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iamnotoriginalphil · 1 month ago

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Lessons in Ownership (Professor!Agatha Harkness x f!Reader)

Synopsis: Agatha gives you a night to yourself, only it turns out letting you off the leash brings up some issues for her.

Warnings: alcohol consumption, student/teacher relationship, power imbalance, unhealthy relationship, age gap (all 18+), possessiveness, jealousy, self-esteem issues, dom!Agatha, sub!Reader, smut, choking, swearing. marking, fingering (R receiving)

Words: 8k

AN: A sequel to my other Professor!Agatha fic which you can find here, although it's not necessary to read that one to understand this one.

Agatha’s fingers slowly traced over your skin, the same pattern over and over again. The same pattern she always traced into your body. Six letters. Over and over again.

You hummed, shifting closer to her. She stilled, finger tapping on your spine until you stilled again. Turning your head, you looked up at her. She was leaning against the headboard of the bed, gloriously naked, the morning sun lighting up her pale skin. You pressed a soft kiss to her hip. The way she looked down at you was molten.

“Morning, kitten,” she said, fingers tracing over your skin once again.

“Morning,” you said, pressing closer.

“You talk in your sleep, you know that?” she said.

“Oh no,” you mumbled, pressing your face into the skin of her hip, hiding from her, “did I say anything embarrassing?”

“Depends what you mean by embarrassing,” she replied, not really answering your question.

“Agatha,” you whined, muffled against her.

She chuckled, fingers tangling in your hair until she was pulling you away from your hiding place.

“You say my name a lot,” she replied when you looked up at her, “sometimes you moan it like the filthy girl I know you are.”

Your cheeks heated, which you were sure was exactly what she wanted. She lent down, magnanimous as she kissed you. After weeks of this you still hadn’t grown tired of it, of her, of all of it. If anything, you had grown greedier, wanting to be with her all the time. You barely seemed to leave her sight these days.

That was how you liked it.

You pushed up onto your knees, climbing into her lap, wrapping yourself around her. Her chuckle was lost in the kiss, dominating it the way she always did. Her fingers tightened, right over the bruises she’d already left, her handprints a permanent mark on your body now.

“You are my needy little thing this morning aren’t you,” she hummed when she drew back.

You nodded, leaning forward to kiss her again. She shook her head, hands holding you back. You pouted and she smirked up at you.

“Unfortunately for you, I decided to let you sleep in after wearing you out last night,” she said, holding you in place, “so you need to get that sweet ass of yours into the shower.”

“You’re not joining me?” you asked, still pouting.

“As long as you’re good and don’t distract me, I will,” she said.

You scrambled off her lap, holding out a hand for her. She rose and your lips parted, eyes sliding over her body. You would never grow tired of seeing her like that.

“Pet,” she warned.

“Sorry, sorry.”

Under the spray of the shower, her hands ran over your body, soap suds making her movements smooth. You let her, trying to stay still and not squirm. When her thumb ran over one nippled then the other, you inhaled sharply. Blue eyes snapped up to yours, hands still until she was sure you weren’t going to make trouble for her. You froze. She did it again, testing the waters. Your back arched but you didn’t do more, wanting to please her, always wanting to please her.

She turned you, her front pressing to your back as her tongue ran over your shoulder, catching the water droplets on your skin. You whined, low in the back of your throat as her fingers began to roll your nipples, soft lips on your skin, teeth nipping.

“Be good for me, pet,” she murmured into your skin.

You held still, leaning back against her body. When her fingers dipped between your legs, your teeth sunk down into your lower lip, trying to keep quiet. You weren’t about to risk doing anything that would stop her.

Your breathing grew heavy as pleasure licked at your skin. Her teeth sunk in where your neck met your shoulder, painful and sharp. You made a small noise, your hips jumping forward as your concentration broke. Her tongue licked over your skin before she drew back, hands sliding from your body.

“Agatha,” you whimpered.

“Finish up, pet,” she said, stepping out of the shower, “we have to leave.”

The throbbing between your legs was left unsatisfied. You cursed under your breath, reaching to turn the shower off. Left in the cool air, your skin prickled. You were perfunctory as you dried yourself off, muttering to yourself.

The bedroom was empty when you returned. You pulled on the outfit she’d left for you on the bed. The throbbing between your legs wasn’t getting any less insistent, but you weren’t about to try and alleviate it yourself. Agatha would not be happy with you if you did.

“Stop pouting, pet,” she said, sweeping into the bedroom again, “I told you we didn’t have time for distractions.”

“You started this,” you grumbled, snatching up your shoes to tie up the laces.

“Don’t give me that attitude, pet. You know good and well that you started this by being so delectable,” she said.

Her tongue ran along her lip. You couldn’t help but watch it, entranced, your frustration with her already melting away. Your need for her was definitely not going away any time soon.

“Come on, pet. We have work to do.”

She swept out of the room again. You followed, hot on her heels, not needing to be left behind. Her hand rested on your thigh as she drove, nails digging in. She didn’t offer you a single glance, but you didn’t need it, watching her as she drove, taking in her profile.

“Do you have to stare?” she asked.

“I can’t help that you’re the best view on offer,” you replied.

Her lips quirked up but you saw a faint dusting of pink on her cheeks. It wasn’t often you could fluster the older woman, usually so in control of every situation, but you loved when you said just the right thing to bring out the blush. Her hand tightened, nails biting in, before relaxing again.

“I want you to read the Fox papers today,” she said, rather than indulging in your flirting.

“Okay,” you agreed easily. You trusted her to guide you. She knew best, after all.

Walking behind her through the campus, you noticed the whispers and the stares that followed her. You usually did your best to ignore them. After all, at one point you might have been one of them, gossiping and passing on the rumours you’d heard. Now, you were in the forbidden circle of space that always surrounded her, the chosen. If you were a bird, you’d be preening with pride.

She slammed open the door to her office with little regard for the damage that would be done. You followed her in, shutting the door more sedately. Kicking off your shoes, you curled on the sofa as she settled behind her desk. Once again, she wasn’t looking at you but you’d been given your instructions. You knew how to follow orders.

It wasn’t until lunch that she broke the silence. You glanced up, feeling the weight of her gaze on you, not sure what to think when you saw a small smile on her face and her pinky gently running along her lower lip as her chin rested in her hand. You smiled at her, hoping it would be enough.

“Well?” she asked.

“I mean, she’s brilliant but she can’t half waffle on,” you said.

Her chuckle was an inch this side of fond. You melted against the couch cushions, liking the way she was looking at you. On slow feet she approached, hips swinging in a way that turned your mouth dry. She settled in your lap, curling her arms around your neck.

“You don’t like the use of an expansive vocabulary?’ she asked.

“I like when people get to the point,” you said, lips pressing to her collarbone, just peeking out from the collar of her shirt.

“Is that what you want me to do, kitten?” she asked, finger tilting your chin up, “get to the point?”

“I want you to finish what you started this morning,” you said.

The way her eyes smouldered at you suggested she wanted the exact same thing. And yet, the kiss she gave you was fleeting, leaving you wanted more. Not that you didn’t always want more with her. You knew you were greedy for her.

“I have to give you some bad news, kitten,” she said, thumb tugging on your lower lip.

You nipped at it, not quite listening to her words. Her hand slid down, curling around your throat, holding you in place.

“You’re not listening,” she said, “how many times do I have to remind you to listen when I speak?”

“One more. Always one more,” you sighed.

She shook her head at you but her lips were pressed together like she was fighting a smile.

“I’m afraid you’re going to be on your own tonight,” she said.

“What? No. I’ll be good. Look, I’m listening.” The stab of panic that went through you felt too intense.

“That was the bad news I had to tell you, not your punishment,” she reassured you, “that will come later.”

“Oh.” Your heart rate slowed a fraction, “why?”

“Why are you going to be punished?” she asked, a slow smile spreading over her face.

“Why can’t I see you tonight?” you asked.

She sighed, falling forward until her face was buried in your neck. You tightened you arms around her, playing with the ends of her hair, wild and loose and so very long. Her nose pressed against your skin, lips quick to follow suit. You tugged on her hair, your moan quiet. She suckled on your skin, teeth nipping until you knew you’d be finding a bruise there later. You wore her marks with pride, loving the visual proof that you were hers, that she claimed you.

“I’m afraid there’s a faculty meeting tonight,” she said, “if it’s anything like usual it will be nothing but blathering men drawing it out. They enjoy the sound of their own voices too much.”

“I could wait at your place until you’re done,” you said, hopeful, wanting her to say yes.

“As much as I’d like that, kitten, I’m afraid I’ll be home too late to enjoy you,” she growled.

“I don’t mind,” you said.

“But I do. I like taking my time with you, pet,” she said before her tongue ran up the length of your neck, “do as you’re told and don’t be a brat about it. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

It would be the longest you’d gone without seeing her since that first night together.

“Okay,” you said, your voice small, disappointed in every way imaginable.

“Maybe you’ll be able to complete the readings I assign you,” she said, and the look she gave you was sharp as a knife.

“Was I meant to read them while you were…” You trailed off, her raised eyebrow silencing you.

“Don’t get mouthy with me, pet,” she said, grasping your chin again, “or I won’t let you come home for longer than a night.”

You nodded, closing your mouth in a show that you were going to be good. Her lips pressed to yours again, rough and possessive, teeth sinking into your lower lip with a sharp spike of pain. Your fingers clawed at her back, wanting to tear her shirt off her body.

She drew back, pushing your face away from her from the hold she still had on your chin. You huffed but did as she wanted. Sometimes you were terrified if you didn’t then she’d drop you quicker than a hot coal and leave you bereft. There was no part of you that wanted this to stop.

“Will you miss me tonight?” she asked.

“Yeah,” you breathed, “course I will.”

“That’s my pet,” she said, pressing a softer kiss to your lips, “now, finish up the draft of your introduction for me.”

She rose from your lap and you tried to ignore how disappointed you were to be alone again. She glanced over her shoulder.

“Sandwich?” she asked, voice lowering into a throaty hum, “I know you must be starving after last night.”

“Yes,” you replied, “please.”

She left you in her office, returning some time later with a sandwich for you and pasta for herself. You settled with your feet in her lap, devouring the food, pen scratching over your paper as you tried to get her the draft before the end of the day.

At the end of the day, the papers were left on her desk, pinned under a paper weight in the shape of a bell. Tucking your hair behind your ear, she was gentle as she pressed a kiss to your forehead.

“Have a good night, pet,” she said, “be here bright and early tomorrow.”

“I will. I promise,” you said.

With a lingering kiss, she shooed you out of her office, locking it behind her. You glanced back before turning the corner, finding her watching you still. You raised your hand before continuing on, out of the history building, your arms full of books, so reminiscent of your early days studying under Professor Harkness.

“So you are still alive.”

You startled, fumbling with the books in your arms as you almost dropped them. Whirling around, your friend, the same one that had dragged you to that waste of a time party, was staring at you, arms crossed over her chest. You blinked then cocked your head.

“Was I not meant to be?” you asked.

“Seriously?” she demanded, and you realised in a flash that she was angry at you, “you’ve been missing for ages. Is it seriously that hard to text me back?”

Oh, right, that. You’d kept meaning to but then Agatha would do something like kiss you and you’d forget all about it. You were living in a haze, a world of your own, one that was consumed with the older woman.

“Sorry, I’ve been busy,” you said.

“Sure, the witch, I get it,” she said with a roll of her eyes.

“Don’t… don’t call her that,” you said.

“Sure, whatever.”

You looked down at your feet, shuffling them as you tried to come up with something to say that wouldn’t ruin everything. You knew you couldn’t tell her exactly what was going on, and you weren’t sure you could make up something that would satisfy her enough to forgive your blaring silence.

“Is that a hickey?”

Your hand clapped to your neck, covering the bruise Agatha had left on your skin only a few hours previously. Your eyes widened, stomach swooping.

“Is that why you’ve been missing?” she asked, sounding far more interested now, walking up to you.

“What? No,” you said, but you weren’t sure you were hiding it very well.

“You’ve been getting laid!”

Dread filled you.

“Girl, you should have just said. Must be good if you can’t even check in. Not that I blame you. You must need some serious stress relief after spending all day with the witch,” she said.

“I told you not to call her that,” you said faintly.

Maybe you’d gotten away with it.

“Are you seeing him tonight?” she asked, completely bypassing your comment.

“Oh, uh, no, not tonight,” you said.

“Great. A group of us are going to that new bar that opened up downtown,” she said.

“I dunno,” you replied, already looking for a way out.

“Look, I know last time was a bust, but this is going to be way more low key. Come on, we haven’t seen you in ages. I’ve got to prove you’re still around. Kate was certain you’d dropped out and gone backpacking through Europe but I knew you’d never do that. You love school too much,” she said, slinging an arm around your shoulders, forcing you to walk with her.

“Look, I have a lot of-“ You tried to say.

“Work to do,” she said, interrupting you, “yeah, I know. Clearly you’ve been having fun without us. But c’mon. It’s one night. What could go wrong?”

The creeping sense of dread wasn’t disappearing the further you walked, and yet you knew you would be going out with your friends. You couldn’t come up with a good enough excuse to get out of it.

Your dorm room was dusty, clearly uninhabited for a while. Your friend fell back onto your bed, watching you unload the books onto your desk before looking through your closet. If it was really going to be chill, jeans and a tank top under the purple flannel you’d stolen from the back of Agatha’s wardrobe should be fine.

“You don’t want to wear something sexier?” your friend asked.

“Why bother? I’m not trying to pick someone up,” you said.

“What if you meet someone cute?” she asked.

“I’m perfectly happy with the person I’m seeing,” you said, “are we going or not?”

The bar itself was loud, packed with college students there for the happy hour cheap jugs and half price cocktails. And for a short while, you managed to relax. As long as you didn’t talk about Agatha, it was easy to slip back into your old role for the night. Drinks, and laughter, and reminiscing. You felt yourself ease into it, muscles loosening, your smiles growing easier.

“My round,” you said, pushing up from the table your group had absconded in the middle of the room.

Pushing to the front of the crowd, you did your best to get the bartender’s attention. Busy at the other end of the bar, you weren’t very successful.

“Hey.”

You glanced up. The handsome face looking down at you was vaguely familiar. Lips pulled up in a half smile, pretty brown eyes were twinkling down at you.

“Hi,” you said.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” he said.

“Sorry.” You shook your head, giving a self depreciating chuckle, “I don’t.”

“Mr Gracey’s sociology class. You always said the smartest stuff,” he said.

“Right, yeah, you sat behind me on the left,” you said, his face coming back to you as you thought back to the seminars from a year ago.

“Yeah, yeah, that was me. Matt,” he offered you his hand.

You took it, telling him your own name. He grinned and you felt a warm glow go through you.

“So what are you doing now?” he asked.

“Oh, uh, history,” you said, a wash of anxiety going through you again, “what about you?”

“Engineering,” he said, giving you that crooked smile again.

“Do you want to join me and my friends? If you don’t have people you actually care about to hang out with,” you said, immediately realising how stupid that sounded. There was no way he was here on his own.

“Sure, I’d really like that,” he said.

He followed you back to the booth your friends were at. Your friend elbowed your side as you sat down, watching Matt introduce himself to everyone, easy and confident in a way you’d never been. He settled beside you, warm thigh pressing against yours as he lent over the table to talk to Kate.

“He’s cute,” she whispered in your ear.

You shoved her before plastering a smile back on your face as he turned to you. You slipped into conversation, ignoring the way your friend kept looking between you and him. It’s not like you were going to go home with him, even if he offered. You had everything you already wanted in that department.

The hairs on the back of your neck stood up. Clasping your hand over them, you glanced over Matt’s shoulder trying to find what had caused it. It was almost like someone was watching you. Your eyes searched the bar, trying to find whoever it was.

“Hey, you okay?” he asked.

You jolted, eyes snapping back to him.

“Yeah, fine,” you said.

“Looks like you could do with a top up,” he said, looking down at your empty glass, “come on, my treat.”

You followed him back to the bar, once again having to fight through the crowd to be able to place your drinks orders.

“So you said you’re doing history, right?” he asked, leaning closer to be able to be heard over the crowd.

“Yeah,” you said, more focused on getting through the crowd than what he was saying.

“Yeah because I saw you with Professor Harkness the other day,” he said.

You froze.

“What?”

“You were following her around like a puppy dog. Not that it surprises me. She’s a hard ass,” he said, smiling down at you like he was in on the joke.

“She just has very high expectations,” you said.

“Hey, I think it’s cool that she agreed to mentor you,” he said, “you must be pretty special. Word around campus is she hasn’t taken anyone on in like ten years. If she didn’t have tenure they would kick her out with that kind of track record.”

“I’m sure that’s totally overblown,” you said.

“Okay, well, can you name the last person she mentored?” he asked.

You didn’t have an answer to that.

“Exactly,” he said.

“It’s good she has standards,” you muttered.

“Oh, totally. So cool,” he said, “look, to your right.”

You squeezed through the gap he’d indicated, his hand resting heavy on your back. One more line of people to get through and you’d be at the bar.

And hopefully out of this conversation.

“So what’s she actually like? I can’t believe she once kicked a student in the balls for not handing in an assignment on time,” he said.

“Yeah, that’d be assault,” you said.

“Okay, well, what about the thing about doing those old timey rituals? Apparently she gets naked and dances under a full moon as she welcomes the devil into her body,” he said.

“That would be insane,” you replied.

But you could imagine her doing it for the aesthetic of it. And you wouldn’t mind seeing it.

“What’s she like then?” he asked.

“She’s… she’s brilliant,” you said.

“No doubt, but is she mean? To you, I mean,” he said.

“Uh, no,” you replied, finally pushing up to the bar, “no she’s not.”

“Really? Because she growled like a dog at mate of mine when he walked past her,” he said, “and she fails almost all her students.”

“Maybe they should work harder,” you muttered under your breath.

“What was that?” he asked, leaning closer, right into your personal space.

“Nothing,” you said, shaking your head.

The hand he had on your back shifted, almost curling around your waist as he lent forward to talk to the bartender. You looked away, that feeling creeping up the back of your neck again. Scanning the bar, you still couldn’t see where it was coming from. That same feeling of dread from earlier in the night snuck up on you.

“Here you go,” he said, handing you the drink he’d bought you.

“Thanks.”

It was purple, matching the flannel you had on, reminding you of Agatha. There was a sizeable part of you that wished she was there with you. Not that you thought she’d like your friends. But you always wanted her there and it was weird to be apart. You took a small sip from it.

“How is it?” Matt asked, leading you away from the bar to give the next people their go.

“Good,” you said, “elderberry.”

“It was the most witchy thing on the menu. Seemed appropriate given your mistress,” he said.

“My what?” you asked, a surprised laugh coming out of you.

“Your mistress. Professor Harkness. She does control everything you do, right?” he asked, but you could hear the teasing note this time.

“I’m out tonight, aren’t I? I doubt I would be if she had any control over me,” you replied, despite knowing you were out exactly because of the control she had over you. If she hadn’t said no, you’d be in her house this very moment.

“Lucky for me,” he said.

And there was the clincher. You shouldn’t have invited him to join you and your friends, but it was so nice to talk to someone who was so easy with you. Someone who wasn’t so changeable. Someone so simple.

Nothing about Agatha was ever simple. And you wouldn’t change that for anything.

But sometimes it was a mind fuck and simple was, well, simple.

“Hey, maybe you’d want to get a coffee sometime,” Matt suggested, breaking you out of your thoughts, “something in daylight hours when I can see your pretty face properly.”

“I’m seeing someone,” you said, the words coming out quickly, “it’s pretty serious so…”

“Oh.” He shoved his hand into his pocket, “but he’s not here tonight?”

“No,” you said, “not tonight.”

“Lucky him,” he said, “he got the prettiest, smartest girl.”

“Ha, thanks,” you said, “sorry, I should have said something earlier.”

“Nah, it’s all good. You couldn’t know I’ve been crushing on you since Mr Gracey’s class,” he said with an easy shrug, “should have tried to shoot my shot back then.”

You laughed and he slung his arm around your shoulders.

“I’ll take being your friend, if that’s on offer instead,” he said.

“Consider it done,” you said.

He fist pumped in celebration before the arm settled over your shoulders again. You could ignore the chill that went up your spine this time, certain you were just imagining things. After all, you hadn’t seen anyone before. You were hardly going to find them this time.

You stumbled home close to 1am, bleary eyed and drunker than you’d planned. You fell into bed, still in Agatha’s shirt, inhaling the smell of her from it as you drifted to sleep. It was the best you could have without her body curling around yours.

The next morning, the sunlight was too bright and your head was throbbing. Downing some pain killers with the coffee you picked up on the way to Agatha’s office, shoving a banana almost whole into your mouth, you hurried to the older woman. Despite the pain in your head, there was a skip in your step, anticipation at seeing Agatha again spurring you on.

Rounding the corner, her door was already cracked open. You pushed it open, shoving your sunglasses to the top of your head so you could see her properly. There, behind her desk, pen in hand, she was resplendent. Wild dark hair, pale skin, pink lips pursed with displease.

“Hi,” you breathed out.

She glanced up before going back to her work. A swoop of disappointment in your stomach had your weight shifting from foot to foot. But, not to be put off, you closed the door and dropped the books she’d sent you home with on the couch cushions.

“How was the meeting?” you asked.

“A waste of time,” she replied, voice clipped.

“Guess you should have played hooky with me,” you said, forcing good cheer into your voice as you dropped into your usual spot on the sofa.

“Yes,” she scoffed, “I’m sure that would have been far more worth my time.”

“It certainly would have been more fun,” you said, letting your eyes sweep over her body.

You could think of many things you could have done with her the night before that would have been fun. And satisfying. And hot.

“I doubt it,” she replied.

The sharp stab of rejection was swift and breathtaking. You gaped, staring at her. She was never one to turn down the chance to get you naked and begging. She liked making a whiney mess out of you.

“Is…,” you broached, “is something wrong?”

“No, why would anything be wrong?” she asked.

“It’s just, you’re being… prickly,” you said, “more so than usual.”

“If I was being prickly, it might be because I gave you clear instructions for last night, and those were not followed,” she said, finally looking up at you.

“What?” you asked.

She sneered at you, eyes darting to the books beside you before landing back on you. The pen in her hand was twirling and you didn’t know what to do.

“I believe I told you to do your reading. Not,” she said, voice growing hard, “going to a bar and flirting with the first pretty boy that smiled at you.”

“Flirting?” You didn’t remember any flirting.

“Yes,” she snapped, “flirting.”

“I wasn’t flirting with anyone,” you said.

“So you don’t deny being out late drinking last night?” she asked.

“No.” Your voice was so small.

“I was stuck in an endlessly boring meeting, thinking about all the ways I planned on rewarding you for this latest draft, only to find out you weren’t even capable of remembering such simple instructions,” she said.

“You were?” you asked.

“You can leave,” she said.

“Wait, what?”

The bottom fell out from beneath you. You gaped at her, your breathing coming too fast, not able to process what she was saying.

“Get. Out,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Agatha, I-“

“Out,” she said again, not giving you the chance to say anything.

You stood on numb legs, automatic to her demands. You stumbled to the door, opening it and stepping outside, glancing back for one last glance at her. She wasn’t even looking at you, staring down at her work. You had no idea when you’d see her again.

You were halfway down the hall when something in your brain clicked. You paused, wondering if you had the courage to do what you wanted. You were still shaking and you were terrified of pushing her so hard she made sure she never had to see you again.

You spun on your heels.

Her head snapped up as you pushed through her door, slamming it shut behind you. With deft fingers you flicked the lock before turning, pressing against it to steady you.

“I thought I told you to leave,” she said.

“I don’t want to,” you said.

“Not everything is about what you want,” she replied.

“I want you.”

It was there, laid out for her, the exact same thing you’d said to her that first night. The thing that had prompted that first kiss. The thing that she had laughed at, so confident in herself in that moment.

“And that’s my problem how?” she asked, raising a single eyebrow at you.

“Because you want me too,” you said.

“Whatever you need to tell yourself to sleep at night,” she said, turning her gaze back to her work.

“And I think you’re jealous,” you said.

That got her attention. Her upper lip curled as she looked at you again, her sneer obvious. Rising from the desk, she walked towards you like the predator you knew she was. You trembled, pressing against the door, her prey as always, but you refused to back down.

“I think your meeting finished and you went to the same bar I happened to be at and you saw me talking to Matt. And I think you didn’t like that,” you said.

Her hand snapped out, hand curling around your throat, pinning you to the door. You let her, staring in her eyes, watching the way she stared at you. Her snarling mouth drew closer, hand squeezing, eyes flashing with anger.

“When I told you that I don’t want anyone else touching you, I meant it, pet,” she all but spat at you.

“He didn’t touch me,” you said, “not like that.”

“Don’t tell me he was a gentleman,” she all but scoffed, “that he wanted to take you out to dinner first.”

“It doesn’t matter,” you said, not pointing out that’s exactly what she’d done.

Her hand squeezed tighter. You reached out, gentle fingers brushing the hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear. She slapped your hand away.

“You don’t come in here after spending the night in someone else’s bed, expecting me to welcome you like a good girl,” she snarled, “you should be glad I’m letting you walk out of here without punishment.”

You brushed your fingertips over the apple of her cheek. She tried to grasp your wrist but you refused to let her. You were slow as you cupped her cheek, staring into her eyes, refusing to back down from her. You needed her to see the truth.

“You can’t convince me to forget this, pet. You disgust me. I bet you still smell like him,” she said.

“Agatha,” you managed to croak out, “I smell like you.”

Her upper lip curled and she drew closer, inhaling against the skin of your neck, just behind your jaw. She was so close you could smell her, the same scent that had clung to the shirt you’d been wearing since the day before, the one that soothed you to sleep every night, the one that could both calm you and excite you.

“You can’t trick me,” she growled, “I know he was inside you. Did he bend you over? Did he make you come so hard you saw stars? Or did he grunt and then roll over and fall asleep, leaving you unsatisfied?”

You shook you head.

“Is that why you returned to me, pet? Because you know no one can make you feel as good as I can?” she asked.

“Why would I bother with a boy like that when I have you?” you asked.

She seemed to not have an answer to that, gaze almost boring into you. Her hand tightened one last time before she let you go, shoving you against the hard wood of the door. The ache around your throat was almost comforting, knowing she cared enough to show so much emotion.

“Don’t come back,” she said, turning her back on you.

Ignoring her, you stepped forward, curling your arms around her waist, pressing your face to her shoulder. Her hand curled around your wrist, hard enough for delicate bone to grind against delicate bond, nails biting into your skin. You tightened your arms around her.

“I spent the entire night wishing I was with you. When Matt asked me out, I told him no because I already had someone. I told him it was serious. I’m serious about you,” you said, softening your voice, wanting her to hear you, to really hear what you were trying to say.

“He was all over you,” she said, ground out, but there, beneath the anger, was something else.

The thing that only made you hold on tighter.

“And all I could think about was how I couldn’t wait for morning so I could see you again,” you said.

“It didn’t look like you were thinking about me,” she said, “you were having fun.”

“When you’re not on offer, I have to make do with what else I can find. Would you prefer I sit alone, wallowing when you aren’t there?” you asked, knowing the answer, “I asked to wait at your house until you were done. I would have waited there for you if you’d let me.”

“Don’t turn this back on me. This is not my fault,” she spat.

“Nothing happened. You own me, body and soul. No one else compares,” you said before placing a soft kiss to the skin of her neck.

Her head tilted, just a little and you knew you’d won the war. She lent back, letting you catch her weight. You breathed in the scent of her, right from the source, before you kissed her again, tongue flicking out to taste her skin. Her hand tightened around your wrist, but this time, rather than on the precipice of dragging it away, she pressed you closer.

“Let me show you how much you mean to me,” you begged, “please.”

“You’re trying to make me forget, kitten. I can still see his hand on you,” she said, head rolling towards you.

“I can still see your hands on me,” you replied, “and your mouth. You’re all over me.”

She turned in your arms, those long fingers pushing into your hair. You held still, letting her do what she needed. Dragging you forward, she kissed you, tongue delving into your mouth, humming when you so easily opened for her. Her teeth sunk into your lip, tugging on it.

“On the desk, pet,” she murmured against your lips.

“What?” you asked.

“Get on the desk,” she replied, drawing back, breaking your hold on her.

You did, unsure of what was coming. Raising yourself to sit on the edge of her desk, you looked at her watching you, eyes so dark it still worried you. Your mouth grew dry as she stalked forward, once again her prey. Strong hands parted your knees, hips slotting between your thighs, touch sliding up your legs until your own hips were held in a tight grip, right over the bruises she’d left on your body.

“He might not have fucked you, but you were flirting, pet. I know what I saw,” she said, “I know what you look like when you flirt.”

“Because I flirt with you?” you asked.

“Yes,” she hissed.

“Agatha,” you said, reaching out to play with the ends of her hair, “I was talking about you. That’s why I looked like that.”

“You were gossiping about me? Feeding the rumour mill? Did he enjoy hearing all of the depraved stories about me?” she sneered.

“I told him how brilliant you are,” you said.

A flash of pleasure went over her face before she settled back into the disciplinarian. You wrapped your fingers in her hair, tugging on it until her head dipped towards you.

“Just the thought of you makes me mooney eyed,” you whispered.

“You think flattery will make me forgive you?” she asked, voice cold, sending a shiver down your spine, “no one tries to take what’s mine.”

Your breath caught as her hand curled around your throat again, thumb pressing into the hickey she’d left on your skin the day before. Her teeth closed over your earlobe, tugging on it until she heard you whimper.

“You won’t remember his name when I’m done with you,” she murmured against the shell of your ear.

Her kiss was a relief, soothing your anxiety. You hadn’t ruined everything. She still wanted you.

The kiss was slow, taking you apart as you melted into her. She took her time, really making sure you felt every moment as she turned your brain to mush. Opening up to her, you let her take as much as she wanted from you.

You didn’t notice as her hands worked to unbutton your jeans. She hummed, fingers pushing past your waistband. You whimpered again, feeling her fingers slip lower, feeling how wet you already were for you.

“Naughty, pet,” she murmured, “did you enjoy my temper?”

“I enjoy everything about you,” you replied, breathless as her lips descended down the length of your neck.

Her teeth sunk in as her fingers slipped through your folds. You whined her name, the most beautiful word in the world as far as you were concerned. She chuckled, muffled against your skin, but you could just picture the smirk on her face. She always liked hearing the effect she had on you, refusing to let you remain silent.

Her finger was tracing a familiar pattern over your clit, featherlight, not nearly enough for you. Your fingers slipped into her hair, right at the roots, clenching just to have something to hold on to. Her tongue ran along the length of your neck before she kissed you again. You’d never grow tired of the taste of her.

Her finger teased your entrance. Your hips pushed forward, coaxing her but she lingered, never giving you what you wanted when you wanted. She never worked on anyone’s time but her own, refusing to give in unless it was what she wanted.

“Please,” you mumbled into her mouth, “Agatha, please.”

“No, no, no, pet,” she replied, drawing back to watch your face, your hands falling from her hair, “you’re going to be patient and follow instructions. Just like you should have yesterday.”

Her touch returned to your bundle of nerves, still too light, barely a brush of fingertips. The same pattern that had grown familiar, over and over again as she watched you squirm. Her own personal brand on your most intimate parts. You’d let her brand you as much as she liked if she would only keep looking at you the way she was. Like you were something she’d never grow tired of watching.

“Agatha,” you whimpered.

“Are you asking me to stop?” she asked, the humour obvious.

“No.” You shook your head violently.

“Then I can’t imagine why you’re talking. Needy pets need to learn patience,” she replied.

All you could do was sit there, accepting her teasing, the fire in your veins growing. Blue eyes watched every inhalation, every shift of your hips, every clench of your fingers. She collected the noises that fell from your lips like they were precious gems, seeing how often she could find them. Your entire body ached to have more but you held still, biting your tongue, knowing this was your punishment. Played just enough to make you want more, never enough to relax, caught under her gaze as you became exactly what she accused you of. Of being needy, greedy, desperate for her. If only she understood you didn’t need her teasing to feel that way. Just knowing you walked the same earth as her had you feeling like that.

“Turn around,” she commanded.

You scrabbled to follow her orders, almost crying out when her hand slipped from between your legs. You turned, splaying your hands on the top of her desk, staring down at the bell shaped paper weight. With one foot, she knocked yours apart. Her arm slipped around your waist, fingers running over the vulnerable skin of your lower stomach. Pushing you hair over your shoulder, her mouth attached itself to your neck once again.

Her hand slipped down, into your underwear, back to your throbbing heat. Your knees felt wobbly but you held still. You would do anything she asked as long as she kept touching you.

“Such a pretty little thing,” she murmured into your ear.

Her free hand snaked its way up your body, sliding under your shirt. Tugging the cup of your bra down, her fingers immediately found your tight nipple. You pushed your chest into her touch. She pinched it, slow to roll it between thumb and forefinger. She was busy sucking another mark into your skin as your hips pressed back into hers.

Her fingers sunk into you. The noise you made was a mixture between a cry and a whimper, nothing but pure relief to it. She whispered your name into your skin. Her own name falling from your lips was a thanks to a goddess given for all the blessings you were receiving. Her thumb ran in slow circles over your clit as her fingers began to thrust, painfully slow and deliciously satisfying. Your head fell forward as your breathing grew heavier.

“How does that feel, pet?” she asked.

“So good,” you whimpered.

“Want to feel even better?” she asked before her lips closed over your earlobe, still playing with your tits.

“Please,” you begged.

“That’s my pet,” she murmured.

Her fingers curled. You moaned her name, flithy and so good. Her thumb ground against you, electricity spreading over your skin. She was everywhere, completely surrounding you, wrapped up in her arms. The pace of her thrusting increased, each with a twist, a curl, a beckoning closer to your peak. Your name was so sweet on her lips as she kept whispering it into your skin, over and over, hand working hard and fast between your legs.

You held on, waiting for her permission. She was in control, and you were more than willing to give her that power over you. You turned your head, seeking out her lips again. Her teeth nipped at your lower lip, tongue sliding along yours, swallowing your moans.

You could feel your orgasm, so close, just waiting for you to give in to it. And her fingers kept pumping in and out of you, turning you breathless. You were practically chanting her name as she returned her attention to your neck, leaving a map of her mouth on your skin.

“What was the name of that useless boy you were with last night?” she asked.

“I don’t care,” you replied.

“Hmm, not good enough,” she said.

Her hand stilled within you, holding you right there on that precipice. You could have cried. Your hips pressed back against her. She tutted, pinching at your nipple again, painful, another jolt of pleasure going through you.

“Agatha,” you pleaded.

“I promised you wouldn’t be able to remember his name and I always keep my promises,” she said, “so what was his name, pet?”

“It was-“ Her fingers curled, stroking your inner walls, “it was…”

“Yes, pet?” she hummed.

“I don’t know,” you admitted.

“Who do you belong to?” she asked, the words a caress over your skin.

“You,” you said, almost a sob.

“Say my name,” she commanded.

“Agatha!”

With precise movements, she took you apart until you were a trembling body wrapped in her arms. She whispered into your skin, too quiet for you to hear as every muscle tensed. Her name kept tumbling from your lips as your orgasm crashed into you, shaking in her arms, pressing into her. your knees buckled, and if not for her hold on you, you would have crumpled to the floor. Her fingers worked you through it, drawing out every drop of pleasure in your body. Soft lips pressed to your skin, over and over again, waiting for your breathing to return to normal.

“Agatha,” you rasped out.

Her hand slipped from between your legs and you caught her wrist, licking your arousal from her skin. She hummed, nose buried in the skin of your neck, pressing you against her with the arm still around your waist. She nuzzled against you, surprisingly soft, almost needy in the way you usually were.

“Such a good pet for me,” she murmured.

You turned, ass pressing into the edge of the table as you dragged her into a kiss, desperate for her to understand how you felt. To know there was no future you didn’t want her in. That you would do this for the rest of your life with her. That there was no one else for you.

Whatever anger was there before was gone, leaving her soft as she looked at you. You brushed her hair out of her face, twirling it around your fingers, playing with it in a way that had grown familiar over the time you’d been with her.

“My good kitten,” she sighed, kissing you again.

You let her manoeuvre you to the sofa, curling in her lap as her hands continued to stroke over your body, soft and slow and gentle. You pressed closer, wanting her warmth to seep into you, for there to be no space between the two of you, to never be apart from her again. Her lips pressed to your hairline, lingering.

“You’re sure you don’t want to run off into the arms of that pathetic excuse for a boy?” she asked.

You drew back just far enough to look at her.

“There’s no one but you, Agatha,” you said, cupping both her cheeks as you stared deeply into her eyes, “you’re the only one I see.”

She softened before your eyes. Her arms tightened around you and when she kissed you, your heart skipped a beat. Her hand slipped under your shirt, tracing that same pattern into your skin. Those six letters a brand on your soul.

Agatha.

#agatha harkness x reader #agatha harkness imagine #agatha harkness #agatha all along

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seijorhi · 3 months ago

Text

Violent Delights

for my very dearest best friend (wife) @iwaasfairy i'm sorry it's super late, but august and april both start with 'a' which basically means they're the same month <33 iwaizumi hajime x female reader w.c 4.4k tw: yandere themes, non-con, drugged reader, blood/gore, murder, incest, sorta smut (nsfw)

M I N E

It’s funny in a way. Amidst the wreckage, the blood, what was left of your friends and the cooling puddle of cum splattered across your naked stomach, four letters carved into your bedroom wall seemed almost… harmless. Or at least the easiest to digest. Fixate on.

The detective asked about your ex partners, the dates you’d been on recently, whether or not you’d noticed anyone in your day-to-day paying you too much attention, if anyone made you feel uncomfortable, or said anything that seemed out of place.

But your exes don’t care enough to kill, and the two dates you’ve been on in the last six months never bothered to text you back. No one’s left weird, unsettling gifts, or stared too long in line at the coffee shop. There’s nothing. No precursor or warning, no giant red flag waving in front of you.

Mine.

Hovering on the edge of numbness, blind hysteria just out of reach, you stare at the beige walls of the hotel room they’d put you up in, the angry gouges flickering in and out of existence with every blink.

Mine.

Kaori was the one obsessed with all the true crime stuff. She’d be the first to tell you psychopaths and nutjobs – they don’t jump straight into drugging and triple homicide. There’s a pattern of behaviour. Escalation.

Something you missed.

Then again, considering it’s her blood still caked under your fingernails, there’s a strong possibility she wouldn’t be all that enthusiastic about the whole thing to begin with.

You need a shower, a proper one – not the glorified sponging off they’d given you at the hospital. Enough to get you out the door, not nearly enough to scrub away the grime and rid yourself of what he did to you–

The others had it worse. You survived. He barely touched you.

Mine.

The thought of scalding water, of scrubbing yourself raw does hold a certain appeal, yet hunched over atop starched white sheets, those same bloody fingernails sink into the flesh of your arms instead, grounding you in the tiny bite of pain.

Minutes tick past and you don’t so much as twitch. Not until a sharp knock sounds at the door and a gruff voice calls out your name.

You wait half a beat, but when nothing more is forthcoming, you slowly edge yourself off the bed, making your way to the door. Through the peephole you spy a dark haired officer, different to the one who’d dropped you off, staring back at you.

They did tell you there’d be an officer with you the whole time, at least for the next twenty four hours.

“Miss?” he calls again, and you distantly realise that while your hand is poised over the deadlock, you haven’t moved to undo it.

Squeezing your eyes shut, your forehead meeting the wooden door with a muted thud, you curse that stupid, tremulous fluttering in your chest. They’re here for you, protecting you. You’re safe.

Open the damn door.

“Y-yeah?”

Coward.

“Brought some food for you. Dinner.” There’s a rustling on the other side, and you raise your head to peer back through the glass in time to see him lift up a paper carry bag to the peephole. The idea of eating anything right now has your stomach roiling in protest. “Nothing fancy, but it’s good, I swear,” he says. Then, gentler, like he’s talking down a spooked animal, adds, “You need to eat.”

Still, you hesitate. All you need to do is open the door, grab the food and then at least it’s there if you want it later. Easy.

Too quick, too jerky to be natural, you twist at the handle and yank the door open a scant few inches, enough for you to reach out an arm expectantly for the food. “Thank you,” you pre-empt, because hungry or not, you’re not completely without manners.

The officer lifts an eyebrow. “Yeah, no. I’m not taking heat from the Cap when the guys on the next shift find you passed out ‘cause you haven’t eaten anything,” he scoffs. “C’mon, we can talk while you eat.” Not a suggestion – you barely have time to stumble back before he’s pushing his way inside and kicking the door closed behind him. The second he takes to flick the lock somehow simultaneously eases the knots in your stomach and sends your heartrate ratcheting.

It’s halfway to a miracle that you’re still standing at all.

“Eat,” he tells you, his deep voice brooking no disagreement as he shoves the bag of food your way and grabs the lone chair in the room, dragging it closer to the edge of the bed and settling himself down. Clearly he has no intention of going anywhere until he’s satisfied you’ve eaten your fill.

With little else for it, you do as you’re told, reaching into the bag to find steamed buns at your fingertips, still warm as you pry open the wrapper– and wince. The familiar scent of pork, ginger and chives wafts through the air, unwittingly digging at old wounds.

Suddenly you’re a kid again, strolling down the hill with your family, one hand tucked safely within your brother’s, the other grasping a steaming hot bun. You’re happy and whole and so, so young–

“Something wrong? You don’t like meat buns?”

Not the time. Ignoring the bitter ache the memory conjures, you’re quick to shake your head, “No. No, thank you. It’s great.” You doubt he buys it, but then again you also doubt he cares so long as you get something in your stomach.

One bite, chew, swallow. Another, chew, swallow – mechanical until it isn’t. The first bun disappears and you reach for the second.

“How’s your head?” he asks.

You swallow down another mouthful. “Fuzzy. Sore. I still can’t remember anything,” you admit, in case that’s where this line of questioning is going. Nothing beyond waking up in your bed covered in blood and a stranger’s cum at any rate.

The blood work they did at the hospital confirmed you were drugged along with the others, the detective mentioning the near-empty bottle of wine they’d found, which they were in the process of testing too. He’d also pointed out the lack of evidence indicating any kind of forced entry, which paired with the former is something you’ve been trying not to dwell on.

The officer gives a considering nod, “That’s to be expected, don’t worry about it. I still think it’s worth asking a few more questions if you’re feeling up to it?” Again, it’s phrased like a question, but already he’s pulling out a voice recorder, setting down on the mattress between you.

“Um, sure. Yeah,” you croak.

A small smile, “Good.” He leans forward to switch on the recorder. “We’ll start with the other victims – your friends. Tell me about them.”

“Kaori, she’s– she was my best friend. We worked at the same grocer when I first moved out of my parents’ place, when I got a job here she made the decision to move with me. That was about six months ago.”

“And the other two?”

“Her brother Koji and another friend of ours Takashi. They came up to visit; Kaori’s been back once or twice since we left, but I hadn’t seen them–” tears blur at your vision and your voice just… gives out.

They’re gone.

You drag a shuddering breath in and it hurts.

Blindly, your hand reaches across the bed, blood tipped fingers sprawling over pristine white, and when they meet warmth – an open palm outstretched – you seize it and cling on with everything you have. You’ll unravel if you don’t.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” you chant, each syllable shakier than the last.

He dips his chin, just barely, and squeezes your hand, “You invited them?”

A wordless, wide eyed nod.

“You were close.” Not a question. He sounds like he’s mulling over the thought, though his expression is inscrutable. “Were you involved with any of them?”

This time, there’s the slightest hesitation before you shake your head. The officer frowns, “I need the truth. Your friends were attacked for a reason. Lying to me won’t help bring their families peace.”

The blood drains from your face, your heart lurching on a sickening thud.

Your fault.

Instinctively, you yank back your hand, or try to at least, but his grip tightens – enough to keep you from drawing away, not enough to hurt. Though neither his tone nor his expression hold any condemnation, it doesn’t change the truth of the matter.

You didn’t drug them or pick up the knife and swing. You didn’t invite this psycho into your life, but the fact remains that they’re dead because of you.

“I– it wasn’t like that. We weren’t… I didn’t–”

MINE.

Tears threaten to spill and your bottom lip trembles.

For a long, drawn out moment, he simply stares. There’s a twitch at his jaw and he sighs – more of a grunt, really – leaning back and pulling his hand from yours to rake through his dark hair.

(Stupid, you think, how some part of you mourns the loss.)

“Okay, alright. Fine. We’ll come back to that,” he concedes. “What about other friends? Coworkers you were close with?”

“No, I– I already told the detective I wasn’t seeing anyone.”

An irritated flash darkens his gaze. “I didn’t ask if you were fucking them.” And you must make a truly pathetic picture then, flinching like a kicked puppy, because he lets out another huff, closing his eyes for a beat and visibly working to soften the harsh lines of his expression. “Shit, okay– I’m sorry. It’s been a long day for us both,” he makes an odd noise, somewhere between a scoff and a laugh, the sound entirely devoid of humour. “The guy who did this, he either already knows about the people precious to you, or he’s gonna do his damn best to find out, and if he thinks they’re threats, he’ll hurt them, or worse – he’ll use them to hurt you. I need you to tell me everything.”

And so, feeling the exhaustion of the day creeping over you, you do.

You tell him about the small group from work you occasionally go out for Friday drinks with, your old friends from uni, right down to the neighbour two floors below, who’d seen you hauling boxes the day you’d moved in and immediately offered to help. When you’d christened the kitchen baking you’d made sure to bring him some, and just last week you’d had tea with him and his grandma.

“What about school? Anyone you still keep in contact with?”

You try for a laugh but it sounds all wrong. “I wasn’t exactly popular back then,”

His eyes narrow. They flit across your face like he’s searching for… something. You feel like a bug, pinned in place, squirming and uncomfortable, your face too hot.

“Bullied?” he probes.

Another nod.

“How ‘bout family?”

Your mouth dries.

“My parents… I haven’t spoken to them in months. We don’t really get along.” The last conversation you’d had with them, if you could call it as much, lasted all of five minutes. Dry pleasantries and thinly veiled criticisms, wrapped up in yet another pointed reminder that things didn’t have to be this way – you were the one adamant on shutting them out.

You doubt it’d raise a single eyebrow between them if you went the same again without contact.

“Siblings?”

Another tear slips from your lashes and you swallow against the tight lump in your throat. The weight of his gaze feels oppressive, you’re too bare, too vulnerable, you don’t want to talk about this, so you shift your line of sight to the paper delivery bag, half crumpled now, and let your fingernails sink into the skin of your palms.

Still, the words don’t come straight away, and when they do, they’re strained. Choked. Painted so thick is grief that you wonder if he understands them at all.

“No. I uh, I had a brother– a twin brother. He died.”

You don’t talk about your brother, ever.

Kaori knew the bare bones of it. Koji and Takashi too – you had a twin brother, he died, and it fucked you up. Without ever uttering a word, they’d known not to press, that the wounds left behind weren’t quite as healed as the scar tissue led to believe.

“How old were you?”

Seven, when you lost him. Twelve, when the letters stopped coming.

“Fourteen,” you whisper, curling in on yourself. “He was sick.”

Stop asking, stop talking, stop, stop, stop.

When you risk a look in the officer’s direction, his features are hewn granite, eyes set in a hard, angry glare that steals the very breath from your lungs. “Yeah?” he grunts, rising to his feet. “You stopped writing long before that.”

There’s just enough time for understanding to crash over you, for your lips to part, a feather light gasp of “Hajime?” to slip out before you’re flat on your back, wrists pinned to the mattress above your head, the officer– a ghost– Hajime looming over you.

“What did I fucking tell you?”

—

‘Sweetie, make sure you hold your brother’s hand.’

They’d meant when you were walking home from the bus stop, or crossing the road. When there was a buddy system so no one got separated or left behind.

Hajime was always holding your hand. Not because your parents told him to, but because that’s how it was supposed to be. You were twins, he’d been born first (by all of six minutes) and you had followed. You were always following Hajime, and he was always going to look after you.

Until he gets put into the Otter class with Mr Inagaki, and you go into Dugong with Miss Ino.

Hajime’s nothing short of enraged. He throws chairs and yells and tries to kick the Principal, but it doesn’t change anything.

It would be good for you, they said, to have a chance to make other friends. ‘You can’t keep using your brother as a crutch, honey,’ your mother gently admonishes.

Hajime scowls at that. Later, when it’s just the two of you hiding away in his room, he tells you she’s an idiot and a liar. ‘You don’t need anyone else. You have me.’

You knew that. You’d always have Hajime, but the other kids in your class weren’t as awful as he made them sound. Some of them were actually kind of cool, and they liked you, too.

For a while, you began to believe you could have both; Hajime and your new friends.

Until one day you’re waiting for him at lunch when a boy from your class tugs on your braids and with a wide, toothy grin, loudly proclaims to the whole playground that even though you were a girl, and girls have cooties, it’d probably be okay if you wanted to be his girlfriend.

You didn’t see Hajime coming up behind you. You’ve no idea where he found the scissors. The only warning either of you get is a sudden, splitting roar before he’s throwing himself at the smaller boy, tackling him to the ground.

‘She’s MINE!’

Silver glints, flashing in the sunlight, and a high pitched shriek rips through the playground as he brings the scissors down on the poor, struggling boy.

With a viciousness you’d never known of your brother, he swings again and again. It’s chaos. The other kids scatter and the teachers run to intervene. Hajime, spitting and snarling, red in the face and half-feral, doesn’t stop for them.

He stops for you.

At the sound of a sharp little gasp, a line of red slashed along your forearm, Hajime stops dead, wide, horrified eyes fixed on yours.

—

‘Sweetie, what have I told you about snooping? I raised you better than that.’

‘But they’re addressed to me. Hajime wrote to me.’

‘Your brother’s not well, those letters– they’ll only upset you. I don’t want you reading them.’

‘… He says he misses me.’

‘I know, but he’s where he belongs, getting help. You want that for him, don’t you? To get the help he needs?’

‘I want to write back to him.’

—

There’s another letter waiting for you when you get home from school.

You hang your backpack near the door, still damp from being tossed in the pool, and eye the opened envelope sitting by your father. He doesn’t look up from his laptop when you reach for it, doesn’t lift a finger to stop you. Nevertheless, the displeasure radiates from him clear as day.

“You shouldn’t encourage him. He’s not well.”

You’d scoff if it wouldn’t get you in trouble. Nothing you said could ever be taken as ‘encouragement’, and you’re under no illusions about who and what your brother is.

The violence terrifies you. Sometimes he says things in the letters he writes that make your stomach all twisty and your palms sweat, but Hajime could be a monster, and you think you’d love him anyway. You wouldn’t have a choice.

So you pluck at the envelope and tuck it close, making your way to your room without another glance at either of your parents. Sitting cross legged atop your bed, you eagerly scan the contents;

He hates the new therapist. They had a movie night planned, but some asshole started a fight and the whole thing got cancelled. The food’s still shit. He’s fed up and pissed off, whether he behaves or not, they won’t let him out and they won’t give him what he wants, so what’s the point in pretending?

The both of you turn twelve in ten days time – you owe it to him to come spend it together.

—

‘Maybe it’s for the best, sweetheart.’

Dismissive. She’s always dismissive. Your hands curl in response, tightening before you force yourself to flex them out and bite your tongue. It’s not worth the fight. Neither one of them actually care, and nothing you say will ever change that.

He’s angry at you. Or hurt. Both, probably.

They wouldn’t let you visit. You’d begged – cried, even – and it hadn’t swayed them. The rules are that you aren’t allowed to go and see Hajime and you aren’t allowed to talk to him on the phone. The letters are the only communication you have, and when your twelfth birthday comes and goes, those stop too.

You’ve sent four letters since, no response.

He’s shut you out entirely and while you can’t blame him for it, it’s painful.

You’ve always had Hajime, through everything. Him shutting you out feels like losing a limb–

No, it’s more than that. It’s like slowly losing some vital function inside of you. Like your lungs are shutting down and you can’t breathe properly and your heart isn’t pumping the way it should. You feel guilty and horrible and at least twice, you debate trying to find a way to sneak out and make the two hour journey on your own, just so you can see him.

It’s a stupid idea, they wouldn’t even let you through the front door, but it’s the only idea you have and so you cling to it.

You keep writing to him– panicked. Desperate. Begging his forgiveness.

He never writes back.

—

They sit you down at breakfast three months after your fourteenth birthday and tell you Hajime’s gone.

There was another fight, someone pushed him–

You don’t want to hear the details. They don’t matter and your ears are ringing too loud to make sense of them anyway.

Hajime is gone.

The cord between you was stretched and fraying already. He hadn’t written in over two years and probably hated you towards the end but he– he was–

Yours. A part of you.

Gone.

And your mother’s asking about the English test you have second period.

—

“What. Did. I. Say?” Each word is slowly enunciated, a quiet growl that drags an unwilling shiver down your spine.

He smells of wood – of cedar, spice and musk, the notes melding, coiling with the dizzying body heat, the solid weight of him, bracing himself above you.

His lips are mere inches from yours.

Not dead.

Here.

There’s a thousand thoughts racing through your head, connections that light up, clicking into place like pieces of a puzzle, painting a deeply unsettling picture – all of which are drowned out by the revelation that Hajime is here.

You burst into tears–

and Hajime – your brother, very much alive and glaring at you from above – surges down to swallow them in a vicious kiss.

The moment your lips touch, all the tension in his body just… bleeds out. Hajime groans, low and heated, his hips rocking, grinding along your stomach, and if you weren’t too preoccupied short circuiting, dangling on the precipice of a panic attack, you’d feel the twitch of his mouth, curling into a small but no less satisfied smirk.

He relaxes, like he’s coming home rather than returning from the dead to land the killing blow.

“Mine,” he answers his own question, breath heavy and ragged as his teeth nip at your jaw. “I told you you’re fucking mine.”

The scratches on the wall. Kaori and Koji and Takashi, asleep in a sea of red. The viscous mess spilled over your belly. Your mother’s hushed voice, carrying down the hallway, ‘– only a phase. The books all say he’ll grow out of it before long.’

She hadn’t sounded convinced.

You squeeze your eyes shut, desperate to block it all out as more tears spill into your hairline. Hajime won’t let you. He groans your name into the shell of your ear and licks at the tears as they fall. “Don’t,” he warns, fingers pressing tightly around your wrists ‘til they shoot back open with a gasp, “don’t you dare check out.”

When he rucks up your shirt to find you sans bra and a warm palm slides up to grope the soft, supple skin, a fresh burst of panic spurs you into action. Pinned under his weight as you are, you can’t move, and the idea of trying to physically fight him off is as laughable as it is terrifying – but when you were younger, you were the one – the only one – who could coax Hajime back from the edge, your hand in his.

Until he leapt from it entirely, and they took him away.

“H-Hajime?” A trembling, hiccuping whimper, thick with tears.

He doesn’t stop, doesn’t even pause – shuffling down your body to mouth at them instead – but hooded, simmering pools of green flick back up to your face, a hum of acknowledgement rumbling in his chest as he nips and sucks pretty, burgundy blooms across your breasts.

“I-if you ever loved me, even a little… Please, Haji– don’t hurt me like this–” you choke on another sob, pathetic mess that you are.

Hajime goes preternaturally still, eyes boring into you.

You stare right back, fighting the urge to cower and flinch, to turn your cheek and stare at the discarded dumpling wrappers, letting him take what he wants. Praying that he won’t hurt you too badly if you give it to him without a fight.

Because it will hurt, you think. It’ll break you entirely.

(Are you not already broken?)

When his head drops, you can’t help it – the sharp, terrified hitch in your breath – but his lips meet your forehead, then each cheek, before finally they brush over your lips with a tenderness he has no right to. “You don’t have to be afraid of me,” he vows, cradling the side of your jaw, “I won’t hurt you, ever.”

But that’s a lie, too.

“I love you more than anything.”

He kisses you again, soft and sweet and gentle, as if those promises weren’t sewn from violence and legitimised in blood. As if he isn’t breaking your heart with every sweep of his tongue, plundering your mouth.

There’s no fight in you left when he reaches for the waistband of your sweats and slowly starts easing them down. You don’t claw and shove when the hold on your wrists loosens and then disappears entirely, both hands needed to strip away his clothes.

The sound of his belt buckle clinking, the soft hiss of a zipper, they wash over you, white noise lost to the pounding in your ears.

But you don’t look away.

He strokes his cock – long and thick and flushed to the tip – crawling up the mattress to kneel between your legs like a supplicant before an altar of the divine.

Devotion demands sacrifice.

“It killed me,” he starts, dragging the mushroom head along the slit of your pussy. He frowns a little, leans back and spits – a fat glob of saliva landing dead centre, adding to the mess his weeping cock’s already made. “When the letters stopped coming. I was angry, so fucking angry, all the time. I’d lash out and they’d put me in another cage, and I’d do it again, and again. They tried convincing me you’d moved on,” his eyes flash darkly, “which was bullshit. They’d have to carve me out of you with a knife.”

What shocks you isn’t the violent imagery, but the truth of it settling into your bones, inescapable and undeniable; you’ll always love your brother, even if that very love destroys you.

“I didn’t–”

The first thrust rips a strangled yelp from your throat.

He’s too big, you’re not prepared to take him – and Hajime doesn’t care. His head tips back, shuddering out a breathy laugh.

There’s no pause, no period of grace, seated deep inside of you, the walls of your pussy hugging him tight, Hajime won’t allow you a second to catch your breath and wait for the burning sting to abate. His hips draw back until only the throbbing head of his cock remains inside, and, upon grabbing a leg to hitch over his shoulder, uses it as leverage to punch forward, stuffing your tight little cunt to the brim.

The pace he sets is brutal from the outset. Bruising. He licks at your tears between kisses and moans when you clench and shudder around him. “Never again,” he pants into your ear. “I’ll kill them all if you leave. Every last fucking one. You’re mine. Mine.”

And you’d think it cruel, a punishment, if not for the way those green eyes burn.

When his fingers twine with yours, pressing you down into the mattress, holding you there, you wonder if this was always an inevitability.

Hajime led and you followed, hand in bloody hand.

He’d never allow anything less.

#yandere haikyuu #yandere iwaizumi hajime #yandere iwaizumi x reader #yandere iwaizumi hajime x reader #yandere iwaizumi #tw: noncon

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silencesscreams · 11 months ago

Note

"is there any chance i can fix this?" where james and reader are best friends since birth but he begins to pull away and spend less time with her in favor of the boys, so she just cuts him out of her life and after a while he doesn't know how to deal with it anymore. hiiiii

sad beautiful tragic

james potter x fem reader (angst)

a/n: sorry about any grammar mistakes, english isn’t my first language (also i’m pretty bad at writing angst but i tried my best) also immediately thought of the title because of the taylor swift song, so hope you don’t mind the association. also the first kiss part came to my mind because of a tiktok i saw a few weeks ago but i don’t really remember who’s it was to credit them

warnings: friendship distancing, kissing, fighting, cursing, a bit short (sorry), happy ending

“i’m sorry, okay? i’m so sorry, honey, please. is there any chance i can fix this? just tell me, please”

you knew james potter and he knew you. knowing meaning comprehending each other, meaning that you stood by each others side for as long as you can remember.

he was your first friend. he was your neighbor and you both grew up together, it was expected that you both would know each other better than anyone.

sure, it felt different when you both started hogwarts and suddenly he had new friends, but so did you. you spent the time you could together, always saving a bit of your days for each other.

during the sixth to seventh year summer vacation, he had spent the whole summer with you, you both would hang out all the time.

until he kissed you.

it was the last day of summer and you both had spent the evening in his room. you were talking about a book you had been reading recently and he listened quietly, like it was the most interesting thing he had ever heard of. until you paused for a brief moment and he moved closer to you. you were sat on the floor with him, the carpet tickling your legs as you played with the fluffy yarn under you.

“honey” he said, you looked at him, doe eyed waiting for him to continue. “a phrase. two words, six letters, two vowels. guess.” he said lowly whilst looking at your lips. your mind went blank.

one vowel for each word. you still didn’t get it.

“what are the vowels?” you whisper back, he smiles.

“i and e�� he answers, not taking his eyes from off of you for a second. you knew.

“kiss me?” and so he did. his lips met yours abruptly, his hands grabbed your hips and yours went straight to the back of his neck. it completely changed the way you ever saw him, hell, it completely changed your expectations to a kiss. it was better than anything you’d ever experienced and you loved it.

when you got back to school, it seemed like he didn’t do that, actually, it seemed like he didn’t even talk to you the whole summer.

sure, he did casually say hello in the halls and you might’ve shared one or two conversations, but what the hell? he kisses you like that and expects you to just forget about it? that was the most fucked up thing anyone could’ve done. as the semester went on, your mind was absolutely torturing you over that kiss.

it made you overthink every single thing you ever did around him. but maybe he didn't have time, maybe he was really busy with his studies and quidditch, right? that was probably it.

he saw you every once in a while, said an awkward hi or whatever that thing signaling head thing he did was.

the crush you had developed for him didn’t help at all. it made you crave his presence in your life, even now that you hated him more than you ever thought you possibly could. you missed his pet names for you, ‘honey’ and ‘sweetheart’ sounded so amazing coming out of his mouth.

but from the moment he started to ignore you, you decided he was absolutely done. he was never going to see a smile coming from you ever again, he was never going to get another hello, nothing. james potter didn’t deserve a single thing from you.

your friends agreed. they thought he was a piece of shit and said you should’ve cut him off a long time before.

life went on without him, you barely thought about him. your studies were going well, everything was great.

christmas break came up and when you saw james at the train station, you were pissed. you knew he was going to be there for christmas dinner, he was always invited alongside with his family. you didn’t know how he was going to act then, was he going to pretend it never happened?

when you got home, your mother instantly started asking you what you wanted for dinner and you were glad to be home, you just hated that he was in the house next to yours.

a few nights after you both got home, you were invited for a date by steven, who worked at a bookstore near the city park. you said yes, he took you to see a shitty movie and tried to kiss you after dropping you off at your front porch. you dodged it and gave him a good night kiss on the cheek. james saw it all.

once the date left, you heard him yelling from his porch:

“who’s that?” you ignored him and went inside, sure, you weren’t going to see steven again but james didn’t deserve to know that.

on christmas day you went to the potter’s for dinner, your parents insisted for you to go, even though you tried to fake being sick. sirius was there too, you politely greeted all of them and didn’t bother to answer james’ “hey”.

when you sat at the side of the living room table james sat next to you, even though that wasn’t his usual seat. you played with your dress awkwardly and ate less, being there was making you so irritated you lost your appetite.

after taking a bite from your dessert, you thanked euphemia for the food and told your parents you were feeling a bit sick and that you were heading home, telling them to enjoy the rest of their night.

as you were opening the door to head out, you heard footsteps behind you. you knew james was there and you had no interest to talk with him.

“don’t” you simply stated, stepping out and shutting the door lightly on him, he followed you during the small walk between both your houses.

“hey!” he shouted, trying to get your attention. you were about to shut the door to your house on his face, but he held it with his foot, going into your house.

he pulled you by your wrist but you tugged it away from him.

“don’t touch me!” you shouted at him, staring into his eyes for the first time that night.

“now you can talk to me, huh? ‘the fucks up with you?!” he shouts back, brows furrowed. you couldn’t believe him, what a fucking nerve he had.

“whats up with YOU?!” you step closer to him, throwing your keys on the coffee table in the middle of the living room. “you’ve ignored me for the whole semester and now you wanna talk?” he had never seen you like this. you had never been this angry at anyone or anything around him.

“i’m sorry?” he had no reaction, he knew he was wrong, he just couldn’t deal with it. with anything. he didn’t know what to do after he kissed you, he couldn’t handle any of it. he knew that if he spent more time around you he would fall harder, he couldn’t risk it.

“i’m sorry! now that you don’t have anyone else near for you to talk to, i’m worthy of your attention? i’m so lucky, right?!” your eyes started to tear up, but you held it in, he was not getting to see you cry.

“honey, i’m sorry i didn’t talk much with you these past few months, but i tried to speak with you tonight and you didn’t even bother to answer me!” he ran his hand through his hair, looking at you as you sat down on the couch, staring at your hands.

“you didnt even look at me. the entire fucking night. one lousy ‘hey’ is not trying to do anything” he handed you a piece of paper, it was crumpled up in his jeans’ pocket. you knew he was bad with words, but the paper was written front and back. what was he even trying to do? did he think a letter was enough to fix the damage he had done?

“really? you’re a little too late for this, don’t you think?” you said, looking at him angrily.

“fine, don’t read it then. just keep it, okay?” he knew you were about to cry. it was the worst feeling he had ever felt.

“you don’t get to do this to me, james” you hold back tears once you say it.

“i know, honey, i know” he tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, cupping your face as you try to not melt because of his touch. he kisses you, but this time you pull away.

“no. don’t do this to me” you say, a single tear streaming down your face, he wipes it off but more tears just keep coming

“im sorry, im so sorry for everything i did and-“ you interrupt him.

“could you just try to listen?!” you shout, pulling away from his touch again. “what makes you think that i want this? after all you did, better, all that you didn’t do?! you kiss me and expect me to forget about it? expect me to be okay with you ignoring me all the time just because you kissed me again? i can’t be okay with any of this unless you actually explain to me what happened. i really try to understand you, but all of this doesn’t help!”

“i love you” he says “i have loved you all my life and i didn’t know, after i kissed you it all hit me and i couldn’t trust myself around you anymore, i didn’t want to hurt you so i pulled away, i just didn’t know it would hurt you more like that. i’m sorry, but im here now and i want to show you how much I do love you” he pauses and sits next to you on the couch.

“i’m sorry, okay? i’m so sorry, honey, please. is there any chance i can fix this? just tell me, please” he wipes the tears from off your face again. you knew he meant it, you just didn’t know how to trust him again.

“i don’t know” you whisper, looking into his eyes, you had never seen him look this sad. you wanted to trust him, you really did, but how could you? how could you know he wasn’t going to pull something like that again?

you couldn’t be sure of anything, you could only hope for the best and be careful. so you gave it a shot.

“come here” you say lowly, pulling him in for a hug. he buried his face in the crook of your neck and gave you small kisses.

“i’m so sorry, baby” he whispered.

“i know” you whisper back, he looks at you and gives you quick kisses all over your face. you can’t help but smile.

it was going to take a while for you to trust him again, but you knew you could.

#james potter x reader #james potter fic #james potter #james potter x y/n #james potter x you #james potter angst #james potter oneshot #james potter imagine #james potter fanfiction #mrsaluado #lila writes #silencesscreams

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spider-ghoul · 4 months ago

Text

Babysitting <3

Percy Jackson X gn!reader (fluff)

In which: a call from Sally Jackson leads you to help with her youngest, and spend the night with her eldest son. Lingering glances and sleepy confessions only to be forgotten by morning.

Warnings: Reader is mentioned to be smaller than Percy once, kissing, none I can think of but as always lmk if there's anything!!

this might be complete shit lmao I finished this at like 3:00 am last night but I wanted to get something out to feed the beasts of this website

~~𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𓇼 ࣪ 𓈒ㅤׂㅤ⭒ 𓆡 ⭒ㅤ𓈒ㅤׂ 🫧~~

At six o'clock on a Friday, normally I'd be rotting in my bed after the week of school. And that was the plan, until Mrs. Jackson mom called.

"Oh- (y/n) I'm so sorry for asking but do you think you could watch Estelle tonight? Me and Paul had a date but Percy was going to the movies with Grover tonight and we-"

"Mrs. Jackson, yeah, it's fine. When do I need to be over?"

"Six is when we're leaving."

"I'll be there at five fifty."

"You're a savior."

This was perfectly fine. Me and Percy were friends and i was the only half-blood who lived around here. I watched Estelle a few times before too. No biggie. Except for the fact I'd been in love with Percy Jackson for...a while.

I mean, he was kinda my friend. But god, he was Percy Jackson.

At five forty, i headed out. I grabbed my backpack, making sure i had the baby sitting essentials for any four year old: nail polish, beads, and my old rainbow loom (i also spent a extra minute making sure my hair looked okay so that if i saw a certain older brother) I figured that and the t.v. would be more than enough to keep us occupied till her bedtime at eight.

I got there right on time (surprisingly), and Sally greeted me with another thank you. She tried to hand over a few bucks cash, but i pushed her hand away.

She rushed out of the door with Paul after a few more (failed) attempts of paying me, leaving me with an excited two four old. And before too long, she had me watching Bluey (Though i do thoroughly enjoy that show), and making bracelets for us.

She watched as i showed her how to bead the string and make sure the letter beads where on the right way, and then she helped me choose colors.

To start i made one with her name in purple and white. She giggled and slide it on her wrist. I started working on a second one, and she told me to tie hers. It was all blue and had me spell out 'Percy' with beads for her.

"Is this for your brother?" She nodded excitedly, "well, we'll give it to him when he get here, okay?"

I got a solid hour with the beads before she got bored, and by the end both of our wrists had a fair share of bracelets littering them, and a small pile of three bracelets for Percy.

I seriously hope she's awake when he gets here, I can imagine the teasing that would come with handing him bracelets and saying, "oh yeah sorry I'm at your house haha baby sitting- oh me and your sister made you bracelets-". Or i could imagine our hands touching causing me to panic. I could imagine a million things actually.

I think this whole crush is really getting out of hand, especially with me becoming his mom's go to sitter now a days.

Estelle broke me from my thoughts with requests to watch 'Nemo', her favorite. We've watched it every time I've babysat. Part of me wonders if Percy likes it too, I mean with the whole sea god thing.

As for her request, I made a bag of microwave popcorn and set her down in front of the TV.

I vaguely remember the opening, and Estelle fell asleep next to me before i dozed off myself.

I woke up a bit later, maybe half an hour? The movie wasn't finished, but Estelle was already fast asleep. I took the liberty of scooping her up and placing her in her own bed before going to clean up the main room.

It wasn't bad, just putting away my beads, and getting the popcorn bowl out of the way. I was tired enough, school was rough this week. I just planted myself back on the couch, finding Nemo not quite finished as I did.

I'm not quite sure when i feel back asleep, just that i did.

I'm also not quite sure when Percy Jackson sat down next to me, but he did.

I woke up, curled around a throw pillow, the end credits were playing. I rolled onto my back, and that's when I saw him.

Maybe i was too tired, or maybe he was just smiling, but i didn't feel all that anxious. At least not like i normally do around the son of the sea god.

"Do you always fall asleep to Nemo or is this a special occasion?"

"Do you always watch me sleep or is this a special occasion...?"

He laughed and my heart fluttered.

"Uhm, sorry your mom had me come over to babysit, I didn't know you'd be home yet." I say awkwardly smiley as i sit up, yawning.

"It's fine, y/n. She texted me, sorry to have you waste a Friday."

"Oh its fine, better than doing nothing. Your sis was an angel, like always." I say, shifting, my shirt bunched up around my waist while I was sleeping. I was also pretty positive my hair was a mess.

"Oh and speaking of my mom- before i forget." He pulled out a twenty, "now I figure you aren't gonna want to take it, but it's sally's orders."

"I'd feel bad, its just a favor. Your mom is always so nice, she patched me up after a monster attack once, this is just me repaying her."

"She did? When?" His eyebrows furrowed together, his eyes filled with concern.

And i felt my face getting hot again.

"A few weeks ago, your house was closer than mine, it's fine." I mutter, looking down.

He sighed, "what happened?" he said, reaching out to put his hand over mine. I short wire for a moment, looking back up at him.

"Just something on my way home from school, it wasn't bad."

After a brief moment of silence, i wanted to crawl out of my skin.

He sighed, "as long as you're fine." he lifted his hand off of mine, though I could still feel his warmth.

I smiled weakly, "oh uh..what time is it?"

"Uh.. ten-ish?"

"I should be getting home." I say, sighing turning away from him.

"It's pretty late, I wouldn't want you to walk back alone."

"It's not far-"

"I'm sure my mom would say the same thing, you know."

I sighed, knowing he was right, "i don't want to intrude."

"Neither me or Sally would care."

"...."

"...can i bribe you to stay with waffles?"

"...yeah you can." I sigh, any of Sally's food was enough to make me do just about anything.

Percy smiled, making my heart melt.

"Great, it'll be like a sleepover. Do you need to borrow a shirt or something?"

"Yeah, that uhm- that would be great." I mutter, pushing myself up off the couch. My neck was sore, who would have guessed that a throw pillow wasn't great for sleeping? I stretch my arms out over my head, yawning again.

"tired?" He chuckles, raising his eyebrow.

"well you did just wake me up-" I resort, rolling my eyes. I always forget how nice Percy is. I always worry about stupid things, but when I'm with him none of it really matters.

"You woke up on your own- I was simply..." He trails off, and I laugh:

"Watching me sleep?"

"What can I say? You looked so.. pretty." He look down at me, and I could swear my heart stops, but I don't look away.

"...Yeah, whatever." I mummer quietly, staring into his eyes and blinking a few times before finally breaking eye contact.

After a short moment, He mumbles something about getting me to bed. I nod quickly, following him to his room, which is surprisingly clean. He digs though his dresser drawers for a moment, pulling out some old band tee, and blue plaid pants. He hands them to me.

"Is this fine for you? might be a big big, just let me know-"

"it's fine. No worries." I say quickly, taking them, making sure to avoid his hands. "Thanks."

He smiles again, and I leave for the bathroom, my heart pounding in my ears. 'pretty'? it's nothing, Percy is just nice like that.

I change into his clothes, the smell of ocean engulfing me as the soft fabric hangs from my body. I can't help but to push my head into my shoulder. It smells like him.

I ball up my jeans and tee shirt, shoving them into my backpack. I slipped out the bathroom once I calmed myself down enough to talk to him again.

I walk up to Percy's door, "Hey, I'm gonna go lay down do you have a blanket or something I can use..?"

His eyebrows furrowed as he looked up at me from where he was laying on his bed, "You don't seriously think I'm making you sleep on the couch-?"

"Well I kinda assumed..?"

"Get over here you dork." He said, scooting over on his bed, "Plenty of room- you don't mind, do you?"

Part of me lit on fire, and part of me was desperate to put it out. My ears got hot, but I managed to nod.

"No, I don't mind.."

I place my bag on the floor by the door, walking up and sitting on his bed, sliding my legs under the covers and sliding down to lay next to him. I was stiff, worried to so much as touch him. But eventually, I relaxed, turning to lay on my side, facing him.

I looked at him through half-lidded eyes, my body already starting to sink into his bed, ready to get a proper night's sleep. My eyelids slowly drifted shut.

I was woken when Percy broke the silence.

"Y/N?" Percy whispered, almost silent.

"Mhm..?" I mumbled back, not bothering to open my eyes.

"I really like you, you know that?"

If I wasn't half asleep, maybe I would have said something different. If I had the energy maybe I would have been flustered.

"... I really like you too."

I only heard him chuckle before he placed a hand on my hip.

"Get some sleep, yeah? I'll confess my undying love when you'll properly Remember it."

I must have frowned, because he laughed lightly and pulled me a little closer.

It didn't matter though. I slipped back to sleep, and when I woke up I didn't remember.

I remembered waking up some point in the night, but I didn't know what was said.

And in the morning, I got the promised waffles and left the Jackson's apartment.

The ever chivalrous Percy Jackson (who I woke up cuddling with), offered to walk me home.

We took the long way, and when we reached my door step, he pressed his lips to mine and told me he couldn't wait for me to babysit again, though he wouldn't mind me coming around before then.

He left me breathless and giddy, and so so happy to have accepted Sally's offer.

#pjo x reader #pjo fic #pjo #percy jackson x you #percy jackson x reader fluff #percy jackson #percy jackson x reader #percy jackson fic #percy jackon and the olympians

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writingsbychlo · 11 months ago

Text

IS IT NEW YEARS YET? | lorenzo berkshire

summary; you're not a huge fan of new years, since when was it all about couples, anyway? luckily, someone else is in the same boat.

word count; 6712

notes; this is completely unedited, it's bound to be riddled with mistakes. this is the second to last christmas fic, just my baby mattheo to go! I saved the best for last.

Sitting at the table, you did your very best to hide the scowl sitting on your face. Pansy had left you only a moment ago to dance with Luna, Astoria had pulled Draco away onto the floor ages ago, and Blaise was off flirting up a storm with every girl possible. Regulus was sulking at the bar with his brother, while Mattheo and Theo had long since snuck away to smoke and hide from the party.

That just left you. Sat alone at the table, trying not to get too drunk as you watched all the happy couples around you mingle. The Christmas period had always been so fun, but lately, it only seemed to be a holiday for couples. Which, really wasn’t fair, in your opinion. They already had Valentine’s Day, why the fuck did they need this one, too?

However, everything seemed to be spinning around kissing at midnight, and dancing, and romance, and Luna’s bag full of grapes, for whatever that was about. You’d tuned out when she’d begun explaining.

Glancing around the room in search of the only remaining member of your party who was unaccompanied, perhaps a little reprieve from the loneliness, you spotted Enzo near his parent's table. He looked, in a single word, uncomfortable. Scratching at the back of his neck, he wore a scowl, and while you couldn't hear over the loud music and chatter what he was saying all that distance away, it was clear that he wasn’t happy.

His mother glared at him, and his anger dimmed only a second, a flash of fear in his eyes, a bob of his throat, but he didn’t back down. Finishing off the last of your drink and standing, the sequins of your dress glitter under the lights, falling perfectly in the simple, floor-length dress you’d chosen for the evening.

As you wove through the bodies, heels clicking on the floor, you started to be able to pick out the deep rumble of his voice throughout the other conversations. He didn’t have a great relationship with his parents. Certainly, not as bad as others in the group, but strained He rarely wrote them, he only ever went home at Christmas and Summer, and they never came to visit. In almost a decade of knowing Enzo, you’d perhaps spoken to them three times, and once, was merely your introduction.

“I’m not going to date a girl I don’t know just because you think I ought to!”

Your brows furrowed, stilling momentarily as his words raced through your mind. Regulus’ parents had tried to set him up with someone recently too, only six months ago, they’d sent him letter after letter about the eligible girls from other noble families he could woo. You’d gone pale upon discovering your own name on the list, quite highly ranked, and Regulus had assured you that as much as he loved you dearly as a friend, he had absolutely no interest in pursuing you romantically. Nor, any of the girls on the list.

However, you hadn't expected Enzo’s parents to leap on him so fast. Your mother had been making some subtle comments about relationships lately, but nothing nearly so bold, not since your break-up. Enzo dragged a hand through his hair as he groaned, this conversation obviously wasn’t going in his favour, and you pitied him.

In a generous mood, you finished your walk, closing in by his side and putting on the charming smile that you knew could win over any adult or peer, with a few simple words and a bat of your lashes. Anyone, except, perhaps Enzo’s mother. Her eyes narrowed on you as you placed a hand on Enzo’s lower back, standing respectably by his side, by far closer than could be considered friendly, as you smiled up at him.

“Enzo, sweetie, Draco is looking for you.”

“Wh— What?” His brows pulled together, obviously confused, and you slipped your arm around his waist, settling in by his side.

“Lorenzo, who’s your friend?” His mother’s cold tone sliced through the space between you as his gaze scanned over your features.

“Hi, Mrs Berkshire.” You held your hand out offering your name, and she only hummed, shaking it loosely before returning her hand to her side, elegantly. “I’m Enzo’s… well, we haven’t quite figured out terms yet, have we? I’m his date tonight… at least, I hope?”

He did well to hide his flicker of surprise, before finally seeming to understand the aim of the game, his arm snaking around your body like a boyfriend might do, and curling you further into his side. “Of course you are, darling.”

“Well, that’s good to know.” Your giggle was far more high-pitched and sweet than usual, but the tension bled from his mother’s shoulders just a fraction, as she analysed the pair of you. For emphasis, Enzo leaned in to press a polite kiss to your temple, and you stretched your smile wider, like a happy girlfriend would. “I’m so sorry to have interrupted, I promised Draco I’d find you, and you left me all alone at the table. I was starting to miss you, but now I see you were doing something important. I thought perhaps you’d snuck away with the boys.”

The piercing gaze of his mother drilled into you, but you didn’t falter, or show any weakness. In your social circles, one cowering sign was just an opening for snapping teeth at throats, and you wouldn't give anyone such an opportunity.

“Why would you now simply tell us that you had a date, Lorenzo?” His mother eventually questioned, finally dragging her stare away from you and back to her son, and you felt like you could breathe again at last.

“Well, as you heard my girl say,” He murmured, stumbling only slightly over the words, and recovering them smoothly with a cough. “We haven’t settled on any kinds of labels yet. I didn’t want to be presumptuous, or too forward.”

“And how long have you been seeing one another?” She wasted no time, raising a brow.

“Just two months.” You smiled, and she flickered her sights to you for only a moment. “You raised a real gentleman, Mrs Berkshire. He’s been so patient and sweet, it can be so hard to find times between classes to see one another and spend time together. We’ve been taking it slow. I apologise if I come as a surprise to you tonight, that’s my fault. I asked Enzo not to write to you, because I haven’t told my own parents yet, you see.”

Leaning in to whisper your joke, as if you were passing secret information;

“My father can be a little over-protective, I wanted to spare Enzo, so I knew my father wouldn't scare him away.”

At that finally, a smirk broke on her lips. She made a vague sound of agreement, and you could feel your friend relax a little where your hand was rubbing his side, gently. “Well, I suppose I can understand that. Lorenzo, you may leave for now. But I do not expect to be kept in the dark on such matters again.”

Waggling a finger at him, he only nodded, eyes wide. “Of course, Mother. It won’t happen again.”

Leaning in to kiss her cheek, he gave a hurried goodbye, before steering you away with his arm still around you, and guiding you back toward the other side of the room. When you were far enough away he knew his parents wouldn't hear them, he let out a shaky laugh, and turned to look down at you.

“I don’t know if you’re brave, stupid, or both. Taking on my mother like that? Impressive, and also insane.”

“You have a funny way of saying ‘thank you’, Berkshire.” You tutted, and he only grinned. Dipping down, he kissed your cheek now, coming to a stop beside your table.

“Thank you, for saving me back there.”

“Well, you seemed like you needed a save.” You shrugged, his arm still looped around your waist, hand on your lower back, rubbing lightly as he looked around the room.

“You don’t have an actual date, right?” Leaning in, his breath brushed your ear, and you shuddered at the feel, “Because there’s a guy over there glaring at me like I kicked his dog.”

His fingers touched your cheek, guiding your gaze to casually follow where he had been looking. As your eyes fixed on the man on the other side of the dance floor, you hardly concealed a scoff. He wasn’t glaring, so much as staring with curiosity now that you were the one looking. He smoothed a hand up his girlfriend’s leg as she sat beside him engaged in another conversation, not noticing where his attention now lingered.

Turning your gaze away with a heavy sigh, your motions caused you to curl a little further into Enzo, who leant back enough to look down at you. “Is that the dickhead-ex that broke up with you in a letter a few months ago?” He whispered, and you could only nod, swallowing back the lump in your throat.

Over him, you might be, but that didn’t make it sting any less. You’d suspected for a while he might be cheating, based on how soon he’d moved on, how ingratiated into his social circles she seemed, but this was the first time you’d ever seen her.

She was pretty.

“That would be the one.” You replied, and Enzo only hummed, freeing his other hand from his pocket to tip your face up, an act that was far more intimate than any touch the two of you had ever shared. His thumb smoothed over your cheek, flicking a gaze back to the other side of the room and smirking slightly. “I don’t need to make him jealous, Enz. As much as I appreciate the sentiments, this is unnecessary.

It wasn't needed, but you couldn't deny it felt good. Felt good to be held again, to settle your hands on someone’s chest, to feel his steady heartbeat under your palm as he touched you so tenderly. “I know, but isn’t it nice? To make him see what he let go, to show him how you should’ve been treated. We’re stuck together all night anyway, might as well make it count for you too.”

“Why is it that we’re stuck together?” You murmured, scowling a little at his choice of words, even more so when he only chuckled. You both knew he didn’t mean it like that, but it felt better to channel a little bitterness than let in the hurt.

“My parents now believe we’re a couple. Your heroic act of saving me now has consequences.” He clicked his tongue, his hand smoothing down to your neck, thumb under your chin to force you to look up at him.

“I figured you’d sneak away to see the other boys once I got you out.”

“And abandon my doting girlfriend who comes to my rescue?” He gasped dramatically, shaking his head, and a small laugh fell from your lips. “I would never. So, what do you say? I’m in your debt, let me be your real date for the night. I promise I’m a fun date.”

“You don’t have to beg, Lorenzo. I’ll let you be my date.”

“Oh, you haven’t seen me beg yet.” He smirked, a wicked look glinting in his eye, before he stepped back from you. Slipping the hand from your waist to slip into your own, he grasped tightly. “How about we go and get a drink?”

“I have a drink.”

“A real drink. I hate champagne, and I know you do too.” He cringed at the sight of your half-drunk glass, and didn’t wait for an answer, beginning to lead you both through the party and towards the bar.

Settling in together, he pulled out a stool for you, tapping at the surface of it for you to sit on. When you shifted towards it, his hands settled on your waist, boosting you up to sit on it, and winking at the surprised sound that slipped free.

He flagged down the bartender with a quick wave, before stepping in closer to your side, his hand finding a home on your lower back once again. Your spine was stiff, and you tried to convince yourself to relax, mumbling your drink order to the waitress as she passed by and took them both.

Leaning back into his touch, he responded in kind, hand rubbing up and down your back softly, and turning to face you. Twisting your body on the stool, your knee bumped into his thigh, and your hand dropped to sit over the top of his on the bar before you.

“So, didn’t expect your parents to be pushing your impending marriage so hard.” You murmured, tracing a finger over the prominent veins and marks in his hand, along each finger, all the way to the tips until they twitched, before returning to the back of his hand. On one finger sat a prominent family ring, the Slytherin ring on his thumb, and a couple of varied bands stacked amongst the others. “How are you feeling?”

“I feel like I’m far too young to be considering marriage. I haven’t seen the world yet, I’ve never been in love. Not— Not that soul-shredding, intense kind of love. I want to experience that at least once. I want to pick my own wife.” He shook his head, casting you a downtrodden look, a pout on his lips. “Doesn’t seem like that’ll be in the playing cards for me.”

“You could always leave. After we graduate, we get to leave. Maybe you should just… run.”

He only raised a brow at you, shaking his head slightly. It was a stupid suggestion, really. There wasn’t a place he could go that he wouldn't be followed by the reputation of his family, of his magical status. Unless he were to give it all up, disappear as a muggle, and spend the rest of his life feeling like he’d chopped off a limb, or had a vital organ removed.

“Sorry. Dumb thing to say.”

“No, it was sweet. You were just trying to be comforting.” He whispered, and the drinks were placed down before you both. Pushing your drink to you with two fingers, you tapped them together gently, glass clinking, before taking a sip of your cocktail. “I might milk this little situation you’ve gotten us into for a while, though. Let my parents believe I’m courting you back at Hogwarts, and when we call it quits, I’ll be heartbroken. I’ll tell them I need time to get over you.”

Shaking your head with a small laugh, the sound brought a smile to his face.

“I’ll milk that one too. I reckon I can buy myself… at least a year, all in all.”

“Only a year, is that all my fictional love is worth?” You raised a hand to your chest, and he stepped even closer, playing into the act as his arm tightened around your waist.

“You’re right. You're the one. When you leave me, I’ll be devastated. I’ll never get over it. You’ll be my one that got away.” He gave a heavy sigh, a groan at the end of it, slumping slightly into the bar and only increasing his dramatics as you giggled. “Don’t leave me, I’ll be better! I’ll buy you more flowers, I’ll stop sleeping with my secretary!”

You were gathering odd looks at his declaration, an older couple behind you tittering disapprovingly but you didn’t care. Not as he straightened back up, standing closer to you still, and smiling at you so widely. Your cheeks flushed as he took in your features, and you sipped at the cold alcohol in your glass, fingers raising to your cheeks to hide the blush.

“Truly, though. Thank you. That was sweet of you, you didn’t have to step in for me.”

“I know, but you’re my friend. One of my best friends. I know you’d help me out in a pinch, too.” Your hand fell back to his, toying with the house ring on his thumb, and he twisted his hand to give you better access. Such a small gesture, but you appreciated it nonetheless, as he fed into your anxious habits with no extra thought, your chest flooding with warmth and gratitude for him.

“I would, but, my parents are more than just a pinch. You were brave, my mum likes to pride herself on being intimidating.”

“She doesn’t have to like me, but I knew she wouldn't hurt me.” He raised his brows, silently questioning, and you looked at his hand. Unfolding his loose fist, you laced your fingers through his. “You were there with me. I knew she wouldn't hurt me.”

His hand tightened around yours, and his throat bobbed slightly. Lifting your raised hands, he kissed your knuckles softly. Instead of finding words to respond, he used gestures, his eyes fixed on yours as everything that needed to be said shone in them. He wasn’t his parents you saw him for that and trusted him. This was real, it wasn’t just for show, and when he moved his lips from your skin, you cupped his cheek with your other hand.

“I know you’re good, Enzo.” You whispered, a fragile tone for just him to hear over the music, and his smile wobbled from flirty to heartfelt. “You’ve been my friend for so long now, I feel pretty confident in saying I know who you are.”

“Thank you.” His words came on a rushed sigh, and you swiped your thumb across his cheekbone one final time, before pulling away to clasp your drink and take a sip. He kept a tight grip on your other hand, though, clasping it to his chest momentarily, before resting your joined hands back on the bar. “So, what have I got to do to get you to dance with me out there?”

“Oh, no. I don’t dance at these things.” You shook your head quickly, and his grin only stretched at that prospect. At the look on his face, you waved a finger at him. “I have never danced at one of these things before. You aren’t the first guy to ask. I. Don’t. Dance.”

“I say you can.” He snickered, humming a fragment of the song as your eyes rolled. Leaning in a little closer to him, his wicked, flirty smile was back. Your nose brushed his.

“Not a chance.”

He seemed to accept the challenge, finishing off the whiskey that was in his glass. He wasn’t giving up, and you knew for certain that once Enzo set his mind to something, he achieved it. He waved to the bartender again, ignoring her flirty smile as he placed his order with two fingers raised, “Can I get two shots of tequila, please?”

“Make it four.” You muttered, and his eyes sparkled as he corrected himself. Finishing off your own drink, you pushed the empty glass toward his own, nothing but an overly saturated berry left in the bottom. “How’d you know tequila is my go-to for shots?”

“Because, my darling, I am observant. In fourth year, you legitimately gagged when we gave you Sambuca to try and you refuse to touch it even to this day, you say vodka tastes like nail polish, and you never drink whiskey or rum. And, only a psychopath would shoot gin.” His nose scrunched up, and four shot glasses were soon placed down before you, each one being filled up, a few droplets escaping to the bar. A dish of salt and limes followed, and you awed silently over it as he wiggled his brows.

“Fancy, we get the fruit, too.”

“Always impressive these days, every family trying to one-up each other with parties.” He handed you your first shot, clinking your glasses together and spilling some of the sticky amber liquid onto your fingertips. Sprinkling salt on your hand, he winked, “Cheers.”

Licking the salt from his own fingertips, you copied, licking the substance from the back of your hand. Quickly, you did your first shot, then the next, and before you could even reach for one, Enzo was pushing a slice of lime between your lips. He’d surely smudged your lipstick, and juice was now running down your chin, but he caught it with a quick swipe of his thumb, grinning around the citrus in his mouth as he sucked it dry, and winced.

Pulling the lime out from between your teeth, laughter soon spilt over in its place, and you left the half-drained slice in one of the empty glasses. Licking the tips of your fingers for the remaining tequila, Enzo watched, eyes a little foggy, as you cleaned up. “You shouldn’t do that.”

“Why?” You muttered, and he leaned in again, invading your space as the woodsy smell of his cologne overpowered you, making you want to press your face into his neck. Instead, you held his gaze, with bated breath.

“Because it’s hot. And I’m only so strong.”

“Are you flirting with me, Enz?” You smirked, watching as he offered you his hand. Taking it, you hopped down from the bar stool, waiting for the effects of the shots to kick in, ready to welcome the numbing buzz they’d carry.

“Most definitely. You like it?”

“I do, actually.”

Linking your arm through his own as he led you slowly to the dance floor, he patted your hand on his bicep. “You could try to sound less shocked by that. I’m great at flirting.”

“Oh, I know. I’ve seen you put it into use before. That pretty smile, a few sweet words and a wink, you normally have women falling at your feet.”

As you reached the edge of the floor, he turned to face you, settling a hand on your hip, and tugging you in closer than needed. “But not you? Because you’re different to other girls.”

“Oh, no. I’m just like other girls. And it would work on me too, if I didn’t know you so well. Unfortunately, I’ve watched you throw up in your own shoe and eat food off the floor. You’ll have to work a little harder to get me.” Pinching your fingers between your faces to show a gap, he watched, before taking that hand and placing it on his shoulder, smoothly.

“I love a good challenge.”

With that, he was sweeping you across the floor, your shocked laughter breaking free as he spun you suddenly into the madness of the dance floor. Perfected routines and perfect dances, and even in your addled mind, the steps began to come back to you. You’d always thought that there was something so eerie about the dances, the melancholic music that played, always building to a crashing crescendo.

It felt like music with a tragic tale, spinning and dipping and dancing, like a Shakespeare play given music instead of words. Rows of perfectly organised dancers, all moving in perfect sync and harmony.

Luckily, tonight, that structure seemed to have fallen apart a little. Various levels of dancing skills were taking place. Some were just swaying, others were performing flips and spins that made you dizzy, as you and Enzo settled somewhere in the middle. His hand tight on your waist, the other clasping your own, he spun you between people, guiding you towards the centre of the floor.

“I thought you said you didn’t dance!”

“I don’t, that doesn’t mean I can’t. My mother had me in lessons three times a week as a child. I am an excellent dancer.” Glancing around, it was mercifully informal tonight, not the regimented performances it sometimes could be. “This whole… thing. It just creeps me out sometimes.”

“When they all dance in perfect, synchronised lines, like some kind of terrifying ballet performance?” He muttered, smiling and nodding as you wove past an older couple.

“Yes!”

“I get you,” He hummed, shuddering a little. Ahead of you both, Draco was spinning a smiling Astoria, and he looked utterly exhausted by this point. She didn’t seem ready to stop dancing any time soon, though.

As he spun you back in, your arm wrapped around his neck this time, holding yourself closer to him and calming the crazy dance he’d drawn you into. He was smiling himself, cheeks flushed from the exertion, and as you began to move into a slower sway, his cheek came to rest against the top of your head.

“You ever dance at one of these parties with your ex?”

“I told you, I don’t dance.” You mumble, the arm around his neck sliding, hand slipping to brush lightly at the hair on the base of his neck. He stretched his head a little further, leaning into the touch with a soft sigh.

“You didn’t dance,” He corrected cheekily, pinching at your hip, and your eyes rolled upwards at his pedantic behaviour. “Your ex is watching us.”

“I told you, I don’t care.”

He made a vague noise before turning you subtly, so that you could see him now. The displeased look on his face, the narrowed eyes as he watched you and Enzo, and the way he turned in a flustered rush once he realised you’d caught him. “You may not care, but I’m getting a sick sort of satisfaction from it. I had to watch you hurt over him, even when you tried to pretend you weren’t. The way your face fell that day in the hall when you opened that letter, I’ll never forget it.”

“Enz…” Your whisper is barely audible, his own words mumbled by your ear so low they were barely decipherable. Goosebumps still rose along your skin at the snarl he made, lips brushing the shell of your ear as he shook his head.

Dipping down, he pressed a kiss to your cheek, so tender and loving that you felt your heart skip in your chest. “He’s a dick, and I wish I could do a lot more to him than just pork a few holes in his ego tonight. He deserves a right kicking.”

“I was over him long before that letter came. The distance had been growing.”

“Maybe so, but he’s still a prick.” Turning you around and around in slow circles, you gained and lost sight repeatedly each scene just a little different from the last. He was putting on a show, that was for sure, as Enzo took you for turns around the dance floor. One moment he had his new girlfriend in a passionate kiss, the next she was laughing as she stared up at him, the next, whispering sweet words in her ear.

If you could see it, you were sure Enzo could too, his grip tightening on you protectively. Leaning up, you returned the affection, pulling his focus back to you as you pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Let’s go get another drink, yeah? I could use some hydration after all this dancing.”

He looked right through you, like he knew it was a distraction, and yet he nodded anyway, jaw clenched. This time, you took one of his hands in both of yours, leading him through the crowd as his fingers clutched your own.

Settling at the bar, you called for two waters, before turning your gaze back to him.

“Wish I could just push them both in the fireplace, and watch them burn.”

His words made your eyes widen slightly, and you pressed a glass into his hand the moment they arrived, encouraging him to drink. “Enzo, why are you so bothered about this all of a sudden?”

“Because— Because I can see him now! And he’s a jackass, and I’m already mad enough about my parents, and the fact it’s this stupid day. I need something to channel my anger into, and he’s a mighty good conduit.” He took another swig of his drink, jaw clenching as he slammed the empty glass down and licked his lips.

Placing a finger on his chin, you twisted his head to you, and he softened slightly as he looked. “Not a fan of New Year's, huh?”

“Not a fan of the holidays in general. Especially once I have to go home.” Your heart clenched for him. The expression on your face must’ve given you away, because he soon shrugged. “I used to love the holiday period, but nowadays, all my parents do is get at me. Plus, being single at Christmas sucks, y’know? Since when was this time all about love? I thought it was supposed to be about generosity and love and whatever. Now it’s all about couples.”

Your jaw dropped a little, and his brows furrowed.

“What?”

Enzo had just echoed the exact sentiments you’d been thinking about only a couple of hours ago, and a breathless laugh escaped you as you shook your head. At least he understood you. “Nothing. Just, I was thinking the same thing, earlier.”

“Great minds.” He whispered, shaking a little tension out of his body and closing his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, the fire was dulled, sweet sparkle back, and he loosed a heavy breath. “Sorry. That got heavy.”

“I’m always here for you to talk, Enz.”

He smiled, eyes closing again as he rested his forehead on yours, tugging you in with arms around your waist for a hug. His face moved, chin hooking over your shoulder, with a kiss pressed there as he did, which sent your pulse skyrocketing at the feel of his lips on your skin. “I love you, you know that, right? You’re one of the most important people in my life.”

“Love you too, Enzo…” You murmured, running your fingers through his hair. He pulled away, a shy smile on his face, and he nudged your glass to you this time.

“Drink up. I want to get you back out on that dance floor. I take pride in knowing I’m the only man you’ll dance with.”

“Because you’re the most insistent man I’ve ever met. I know that if I said no, you’d only spend the whole night bugging me.”

“It’s charming how well you know me.” He teased, and your eyes rolled, resulting in a soft slap to the outside of your thigh as he tutted at you, mumbling about your attitude. “Oh, incoming.”

“Who—” You barely got the word out before an arm was slung over your shoulder, a heavy weight following as they leaned on you. Mattheo beamed at you lazily when you turned your head to see. Theo soon followed, shuffling his feet a little, and rubbing at his eyes. The second he saw the half-drunk glass of water in your hands, he lunged for it, managing to get the whole thing down in one go, without evening coming up for breath. “Jeez, how baked are you two?”

“Theo brought some good shit this time,” Mattheo murmured, kissing his fingers and waving them to the air, and Theo gave a delayed scoff after a couple of seconds.

“I always bring good shit.”

“Agree to disagree.” Mattheo smiled, bopping his friend on the nose, as Enzo only laughed.

“So, that’s where you two have been, huh? Outside smoking all night.”

“Not all night,” Theo smirked, waggling his brows as he produced his phone from his back pocket. “I spent a good deal of time flirting. I got six girls’ numbers, and Matt here only got four.”

He set off snickering as Mattheo only grumbled, and the moment he loosened his hold on you, you slipped free so he could lean against the bar instead. You didn’t get far, not before Enzo was snaking an arm around you, and tugging you into his chest. Theo might have been higher than a kite, but he didn’t miss the way Enzo’s touches trailed over your back, settling low on your spine. He smirked, eyes glinting when Enzo dropped an absentminded kiss to the top of your head.

“So, what’s new with you two?”

“We’re dating now.” Enzo beamed, and Mattheo spluttered over his drinks order, the bartender wandering way as Mattheo turned to face you, and Theo’s jaw dropped. “Or, at least, that’s what we’re letting my parents believe, so they’ll hop off my dick about marrying some stranger.”

You pat his chest for his use of words, and he shrugged. Finally, Draco seemed to have persuaded Astoria to let him go. She was now happily dancing with her sister, as Draco stumbled over to your group at the bar, and collapsed down onto a free stool.

“That girl has more energy than a toddler on crack.”

“Interesting metaphor.” You said, and Draco only patted his chest, sticking an extra glass of water and a whiskey onto Mattheo’s order as he tried to get a drink once again. Turning his gaze back to you, those grey eyes slid from head to toe, a pale brow raising.

“What’s with you two?”

“Haven’t you heard, Dray?” Theo mused, “They’re dating.”

He had a similar reaction to the other two, equally as entertaining until the news was broken, and you hid your laughter in Enzo’s shoulder. He was smiling, hiding his own amusement in your hair, his fingers playing with the tips as the strands spilt down your back.

The night went on much the same, hours blurring by as more friends came and went, joining you in the group, before being pulled away. For a while, you sat on the stool beside Enzo, listening to Mattheo retell the story of their competition to get numbers.

You let Enzo pull you onto the dance floor again, and even Mattheo, who swung you off-beat and out of sync to a song in his head, certainly not the one being played, but it made you laugh until your stomach hurt, so it was worth it. You danced with the girls too, and exchanged gossip in hushed whispers as you moved across the checkered floor.

It always ended with you stumbling back to Enzo, progressively building more of a buzz as the night went on, falling back into the security of his arms. And he was always there, smiling, tucking hair behind your ear and kissing your forehead as he asked you whether you were having fun. For the first time in a long time at one of these events, you could say yes.

Only as the hour was finally approaching midnight, less than fifteen minutes to go, did you all leave. Mattheo ordered several bottles of champagne, gathering two in his hands and passing two more to Theo. Then, he was commanding you all to follow him, and marching away without another word.

You shared a look with Enzo, before hopping down, following after him with an equally puzzled group. Your hand found Enzo’s quickly, a comfortable act that had become familiar far too quickly, but just for tonight, you didn’t care. Not as Mattheo led you down all and corridors, away from all the noise.

Not as he led you all up, until you were exiting onto the roof. Below you, chatter filled the courtyard as the party guests began to file out onto the patio, ready to witness the fireworks. The view would be uninterrupted from here, a perfect view of it all, and a contented sound left your lips.

Staring up at the night sky, stars twinkled in the cold void, and you rubbed one arm lightly as you stared into the vast openness. Only a second later, a jacket was slipping over your shoulders, and Enzo was turning you to him, guiding your arms through each of the sleeves, bashfully.

“Told you I was a good date.” He winked, hand on your back as you followed the rest of your friends to sit down.

“You said you were a fun date,”

“Well then, I’m a good and fun date.” He effectively ended the conversation with a kiss to your cheek, hand sliding dangerously low on your back as you gathered with the others. A couple of benches and boxes were up here, stacks of pallets for makeshift seating, and you settled onto one, Enzo following you down.

Once you were sat, he pulled you in, tucking you into the heat of his side, and you curled in closer, twisting to face him. “Tonight has been… wonderful. Thank you.”

“Are you kidding? Thank you.” He whispered, nose brushing your hairline as the words were whispered onto your skin. “Tonight has been one of the best nights I’ve ever had, and I never thought I’d say that about one of these parties.”

You fiddled with the edge of the sleeves hanging over your palms, grinning at him. Your head fell to his shoulder, and your gaze moved to scan over your friends. Draco and Astoria were cuddling equally as sweetly, as were Blaise and Daphne. Luna and Pansy were nowhere to be seen, but Tom and Reggie stood at the edge of the roof, talking quietly. Mattheo and Theo were bent over laughing, trying to pop the corks on the bottles, and almost taking out each other’s eyes each time.

When a bottle was passed to you and Enzo, fizzing over the top and foaming on the wooden palette you perched on, you took a sip. The bitter liquid fizzed on your tongue just as the countdown began to sound from all of the people below.

“Ten, nine, eight…” Mattheo screamed, arms held up in the air with his excitement.

“Seven, six, five…” You murmured, sitting up straighter as the anticipation of the new year came in.

“Four, three, two…” Enzo joined you, your face turning to smile at him as you heard his voice mix with yours.

“One.” You spoke, just as Enzo leaned in. His lips closed over your own, warm and spicy from the lingering remnants of firewhiskey, and you groaned against his mouth. As you did, his hand slipped up to your cheek, angling your head just right as his tongue slid into your mouth.

He kissed slow, and deep, like he had all the time in the world to be here. You were gripping his shoulder, kissing back with just as much passion, sliding closer to him until there was no space between your body and his. Your thigh pressed to his own, his hand on your cheek slipping into your hair as he pulled back for a breath, just to dive right back in.

And you loved it, leaning forward, chasing his lips, kissing him until you couldn’t think straight, couldn't think at all, unless it was about him.

Finally, he pulled back, to the cheering and celebrating of your friends as the New Year rolled in. Fireworks began to explode behind you, and you sighed, breath clouding in the night air and floating up to the sky. Licking the taste of him from your lip as you panted, his nose bumped your own.

“What was that for?” You mumbled, the way he kissed you still playing over and over again in your mind like a loop.

“Because when we go back,” He stole another kiss, your lips stretching in a smile as his palm engulfed your cheek. “I’d love to take you on a real date.”

You’d never looked at him like this before, never let yourself consider what it would be like to date Enzo. That urge had never arisen, everything between you both had always been platonic, he was one of your best friends. Now, as those pretty eyes opened up to stare at you, he was anything but platonic.

He was pretty, in a way you’d acknowledged but never appreciated before. Loyal in a best friend way, but would doubtless be a wonderful boyfriend. He was doting, and kind, and sweet. He was cheeky and funny and caring. He was here, and interested, and if tonight had proven anything, it was your compatibility.

You and Enzo worked well together, you made a great couple, and for the first time ever, he was staring at you in a way that made you think he wanted to take your clothes off. And you liked it.

The choice seemed clear.

“I’d like that too, Enzo.”

#lorenzo berkshire #enzo berkshire #lorenzo berkshire x reader #lorenzo berkshire x you #lorenzo berkshire/reader #lorenzo berkshire/you #enzo berkshire x reader #enzo berkshire x you #enzo berkshire/reader #enzo berkshire/you #harry potter #HP #slytherin boys #louis partridge

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carolperkinsexgirlfriend · 24 hours ago

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can you see the stars in your dreams (and do they have a lot to say about me) - Part 17

Or: a secret Admirer AU

PART 1 || PART 2 || PART 3 || PART 4 || PART 5 || PART 6 || PART 7 || PART 8 || PART 9 || PART 10 || PART 11 || PART 1 || PART 13 || PART 14 || PART 15 || PART 16

Eddie’s back to school on Tuesday, black eye turning a mottled sort of green, lip scabbed over. From where he’s hemmed in by Robin and Chrissy, Steve watches Eddie catch a glimpse of him and bolt the other way.

Jeff sighs, lets go of his hold on Chrissy’s arm, and says, “sorry, Steve. I’m just gonna—” and then he points toward Eddie and follows after him without another word.

Steve’s gut clenches with guilt. He’d put that look on Eddie’s face, had caused the rift in his and Jeff’s friendship, had split the forming group up with his ridiculous crush. But Chrissy and Robin are still here, standing by his side.

“Are he and Jeff okay?” Steve asks, biting his lip as he glances at Chrissy.

“I think so,” she says, looking after her boyfriend. “They talked on the phone, but Jeff didn’t tell me what about.”

“Forget about them,” Robin replies, reaching out to take his hand even as it makes everyone around them stare. “Come on, Stevie, or we’ll be late to Ms. Clickity Clack’s class.”

Steve passes the rest of the day in a daze, the spot at his side a revolving cast of Chrissy, Robin, and Jeff, like they’d all talked behind his back and decided he couldn’t be trusted with being alone right now. Steve can’t blame them because as soon as he’s left unattended in his big empty house, he gets out his notebook and pen, and begins to write.

Eddie —

I’m sorry I never got to read your last letter, but it wasn’t for me anyways. Maybe none of them were, not really. And I’m sorry about that, even sorrier about how your pretty face got caught in the ceasefire. I’m just full of sorries I’m to scared to tell to your face—from the way you ran when you saw me in the hallway this morning, maybe you wouldn’t want me to anyway.

You’ve always been the brave one, so you must really want to not see me, huh? I hope you and Jeff are friends again. I’m sorry about that too, I’m the one who asked him not to tell you. I was afraid, but that’s no excuse.

I don’t know how to stop wanting to right write to you. I can’t turn off the part of me that still wants to know everything about you. There’s a whole in my heart, and I keep trying to find people to fill it, but I can never be in love with someone who loves me back. You know?

I’m sorry, Eddie. Maybe someday, I’ll get to say it to your face.

Sorry,

Steve

He closes the notebook on the damning words and shoves it into his nightstand so he doesn’t have to look at it. Sleep doesn’t come—the house is too quiet. He grabs the phone off his dresser and calls the only other person he knows whose parents trust them enough to have a phone in their bedroom.

“H’lo?” Robin mutters sleepily after finally picking up the phone six rings later.

She sounds tired—Steve’s sorry he woke her. “I wrote another letter,” he says.

That seems to perk her up instantly, as she hisses down the line, “Steven James Harrington.”

“Not my name, Robin Steven Bobbington,” he replies, talking right over her shrieked “well, that’s not mine!” to continue, “I’m not going to send it.”

“You better not,” she replies, and Steve can hear some rustling on her end, like she’s settling back down into her bed. He wishes, suddenly, that he was in there with her, clutching her hand as they fall asleep side by side. Instead, he lays down on his own bed and concentrates on the noises coming down the line.

“Is it stupid that I miss him?” he asks.

“Yeah, kinda.”

“Robin!”

She laughs, a quiet sleepy chuckle that warms him straight through. “I’m just saying! He’s been treating you like shit, Stevie.”

Steve sighs, burrowing down under his comforter and taking the phone with him. “He was different in the letters,” he whispers, like someone in his empty house might hear him otherwise. “Sweeter, you know?”

Robin sighs, “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me too.”

There’s enough sorries to go around for all of them, apparently. They’re quiet for a while, Robin’s breathing keeping him company in his big, lonely bed with his big, lonely thoughts.

“I love you, Robbie,” he whispers. “You know that, right?”

He’s been saying it a lot lately, throwing the words around like they’ll connect this time and get him something real. And they had, with Chrissy, with Robin, hell, even with Jeff. Just, not with Eddie. Maybe someday, he’ll learn to be okay with that.

“Love you, too, Dingus,” Robin replies, like it’s easy.

He falls asleep that night to the sound of Robin’s quiet snoring.

***

Eddie thinks about it—obsessively, compulsively. He dreams about it, jerks off about it, fucking cries about it. He reads the letters, again, and again, and again, wishing desperately that he still had that first one. At school, he checks his locker obsessively, compulsively, hoping there’s another note in his locker—there never is.

“Dude, what’s your problem?” Gareth asks, an elbow into Eddie’s side.

“Ow, ribs!” Eddie cries, curling away from him and into Doug at their usual lunch table.

“Sorry!” Gareth replies, leaning away from him and raising his hands up like that’ll somehow prove he’s harmless.

Jeff snorts around his sandwich, “gotta be careful, Gare-bear. He’s precious cargo now.”

“Oh fuck off,” Eddie replies, rolling his eyes as the rest of Hellfire laugh around him.

“No, but seriously, dude,” Gareth asks, this time without the thrown elbow. “What’s up with you?”

Eddie looks across the cafeteria at Steve and Chrissy’s usual spots, still empty the way they have been for weeks. He worries, sometimes, that they’re not eating, and it’s his fault.

Hopefully, they’re just packing lunches from home and eating somewhere else (he’s been too afraid to check).

“Can’t tell you buddy,” Eddie replies, still looking at the empty spot like that’ll somehow make the duo appear. “I promised.”

Gareth, clearly having followed his line of sight, leans closer and asks in an unsubtle whisper, “but it’s about you know what?”

Doug sits on, oblivious, but Jeff snorts again and asks, “okay, you didn’t tell me jack shit, but you told the freshman?”

“Sophomore, jackass!” Gareth cries, before seeming to realize the implications of Jeff’s sentence. “You told Jeff?”

“I knew before you did,” Jeff says smugly, and Eddie’s starting to get pissed off about that again.

“How!”

“Jeff, dearest?” Eddie grits out. “Do you want me to punch you in the face?”

That shuts the table up catastrophically. But in the end, Jeff sighs and says, “I’m coming over after school,” and the rest of lunch is spent fielding Gareth’s indignant questions.

True to his word, Jeff climbs into Eddie’s passenger seat at the end of the day. Eddie doesn’t take them to the trailer, he just drives around, taking back roads round and round, restlessness making his fingers twitch in the gear shift.

Jeff’s the one who breaks the silence, in the end. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” he says, making Eddie flinch at the sudden noise. “Steve just seemed so scared, and Chrissy was crying so—”

“He was scared?” Eddie interrupts, stuck on the thought. He’d known that, before, but now that Eddie’s afraid, too, it hits like a punch to the chest.

“Of course he was,” Eddie replies to his own question. Suddenly unable to focus, Eddie pulls over to the side of the road. “I’m scared, too.”

Jeff sucks in a breath; Eddie doesn’t look away from his own knees.

“Yeah?”

Eddie bites his lip, knowing that Jeff will be able to read between the lines. “Yeah.” His eyes are watering, and Eddie swipes at them, embarrassed. “And I know we’re supposed to be talking about us, but I just—”

“No, hey,” Jeff replies. Eddie hears the sound of his seatbelt unbuckling, and the rustle of him shifting in his seat, and suddenly, Jeff’s hand is clasping Eddie’s shoulder, shaking him around just a little. “You’re my best friend—we’re fine, dude.”

Eddie swipes at his eyes again, “I think I want to ask him out, but what if I’m wrong?” Eddie asks, tracking Jeff’s expression out of the corner of his eye. “I don’t want to hurt him again.”

“So, what?” Jeff asks, voice deadpan. “You find out he likes you and suddenly he’s not just a jock anymore?”

Eddie looks down at his own knees, bracing for a hit he knows will never come. But, Eddie’s always been good at hurting himself, so he thinks about that yellow nail polish again, the enraptured look in Steve’s eyes during every D&D session, the way he’d glued himself to Robin Buckley, band nerd supreme’s side in recent weeks. The way he’d look at Eddie like he wasn’t the king of the freaks, like he was worth something.

“He was never just a jock,” Eddie murmurs. “I just never let myself think about it.”

Jeff mmmhmms him and Eddie knows him well enough to hear the doubt beneath the agreement.

“I was afraid, okay?” Eddie laments, scrunching his eyes closed tight until that makes his bruised eye ache too much. “You wouldn’t get it.”

At that, Jeff scoffs, and before Eddie can start up another tirade, he replies, “right, the black guy dating a white girl in Po-dunk, Indiana has no idea how scary it can be to make a move on the person you like.”

Okay, fair.

“You know what could happen if the wrong person finds out?” Jeff continues. “I’ll be lucky if they let me get out of town alive.”

“Okay, okay! I get it, sorry!” Eddie cries, throwing his hands up in defeat. And Jeff, being the asshole he is, just laughs at his discomfort. “How’s that going anyway?”

“With Chrissy?” Jeff asks, continuing when Eddie nods. “She’s great, man. I really, really like her.”

He’s smiling all goofy and in love. Eddie waits for the jealousy to hit; it never comes. Even as he’d flirted with her, there’d always been a disconnect for him between the letters and the girl. He knows why, now.

“I’m happy for you.”

Jeff aims that same goofy smile at him and punches his shoulder. “Thanks, man.”

Eddie wants to feel that way about someone. He wants to think of them and smile like he just can’t help himself. And with Steve Harrington of all people, maybe he can.

“If I ask Steve out, do you think he’ll still say yes?”

“Oh, for sure,” Jeff replies without hesitation before he turns to Eddie and eyes him up and down. “But are you sure you want to?”

Eddie bites back the defensive retort rising on his tongue, and grits out, “what do you mean?”

Jeff sighs and leans back in his chair. Eddie waits, three seconds from snapping as he stews in Jeff’s silence, hands clenched so hard against the steering wheel that it feels like one of his nails might pop clean off.

“Jeff–”

“No one’s ever liked you before!” Jeff cries, and it hits Eddie like a punch to the sternum. “And maybe it’s not fair of me to ask but, are you sure you even really like him?”

“What?” Eddie asks, his mind a record skipping against a bent needle. “What do you–”

“Eddie, man,” Jeff sighs, swiveling his head to finally look Eddie directly in the eyes. “Do you like Steve Harrington, or do you just like that he likes you?”

He drops the wheel, hands almost numb as he shakes them out, no longer able to meet Jeff’s eye.

How would anyone ever know that for sure? How can he know the origin of a feeling when it’s been there, simmering in the background of his brain, just waiting for him to wake up? How can he separate the feeling for a person and the person’s feeling for them?

That’s like asking him to unbraid his hair, let it fall back together, and still be able to tell which strands made up each component of the braid–it can’t be done.

But, “Gareth said I was obsessed with him,” Eddie replies, barely above a whisper. “Like, before I knew he wrote the letters?”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Eddie laughs, but it’s just like Steve said–it sounds different when he doesn’t think it’s funny. “And, he was right, you know? I was flirting with Chrissy, but I couldn’t stop thinking about him.”

Eddie runs a shaking hand through his hair and buries his face into his hands with a shudder. “He’s just–he’s Steve Harrington, right? Everyone knows everything about him, but then he just changes the script!” Eddie’s smiling now, manic, animated. “And I wanted to know everything.”

Eddie drops his hands to look over at Jeff, meeting his eyes once more. Jeff looks patient, ready, hopeful in a way he hadn’t before, so Eddie keeps talking.

“Like, Chrissy was flirting with you and he didn’t even seem to care, and the yellow nail polish, and he came to Hellfire, Jeff. Steve Harrington came and watched us play Dungeons and Dragons.”

“I know,” Jeff replies, grinning now, pearly whites all on full display.

“And when he came to band practice, he was just like, watching me, and I sort of wanted to die, but in a good way, you know?”

Jeff decidedly does not look like he knows, but he’s still grinning across at Eddie like he’s proud of him. Eddie’s kind of proud, too, that he’s managing to say all of this aloud. It feels somehow new and a long time coming at the same time.

“Okay, you can ask him out,” Jeff says, turning forward in his seat and buckling his seatbelt once more.

Eddie laughs. “Oh, because I needed your blessing?”

“Yeah,” Jeff replies, grinning as he turns back to Eddie, looking him up and down like he’s a slab of meat Jeff’s checking for its quality. “Maybe wait until you’re healed up, though. You look like one of those cardboard box kittens that I keep seeing on the news.”

“Shut up!” Eddie squawks, but he’s smiling, helplessly, hopefully.

Eddie Munson with a chance at love, who would’ve thought?

#koko's steddie secret admirer au #steddie #my fic #Jeff. the man that you are<3<3<3<3<3 #i am...SO excited for tomorrow's part. like. after struggling Hard with it. it might have been the most fun i had in writing for the fic

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esuemmanuel · 1 year ago

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Me sigo preguntando por qué Él… y sigo suspirando por no saber la respuesta.

I keep wondering why Him… and I keep sighing that I don't know the answer.

#poets #authors #writers #2023 #el hombre de la soledad #escribiendo en soledad #the man of solitude #escritores en tumblr #writing in solitude #poetas en tumblr #writers on tumblr #poets on tumblr #pensamientos #poeticstories #las últimas seis letras de mi nombre #the last six letters of my name

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summercomfort · 11 months ago

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in my pursuit of ever-increasingly niche comics, I drew a 13 page comic about Tape v Hurley, a court case about Chinese-American school segregation in 1885. The rest of the pages are after the readmore, as well as on AO3 here. More obsure Chinese American court case comics are there, as well.

Historical Notes

Mary and Joseph Tape were not born in America, but their names and identities were very much formed in America. Joseph Tape was born Jeu Dip in Guangdong, China, immigrated the America when he was twelve, and spent his teenage years working as a house servant in an Irish household. Mary arrived in America at the age of eleven, and was found and raised as Mary McGladery in a Protestant orphanage as the only Chinese child amongst ~80 children. Both Mary and Jeu spent their formative years amongst White Christian families, so when Jeu Dip and Mary married in 1875, little wonder that Jeu picked the English name of Joseph Tape -- Joseph to match with Mary, and the German last name Tape as a nod to his former name of Dip.

The Tape family lived about 14 blocks outside of Chinatown, in a primarily white neighborhood. They dressed in Western clothing, spoke English at home, and Mamie grew up playing with non-Chinese kids. Naturally, they wanted their children to attend the local elementary school, a mere 3 blocks from their home. The principal, Ms. Hurley, denied her entrance, claiming that she was “filthy and diseased.” At the time, there was no public school option for Chinese children -- the 1870 state law stipulated separate schools for “African and Indian children” only, not Chinese. The Tape family, with the help of the Chinese Six Companies, their church, and the Chinese consulate, decided to sue, claiming that the 1880 California school code guaranteed everyone a right to public education and that this was a violation of the 14th Amendment.

They won.

But this was 1885, three years after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act and six years before Plessy v Ferguson. Regardless of what the California Supreme Court might decide, public sentiment was on the side of the San Francisco school district. Determined to keep out this “invasion of Mongol barbarism”, the California State Legislature passed a law permitting separate schools for Chinese children, which then allowed Principal Hurley to reject Mamie Tape once more.

While Mamie was rejected from the Spring Valley Elementary School for being Chinese, she also had a hard time fitting in to the Chinese public school. The Chinese merchants saw Western education as something primarily for boys. (Their girl children learned from their mothers at home.) Mamie, a girl dressed in Western clothes, would have stood out like a sore thumb. The final panel of the comic was based on a photo from three years later, and even then, Mamie was the only girl.

Places where I fudged the history: Frank, Mamie’s younger brother, was actually six years old and should have been more present in the comic, but I wante to keep the focus on Mamie and Mary. Also, Mamie had actually shown up to her first day of school in Western clothes. An earlier draft of the comic had a separate arc involving Mamie feeling rejected at school and Mary buying her some Chinese clothes, but that got too long and complicated.

Much of this was drawn from Mae Ngai’s book about the Tape family and their experiences as 2nd and 3rd generation Chinese Americans, titled “The Lucky Ones.”

----------

Here is Mary Tape's letter to the San Francisco School Board, 1885:

1769 Green Street. San Francisco, April 8, 1885. To the Board of Education - Dear Sirs: I see that you are going to make all sorts of excuses to keep my child out off the Public schools. Dear sirs, Will you please to tell me! Is it a disgrace to be Born a Chinese? Didn’t God make us all!!! What right have you to bar my children out of the school because she is a chinese Decend. They is no other worldly reason that you could keep her out, except that. I suppose, you all goes to churches on Sundays! Do you call that a Christian act to compell my little children to go so far to a school that is made in purpose for them. My children don’t dress like the other Chinese. They look just as phunny amongst them as the Chinese dress in Chinese look amongst you Caucasians. Besides, if I had any wish to send them to a chinese school I could have sent them two years ago without going to all this trouble. You have expended a lot of the Public money foolishly, all because ofa one poor little Child. Her playmates is all Caucasians ever since she could toddle around. If she is good enough to play with them! Then is she not good enough to be in the same room and studie with them? You had better come and see for yourselves. See if the Tape’s is not same as other Caucasians, except in features. It seems no matter how a Chinese may live and dress so long as you know they Chinese. Then they are hated as one. There is not any right or justice for them. You have seen my husband and child. You told him it wasn’t Mamie Tape you object to. If it were not Mamie Tape you object to, then why didn’t you let her attend the school nearest her home! Instead of first making one pre tense Then another pretense of some kind to keep her out? It seems to me Mr. Moulder has a grudge against this Eight-year-old Mamie Tape. I know they is no other child I mean Chinese child! care to go to your public Chinese school. May you Mr. Moulder, never be persecuted like the way you have persecuted little Mamie Tape. Mamie Tape will never attend any of the Chinese schools of your making! Never!!! I will let the world see sir What justice there is When it is govern by the Race prejudice men! Just because she is of the Chinese decend, not because she don’t dress like you because she does. Just because she is descended of Chinese parents I guess she is more of a American then a good many of you that is going to prewent her being Educated. Mrs. M. Tape

#original comic #chinese american history #legal history #turns out there's a lot of chinese american court cases #that i have a lot of feelings about #my comic #mine

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vagabond-umlaut · 1 month ago

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ramé

love.

a word everyone spells as l-o-v-e, except one certain young sorcerer – to whom it appears h-a-p-p-y, to whom it appears h-a-v-o-c – to whom it appears the shape of the letters of your name.

you, on the other hand, forget how to spell when the same word is before you – a fact which, your admirer reckons, would have been a major problem were he not he – that is, were he not the one and only 'gojo satoru'.

and thus begins, the plan.

and thus begins, the six steps to catch one's crush's eye — by the six eyes.

pairing: gojo satoru x fem!reader

tags: set during gojo's past arc; childhood friends to lovers; pining-since-forever!gojo; oblivious-since-forever!you; tooth-rotting fluff; adorable banter; height difference; all your friends ship satoru & you; they all are very tired of you both as well; satoru & you-hashtag [not-canon-yet] relationship goals; angry protective gojo; hell lots of teasing; misunderstandings; arguments; angst with a VERY HAPPY ending

wc: 12k+ (i'm genuinely so proud of this, guys(gn) :D)

notes: decided to republish my most popular fic so far to celebrate my blog crossing 1000 followers! tysm for all the love and support u hv shown me, besties!!! <333 btw, jjk isn't mine. dividers by @/inklore. hope u enjoy reading this!

|1/6| overhaul your wardrobe.

a low whistle leaves gojo as he appraises himself in the mirror.

snow white hair neatly trimmed with short bangs, sunglasses from gucci giving a peek of his transfixing blue gaze, a fitting tom ford white shirt paired with black slacks and designer shoes, and, to top it all off, a perfume by bleu de chanel he bought especially for today...

there's no way in hell you won't find him attractive today.

with a smug smirk, the first-year swings the door to his dorm wide open, ready to astound the two waiting outside with his insanely good looks - and pauses, boisterous shout dying within his throat.

"'toru!!" you exclaim as you jump off the balustrade you were seated on and rush to him, a wide grin splitting your face into half. "surprise, i caught an earlier train!"

in spite of the shock, the boy feels his lips lift in a smile.

it's been nearly a year since the last time the two of you were face-to-face; you're still as beautiful as you were then.

"hey shortie," the words leave him in a whisper as you wrap your arms around him - only for a pained 'ouch!' to escape him a second later. massaging his side where you pinched him, the boy watches you step back with a scowl. (faux, of course.)

"call me that one more time and no one can save you from my wrath."

"wrath?" chuckling, gojo bends a bit to be your eye-level. you narrow your eyes at him. "you think that can scare me? the gojo satoru?"

"it sure can," folding your arms across your chest, you throw him a smirk in the next instant. "if it makes me share all the mochi i bought with ieiri senpai and geto senpai, and not give you the tiniest bit of it."

eyes widening behind glasses, a gasp escapes him. "you wouldn't!"

"i would," you answer, the same smirk as before still on your lips.

gojo backs off.

you're nothing if not awfully determined to make your promises see the light of the day. if he continues pestering you, the young sorcerer knows he'll actually not get a single morsel of those delicious sweets.

"you know what," a familiar voice cuts in through his thoughts and the boy twists to find his best friend walking towards him. sending him a discreet wink (which he deems is 100% suspicious), suguru reaches your side and continues, "satoru here was really excited about you coming to meet him."

"oh, is it so?" your smirk gives way to an angelic smile. gojo wishes it was directed at him instead of that long-haired bastard.

"yeah," said bastard meanwhile agrees with an overeager nod. "shoko and i too were really excited to meet the girl our friend is so infa-"

a tense silence befalls the corridor when suguru abruptly stops in the middle of the sentence. gojo swears if you weren't standing there, in front of them, he would have murdered his friend in cold blood today.

"infa-?" you prompt, smile dropping a little as your confused gaze darts from one to the other. gojo forces a chuckle out.

"it's nothing, don't you worry," he tries to draw your attention away, when shoko swoops in, like the savior she is (gojo decides to buy her one month's supply of cigarettes) and inquires, "hey, you haven't seen satoru in months, right? any change you find in him?"

that seems to be the trick. a curious glint shines in your eyes as they travel up and down his figure - appreciatively for sure, the boy says to himself. you too seem to have a liking for expensive things, after all.

after two seconds of close inspection, you turn to shoko with a bright smile. gojo's soul goes soaring at the sight in the clear skies above.

"nope! he's the same old 'toru i've always known."

gojo's soul crashes down upon the earth, splintering at the impact.

his two classmates give him a look before shoko asks again, a mild disbelief to her tone, "you really don't find anything new about him? like, maybe he has grown taller? or maybe, more handsome?"

"anything else which you never even expected, maybe?" suguru pipes in from beside him. gojo shoots him a grateful look, all past offenses already forgiven and forgotten.

a beat passes before you shake your head. "nope. nothing about him is new. though, when you speak about unexpected..." you trail off with a contemplative look.

shoko encourages you, "when we speak about unexpected-"

"i never expected you to be so pretty," you finish the sentence for her with a small smile. gojo's jaw drops to the ground. okay, what the fu-

"oh," shooting him an amused smirk, shoko faces you. "and why is it so? why did you not expect me to be so pretty?"

"it's not my fault," you reply, sending him an accusatory glance as you continue, "when i asked 'toru if his new classmates are good-looking, he said they aren't. he said you all look really plain."

"do you find me plain or handsome?" suguru butts in, ignoring the blue-eyed glare boring holes into the side of his head.

"you're plain," the short reply comes in an instant from you - and even in the midst of his gloom for going unnoticed, gojo finds it within himself to smirk at his best friend's withered face.

in the meantime, you continue speaking to shoko, unperturbed.

"yeah, so imagine my surprise when i met you at the torii gates earlier today. with such a stylish bobcut, cute face and flawless skin... i really thought you were a model, ieiri-senpai."

you pause for a second - undoubtedly to catch your breath from that non-stop chatter; gojo knows your habits like his own by now - then ask the girl who's watching you with a pleased expression, an excited grin threatening to bloom on your face, "are you a model, senpai?"

said senpai lets out a chuckle in response.

and despite feeling dispirited (and very, very jealous of that shoko for hogging all your attention), the white-haired boy cracks a fond smile, watching you be so cheery.

yeah, you certainly are one very dense dumbass.

but, he too is gojo satoru - and he will get his feelings across to you.

|2/6| display your strengths.

being a show-off is what gojo's the best at - besides yearning for you from afar, that is.

a wide grin stays on his face as he watches you approach him, a tad ahead of your classmates - two boys, nanami kento and haibara yu.

being in the first year, neither of you three can take part in the kyoto sister-school goodwill event - that doesn't stop you all from being spectators, though - which is what's enough for the gojo's plans.

a call of his name drags him away from gazing at you - you look good in that tee of his, you accidentally shrunk in the laundry - and twists back to find his teacher frowning at him.

the second-year finds it hard to wear the same grin. "yo yaga sensei, what's up?"

the man lets out a long-drawn sigh.

"don't overdo it, satoru," he says - the boy opens his mouth, ready to retort with a quip - only to be stopped by an unfamiliar expression overcoming the teacher's features.

it's a horrific insult of a smile, the young sorcerer realizes after a beat.

yaga, meanwhile, continues with that same expression, "i too was young once. i can understand what you're going through now - which is why i won't stop you from showing your talents to her or whatever. just... remember no one should die."

a quiet nod is all the boy manages in reply, too overwhelmed for a bit by the fatherly care yaga insists on giving him despite the annoyance suguru and he equally insist on being to their sensei.

with a pat on the shoulder, yaga leaves in the direction of the other faculty and staff. schooling his expression, gojo shoots suguru a look.

"hey suguru, how did yaga get to know about me and her?"

"who is her, gojo senpai?" a sweet voice chips in, soon followed by your teasing grin floating into his line of vision.

the boy averts his gaze for a beat - flustered by the sheer proximity between both of your faces which could be closed were he not such a coward, stop smirking, suguru - before sending you a wounded look.

"since when did i become gojo senpai to you?"

"since today," you reply with a tight smile. gojo doesn't like it one bit on your face. "i've been asked by the higher-ups to act professional with you."

a moment passes - wherein the boy registers the statement - before red flashes in his vision. placing his hands on your shoulders, he asks, or rather, demands to know, "did they hurt you? or threaten you? give me their names. who were those fucking bastards?"

brows furrowing, you place your much smaller hands atop his. "relax. nothing happened," you whisper, so quiet only he can hear it, "they don't have the guts or power to hurt or threaten me. all they told me is to, i quote, refrain from calling you such terms of endearment again. and i was like, okay."

a small smile settles on your lips as you take his hands in yours and start rubbing circles into them. the boy feels a lot of his tension drain away. smile brightening (you too seem to have realized the effects of this gesture on him), you add, "plus, it's only four years. once we've both graduated, i can get back to calling you whatever i want to call. those old geezers can't direct me then."

"they still can't now..." gojo begins - then stops.

with that bootlicker eldest brother you have, those old rats can now.

you give him a tired smile, words unneeded to confirm that the both of you are indeed cursing the same set of people now.

you open your mouth to say something - funny probably, if the shine in your eyes was anything to go by - before a muted cough pops the bubble you two had unconsciously slipped into.

and with an entertained smirk at the boy, who immediately seperates your linked hands, shoko informs, "sensei's calling for you, gojo. the competition's about to begin."

acknowledging her with a brief nod, gojo returns his focus to you, looking for a sliver of fear or anxiety in your face - one he'll soothe away with a gentle smile and maybe, just maybe, a forehead kiss - only for all his dreams to be dashed in the dirt.

you're peering up at him, beaming excitedly.

"go, beat 'em, senpai," you cheer him with a fist pump. an amused snicker sounds somewhere behind. your zeal doesn't budge one bit. "go, kick those kyoto students' asses. i know you will win."

and win, your white-haired senpai does - nothing new it it.

and you too seem to be very happy at it - again nothing new in it.

'cause when do you not congratulate him with a blinding beam every time the boy is successful - be it at making those pretty origami stars the way you taught him to; or at defeating a weakass sorcerer in a lame match.

however what is new is the fact you've grown rather competitive - not that gojo minds it in the slightest, though. quite the contrary, in fact.

"aren't you being a little too confident?" you inquire, throwing him a peeved glance, "every opponent you face in the future won't be as weak as those two kyoto boys today. you sure you'll stay invincible then too?"

resting his chin on the chair he is straddling, the second-year smirks, "any way you can prove i won't, shortie?"

geto sends him a questioning look while ieiri looks away from them to the scenery outside, giving a long sigh. his other two kouhais, nanami and haibara, pause in their game of cards to look at you, confusedly.

gojo observes you ignore them, eyes trained on him only, lips curving slowly into a sharp grin. gods, can you get any lovelier than this?

"well..." you drawl, keeping your focus on him. a flush creeps up the sides of his neck, which he earnestly hopes goes overlooked by you.

it doesn't go overlooked by your too-serious classmate, though - gojo spots nanami's eyes widen for a mere instant before reverting to their typical indifference.

you continue, grin simmering to a daring smile now, "why don't you find it out on your own tomorrow? twelve noon. practice field. what do you think, senpai?"

the sorcerer pretends to take a moment to regard your proposal, then shrugs. "sure, why not? sounds good enough to me."

with a wordless nod, the boy watches you return to the video game you were playing with his best friend - then look back at him on your name being called. an eyebrow rises in silent question.

seeing that the cue, he asks, "but what will the loser have to do?"

the reply comes with a smirk, your eyes dropping to your game. "you can buy me the latest version of this game. that'll be fine, i guess."

gojo was wrong - said person realizes as he watches the orange-red glow seep in through the window and render you an ethereal glow.

your competitiveness isn't the only thing new to him this evening.

your ability to make him even more head over heels for you than the boy already is (an impossible feat, really, given the chains and locks guarding him within, apart from the layer of infinity without)...

...this is yet another new thing gojo learns about you, this evening.

|3/6| gather info on your crush.

"oh, you wouldn't want to be friends with her."

the comment cuts through the air with a noisy chuckle and a raucous chorus of giggles - gojo's knuckles grow white with the painfully tight grip he has on the glass of mocktail.

suguru shoots him a contrite face from the other side of the crowd, mouthing an apology with a helpless shrug. the boy looks away from his best friend to throw a glance at the two girls a few seats away.

a beat passes wherein shoko and utahime share a brief look, and the former speaks up, an odd edge to her voice as she leans forwards, a smirk directed at the boy. "and why wouldn't geto? she seems like a pretty nice girl to be friends with."

your cousin scoffs. gojo seriously wishes there wasn't a strict rule set by his father for the clan members of not meddling in the other clans' matters, to maintain an image of neutrality and amiability.

(it's not like he prefers not to break rules or is afraid of his father, the boy thinks grimly as he gulps the last sip of his mocktail and returns the glass to the table with a thud. it's far from being either of those.

it's just that with a small response from him in this matter, you will be dragged under the elders' scrutiny; your friendship with him too will be - and that's something he would never wish upon you. so the boy stays quiet, opting to-)

"what the fuck did you just say?"

the chitter-chatter dies down to a deathly silence in an instant.

rising from his seat, gojo stalks towards the boy sitting on the couch. from the background, he can hear few voices urge him to stop, to get back, with repeated 'satoru, no' and 'satoru, relax' - but the boy finds not a cell in his body wanting to heed those voices. marching right up to your cousin, who shoots him a pathetically fake smirk now, the boy repeats himself, "what. did. you. just. say."

the target of the query huffs a chuckle, drunk and stinking - and your friend realizes now just how much of a diluted description of him you gave him the other day. the guy isn't just some petty irritating relative of yours, he is a fucking bastard.

a fucking bastard who's going to get beaten into a pulp, if he doesn't choose his next words wisely.

another chuckle leaves him, before he gets up from his seat, a slight sway to the action as he sneers at gojo. now, were the circumstances different, the white-haired boy is sure such a brazen person would've impressed him, who is the strongest sorcerer there is, but not today.

not when you're the one who is the innocent undeserving recipient of such a remark as the one he utters next.

"i just said, my cousin's a freak who can read someone's mind without them knowing - and she does that all the time for her sick enjoyment. no one can ever trust that bitch."

a fist connects with the side of your cousin's face and before anyone can realize what's happening, the two boys are rolling on the floor in a brawl, gojo obviously with the upper hand as he lands blow after blow and yell after yell on the other.

a quiet voice whispers to his conscience, chiding his response to the situation to be too harsh, too cruel - but no sooner does it appear than it is stomped down and shoved away by images from the past.

images of a little girl crying, yelling, screaming, eyes squeezed shut, how everything's so loud, how everyone's so noisy, how everyone just can't seem to stop talking of her - in the shocked silence of the party hall.

images of being informed over the phone, his friend won't be coming to play today either - for a class or a function or a cold, he cares the least for - before overhearing later at dinner, it's the fifth day the girl's been comatose since her last treatment.

images of brash celebrations revelling in the discovery and return of a technique, long thought lost - the new messiah, they exclaim - while the said person looks at the elders with face steeped in what, the boy doesn't need his six eyes to know, is terror.

images of a girl, saying in a surprisingly void tone, how horrible, how terrible, how despicable a weapon they've made her into - sneaking into people's minds to steal the meaning of their lives away - before giving a suggestion, too smart, too sharp for a girl of ten; although-

"satoru!"

the singular word snaps the sorcerer's thoughts into two, making him move his irate gaze away from the bloodied face of the bitch to the door-

oh.

it's you.

you, standing in the school uniform, a bag slung over your shoulders.

you, eyes round and lips parted as you stare at the scene before.

you, who takes only a second before you rush forwards, moving him away from your cousin, worried gaze raking over his features instead of the bruised wailing mess of a relative left behind.

"'toru," the word escapes you in a whisper as you maneuver him into sitting on the couch.

another voice wafts over to him, a lot like suguru's, but he pays it no mind, wanting to focus on you and you only, while your fingers travel over his face, brush his bangs away, tuck them behind the shell of his ear, then finally come to a rest on the apple of his cheeks, the grazing of the thumb soothing a minor cut.

though the way your eyebrows furrow at it, emotions darting across your face a million a second, from confusion to concern to anger - gojo reckons, were anyone to see you now, they would think it ain't a tiny nick but a gaping wound.

the white-haired boy grasps your wrist in his fingers.

"i'm okay, shortie," the second-year reassures you in a whisper. you peer at him closely in turn for a beat longer, before a long sigh leaves you though the frown on your lips stays the same. he would've called you cute if not for the murderous intent rolling off you in waves...

gojo decides to call you hot now.

a seething gaze with a soft "what happened, 'toru?" reaches him next.

oh yes, gojo swoons inwardly, you're being so fucking hot.

nuzzling into the palm cradling his cheek, the boy smiles. "nothing you need to worry about."

"it's your cousin," a female voice butts in before a known pair of heads walk into his vision, one smoking a cigarette while the other looks at him then you, mildly stunned.

shoko continues, as laidback as ever (as if she too wasn't glowering then), "suguru there asked him something about you to which the pig replied with some nonsense, because of which satoru here jumped in to defend your honour." your eyes travel from her to him. a whoosh of air leaves the girl and she takes a long drag from a cigarette. "nothing very serious, to be honest..."

"but nothing too unserious either," utahime adds, which earns a small nod from her girlfriend, "if the asshole dares to lie about you once-"

"what's to say he won't again," you finish the sentence for her, a dark shadow looming over your face, then throw the culprit a harsh look. "and what shit did you spout, mr. resident douchebag of the clan?"

a corner of gojo's lips quirk up at the nickname you gave, then part in a grin at the reaction your cousin gave to that. embarassed, for sure, yet never going farther than glaring at you from those swollen eyes.

if you weren't standing here, caressing his face, your friend's certain, he would have gone to tear him a new one - the latter still scowling at you whilst intermittently yelping at the pain of his wounds.

a long sigh escapes you, visibly tired and annoyed.

"i know you can hear me just fine by that stink eye you're giving me, so fess up now - what the fuck were you telling about me?"

an absolute silence answers your question, and just when gojo thinks he might have to leave your warm cocoon to go beat your cousin up, again, suguru's voice sounds from beside, "he was talking about your CT."

"oh?" a brow rises. "and what about it?"

"apparently - and i quote," the long-haired boy adds with palms raised and faced forwards, at the scowl he shoots him, "you can read others' minds without their knowledge, and you do that always. for fun, your cousin claims."

you blink, and turn to your relative; a mask, gojo observes with a hint of melancholy, slipping over your features - not that the boy blames you, though. you need a mask - now, most of all times.

"you said that, aniki?" you inquire, the caressing hand over gojo's skin stilling with a slight tremor. he envelopes your hand in his; an action you respond to with a squeeze, continuing, "but why did you? after all that happened, after all that everyone in the family knows, why?"

a stubborn scoff sounds from the other end of the room; one of the six eyes twitches in its socket.

"i don't think you should ask this question, shortie," the second-year hums, pulling a nonplussed face from you. he grins, "you can simply read his mind, no? your aniki won't be forced to give a reply; your ask too will be answered. besides, this isn't gonna be the first time you're breaking into someone's mind, and, your cousin's not even gonna feel his mind being read - a painless procedure - isn't that right, aniki?"

"fuck no!!!!"

and bingo!

gojo watches you cast a long look at him, then back at your cousin, before a slow smile spreads on your features, the glint so dear to him making a comeback in your eyes.

"not a bad idea, senpai," you say, lifting your free hand and directing it at the culprit. a few gasps sound around you, soon followed by a few murmurs - your senpai watches them slide off your skin like water off a duck's back. you announce in a sing-song fashion, "well, here goes nothing~"

then stop at the anguished cry, your smile widening into a grin.

sweet and smug, like the cat who got the canary.

gojo feels three pairs of eyes look at his smirk, all at the same time - the boy lets them look. the two of you share dynamics, the nature of which none, except you two, can ever dream of comprehending.

wailing, your cousin rises and stumbles over to you, hands folded in a pleading gesture.

"please, no, no, no," he sobs, very nearly falling at your feet before you take a step backwards, disgust overtaking your grin, sending the boy reeling back. "i beg you, no. please don't kill me. i was just kidding; it was just a joke. i'm sorry, don't kill me."

"kill you?" you let out a shocked gasp, placing a hand over your chest, "i would never. i was just trying to read your mind, aniki. why on earth would that kill you? you won't even feel anything-"

"it's the binding vow, you bitch!!" the boy spits, interrupting you, "the one you took years back, 'cause you didn't want the higher-ups to use you as a spy again; giving up the element of secrecy of your CT to-"

your cousin pauses, the realization and the ensuing horror and regret dawning over his face; gojo presses him, sharing a smile with you.

"to?"

the answer arrives as a shuddered whisper - a whisper audible to all, however, thanks to the heavy silence in the room.

"to make it lethal on its victim instead; an attack none can stop, not even a special-grade."

the crash of a glass, or five, impacting with the ground sounds; you give a satisfied nod, smirking.

gojo runs a palm over your dishevelled hair, undoubtedly from driving with the windows down to this stupid meet of the teenagers from the jujutsu clans. you give him a smile, mouth opening to say something, but he doesn't let you. "don't thank me, stupid."

"okay," you acquiesce, a slight huff to your tone before it grows softer, "but can i at least say you were being very cool then? i'm impressed."

"who's impressed with whom?" a crass voice interrupts the moment before gojo can even form it entirely between the two of you.

three - nope, five (even your classmates are here, tch!) teasing smiles float into his vision; the second-year opens his mouth to throw back a retort - except you snatch the opportunity away from him.

"i'm impressed with gojo senpai- any problems, anyone?" you say, tilting your head to one side with the cutest little furrow in the midst of your brows. all five shake their heads, smiles widening before one of them falls on your next words.

"but the next time i see you, geto senpai, asking others what sort of a person i am - don't you dare deny it, you asked two of my friends too the same thing, they told me; god knows why you need my character certificate, though, and for whom; you're acting as if you've a sibling i wish to date and you wanna know everything about me before giving the green signal, but whatever it is, senpai-"

you heave a breath, a break from your tirade - while the remainder of the room's breathing stays suspended.

gojo glances away from you to find the attention of all the attendees fixed on you. he wraps an arm around your midsection and rests his chin on your shoulder. you lean the side of your head onto his.

"i promise i'll create problems for you, more if i see gojo senpai being dragged into the aftermath of your curiosity - okay?"

gojo watches his best friend look at you, terrified, for a second before turning to throw him a glare. the white-haired boy bites back a grin.

placing hands on his hips, suguru exclaims, "you know what, i tried to help but no one here is worthy of my assistance."

"no one asked you for this help, suguru," shoko interjects smoothly, "you were the one who insisted, something about this method being the most effective or something if they want to catch her attention-"

"whoa, whoa, whoa. who wants to catch my attention?" you inquire, cutting them two off. gojo's classmates stop and the blood flowing in his veins drops to a subzero as he cranes his neck to look at you.

you twist to look back at him. "is there someone who wants to catch my attention? do you know them?"

"i-uh-um," the boy stutters, mind scrambling for a reply - something, anything - before nanami interrupts, a small smile on his face, "yeah, there is someone, actually, and we all know him. geto senpai was just gathering some data on you as his wingman."

"oh," you mutter, gaze dropping to the ground, then lifting to gojo. the boy simply blinks back, which draws a frown from you in turn.

retrieving a pair of shades from your bag, you hand it to him and turn back to suguru, a barely-there smile on your lips.

"next time he wants some info on me, ask him to ask me directly. i'll appreciate it."

"noted, boss," the words escape gojo before the addressed can even reply, utterly unmoved by the five exasperated glares [honestly, it's four: haibara can never really glare at anyone] - the next step of the plan already whirring to life in the shades-donning boy's brain.

so, so giddy at the fact of being told of the golden key to your heart.

|4/6| gather info from your crush.

"the moon is beautiful, isn't it?"

"so are you."

a long minute passes between gojo and you, gazes fixed on the other person and only them, before you lick your chapped lips - the boy's attention instantly going to that hynotic motion of your tongue...

and you pinch his arm.

"ow shortie!!!! what the fuck was that for!?!?" the boy yells, massaging the sore spot on his arm, before out of nowhere, the red signal glows green and he has to shift his focus to the steering wheel.

you toss him a mad scowl from the passenger's seat, one he catches effortlessly, winking, when an observation crashes upon him and he coos. "aww, did my itty-bitty-shortie-baby just get flustered by me? aww, is she blushing? aww, she's so cute!!!"

"i asked you to help me learn how to confess, gojo," you grumble with a glare at him, "not make fun of me."

your co-passenger makes an affronted face at your words, although, internally, he is beside himself. and to be honest, how can he not?

you're in the same car as him, on a three hour long drive from tokyo to nikko, exchanging declarations of love with one another while the boy's (spare) shades slide down the bridge of your nose and he hums along to the songs you choose on the stereo... if a few facts are being ignored (like the one where this is your mission and the two of you are in your uniforms), the second-year can totally imagine the two of you going on a weekend getaway as a couple now.

a soft smile settles on his lips, as he sneaks a glance of you from the corner of his eyes. "i wasn't trying to make fun of ya, shortie," he says, "i was just responding to your statement."

"but that directly?" you ask, shock and embarrassment flooding your face. your friend stifles a chuckle. "i commented on the moon being beautiful. you should've said something like 'it is, isn't it?' - but no, you went and replied, 'so are you'. my admirer will never be so direct with me; why don't you try to understand that simple fact?"

there are a few days when gojo is really divided between wanting to flick your forehead hard and wanting to kiss you senseless.

today seems to be one such glorious day.

swerving the car onto a stop by the side of the road, he lets his head fall onto the steering wheel and lifts it to lock his eyes with yours.

"and what makes you think your admirer won't be a direct guy?"

"the fact the guy couldn't even show his face to me once, and did not even want to share his contact details with me, despite me pestering him via suguru and nanami, for ages now."

okay, ouch, that one's on him.

yet, never being the one to accept defeat, he throws back, "and what if he wants to build up some mystery before your first meet? you love mysteries, don't you? the guy likes you; he must be trying to use that knowledge to confess to you."

"i like only murder mysteries, 'toru," your deadpan response arrives in a beat, which then evolves into curiosity when you ask, "but how do you know so much about these things? how many relationships have you been in, 'toru?"

it's gojo's turn to grow embarrassed now. hand reaching out to fiddle with the bracelet on your wrist, he answers, "zero."

"hey, don't be embarrassed," he watches you shoot him a grin. a tiny smile is all he manages to return while you continue, "i too have never been in a relationship. anyone you ever confessed to?"

"isn't that evident from my previous answer?"

"nope! you might've gotten rejected; who knows~"

the grin on your lips widens; gojo looks at it for once before dropping his gaze. under the interplay of the light and shadow from the leaves of the tree, there appears to be something different about you - the sorcerer can't really pinpoint what it is but he knows there is, and he doesn't want to dwell on it - lest he loses his self-control.

"i have never confessed to anyone, and whatever confessions i have received, i've either ignored or rejected them all."

"ooh, same!" your excited voice ringing within the confines of the car, you lift his palm to meet yours in a hi-five. gojo lets you do so - before you place it between your two palms and clasp it, a sharp gasp drawn from him at the action. you shoot him a concerned look.

"your hand's freezing cold, 'toru? you okay?"

"yeah, yeah, i'm fine," the boy mumbles, moving his hand away from your comforting warmth - an action he doesn't want to do but has to, for the sake of propriety. something happening out of sheer impulse isn't how he wants to start his story with you - you don't deserve that.

"um, okay," you mutter, then inquire, timid and awkward, "i've one last question on your love life... can i ask that? you can totally ask me to stop though if you're feeling uncomfortable."

"ask away," the boy answers with a smile, he can see, is tense in the mirror as he restarts the car and returns it to the road. a long second passes before you ask, "have you ever liked anyone, 'toru?"

"yeah... there's one girl. i love her."

"oh."

the monosyllabic answer sends a torsion through his chest and gojo twists towards you - only to find a cryptic smile resting on your lips.

discarding your shoes, you fold your knees upto your chest and rest your head atop them, facing him. your senpai is really thankful a soft song comes onto the stereo next, for were it not so, he's certain your soft question would have gone unheard.

"how does your first love feel? beautiful, right? the way it's in books, songs and movies... isn't it?"

gojo takes a moment to mull over your query.

it is... yet it isn't.

the flutters in his heart when you skip past him in the corridors with a beam; the butterflies in his stomach when you plop on the chair next to him in the cafeteria; the dizziness in his head when your face is too close to his; the utterly-unplatonic thoughts of you plaguing him, day and night, dusk and dawn...

the fictional works sure have got this aspect of love right.

but they aren't right in so many other aspects of it.

falling in love with you isn't love-on-first-crash nor is it from a magical transformation in one of you nor is it after ages and ages of ignorance and denial and the final mind-numbing feeling that oh shit! you're the one for him; always have been; the girls with whom he's been till now are mere mirages of you; but it's too late now... you're moving abroad on a flight in two hours, with a boyfriend who's far better than him.

no.

the goggles-wearing sorcerer's catching feelings for you is way more realistic and easier to digest than that.

the two of you are friends, friends, friends - until the morning the two of you are munching on an ice cream tub, and with a casual glance at you, the boy muses what he feels for you is weird, not like his feelings for his other friends - and after a month's worth research, reaches the conclusion of him being in love with you.

quick. direct. smart.

just like the heir of the gojo clan himself.

a small smile lining his lips on this short trip down the memory lane, your senpai hums, "it's complicated. you'll understand when you have your first love."

a soft sigh is the only response you give and gojo reaches over to give a small knock to the side of your head. "don't overthink, shortie," the boy says in a fond tone, a feeling which expands within himself at the smile you offer him, "everything's gonna be okay; i'll personally make sure it is."

"oh, yeah?" a brow rises while your eyes crinkle in a cheeky grin. "and how exactly do you plan on doing that? you gonna have a serious talk with my admirer or something, before our first date?"

if talks in the mirror over the bathroom sink counts, the white-haired boy has had countless discussions so far - but he doesn't tell you that - choosing to return your question with a question of his own.

one which has been pestering him for a while now.

"but, shortie... why the hell are you practising-"

"to confess now?" stealing his words from the tip of his tongue, gojo watches you let out a long tired exhale, then slump back in your seat, a hint of a smile on your lips. flying strands of your hair, from the wind rushing in through the open window, form a halo around your head-

your friend thinks you are an angel descended from above, no matter how you look.

a titter breaks his enraptured gaze on you, and he blinks, finding you with a tiny curve of your lips. you continue, "i wanna stay prepared. if not for this date, then another. if not for this guy, then another. but the thing is, i wanna stay prepared. for love and for everything that comes with it - besides..." your smile grows bashful, an emotion gojo instantly realizes is impossible for him to get tired of seeing on you; you shrug.

"the heart does what it wants, does it not?"

really??

the young sorcerer looks away from you for a beat, letting his gaze travel over the rows of trees dotting the increasingly mountainous terrain, then looks back at you.

the two of you are awfully close to the destination of your trip.

removing a hand from the wheel and reaching it out to intertwine his fingers with yours, the boy asks, "wanna go visit that patisserie i was talking of the other day after this mission? i've heard the sweets there are worth dying for."

"but won't it be late evening by the time our job's done?" you ask back with a frown, "and we also have to return to the school... why don't-"

"it's a full moon tonight, shortie," gojo interjects you with a soft little smile. you stare befuddled at him for a while, before the bulb lights to life in your brain - an event bringing a semblance of relief to the boy - and you laugh.

"oh, oh, oh!" you exclaim, waggling your eyebrows, "i know exactly what you're going to do. you're gonna create a romantic atmosphere to teach me how to confess, aren't you? method teaching - eh, 'toru?"

a chuckle is what gojo decides to offer to your buzzing curiosity, until later this evening.

"i'll let my heart do what it wants to do."

|5/6| splurge on gifts.

"and what can this be?"

the silver of the bracelet glints, the tiny sapphires in its rim adding a sparkling effect as you show it to gojo. the boy drags his gaze from it to you, lips pressing into a line as he takes in the way you're looking at him.

two months back, if someone even merely insinuated at the fact you might be growing distant from him, he wouldn't have thought once before retaliating with a mean word or hit.

and, to be just, why on earth would he not?

yes, the 'date' he had proposed to take you on post mission remained just a proposal - many thanks to the old geezers and their knack for providing severely understated mission details [bitter sarcasm wholly intended] - but that didn't drive a wedge between you both; quite the opposite, in fact.

two months back, he found you sobbing at his bedside in the school infirmary, lips pressing kisses to his bruised knuckles time and again, while you kept mumbling on how you should've been more wary and cognizant of your surroundings, how he shouldn't have switched his infinity off to guard you from the caving roof and how you would buy him a milion sweets if he promised to not be reckless, but wouldn't hesitate to kill him with your CT if he broke the promise even once.

lovingly overprotective in an irresistibly cute way - that's exactly how you grew to be around gojo in the days he was healing, in the latter's eyes. suguru and shoko's comments too grew less teasing and more encouraging with time then - something which made him think, the feelings in his being might not be as one-sided as he tends to believe at times.

something which made him think, there might not be a day he has to imagine without your radiant grin directed at him, for him, because of him.

yet, now... as he regards you with utmost attention...

the sorcerer can't help but deem the unimaginable to have occurred.

face grim, eyes dull, lips puckered into a scowl, every fucking time you've come across him since your return to school from your home...

it doesn't really take a genius to gather you don't really want to be in his vicinity - a realisation which leads to your best friend of a decade and a few years to shower a torrent of gifts on you.

under the impression, that's what will return your keen undivided gaze to him - an impression, he watches, being tainted wrong with every other second that passes under the fading daylight.

you return the bracelet to its box and place it in the bag, one the boy knows contains the other gifts he had left at your doorstep or sent via shoko or haibara to you, the past month - and one you intend to give him back - 'cause for what else could you have asked to meet him at the training grounds this evening, carrying the bag, if not this?

wishing, not for the first time, for his six eyes to be able to glean your current state of mind, he asks, scooting slowly, deliberately to your seated form on the bench, "did you not like it, shor-"

"please don't call me that."

the grin slowly unfurling on gojo's lips stutters, then vanishes in the heat of the fury of your eyes. he watches your gaze roam over his face once before skittering away. your voice grows a mild tremor, "please don't call me that. i don't want to hear that nickname ever again."

the soda can nearly slips from between his fingers onto the grass below before he grasps it again, firmer this time, and tosses it upside down to empty it into his mouth. it's a brand you had introduced him to, gojo reminisces, on a day just like this... grins and squeals as you jumped in front of the vending machine, so, so joyed that it had your favourite drink.

soon after, it became the white-haired boy's favourite drink too - but no longer now. not when the fruity tang of the liquid, which endeared it to you as you claimed, tastes like the metallic clang of blood to him.

now, many might call gojo overdramatic here - you've asked him not to call you that countless times now, for fuck's sake - but many don't know you the way your friend does. in horrifying contrast to before, a note of revulsion exists in your words.

undisguised disgust paired with loathing.

sharp enough to pierce infinity, past skin, muscles, ribs and layers of tissues and chains, into that stupid organ strumming melancholic rhythms now, your name bleeding raw from its walls.

superfluous, some might scoff - but they'll have never known there's a dark side to love, the one gojo's traversing now. though... the young sorcerer muses, finishing the drink and sending it into the trash can with a flick of his cursed energy, they'll never have known you. they'll never have known the degree to which the boy adores you, either.

a strong whoosh of wind hits the two of you, carrying the smell of wet earth with it. a sign of the arrival of your favourite season, your friend absently notes as he looks back at you.

the tip of your nose appears flushed red.

"and may i know why?"

shock brims your gaze at the soft question. gojo watches you cough up a strained chuckle. "i knew you to be more assertive. demanding. never thought you could request for an explanation... what changed, 'to-" you still for a beat, then continue, burning another bridge, same as the boy feared an instant too early, "i mean, gojo-senpai?"

"you're the best person to answer that," the mentioned person replies with lips forming a gentle curve. yes, the limitless user's always been one hell of a self-assured person - it comes free with the package of receiving god-like treatment by most from before you can crawl - but there exist times when all that - the fight, the zeal, the energy - every one of those just ebbs away from his body, rendering him the hapless spectator, and victim, to the car crash.

except a car crash might hurt less than the careless sneer you shoot his way, coupled with an eye roll. you never gave him such a look in the past, before you went back home for the vacation. just what-

"i think you know why i called you here, yeah?" you ask, picking the bag up and pushing it towards him. the things inside it rattle; the boy wonders if you even went through those two books he sent you. they were from the series you had babbled, ranted and gushed to him on for hours on end on numerous occasions, once upon a time.

gojo nods briefly, though doesn't spare it even a glance. it doesn't go past your notice, he notes, given the way your eyes jump from him to his gifts, then to your fiddling fingers. "well, that's one box ticked off," you say, "and as for the other-"

"i know that too; you need not say every fucking thing out loud," your senpai cuts you off with a mirthless inflection to his tone, eyes falling down onto his sneakers. it was a gift from you on his last-

bloody hell, why does everything have to be a sore reminder of you?

"not saying it out loud doesn't make it any less real," your quiet voice tears through his thought, and he looks up. hoping, desperately so, a tender smile is waiting on your features, reserved for him - only to see every hope of his get dashed into the dirt by your frown.

his best friend was right. gojo's pathetically down for you.

a thunder rumbles in the distance.

you continue, "but since you've asked me not to, i guess i won't. that's the least i can do-"

"but what went wrong?" the question hurtles past the confines of his mouth into the stormy air. and, for once, gojo decides not to conceal the moisture in his eyes behind his shades. removing the eyewear, he moves to sit right beside you, approaching to take your hand in his.

you jerk away from him.

as if you were fire and he, water.

as if you were sun and he, non-luminous scarred moon threatening to eclipse your joy.

the white-haired boy retracts his hand away. you glance at him once before averting your gaze away. he watches you clench your hands in a tight fist. "nothing was wrong, senpai," you mumble; gojo bites his lower lip to keep it from wobbling, "but there's always something tiny wrong in everything going right, ya know? i just feel we outgrew our phase of being friends."

the growl of thunder sounds closer this time. a drop of water lands on his thigh - the sorcerer doesn't bother to know if it is his eyes or those clouds above which finally welled over. voice thickening and breaking, a scoff leaves him, "you know, as well as me, that's the lamest excuse ever. and you called us being friends, right?" you take a moment then nod weakly. a pained sigh leaves him, "then what happened to being open with each other, hm? i thought we kept no secrets from each other."

the boy watches you keep your gaze stubbornly trained on the grass beneath. something within him breaks.

"c'mon, don't play dumb," gojo urges, plopping down onto the object of your attention, just so he can have a better view of your face. you face away with a frown. he prompts you again, hints of helplessness sneaking in between his words, "c'mon, shortie. don't look away with the shitty reason of us outgrowing our phase of friendship. we were - no, are the closest. you know, right? that you can tell me any-"

"not everything's meant to remain the same always, senpai!" the loud exclamation leaves your mouth. gojo stills and so do you. his eyes fall on the way you wring your hands once before stuffing them into your hoodie's pockets.

it isn't oversized on you, the realisation clicks into place in his mind.

you let out an exhale through your mouth, then pin him down with eyes teeming with what seems like weary distaste.

"can you please get up? you're creating an unnecessary scene right now."

if your words weren't enough, it's the way you utter them that leaves cracks and fissures in him. one more blow, and the boy's sure he'll be blown away into smithereens - an outcome he's trying to avoid [but knows, can't; every piece of armour he dons turns flimsy before you].

"is it 'cause you tended to my injuries then?" he asks. your lips strain into a line. casting him a sideways glance, you shake your head, "i'm many things but a liar ain't in the list, senpai. when i cared for you, it was from my heart. when i no longer wanna associate with you-"

a dark shadow falls over your features. rising from the bench, you shift your gaze skywards and back on him, "it'll rain pretty soon. you should get back inside."

there's something between summer evenings and you and him, gojo muses as he peers up at you.

it was a summer evening when you first came to visit the boy at this school.

it is a summer evening when you're turning your back on him in this same old school.

with the glaring exception of there being the warmth of your form beside him then versus the gnawing chill you're leaving behind now.

"you never completed your sentence," gojo points out, whispering.

[too loud and the sorcerer fears, the last interaction between the two of you will end as a horrid yelling match. besides, you like things with happy endings, don't you? he'll be sure to give you your happy ending as the last gift.]

you send a restrained twitch of lips his way. "i remember being asked not to say every fucking thing out loud, senpai."

a shaky smile is the only thing he finds he can muster in return, at the moment.

"suguru said you're leaving for your home tonight again," the student says, getting up from the ground and moving closer to, yet too far a distance from you. "don't drive with the windows down, okay? the weather's bad, you might catch a cold."

a muscle in your jaw twitches. the valley between your brows furrows.

gojo lets his smile widen a bit. so shallow. so hollow.

"don't worry," he says, "i'm taking this as seriously as you want me to. it's just that..." trailing off, the boy takes a step away. your feet move an inch towards him before you immediately withdraw them. a small mimicry of a laugh leaving him, gojo fixates his gaze on the iridescent colour of your irises.

"i've always seen you as someone way more than a mere childhood friend, y'know? and no matter what you say or do, i can never and will never stop seeing you the same way. i love you that much, short- oh! sorry, i'm not supposed to call you that, am i?."

a beat passes, then another, and another.

your response comes out as a garbled mess of letters and tears. "you're the worst person ever, 'toru. i hate you."

and with that and not another glance wasted anywhere, you whirl on your feet and dash back to the school.

leaving behind the echo of your words ringing in gojo's ears, louder than the thunder of the lightning crashing on a tree a little away.

|6/6| this isn't really a way. if you're at this step, just fuckin' stop and retreat. your crush won't ever notice you – you sad, pathetic loser.

"is that what you really think?"

gojo wonders if a momentous occasion as the one now deserves one brawl thrown into it or not. it won't be anything much; just dumping a bowl of soup down suguru's shirt and/or landing a pretty solid kick to his stomach and/or-

"careful, senpai or you might've to go home, bloody and beaten," the most monotone voice ever possible crashes into his thoughts in the worst possible way. a snicker, far too familiar, joins in. "yeah, nanami's right. besides, we haven't even clicked a pic yet. you wouldn't want to wear a black eye in it, would you?"

clinking his glass with shoko's, the white-haired watches suguru gulp down a shot of tequila, then give a mighty firm shake of his head. "no, of-fucking-course not. today is our dearest kouhai's important day; i don't wanna get involved in any drama now; though..." trailing off, the black-haired boy shoots gojo an awfully obvious side-glance before a look shared with the others.

the boy lets his eyes wander away from them. an abominably sharp acrylic nail pokes him in the cheek. gojo exhales a sigh, so exhausted.

were it just a day, the boy's certain to the hell and back, that he would have whipped up a snarky insult to the stink-eye aimed his way. the boy would have slapped his drunk classmate's hand away, calling her sense of fashion the worst names possible.

gojo, however, decides to resort to neither today. he decides to settle for a sigh - the second in the last minute, longer and wearier than the one before - and rests his face into the hollow of his palms, screwing eyes shut.

an exasperated grumble - or two, maybe - permeates the air.

"gojo senpai," the words ring out in a tone far too soft and worried. he muses he doesn't need to look to see the sympathetic frown haibara must be wearing, nor the varying degrees of pity and concern etched into the others' features. a warm hand squeezes his shoulder slightly.

haibara continues, "geto senpai is not entirely wrong, y'know? yes, of course, implying you might kick up drama is sorta wrong, i admit so. but otherwise... you could've tried to, i don't know, somehow find out the reason behind her sudden distance from you?"

opening his eyes, gojo twists to face his kouhai, ready to interrupt him, but stops at the earnestness in his gaze. "turning into a recluse or moping around isn't gonna solve anything, senpai. it's been more than a month since then and from what little i've seen, i can say it's eating the both of you alive. you, way more than her. so, go, speak with her," he urges him with a smile, "the others are not very well at showing their emotions but trust me when i say, we all are worried for you both, senpai."

the white-haired boy drags his gaze away from the speaker. suguru gives him a smile, shoko pokes him in the cheek again, nanami offers a fleeting impression of something smiley before looking away with a grimace.

gojo's eyes flit back to the encouraging boy before.

"okay," the upperclassman relents with a sigh, which instantly grows into a frown the moment every piece clicks into place in his mind and the goggles-wearing boy swears his heart skips a beat, "but what did you say about seeing shortie and know-"

stopping in the middle of the question, the boy stiffens.

three glasses shatter on impact with the floor, freed from the waiter's grasp, soon followed by two maids screeching your name in the most terror-struck voice ever manageable. gojo's six eyes provide him with enough details as always; albeit it seems miles from enough now, the way it always is in your case, further deepening the sorcerer's need to physically see you once; to soak in the brilliance of your gaze and the sweetness of the curve of your lips once.

who knows if he'll ever see you again from as close as- okay, no, wait-

"did you just run all the way here-"

"i love you."

"-in your heels?"

everything falls silent the moment the last word leaves gojo's lips and a shuddered breath escapes him into the bittersweet fragrance of the citrus perfume he remembers you using. in a lilac dress with a messy hairstyle and diamond studs, the youngest and newest leader of your clan stands before him, cheeks stretched in a wide grin.

whirling his seat round completely, the boy gives you one long look, only to earn a hauntingly soft look in return.

you smile.

"i know you might see me as the most inconsistent, lying, crazy bitch at best or as the most opportunistic bitch ever, trying to seduce you, for lack of a better term, to satisfy her craving for power, at worst; but no matter how you see me, how others see me, how i see myself - i'm in love with you, that's one thing which won't change no matter what."

you pause.

and as he watches you catch your breath after that long as hell sentence para, the first realisation which crashes on gojo's otherwise numb brain is: you too haven't changed.

not. one. bit.

from the way you stick to your minimal makeup look; to the way you speak sans any break and curse yourself as you confess to something (you think you did) wrong; to the way your gaze remains fixed on him, acutely trained on even the mildest twitch of his facial muscles... one whole month has passed since that stormy evening yet you're still the same you.

a little sweet. a little sour. a whole lot perfect-

who loves him-

you. love. him. too.

for the first time in an apparent eternity, gojo feels his lips lift in a free smile. although the chuckle leaving him sounds laden with moisture and emotions.

"i'll die before calling you a seductress, shortie," the boy says, "you're way too dumb and naive for that." your eyes move to the girl drinking beside him for a second, before settling back on him, a light sheen in them. smile widening yet growing a tender quality, he goes on to say, "and i know you aren't a liar; but regarding the inconsistent claim... i think an explanation's long overdue, isn't it?"

you huff a mild chuckle. stuffing your hands into your dress pockets, your senpai watches you draw in a long breath before letting it out in a whoosh, a tiny smile nestling in the corner of your lips. you begin.

"you know, right, my eldest brother was the clan leader before me? y'know, after my father just decided, one fine day, he's growing old and so he wants to retire somewhere peaceful now, with my mom, leaving me in the care of takeshi nii-chan and his wife?"

four pairs of eyes switch to him in silent query. ignoring them, gojo nods. it isn't everyday you speak so openly of your family, especially this topic concerning them.

considering how painful and sore it is for you.

how big of an escapist your father is.

how big of an asshole your brother is.

how utterly difficult it is for you to navigate in this household daily.

your sigh interrupting his thoughts, he hears you continue, "well, all was going well until it was not; and i decided i'd already spent too much time being a spectator to my life and future keeping getting kicked around like a fucking soccer ball."

few gasps sound in the vicinity, undoubtedly at you cussing. nanami's smooth voice cuts in through their shocked surprise, and through the bubble, gojo was under the impression, he and you had slipped into.

judging from the tiny start you give, the white-haired boy surmises you too must have felt the same.

your classmate's solemn voice sounds in the hush, though traces of a hesitation can still be found in it when he asks, "they... didn't arrange a wedding for you in the month you were here... did they?"

"they did," you're quick to answer, voice growing a steely quality, "the higher-ups and my brother decided to get me engaged to-"

"to whom?"

gojo's lips quirk up at the way you roll your eyes at suguru's impatient question, then look at him, a tired smile creeping onto your features. but, hey! is that a tinge of shyness on your face that the boy can see?

you point your chin at him. "to 'toru, who else?"

the second (or maybe, the third) bout of silence would have followed this statement of yours too - if not for the cackling girl beside gojo. the latter makes no effort to conceal his irritation, shooting the most vicious glare ever; shoko simply raises her glass, as if in a toast, then tosses you a smirk.

"you love him, still you don't wanna get hitched with him? not very clever of you, yeah?"

"yeah," haibara chips in, albeit much less teasing and more a worried timbre than shoko, the shades-wearing boy deems. the other student continues, brows creasing together, "plus, i doubt gojo senpai saying no to the proposal. so, why didn't you go ahead with it?"

your head tilts to one side. your lips twitch in a knowing fashion.

"you just said the reasons yourself, yu-kun."

years later, if someone asks gojo when's the time he realised he's in love with you, too deep and too far gone to ever consider anyone but you by his side, as his other and undoubtedly better half, the sorcerer will grin the goofiest grin ever and sigh the dreamiest sigh ever, and say, "every day."

which is the truth, really-

yet, from those 'every day'-s, there exist few such days, whom the six-eyes user's brain subconsciously frames in a golden frame and places on a dust-free pedestal.

for instance, today.

a day your senpai dreaded to begin by leaving the comfort of his bed, knowing the person whose ascension to the metaphorical throne he has been invited to witness today, blood chilling and condensing into tears on his lashes as memories from long ago and not-so-long-ago hurtle into his brain.

only to morph, by evening, into the day the boy realises: love isn't just what made him switch his infinity off and pull you under him, a shield to protect you from the crumbling roof, forgetting everything except your safety and life; but love is also what made you push him and the emotions within yourself away.

forgetting everything - the boy knows from knowing you these many years - except your very evident aim of shielding him from the vicious schemes of those responsible for this damned jujutsu hierarchy.

no matter how easy and rewarding the other path would've been for you.

no matter how difficult and painful this current path must've been for you.

just 'cause you love him.

just 'cause you know, at the end of it all, he's going to be safe, away from the manipulating hands of the higher-ups - away from even the slimmest chance of experiencing a shred of the ordeals you suffered as a child, losing your free will and living as a mere puppet, subject to those old geezers' whims and fancies.

the two of you are not-too-near to the threshold of adulthood; still, through those unsure lenses of transition between immaturity and maturity, gojo feels sure this very moment that his eyes are viewing now - of watching his feelings being reciprocated not only in words (which, he knows, are true; your body language is as familiar to him as the back of his hand) but also in actions - so pure, so selfless, so utterly... loving-

the boy reckons his six eyes have never landed on a sight so ethereal and just so good, that it makes his heart want to burst right out of his chest.

drinking in the way you're regarding him, fingers fidgeting and teeth gnawing on your lower lip, gojo cracks a smile.

your restlessness abates a little.

"you became the clan leader just to make sure this story remains ours and only ours, didn't you?"

you take a moment before answering with a big nod.

"yeah," you say, "but that doesn't mean you need to be grateful to me or anything of the sort. you can give me any answer you want to give. you can also give me no answer, now or ever, if that's what you really want to do. just know that i love you, and that your answer can never really put a dent in it, no matter what it is."

"no matter what it is?" your senpai echoes your words back to you. a small nod is what you send in reply; yet it seems to be more than the quantity of oil required to set the cogs of gojo's brain whirring to life and mischief. eyes narrowing, he asks, "not even if my response is an 'i love you too, shortie', hm?"

the clock in the room ticks thrice.

two known voices mutter curses behind him.

five maids of yours scurry out the door, whispering excitedly.

you narrow your eyes back at him.

"i asked you to not feel pressured, didn't i? tell me what you want to say, 'toru," you say; his name in your mouth sounds sweeter than the sweetest mochi the boy's ever tasted, "and not those stuff you think i want to hear you say."

your statement draws an amused chortle from gojo. "did you really forget what i told you last that day, shortie? or did you not again not understand what i was telling you then?"

"what's there to not understand in that!?" your indignant reply arrives without missing a beat, "you said you've always seen me as way more than a childhood friend: true 'cause we're best friends. then- oh yeah," with a click of your fingers, you add, face steeped in contemplation, "you also said- oh."

"yep, oh," gojo nods his head in an exaggerated fashion, revelling in the way you're looking at him right now, eyes round as saucers and cheeks ruddy as the expensive wine being served now.

you still seem so beautiful to him.

it takes a pinch more than a while before you breathe out a breathless giggle. straightening in his seat, gojo feels his cheeks hurt a bit from the wide smile digging indents into them.

"you really lo-"

"ma'am, the guests for the evening party will be here very soon. you should get ready now," one of your maids interrupts you. the sorcerer feels his smile shrivel a little. you're barely back with him; yet you'll be stolen away from him-

"aw, is it so?" your entertained query cuts in through his thoughts. the boy looks up from his shoes his gaze had moved to before, to you, an awfully fake apologetic smile lighting up your face.

gods, why do you look so fucking kissable when you're like this?

"you know what, the people invited aren't really the kind i want to talk to and ruin my mood. besides, i've already met 'my' guests, so..." the boy watches you inch closer to him slowly as you trail off; your maid's eyes narrow before widening. you grin. "toodles, mrs. matsui!"

that and the salute you throw at everyone in the room are the last two memories clear in gojo's mind, before everything turns into a mush of everything yet nothing in the end.

well, barring a few exceptions, of course.

your contagious chortles, for instance, while you both dash down the hallways of your mansion; or your delighted gasp when he wraps his arms round you and warps to that patisserie in nikko; or your million-watt-bright beam to him, as you slap the latter's sneaky hands away from stealing a bite from your plate, whilst the latter declares this to be where you two will celebrate the future milestones; or the-

"ieiri senpai was right, y'know?" your tired voice cuts in through your senpai's rather-muddled recollections. the latter tears his gaze away from the inky-black night sky dotted by the twinkling lights of tokyo, to your drowsy form resting her head on his chest, his one arm tight around your shoulders, while the other rests behind his head on the cold hood of the car.

moving to brush the strands of hair away from your forehead, the boy presses a kiss to the tip of your nose, earning a sweet kiss to his chin in return, and hums, "not really the person i wanna chat about right now with my girlfriend..." you suddenly twist your body towards him, throwing an arm over his stomach and nuzzling into his neck; making a mental note to address you as that more often, he sighs. "but carry on, i guess. you won't be you if you can't gush about that damn shoko every third sentence or something."

planting your lips to his jaw for a mere second, gojo watches you pull away an inch from him, grinning. "senpai said you'll be the first one to confess but i'll be the one who makes things official and public and all that shit," you explain, then gasp, grin turning wider.

"oh my god," you mutter, "geto senpai and iori senpai are gonna lose so much money to her. them two never thought you could ever say 'i love you' to me, did you know that? oh my god... i kind of feel bad for those two."

the gleeful expression you're wearing tells your boyfriend otherwise - choosing to ignore it, he throws you a smirk. "well, i don't. those two people shouldn't have doubted me. i'm the one and only gojo satoru," he proclaims, puffing his chest out a bit, "of course, I'll be successful in my mission of getting you to notice my love for you."

"nah, i don't think so," you shake your head the very next instant. lips into the most adoring curve he's ever seen on you - something which steals his retort away from him and makes him want to pinch his arm hard, to see if he's dreaming or not - you hum.

"you could confess your love to me, not 'cause you're gojo satoru. but because you're my 'toru and i'm your shortie... isn't it so?"

gojo thinks back to the time utilised in carefully drafting and finalizing the steps via which he can catch your eye, only to watch them not go the way planned.

gojo looks back to you, only to find your eyes trained on him, glitters of love in them unbelievably similar to those loud crackers bursting in his chest right now.

the young sorcerer runs a reverent finger down the side of your face.

"yeah, it is because you're my shortie and i'm your 'toru, sweetness," he whispers, "and we'll always stay this way, yeah?"

you reply by engraving the shape of your smile into his.

AND MY MAGNUM OPUS IS OVER, BESTIES!!! 🥳🥳😊

tysm once again for always showing me sm love and support, y'all 🥹🥹🥹 i cherish each and every one of u so so SO MUCH - plesae keep supporting me and my works the same way in the future too, my loves 🥹🥹❤️

masterlist

#gojo x you #gojo x reader #gojo satoru x you #gojo satoru x reader #jjk x you #jjk x reader #gojo fluff #jjk fluff #kit posts 📝

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 1 year ago

Text

I am Sage's mother, better known as Nana. I adopted Sage after my son died when she was still a baby. She's been through six foster homes by then, but we loved her and she blossomed into a joyful, lively girl who made music and art.

Puberty began and COVID hit, and she was treated for depression and anxiety, at times very severe. Her teachers shared any concerns with me so her treatment could be adapted.

The transparency ended in August of 2021 when Sage started high school. She started a public high school and she told me that all the girls there were bi, trans, lesbian, emo and she wanted to wear boy's clothes and be emo. Because I saw it as just a phase, it was fine with me.

But at school, she told them something different: she was now a boy named Draco with male pronouns. Sage asked the school not to tell me, and they did not tell me even though I informed them of her mental health history and medication. If I had known, this would be a much different story.

She was terribly bullied. No one told me. But boys followed her, touched her, threatened violence and rape. Something happened in the boy's bathroom but for two days, the school told me nothing. They kept meeting with Sage alone and she became so distraught they called me to pick her up.

That evening, I found a hallpass labeled 'Draco' and Sage told me she was identifying as a boy, and that her counselor said she could use the boy's bathroom. She'd been jacked up against the wall by a group of boys. She was crying, terrified. I said just stay home, we'll figure it out. That was my last conversation with Sage for five months.

The night she ran, she thought, to a young friend she'd met online, she left a note saying she was scared of what would happen if she stayed. The sheriff, FBI, search dogs were called in. I dropped to my knees in prayer. Nine days later the FBI found her in Baltimore. My baby had been lured online, sex trafficked by DC then Maryland. She was locked in a room, drugged, gang raped and brutalized by countless men. It was night. The FBI told us to pick her up in Maryland the next morning.

We packed our cars with blankets and stuffed animals and arrived by 8 am, but we were told we couldn't see her, and were summoned before Judge Robert Kershaw late that afternoon. They didn't even tell Sage that we came for her. We finally entered the courtroom and Sage appears on a huge Zoom screen from a prison cell. She looks tiny and broken, and I cry out 'I love you Sage.' Sage responds 'I love you too, Nana.' But attorney Anisa Khan rebukes us. She is a 'he' and his name is 'Draco' not Sage. We were floored.

Khan accuses us of emotional and physical abuse, that we are misgendering her, even though we just learned she claims to be trans and we're willing to use any name and pronouns to bring her home. My husband was so tearful he kept forgetting the new pronouns, so the judge had the bailiff remove him from the courtroom. I was pleading for my child to be returned and treated for her unspeakable trauma. Judge Kershaw told me, if I use the word 'trauma' again, he would throw me out too.

For over two months, he withheld custody. He housed Sage in the male quarters of a children's home. Sage told me she was the only girl and repeatedly assaulted. She was given street drugs by the other kids and Khan told her she didn't care. She just wanted to win the case and all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary. Khan tried to prove abuse, but we were eventually cleared by both states of all charges.

Sage later told me Khan had told her to lie that we hit her. Khan even had Sage's school counselors testify against us, though they barely knew Sage and they didn't know us at all. Khan told my precious child I didn't want her anymore. I found out Sage never received any of the letters I sent her.

Sage ran from the Children's Home and disappeared for months. They told me she might already be gone forever, but I couldn't give up and I finally found a tip on her social media that led the marshals to her in Texas. She had been drugged, raped, beaten and exploited. This time I was able to be with her for the traumatic rape exam, and to bring her home.

Back in Virginia, she entered the mental health facility that Judge Kershaw had ordered, as it would affirm her as a male. The therapist began pressuring her to have her healthy breasts removed. Sage was too scared to protest, but she asked me to secretly buy her girl's clothes because she wanted to be a girl, but keep them in the car. It took a kind lawyer, Josh Hetzler to secure her discharge.

After almost a year. Sage was finally home. Safe. Alive. Sage is receiving professional trauma care. The first trafficker has already been convicted. Sage has nightmares, panic attacks, rape-related medical issues, but there's hope. I tell her she's not broken she's just scarred. And part of that hope is that in courageously sharing her story, others will be saved.

Sage said she doesn't know who she was back then. She wasn't a boy, she just wanted to have friends. But her school, the judge, the attorney and the doctor were all blinded by their ideology. The consequences for Sage were unspeakable.

Please don't let ideology harm another child. Let parents do our jobs. We know our children best and we love them a million times more.

Thank you.

Jesus Christ. This girl was exploited by everybody, except for her parents, who were villainized for literally nothing. It's opposite world.

And the fact that everybody with authority prioritized stupid shit like pronouns and trying to coax her further down into a fake identity, even against her will, and other ideological bullshit over her actual wellbeing is disgraceful.

The judge and attorney need to be disbarred, the therapist stripped of their license, and everyone who conspired to separate Sage from her parents fired.

#Sage's Law #HB 2432 #gender ideology #queer theory #ideological corruption #genderwang #safeguarding #child safeguarding #predators #groomers #predatory #gender cult #religion is a mental illness

2K notes · View notes

nwjws · 1 year ago

Text

in my head - yjw

; pairing - jungwon x fem!reader

; synopsis - you’ve hated jungwon ever since you two met on the train to hogwarts back in first year; he’s self-centered, lazy, and always coming out for you. now in your seventh year, you’ve been named head girl (woohoo!). unfortunately, the head boy position was given to the one and only yang jungwon (boohoo…). with no other choice, you’re forced to face the annoyingly attractive boy and work with him for the rest of the year - if you can even last that long.

; tags - fluff, angst, crack, ravenclaw! headboy!jungwon, slytherin! headgirl!reader, rivals to lovers, enemies to lovers, hogwarts au (with a modern twist), bc they have tablets and stuff

; warnings - a little bit of swearing, a lot of hostility between yn and jw, lmk if i missed anything!

; wc - 12.9k words (umm.... have fun!)

teaser

everyone’s eyes are on you as you stand up at the front of the great hall while the headmaster - professor bang si hyuk - introduces you as this year’s head girl. looking at all the students staring back up at you, you almost feel proud of yourself (keyword: almost).

you’d think someone would be overjoyed at being acknowledged and recognised enough to have been given such a high position, but you aren’t.

instead, you’re silently fuming, just barely keeping your temper in check as you plaster a fake smile on your face. your eye twitches as you hear a low chuckle from-

“the head boy, yang jungwon!” the headmaster announces. cheers erupt from around the room, all clapping for their new heads.

“i can feel the waves of anger practically radiating off of you,” he murmured quietly.

yang jungwon.

the boy you despised so much.

listen, you don’t really hate anyone, but you’re pretty sure that what you feel towards the boy you called ‘yang’ is close enough.

in all your six years at hogwarts, you two have constantly been at each other’s throats. arguments often broke out between you in corridors; fights wherein one would end up stupefied or thrown against the wall; even little sabotages against each other that were subtle enough that teachers could pass off as an accident or your own fault rather than the other’s.

for example, back in third year, yang had tripped you on your way into the great hall after everyone got off the hogwarts express. you had flashed everyone behind you and scraped your knee when you landed on the ground.

although no one saw him do it, you immediately knew who the culprit was, especially when he smirked down at you over his shoulder as he walked ahead. oh how badly you wanted to slap that smile off his face in the moment.

you retaliated the next week by mixing his white laundry with red clothes, so he was forced to attend his classes with pink uniform until he got new shirts. nothing satisfied you more than the glares he sent your way throughout the first day of his pink week, you could feel him boring holes into the back of your head even when you weren’t looking.

making your way back to the slytherin table, you thought back to when you got that fateful letter a few weeks back.

you slid the window open after spotting an owl from afar flying towards your house.

the bird flew in gracefully, and dropped your letter from hogwarts on the kitchen island counter, accepting the treats offered from your hand.

“y/n, please. close the window, would you? it’s so windy outside - it’s blowing away my papers!” your mother scolded from her seat at the table.

“sorry, my bad! i just got my grades.”

“ah really? let’s see it then.”

you scanned the letter, satisfied to see an O on all your subjects. although they weren’t your final NEWTS grades, they were an indication of how you did throughout sixth year according to teachers’ assessments.

you’d been nervous at seeing anything below an O, but your friends had told you not to worry all summer.

“you’ve never dropped from the top rank in our year ever since first year, why would you now?”

“hiyyih, it’s only because of how much i’ve studied, but what if the expectations this year are higher? what if it’s not enough? what if i spent too many free periods sitting with you guys by the lake instead of-“

“be for real, you only did that twice! you’re the only person who’s actually spent their free periods studying,” rei said.

“well that’s what they’re supposed to be used for!”

“who actually does that! besides you, of course.”

“rei’s right, even yang jungwon often spends his frees with his friends.”

“that’s why he’s number 2,” you roll your eyes. “maybe if he studied during his frees, he’d finally get that number 1 spot he's been telling me he'd get for years.”

“it’s the fact he doesn’t have to study as hard to easily get second top student in our year. besides, weren’t you just worrying about not being first this time ‘round?”

that set you off into another episode of wailing and worrying about your results.

reading the letter, your eyes zeroed in on a shiny gold badge attached to the bottom.

dear kim y/n, we are pleased to inform you that you have been chosen as head girl for this upcoming academic year. you will be working alongside the head boy, yang jungwon, and all prefects across the four houses. you and the head boy’s duties will be relayed to you after the sorting ceremony. congratulations once again, you are well deserving of the title. sincerely, headmaster bang si hyuk

you still remember your mother questioning you after watching your figure suddenly go from jumping around the kitchen all giddy, to sulkily dragging your feet to the table.

of course, you were honoured to be picked, but did they really have to choose your enemy as your partner? i mean, the whole school knows about your rivalry, and you guys have been told off countless times by teachers! so was this really a smart idea?

when the ceremony ended, one of the professors led you and yang to the head dormitories.

(a “benefit” of being one of the heads was getting your own room, separate from your own house dorms. but you’d still be sharing the common room with yang, so that wasn’t exactly the biggest plus in your books.)

“as you can see, you will have separate private rooms, each with their own bathroom,” the professor pointed at the doors on opposite sides of the common room.

“but you two will share this living space. there’s a little library in the corner as well.

“now for rules..." he started listing a bunch of obvious rules - like what's allowed in the head dorms and what isn't, when you can bring your friends, etc.

“and last but not least, you aren’t allowed in each other’s private quarters,” he paused before glancing at both students. “although, i don’t think that’ll be a problem.”

he’s right there, you thought bitterly.

the idea of even sharing the common room with the boy irked you, let alone entering his own room. you could only imagine all the stupid tricks he was planning on you right now - but you were doing the same.

after the whole ordeal, the professor finally left you two alone, but not before telling you that you should start planning out the prefects’ patrolling schedules so that you could meet up with them as soon as possible.

you and yang stared at each other for a moment, apprehension hanging in the air. this is the first time you two have directly looked each other in the eye tonight.

“so… i guess we should get to sorting out those schedules,” he breaks the silence, gesturing to the scroll of names in your hands, which the professor had left with you.

nodding, you followed him to the large table in the middle of the room, where you’d hold a meeting with the prefects tomorrow morning.

“here’s the list of all the prefects, plus their student ID numbers.”

“okay, we can use those to add them all into a group chat on hog-messages and inform them of the meeting tomorrow.”

one of the newer developments at hogwarts in recent years was the addition of electronic tablets given to every student, so they’d be able to communicate faster with each other. it had an app programmed within it called ‘hog-messages’ where students could message each other or their teachers, and create group chats, all activity being monitored by staff.

the tablets also allowed the students to be able to write notes down on it, but most teachers often preferred all homework to be written on paper scrolls anyway.

all this was provided by yang enterprises.

yup. yang was the son of the wizard who introduced muggle electronic devices into the wizarding world, instantly boosting their family into riches and success.

the world was given to him on a silver platter, so he’s always had it easy. and unfortunately for you, the boy not only grew up snobby and privileged, but was smart too.

coming from the muggle world, you entered the wizarding world with an open mind. despite this, you hated the ravenclaw almost as soon as you met him.

his ego was high up through the roof way before he’d even been placed in the house, and he emanated a strong intimidating aura. as soon as yang saw you on that hogwarts train, he turned his nose up at you like you were dirt before you’d even spoken a word to each other.

nonetheless, you managed to work out a schedule together smoothly. but the lack of clashing heads for once put you on edge, you felt like something was just wrong.

“alright, i’ve sent a message to the group,” he said, staring at his screen.

“okay…” you trailed off, unsure what to say. “um, let’s be civil this year, yang,” you say instead, putting a hand out.

the boy looked up at you, before glancing down at your hand then laughed in disbelief. as if you had said you were going to run 100 laps around the castle.

“duh, i knew that when i got the letter. that doesn’t need to be said. are you an idiot?”

now it was you who stared at him in disbelief. there’s the yang you know.

lowering your hand, you scoffed and stormed into your room, which was luckily closer so you didn't have to spend another second looking at his pretty face.

you should have known nothing would ever change. you can’t believe you almost thought that yang had changed. of course he’d never grow up, maybe he was just made this way.

on the other hand, the return of his ugly personality brought you some comfort. it was just something you were more familiar with. you weren’t used to the driven and focused attitude he had on earlier when sorting out the schedule, and you’d prefer to keep it that way.

unpacking your bags and showering before changing into pajamas, you set an alarm for 6:30am, so you’d have time for the meeting at 7:30 and can end it before classes began at 8. you went to bed feeling prepared for tomorrow.

the next morning however, you woke up late.

the sunlight seeped in through the curtains, and after a moment, you checked your phone for the time.

8:34am

crap.

you practically jumped out of bed and began to frantically get ready, pulling on the first shirt and skirt you could grab from your closet.

why hadn’t your alarm woken you up? you set the alarm two hours earlier. had you accidentally typed 630 into the calculator app instead from a tiring day?

however, when you check your alarm clock, you saw that it had been turned off. although, you clearly remember pressing save and checking that it was on before tucking yourself into bed.

you pause as you brush your hair, your thoughts coming to a stop.

it was yang, you realised.

is this his idea of civil? you wonder what he's on as you slip on your uniform in panic.

quickly brushing your teeth, you put on your tie as you ran out the room, a chill hits you when you remembered the prefects’ meeting you were supposed to have this morning.

oh my god, they probably think i'm an irresponsible head girl. there’s no doubt the bad impression being late on your first day as head girl would leave on not only the students, but the teachers as well.

will they revoke your position? will they give the badge to another, more responsible girl? who preferably doesn’t have beef with the head boy?

you cringed at the thought you might be punished because of something entirely yang’s fault, and he’d get away with it. as he always does.

you ran down the moving stairs, almost slipping off the edge when it suddenly changed paths, towards your first class as you cursed out the head boy in your mind.

but soon enough, nervousness took over as you neared the classroom.

there was only about 15 minutes left of the period, so was it even worth it to go? and besides, yang was in this class too. you’d hate to see the gloating smirk on his face when you enter and get scolded by the professor.

before you could decide however, the door opened, revealing the very boy you’d been planning revenge on all morning.

yang didn’t look surprised to see you there, evident by the grin on his face.

he faked a shocked tone though, when he announced your presence to the professor (and the whole class).

it goes without saying that you definitely had a bad morning, being held back in class for another half hour to make up for what you missed that morning.

thankfully, you had a free period next, so you weren’t missing your next class this time.

although you hated yang jungwon with every fibre of your being, you weren’t a snitch. you wouldn’t dare expose him - mostly because it would be useless. who would really believe you, when you were already messing up so early in the year? and certainly not when it accused the school’s beloved heartthrob.

so you took your punishment on without a complaint, pointedly ignoring yang the rest of the day, who didn’t even try to hide his smile.

you sighed as you made notes on griffin claw substitutes, all alone in the potions classroom.

september and october rolled by; even though you and yang continued your little pranks and tricks on each other, you guys managed your head duties just fine. he did his work and never slacked, so you were satisfied.

you had gotten your revenge on yang by charming his wand to vibrate uncontrollably two days later. you remember barely being able to hold in your laugh as you watched him struggle to conjure a flock of birds, an explosion of feathers popping from the tip instead.

from what you heard, he also struggled in his other classes you didn’t share, which delighted you to no end.

“what are you skipping around all giddy about?” hiyyih asked you sceptically.

“just that yang seems to be struggling in herbology class, according to jang wonyoung.”

“what did you do?” rei eyed suspiciously.

“how could you accuse me of doing something?” you gasped.

“it’s pretty obvious - head boy and student #2 wouldn’t just struggle in a class he’s always done well in,” minji shrugged.

you rolled your eyes at your friends, but then smiled cheekily when you admitted how you’d snuck into his room that morning and cast a charm on his wand with a spell that would only stop after twenty-four hours.

“okay, that’s pretty funny. i’m gonna have to ask wony about it later,” rei laughed.

your phone buzzed, and upon checking it, you were surprised to see a text from the one and only yang jungwon.

Hog-Messages YANG JUNGWON (ID: 78395) professor kim wants to see us

“speak of the devil,” you tell your friends and show them your screen.

you watched as the three glanced at each other, equally surprised.

“wow, a text! from yang jungwon! and it’s not some evil curse or cryptic message!” hiyyih remarked, which you nodded to in agreement.

rei laughed. “you guys act like he’s incapable of simple communication; he’s just relaying a message.”

“sometimes rei, i think he is,” you joked.

YANG JUNGWON ID: 78395 professor kim wants to see us

KIM Y/N ID: 78384 when?

YANG JUNGWON ID: 78395 after classes today at his office

KIM Y/N ID: 78384 ofc it’s at his office, you think he’d want to meet us in the restrooms?

YANG JUNGWON ID: 78395 i hope u fall off your broom on the pitch also come un-charm my wand or something right now.

KIM Y/N ID: 78384 can’t 🤷‍♀️ sux 2 b u

"honestly, if i didn't know better, i'd think you two had a hate-love relationship," minji teased.

"ew, anything above dislike is something i will never feel for yang jungwon," you scrunched your nose in distaste. how could minji even think something like that?

"whatever," she snickered.

arriving in front of the professor’s office door, you opened it to find jungwon already inside and seated on one of the chairs opposite the teacher’s desk. you bowed in greeting before taking the other empty seat.

“so,” professor kim started. “we need to talk about your behaviour as the head students.”

you gulped. had you done something wrong? were those threats to revoke your position on the first day real?

looking over at your co-partner, his face was unreadable, as always. he looked perfectly calm, which infuriated you.

“as head boy and girl, you two are setting the standard for the rest of the school. you guys are supposed to be role models. but i’m sure you already know this.” professor kim paused and looked at both of you intently before continuing.

“so why is it i’m finding out that you two have not been doing your patrols together?”

oh. so that’s what this is about.

you and yang had completed one patrol session together on the first week of school, and it’s safe to say that it was… horrific. without going into too much detail, you guys had practically argued the whole two hours that night; although it was unlikely, if there were any couples making out or young students causing trouble, they probably heard you two from a mile away and hid before they were caught.

at the end of the night, you both agreed that you’d just swap your schedules and patrol with other prefects - possibly the only thing you two had ever agreed on.

“we weren’t aware that we had to patrol together,” you replied when the head boy was clearly not going to speak up first. what a pussy.

it was a lie; you guys obviously knew that head students were supposed to patrol together. having been prefects in previous years, you knew how things worked. it was why you had done the first patrol together after all.

but you figured that since it wasn’t a specifically given instruction, you didn’t actually have to do it together.

professor kim stared at you two incredulously for a moment, his expression somewhere between exasperation and disbelief. a pool of anxiousness swirled in your stomach at the way he sighed and pinched his nose bridge frustratedly.

“listen, i don’t know what si-hyuk was thinking when he had chosen you two as the heads, given your history and all. but he chose you. so please show that you’re worthy of the title - let go of your childish rivalry. otherwise, we may actually have to find new head students.”

“you could just let go of her, professor. i’d be able to work with any other girl,” yang finally spoke up. of course the first thing he'd say is an insult.

you gasped and glared at him.

“clearly, you’re the one who’s childish and immature here. maybe you should be the one to get replaced.”

“enough!” the teacher slammed his hands on the desk. “if you two keep this act up, we will not hesitate to replace you both.”

and so with that, you and yang left the office in uncomfortable silence. not a word was spoken between you until just before you parted ways.

“guess we’ll use the old schedule again,” he said. you nodded.

being the end of the day, you were both too tired to argue. the heavy workload that comes with NEWTS in addition to the responsibilities of your positions, you both left for your own common rooms without sparing another glance.

the dreaded patrol round came sooner than you would have liked, and you found yang waiting by the castle doors. you always seemed to be the later one, as if he’d placed a curse on you with that trick at the start of the year.

he kicked himself off the wall he’d been leaning against when he saw you, and began to walk without so much as a ‘hi’ or ‘let’s go’. you had to quickly jog to catch up to him.

the air between you two as you walked around was silent and tense, so thick that you could probably cut it with a knife.

surprisingly, yang was the first to break the silence.

“i was thinking - we should plan the first hogsmeade trip for this term.”

“mhm,” you hummed in agreement. “i think it’s best to have it after the quidditch match in november.”

“yeah, at the end of the month. and people would be able to go before the winter break.”

you fished your phone out from your pocket and opened the calendar app.

“when should we have it?"

yang leaned over your shoulder to look at your screen. “let’s have it on the twenty-seventh," he says, pointing at the date on the calendar. "it’d be good to have the week between the match and the trip free so we can prepare.”

you nodded as you listened, typing up a reminder to speak with the professors about it.

“hey!” the head boy suddenly shouted, causing you to jump. “what are you kids doing here?”

you looked up to find he had opened a classroom, in which three students in around 4th or 5th year were standing. they stared up at the pair of you with wide eyes, like a dear in headlights.

“what are you doing?” you asked, regaining your composure. looking at their ties, you realised they were in slytherin, like you.

the students glanced at each other worriedly and slowly backed away from the two of you. you noticed them hiding something behind them on the desk.

pointing your wand at the items behind them, you summoned it nonverbally, yelling ‘accio!’ in your mind. the items flew into your arms.

“you all better go back to your common room. it’s way past your curfew,” yang warned them. “20 points from slytherin.”

the group shuffled out of the room and quickly ran back to the dungeons.

“isn’t 20 too many?” you grumbled. maybe you were a little biased since they were in your house though.

ignoring you, yang sighed as he turned back to look at the contents in your hands.

“what is it?” he asked.

upon closer inspection, it seemed to be the plannings or blueprint of a large snake puppet that moved on its own, the quote ‘slytherin slays’ painted along its body.

you held back a giggle as you read the notes on how to make the snake glare and breathe flames out when faced with a ravenclaw. yang snorted as he read them as well.

“you slytherins are always so immature when it comes to quidditch matches.” you rolled your eyes and glared at him, imagining you were breathing flames like the puppet snake.

“at least we have a strong sense of support for our house. what’re you birdies doing? painting little flying banners that the players won’t be able to read on the pitch?”

“my team doesn’t need to read our house’s support. we’re good enough and know if.”

“sounds like there’s just no house spirit.”

“say that to me when your team loses,” he challenged.

“you’ll be waiting forever then,” you retorted.

“let’s place a bet. 20 galleons that ravenclaw wins.”

“fine! if we wins, i want you to pay my monthly subscription in an online game for a year."

“what?”

“i need money," you huff, crossing your arms indignantly.

“you need muggle money.”

“well, yes. but i mean, you can convert your wizarding money into muggle money, then pay for my monthly subscription in a game so i get game money.”

“that sounds useless; for a kids’ game? and you called me the childish one?” he raised a questioning eyebrow.

“i wouldn’t need to find peace in an online game if you didn’t bother me all the time, you know," you complain. "you’re like a piece of gum i can’t get off my shoe.”

“you could just cast a spell to get the gum off,” he shrugged.

“you’re right, i’ll just cast a spell on you!” you smile brightly. “stupe-“

“oh my god, okay! i’ll pay for your stupid game - if slytherin wins, which you won’t.”

you smiled to yourself, a skip in your step for the rest of the patrol.

soon, the day of the match arrived; ravenclaw against slytherin (because of course it was).

the morning of the match was lively as usual, everyone split between green and blue.

you watched the large snake float above everyone’s heads in the great hall, breathing (harmless) flames into every ravenclaw’s face.

just at that moment, you bumped into the trio of students who’d been planning the little surprise. you sent them a discreet smile.

“20 points to slytherin,” you awarded for the clever trick, but also to make up for the twenty that yang had taken.

suddenly, you screech when a flock of small origami birds flew and pecked at your hair, ruining the braid you’d put your hair in for the match.

looking up, you noticed the small paper birds flying about the hall, pecking at every slytherin-supporter. this was definitely ravenclaw’s idea; no doubt yang had gotten inspiration from the those students you two had caught.

“you good, kim?” a familiar voice greets you. you turn to see the devil himself smirking at you, pleased with the mess you are.

“i was, until you got here.”

“maybe it’s a sign that you’ll lose today.”

“maybe it’s a sign you should shut up.”

the match started without a hitch.

you scored the first 10 points of the match within 6 minutes, and by the first half hour, slytherin was ahead by 30 points.

you enjoyed the thrill of being a chaser, trying different ways to get the quarrel past the keeper. in fact, you enjoyed flying in general, and being on the pitch.

that is until, you started getting pestered by the other team’s seeker.

you noticed yang seemed to be flying around you after a few laps, and sent him a questioning look.

“what are you doing, yang?”

“looking for the snitch, it’s my job.”

“well, i’m not the snitch. so keep looking!”

“well i’m certainly looking at a similar word.”

it took time to process what he meant, but when you realised, you glared at the boy.

“focus on the game- if you keep your eyes on me, you’ll be paying for my subscription soon!”

yang scoffed and looked away, searching the pitch for the snitch, sending you a glare before zooming away.

the game ended in slytherin’s favour, your team’s seeker barely clutching the golden ball in his hands before the head boy could reach it.

cheers roared across the stadium when it ended with your team’s success, students running onto the pitch in excitement to congratulate you and the other players.

“seriously, the way you threw the quaffle into the hoop while gliding through the air - it was so smooth!” minji gushed as rei nodded in agreement.

“let’s go, there’s going to be a congratulatory party in the common room!” rei says, taking your hand to drag you.

“can i come?” asked hiyyih excitedly, who was a gryffindor.

“duh!”

you laughed as you followed your three best friends, when you caught sight of a certain person in the corner of your eye.

“wait, i have to do something real quick,” you pause to tell the girls. they stopped as well and looked at you curiously.

“what is it?”

“wait for me. i just need to talk to yang - head stuff,” you tell them off-handedly, before running off to the ravenclaw team.

“it’s definitely not about ‘head stuff’,” hiyyih nudges rei, who nods as they watch you leave.

you make your way to the losing ravenclaw team, even congratulating some of them on a good game.

when you reach your target, you tap on his shoulder to get his attention, before smiling triumphantly up at him (wow, you never realised how much taller he was than you until now).

“what is it, kim?” he drawled with an eye-roll.

“the bet. i won.” you gloated, the smile never leaving your face, widening instead when he wore a look of disbelief.

“oh, right.” he sighed before scratching the back of his head, looking around thoughtfully. “let’s sort it out tomorrow, at patrol.”

“okay! don’t back down from your end of the bet.”

“i may hate you, but i’m not a sore loser. see you tomorrow night, kim.”

“with my monthly subscription payment!” you say, waving tauntingly as you ran back to your friends.

“what did you need to talk to him about?” minji asked, putting her hand out to hold yours as you four made your way to the slytherin dungeons.

“we’re making monthly plans to help a student who needs it,” you say smugly.

“sounds like you’re twisting the truth,” rei laughed.

“but it is the truth!” you protested.

you found yourself happily scrolling through the game's catalog, looking to spend your newly-bought robux.

ever since your deal on the match, you found yourself slowly warming up to yang.

well, not to the point you’d consider each other friends, but you acknowledge each other in passing with a nod or quick wave instead of pointedly looking the other way like usual.

you also argued less, much to the relief of the entire school. however, they were still apprehensive, waiting for something to blow up eventually. it was simply too suspiciously calm and quiet without your voices yelling down the hall or in the corner of a classroom.

as the weeks went on, you two learned to get along better and better everyday, even willingly becoming partners in potions once.

sometimes, you would walk to the great hall together for lunch or dinner after a meeting. you even spent your free periods with yang, which you told your friends was because ‘they didn’t have any frees with you’ so you ‘might as well spend it productively’ with the head boy who coincidentally shared the same free periods schedule.

you did lots of stuff together, as expected of the head girl and head boy.

yet, you always avoided studying together.

others might think it’s because of your rivalry; how one might copy off the other’s or something.

sure, you laugh to yourself. let people think what they want.

but the idea of studying with yang again brings back memories of fifth year.

you didn’t tell anyone about it, not even your own friends.

at the end of the year, you’d been practically glued to the library for two months, studying for your OWLs.

“mind if i sit here?”

you turn up to see a familiar face.

“yang?”

“there’s no other free space in the library,” he rolled his eyes, making up an excuse.

looking around, you realised he was right. the only other free spots were next to students that were notoriously weirdos who everyone avoided. maybe he doesn’t want them to copy off his work, you think to yourself.

“um, okay,” you agreed hesitantly while sucking on a sugar quill, moving some of your books to make space for him. those sweets often helped you focus.

yang pulled the seat out and sat down, before beginning to study himself.

you tried to continue as you were, but had lost focus. not even the green apple-flavoured sweet in your mouth could help you concentrate.

you were hyper aware of his presence - the way he hunched over the table with his hair falling over his face. you watched him from the corner of your eye.

why had he chosen to sit with you? were there seriously no better places to go? what about his room? the astronomy tower? the little corner window by the potions classroom downstairs?

“relax. i can feel how tense you are from here.”

“does your oh-so-precious pure-wizard blood give you the ability to sense emotions like a dog?” you scoffed. he looked up sharply and gave you a serious look.

“i just want to revise for my OWLs; let’s keep our disputes outside the library, where we won’t get hexed by madame park over there.”

you rolled your eyes and kept your head down, going back to your own business.

over the course of the month, a routine slowly began wherein you would often study together in the library.

sometimes it was you joining him instead, and you would just wordlessly take the seat opposite him. even when there were other spaces to sit, you two always chose to sit together in the corner table, hidden from the rest of the school.

a word was never spoken between the two top students. and you never told your friends about the little arrangement either.

his presence quickly became something of a comfort for you - it was easier to focus on your studies when he was there. and if you ever needed help with something, he’d give you a few pointers when you finally begrudgingly asked.

he never asked you for help though, which always reminded you why he was number 2. it infuriated you how you had to work twice as hard than him just to barely surpass the boy.

whenever you heard people talking of him in passing, he was always nicknamed ‘the prodigy boy’. what were you called? ‘the girl that was good for a muggle-born’.

he was your rival, but you weren’t his. and he’s made that clear since the day you met.

and yet, despite all the resentment you held for him, you enjoyed his company. OWLs were stressing the life out of everyone, but it felt like you could get through it with him sitting across you.

maybe it’s because he motivated you to keep working harder, to try more so you could widen the gap between your ranks. seeing him everyday reminded you of why you tried so hard. maybe you wanted to show him (and everyone else) that being muggle-born doesn’t mean you’re any less than those born in this world.

at least that’s what you told yourself.

but it doesn’t explain why you began to glance at his lips every time he sat across you.

it doesn’t explain why butterflies began to flutter in your stomach when you felt the warmth of his body close to yours as he’d lean over your shoulder and point at the book when you asked for help. or why you felt giddy when you’d play with each other’s feet under the table.

until one day, he’d dropped his smart-quill on the floor, and you were quicker to kneel down from your seat to get it.

“here,” you said, handing him the quill, still on your knees on the floor.

as you faced him, you realised the close proximity only then.

you stared into his eyes that pulled you in, keeping you locked and unable to escape from his gaze. he stared right back, the quill forgotten in your hand, which now lay on his left knee.

you didn’t even realise the way he slowly leaned down until he cupped your cheek.

his touch was soft; you leaned into it.

“is this okay?” you could barely hear him whisper over the rapid beating of your heart. all you could do was nod.

your eyes fluttered shut as your lips finally connected. a mix of pretty emotions burst in your stomach, filling you with a giddiness you never knew before.

it might have been just a few seconds, or it could have been hours - you didn’t know. that first kiss was everything you ever imagined it to be.

you pulled away first, finally running out of air. but he chased after your lips, kissing you again.

the memory of your first kiss will forever be cemented in your memory. you were just two 16 year olds, softly holding onto each other in the corner of a library, hidden from the rest of the world.

you scrunch your nose at the bittersweet memory. who would’ve thought your first kiss would be with the person you hate the most in this world.

when you returned to school for sixth year that september, yang acted like nothing happened between you two.

he ignored you for the first month of school, not even bothering to taunt you like he used to. everyone had been stumped, including you, but he eventually went back to his usual tactics, albeit with a noticeable lack of ‘stupid muggleborn who can never be on our level’ comments. soon you two were back to your regular bickering as if he didn’t ignore your existence for the first month of school.

as if you hadn’t shared a kiss just three months before.

now, your developing friendship scared you. you didn’t want a repeat of last time; his actions had really hurt you back then.

you remember all the nights you spent in the library, waiting. waiting for him to come, to explain why he was acting like that. waiting for something.

thoughts ran through your mind, trying to reason why he might do this. maybe he realised he didn't feel for you the way you felt for him. maybe he went back to his room that night and wiped all the muggle germs off his face. maybe he realised he was too good for you.

you remember all the times you cried yourself to sleep, eyes puffy for weeks that even your teachers asked if you were okay. if maybe you’d eaten something bad or been cursed. that maybe you should go to the infirmary to fix it.

hiyyih, rei, and minji had no idea how to help you, because you refused to tell them what was wrong.

and you never did. it’s simply too embarrassing. explaining that you kissed your number one enemy and then he ignored you for month and acted like nothing happened between you two was humiliating. you knew your friends wouldn’t, but surely if other students found out, they’d laugh at you.

yang probably laughed with his friends about it. you were just waiting, dreading to hear the rumours of how you’re a bad kisser and how no one should ever want your muggle-born, good-for-nothing ass.

every time you walked past him and his friends, you’d walk faster and look everywhere but their direction. you imagined their snickers and smirks as they watched you run by like a pathetic loser.

the rumours never came however.

no one ever looked at you weirdly, or laughed at you. you ended sixth year with a big sigh of relief, releasing a breath you didn't realise you'd been holding the whole year.

now, you found yourself standing next to the very boy who you had spent the end of your 5th year with, walking a big group of students towards hogsmeade.

you sigh as you think about your astronomy test on monday, which you’d rather spend the weekend studying for.

unfortunately, as the heads, it’s you and yang’s duty to chaperone the students on their trip to the village.

you sigh and pull on your strap, hiking your heavy bag higher up your back. you think of the long day ahead, studying in the corner of one of the quieter cafés, freezing your toes off. it’s not preferable, but it’ll have to do.

yang watches you, eyeing your heavy bag of books.

“what the hell? don’t tell me you’re spending this trip studying.”

“alright, i won’t,” you roll your eyes at him as you two trudge behind the large crowd of students. it was 9 in the morning, and you were too tired to reply.

“wouldn’t you rather spend your time with your friends? you somehow have those,” he teased.

“well yeah,” you huff, a little irritated at his care-free attitude. “but not everyone can pass an astronomy test without needing to study like you. some of us actually have to work our butts off for good grades.”

yang stopped in his tracks, causing you to follow and look back at him questioningly.

to your surprise, he wore a serious expression, glaring forward and refusing to look at you. you must’ve struck a nerve.

“stop acting like you’re the only one in the world that has to fucking work hard,” he fumed. you’ve never seen him this mad, even in all your arguments throughout the years.

“you’re always going on about how much you have to study this, how you need to work harder than me that - blah blah blah.

“why do you always feel the need to undermine my work? always downplaying my accomplishments to ‘mere talent’. what about the tens of hundreds of hours i’ve poured into my own studies? the hours i’ve spent sat by a tutor since i was 6?”

surprised by his outburst in combination with your own irritation and jealousy, you couldn’t help but retort.

“are you serious right now? do you have to make everything about yourself?”

“oh because the world revolves around you? you are so fucking entitled!”

“me? entitled?” you laugh in disbelief. “you’re talking about how i undermine and downplay your work, when you’ve always been the one to yell out to the whole world how i’m a ‘stupid, pathetic muggleborn who’s lacking and can never fit in this world’!” students were beginning to notice your argument and were looking behind as they walked at you two now.

“so that’s what this is about? some shit i said two years ago?” he scoffed.

“some shit you threw at me for 5 years!” you throw your hands up in frustration.

“well maybe you’re proving me right with all your talk about just how much you need to study because you’ll 'never have it as easy as us'!” he yelled right back, mocking you. “you don’t know a thing about me.”

you stared at him, panting heavily. everyone’s attention was now on you two, people watching instead of walking.

“kim y/n! yang jungwon!” you hear the booming voice of professor kim shout over the crowd.

he stormed to you two, face red and veins popping out his neck.

“this behaviour is incredibly inappropriate of role model students! you two are supposed to be guiding the students towards the village, is that such a difficult task?” he scolded you and yang in exasperation.

“could you at least keep your feud behind closed doors? it’s incredibly selfish to ruin everyone’s day with your constant fights!”

you looked down ashamedly as your friends took this as their sign to finally drag you from your spot. jungwon’s friend, nishimura riki from 5th year copied their actions.

professor kim looked at the crowd which had now completely stopped to watch the show.

“keep moving kids!” he sighed, shaking his head in disappointment.

“park gunwook,” he called. the gryffindor jogged towards the teacher. “pham hanni.” the hufflepuff followed. “you two will take over the role of chaperoning the students, since our head students are clearly unsuitable for the job,” he instructed, throwing you a dirty look.

the two 6th year prefects nodded and began to walk behind everyone, feeling a little awkward at being put on the spot.

you glared at yang one more time, but was met with a different expression instead.

yang met your stare with concern written on his face, as his tall friend dragged him away. it confused you; just a moment ago, he’d been furious with you, and now he looked worried? what was he worried about? what’s with the switch up?

you couldn’t ponder on it any longer, what with your own friends shuffling you away from the crime scene.

the rest of the day was spent tucked away in a little corner of a small café you found, one people didn’t go to as much.

the girls had tried to convince you to join them on their fun, but let you go when you told them you had star charts to memorise for your upcoming test. they seemed hesitant, but after witnessing your recent fight with the head boy, they reluctantly allowed you to go off on your own with promises of saving you a butterbeer.

you busied yourself with your books, not wanting to think about the weird events this morning. from your first disagreement in a while, to yang’s mood swing - it was better to spend your thoughts on what was more important.

eventually, you woke up in the late afternoon, only realising then that you had fallen asleep. the rays of light from the sunset seeped through the window, waking you up with its blinding brightness.

how long had you fallen asleep? you could have been revising in the time you dozed off. astronomy was your weakest subject, so you really needed that precious time.

you groan in frustration, sighing as you sit up to straighten your back. but something falls off your shoulders as you do.

you look behind you and realise it was a jacket, which had been left on your shoulders by someone. but who?

bewildered, you pick up the jacket (which had an oddly familiar scent to it) and turn back to your table of books. but before you can return to your studies, something catches your eye.

there, on top of a pile of textbooks, lay a green sugarquill.

had my friends stopped by while i slept?

it didn’t particularly make sense though, since you agreed to meet up with them later tonight when you headed back to the castle.

you picked it up, then noticed the note it had been sitting on.

sorry, i shouldn’t have said any of that earlier. found you sleeping, don’t beat yourself up. you can do this. i remember sugarquills help you focus, right? don’t worry, it’s not poisoned or anything… goodluck on monday.

your heart squeezed painfully. his short message spoke volumes.

yang jungwon wasn’t one to apologise, seeing as he either never felt bad, or never really did anything wrong (in the eyes of everyone else).

you felt guilty too, seeing as it was your fault as well. you made a mental note to apologise to him in person later.

secondly, this was the first time he ever acknowledged the time you spent together in 5th year. it surprised you, because at this point you wondered if he had forgotten about it, or if it was all some sick dream you had.

heat rushed to your face and you had to put considerable effort into keeping your composure and not kick your feet and screaming right then and there. somehow, he’d remembered such a small detail about the sweet he left for you.

maybe the whole 5th year incident affected him more than he let on. maybe there really was something that happened between you guys.

or maybe you’re just being hopeful again.

one thing you’re sure about though, is that yang jungwon is most certainly crazy.

“welcome back everyone!” you greeted.

it’s the first prefect meeting of the term, everyone who left for the winter break having just returned two days prior.

“we have quite a bit to discuss today,” you started, before looking at jungwon to continue.

“let’s start with the more interesting news first.” he paused, looking at everyone before going on.

“me and the head girl have been planning something this winter, and with the approval of the headmaster, we can finally reveal it to you: the spring ball.”

you watched proudly as the prefects began whispering amongst themselves excitedly. you were so hyped up to be able to plan and make the event come to life.

“we wanted to give the students something more exciting to look forward to. you know- before OWLs and NEWTs completely take over our lives,” you joke, pulling chuckles out of everyone in the room.

“the idea is a formal, floral-themed event that’ll take place in the great hall. it’s only for 5th years and up, but younger years may attend if invited as a date.”

“since you guys are prefects, we’re asking for your help setting up the event. let’s talk ideas for decoration,” you say, pulling out your tablet to take notes.

as you wrote down the prefects’ thoughts and input, you were already drafting a schedule in your mind for preparations. that was until, you felt someone lean over your shoulder.

forcing yourself to keep writing, you tried to ignore the way your shoulder brushed against yang’s chest. one hand holding onto the backrest of your chair whilst the other lay on the table, next to your arm as you wrote on autopilot, your mind circuiting at the proximity. straightening your back in an attempt to compose yourself, you only push yourself against the boy more.

you were sure your face was as red as a tomato. your heart was beating so hard you were scared jungwon could hear it.

judging by the way he huffed in amusement, he probably realised the effect he had on you.

“focus, kim,” he whispered so only you could hear, leaning lower to your level. you could imagine the smirk on his face.

“i am,” you tried to say with as much nonchalance as you could.

honestly, the moment was really reminding you of all those times he’d helped in the library. deja vu was really hitting you hard right now.

the rest of the meeting went smoothly - at least, as smooth as it could be with yang constantly flustering you as he subtly kept grazing your skin.

now that you think about it, jungwon’s been acting strange lately. more… bold? that’s the best way you could explain it.

you don’t know how it happened, but ever since the hogsmeade trip, you two got closer. after you apologised to him, the incident in question was never spoken of again, never referred to. but it’s clear something shifted in your relationship with the head boy.

gradually, he began to fill up your everyday life, seeing him more often in the day than you used to.

in the mornings, you’d bump into each other in the common room after getting ready, and go down to the great hall for breakfast together. or, if one of you seemed to be running late after breakfast, you’d make sure to save some food and leave it in the common room for the other.

in the day, you two shared free periods, and so spent it lounging in the common room, simply doing work at the coffee table or reading a book on the couch. music would play in the background as you two sat in comfortable silence, basking in each other’s company.

in the evenings, you might come back from a late class to find him napping on the couch. so you’d shake him awake with a “jungwon, let’s go get dinner.”

you could be studying in the library corner of your shared living space, and he’d always remind you to eat. even when it was past any meal time, he’d drag you off the chair for a trip to the kitchens, where he’d get a house elf to make you two a snack. he often asked for eclairs, noticing it was your favourite.

but yang jungwon didn’t just take up your daily activities, he was always on your mind too.

thoughts of how he wouldn’t like the cold dim lights of the slytherin common room, or seeing students that he’s told you he isn’t particularly fond of floated in your mind when you visited your friends.

you even found yourself comparing him to characters in whatever series you absorbed yourself in. you seriously couldn’t stop thinking about him.

the fights stopped completely, but you two continued your flirting friendly banter all the time.

once, you managed to find time in your busy schedule to sit down and watch barbie movies. jungwon (when did you even start calling him that?) had walked in to the common room to find his bag which he had left there, only to see you huddled up in a blanket while watching barbie as the island princess magically projected onto the wall.

“what’s this?” he’d asked.

“muggle movies from my childhood. this girl here grew up on the island when one day, she was found by a prince who was intrigued by her, and brought her back to the city, where she finally learns who she really is,” you explained while keeping your eyes trained on the projection.

“and who is she really?”

“why don’t you sit down and watch, kitty?” you’d always called him by that nickname during your petty fights, since his face reminded you of a cute cat. now though, it became more of an endearing nickname for the boy.

“i have to write 10 inches on the use of the lumos solem spell by tuesday.”

“that’s 5 days away! come on, don’t you wanna know? it’s really good, i promise. we can watch from the start, and i’ll help you with that charms essay, since professor song assigned it to us to, and i already got started on it,” you asked, twisting to face him with the best pleading look you could muster.

“fine, but only because you begged," he relented with a playful smile.

so that’s how you ended up binging barbie movies into the wee hours of the morning, sharing a blanket with your proclaimed enemy on the sofa.

“you honestly look more like serafina,” you tease him.

“what? but she’s a girl! wouldn’t wolfie be a better fit?”

“but serafina has more cat-like eyes! you guys have similar eyes.”

“are you serious right now? they’re both cats!” he gestures to the movie, paused at the last scene.

“but you really look like her!” you insist, using both hands to point at each corner of his eyes, shifting closer to him. “they’re upturned.”

“didn’t realise you knew that about me, babe.” he wrapped his own hands around your wrists, as they hovered above his face. “if i’m serafina, you must be wolfie.”

“why? because we’re partners in crime?” you snorted at his suggestion. “they get married at the end and have a bunch of little kitties too. you want that?”

“if that’s what you’d like,” he shrugged, his lips pulling into a downwards smile.

you stared at him incredulously, heartbeat suddenly pounding as you looked into the growing smug look on his face. his eyes that managed to shine even in the dark never failed to root you on the spot, unable to look away.

what were you feeling? you've looked at jungwon so many times over the past 5 years, but the boy's gaze never made you feel like this way before. like you were floating on air; like you could do anything with him by your side, looking at you like that.

in fact, thinking back to all your years of knowing him, it's funny how much things have changed in the past several months.

you actually giggle a bit, sitting back, further from his warmth. you immediately miss the soft touch of his fingers around your wrists.

"what are you laughing about?" he asks, but he's laughing too.

"you. me; us."

"are we comedians now or something?"

"no, but we're definitely clowns of the circus." jungwon grinned at your statement, an amused huff escaping his lips.

"penny for your thoughts?"

"i was just thinking... how did we go from having wars in the middle of DADA in 3rd year, to watching muggle barbie movies at 2am on a saturday?" you think out loud.

"when you put it like that... we do sound like the comedy act of a show," he admits, scratching the back of his neck.

"at least i do."

"what do you mean?" you ask, shifting your position on the couch to sit up. you move your cold feet so they rest between jungwon's ankles, soaking in their warmth.

"our little feud - you know, the fights, the hexes, all that. it was all because of me."

"what? no it wasn't - i instigated a lot of them too," you say, trying to reassure him. was he feeling guilty and blaming himself?

"but, it was! honestly, if it wasn't for my stupid shallow thinking, we might've been friends way earlier." you looked at him patiently, nodding for him to continue.

"i used to think that muggle-borns were stupid and would fall behind in everything - school, work, just because you had no idea of how our world worked. honestly, i pitied and felt sorry for you guys, because i thought you could never be on our level. i know now how ignorant i was, obviously," he scoffed at himself.

"so when i met you, i thought you were an idiot. you are, don't get me wrong-" he teased you, causing you to roll your eyes, although smiling lightly. "but even though you're muggle-born, you always managed to do better than me.

"you were constantly the best student in our year- no, our school. you were faster at understanding concepts than i was, immediately getting things right on the first try. hell, even when i would go flying on the pitch to relieve my stress and then got recruited into the ravenclaw team in third year, i finally thought i was better than you at something. and then you joined your team in 4th, and was called the 'ace' of slytherin. what a blow all of that to was to my ego."

"i joined the team to annoy you," you shyly admit. "but why did you even think that in the first place?" you asked, not angry. you wanted to hear him out and finally get answers to questions you've asked yourself for so many years. you wanted to understand, and know the boy in front of you.

"well, you know that my father's company is successful. so growing up, i was given the best. my parents hired the best tutors for me, so i'd be ahead of everyone else when i started hogwarts. my teachers said i was their best student, my parents showed me off to their friends as their 'pride and joy' or something dumb like that. other parents compared their kids to me, i was that kid.

"i knew i was privileged though - that i had money and could afford to have this good education. so i made the best of it and constantly told myself that others would be lucky to have my life, so i wanted to prove i was worthy of it by working hard and pushing myself all my life.

"but with that, i developed the mindset that people who don't have money like i do can't have as much knowledge as me since they don't have access to it - and that included muggle-borns. you had zero knowledge of this world, which works incredibly different to yours. we have different moral compasses; notions of common sense; understanding of how things worked.

"so imagine how surprised i was to find that you were doing better than me in school. me, who had sat beside a tutor since i was 6, who was learning OWL content at 12. all this only for a girl who didn't even know magic existed until a month before to top me in school.

"that's why i was always angry; i was angry with my tutors for not teaching me better; at you for being better. but most especially at myself. for deluding myself into thinking that way." you two were silent for a moment.

"what changed?" you asked.

jungwon breathed in, preparing himself.

"5th year. i was finally learning to respect you, so when i walked into the library that was full of students, you seemed like the best option to sit next to."

"really? still hadn't gotten over that 'i'm better than everyone blah blah blah' attitude?" you asked, smugly tilting your head to the side.

"shush," he hid his face. "but... i got to learn how hard you really worked back then. i used to think you just had some gift for learning. but watching you with your head down for hours, i felt like i was discrediting all that with something like 'innate talent'.

"i went back home that summer confused and having a mid-life crisis at 16. my dad talked to me though, knocked some sense into me.

"he said that just because muggles don't know magic, doesn't mean they can't do anything. i mean, the whole idea of smart devices that our company is literally known for was taken from muggles! without you guys, we wouldn't have that in our world either. you created it, we just used magic to expand it.

"i was pretty shaken up after that, and was in a daze when 6th year started. it took me a while to sort my thoughts out and gather myself."

it was silent for a while, now nearing 3am.

jungwon just spilled out his guts to you, in the dim atmosphere of your common room. now you were the one collecting your thoughts.

"i'm sorry too."

"what? you never did anyth-"

"but i basically did the same thing as you. you studied for years and years, and i just always thought you were also naturally smart; that you never needed to study like i did because you already knew it all."

silence enveloped the two of you once again.

"...so i guess we're more similar than we thought, huh?" he smiled softly at you. you felt like you were floating again.

"i guess so."

jungwon unfolded his legs and opened his arms out as a gesture, which you gladly accepted and fell into his embrace.

"so, are we good now?" you asked.

"hmm, i still feel like you owe me something for all those years of endless anger and feeling like shit."

"you mean for enlightening you that we stupid muggles aren't so stupid?" you asked, face still buried in his chest, your voice muffled against his sweatshirt. "shouldn't you owe me? for teaching you a lesson?"

"but i want something," he pouted, pulling on your wrist.

"what is it? as long as its affordable."

"is going to the spring ball with me affordable?"

you turn your head to look up at him, who's looking down at you with shy eyes, waiting for your answer.

"i don't know... how much does it cost?" you play along. you already know your answer anyway.

"it'll cost you about..." he pulled out the calculator app on his phone, pretending to add up a total. "one kiss."

you laughed at him, finally pulling away from his arms.

"was that at the end of 5th year not enough?"

"no," he pouted, eyebrows knitted. so cute, you thought.

"alright then, but is it okay if i pay you that hefty price later at the ball?" jungwon sighed dramatically, crossing his arms and rolling his eyes.

"i guess... but the price might increase to 10."

"that's okay, i'll give you as many as you want, as long as the first one is special."

"i didn't know you were sentimental like that," he smirked at you, kissing your cheek. you shrugged nonchalantly, smiling at him.

"i didn't know you were so needy for kisses like that."

"touché," he laughed, dragging you in for another hug, cuddling you until you both fell asleep in each other's arms.

since that night, you and jungwon gradually learned to be comfortable each other. and with the ball preparations, there was lots of opportunities to do so.

you realised that - without the hostility between you two, it was much easier to find compromises when you disagreed on something. jungwon did things differently from you, but listened to your thoughts and offered his too.

as the weeks went on, you found yourself looking forward to meetings with him, missing his presence when he wasn’t with you.

something in the way he’d nudge you lightly when you were worried about something, wrap his arm around you and squeeze your shoulder, or simply smile at you brightly with those cat-like eyes of his - they were all comforting.

the change in atmosphere didn’t go unnoticed by your friends either.

"what was that??" rei interrogated you when jungwon pulled you aside for the nth time this week.

"oh, he just wanted to talk about putting up decor later," you answer nonchalantly, taking a bite out of your toast.

"he has the same conversation with you practically every day," minji rolled her eyes.

"yeah, and i'm more surprised that you don't come ranting to us about every interaction you two have," hiyyih agrees, eyeing you suspiciously.

"well, i just grew up and matured," you try to defend yourself.

"if growing up and maturing means developing a crush, then yeah. you sure did." rei pauses before continuing. "is there something you aren't telling us?"

technically, yes. you weren't telling them about the development between you and jungwon - at least not yet. but you didn't exactly have a crush on the boy, in the sense that it was a one-sided thing and you were too shy to confess. but you didn't really want to tell them what was going on between you two, because you didn't know yourself.

were you and jungwon friends(-ish)? yes. but were you dating? no, definitely not. there's no doubt though that your strange, blurry, undefined relationship will develop soon enough, and you'd rather wait until everything's clear before telling your friends.

"she's not saying anything - something is definitely up!" hiyyih gasped excitedly, causing rei and minji to giggle, and you to shake your head.

you had noticed that jungwon seemed to always find reasons to talk to you, even if it's little things you've already discussed before, or silly simple questions like 'how's your day going?' or 'what barbie movie are we watching tonight?'

yeah, you two often found yourselves watching barbie movies late into a friday night.

you also ended up cuddling on the couch almost every evening after a long day of duties, particularly on patrol nights. after your rounds, you two would head back up to the head dormitories, where you'd flop onto the couch, and he'd jump onto you soon after.

the others would go crazy if they ever found out, you laugh to yourself.

the next day would be the night of the ball, so you were pretty wrapped up in helping out throughout the day.

"everything's set up," haerin, a 5th year gryffindor prefect told you.

"it looks really good," you tell her, looking at the great hall. it looked great now, and you were excited for how it would turn out in the dark of the night later.

"did you manage to complete the spell?" she asked curiously.

"i did, but i'm only 89.7% sure it'll work," you say, biting your lip. you hated not being completely sure about something, like an answer, or in this case - a self-made spell.

you turn when you hear a laugh behind you.

"i like how you have a specific percentage even when it comes to feelings," jungwon says through a grin. "your brain works weirdly"

"whatever, kitty," you roll your eyes light heartedly at him.

facing the great hall again, you take a deep breath as you cast the spell on the great hall, chanting the incantation as you wave your wand.

in a moment, the hall was filled with falling petals of different colours, though they didn't litter the ground messily, simply disappearing when they reached the ground. vines reached out from between the tiled floor, wrapping around table legs and growing bright vibrant flowers of their own. small orbs of light flickered throughout the ceiling, like fairies illuminating the scene.

"wow, it looks amazing, y/n!" one of the professors helping around praised.

"it really does," jungwon says, snaking his arm around your waist, his hand clinging onto your side snuggly.

"thank you," you mumble, as you both look up at the pretty scene in front of you.

soon, night falls and you're running down the staircase with your friends, holding up the ends of your dress to avoid stepping on it.

"careful y/n! or you might trip!" you hear hiyyih call out from behind you.

"she's just excited to see her prince charming," minji laughs, but the three of them are also running, holding up their own dresses.

the doors of the great hall open, revealing the breathtakingly decorated room, some guests already having arrived at the scene.

"wow, this is amazing..." rei gasped, enchanted by the way coloured lights perfectly illuminate the hanging wisteria flowers, and butterflies fluttering throughout the room.

"you seriously outdid yourself. how did you even do this?" hiyyih asked.

"only y/n could make a spell as complicated as this," jungwon's voice says, announcing his presence. "you look good, by the way," he adds when you look at him.

a quick one-over of his look tonight does not do him justice. so you find yourself staring unashamedly at his figure.

the way his waistcoat hugs his figure emphasises his broad shoulders, something you didn't even realise you found attractive until you saw it on him. a red tie lazily tucked into the waistcoat plus the rolled-up sleeves - it all made your mind go haywire.

"you would know, having been subjected to all the spells she's made over the years," hiyyih laughs at the memory.

"didn't know you spent so much time thinking about me, kim," he goaded.

"oh trust me, she def-" you cut rei off by covering her mouth with your gloved hand.

"thanks, jungwon," you say quickly, giving him a smile and pushing your friends away.

"he was flirting with you!" rei loudly whispers into your ear.

"and what do you want me to do about it!" you say, making sure your friends couldn't see the deep blush on your face.

"flirt back!" minji huffs out exasperatedly. "i'm sick and tired of whatever has been going on between you two for years!"

"yes, please just end it tonight! whether you get together or never talk about it again," rei rolls her eyes.

"what?" you stop, looking at them.

"rei's right, although i'd prefer for you to finally get together."

"wait wait wait, what do you mean?"

"are you being for real right now? you two have clearly had a thing for each other this whole time!" rei says like it was obvious. "we've known it for years."

"go get your man!" hiyyih sighs, turning you by your shoulders and pushing you away this time.

you try not to dwell on the thought of your friends betting on your relationship with jungwon, and pretend you never heard a word come out of their mouths.

soon, the headmaster calls for everyone's attention.

"welcome students!" his voice echoes throughout the hall, the music quietening for his speech. "first and foremost, i want to thank this year's head girl and boy for organising such an event for us. give it up for kim y/n and yang jungwon!" he shouts, a spot light highlighting your two figures in the room. you quickly turn to look at jungwon, who looks back at you with a smile, as everyone claps loudly, some even whistling supportively.

"and with that, may the spring ball begin - with the spring dance, kicking off with the head boy and girl leading the first dance," professor si-hyuk ends his speech.

everyone cheers and makes way for you two on the dance floor, which magically raises up in the middle of the hall.

music begins to play as you face the head boy, who inches closer to you every second.

time slows as he places his hand on your hips, guiding your hand to his shoulders. all other noise is drowned out by the sound of your heart, pounding so hard it might come out your chest. you don't see anyone but yang jungwon.

and he's looking at you like he sees no one else but you either.

it's crazy, how you're here, dancing, in the arms of the person who you've hated since 1st year - who motivated you to work hard during all these years.

you think back to your first meeting with him.

you could imagine the sparkles in your eyes as you stare at everything in awe, still in disbelief.

last month, a weirdly-dressed person knocked at your front door, and told your parents that you were a witch.

of course, you hadn't believed her at first, until she pointed her wand at a decorative figurine and made it float upside down. you and your family had been absolutely floored and confused. how could something like that even happen?

last month, the weirdly-dressed lady described to you a world that sounded fictional, of magic and creatures you could never even imagine. she explained why you had all these weird happenings growing up, things that were simply unexplainable.

your world was turned upside down in a few moments, and now you were here, on a train, to a magical school.

of course, you were incredibly sad to be away from your family for the first time in your life, but you were assured that you still had many ways to connect with them. and so, you set off into a new world completely alone, but with a lot of excitement.

you walked around the compartments as the train set off, peering and saying hi to other students.

until, you bumped into a boy who had the prettiest eyes you've ever seen, and the cutest little dimple that had 11-year old you's heart melting.

"be careful and look where you're going," he says nonchalantly.

"i'm so sorry! i was just so excited - i mean, aren't you? could you ever believe magic exists? i won't until i try it for myself!" you ramble enthusiastically.

you trail off when you see him looking at you with a mix of pity and boredom.

"oh, so you're a muggle-born, huh?"

"what do you mean?" you ask confusedly.

"well, whatever you think, i'm not like you. i already know what you just learned, and i already know what you still have to learn," he shrugs, picking at his nails like he ha better things to do than talk to you. "sorry, i think you're going to struggle a little bit here," he simply says, and leaves you alone in the middle of the train corridor.

what the hell? you ask yourself.

snobby rich kids isn't something you thought you'd experience in the wizarding world, but i guess somethings are just universal, huh?

something about the way he looked at you; talked to you like you were below him though - it bugged you.

"i'm gonna struggle?" you ask yourself in disbelief. absolutely not, you didn't want him to be right. you'll make sure of it.

and so, you ran back to your own compartment and pulled out your books, making a resolution to study everything and make sure you knew all the content. you wanted to show whoever that kid is that he's wrong, that you're better than him.

and so, the rest of the long ride and even your first night was spent catching up on what you missed out on, making sure you were prepared for whatever this extraordinary world would throw at you.

and most especially, preparing for whatever trouble the boy, who's name you learned was yang jungwon would give you.

gradually, more people join the dance, but you're so entranced by the boy in your arms, you don't notice how he's whisked you away from the main dance floor.

now towards the side of the room, away from all attention, jungwon looks down at you with all the love in his eyes.

it's overwhelming, you can't escape your emotions anymore. you like jungwon, possibly even more. you feel like all these feelings are about to burst out of you, and jungwon's arms are the only thing keeping you together.

"y/n, i think you still owe me something," he whispered, his face dangerously close to yours.

"and what would that be?" you naturally retort, having developed the instinct to talk back when it came to him.

"don't play with me, please let me kiss you."

"i don't think so." you pause teasingly, trying not to giggle at his pout, his dimple coming out. "let me kiss you," you say, finally leaning in, sealing your lips.

it felt just like the one back in 5th year, but better. jungwon held you impossibly closer by the waist, as if fearing you would run away. but you won't, and you never will. because in his arms, you never felt as safe and comfortable in your own skin as you did then.

you finally part for air, but jungwon's eyes never strayed from your face.

"i lied earlier by the way, when i said you looked good." you raise your eyebrows at him questioningly, before he smiles cheekily at you. "you look like the stars that put me to sleep every night."

"i didn't know you were poetic like that," you laughed lightly, leaning your forehead on his chest. "you look like my boyfriend."

"that's because i am," he says pulling you in for another kiss.

you don't think you'll ever get tired of kissing him. it's an unforgettable moment, and an unforgettable night.

you never knew you were missing something until you met jungwon, and you think you can finally breathe with him next to you (and your friends passing riki 20 galleons each two tables away).

; author's corner! hii this was inspired by all the jily fics i've read over the years (whew i didn't even realise how long i've been reading fanfiction...) LMAO anyways may irls never find out this acc belongs to me bc my realistic self barfed at what i just wrote but my delulu self was kicking and giggling while editing but i hope you enjoyed!

; taglist @wonuslust @enhacatalog @makiswrld @forjungwons @yebin14 @lovelovelovebts @amanda-archives @beomgyusonlywife @bbinwrld@em-asian @enhamysunshines @ahnneyong @jungwonscafe bold couldn't be tagged!

#·˚ ༘₊· ͟͟͞͞꒰➳ mi's works #k-labels #yang jungwon #jungwon #jungwon x reader #yang jungwon x reader #jungwon angst #jungwon fluff #enhypen x reader #jungwon imagines #jungwon oneshots #jungwon ff #jungwon hogwarts au #enhypen fic #hogwarts au #enhypen #enhypen jungwon #ੈ♡˳ - in my head

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