#that pedestrian crossing doesn't have a stoplight but there is a stoplight for the cars a couple of meters AFTER the pedestrian crossing

[airenyah]

sometimes i feel like i missed out on a lot of "italian-ness" bc we stopped going there on a regular basis when i was 9 and i hardly ever saw that side of the family but then i come across a video on youtube titled "southern italians arguing" and it's just a civil (but lively) discussion about a card game the men were in the middle of playing and i'm getting flashes of what it sounds like when my sicilian dad gets real angry and it reminds me of that one time last year when i was working as an intern at a theater (in austria) and one of my tasks was to feed the actors their lines during rehearsals and one time the lead actor came up to me saying "i'm sorry that i'm always so snappy and impatient when i ask for my lines" and i went "this is nothing?? no offense taken"

or this other time, i can't remember if it was at that theater as well or if it was a different context (still in austria) but one time someone got a little loud with me (bc they were irritable and it didn't have anything to do with me or anything that i'd done) and afterwards those who were witnessing the situation were telling me "you do know you don't have to let yourself be treated like that and that you can tell them off, right?" and i was just there like ".......wait i was getting yelled at just now????"

i'm so used to my sicilian dad (and my half-sicilian brother) getting loud at any random minor inconvenience that it for real didn't even register that this person was "yelling" at me for austrian standards, ESPECIALLY since i knew i hadn't done anything wrong and it was all them and their bad mood at the time. and while i did realize that this person wasn't having the best of times in that moment, the fact that they were getting loud at me just simply didn't register. my brain honest to god just went "ah yes this is a completely Normal volume for this level of bad mood, cool cool" and i just kept chilling while everyone around me went "the audacity?? how could they be so rude to you?? are you okay??"

[ahopelessromantika]

On the night of December 24, he opens his door to a very pale girl.

He furrows his eyebrows at her, recognizing her as a schoolmate of his. "What are you doing here?"

Her breaths are like puffs in the winter air.

"Don't you dare leave your house tomorrow night," she grounds out, a bit too aggressive for a guest. "This is the only warning you'll get."

He stares at her incredulously. "What?"

Unimpressed, the girl glares back at him. "I know you don't go out a lot, but trust me, you will go out tomorrow to buy a cake for Christmas Eve. And you mustn't, you understand? I don't care if you have to because it's your mother's request or the devil himself ordered you to— you will not leave your house tomorrow."

He can only gape at her as she spins on her heels and walk away, her back defensively hunched and hands hidden in the pockets of her jacket.

The next day, he decides to follow the girl's advice and stay home. However, just before dinner, his mother tells him to go to the nearest bakery and buy a celebratory cake— an action the girl from last night had predicted.

"Must I?" he asks, desperately stalling for time.

Five minutes later, he's out in the streets, about to cross the pedestrian lane with other people to reach the bakery on the other side. Everything is peaceful, and he impatiently waits for the stoplight to turn green so he can cross the road and get it over with. Unbidden, his mind drifts back to what the girl told him.

He shakes the memory off and sighs in relief when the stoplight finally shifts to green.

"Watch out!"

Chaos ensues.

Someone pushes him from behind, screams from several people around him erupt, and he unceremoniously crashes to the side, whipping his head up to see—

A familiar girl lying in front of a black car, all limp and bleeding as reflected by the street lamps.

The car doesn't have its headlights on.

He curses and sprints to the girl in earnest. In a moment he reaches her, and a throng of equally stunned and curious people surround them, pushing and pulling to get a better view of the scene, but he ignores them and instead cradles the girl's head in his lap.

He lets out a panicked curse under his breath.

The girl gives him a humorless smile, blood spilling from her lips and coating her teeth.

"I told you," she rasps.

Then suddenly he's in his bedroom staring at the ceiling, the alarm clock on his desk ringing loudly.

He bolts up and checks the date.

December 24, 2023.

A dream?

He breaks out in cold sweat.

No.

A second chance.

-by ahopelessromantika-

[to-star-lake]

one & only

sanzu haruchiyo x f!reader { you're sanzu's one and only. }

18+ minors dni | murder, drug use, dark themes, rough sex, choking, toxic relationship, character death, bonten sanzu

a/n: sanzu's name { 三途 } is written the same as 三途の川 { sanzu-no-kawa, “river of three crossings” or “sanzu river” } which is the japanese buddhist version of the river styx.

sanzu doesn't call you his girlfriend. he'd never use such pedestrian language to describe what you are to him. soulmate is closer. but still, to take everything he felt about you and edit it down to a single word? it wouldn't be possible.

the best he could describe it is perhaps that you were made for him.

the day mikey introduced you to the other executives as bonten's newest advisor, sanzu stood in the back of the room, unconsciously biting his lip as he stared at your clean and crisp white tee shirt, tucked neatly into a pair of black slacks. your perfect skin. your shiny hair pulled back into a neat ponytail. your delicate hands. and the sharp glisten of your eyes. you looked so sincere.

a top scholar and graduate of the national university. your parents had been foreign diplomats. you spoke five languages. all this brilliance packaged neatly behind such a pretty face. oh, you were so perfect. so pristine. i'll make you regret playing with monsters, little princess. sanzu thought he couldn't wait to break you.

it didn't take him long to realize how wrong he was.

he'd stare at your hands, the ones he thought were so delicate, as they beat mercilessly into the skull of a traitor that lay limp beneath you. being a bonten advisor meant you never needed to get your hands dirty. but you didn't mind. and sanzu felt a trickling heat of excitement shimmy up his spine watching the blood splatter across your perfect skin, staining your clean shirt.

he'd listen in awe in the war room as your fingertips traced gracefully over blueprints of the city, and you'd describe plans for a new building downtown. a new shell business to run money through. a merger with a smaller, weaker gang simply as a means to procure disposable foot soldiers for mikey.

on one particular night, he'd sat back and watched you, transfixed, as he pulled the car up beside a dark tinted suv at a stoplight on a deserted street on the outskirts of shinjuku. you'd pointed your gun out the open window, so fast and precise on the trigger, taking out all the passengers in the car. he would've missed the shots with a single blink.

he couldn't recall all the details of the rest of that night. but he woke to find you in his bed the next morning, your naked body tucked comfortably under his sheets beside him.

his head pounded and he tried to remember what happened but all that he could recall were a series of blurred images. of the two of you leaving the war room together after receiving orders from mikey to take out the heads of a rival gang. a vision of your bare thighs, exposed under a short, plaid skirt as you sat in his passenger seat, and the quiet rattle as you attached a silencer to the end of your gun.

he remembered the sound of indistinct chatter and an image of you sitting across from him in a dimly lit restaurant. a vague recollection of a bottle of scotch, of him staring at himself in the restaurant's bathroom mirror as he wiped some white residue from his upper lip. of you, bent over the sink with a straw in your nose. a blurred reel of your legs wrapped around his waist, of him pushing you up against the mirror so hard the glass cracked and you moaned into his open mouth. you sounded as sweet as you tasted.

in the grey winter light here in his bed, he looked at the blotches of blue and purple bruises that lined your neck and chest. at the edge of your perfect lips, a little swollen and the skin a little cracked. at the indentation of teeth marks on your shoulder, red with coagulated blood under the surface.

your eyes fluttered open and for a moment he was afraid. afraid that the cold light of day would be too harsh for you. afraid that all that was mystifying and beautiful in the night would be destroyed by the light. afraid you would leave.

but you'd looked into his eyes for a moment, and your lashes fell closed and you'd snuggled into his side, languidly dragging your arm across his chest.

let's sleep a little more, my head hurts and we still have at least another hour before we have to go meet the others.

oh, your voice sounded so sweet, still raspy with sleep, a lullaby to his ears.

as bonten leaders, he knew a relationship with you was strictly forbidden. he knew what mikey would do if he or any of the others ever found out. and he knew you knew too.

but you simply shrugged your shoulders as you picked up your clothes that were scattered across the floor of his bedroom. like you knew what he was thinking, and said i'm not afraid of them. are you?

he'd laughed at himself then. just who was corrupting who? he wondered.

the time he had with you began to envelope his heart. and the love he felt for you; small, crackling embers at first, had grown into a fire so bright and wild and twisted it could not be extinguished.

you were his partner; his chosen one. he loved the way your knuckles looked when they were bruised and red; such a beautiful contrast against your delicate and soft skin. he loved the way your fingers graced the handle of your gun, the dead calm of your eyes when you pulled the trigger. he was intoxicated with the knowledge that you were watching every time he carried out his duty as executioner.

his infatuation with you burned in his chest when he'd glance up at you, standing in the distance, eyes fixed on him and you'd slowly drag the palm of your hand up your thigh; testing his willpower to not pin you to the ground and tear you apart right then and there in front of his men.

under the cover of darkness, the two of you came alive. going on sprees, speeding through the bright streets of tokyo, the lights around you a blurred spectral of color to your bloodshot, medicated eyes.

in the midnight hours, your bodies would be intertwined, and in your arms he found a sanctuary. your body was the most addicting drug of all. you made all the pain disappear.

the quiet hours of the early morning, when time teetered on the edge of night and day, he'd lay on your chest, and for just a little while, his world would fall quiet. the air around him felt still. he would be coming down from his high, and he could feel everything. but he didn't mind. these small hours of lucidity shone brilliantly in his mind. when he could hear your breathing. feel your heartbeat so vividly beneath your bones. smell the lingering and sweet scent of your skin on his.

he'd become so possessed by you, so possessive of you that one night when he had you laid out beneath him, your legs spread wide for him, and he thought you looked so beautiful like this. so perfect like this for him. your skin, slick with a layer of sweat, luminescent in the moonlight. your lips, parted and choking out shaky pleas for him, begging him not to stop.

he buried himself so deep inside you, nails clawing into your skin, so desperate to be one with you. and he thought no one, no one else would have you like this. he was so intoxicated by the medley of pills in his system, completely unhinged in the euphoria of being inside you, he'd reached for his gun on the nightstand and held it to your forehead, point blank between your eyes.

you didn't even flinch. he watched you knock the gun from his hands, and slide your fingers up his wrists, and pulled his hands to your neck, letting him wrap them around your throat. if you're gonna kill me, do it with your own hands, you'd said.

god, he loved you so much. he wanted you so much, he needed you so much. he'd closed his hands around your neck with the gentlest force and watched your eyes roll back.

say my name, he'd command. and when you did, he closed his hands more forcefully around your delicate neck so he could feel the vibration in your throat as you choked out his name over and over. you'd clenched down so tight around him and he came harder than he ever had, collapsing into you.

he'd slowly let go of you, chest heaving, and gently caress at the skin of your neck, red and starting to bruise.

y/n...if i died, would you die with me? he'd whisper into your skin.

mmh, yeah. you'd whisper back.

i don't want anyone else to have you. i want you to be mine forever. he'd kiss the corner of your lips.

he'd feel your fingers laced up into his hair, your legs wrapped around his hips, pulling him close.

what am i going to do with you...i might really kill you one of these days.

he'd lift his head to look at you. and your expression didn't change a bit. your eyes held the same resolve they always did, and you said, then i'll wait for you by the sanzu river.

this was what flashed through his mind when he walked into one of bonten's warehouses late one evening for a meeting of the executives, and he saw all of them standing in a circle around you, bound and tied, blood streaming from your hairline, your bruised body limp on the concrete.

he fell to his knees then, watching mikey shove the end of his gun against your temple.

did you think i wouldn't find out? mikey's thumb clicked down on the hammer.

he saw your eyes flutter open and find his. you smiled.

the muzzle flash was bright, and the shot rang through the dark, open space.

he stared at the blood pooling from the side of your head into the dust. he felt a single tear roll down his cheek. shit, am i really crying right now? he laughed at himself.

WHO ARE YOU LOYAL TO, SANZU?! mikey demanded.

i'll wait for you by the sanzu river. your words echoed in his mind.

mikey may have been his king. but you were the redeemer, his messiah, his salvation.

the choice was simple.

he pulled his own gun from its holster and held it up to his temple.

i'm on my way, love.