their mouths gaping. That's when it hit you that you only brought one thing.

“Do you know what's going on, Reader?” A woman with watery eyes asked. You bumped into her once in the lobby and talked about the weather.

You watched the flames. “I …” You wet your dry lips. “I need to go.”

Walking to the nearest alleyway, you whipped out your phone. The app was bursting with messages, most of the RFA members are active.

READER has entered the chatroom.

Jumin Han

Did everyone see the news? I'm watching it live now.

Jaehee Kang

? Mr.Han

ZEN

What news?

Jumin Han

There was an explosion at [ADDRESS] on the fourteenth floor.

Jaehee Kang

Goodness…

Jumin Han

The occupants are currently evacuating the building.

READER

HELP! I think Yoosung got cahgt in the fire!

707 has entered the chatroom.

ZEN

Yoosung?! Oh no...

Zen

Reader are you alright?!!! Tell me you're alright.

707

…

707

..

707

.

707

On my way.

READER

On your way here?

707 has left the chatroom.

ZEN

stay where you are, Reader!

ZEN

I'm sure that he has a plan…

Jaehee Kang

I agree with Zen.

Jaehee Kang

What happened to Yoosung, Reader?

Jumin Han

I can only hope for the best.

READER has left the chatroom.

[itsallaboutthebirds86]

Peace (A CR Drabble)

(Downfall’s got me thinking so much about The Matron and her predecessor so I wrote this. Enjoy the death angst lol)

He can feel it already. The edges of his power, frayed and ebbing away from him. Mortals usually feel pain by this stage, and he supposed the sensation he’s experiencing could be called pain, but honestly he has nothing to compare it to.

But he is still a god, for the time being. His light will take quite a while to fully fade. And so he looks upon her. Funny. Mortals always seemed so small, wrapped in his embrace as he ushered them off to the After. This woman nearly matches him in height, standing before him in this place that could be called a palace. She looks at him, not with anger or with pity. It’s something new, something he’s never seen in the eyes of a mortal before, and he suddenly realizes— she is looking at him like an equal. Like a brother.

“How do you feel?” Her voice echoes in this place.

He can’t help a dry laugh. “I’m surprised you care to know.” His fingertips have gone cold. Huh.

“Call it my final piece of research.”

Ah yes. This started as a grand experiment for her. He is silent for a moment. “Honestly? Mostly I feel a bit embarrassed.” She inclines her head, patiently waiting for him to continue. “I didn’t think you could do it.”

“I suppose that’s why you didn’t put in much effort to try and stop me?”

“Would you have, if you were me?”

“Yes.”

That makes sense. Paranoia comes from the knowledge that other people could end you if they catch you off guard. “Well, perhaps that was a flaw of mine. One you will improve upon.” His heart - one he wasn’t aware he possessed until now - begins to slow.

“You don’t seem angry with me.”

“Where I’m going, I doubt I will have much use for anger. My siblings, however… I cannot say how they will react. Half of them were labeled Betrayers for lesser crimes than this.” His siblings. He is struggling to remember their names in this moment. What is his name? “But I suppose they will be your siblings from now on. And you will be their sister.”

“Will they remember you?”

“Unlikely. I doubt you will either. They will know that someone came before you, and that you killed me. The rest will fade. Death can only ever have one face. You will serve as my headstone, young one.”

She looks taller now. She was always taller. “You seem so sure. This has never happened before.”

He manages another laugh. “No, I suppose it hasn’t.” He doesn’t have to tell her about the others that went Away. His siblings will do that for him; or they won’t, and he’ll take the secret to his grave. A bit of poetic justice in that. “But this has a sense of finality to it, doesn’t it? And that has always been my domain. And so it will have always been yours.”

He feels his legs give out. To his surprise, her hands, firm and cold, catch him, leading him backwards to his throne. Her throne. She helps him sit, and she kneels beside him, locking eyes once more.

“So,” he begins again, “what happens now? Will you share your secret with your fellow mortals, have them each take down and replace my siblings one by one?”

She considers. He sees many things in her eyes. Curiosity, greed, anger, fear. Apathy. “No.” She finally says. “This is my victory. And even now, I can feel that part of me fading away. They are no longer my people.”

“Interesting.” A cough - another strange sensation - rattles through him. Ah, fuck it. Guiding one last soul won’t hurt. “One piece of advice, if you’re open to hearing it.”

She regards him evenly. “I am humbled by your offer of any advice given the circumstances.”

“We both know humility is not in your wheelhouse. Nevertheless, I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least try and make sure you knew what you were doing.” He almost sees a smile ghost across her lips. “I recommend a mask. You may be one of us now, but I can see that mortal part still inside you. That part may be a great strength or a terrible weakness. Conceal it, and you’ll always be able to use it to your advantage.”

He blinks. He realizes she was always wearing a mask. A white expressionless mask, carefully and intricately carved and decorated. He smiles. A fast learner.

She’s glowing now, with a strange monochromatic aura, just slightly tinged with glitters of gold thread throughout. He feels very small.

“I believe it is time.” He whispers. It’s all he can manage now.

“Shall I escort you? As my first task?”

“No, no. Where I’m going is beyond your dominion. Just tell my siblings… tell them I have gone Away. My light has finally settled.”

“… I will.”

“And remember, Goddess… if you could do it, someone else could. Death comes for us all. Even us. Do not be surprised when it comes.”

He cannot manage anymore. He closes his eyes. He can still feel her hand on his. It is cold but somehow still comforting.

Perhaps now he will finally know if Away is better. Perhaps now he will have peace.

[yo-yo-yeonkai]

TO MY ANGEL, ARE YOU WATCHING? - HUENING KAI - SFW

Kai x reader

Genre: angst

Warning list: big ANGST! major character death, mentions of depression, if you squint your eyes ideas of suicide, mention of : hospital, blood, sickness, not proof read!

Word count: 1,080

Summary: Kai can’t be with you anymore, those chances had long passed, but can he see you and read those letters you send him?

Authors note: This was inspired by a piece I read recently by @mazeinthemoon called [6:27pm], which I highly recommend!!!

Dear Kai,

I’m not sure if you still look down on me, I haven’t felt your presence in so long, it’s been a bit lonely without you here. The house feels empty now, and it’s not like you ever left your room anyway. You stayed burrowed up in there, so I’d have to come join you if I wanted attention. I hope you knew I loved you, it’s too late to tell you now.

I regret it, not telling you whilst you were here, but I’m sure you already knew. The way you’d text me and tell me to come to your room, only for it to be lit up with fairy lights, a fort made in the middle and once we entered the cosiest bed for us to watch movies on. You brought all my favourite snacks, you let me pick the movies, I think you even tried to hold my hand. I’m sorry I got nervous and pulled away, I should’ve just let you hold it whilst you could. Was that a date? To me it was…

I have a new confession now Kai. I haven’t felt this way in such a long time. I did get better since you left, I promise. I’m not sick anymore, but, today I feel it. I feel the way it used to feel.

I don’t feel excited, suddenly everything I’ve ever loved feels bland. As if I took a picture and put a horribly monochrome filter on. My hobbies, are a dull grey, no longer a sparking silver. It doesn’t light up my days, nor does it make me feel like I’m living.

My voice can’t even raise in tone, I’ve tried, it just stays at a continuous monotone. No more inflections as I get excited, no more shouting as I get angry, no, I’m not even sure I felt anything but bland today. Even my emotions are mono, is this even real right now? My face doesn’t lift in a smile, doesn’t frown with disappointment, I have held a straight face for longer than I’d like. I wish you were here to make me smile… you’d probably make that dumb Pokémon noise you always replicated, I’d always whine but you knew I loved it, that’s why it always came flying out of your mouth the second I had a bad day.

Isn’t it weird that people are alive. Like, I’m living my life and you aren’t, you were stolen from me, ripped away too soon, it’s just not fair. Don’t you think? Sometimes I wish it had been the other way around, but I know that’s not possible.

I’ve been better for awhile, I’ve taken care of myself, even tried to go further than just being alive, I tried to LIVE, but I’m not great at that. Ever since i made that mistake at work, my life has consumed me, everything felt overwhelming. Like I was drowning in all the endless pain I left behind me. It came back for me when I least expected it. Can you protect me from it Kai? Can you be my angel?

Who am I kidding… I don’t want you to spend your afterlife worrying about me as well, do what you want to do, live the best you can up there. I’d cry if you thought about me the way I thought about you. In fact, I hope you forgot about me, it would hurt, but I could take it if I knew you were happy.

I used to say that health was a lie… that’s because i get sick with a click of my fingers. Now I mean that both mentally and physically. Our friends must think I chuck myself down the stairs each morning with how much physical pain I come to school with.

“What’s wrong today?”

How did they know I was in pain? Oh yes, that’s right, I’m always in pain. Can I catch a break please…

“I have a terrible pain in my stomach”

Do you remember that I actually had that pain for months and it got so bad sometimes that I missed days and days of school. You took me to the doctors because I hate them, they took my blood, but there was nothing wrong with me that they could find. So I was on medication for awhile, but it didn’t help so I got taken off it. The pain comes back sometimes. The worst bit is when my lecturers ask why I wasn’t in, and I have to explain it’s been the same pain since last month. They must think I’m a liar, I see it in their eyes. You told me I was being dramatic, but I know I wasn’t…

But when you fell sick I suddenly realised that anything I went through was just a silly bug, a little thing that would go away. You… you were suffering, true pain, true agony. I wish I could’ve done something, even ease your pain, but I couldn’t. You wouldn’t even let me stay in the hospital with you like I had wanted to. You told me “Go home, keep it warm so when I get back I won’t be cold”. You died that evening, when I was making your bed, trying to convince myself you’d be home soon. It was a lie I told myself, I knew you wouldn’t be coming home, but I didn’t think it would be so soon.

Do you know what it’s like to have your heart ripped from your chest? I imagine you felt a similar pain as your life was coming to an end, that’s how I felt when the nurse called me. She had plunged her hand into my heart and tugged it out with ease, as if my heart knew it was about to be crushed. I wish you were here to make that stupid noise once again… maybe then I’d stop feeling sick, but you aren’t.

I promise this feeling won’t continue, I’ll stay strong Kai, I know you’d want me to. I’ll even go on a walk tomorrow, and try walk it off. You always told me I should get out more. But you aren’t one to talk are you….

Perhaps I should stop sending you these letters, but how can I… when I can’t let go of you. The second I stop, is the second you truly die, because you’ll be a forgotten star, and you could never be that to me.

,Forever the dumbass roommate that fell in love with you…

[shintin]

Forget Me Not: Chapter 36 (Run)

↳ Gojo Satoru x Female Reader

Description: Having fallen into this world, you were forced to shed blood to survive. But what about when you get tired, when you think the blood on your hands won’t wash off and give up because you have nothing to lose?

Yep, you were there, at rock bottom, rolling in the deep.

Then, there came a day when life gave you a new chance to live, laugh, and love, or so she thought.

Genre: heavy angst, sad love story, maybe tragedy, violence, lonely hearts, broken souls, +18.

Tags/Warnings: nothing but angst.

Song Recommendation: Love in the dark- Adele

Chapter index -> Next Chapter

Year: 2019

An hourglass.

She was an hourglass. Years had collapsed and buried her from the inside out. Her legs felt full of sand and stapled together, her mind brimming with grains of indecision, undone choices, and impatient as time passed from her body. The clock's little hand struck her with one, two, three, and four. Whispering hello, get up, stand up, it's time to wake up, wake up…

"Wake up! Wake up, Y/N!"

A sharp intake of breath and her eyes flew open, her skin breaking into a sudden, cold sweat, somehow staring into the brown eyes that seemed to know too much, too well. He was leaning over her, his worried eyes inspecting her, his hand caught in the air as if he was about to shake her shoulder, but he had hesitated.

"What are you doing?" She didn't recognize her own raucous, panicked voice, as if she hadn't spoken for days.

"You were screaming in your sleep." He jerked back but was still staring, unblinking, chest rising and falling.

"Who are you?"

Slowly, her hand sought a sharp edge beneath her pillow, but there was no knife. What? She dripped panic everywhere. Her hand clenched, and her eyes quickly looked for a way out. Apart from these light and clear eyes, blonde hair, with a strange, friendly smile, the room seemed familiar.

"Who am i?" said the man. "I’m a friend."

She glanced at him and tried to sit up, but suddenly the world vanished in and out of her focus, shades of grey glistening like frames on stilts, erratic movements.

"Don't rush. You're a bit late, but we have some time left." He talked like he knew her, like they were close once. It felt insane.

"Do I know you?"

"Yes."

Her heart leaped. The simplicity of his answer strangled her mind, digging for the truth.

"I’m Kento. Kento Nanami.”

The name scratched an old wound, but it didn't bleed. It didn't make sense. What was wrong with her? Why was the whole thing upsetting her?

Her head was a piece of pavement, and she was being trampled to death. She had no clue where they were. She knew nothing about Kento. Wait! Kento was Satoru's friend. Satoru knew him. Satoru. Her Satoru. Satoru, who left her alone and killed her brothers.

The wound opened up, and she remembered bleeding all over her gown, kneeling on the floor, and collapsing in a puddle of her own blood. There were hands… the hands that caught her and the scene that her eyes picked up for the last time—the corpses of her brothers. The heavyweight, which was lifted off her shoulders for a few seconds, landed twice as heavy, and because she was not ready, she was crushed underneath.

She sat up and tried to move, but she was off-balance, unsteady. Kento got up to get hold of her, but his hands stopped in the air. She clung to the bed frame, breathing fast, hands shaking.

"Take it easy." One swift appraisal was all he needed to know that she was not well. In fact, she looked terrible. Thinner than ever, with dark circles under her eyes. Tired and weak, but she was alive. She was breathing.

He lifted his head in her direction but stared at a spot directly behind her. His voice was soft when he spoke, "You look better today," he said. His gaze carefully avoided her bandaged hand.

She felt Kento's gaze like an actual weight against her chest, but she chose to study the careful bandage stretched tight across the palm of her hand because she had too much of anger to look up at his face.

As far as her memory helped, she had only injured her palm, but now her entire left hand was bound in gauze. Wait! Didn't she attempt to remove the bandage this morning?

She narrowed her eyes, opened it carefully and, as opposed to this morning, felt no pain.

Her wound had been healed, but it left a scar. Her finger moved across the scar, wondering how many more miseries she had to bear before things finally came into place. If they ever would.

She pulled herself into a seated position, looking around, thinking about the time she was transferred from the infirmary to this room…

Ah, a headache!

She had to close her eyes to steady the dizziness, but couldn’t stop herself from questioning: Was it all a dream? She did’t kiss Satoru, right?

She touched her lip, and somehow, she could still feel him. If she focused, she could relive the exact moment it happened; the moment was so intense that she could never forget it.

She distracted herself with the carpet laid out on the floor. Her voice sounded tiny when she asked, "Where is he?"

Kento sighed, running a hand through his hair and gripping the back of his neck. "I'm not sure. I haven't seen him lately."

"He was in the fucking infirmary this morning!" she told him, anger and rage rising within her. She stumbled on her feet. Her legs were unsteady. She nodded and didn't know why, but she seemed incapable of stopping. She wanted to walk to the door, find him and—

"Where do you think you're going? What's wrong?"

She spun around. She looked mutinous. "What's wrong? Oh, like you don't know?"

He took a step back and reminded himself that this girl could probably kill him with her bare hands if she wanted to.

"You have already kept so much from me," she said, feeling her strength faltering.

"I swear I never meant to hurt you," he said.  

She studied his face and analyzed his patient, earnest tone. She remembered this morning; it must have been this morning because she could still remember his face, lips, and tender touch. He probably carried her here, tucked her in bed. It must have been him.

But when she glanced at her body, she realized she was wearing different clothes from her vague memory and wondered who had changed them.

"You were unconscious for two weeks, and you were always here, in your room. You only spent a few hours in the infirmary after you blacked out from the blood loss," he said, standing in front of her.

"What?" she said the word, but her lips made no sound. She was numb in some sense. Blinking and seeing nothing. “I was unconscious for two weeks?”

He looked at her, studied her. She seemed almost about carved from stone, motionless in the midst of chaos. She stared into the door with an impossible-to-read gaze. But he needed no supernatural ability to know what she was thinking.

"We need to talk, Y/N."

She closed her eyes, and her lips parted in quiet terror. It's been ages since she was haunted like this. She suddenly caught a chill. Her hands started shaking, or maybe it was her bones. Kento guided her to her bed, and she followed mechanically, so slowly, her mind still fuzzy. She was vaguely aware that he might be saying something, but she was shivering, and the words were beyond her reach.

She leaned back against the bedboard, welcoming the cold and the pain of the metal digging into her spine. She pulled her knees towards her chest and felt her feet pressing into the warm mattress.

Her gaze rested on him for a moment, cataloging his tense shoulders and disheveled hair.

"Talk," she managed to say and exhaled quietly, slowly. They hadn't spoken to each other since they returned from the wedding.

Secrets are like poison. Any fool can spit out poison, but we choose to store these painful treasures in our hearts. Swallow them every day and forcefully keep them inside. These secrets stay in place, get heavier, and fester. After a while, the only option left is to crush the heart that holds them. Kento had grown tired of secrets.

He sighed, then moved the chair so he could sit by her bed. "There are things you don't know."

"No way!”

He was surprised at her sarcasm. He hesitated, exhaled, and dragged his hand across his mouth and chin to the back of his neck. "I have no idea where to start."

Her brain was screaming at her to put cotton in her ears and tell him to stop talking. But, "Start from the beginning," she said, amazed she could bring herself to speak. She had never seen him this way before and sadly, had no way of finding out what he wanted to say. He clasped his hands together so tightly she thought he might accidentally break his own fingers.

And then, finally, slowly, he spoke. “When you turned yourself in last year, you received the death penalty. You were going to be executed."

She thought the emotional implosion of that night had ended, but much had happened since then. It shocked her to think how much she had changed over the last year. She felt like a completely different person.

"I know."

"But Satoru became involved," he said. "And he stopped your sentence."

"To piss his dad. Don’t forget this little detail!" She scoffed. Disappointment lodged in her throat, a cold stone she was unable to swallow.

Without paying attention to her interruption, he continued, "And he fed Higher Ups some bullshtit to convince them that your alive is worth more than your corpse. But they never agreed. They believed you weren't easy to deal with, that you deliberately wanted to get into school because you had an interest here, even though they never mentioned what you might be looking for."

Even if she didn't want to react to this admission, she felt something growing inside her, like his words sank into her and expanded in her chest. The blood started flowing through her veins. "Wait! I thought you all knew my brothers, cursed wombs, were in school, and you hid it from me!

"No." He shook his head. "We suspected that you came here because of Sukuna, so we all thought that he was the one you were interested in. So, to save Yuji, Satoru wanted to know the purpose of reviving a 1000-year-old curse. He used his trump card and said he would make a binding vow with you. As you know, binding vows are contracts between two or more individuals bounded by the cursed energy. Both parties have to come to an agreement on a particular set of mutually beneficial conditions. Punishment for violating a binding vow with others is considered death. So you can tell there was a lot of opposition to his decision, but he forced them to accept."

There was a snake in her throat, searching its way to her heart. "That's really interesting," she said, "Sorry I couldn't be as helpful as you hoped! Is that why you kept it a secret from me? Did you know about it?"

"I know about what?"

"YUJI!"

Her sharp tone was so unpredicted, it forced his mind to focus. He met her eyes to find she was staring straight through him, with both hurt and anger.

"Yes."

"And you hid it from me," said she. "All this time, you knew he was my brother, and you didn't tell me? How do you think of yourselves as my friend?”

She sought an answer in his face, but there was none. Every memory, every belief, everything she thought she knew about Kento was sinking in. She enveloped herself with her arms, her lips trembling.

"When you had the chance to make a binding vow with the strongest sorcerer, you chose Yuji's life over yours. Indeed it was suspicious. You were a goddamned wanted fugitive! We figured you were after Sukuna or that you knew Yuji was your brother.”

"Who is this we you're talking about? Don't you know me?" she said, obviously on edge. "Satoru couldn’t save me from everyone who thirsted for my blood. I didn't know Yuji. I had no idea who he was. I felt a strange closeness with him! That's it! And I knew Satoru was the one who could protect this kid!" she paused and looked away. It seemed strange when her lips uttered his name. "I didn't want Satoru to die, not because of his stupid binding vow for me, but for anything else," she said and clenched her blanket and dug out her nails.

I cared so deeply about Satoru, was the thing she didn't say. That the wounded boy inside him deserved happiness was what she kept to herself.

It hurt her that she could not bring herself to feel the other way about him despite her anger. Yes, he was there for her when no one else was; he gave her hope when she needed it the most; he loved her when nobody else did. But it was he who ruined her life and left permanent marks.

But what good was it to shout out these facts when the pain would not be healed?

Kento understood the heaviness of the situation. So he settled in silence, realizing how important this friendship and Y/N was to him. He raised his head and saw how a single tear escaped down the side of her face, but she wiped it with the back of her hand.

The sight was heartbreaking.

"Kento," she called, her voice worn out from the weight of so much pain. "Why do you recall all these things? What any of this has to do with me?"

"All of this has to do with you and that binding vow," he said, finally meeting her eyes.

"How?"

"You're a half-curse, half-human." He swallowed. He was looking in his hands when he said, "Curses are created when the cursed energy is leaking from humans because of their negative emotions. Half of you is a curse, yet your human part suffers when the negative energy is attracted to you. The same happens when you touch the sorcerers since they do not emit negative energy. But what happens to the positive energy? Don't you think it could be a torment to your curse side?”

The revelation was like a thunderclap. She sat there, staring at him, stunned. She tried to stay calm even as her mind caught fire. Why had she never thought of that?

"You mean positive energy is bad for me as much as negative one???"

He nodded.

The reality of what he was saying spread like poison in the pit of her stomach.

"So you're saying this is a lose-lose situation?"

He shook his head. "You used all the negative energy you absorbed to build a special grade out of yourself. Then you healed yourself with positive energy. This is how you survived for years, Y/N, and you will continue to do so."

"I survived???" Her voice broke. "You have no idea, Kento. You have no idea because you don't even know the whole story. I had to hide from people my whole life!" Her breath hitched. "I let my humanity loose to stay alive! And you call this surviving?"

“But you have learned to conceal yourself from the cursed energy of humans. Your human part has grown as powerful as your cursed part. You were in the balance until—" He didn't continue.

"Oh, God!" She pressed her palm onto her mouth.

A shock of pain tried to reach her, to get around her new cold heart, and she managed to fight the worst. Even so, a brick of something hot and awful plunged into her chest.

"Even with your new skills, you can't hide from the positive or negative energies transmitted by touch. When I, Shoko or Ijichi touched you all this time, it wasn't just our negative energies that hurt you. Our positive energy also plagued you."

 She stood up, confused and horrified. She was unable to shape words, unable to speak.

“Satoru alone was able to touch you without hurting you. He was an exception. Have you ever wondered why?" he asked.

Her mind was working fast, trying to solve an impossible equation, and a crazy theory took root inside of her, crystalizing in a way she had never thought it could.

It was a simple question, but she couldn't stop shaking her head.

"Stop," she said. "No, please don't do this to me," she begged, but Kento didn't listen. He said she needed to know by now, and she should know the truth.

"STOP TELLING ME THIS," she screamed.

"It was the binding vow," he said.

Another wave of shock, another unforeseen detonation that imploded within her.

BOOM

There it was. There was her head, lying on the floor, cracked right open, her brain spilling out in every direction, and she couldn't, she didn't… She was standing there, struck, slightly dizzy.

Horrified.

Satoru was not immune to her. He could only touch her because of that binding vow.

BOOM

She was numb, a world of nothingness; all her feelings and emotions were gone forever. She was a whisper that never was.

It was like the world had been knocked off its axis, like she had been flung from the earth and she had headed directly for the sun, like she was being burned alive and somehow, she could still hear Kento, even as her skin melted inward, as her mind turned inside-out. Everything she had ever known and thought to be true about who she was and what she was, vanished.

"Y/N," he called her name. "You already knew about this, didn't you?" he questioned.

"Please don't say anymore. Please don't say anything else," she pleaded.

“He told you that your love for him could be a side effect of your vow of loyalty toward him, but you ignored him. You knew him very well, but you never asked yourself how a person who never had a relationship suddenly fell in love."

She should have known it couldn't have been that easy, that it couldn't have been so simple. It Looked like nobody ever thought Y/N's immunity from his touch was a happy coincidence. As if everybody already knew that she was not someone to fall in love with and that there had to be a mistake. Of course, they thought it had to be bigger than that, more specific than that. While she always wanted to believe, she just got lucky. 

Her heart must be bleeding out of her chest. She looked down and couldn't understand why there was no blood on her clothes when the pain in her heart felt so real.

"I'm not judging you, Y/N. It was the first time you could touch someone without getting hurt, so you held on to that little hope you had newly found."

Kento was right. Satoru was the first who had ever shown her compassion. The first and, at the time, the only person who could touch her. She was caught up in the impossibility of it, so convinced fate had brought them together.

She thought it was him.

And it was.

And it wasn't.

She wanted to laugh at her own blindness.

That binding vow, it linked them. It did bring her and Satoru together, but not because they were destined for one another. Not because he had fallen in love with her. It was just a simple connection.

Being with Satoru gave her a new kind of strength. She was still very broken, but Satoru cared for her and gave her a reason to stand up for herself when she was too down. It was affection and a desperate desire for physical connection—the things she had been wholly unfamiliar with and deprived of. She had nothing to compare these new experiences to.

Of course, she thought she was in love.

But while she didn't know much, she could tell Satoru never really loved her, because if he did, he wouldn't kill her brothers. He wouldn't hurt her.

She knew this; she had seen proof of the opposite; she had seen him doing anything to save his students.

Her faith was so shattered that she couldn’t tell what Satoru would do if she opposed him. She wasn't confident he wouldn't kill her, too. And this uncertainty alone made her certain that something was not right between them. Something wasn't real.

There was no love between them.

That's it. She got it now.

In the midst of all this, deep in the center of her chest, a part of her was burning with rage and anger like coals that had become hot and red.

She couldn't even believe that all the good things she had experienced, the interruption in her miserable life, were a side effect of a crappy bond.

"Here's another thing I wanted to say."

She turned only an inch in his direction and finally noticed the faint lines around his eyes, his forehead, the threads of silver gleaming through the neat dreadlocks fallen on his eyebrows.

"No," she said, smothering her ears with her hands. "I don't want to hear—"

"Love is the strongest source of positive energy," he said in a crude voice.

She looked at him with her fingers pinched around her ears, shaking her head, tears pouring down her face. She didn't know what to say. She didn't know what she could ever say.

Is that why her injuries didn't heal as quickly as before?

Her heart pounded in her chest as she remembered. She closed her eyes, her lungs knotting together. All of the dots were connected now.

That's why she felt tired all the time. That's why it hurt when he touched her this morning. No. It wasn't this morning. Fuck!

She wasn't even sure whether it was real or not! God damn it! She knew nothing about her own life. She got so close to madness that she wanted to scream.

"I see you have figured out the rest," he said and lowered his head.

Kento looked exhausted but not defeated. He looked freer, his eyebrows unfrowned. His fists were unclenched. His face was calm in a way she hadn't seen in what felt like a long time. He looked relieved. As if he had been carrying this great burden, he thought it might kill him. As if he had felt sharing this truth with Y/N might somehow inspire a lifelong hatred between him and his friend.

But Y/N wasn't angry at all. She was overwhelmed, shocked beyond belief.

She looked as though she had been scooped out from the inside, like someone had spooned out all the organs she needed to function, and she was left with nothing, just emptiness, just complete and utter disbelief.

She tripped out of bed so fast that she pulled the covers down.

"Y/N!" Kento rushed up. "I understand that—"

"STOP IT," she finally screamed. She squeezed her eyes shut and screamed, anger, heartbreak, exhaustion, and crushing devastation filling her lungs. It was the weight of all these years, the embarrassment of false hopes forged in her heart, treason, loss...

She still had a tiny thread of hope, and she had to cling to it. She had to go. Suddenly, out of the blue, she ran to the door and fled the room. She ran down the hall. Her shoes scuffed on the concrete, her feet knocking into each other as she heard Kento calling after her.

Run, Y/N. Run until your lungs collapse, until the wind whips and snaps at your tattered clothes, until you're a blur that blends into the background. Run, Y/N, run faster until your bones break, your shins split, your muscles atrophy, and your heart dies because it was always too big for your chest and beat too fast for too long and run.

Run, run, and run until you can't remember him. Run with open eyes and your mouth shut and dam the river rushing up behind your eyes. Run, Y/N.

Run until you drop dead.

Make sure your heart stops before you remember him. Before you ever remember.

Run.

Her feet pounded against the hard, packed earth, each steady footfall sending shocks of electric pain up her legs. Her lungs were burning, her breaths coming in quickly and abruptly, but she was pushing through the exhaustion, her muscles working harder than they had in a long time, and she kept moving.

If she stopped, she was scared her thoughts might kill her.

She took a deep breath and felt the crisp, icy air rush as it burned through her lungs. The wind wrapped around her, pulling and pushing and dancing, whipping her hair into a frenzy, and she leaned into it, got lost in it, and opened her mouth to inhale it.

Her body shook with unpent emotion.

How did this start? How was she going to deal with all of this? These last few weeks were already too much for her, too much to digest, too much to juggle. Now she had learned she was doomed to solitary unless she could find someone like herself, like a family member, like a brother, a sweet innocent pink-haired boy, Yuji Itadori.

If Yuji hadn't come to the morgue that day, how long would they hide everything from her? She couldn't say since everyone she trusted had lied to her and manipulated her. Everyone had been using her.

The sudden scream rippled itself from her lungs, but when she raised her head, she stifled it. She was outside the boys' dormitory.

How did, when did she arrive here? Could this be some shit dream? She rubbed her eyes, and it didn't change anything. She was awake, and this wretchedness was absolute.

Well, if it is...

She glanced around and then checked her behind. Fortunately, she was not followed.

Her hand went to the doorknob, twisted it slowly, then walked in. The wind remained behind the door. There was a heavy silence in the atmosphere that added to her stress.

She had been in this dormitory before but had never found it as empty and deserted as that day.

This shouldn’t surprise her, as it was autumn and the busy season of curses, which meant that almost all the students were sent on missions, which meant they were doing well. But this fact didn't soothe her heart rate. She didn't believe in her gut anymore.

She walked down the corridor and stood by a room she knew belonged to Yuji. She took a deep breath, cracked the door open, and stepped inside.

The first time she saw this room, she thought it must look like a typical teenage room. But now that she knew the truth, she was glad it looked like a typical teenage room because at least one of them could live something normal in life.

She ran her fingers over his manga collections and smiled with a half-smile when her eyes fell on the posters on the walls.

"It's nice to have you up."

Y//N felt flashes of heat sparked behind her eyes. Anger gushed in her throat and vibrated along her spine. She could almost taste the bitter taste of rage building inside her, and it took everything she had to clamp it down.

The sound of the approaching steps and then: "You worried me."

Y/N didn't flinch when Shoko tried to say good morning to her, but she did pretend not to hear her. Or perhaps she didn't actually hear her. Maybe she had managed to train her brain to no longer hear or see the sorcerers, Shoko thought.

Y/N turned on her heel, walked over to the bed, slowly sat on it, closed her eyes, and leaned her elbows onto her lap, putting her head in her hands.

She had become a shade of who she was. Shoko's heart felt weighed down by the depth of her pain. She wished so much that she could do something to help, to fix things, and at that moment, she remembered something from the past. She understood that Y/N would probably want to be left alone, but she couldn’t stop herself from walking toward her. She wouldn't say a word, she promised herself. She only wanted to be around her right now. So, she sat beside her and leaned her head against the wall.

An uncomfortable silence took place between them, and for minutes, neither spoke.

"You should have told me," Y/N muttered.

If Shoko hadn't seen the movement of Y/N's lips with her own eyes, she would have thought for a second that she was hallucinating and that her ears had misheard. She hesitated before giving a response.

"You talked to Kento," Shoko said.

The pain was intense, like cold steel, like knives in Y/N's chest. Painful reminiscences of today's revelations. She nodded.

"And that's why you ran as you did," Shoko said, looking at her.

Y/N immediately turned her face. "You were watching me?"

"I'm a doctor. That's what we do." Shoko smiled, but it looked tired.

Y/N shook her head and even laughed a sad, twisted laugh. "You won't even deny it," she said. "Unbelievable!"

"I'm sorry," Shoko said, dropping her head. "I really am sorry."

"You should've told me!"

Y/N's eyes were deep and steady, frightening serious, Shoko felt a bolt of panic pierced her through the chest. "You have no idea how many times I wanted to."

Silence.

More silence.

The minutes passed between them, silent and still, stopping only to hear them breathe.

Then a whisper.

"I have a brother."

Shoko raised her head and watched her.

"I have a brother," she said again, her voice so soft. "Yuji is my brother." Her eyes were focused on a point far from here, pinched together in pain, confusion, and something that looked regretful.

"I should've known," she said to her. “I could sense his pain, and he was always strangely familiar. I don't know how we can even share the same parent."

Y/N thought Shoko might have an answer for this, but when she saw her silence, she sighed and looked down. Her voice was so low Shoko could hardly hear it. "I should protect him," she said, nodding her head. "After what happened to my brothers, It's a matter of time for Higher Ups to kill him as well."

"They don't know about you and him." A break, then Shoko proceeded, "Also, wait a minute! I thought you spoke with Kento."

"I did."

"And what exactly did he say?" Shoko crossed her arms.

Y/N smiled. It was a slow, delighted smile. The kind of smile that would break into a laugh and could light up her features. But she closed her eyes, her face so touched, so amused. She tilted her head, and suddenly she started laughing. Out loud. Laugh and hiccup and desire to die, disappear, so desperately.

"Why are you laughing?"

"Kento told me everything, and I was an idiot for thinking things could be different," she told her. "For thinking my life could ever be better than it was, that I could be better than I was." She tried to speak again but instead clamped a hand over her mouth, like she couldn't believe what she was about to say. She forced herself to swallow the stone in her throat. She dropped her hand. "A curse." Her voice was raw, aching. I was never made to be happy. “I'm a damned fool. A feral creature consumed by her own agony."

Y/N had realized that deep down, she was harbouring a small hope that one day she would have a normal life. Somewhere deep down, she had found a way to cling to that useless possibility. And now that was gone. She would never be touched, hugged, kissed, or loved.

She could see herself. She could see herself the way she could be, the way she would be if things were different, but now she would forever and ever be alone.

She took a shaky deep breath, her mind whirring, her own brain no longer a safe space to inhabit because she couldn't stop thinking. She couldn't stop wondering. She couldn't stop anything, and it was like she was caught in what could be a head-on collision she was not the innocent bystander.

"Can I ask you a question?" Shoko said.

"Ask."

"Why do you think Satoru killed your brothers?"

Y/N was so shocked and unprepared to answer such a question that she was momentarily speechless.

"I mean," Shoko broke, finally losing her composure, her voice rising pitch. "You don't just kill your girlfriend's brothers out of the blue, do you?"

Y/N wanted to believe that Satoru was more than the mold he was forced into, that maybe he didn't want to kill her brothers, that Higher Ups forced him into it; but again, who could force Satoru Gojo into something he didn't desire?

"You can kill anybody," Y/N said, feeling hysterical. "If you do not have sentiments for them. At least, that's as far as I know." Her fists clenched. She didn't want to talk about her past beliefs. She didn't want to talk about Satoru. Ever again. She wanted to rip her heart out of her chest and throw it in the ocean for all the good it had even done her.

She didn't want to feel anything for him anymore, but then again, she remembered how all their feelings were nothing but a delusion.

"It wasn't all his fault, for God's sake," Shoko was fast to say, staring at the carpet, all terror and desperation. "They had become curse users, Y/N. Your brothers kidnapped Saitama Urami East Junior High students and caused multiple deaths around the Yasohachi Bridge. Higher Ups asked Yuji and Nobara to take over the mission, but since Satoru knew what it would do to you and Yuji, he volunteered to do it to prevent the disaster," she paused. "And to prove your innocence in Exchange Event."

Panic and terror clouded Y/N's consciousness. She swallowed harshly, struck at the heart. She felt as if she had been sanded up to the bone. A desperate emptiness burned through her, leaving her feeling faint.

How could all this shit be real? Why wasn't she waking up yet? Why had no one reached out to tell her it was okay, it was just a bad dream, that everything would be okay?

“Y/N?” Shoko muttered, looking at her with anxious eyes.

"How come he never told me?" Y/N asked, eyes closed, lips half mumbling.

Shoko turned her face away, leaning her temple to her palm. She regretted not wearing her white robe today of all days because she superstitiously believed that piece of cloth could make her bulletproof against situations like this. It was as if all the answers were hidden in one of its pockets and the painkillers in the other, but right now, without her magic robe, her hands were empty.

Shoko placed her hands on her knees as she tried to sigh. She didn't look at Y/N when she whispered, "He wanted you to hate him."

Y/N was still; her eyes widened.

Shoko went further, "And it worked. Hatred and pain forced you to wake you up when nothing could." She smiled. It was a little less exuberant than it usually was because she, too, was sick of all these craps.

For Shoko, it didn't seem right that so much horrible crap should be allowed to come down in such a short time. There should be a fail-safe in the universe. Somewhere, something that automatically would shut down in the event of extreme human agony. Maybe an emergency lever. A button, even.

This was ridiculous.

"He did to bring me back?" Y/N said, her mouth halted midmotion, then swallowed.

Shoko pressed her lips together in a nod.

Y/N didn't react. Knowing this did nothing to soothe her. It made her feel strange and foreign, like her life was never her own, like she was an actor in a play directed by strangers.

Old Y/N would've cried. Broken Y/N would've split open from the sudden impact of today's heartbreaking revelations, the depth of lies, and the pain of feeling so profoundly betrayed. But this new version of her refused to react; instead, her body wanted to shut down.

 Shoko checked the clock on the wall. "You'd better leave," she said and turned to face Y/N. It was then that she realized she was digging her fingernails into her palm. "You should run away."

Y/N was stunned. This might be the very first time she had heard anyone, but herself talk her thoughts about running away. What kind of sick game was this?

"This was a promise," Shoko added. "I was supposed to help you escape if something happened to you and your baby." She sighed and stared at the ceiling. "I need you to know how sorry I am, for keeping you here, for stopping you from leaving, for everything we've made you endure."

Y/N didn't expect this. Of all the things she thought might happen, she could never have dreamed a scenario such as this. In her experience, she was usually the monster. She was the one expected to make amends. And now, she was speechless. Speechless by the experience.

Her perceptions of life resulted from the seeds most of those around her planted in her heart. They took root in her as she grew, settling deep into her soul. Good ones had been planted well. They flourished and found homes in her heart. They built trunks around her spine. They were steadying her when she was most flimsy, planting her feet firmly when feeling most unsure. But the bad ones, the seeds Toji gifted her, grew poorly. Her trunk was infested and spoiled until she was hollow and housing the interests of others and not her own. She was forced to eat the fruit those perceptions had borne, held hostage by the branches growing arms around her neck, suffocating her to death.

Now, after years, she had to do the hard work of sucking the poison from her past.

"Shoko," she said gently. "None of that matters anymore."

"I know," Shoko said, sadness raining from her tone. "But it kills me to know that everything could have been different." She watched the movement in Y/N's throat as she swallowed hard. "Forgive me," she whispered. "Forgive me for hurting you. I gave you false hopes, and I'm so sorry."

When Y/N finally spoke, her voice was rough with emotion. "There is nothing to forgive." She took a deep breath and felt her pain easing a little, like icy hands were closing around the wounds festering in her flesh. It wasn't until then that she began to speak. "It's okay." The pain flowed out of her eyes as she looked away.

"You're running out of time, " Shoko said, trying to change the subject, as if time were the kind of thing you could run out of, as if it were measured into bowls handed to us at birth. If we ate too much or too fast or right before jumping into the water, our time would be lost, wasted, and already spent. But time is beyond our finite comprehension. It's endless. It exists outside of us. We cannot run out of it to lose track of it or find a way to hold on to it. Time goes on even if we do not.

"Why?" Y/N asked, and Shoko told her how the elders, especially those of the Gojo clan, were on their way to the school to convict her of her assault on their family's successor, Satoru.

Finally, Y/N seemed to grasp the gravity of what Shoko was trying to relay. Her shoulders stiffened. Her eyes narrowed. "To convict me?" She laughed. "For an assault against their heir?" She sneered. "They know no one can harm him! They just want me out of the way for good! That's just some dumb excuse!" she said, but she didn't look at Shoko. She seemed lost in her thoughts, chewing on her lips as she stared into the distance.

"Which is why you shouldn't waste time," Shoko said.

Y/N shook her head. "I'm not going anywhere without Yuji. I can't leave him here amongst sorcerers."

Shoko was on her feet in an instant. "Are you seriously doing this?"

Y/N nodded.

"You can't just grab him and run away. It's not logical!" Shoko said. "How are you going to protect him? Hm? As fugitives? Stealing to survive and hiding from the world? How is that any better? You'll be worried every single day, constantly looking over your shoulder, terrified of ever leaving Yuji alone. You may survive it, you're used to it, but he's going to be miserable, and you know it!"

Y/N nodded, staring into her hands, trying and failing to hide her despair.

"It doesn't make sense, Y/N," Shoko told her, struggling to moderate her voice. “We all care about Yuji. We don't want him to worry about getting killed or chased by bounty hunters. We have to keep him here. You can't keep him safe. That's why you made a binding vow with Satoru to protect Yuji, and you know he wouldn't let anybody hurt his students!"

Something changed on Y/N's face. For a moment, the light went out of her eyes. "He failed to protect his own daughter!" Y/N's voice broke. "How is Yuji going to be any different? At least he will be alive with me, or I'll die while protecting him!" Her chest was heaving so hard that her body bowed. “You stay out of this!”

"That's not being alive," Shoko said. "That's not living—"

"How would you know?" Y/N snapped. Her mood shifted so suddenly that Shoko was stunned into silence. "What do you know about being alive?" she demanded. "You think you've had it hard, but you don't realize that you've always had a roof over your head. You've never been consumed by grief and guilt to drive you almost completely insane! You've never lived inside of your own head!"

Shoko shuddered, stung by the venom of her voice. She had never seen Y/N so bitter, so cruel. She is just upset, she said to herself. She is just scared and worried, and she doesn't mean any of it, not really, she kept telling herself. She took a deep breath. She didn't lift her head to see Y/N's face when she said, "You're right. I have no idea how it is to live out here, no idea what it is like to starve or kill for money and watch people die in front of me, but you do, don't you? And now you're dragging Yuji down that path as well. You want him to have the same fate as you?"

Words, Y/N thought, were such unpredictable creatures. No gun, sword, army, or king could ever be more powerful than a sentence. Blades may cut and kill, but words will stab and stay, burying into the future, digging and failing to rip their skeletons from your flesh. These weren't nice things to say. Not now. Not after what she had been through. Not after trying to pick up the hopes and dreams and fumbling to glue them back together.

Y/N swallowed hard. "No," she tried to say, tried to inhale. Her lungs were swelling up, and her heart was racing so fast she could hear it pounding in her ears. All she could think was No. I don't wish for Yuji to have a life like mine. She couldn't let his life to fell apart, not again. It broke her heart to imagine it. To think of him struggling to find a way to stay alive.

"I want Yuji to live a long, happy life," she said, her voice small and shattered. "They have taken everything from me. I can't lose Yuji too."

"Please don't kill me for what I'm about to say," Shoko said and rubbed her forehead. Let's release the Kraken. She closed her eyes and cursed herself. This one was going to cause her great trouble. "Your family needs you."

"What the hell, Shoko?"

"Your other brother." A sigh. "Choso. He is alive, and they haven't been able to catch him yet."

Every moment in the world dropped dead right then, because they woke up and realized they would never be as important as this one.

Y/N lost the sensation in her knees. She held on to the wall to steady herself, her bones shaking inside her. "Choso is alive?" she said, hating how it sounded, hating that she sounded shocked.

How much more secret was there for her to learn about? How many more had they kept from her?

Shoko nodded. "Kento was supposed to tell you, but I guess you escaped too early. Choso wasn't there when Satoru found the other two."

Y/N's tears fell backward as they burned their way through her throat. "I have two brothers." A blank stare with a hint of a smile that didn't reach her eyes, instead like a vat of acid seeped into Shoko's skin.

"You have to find him, Y/N," Her words were soft. "Choso probably knows about the fingers stolen by curse users from the school. They had a purpose in stealing them. Find a way to get rid of these fingers before they get a hold on Yuji."

A heavy, cold dread fell over Y/N's body. "Curse users, they stole Sukuna's fingers?" Her heart was pounding, racing, and running through her body, and she was trying to focus and stay calm. "But why? Do they work for Sukuna? My brothers probably didn't know about Yuji, or they wouldn't do that," she said and realized how ridiculous her words must appear from the outside. Because she didn't know her brothers, and it was just a bet on her inner belief that they might have inherited some human emotions like her.

Then she remembered her vow with Sukuna. Twenty fingers, Yuji dies, and she becomes Sukuna's servant.

No, she couldn't allow this. She shook her head; her hands were tremulous.

Shoko stared at her. She never thought Y/N would be capable of looking so scared. But still, she stood on her feet. She would go to any lengths for them because Yuji and Choso were the only things stopping her from diving into a pool of her own insanity. They needed her. She had to fight for them. They were her only family.

Y/N drove her feet to the door and suddenly stopped. Yuji stepped into the corridor with Megumi. He seemed paler and slimmer than she had seen. He had something in his hand, distracted, not noticing the woman looking at him.

But then he looked up and froze.

His lips were parted as if to speak, and whatever he held hit the ground, shattering into so many sounds it startled Megumi and Shoko.

Yuji had not yet had the chance to see Y/N on her feet, and he was looking at her with eyes fixed on her face, his chest heaving, his face fighting so many different emotions. He seemed half terrified, half hopeful.

And while she realized that she should probably be the first to speak, she suddenly had no idea what to say.

"Y/N, you are up!" Megumi's face cracked into a huge smile. A rare occurrence.

Yuji started moving across the hallway in a stupor. It felt strange for Y/N, like everything had begun to slow down, like this moment wasn't real, somehow.

There was so much pain in his eyes.

She felt like she had been punched in the gut.

But then, he reached her, and there he was, right in front of her, his arms wrapped tight around her, and she melted into his embrace, relishing warm comfort, the familiarity with no pain in touch. Her hands reached around him, slipped up his back, and gripped him hard. She didn't even realize silent tears had fallen down her face until he pulled back to look her in the eye.

He told her not to cry, called her his sister, and whispered it was okay, that everything would be okay. And she knew it was all a lie, but it still felt good to hear.

He studied her face, like he had seen her for the first time. "I can't believe you're my sister! How come your hair is not pink!"

Yuji laughed; his laughter was like a hundred little bells, joyous, wholesome, and contagious. Y/N lured him into another fierce hug, holding on as much as she had time. He was happy, so relieved and thrilled, and maybe he would sleep with a lighter heart tonight.

Yuji was so full of life, so full of energy, so excited to have his sister around, but then it occurred to him. He came out of her arms. His suspicious look shifted between Y/N and Shoko. 

"You are leaving, aren't you?" Yuji asked, and she was startled to hear it out loud. His fists clenched, tearstains streaked across his face, and his bottom lip trembled even as he fought to hide the pain in his voice.

Her heart split clean in half.

Footsteps were heard, and soon Megumi appeared beside him, with his hand on Yuji's shoulder, silently inviting him to calm down, assuring Yuji that he was there for him.

"Answer me!" Yuji demanded, sniffing back the last of his tears, fists beginning to shake.

"Yuji, don't do this," Megumi said gently, lovingly, and squeezed his shoulder to calm him.

"What? She's leaving me behind, just like everyone else!" He heard accusations in his voice and did nothing to hide it. "Am I wrong? Tell me I'm wrong!"

Time seemed to stand still.

Everything she wanted to say and everything she had wished to say fell to the floor and scrambled upright. Paragraphs and paragraphs began building walls around her, blocking and justifying as they found ways to fit together, linking and weaving and leaving no room for escape. Every single space between every unspoken word clambered up and into her open mouth, filling her with so much emptiness she thought she might just float away.

Shoko's face creased as she pulled herself together. She took her time responding. "She has to go," she said, "to find a way to save you and your other brother."

Yuji didn't respond. He only blinked several times and stared at Y/N. He was still in disbelief, with a face filled with anger, betrayal, and confusion.

Y/N pulled Yuji back into her arms and held him firmly; even though he wanted to push her away, he caved fast. Yuji was angry but preferred to be mad at her in her embrace. Her hand brushed his hair, and she kissed his forehead. Then she told him everything, with all the details, as quickly as she could before the elders came to school.

Shoko cleared her throat. "I hate to ruin this reunion, but the clock is ticking."

By the time the two siblings finally broke apart, they had tears in their eyes.

Yuji smiled, but his smile soon wore off. He lowered his head, as if it was not easy for him to say what he wanted.

"We'll get through this," he said, answering her silent thoughts. "All of it. We're going to be okay. We'll be fine." He touched her shoulder, allowed his fingers to trail down her arm, and held her hand tightly. She closed her eyes and tried to savor the moment.

"You'll work it out," he said. "You will find our brother and a way of destroying Sukuna's fingers. Promise me!"

She was afraid to speak. Fearful of what promises had done to her so far. But even in the darkest hours, light is hiding somewhere. She had to let hope flourish once more, even though hope was a dangerous, terrifying thing for a woman like her to have.

“You're going to get out of this, and I'm going to find Choso, bring him home, and make sure everything's fine. I swear to you, Yuji. I'll take care of everything. You just get stronger every day. All right? Don't worry about a thing. Do you understand?"

Yuji blinked at her. He nodded.

"Good." She stepped forward to plant a kiss on the top of his head. "Good," she said again. "You're going to be fine. Everything is going to be fine. I'm going to make sure everything is fine, okay?"

"Okay," he said, wiping away the last of his tears.

"Good," she said for the third time, still staring at his smiling, innocent face.

She smiled back, giving him everything she had, and then darted out the door.

For so many years, she had lived in constant terror of herself. Doubt had married her fear and moved into her mind, where it built castles, ruled kingdoms, and reigned over her, bowing to its will until she was little more than an acquiescing peon, too terrified to disobey, too scared to disagree. She had been chained, taken captive in her own mind. But finally, she had learned to break free.

She was no longer afraid of fear and would not let it rule her. Because for her family, she would reach into the earth, rip out the injustice and crush it with her bare hands.

Y/N took a more confident step forward, this time bracing herself against another sudden, biting gust.

She had never had anything called home in her entire life. Home was not a place for her. She always found a place to hide and store her valuables temporarily, but they were nothing like home. On the other hand, this school had become the first place she ever found sanctuary. The first place she ever felt safe.

She wasn't familiar with the feeling of leaving home; this was the first time she would miss a place. But what could she do? Since sometimes leaving is the only thing you can do.

She sighed because she knew she would be considered a curse user as soon as she left the school boundaries, but she didn't care at all. Everything had a cost, and this was a small price to have a family.

The wind climbed into her clothes, then wrapped itself around her bones. Icy fingers tiptoed up her pant legs, clenched their fists around her knees, and pulled. Suddenly she was not sure how she was still standing. Her blood felt frozen, brittle.

Something heavy fell on her shoulders—a coat.

She looked back to discover that Satoru was holding her blue scarf and hat.

She stopped, stopped breathing, talking, and thinking.

His eyes were moving, studying her. He looked at her with such intensity she wondered if he was even aware he was doing it. She wondered if he knew that when he looked at her like that, she could feel it as acutely as if his bare skin pressed against her own.

Memories crashed over her, scalding her in waves; the weight of his body against hers, the taste of his lips, the heat of his breathes, his sharp gasps for air, and the things he had said to her only in the dark.

She gulped. It indeed did things to her when he looked at her like that. It made her crazy because she hated that she couldn't control this, that this thread between them would remain unbroken till one of them died, and she didn't want him to die.

It was only two months ago, just two months ago, that he was hers.

Carefully, she took the hat and scarf and wore them. Satoru looked into her eyes then. It felt so wrong for him to be this close to her without being able to touch her at all. But he had said his goodbyes two weeks ago, that night in the infirmary.

He looked at her again for just a split second and looked away, and for a brief second, she caught the charge of emotion in his eyes.

'Don't cry,' she said to herself. 'Don't cry.'

She hated him. She hated him for doing this to her heart, hated her body for being so weak, for wanting him, missing him despite everything. She didn't know whether to cry, kiss, or kick him in the teeth, so instead, she said, without meeting his eyes, "You were right. Love really was the most twisted curse of them all."

Satoru fought to swallow back the lump in his throat and turned his head, ready to abandon any rational thought that he was compelled to accept after witnessing the agony he had brought to her life, but she was long gone.

Even six eyes couldn't find her if she didn't want to be found.

Run, Y/N. Run until your lungs collapse, until the wind whips and snaps at your tattered clothes, until you're a blur that blends into the background. Run, Y/N, run faster until your bones break, your shins split, your muscles atrophy, and your heart dies because it was always too big for your chest and beat too fast for too long and run.

Run, run, and run until you can't remember him. Run with open eyes and your mouth shut and dam the river rushing up behind your eyes. Run, Y/N.

Run until you drop dead.

Make sure your heart stops before you remember him. Before you ever remember.

Run.

Her legs screamed. They didn't want to walk away from him. Loyalty, she thought, was keeping her behind, but she pushed them faster anyway. Her lungs were sawing her rib cage in half, but she forced them to process oxygen regardless. Her cursed energy was concealed; she knew he couldn't see her and wouldn't chase her, but she had to keep moving. There was no time for human deficiencies.

She was always welcomed in her loneliness, in her sadness. In this abyss, there was a rhythm she remembered. The steady drop of tears, the temptation to retreat, the shadow of her past, the life she chose to forget had not, would never forget her.

She reached the school crossing and put her hands in her coat pockets, and suddenly her fingers touched the cold metal. A knife. Not just any knife. A knife he gave her. She closed her eyelids to stop the tears from falling. Then her hand tightened around the knife.

She had to be honest with herself. She was never going to forget him. There was no doubt this school felt like home because he was here. Because for the first time, she found safety and peace between his arms in front of that restaurant as his hand was bleeding from her cut.

He was her home.

Her bones against his, that was her home.

And without him, she was going to be homeless for the rest of her life.

Tag list: @hecateria @whattowritewhattonot @@readxeer00 @sunamew @yoongi-holland @sanokana @soft--grunge--burrito @move-in-mysterious-ways @tanu003097 @spookytreeeagle @wonderlandjthedaydreamer @littlecarrot06 @kurooyy @angeliccutie007 @misaki17 @yungliddysyx @nanamiswh0r3 @smokeyfuzz @sumii @zukisbabe @geidly @evalynanne @antheialy

[transingthoseformers]

Ooooh I've been toying with some terrible ideas for Megatronus, inspired by the Idolatry fic. Which I highly recommend, by the way.

In that fic, the former Champion is retired in order to marry her sponsor or something like that.

And I was just thinking, what if Megatron is suddenly told that his contract has been bought and he'll no longer be fighting in the Pits? He'll be sent off to be a trophy conjunx and carry their sparklings. He'll never see Soundwave or Orion Pax again.

The day comes when Megatron is sent away, and not even Soundwave can manage to get a hold of him. Both he and Orion are in despair over this, but they will find him. They also decide to carry on his work, with the addition of making sure bots can't just be sold to be married off.

Time passes. Their movement has gained influence, and bots are talking about them.

And that's when they see Megatron, for the first time in over a vorn. He's standing next to a femme in all her Towers finery, a young sparkling at his side, and he's obviously carrying another.

It's not much, but it's a start.

damnnnnn

I have not gotten to the fic yet, I will soon enough I will but. Goddamn that's dark, but it sounds vaguely like "hurt/comfort but it'll be mostly hurt for a while"

"We will get him back somehow. We will get him out, and we will make sure this can never happen to anyone else ever again. Mark my words, Soundwave, and never hesitate to remind me."

Why am I starting to get the vibe of this being a situation where Orion, Megatron, and Soundwave are the leaders of the proto-decepticons (perhaps, currently, with Orion as their leader and Soundwave as their sic??) I get the vibe the schism never happens here.

Another thing I remembered but in canon, I believe Soundwave greatly mistrusted Orion. But. In this, I can see Soundwave slowly but surely getting over that (especially with Megs going missing and Soundwave watching as Orion not only stays with their movement but tries to help Soundwave find him).

[animefu]

Pokémon Horizons - The Sudden Turn (Part 3)

Characters: Amethio, Friede, Liko, Roy, Orla, Molly, Dot, Murdock

Pokémon: Sprigatito, Corviknight, Charizard, Cap, Quaxly

After a while, it was already the next day, Amethio gradually woke up again. He hadn't really been able, to sleep after all, as he had originally hoped. The teen was still too preoccupied with yesterday's incident. He still couldn't believe, that Spinel had actually been so ruthless and had intentionally injured Liko so badly, just so he could get his hands on her pendant. Although, he had already said it right into his rival's face before, he still couldn't cope with the thought. It was just too terrible.

Amethio would definitely do something, to stop this bastard, from getting away with this. The teenager was definitely sure about that! Without any doubts or concerns!!

But first he stretched himself extensively, before looking at Liko to his left. The young girl was laying peacefully next to him, still sleeping. Sprigatito on the other hand was now also awake and calmly licked its paws.

This scene made Amethio smile slightly and he watched the two of them for a while, before deciding, to wake Liko up. So he very carefully crawled closer to her and shook her shoulder a little, because he didn't want to scare her in any way.

At some point the girl finally moved and opened her eyes with some difficulty. Her head was pounding, her vision blurry and at first she didn't know, where she was or what exactly had happened. Then she finally managed, to make out her surroundings. It seemed like, she was in a cave. But how did she get here? She was actually on her way to her grandmother with Roy and Friede to find out more about her pendant.

Liko continued, to look around and then suddenly spotted Amethio, who was sitting next to her, unusually calm and yes, strangely enough, a little worried. What the hell was going on here? Instinctively, her hand reached for her pendant and she stood up abruptly, to disappear as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, not very wise, because she was still dizzy and quickly lost her balance again.

However, Amethio reacted quick enough and stopped her fall with both of his arms, so that the Pokémon Trainer crashed right into his chest. But she quickly pushed the Explorer Admin away from her again and just looked at him with wide eyes, unable, to say anything at the moment.

So initially there was an inconsequential silence between both parties. Then Amethio finally spoke up. "Seems like, you're finally awake. How do you feel?" That was the first thing, the teenager said. However, it only caused more imaginary question marks for the still confused girl.

Then everything literally came pouring out of her. "What is going on here?! Why am I here?! Where is Sprigatito?! And why did you bring me here, why does my head hurt so much and..." Liko was so confused, that sometimes she didn't even know, what she was actually saying.

Then she suddenly contorted her face in pain and now also noticed, that there was a bandage tied around her stomach, just like around her leg.

At some point, however, Amethio grabbed both of her shoulders, to bring her out of her already somewhat hectic flow of speech. "Hey, hey, now calm down!! You're injured, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend, that you completely freak out right now." He took a short, deep breath, before continuing.

"I'll explain everything to you in detail, but only, if you calm down first and listen to me, please!!" he said in a firm voice, looking intently into her eyes.

Now Liko was even more perplexed, but she still followed his instructions and breathed in and out a few times. As her nerves calmed down a bit, she looked back at Amethio again.

"Ok, then explain that to me! What have you done to me? Why are we in this cave? And where on earth did these bandages come from?"

Amethio wasn't particularly surprised, that she was so upset. "I see... So you really don't remember, what happened?" he asked.

"Of course not, I want to know this from you, Amethio!" she demanded with his name on her lips and took Sprigatito on her lap, when she had now discovered her partner next to her, awaiting his response.

The person addressed ran his hands through his hair, sighing. "Oh man, where do I start?" Now Amethio began, to explain everything to her.

First the fact, that he had continued, to pursue her and her friends because of her pendant, then suddenly noticing his rival Spinel, who had separated Liko from her friends and finally the fact, that he had found her so extremely injured near that cliff including, that Spinel was responsible for the whole thing. And of course also, that Amethio had brought her out of danger and then treated her injuries, after fleeing with her into this cave, to be protected from the storm.

After he finished talking, Liko first had to put everything in order. "Ok, just so I understand this correctly... You stood up to that Spinel to protect me and then fled into that cave with me?" she asked and rubbed her head, because it was still stinging a little.

"Just like I said. I know, that this is all a little much for you right now. But you have to believe me, the moment, I saw you lying near that cliff, seriously injured, unconscious... I just didn't think any further at that moment and then just flew away with you, so that Spinel couldn't hurt you even worse. This... I just couldn't allow it..."

"Then... So was that you too with the bandages and everything? Are you really telling the truth?" Liko asked, still a little sceptical.

The person being addressed sighed and then nodded afterwards. "You don't have to believe me, really, but I assure you, everything is true, just as I told you." Amethio said once again.

"Ok, and... What do you plan to do now? After all, neither of us can stay here forever. And besides... Why are you suddenly so nice to me? How am I supposed to know, that you're just faking it all, to steal my pendant and then just leave me here afterwards?! Please give me one single reason, why i should really believe you!"

Amethio just looked at her. "I'm aware of that. But you have to believe me, I would never just take advantage of your situation like that! To be honest... I don't even know anymore, whether this is all happening properly..." he murmured and now became a bit uptight.

The black-haired girl listened carefully to every word spoken. "And what is that supossed to mean? Are you trying, to get yourself out of the affair, by claiming, that you don't want to work for the Explorers at all, just to look good in front of your boss later?! Are you seriously expecting me, to buy this from you?! You're crazy!" Now she was starting, to get very, very angry.

Amethio grabbed her shoulders again. "My God, can we just leave it like that for now?! That's all, I can tell you at that moment, Liko! What's more important now is, what you exactly can remember, before you were no longer conscious."

Instinctively, the girl wanted to ask the teen, how he knew her name, but then brushed off this thought quickly. Instead, she answered to his question:

"All right, I believe you now. Kinda... However... I still don't really understand, why you protected me and then saved me. You could have left me to my own devices and run off with my pendant. Except you didn't do that... You're acting completely different... Normally you would follow me and my friends to God knows where, just that you could get your hands on my pendant. But right now... I've never seen you like this... So why this sudden change of heart? I just want to understand, Amethio! That's all!"

Just another sigh from the teen. "That wasn't the answer to my question. First tell me, what exactly you can remember before the incident. Only then will I give you my answers, I swear." he replied and now waited for the girl's actual answer.

"Hghh... Yeah, ok, you won. I was on the way to my grandmother with Friede and Roy, when suddenly Sprigatito just jumped out of my arms and ran deeper into the forest. Of course I followed it, because I wanted to know, why it was suddenly acting so strangely. And when I finally found it... I then saw these strange Pokémon tracks. Of course I immediately wanted to call Friede, because I just ran away without letting them know. Then this Spinel guy came out of the shadows and wanted me to hand over my pendant to him. Of course I refused, whereupon his Umbreon then attacked us out of nowhere, I didn't even know, what happened at that moment. Sprigatito tried to defend me, but... Then suddenly everything went black. Well and you've probably seen the rest then. " Liko then ended.

"That's exactly, how it is." Amethio confirmed his previous statements again. "But now... You should go back to your friends. They're already probably looking for you like crazy." he said next now, standing up. Then he held out a hand to the girl. "Come on, I'll help you up." he offered, but Liko waved him away.

"No thanks. I can do it myself." the girl said and stood up demonstratively, but she was still not completely fit and hissed in pain, as she stepped on her injured leg.

Luckily, Amethio immediately supported her again and draped her arm across his shoulders, while he wrapped his other arm around her waist. This gave Liko a little more stability. "Wow, not so fast. There is no way, you can walk all by yourself in this current state. I'll take you to your friends." he said and took one of his Pokéballs out of his left pocket. "Corviknight!" As the Crow Pokémon appeared in front of the two, Amethio quickly put his attention back to Liko, who he was still supporting.

After he led the injured girl out of the cave, Amethio sat on its back and helped Liko onto his Pokémon right after, so that she was sitting in front of him. “Hold on tight, it’s actually not used, to carrying two people at the same time.” he explained.

The young Pokémon Trainer seemed unsure at first, but then finally nodded. Of course she took Sprigatito in her arms as well, so that it wouldn't be accidentally left behind. Shortly afterwards, the Crow Pokémon took off into the skies.

Liko stayed quiet at first, but then the silence became a little too awkward for her. "I was wondering... If we really fly to Friede and the others... What do you want to tell them? They will definitely think, that you kidnapped me and kept me in this cave against my will." she murmured at some point.

Amethio, who continued to look straight ahead despite her question in order to concentrate, finally answered her. "I've already thought of that. First try to reach Friede and tell him, to send his coordinates. This may give us a better chance of locating him and your other friends more easily. Then you can explain everything to them in more detail afterwards." he said, while he kept his focus on the correct direction of flight.

Liko only sighed, but then took her Rotom phone out of her jacket pocket. After it beeped a few times, someone finally picked up. "Yes, Friede? No, no, I'm fine, I wasn't kidnapped. Yes, I'll explain everything to you then, but could you send me your location first? No, it's not necessary. Of course. I promise, I'll get there straight away. Yes, that's good. See you later." After she hung up, she looked back at Amethio.

He also looked at her. "How's it going?" he asked. "He sent me his coordinates. He should be back on the Brave Asagi with Roy by now." Liko replied. The teen then nodded understandably.

"Okay, then we'll heading there now. Just hold on tight." he said and gave Corviknight a quick pat, whereupon the Pokémon made a croak and headed straight in that direction.

~~~

Meanwhile, the rest of the Rising Volt Tacklers waited impatiently for Liko's arrival. Friede was standing at the bottom of the airships plank, nervously tapping his foot up and down. Roy stood next to him, looking at him in slight worry. "Don't worry, Friede. She'll definitely show up any minute." he tried to calm him down a bit.

"It's easy for you to talk, Roy..." Friede just mumbled and continued, to look around impatiently. It was simply normal for him, to worry about, whether Liko was really okay. After all, she was like his own daughter for him.

At some point, however, Roy discovered a dark spot in the sky. "Hey, look up there! Isn't that..." Friede looked at him slightly confused and then also looked in that direction, as the spot seemed, to get closer and closer.

"No way... !! Charizard!!" He reacted, as if by reflex and summoned the Flame Pokémon directly from its Pokéball.

Roy blinked in confusion and looked back at the point, as he finally understood, why Friede was suddenly acting like that. A Corviknight landed right in front of them with a person, who was unfortunately all too familiar to both Trainers.

Both immediately felt their suspicions confirmed, when Amethio got off the Pokémons back and then helped a second person down shortly afterwards as well.

Friede thought, he couldn't believe his eyes. "Liko?! But how...?!" He was about to order Charizard to attack, but was suddenly stopped by Liko. "Wait!! Don't attack him!!" she shouted and stepped in front of Amethio with her arms wide, despite her bent leg, since she still couldn't stand on it properly.

This statement only made the leader of the Rising Volt Tacklers even more puzzled. "But... He suddenly shows up here with you, what does this all mean?!" At that moment he didn't understood, what was going on at all. But now the adult's gaze fell on Liko's bandages around her stomach and left leg.

"What in God's name happened to you? And what does Amethio have to do with all of this?!" he asked the next question.

Slowly all these piercing questions became too much for the girl. "Arceus, can we all just calm down first?!! Me and Amethio..." she briefly pointed to herself and then to the person mentioned. "We'll tell you everything in detail, but let's go inside, because even I can't stand for that long!" she snorted, slightly annoyed and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

Amethio listened to the little discussion with one ear, but preferred, to stay in the background for now.

Friede scratched his neck, but then finally gave in. "Allright, I get it. Then let's go in first. Molly can take another look at your injuries there." he said and briefly looked at the Explorer Admin, who was now standing next to the black-haired. It could be, that he valued him as a worthy opponent in battle. And that he would normally never trust Amethio to do something, like actually kidnapping Liko, just to get her pendant that way. But the fact, that he almost casually appeared with Liko in tow was suspicious, even to Friede.

"Finally." Liko spoke up again, breaking the silence and was about to start walking, but whimpered in pain, as she, once again unfortunately, put weight on her injured leg.

Amethio instinctively wanted to give her a hand again, although he didn't really know why, but then still preferred, to better step back, as Friede came to the young Pokémon Trainer's side, instead of him.

He let out another sigh. 'It's probably better this way... At least for now...' he heard his thoughts speaking again, so he stayed quiet. As he stood there a bit awkwardly at first, he quickly was approached by his other 'rival':

"Hey, if you don't want to spend the night out here, you should come in with us. Not that you're going to get sick." the white-haired man simply said to him and then went with Liko, who was leaning on him, onto the ship and into the meeting room. Beforehand, he dropped the girl off at Molly's, so that she could take a closer look at her injuries, as he mentioned earlier.

Amethio continued, to stand there silently and briefly looked down at Roy. "Is he always so... sarcastic?" Roy looked at him briefly. "You have no idea... Now come on." he said and now went onto the ship as well. Amethio just sighed again and recalled Corviknight, before simply walking after the boy.

~~~

After everyone had gone into the meeting room, all eyes almost automatically turned to the black and silver-haired. After all, it wasn't exactly an everyday occurrence for the crew, to have a member of the Explorers on board.

Thankfully, Amethio had given Liko good enough initial care, so that no further measures were necessary for the time being. So the black-haired girl quickly rejoined the rest of the group, but deliberately positioned herself next to the teen. After all, she was the only one, who could explain the situation the best, the current one and the previous one.

Friede was now back in the room as well and so it was him, who directly asked the first question:

"Ok and now everything from the beginning again, Liko. How come, Amethio suddenly shows up with you? I... I just don't really understand it."

Cap, who was sitting on his shoulder, made a sound of agreement. Apparently he also wanted to know all the details. Which of course was all too understandable. "Pika."

Liko looked briefly at Amethio, then back at Friede. Then she basically told her friends the same thing, that she had told Amethio and what he told her before as well. After she finished, she looked into dozens of shocked faces.

"Arceus... I knew right away, that you wouldn't just disappear like that." Roy interjected immediately, whereupon the rest nodded in agreement.

"I was convinced of that from the start, after what Friede told me. But to get back to the topic... Why are you showing up here with Amethio of all people?" Dot now asked next.

Now it was Amethio himself, who spoke up after a while:

"Listen, I'm well aware that, you don't want to believe me. And I don't even expect that from you. After all, I've already caused you a lot of trouble. But this time... I... I didn't really know, what motivated me to help Liko myself." he gulped shortly, before continuing.

"But... After I saw her lying so badly wounded near that cliff... And then Spinel, who coldly admitted this terrible act without a hint of compassion... And then almost took Liko with him, probably to use worse methods to get her pendant and finding out its secrets... I really didn't know, what had come over me at that moment!! I just got her out of that situation out of pure instinct and then hid with her in that cave... I can't say anything more about it at the moment, as much as I would like to..." he finished and looked at everyone quite uncertainly.

The teenager then glanced sideways at Liko. She immediately interpreted his gaze and now looked at everyone else again. "Listen up, guys... I ask you all... Amethio told me on the way here, that... He is no longer sure, whether the matter with my pendant is the right thing to do. That's why... I would like us, to support him together, to get away from the Explorers... I think... He has good potential, to become one of us."

This statement only caused disbelief and even bewilderment on the faces of everyone present. Did they just get that right?!

"Wow, wow, wow, hold on a second! Are you serious right now?!! You want to make him one of us? For him to switch to the good side?! Is this supposed to be a joke or something?" Dot couldn't believe her ears. Same was true to Quaxly. "Kwua!"

Despite the objections, Liko still tried, to somehow convince her friends. "I know it sounds ridiculous, but hear me out. In my opinion, Amethio is under a lot of pressure. He's still very young after all, and... That's why I don't think, he's a member of the Explorers of his own free will. Maybe... Someone from the organization is forcing him, to work for him or her. I just feel it! So please, everyone... Please support me with my idea!!" the girl now pleaded and made a corresponding bow.

Some still seemed skeptical. "Well, I don't really know, Liko..." Orla mumbled and didn't seem, to be quite so convinced. So did Murdock and Molly, apparently.

Now it was Friede again, who scratched his chin thoughtfully. "If you look at it closely... Your arguments aren't that far-fetched, if I'm being honest..." he said, whereupon he received incredulous looks from his comrades.

"Um, excuse me, Mister 'Pokémon Professor'! Have you already forgotten all the tricky situations, we've been in because of him over there?" Apparently Molly didn't entirely agree with his kind of valid argument and pointed exactly in Amethio's direction, as she spoke.

"Ehem, I don't know, if you noticed it by now, but this 'him' also happens, to have a name and can hear you clearly!" it know came from Amethio, as he cleared his throat and you could tell, that he was a bit annoyed by the sound of his voice.

Friede just sighed slightly strained and stopped the little argument between the two pretty quickly. "Alright, that's enough now. And again, you know exactly, how much I hate it, being called Professor, Molly... But to get back to your point. No, of course I have NOT forgotten, what we've been through, because of Amethio. But if it's really true, what Liko just told us... Couldn't we just see for ourselves and check, if there's really anything to what she said?"

These words made the black-haired listen up. "Then does that mean... you're really giving him a chance?" Liko's eyes lit up slightly with hope, as she looked into those of her friends.

They looked at each other hesitantly for a moment, but finally sighed. Now was definitely not a good time, to start a discussion with Liko right now. And especially not, when Amethio was there at the moment as well. "As stubborn as you are here, we hardly have any other choice, do we?" Murdock said, smiling somewhat teasing towards the spoken one, however, she did not respond further.

The girl now finally looked at Molly and Orla. They also sighed and then nodded, albeit a little hesitantly. "All right, we believe you. And... Even though, we really hate, to do it... We'll give Amethio a chance. But that doesn't mean, we'll trust him right away." they both said almost in sync.

"Thank you, really." she said and looked briefly at Amethio, who was still standing uncertainly next to her. "See? I told you, I would help you." Liko smiled slightly at the young Explorer Admin and gently touched his shoulder.

He still seemed a little nervous, but then showed a timid smile, albeit a little hesitantly. "Thank you... That... That's really nice of you. Although I caused you a lot of trouble and for you as well." he said, still a little unsure, while looking at the others, especially Friede.

"And... For that... I really want to sincerely apologize to you... What I've done to you so far, really wasn't right. I'm so ashamed of this now... Please, you just have to believe me... I... I'll make it up to you... Somehow... You have my word." To support his statement, the teenager made a brief bow to everyone present.

Friede now stretched himself and rose from his seat. "Well then, I think that's enough for today. It's been an rough enough day for all of us. And... I have to thank you, Amethio... Even though I hate to admit it... For finding Liko and immediately helping her... Oh yes... And for bringing her back home as well..." the leader of the Rising Volt Tacklers said and stepped forward, holding out a hand to his 'rival'. "I am in your debt."

Amethio initially looked at his hand a little skeptically, but then finally shock it lightly. "No problem." he just responded quietly and then took a step back. He probably had to get used to the situation first.

"Well, then we should slowly go to sleep, it's pretty late by know. But first we should eat something, because it's not particularly easy, to sleep on an empty stomach. I speak from experience..." Roy now said.

Dot rolled her eyes slightly at his last words. "Thank you very much, Roy. That's, what we all wanted to hear." she said with a pretty obviously ironic tone and adjusted her sweater a little.

Murdock chuckled softly. Then he stood up and put both hands on his hips. "Anyway, I'll take care of the food then. It'll blow your mind!" he said with a broad grin and shortly afterwards disappeared towards the kitchen.

~~~

Meanwhile, the rest prepared the table, putting out cutlery and dishes. Shortly afterwards everyone took a seat and Amethio sat next to Liko. Which in principle was only logical, since Ludlow was fishing most of the day anyway and as a result, there was almost always an empty chair available.

So while everyone was waiting for dinner to be on the table, some decided to ask Amethio a few questions. After all, he already said before, or rather Liko, that he basically didn't want to work for the Explorers at all. Or at least, not anymore. Basically how you interpreted it.

"So... How did you come, to be part of a large organization of villains anyways?" Roy asked first. "Because to me you don't seem particularly evil enough, to be in such a position. At least not according to your age." he added.

The silver and black-haired teen just looked at him uncertainly. Great, just the very first question and he was already overwhelmed. Really a great start. "Well..." Amethio bit his bottom lip slightly and kneaded his fingers under the tabletop. Hopefully unnoticed by the rest of the team. At least he hoped so.

Liko, on the other hand, quickly noticed his tension and gently placed one of her hands on one of his. "If it's too much for you, we can put the question aside for now and start with something easier instead." she suggested and smiled slightly encouraging at him, whereupon the teen just gave a slight nod from himself.

"Then... How old are you actually?" Friede asked. The young teenager definitely liked this question better. At least so far. "I'm 16." Amethio answered. The leader of the Rising Volt Tacklers put his thumb and index finger on his chin, while his rival gave his answer, as if he had already expected this.

"Hah, I knew it!! Then my guess wasn't that far-fetched after all." he said, giving off a slightly triumphant expression, which was unfortunately all too typical of him. Amethio just slightly rolled his eyes and his face switched, once again, into a relative annoyed expression, while his left eyebrow was slightly twitching as well. "Tch... Whatever." he grumbled and crossed his arms.

"Ok, then how about this? What can you tell us about your past? What was your childhood like? And how was or is your relationship with your parents? And the most important thing is, how did you end up, being part of the Explorers after all?" Liko now tried her luck with something similar, to what Roy had asked him previously. She was still firmly convinced about the fact, that Amethio didn't work for the Explorers voluntarily. He just had to be under a lot of pressure! She simply couldn't find any other explanations at the moment. Plus she really couldn't imagine, that the black and silver-haired was particularly evil. There had to be something slumbering deep inside of him, wich was never, ever seen by anyone before.

Amethio suddenly jumped at her words. In a way, the teen kinda had already expected these specific questions. And yet he was anything, but prepared for it. Even, if it was actually unintentional on her part, Liko had hit a sore spot in him.

"You know... Actually... I don't really like, talking about my past itself... It's... Let's say... Complicated..." he said very cautiously. It was clear to see in his face, that Amethio didn't talked much, or at least rarely, about his past in general.

"But on the other hand... I would like, to finally open up to someone... Who won't judge me, because of it... Unfortunately, I've already had some very unpleasant experiences with that..." he then said.

Liko looked at him somewhat compassionate. "Oh I see... If you don't want to talk about it then..." she began, but quickly was interrupted by the teen again:

"No, no, it's fine, really! I finally want to talk about it. But the thing is, that I haven't open up myself to anyone before. It was or rather 'is' extremely difficult. Not even Zir and Conia know anything personal about me. Only, that I have Corviknight and Ceruledge and that's basically it." he continued. "Up until now, I've simply repressed the idea, of ​​ever talking about my past again." the young boy added lastly.

"Mhh, I see... The way you just put it, your childhood and the time afterwards seem to have been anything, but harmonious." Orla now spoke up, whereupon Amethio just nodded again. "You aren't quite wrong with it..." he mumbled.

Now, for the very first time, a completely new, previously unknown side of the young Explorer Admin was recognized. Usually Amethio was always calm and collected... Had never shown a lot of different emotions before, such as joy, sadness or despair, with mostly anger and the feel of disrespect being the only, two exceptions. But right now? They never seen him like this ever before, not even Friede.

After a good while, in which there was again a very uncomfortable silence, Liko now started speaking to the young teen once more:

"You know... I can understand you... I certainly wouldn't feel any different. But maybe... It would just be easier for you, if you talk about it especially right now. Plus, since you saved me from certain death." the black-haired brought up as a reminder, encouraging and trying, to give Amethio a sort of feeling of trust and some security as well.

Amethio then looked at her again, his eyes still showing concern and uncertainty. But actually there was simply something in her words. 'She's right... You can't run away from your past forever! You finally have to face it!! For the sake of yourself and your freedom!!' he heard his mind talking to him.

It was actually the only opportunity for the teen. Because only this way, he could possibly get away from all the pressure of being a member of the Explorers, regain his freedom and never, ever have to let others control and humiliate him again!!

So after Amethio had sorted out his thoughts for a short while, he finally looked at everyone with determination. "You know what? You're absolutely right! I finally have to do something, to get my life back on track!!"...

To be continued...

Sidenote: Well, that concludes this Part of the story. I'll be honest with you, I never thought, that this Part would be so full of tension and plus sometimes very emotional as well in comparison to the previous two parts. But more importantly, what did you guys think about Part 3? Feel free, to write me your opinions into the tags. And I would also highly appreciate it, if you could give it a like as well. Because this would just motivate me a lot, to actually continue this story, because I would just know, you really enjoy reading this whole piece overall.

And I would be to myself like 'OK, people like, what I'm doing currently, that's why I have to give everything, I have, to please and impress them even more!!' xd

Regardless to all of that, if you want to find out, how it will continue with Amethios character, as the story progresses and what I still have planned for him and his future relationships with the Rising Volt Tacklers, then I highly recommend you, to definitely stay tuned and join in next time to Part 4 of:

'Pokémon Horizons - The Sudden Turn'

Up until then!! 😘😘😘😘

Your lovely @animefu

[hirukochan]

Hi!! I love your writing so much I was just wondering what do you plan to do in the future? I’d love to live in your brain for like one minute because the ideas you have and the way you write is so amazing and unique.

Hi!! <3 

My brain is a very crowded, forgetful and cramped place, zero out of five stars would not recommend lol.

I have a few ideas for the future!

Of course A Servant of Death. I have four parts in total planned for that series and there is a vampire arc coming up in part three I am so excited for! It’s a huge project and I try not to stress myself out to prevent burn out. The first part ended up being longer than the HP book it was based on 😅. So that - even though it’s updating slower rn (I might have gotten a tad too excited and published too many WIPs right after one another 😅) it’s my baby, my love, my passion project. It’s not getting abandoned, it’ll just need some time to grow 🥰.

I am being strict with myself to finish my WIPs before I publish anything longer than a oneshot. Your tears is nearing its end though I am beginning to fear it’ll be longer than I anticipated because I’ve had a few more ideas (cramped and crowded brain and terrible planning skills + a lack of self control 😬). A most unexpected turn of events won’t be too long (she said optimistic for the fourth time now???) and with Carrying Atlas I honestly have no idea. I could spend forever developing their relationship and ignore the plot I have planned. I’m avoiding sitting down and fleshing it out for now in favour of writing smut!

As for oneshots:

I have a second part for Ministry Documents planned!

A Snape/Reader/Voldemort oneshot, the reader is either an Auror they trap and ‘punish’ together or a new recruit that has to prove her loyalty, haven’t decided yet, might write both. 

I have a half finished Snape/Reader/Crouch jr professor-student oneshot lying around where the reader has been sleeping with both her professors but neither knew about the other and they punish her together.

I am writing on a Snarriet oneshot, Snape is a demon Harrie summons but something goes wrong.

I have a few more ideas for Snarriet, including one Muggle AU where James and Lily are alive and Snape is Uncle Sev 🤭 (no blood relation!!) Questionable but it’s intriguing me.

Then I would love to rewrite an old fic of mine. It’s a Snape/OC story that’s very dear to me. It has its own magical society within the wizarding world. It follows Snape and Theodora O’Brian who has to attend Hogwarts against her wishes. She experiences racism, discrimination, classims, cultural genocide and the literal murder of her relatives because they arn’t ‘real’ witches and wizards.

It takes place during the first and the second war. They both join Voldemort after school, both get sucked into this cult and soon realise it’s not what they were promised it would be. Voldemort takes advantage of them, he seduces them and they have to navigate their life together, their complicated feelings for Voldemort, Dumbledore’s questionable morals and many more challenges. So it’s teen!Snape and adult!Snape. And there is an irish wolfhound named Duchess!

I have a Severitus fic with fem!Harry planned! Snape has to care for baby Harrie after the war. Voldemort is dead once and for all, no Horcruxes. It’ll be a bit of a character study I think, exploring Snape’s trauma and his struggles with reentering the ‘normal’ society after a horrible time among Death Eaters, his struggles as a parent, his wish to do better for her than his parents did for him. I think Snape reconciling with one of his parents during his journey as adoptive dad would be nice too. 

Another old story I’d like to rewrite is about Snape suddenly having to take a far more active role in raising his baby sister. It takes place before Harry comes to Hogwarts. She is sixteen (or fifteen??? I can’t remember lol) and a whirlwind of chaos, anger and some underlying issue she isn’t talking about. She went to Ilvermorny because Eileen moved to the US with her when she was a baby, leaving Snape alone with their father. After their mother dies Snape lets her stay at Ilvermorny. She gets expelled and Snape brings her to Hogwarts to finish her education. They bump heads all the time. It’s a lot of chaos 🤣 but also a fiercely protective older brother!Snape 🥰

I have probably more ideas that I forgot about and are now rotting in some notebook I’ll rediscover in a few weeks 🤣

But these are those stories I have lined up to write once I have cleared some things off my plate ☺️💚

[tired-fandom-ndn]

this is probably a weird question to suddenly receive, but you're like the only person i know who'd get it so- how In Your Face is the Jon/Martin relationship in TMA?

i haven't finished s1 yet, but the idea of their relationship being a central focus makes me want to drop the entire thing, which really sucks because so far, it's the only podcast that's scratching that Itch

I am absolutely the right person to ask, anon!

So for me personally, I actually thought it was pretty bearable for the majority of the show. There's very little in the early show, thankfully, and for the rest of it, it's just some annoying pining from Martin. It can get frustrating at times, but for seasons 1-4, it's very much one-sided with only very very vague implications that Jon may have feelings for Martin in s4 (if I recall correctly). If you're aro (like me) or you just really hate their relationship and/or Martin personally (also like me), it's all really easy to ignore. I can remember that the fandom is actually what made it so difficult and frustrating for me personally.

S5 is when their relationship is actually made canon and it's commonly referred to by the fandom as an "apocalyptic honeymoon roadtrip" so. . . if you're not into them as a ship, you can do what the rest of us did and pretend like the s4 was the final season lmao

It's a really good show (though I have heard TERRIBLE things about TMP) and I highly recommend most of it, but yeah. Maybe give s5 a pass if you don't want to deal with the Jmart Show™, otherwise have fun.

[lilacsolanum]

I'm really feeling grateful for the unspoken rule in fandom that if you don't like a fic, just click off. It's free and it's a hobby, so there's no need to leave a critical review. Every now and then I'll see people whine about that, which. Wild. But like. Hey, don't.

In 2020, I lost more than just my job. I lost my entire life path. I lost the future I had planned for myself. I worked in the service industry, and that industry will never, ever be the same. It might look like it's snapped back from the outside, but it hasn't. Obviously, everyone life changed permanently, a literal global level of shift, and I'm not exactly special. Myself and my family and friends all came out of it healthy and I'm so grateful. Still, man, for me more than most people I know, shit was like the Thanos snap. One day, half my life was gone.

I had two choices: despair, or make the best of it. I've been called to performing my entire life, but never pursued it due to self-doubt. Well, when I was unemployeed and desperate, I suddenly decided to jump into audiobook narration with no plan and no training. And somehow, I got gigs. I started working with an author who was on the verge of blowing up, who didn't have the budget to find a trained professional at the time so used someone with potential who would work for an appropriate payrate. I recorded my first series giving 200%, which is 100% more than anyone wants to listen to in an audiobook narrator. I'm incredibly proud of my first efforts and invested the money I made in coaching and equipment upgrades, but as the author's fanbase grew, so do people's expectations of the narration.

It's been uhhhhhhhhh a wild ride. I'm so grateful that I got lucky, but also, do not recommend this situation to anyone. While I am improving and growing, most of my books are a little rough, and the one star reviewers are fucking LETTING. ME. KNOW. All caps, rage filled, terrible spelling and b'grammar'd passionate reviews on every audiobook retailer imaginable are out there for me to obsess over in at my low points. Which is often. Remember when I said I suffer from crippling self-doubt? Mama I am dragging my stubborn ass through this accidental career pivot of mine out of spite rather than pride. It's not fun.

They have a right to speak their mind, as most of them paid for the book! So if you hate it, go off! But still! Sometimes I combat that by reading comments on my fanfiction. The majority of comments I receive on AO3 are positive with a few mild exceptions, and those are easy for me to shake off because of the support I've received. The positive comments motivate me to improve my writing just as much as the negative comments on my acting do, except being positively motivated makes that improvement go faster and a more pleasant journey. It's a nice, safe place for me. I don't appreciate the culture of no negative comments because I don't accept that negative criticism is a part of putting yourself out there creatively. I accept it very much. I appreciate them because I AM a professional creative and people pay for products I've produced and have every right to express their opinions on it and it's so important I have a space where I don't have to deal with that.

So thank you, those who suppress the urge to leave negative comments on fanfic. And thank you to people who leave kind reviews. You never know what someone is going through, and my god, kind comments on my fic inspire me to work even harder as a performer, because one day, I want to receive equal positivity for both ventures. Thank you for fueling my ambitions with kindness.