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clowningaroundmars · 5 months ago

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Hobie1610 pt. 3

part 3 has finally arrived!!! at a faster rate than part 2 but a bit of a wait nonetheless lol

not entirely sure how long this lil story will go on for but hope y'all are enjoying this ride regardless, whether it ends on the next part or in 3 more chapters ldfjkdhf

in this installment: thrilling action, a high stakes chase, and we get to learn more abt our beloved hobie jones! yippee!

>pt. 1 here<

>pt. 2 here<

>pt. 4 here<

♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧

By some miracle, Hobie did not mention the suit to Miles once they started texting semi-regularly.

Unfortunately, they also couldn't really make their lunch date (date? God, get it together, Morales. It is not a date…) as soon as Miles would have liked, due to a million different things getting in the way of them setting a solid day aside to chill together.

Just his luck, of course.

But in the hallways, Hobie actually deigned to give Miles a passing smile every now and then. They didn’t ever get to hang out like they did for those precious few moments on the first day of school, but Miles didn’t feel the crushing weight of guilt every time he saw Hobie in his same classroom anymore. What a relief!

So Miles was mostly okay with how things were going anyhow, even if the hangout ended up falling through and they both decided not to go in the end. He was able to patrol and do his homework in blissful peace for the first time in months.

… Kind of.

That look on Hobie’s handsome face as he looked down past Miles’ coat collar though…

That still ate away at an anxious part of Miles’ brain whenever he had the time to sit down and really let his worries manifest.

No time to think about that now, though. Miles was suited up again on a school night, hoping to get at least an hour’s worth of patrolling in before security at Visions noticed he was absent from his dorm room. He hoped Ganke would be able to cover for him like he always did.

It was yet another cold evening out in New York City, and Miles was steadily covering the edges of Brooklyn, heading towards Manhattan to do a quick sweep through Central Park like he did on occasion. There was always something going on in Manhattan, especially during the evening.

Miles decided it wouldn’t hurt to take a quick peek before calling it a night and heading back to Visions.

So away he went-- now fully in his Spiderman element-- vaulting and soaring over buildings, showing off every now and then by doing silly flips and tricks mid-air for the opportunistic New Yorkers looking to snap their Spiderman Sighting of the day. A little social media promo never hurt anyone, after all…

Spiderman finally swung down onto a tree branch on the western side of the park from a street lamp and was just about to lower himself down as inconspicuously as he could, before immediately feeling the tingling electricity of his Spider Senses race up and down his spine, giving him the usual headache along with it.

He crouched down quietly on a branch and watched as a familiar lanky figure streaked across the path underneath him onto the grass and beyond.

Whoever this runner was, he was fast. And hot on his trail was a gang of burly bumbling assholes cursing up a blue streak as they gave chase.

Spiderman’s eyes stayed glued to the fast runner like they were a lifeline. His senses honed in on the person and he erupted out of the leaves of the tree with one mighty leap, sailing through the air to shoot a web out and swing his way on over to the excitement.

Several joggers, people walking dogs after work, and mothers with baby carriages exclaimed and shouted as they were barreled into by the gang of men trying to keep up with their moving target. The runner didn’t seem to be giving up, though, as their long legs sent them flying over bushes and rocks and lounging people as gracefully as a ribbon in the air.

It was indeed getting dark soon again, but the darkness didn’t really affect Spiderman’s senses at all. His mask helped him fine-tune his powerful vision and anticipate the runner’s next moves.

It looked as though they were trying to make their way up towards the Great Lawn from Cedar Hill, but whether the person was planning to make a break for the now-empty Delacorte Theatre or the Metropolitan Museum Of Art… or beyond? That was the million dollar question.

Spiderman didn’t want to lose the person in case they happened to just be a petty thief, since that would be a quick and easy problem to fix. But as he silently chased down the runner alongside (and unbeknownst) to the gang, his suspicions gave way to some other... ideas.

Namely, that the runner seemed young, a bit too young for someone to be pissing off this many fully-grown gang members.

He pushed through his confusion and made a break for the theatre the second he guessed that the runner was pivoting in that direction.

The trees were getting thicker the closer they got to the Belvedere Castle and Spiderman eventually resorted himself to hoofing it, mindful of sticking to the shadows of the foliage that surrounded them on all sides.

He was super grateful now more than ever that his suit happened to be his signature sleek black and red, rather than the tacky and hyper-visible reds and blues of many of his Spider counterparts (sorry Peter!)

Once he confirmed that the suspicious target was indeed planning on hiding in the bleachers of the massive amphitheatre, he shot up a web to hoist himself into the infrastructure from the tall stadium lights. From there, he positioned himself a bit closer to the fray, hearing the loud and heavy boots of the gang following the runner, not far behind.

Then, he squinted into the dusk as he watched one of the entrances from his perch up high... and almost choked on his own saliva!

In comes none other than Hobie Motherfucking Jones, streaking down several steps like a shooting star, clutching onto… something tucked under one of his arms. He was breathless, panting loudly, and heading straight for the Belvedere Lake.

Upon hearing the heavy bootfalls get ever closer with every passing second, it seemed that Hobie got the idea to attempt a last-minute juke by throwing himself underneath the stairs that faced the lake, tucking himself as tightly as he could under the massive stage at the center.

Spiderman watched all of this happening with wide eyes, holding his own breath in. He prayed that the ugly thugs didn’t see Hobie’s sneaky last-second move, but climbed up high onto the stadium lights and prepared to swing down anyhow, just in case.

What was Hobie even doing here, out at this hour? And what the hell did he manage to steal that was so important to these men anyways? It was quite a chase they were caught up in, running nearly two entire miles all the way up to the amphitheatre just to catch him, and that was only from what he could see when he swung into action.

The group split up and pulled out flashlights, determinedly searching the bleachers and corners as best they could while the sky rapidly darkened above them.

From right below the webbed crime-fighter, Hobie poked his head out from the shadows and took a peek.

No, no, duck back down! Spiderman wanted to shout, but he couldn’t.

No one knew he had followed them and he was safe high above the action where he balanced himself on the metal bars that housed the bulbs. His muscles tensed as the bright beam of light from one guy’s flashlight swept a little too close to Hobie’s head. Damnit.

Spiderman couldn’t just sit there all day! He had a friend to save, stolen item be damned!

He rechecked his web shooters furtively and took aim.

He set his sights on another stadium light pole across from the stage, figuring that if he was quick and agile enough, he could time his swing well enough to scoop Hobie up from where he was hidden and avoid any detection. Hopefully.

Seemed like a solid enough plan though, until Hobie just. Shot out from his hiding place all of a sudden, the heels of his boots rapping loudly against the cement and echoing all around the stage as he made a beeline for the lakefront.

Shit!!!

Miles wanted to kill him. Those guys didn’t even suspect he was hiding where we was in the first place!

... Okay, plan B!

Spiderman’s brain whirred at breakneck speeds as he watched the thugs exclaim loudly and give chase yet again, this time much closer to Hobie than they ever were before.

Without thinking, he swung down from his perch and bowled over a couple of men in his haste to simply just… grab Hobie like a damsel in distress and fireman-carry him back around the gang to get a good line of web onto a nearby pole.

The men all cursed and shouted in surprise of course, flashlight beams waving around everywhere.

One of them even yelled, “what the hell was that?!” like a character in one of his dad’s favorite cheesy slasher movies.

Spiderman was too fast for them, a black blur simply whizzing by as he grabbed Hobie and hoisted the both of them up into the air with a mighty leap. Hobie yelped in surprise, grunting from the effort, and seemed to let whatever he stole slip out of his hands which then clattered loudly onto the ground below.

The thugs rejoiced then, shaking fists at Hobie and his rescuer as they flew up to the top of a tree and detached themselves so they could fall onto the stadium light opposite from Spiderman’s initial hiding spot.

Spiderman didn’t stop until he attached another web up to the lights and dangled there for a bit. Adrenaline still coursed through his veins as he shifted Hobie off of his shoulders and let him slide slowly onto his side, his friend’s wiry arms clutching him tightly.

They both watched with rapt attention at the goings-on several feet below them.

The thugs congregated around the fallen item, picking it up and turning it this way and that. It looked like a briefcase, though with the low lighting it really could’ve been anything. It was only when one of them-- the biggest and burliest of them all-- shouted out another colorful swear word that Hobie then seemed to come back to himself again.

He squeezed Spiderman’s shoulders with his arms and kicked at him. They swung a bit from the wiggling.

“Ouch!” Spiderman hissed, as quietly as he could. He was hoping the dark dusk would conceal their position now as long as they made No Noises, but even that wasn’t guaranteed.

“Go, go, go, go, man! Let’s get out of here!!” Hobie hissed right back into his ear, his face mere centimeters away from Spiderman’s mask.

Spiderman stubbornly ignored the heat radiating out from his face at that realization and jerked this way and that, looking for an easy escape from their conundrum.

Flashlight beams danced around the ground before finally swinging up to the trees and catching sight of a pair of shoes dangling in the sky.

The biggest and meanest one of the bunch pulled something out of his pocket and took aim.

Bullet! Spiderman’s senses screamed into his cerebellum.

“Goddamn,” he huffed ruefully as the shots rang out. Hobie panicked. “Bullets for us? That’s a little harsh, isn’t it?”

Hobie clung onto his hero for dear life. “Brother, if you do not get a move on from here, we are both gonna get turned into fish filets!” He shouted into Spiderman’s ear.

“Ow. Okay,” Spiderman grumbled, sticking himself to the side of the pole they dangled from and readjusting Hobie so that he clung onto his back instead.

He took a deep breath and narrowly dodged a bullet that whizzed unnervingly close to their heads. Hobie yelled again.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Spiderman began, speaking quickly. “Hold on, okay? Hold on tight. Just hold on and do not let me go for even a second!”

“On it!” Hobie shouted back, legs kicking a bit before wrapping themselves tightly around Spiderman’s torso.

They both took a breath and then Spiderman jumped, gaining some air before twin webs erupted from his web shooters-- aimed directly towards the seating area entrance.

Together, he and Hobie rocketed from their airborne position towards their escape route once the fluids connected to solid architecture. To his credit, Hobie only whimpered a little bit through the ride.

The thugs had no chance! They stumbled on tired, aching legs towards the very door the two teens had left out of, complaining and cursing some more as they searched through the steps and made their way out onto the theatre’s general admission and concessions area.

They searched and searched through the bushes and trees, going so far as to even check the sculptures near the structure.

After several tense moments of gruff shouting back-and-forth, the search eventually died down until only a couple of the men were left sweeping the area once more. The others had already given up their fruitless endeavor and called it a night.

“Fucking kids, man. What the hell,” Spiderman heard one of them grumble before kicking at the Romeo and Juliet statue angrily and following the rest of his cohorts down the path towards the Great Lawn again.

Hobie and Spiderman let out matching sighs of relief then, happy to have given the men the slip by managing to hide behind the giant 3D Delacorte Theatre sign right above the box offices. Lucky for them, most people don’t think to search behind lit-up signs, so they went completely undetected.

“… Wanna let me know what you were doing here this whole time? You could’ve gotten killed!” Spiderman breathed. He wanted his tone to be sharper, more authoritative… but he was just so glad to see his new friend still in one piece instead of riddled with more holes than a chunk of swiss cheese!

Hobie scoffed, tucking a loc behind his ear and sitting back. Thanks to the lighting of the sign and the other park lights in the area, Spiderman could see him digging around in his coat pocket and fishing out-- a USB drive?

Hobie held it up triumphantly, sleepy down-turned eyes glistening with pride.

“I got it! Suckers! Screw them by the way, I’m not the thief, if that’s what you’re wondering,”

Well. He was sneaky, alright. Spiderman had to hand that to him, at the very least.

He sat back on his heels as well and exhaled. “Fine. I believe you. What’s on that drive?”

Hobie squinted at him then, really giving him a good once-over now that the excitement had officially died down. “…Damn. You’re Spiderman,”

“Yeah, yeah. Hey, hi, nice to meet you, I’m your friendly neighborhood Sp-- ugh, seriously man, just tell me what all of that was back there or else I’m webbing you up and calling the cops.”

“Hey!” Hobie objected. “Like I said already, I’m the good guy here. I snagged this from those guys because I caught them snoopin’ around the museum over that way. I followed them and found out they were stealing this!”

Spiderman bobbed his head. “Okay? And what’s on it?”

Hobie turned the drive over a bit in his hands, admiring it. “Most likely? Security codes, schedules, maps. I’ve been uh… investigating those dudes for a while after watching them sniff around the museum for a few days now. It looks like they were just art thieves plannin' a heist, so I jumped on the opportunity to deliver justice myself.”

Hobie’s mischievous grin was met by Spiderman’s disapproving stare.

“And why didn’t you just call security and let them know? Like I said, super dangerous thing you did back there! If I wasn’t there to save you, you could’ve died, man.”

Hobie pocketed his USB drive again and rolled his eyes. “Y’know, for a vigilante hero with cool superpowers, you sure are a square.”

Spiderman sat up and placed a hand on his chest, feigning hurt. “Oof, ow. That’s mean,”

“Yeah, it is, but you know I’m right. If a kid like me walked up to some cops and tried to warn them of a possible art heist, you just know those pricks’ll laugh in my face and do literally nothing about it. I had to take matters into my own hands!” Hobie jutted his chin out defiantly.

Well. Couldn't really argue with that, especially considering PDNY’s less-than-stellar track record of taking preventative measures most times. All that they would most likely do is nod along to whatever Hobie was telling them and chuckle, shaking their heads as they walk away. Not their problem.

Spiderman rubbed his chin. “Point taken," he conceded. "So what’s your plan now?”

Hobie glanced around, as if he was checking for any eavesdroppers. “I’m gonna submit some photos to a journalist I met online before turning this in back to the museum. The journalist’ll help get those guys behind bars once a story's published and some actual adults talk to the cops. I am going to go collect my reward,”

Spiderman blinked. He had a bunch of questions swimming in his head, but the first question out of his mouth was, “what reward?”

“The reward for turning in precious security info, genius!” Hobie tapped at his forehead with a finger and grinned. “If I get to negotiate with them, I can get some money to save up and-- uh. Nevermind. Listen, are you gonna rat me out or not?”

Miles’ brow creased behind his mask. “… I don’t think I will. Sounds like you’re doing the right thing… mostly.”

Hobie cheered silently. “Yes! Okay, I take it back, Spidey. You are cool!”

Spiderman sighed. “But first, I need to know you’re gonna be safe. Like, actually, and that you’re not gonna get followed home.”

Hobie shrugged nonchalantly and pushed more locs out of his face again. “Yeah, you can walk me home if you want,”

“No, that’s not what I mean. I mean, that’s not the only thing I mean. I need you to promise me that you’re not gonna get into stupid stunts like this again. That was so dangerous and you really could’ve gotten hurt!”

Hobie exhaled as well. He stared intensely into the mask’s giant white lenses for a beat, making Spiderman shift uncomfortably.

Then, he held up his pinkie. “… Fine. I won’t do stupid shit like this again. I promise.”

Spiderman blinked a few more times and hooked his pinkie onto Hobie’s. “Uh. Okay, cool! Cool, that’s what I wanna hear, considering keeping New Yorkers safe is my job! I just wanna see you safe, that’s all. No more art heists, you gotta leave that to the professionals to handle,”

“What, professionals like you? You might’ve not even gotten to them in time before they snuck off with like millions of dollars worth of art, bro.”

“Anyone ever tell you you are just so mean? Dontcha have a little faith in me? The ‘vigilante hero with cool superpowers’?” Spiderman shot back.

They both laughed.

“Seriously, though. I do appreciate the fact that you saved my ass back there,” Hobie admitted, eyes cast downwards for a second. “I was actually gonna throw this thing into the lake and hope this drive got eaten by like… a fish or something.”

“And what about you?” Spiderman smiled despite himself.

“Well,” Hobie shrugged. “If I died, I died. I guess,”

It was Spiderman’s turn to scoff now. “You have a family, man. Don’t be ridiculous. You have friends and family that would miss you!”

Hobie’s expression turned dark, his entire face shadowing for a second before being replaced by cool detached nonchalance. A slight hint of annoyance stayed put underneath.

“… My family’s barely my family. I don’t have any friends, either. Don't worry about me.” Hobie admitted in a clipped tone. He stood up abruptly and started doing some casual stretches.

Spiderman stood up as well, knowing fully well how this song and dance was going to go.

He would never admit it out loud, but he’d seen his fair share of self-destructive citizens throwing themselves into the middle of danger in the short time he’d been doing this whole vigilante thing. He had talked many a melancholy or manic person from tossing themselves off of multiple different buildings, different bridges, stopped them from “falling” onto train tracks.

And as loath as he is to admit it, this Hobie’s particular brand of cool detachment was entirely too familiar to him as well.

A flash of his uncle Aaron’s face lit up a part of his brain that he hadn’t really allowed himself to acknowledge since that fateful day. He quickly stamped that out.

He cleared his throat and rubbed at his neck. “… Well. That sounds pretty depressing, man.”

He didn’t notice Hobie’s shoulders hitch at that phrase.

“But,” Spiderman continued, “You got people out here who care about you, even if you don’t know it. You’re still so young, you could be ending your life before you even meet, like, your favoritest person in the whole world, right? So just do me a quick favor, take care of yourself. For me. Live long enough to meet your favorite person, alright?”

Spiderman put on his best comforting expression that he could despite the mask most likely getting in the way of Hobie fully seeing it. He hoped his words were enough to convince him not to dive off the deep end, at least not anytime soon.

It seemed to work at least a little bit, because Hobie looked back at him with a much warmer-- albeit hesitant-- expression.

“Can I ask you something?” Hobie finally said after a few moments of silence.

“Uh, sure.” Spiderman replied.

“Do you know about a kid named Miles Morales at all?”

The air was sucked out of Spiderman’s lungs right then as he floundered like a fish for a minute, brain working into overdrive to make his answer sound both intelligent and convincing.

“U-uh, maaaybeee? I dunno, I meet a lot of New Yorkers everyday and I don’t get many names, yanno? S-sounds familiar, but sorr--”

“I knew it,” Hobie exhaled a laugh and surged forward to embrace Spiderman with both arms.

Spiderman stood frozen in his place, arms held in mid-air as he worked to process this.

“Uh. What--”

Spiderman felt Hobie’s chin dig into the side of his cheek a little as he turned his lips to his ear. “Your secret’s safe with me, by the way. I’m not telling anyone,”

Miles felt his whole world turn on its axis before shattering completely.

Oh no, no, no, no, no! Goddamnit!

Miles pushed Hobie off and stepped back, holding his hands up. “Oh hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. I dunno what you’re thinking or who you think I am, but--!”

Hobie sighed loudly. “Miles, I saw your suit.”

The world screeched to a halt.

Hobie picked his gaze back up off of his feet and even seemed apologetic, almost. “I, uhm. Like, back on the roof. At Visions. I wasn’t… a hundred percent sure I saw it, since it could’ve been any logo at all, but. Well, you’re a pretty bad liar too, y’know that, right?”

Miles sucked in a slightly shaky breath, gulping loudly. “Uh. W-well,”

Hobie smiled shyly. “You, uh… you’re like around the same height as Miles Morales, anyways. And you sure sound a lot like him, too.”

Damn. Damn it all.

Miles spun this way and that, placing his hands atop his head as he panicked slightly. “H-Hobie, you cannot tell anyone else about this, whatsoever. Do you understand? No one. At all. Or we’re both dead!”

Hobie held his hands up, lines creasing in his face. “Look bro, you’ve got secrets of mine too. We pinkie promised, remember? I don’t break promises.”

Miles didn’t point out that the promise was so that Hobie would stop getting himself into stupidly dangerous situations, but he accepted it anyways, albeit reluctantly.

“D-do… do you actually, like actually promise me you’ll never breathe a word about this to anyone? Ever? At all?”

Hobie held up his right hand into the air, as if taking an oath. “I, MJ, solemnly swear to never breathe a single word to anyone about your super secret identity, so help me god.”

Miles planted his fists on his hip and shook his head. “Oh my god,” he exhales on a shaky laugh.

“Don’t you believe me? What would I have to gain by selling you out? Oh,” Hobie stops suddenly, perking up. “We could even work together! I got me my sweet camera and my extensive connects, man. Think about it!”

“No, no. Hobie. Stop that, man. I’m not putting you into any danger after I just saved your skinny butt. Spiderman doesn’t do sidekicks anyways,”

Hobie looked a bit put out, but shrugged anyways. “Well, I mean… think about it sometime. We could seriously take down criminal activity around here, if you’re down! And, uh. You do have my number,”

Miles looked up and took a deep breath. “Mmnyes, I do. I do have your number. That’s… I mean you’re not wrong about that. Listen, I think it’s getting pretty late and we should both be heading back home now, though.”

The corners of Hobie’s mouth curled up mischievously. “True, true. It is a school night, after all.”

Miles couldn’t stop grinning despite the heavy anvil that threatened to burst out of his chest. “Yep, yes it is! Okay, time to get you home now. C’mon, let’s go.”

Miles moved to step into Hobie’s space and carry him on his back again so he could lower the both of them down from the lip of the theatre roof.

But before that happened, he felt Hobie place a cold but strong hand on his shoulder, stopping him.

Miles looked up inquisitively and felt his breath catch in his throat as he felt those same hands slowly slide up the smooth spandex of his suit, up his shoulders, and then they stopped at his neck, at the seam of where his suit and mask met.

The entire thing probably only took a few seconds to do, but to Miles it felt like eons passed as he felt every single muscle twitch and the pulse beating underneath Hobie’s skin while he ran those fingers up his arms.

He was standing so close to him! Oh god!

The entire ordeal was unbearably intimate, and Miles could barely stop the shudder that wracked his body suddenly.

Hobie’s soft lips were slightly parted, the lighting of the sign next to them caught in the dark brown portals that were his eyes.

“U-uhm. Sorry, this is weird...” he mumbled quietly. But his hands didn't move.

All around them, crickets started their soothing chorus.

Here they were, right behind the giant lettering of the Delacorte Theatre, intertwined in each other’s arms on a cold night-- and Miles’ core body temperature has never felt hotter before. He felt like he could melt steel, the way this night was going. He didn’t know when his hands raised to grasp onto Hobie’s arms, but they must’ve done it of their own accord because Miles then felt himself squeezing softly onto Hobie’s biceps.

Slowly, painstakingly, and carefully… Hobie made his move.

Every centimeter of the mask being pushed up was accompanied by a soft look that asked-- no, it begged-- for permission to continue. His hands seemed to move on their own eventually, as he slid the mask up over the back of Miles' head and then eased it up off of his nose.

Hobie wore a soft look of determination then, that fully came into view again once Miles felt his mask slide right up off of his eyes. Hobie’s soft hands eventually fell away, mask in one hand, no sounds in the air except for the wildlife of the park starting to wake now that the night has officially fallen.

Miles wasn’t sure why he did, but he held his breath.

After a few seconds of appraising gazes from each other, pupils meeting pupils, exchanging a million words a second with just a few looks… Hobie grinned beautifully.

“Damn. There you are,”

Miles felt a plume of heat erupt from his gut and rush up to his face. “Uh. Hm, y-yep. Here I am,” he blinked back at Hobie with his big brown eyes.

Hobie had a look of pure joy on his face before it started to melt away suddenly. “You know… I should backstab you for abandoning me out of nowhere that one time, though… I really should...”

The moment collapsed like an undone web, a delicate thing now completely destroyed as Miles leaped up in indignation.

“Hobie!”

Hobie stepped back and laughed loudly. “Re-lax! I’m not gonna actually do it. But. Y’know.”

“And if you do, I’ll leave you webbed up to that billboard near Visions,” Miles threatened, mostly light-heartedly.

“Psshh, and then get my mom’s two million lawyers on your ass? Good luck,”

“As if they could ever catch me! I’m Spiderman!”

Just as easily as they had stepped out of being just kids for a moment, they stepped right back into it, bickering like they'd been friends since forever.

Miles lowered the both of them from the sign and they headed towards the eastern side of the park, making their way over to Hunter’s Gate. They bickered and bantered back and forth the entire way there, and it was only once they made it to the outer gates of the park that Miles stopped them both.

With his mask back on and other New Yorkers now milling nearby, Miles made it a point to lower his voice as he turned to Hobie and puffed his chest out heroically.

“So, random citizen. Where are we off to today? I told you I’d take you back home safely, and that’s what I’m gonna do.”

“’Cause you promised, right?” Hobie smirked, tucking his hands into his coat pockets.

“Uhm. Yeah, yeah. I did. So, lead the way!” Spiderman made a grand ushering gesture, and Hobie chuckled good-naturedly as he stepped aside and exited Central Park.

“You gonna walk me home, Spiderman?” Hobie threw him a side-long glance.

“Yyyeah…? Why? You’d rather swing home?”

“I liked swinging, actually. Yeah,” Hobie stopped where he was on the sidewalk and nodded with an air of finality. “Yeah… let’s swing!”

Spiderman felt his heart do a few somersaults in his chest before he gestured towards his shoulders. Hobie quickly assumed the position, long lanky arms wrapping around him and leaning his body weight against Spiderman’s side.

Spiderman shot up a web to a nearby street lamp and gave his friend one more glance.

“You sure?” He asked again, really making sure that Hobie was okay with this. Not many people really liked swinging, which was understandable. Even Miles wasn't the biggest fan of it at times.

Hobie chuckled and ignored the onlookers as they slowly ambled past the two, throwing the teens questioning glances as they made their way past them.

“Yeah, I am! Let’s go,”

Miles: Do you actually actually really like on your LIFE promise that you’re not ginna tell a soul about… well…

Miles: gonna*

MJ: Yes, Miles. I PROMISE [eyeroll emoji]

Miles: I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE

MJ: Do you actually, though? ;)

Miles: No. But I can find out… I got connects

MJ: Uh huh. I’ll tell your “connects” that if you don’t take me out on that promised lunch date, our friendly neighborhood Spiderman just might be the next trending topic on ALL social media apps again very soon……..

Miles: Oh my god. You are Evil. I can’t believe this. My next arch nemesis… damn

Miles: What a killer plot twist. The greatest foe I have yet to face happens to be none other than one of my very own classmates

Miles: It be ya own people

From his family’s Lower Manhattan penthouse, Hobie laughs out loud as he reads the text messages, ignoring all of the curious glances thrown his way by various members of his team.

From Miles’ own humble dorm room at Visions, he laughs aloud as well.

#spiderverse #clown horn #miles morales #hobie brown #<- well i mean not really but yall know what i mean #hope u guys enjoyed this lil installment! <3 #i tried to make the action as entertaining as possible but y'all must know.... that it really is my weak spot so if you guys read all that #and went 'huh'#well then.... Understandable Have A Nice Day!#but listen mj is more often than not a total bamf in the comics and so to make 1610's mj not nearly as cool #esp when this is HOBIE we're talkin abt here... that would be criminal. so i did what i had to do #and i'm trying to like uuhhhh not do an Exposition Dump on hobie jones' character all at once #just sorta drip feeding y'all his backstory before we Get Into It ya feel me #also @ everyone leaving nice comments so far. I LOV YOU :) <3 #thank u!#sorry abt the messy ass art on this chapter. i rushed it as i'm sure y'all can tell #they also dont match up 1:1 on the story bc i did the sketches initially before i wrote all this #just as concept art before sitting down to write so i meannnn! but! they came out p close to the finished product #so i was like 'ok close enough lets just ink it and be done'#hope yall still like them anyhow LOL oops #anyways..... i gotta quit my yappin'#see yall on the next one <3 #punkflower #← almost forgot to tag oof #mi writing

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tea-cat-arts · 18 days ago

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Idk, is this anything?

#illustration #digital drawing #digital painting #character design #guys- i dont know how to tag original art #explanation for this piece i guess: there was an illustration department project where we were devided into groups and designed “luxury soap #but we only had like a day to get the whole thing done #so our group's chosen theme was “planets and the gods associated with them stylized after gothic stained glass”#and lets ignore the fact that mine ended up way more art neuvo than gothic and talk about the character design- cuz i did earth #since Terra/Gaia is literally supposed to be the earth i kinda ran #the main components of earth i ran with were water growth and death #so her body is made of water #the plants growing out of her are probably obvious but idk how well the kelp forest and fish inside her come across #I also gave her things associated with the harvest (such as the cornucopia and cow)#well- cow skull #the thing on her chest was originally based on a ribcage corset but one of my professors said they like that it also kinda looked like #an evergreen tree. so i left the shape kinda vague #but ya- not sure if i want to do fhe other planets or never look at this again

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norikuna · 1 month ago

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WHAT? LIKE IT'S HARD? ✶ choso kamo

abstract ✶ there are six physiological stages of having a crush. you just wish that you didn't have to learn this through first-hand experience. everyone said that choso kamo was a loser in high school, a quiet kid who haunted the campus with no friends. sure, he was brilliantly smart, but he dropped out in senior year. he even managed to break your heart, the glittering prom queen, with the world at your fingertips. imagine your surprise three years later, when you find yourself stuck with him in med school. what's worse? he's actually super hot now!

PART II. of the new years letters, a series of fics dedicated to some of my lovely mutuals! 🎁

pairing. choso kamo x afab!reader genre tags and warnings reader is practically a blair waldorf prototype (filthy rich, a bit bratty, spoiled), bestfriend!gojo, background gojo x geto, mentions of blood and injuries, med school, MISCOMMUNICATION, angst and hurt, fluff, kissing and making out. sukuna and yuuji cameos.

word count. 17.5k! song inspiration. crush culture — conan gray

a/n. shameless med student insert i rlly projected my full heart and soul into the anatomy lab ick. art belongs to all respective artists [will add credit!] crossposted on ao3 💖

dedication. for my dear kashika, first of all happy (belated) birthday @kasukuna 💗 wanted this to coincide with ur day but i'm late, i fear!!! you hype me up so much, send the sweetest asks and you're so damn talented that i'm left begging for an ounce of your creativity and amazing mind! your fics are so witty and well thought out and i like to think that you've spawned an incredible dumbass!bf sukuna renaissance on jjk tumblr 😭 idk if you remember but i sent you an ask on creamflix so long ago like the start of december asking you to choose between characters and au's so i tried lifting this as verbatim as i could from ur answer <3 hope you had the most amazing day ever!!

mp3. ✶ crush culture makes me wanna spill my gut out, i know what you're doing! tryna get me to pursue ya <3

You refuse to speak to Gojo Satoru ever again. Not today, not tomorrow, not in this lifetime nor the next. He’s officially dead to you, figuratively, of course. Unfortunately.

The moment he stops cackling like a deranged hyena in the middle of your bedroom, you’re going to shove him out the door so hard that he’s going to see stars. You’ll block his number, you’ll delete every photo of his smug grin, and you’re going to hire an exorcist to cleanse his essence from your life.

Except right now, your best friend is sprawled across your bed, practically writhing as he gasps for air in between bouts of ridiculous, chipmunk-like squeals. He’s still in his uniform, having crashed at your place after school, with his white shirt untucked, sleeves pushed to his elbows and his tie dangling uselessly around his neck.

“You are such a child,” you grumble, shoving your sticker-laden journal off your lap with a huff, just so you can aim a precise kick at his ribs. Satoru wheezes dramatically, clutching his stomach like he’s just been mortally wounded in battle.

“It’s -” he’s snickering, slapping the fine-thread sheets with the fervour of one trying to summon a higher power, “It’s just too good. I – oh my god, I really can’t breathe! I think I’m going to pass out.”

Satoru’s rolling over dramatically, dark-tinted sunglasses slipping down the bridge of his hawkish nose, leaving him to look like a cherubic bird with a bad attitude.

“If only,” you mutter darkly, arms crossed over your own blazer as you glare daggers at the white-haired boy, “It’s not that funny.”

But Satoru just doesn’t listen, of course. His grin is wide enough to split his face in half, and every breath that he takes is another affront to your polished dignity, and every stupid wheeze is a reminder that you made the colossal mistake of trusting this man with classified information.

“Keep laughing,” you say, your tone low and menacing as you snatch your phone off your nightstand, “And see what happens when I play offence.”

That gets Satoru’s attention, as he freezes mid-snort. Grin faltering just enough to make you feel a small and petty thrill of satisfaction, “You wouldn’t.”

“I would,” you say, already tapping away on your phone, scrolling past the ninety-nine notifications clogging Instagram. A certain raven-haired boy’s name hovers in your mind, one who shares the same initials as Gojo Satoru.

You’re not above sending a risky message.

Hey! Gojo’s been totally obsessed with you, ever since you bashed his head in with a spiral notebook back in seventh grade, and called him a spoilt, rich kid. He draws love hearts around your name every night. Just thought you should know, XOXO.

“Wait!” Satoru bolts upright so fast that his sunglasses fall into his lap, his grin morphing into a scowl as panic flashes in his too-blue eyes, “That’s playing dirty. Totally unfair.”

“You’re the one who laughed like a lunatic,” you say sweetly, tilting the phone towards him as if you’re about to hit send.

“You can’t be serious!” Satoru points a long, accusatory finger at you, his dramatic outrage undercut by the way his lips keep twitching, “I mean -” Another snicker escapes him as he buries his face in his hands, shoulders shaking again, “Like how? Of all people, you really have a crush on that guy.”

For a fleeting moment, you wonder if it’s too late to enrol in witness protection. It was clearly your mistake, deciding to tell Satoru critically sensitive information. Revealing the name of the boy that you were crushing on.

And yes, your type has turned out to be greasy Tim Burton reject loners who wander around school in faded Lord of the Rings hoodies.

You’re just totally head-over-heels for Choso Kamo.

“Whatever,” you snap, shoving your phone into the pocket of your school blazer with as much dignity as you can muster under the barrage of Satoru’s relentless cackles, “You wouldn’t understand?”

“Understand?” Satoru shifts himself with all the casual arrogance of someone who, unfortunately, has never been truly humbled in his life, propping himself against one of your enormous plush pillows.

The velvet squishes beneath his weight, gold embroidery bunching, but he’s utterly unbothered. “Enlighten me, we’re talking about the same Kamo right? The guy who sits behind you in class, and doesn’t so much blink in your direction? The one who looks like he’d rather gargle glass than talk to you?”

Another pillow sails across the bed before you even realise that you’ve hurled it. It strikes him square in the face, with a satisfying thwump! Muffling his laugh as he flails, tangled in thick, down stuffing.

“He’s just shy!” You insist, your voice rising as you get up to pace. Your Prada loafers click against the polished floor, before you kick them off. “And he only acts like that when others are around, by the way. He talks to me when it’s just us.”

“Oh, sure,” Satoru sits up, wrestling the pillow aside with a theatrical groan. His snowy hair sticks up at angles, like he’s been electrocuted, “That’s probably because he’s plotting his escape route while you corner him, like a lion closing in on its prey. Poor Kamo’s the gazelle.”

“Just know that I’m blowing you up in my mind.”

Satoru huffs, “So, what is your plan now? Are you going to ask him to prom? Are we going to see a proposal for the ages?”

You pause mid-pace, fighting the hot flush that creeps up your neck. It burns brighter as you glance towards the gilded vanity mirror, for that is exactly what you had wanted. You just needed to hear someone’s validation, “Should I?”

Satoru’s grin falters for a second, replaced with a look of sheer disbelief, “You’re kidding, right? That kid hates social events. You think he’s going to go with you?”

“Why not?” You’re fiddling with the crystal perfume decanters, the bottles of skincare on your vanity, “I’ve been dropping hints, okay? Subtle ones, all that manifesting shit.”

“Subtle?” Satoru snorts, “You mean letting half the football team pile bouquets into your locker? The locker that’s right next to his? Oh, yeah. Super low-key. Very humble.”

“At least I have options,” you snap back, flicking on the lights as the sun begins to sharpen its afternoon glare. Warm golden light spills across the room, catching on the ceiling-length silk drapes, “Meanwhile, I hope you end up alone at prom. Making ugly, kissy faces at Geto Suguru, while he’s with someone else.”

Satoru groans, like you’ve truly pierced his heart, “Cruel. So cruel when provoked,” but he’s propping himself back up on one elbow, “But hey, if you really do like Kamo, you know that makes him my future brother-in-law or something. That’s cool.”

Your gasp is sharp, scandalised, “Excuse me?”

“But think about it,” Satoru continues, ignoring your sputters, “You’re practically confirmed to be Prom Queen. Do you really want to drag that guy up on stage with you?”

“I think you’re being judgemental,” you mutter, tugging the drapes close and blocking out the faint twinkle of the city skyline, “He’d have to be insane not to say yes to me.”

“Someone is going to deflate that big head of yours one day,” Satoru says, and his voice has softened just enough to make you glance back at him, “You do know he cuts class a lot, right?”

“What’s your point?”

“I’m not being a bitch, I swear,” Satoru holds up his palms defensively, “He shows up for only half the month, you might want to check on your boy.”

You flop onto the chaise lounge, throwing an arm over your face tragically, “This isn’t the inspiring pep talk that I need right now.”

Satoru leans lazily against the gilded frame of your canopy bed, “Hey, it’s not my place to tell you what to do. But if you are that into him, then fine! Just ask him to prom and see what happens. And tell you what? If you ask Kamo, I’ll ask Suguru.”

You narrow your eyes, “Wow, this must be serious if you’re out here wheeling and dealing like this. Are you feeling okay?”

Satoru presses a dramatic hand to his chest, his grin morphing into something faux-solemn, “Cross my heart. I’m making a binding vow, like, it’s unbreakable. Life or death.”

“Deal,” you quickly say, ignoring the sudden leap of your pulse, because there’s no way that you’re letting him see how the sudden time-pressure is making your stomach twist into ugly knots. You point towards the door with a flourish, “And as much as I love our time together, I need to get ready. So…out! Chop-chop.”

Satoru groans like you’ve just asked him to drag a boulder uphill with his teeth, slumping off your bed in exaggerated defeat. He sluggishly reaches for his discarded backpack from the floor, slinging it over his shoulder, “I still don’t get why you bother with working. You and I both know that we don’t need it,” he mutters, as if the concept of responsibility personally offends him.

“It’s just babysitting,” you gently correct, shrugging on a cashmere cardigan from the back of your chair, “And anyway, you know I need a well-rounded list of extracurriculars for Pre-Med.”

“I’d rather eat my sunglasses, one lens at a time,” Satoru shoots back, adjusting said sunglasses squarely over his face, “Instead of being stuck babysitting brats all evening. We’re not meant to be saints.”

“It’s just one kid tonight. New family, new house,” you reply, grabbing your bag where it rests by the vanity, “Anyway, I expect a full report on your prom date by tomorrow, Satoru. I’m not forgetting that vow.”

Satoru pauses in the doorway, with the edges of his grin sharpened into something that makes you pity Geto Suguru in advance, “I never disappoint.”

You had finally managed to shove Satoru out of the doorway, his obnoxious laughter echoing faintly down the hall. The quiet that follows is a relief, albeit short-lived. You’re left standing in the stillness of your room, phone in hand, thumb hovering over the text with the address of tonight’s gig.

Honestly, Satoru might have a point. You, the only child of one of the country’s most obscenely wealthy families, babysitting? It’s not like you’re chasing pocket money or trying to build character. But medical school applications don’t only care about your bank account, there’s so many extra boxes to tick. Factors like being selfless or dedicated to the community.

The request had been odd from the start. Some child had called you himself, and normally, it’s the frazzled parents who handle that kind of task. His voice had been small, but determined, saying that his brother was out, and he needed a sitter for the evening. Something about the earnestness of it had softened you, though, now you were starting to regret the whole thing — seeing how far out this house was from your own penthouse.

Showing up in the Bentley with tinted windows and your chauffeur had felt a little off brand for this role. So, in the name of relatability, you had popped a piece of cherry gum and a book, taking on the bus. The sticky seats and questionable patrons had almost been enough to make you reconsider, but the suburb itself offered a strange charm.

It was quiet here, too quiet, the kind of place that might have once been picturesque, but it had gone soft around the edges. The homes were older, cozy but tired, with paint peeling in places and lawns that were overrun with weeds. You wrinkle your nose as you step off the bus, weaving through tufts of stubborn greenery and abandoned toys in the yard.

The house that you’re looking for stands a little crooked, but sturdy. It’s faded shutters are barely hanging on, and a basketball hoop leans precariously over the driveway. There’s a small, red toy car that’s entirely faded and scratched, sitting forgotten near the porch steps.

Just as your knuckles hover over the worn wood of the front door, it swings open with such force that you nearly stumble backwards. A blur of motion catches you off guard, and you’re suddenly face-to-face with a tiny, pink-haired whirlwind.

The boy’s grinning up at you, wide and gap-toothed, with big golden eyes. His hair is wild, a fluffy crown of rosy strands over a dark undercut, and his scraped knees are haphazardly patched up with dinosaur bandages.

“Wait here! I’m going to get my brother!” He chirps, his voice bright and slightly whistly, thanks to the missing tooth. Before you can get a word in, he’s gone, sprinting back inside with the energy of an overeager puppy, leaving you stranded on the porch.

You shuffle awkwardly, glancing down at the scratched paint on the doorframe. There was something endearing about the child, and you’re starting to feel less apprehensive. That is, until the door opens again, and time slows.

Your heart stutters, skips, and then plummets. As if someone’s dropped you into an industrial freezer. Standing there, with one hand resting lightly on the kid’s shoulder, and an expression that’s one part confusion and one part disbelief, is Choso Kamo.

It’s as if the universe has conspired against you, playing its most cruel and ridiculous joke yet. Tall and broad, with tired eyes that sweep over you in slow recognition. Dark mark twitching across his face, like a deliberate smudge of ink.

Choso’s blinking, startled to see you here, though his usual stoic expression has yet to crack. Meanwhile, your inner monologue is screaming a symphony of pure panic. You can already heal Satoru’s stupid squeals in your head.

The pink-haired boy tugs on Choso’s arm, “See, I got a babysitter! Isn’t that cool?”

Choso glances down at the kid, then back at you, his lips parting as if to speak.

“Uh, hey,” you manage. The picture of eloquence, the master of the verbose elite.

It strikes you, with almost absurd clarity, that you’ve never seen Choso outside the campus bubble. No dim library corners, no lab tables cluttered with textbooks, or heavy beat-up laptops parked in front of him. Gone are the oversized hoodies thrown over his school uniform, or the baggy jeans he dons when he forgoes the dress code entirely. Instead, he’s here, standing in the soft glow of the broken porch light, wearing a loose black tee and dark track pants.

His chestnut hair is free from the two greasy, spiky knots that he favours on his head, falling softer around his face. Your traitorous heart lurches, feeling a sharp pang of betrayal.

“You’re the babysitter?” Choso’s voice cuts through your spiral. Raspy as always, roughened like rock salt, but there’s something else threaded into the question. A flicker of irritation, and confusion. As if he’s struggling to reconcile you, with the person standing on his doorstep.

“You didn’t know when you booked?” You shoot back, aiming for casual indifference, but landing somewhere closer to petulant. Your eyes flick to the box he’s holding, with contents that glint faintly in the light. Suspiciously metallic, as if he’s cradling surgical tools.

Choso follows your curious gaze, exhaling sharply, and shifting the box to a nearby table, just out of your line of sight.

“I didn’t book,” he grunts, “Told Yuuji to check the ads, and pick one.”

“And I picked the best one!” The delighted chirp comes from behind Choso, as Yuuji reappears, practically bouncing with a sunny grin. His golden eyes are locked on the ribbon-wrapped box in your hands, and his expression is lit up with unabashed glee.

You glance down at the box, containing an array of decadent artisan doughnuts. Saffron glaze, coconut cream, pistachio and chocolate. All from that impossibly chic Swiss patisserie downtown. You ignore the dull ache building between your eyes, smiling as you hand the box over, “These are for you, little man.”

Yuuji’s already snapping his hands for the box, as though you had just delivered a treasure chest of gold doubloons, “Can I have one? Please? Pretty-please?”

Choso glances down at him with a long-suffering look that somehow manages to carry an undertone of fondness, “Just one,” he warns, his voice dry but warm, “For now.”

Yuuji doesn’t need to be told twice, bolting towards the kitchen and clutching the box to his chest like a sacred relic. The faint sound of icing being smacked off fingers echoes from somewhere around the corner.

Choso watches him go, before turning back to you, his posture easing slightly. “That was nice of you,” he says, his voice softer now, almost tentative, “But he’s going to crash hard after that sugar high. Good luck.”

You wave off his scepticism with a breezy smile, “I’m good with kids. I’ll manage.”

For a moment, the boy’s expression shifts. Something fleeting and unreadable flickers across his face, a hint of thoughtfulness or something heavier.

Another thought gnaws at the edges of your mind, a tiny spectre of dread wrapped in Gojo Satoru’s smug grin. Two hours ago, though it feels like a lifetime now, you made a pact.

You ask Kamo, I’ll ask Suguru.

At the time, it had seemed like an impossible bluff. But the thing about Satoru is that he’s infuriatingly reliable when he sets his mind to something. No matter the cost.

Which is why you’re here now, sweating under your cashmere sweater. The fabric is suddenly too soft, too warm, clinging to the nape of your neck. You, with half the school population ready to pen sonnets just for a chance to take you to prom. Jocks, debate captains, the crème de la crème of eligible dates. All overlooked in favour of the quiet boy that no-one seems to notice.

The boy whose locker was assigned right next to yours, empty and cold steel. While yours was glittered with Polaroids, and pastel sticky notes, and the occasional folded love letter. The boy that everyone said had no friends, but he was easily the uncontested valedictorian. The boy that you desperately wanted to ask to prom.

Choso is shuffling papers on the table, avoiding your gaze like it’s a laser beam. His movements are slow, and deliberate, but there’s an edge of tension in the way his fingers linger on a set of silver keys, before he slips them into his pocket.

“What?” His voice breaks the quiet, low and rough like gravel underfoot. It startles you out of your spiralling thoughts.

“Nothing,” you blurt out, far too quickly. You’re grasping at straws to keep the conversation going, “Where are you headed?”

Choso hesitates, a slight hitch in his movements, picking that cardboard box again. For a moment, you think he’s going to ignore your question, but then he mutters, “Work.”

You tilt your head, your curiosity outweighing your better judgement to never press Choso Kamo for more than two sentences in a conversation.

He shifts uncomfortable, and you catch a glimpse of latex gloves tucked neatly inside before he angles it out of view, “I…clean up things,” he says finally, his tone clipped as though every word is a concession, “Errands. I’m a cleaner.”

The kind of response that’s designed to kill conversation in its track. It’s vague, annoyingly so, but you let it slide, “Oh.”

You’re this close to spontaneously combusting. The pact, the reason that your hands shake when you catch yourself staring at Choso Kamo for just a second too long. It’s either now or never. Rip the band-aid before your central nervous system completely betrays you and implodes.

Objectively speaking, you’re a real catch. Second-best grades in the cohort, from an old business dynasty that rivalled the Youngs from Crazy Rich Asians, two-time prom queen with med-school practically knocking on the door. Yeah, a dream. College applications adored you. Surely, Choso would have had to be running on a clone’s brain stitched into his head to say no.

Yet, somehow, it doesn’t make your heart beat any less erratically. It doesn’t erase the hollow pit that’s clawing at your insides. And now, you’re wishing that you had asked for advice from someone with an ounce of finesse. Like Shoko, or Utahime. Not your best friend who called himself The Honoured One.

You clear your throat, the taste of artificial cherry gum still lingering, “So, are you going to prom?”

Choso snorts, the sound entirely dismissive. But he seems to realise that you’re not joking, flicking you a glance, like he’s deciding to humour you, “What’s it to you? Need me to vote for you to be prom queen?”

You roll your eyes, fighting the flush creeping up your Burberry sweater, “Didn’t I already ask you to do that, like, two months ago?”

His lips twitch, barely, like he’s holding a smile back under layers of indifference, “Yeah. You pestered me three times. And I actually did it.”

You latch onto the softer tone in his voice, “So, are you going to go, then?” You’re watching him, almost desperate for a sign, for anything other than no.

Choso’s shoulders tense, “Can’t.”

“Can’t?” The word slips out of your mouth before you can stop it, incredulous, “What do you mean can’t? Why? You need to study or something?” You’re trying so hard to sound indifferent, like you’ve got a roster of dates lined up. And well, you do. But this is the only one that you want. The panic creeping into your voice betrays you before you even realise it.

“No,” Choso replies, his tone quieter, “I really just can’t go.”

A weight drops in your stomach, heavy and cold. Is this what rejection feels like? The thought hits like a wave, leaving you breathless. Your heart’s flipping in your chest like it’s teetering on the edge of cliff, seconds away from freefalling into nothing.

You inhale sharply, steeling yourself for the words that are about to spill out.

“I want you to be my date for prom.” “I can’t go because I dropped out.”

The words slam into each other, and for a moment, everything freezes. Choso’s mouth has fallen open, the curve of his lips slack with shock. As though as someone’s hit the pause button on him, mid-thought. You blink at him, your brain becoming a skipping CD. Round and round, never quite catching the beat.

“What did you just say?” Your brows knit together in a sharp pinch, like your face can’t decide whether to wince or frown. But Choso just grimace, lips curling into a tight line as his shoulders stiffen.

“You first.”

Your fingers fidget around the cream Van Cleef that rests on your throat, tracing the cool edge of the pendant. It’s one of your mother’s newer gifts, the kind that comes with all the frills and none of the warmth. Her true transactional brand of maternal affection.

“I wanted to ask if you’d go to prom with me, as my date,” It spills out of you in a jumbling mess, like you’re tripping vowels and consonants over each other. Choso’s eyes widen, but you barrel on before he can interrupt, “I mean, I get it if you think it’s lame or boring, or you just don’t want to go. But I promise my friends are actually really nice, and you can sit with us.” The rest of your monologue trails off, crumbling to dust, “I just really wanted to ask you.”

You wish to sink into the floor, like the soft earth will swallow you whole. You can almost picture Satoru’s ridiculous proposal to Geto Suguru, no doubt involving fireworks or an airplane trailing a banner.

The air is so still, you can hear the faint crackling of Yuuji’s incessant doughnut quest from across the small house, his movements clumsy and unintentionally loud as he rips open cellophane for more than one sweet treat.

Choso’s shifting slightly, and there’s a faint blush creeping onto his cheeks. The pink hue is a stark contrast to his usual sickly pallor. Even his ears are a shade darker, and his jaw tightens like he’s chewing on something bitter and struggling to swallow it down. It’s hard to tell if he’s upset or just lost. Or somewhere in-between.

“You wanted to go with me?” His voice is low, hoarse, like the idea is too outlandish for him to even process. You don’t know whether to laugh or apologise.

“Mhm.” It’s all you can manage, your throat suddenly dry and tight.

“I dropped out of school two days ago,” Choso mutters, as he runs a hand through his dark hair. He’s glancing at you, with the ghost of an apology flickering across his expression, but the shock that you can’t seem to mask makes him wince, “Look, it’s not a big deal. And it’s nice that you asked, but…”

“Dropped out? Like, entirely out of school?” Your voice cracks, each word climbing higher like you’re stepping on a broken escalator, “Why? What happened?”

Never let anyone tell you that teenage love is simple, or wholesome. Full of first crushes, and sweet moments. Because this? It feels like someone ripped the floor out from under you, the air yanked from your lungs, leaving you stranded. And it’s not a pleasant feeling, being denied something that you want, for the first time in your life.

Choso shrugs, like he’s been answering this question a thousand times already. Though, you’re sure that this is the first time he’s said it to out loud to anyone, “Family stuff. Just had to.”

You try to piece this together, for this house does smell faintly of stale coffee, and the worn leather of the couch has clearly seen better days. You can tell, on some level, that something is off. That there’s no parental figure in sight for little Yuuji, just the harsh edges of whatever it is that Choso seems to carry on his own.

You can feel the words bubbling up again, stupid and reckless, “But you know you just can’t leave. You’ve got the top marks in the class, Choso. And you know that you were on a scholarship, right? For one of the most elite schools in the country? How are you ever going to get that again?”

The second they leave your mouth; you hear how self-righteous and insensitive you sound. You already regret it, almost reaching up to slap your hands over your face.

Choso’s expression darkens, his face tightens. Like a storm cloud rolling in, as his lips pull into a tight and angry line, “Back off,” he snaps, voice suddenly sharp enough to cut, “You don’t know a damn thing about my life.”

His sneer twists, not with malice, but something deeper. Harder, like he’s being chewed up by all the things he never got to say before, “Don’t worry, though. I’m sure they’ll make a big, shiny tiara for when they name you valedictorian. Maybe, it’ll match your prom dress.”

“Hey!” Your eyes well up, stupid heat of tears prickling behind your eyes, and swelling a thick lump in your throat, “That’s not what I meant.” You cannot believe that you’re tearing up, over this. Over wanting something that you can’t have, and someone who seems to have more to lose than you ever thought possible.

Choso’s lip curls into a half-sneer, but there’s a flicker of something else there. His posture shifts, as if he’s trying to fold in on himself. He lowers his voice, still low and uncomfortable, but careful. Careful, because his little brother is just down the hall.

“I don’t need your pity, okay? Or your help.” His fingers grip the metal of the net door, “I have to go now. Just look after Yuuji.”

The heavy clang of steel on mesh echoes in your ears, sharp and final. The sound lingers like a ringing in your skull as you stand there, utterly paralysed as your mind scrambles to catch up with the wreckage of what just happened. Your five-year crush crashing down in five minutes.

Your feet move, and you find yourself in the bare dining room. Yuuji’s perched at the table, with a doughnut half-eaten in his hand, a mess of pistachio cream smeared across his chin like a brave trooper. There’s an iPad, an old, scratched model, with a silicone tiger case, propped up in front of him. The screen is flashing with something, like blueberries. Bouncing in time with some peppy tune.

“Did Choso leave for work?” Yuuji asks, utterly oblivious to the emotional landmine that his brother left in your hands. His eyes are wide, curious, the innocence of a kid who still thinks the world works in neat, little boxes.

“Yeah,” you say, forcing a smile, “He works a lot, huh?”

“Oh, yeah,” Yuuji mumbles through a mouthful of pastry, sugar clinging to his lips, “He always gets upset when Uncle Kuna’ calls him in. Even after school.”

Choso has never mentioned an uncle. Or a brother, for that matter. But then again, why would he? You had never even asked for his number, never bothered to learn anything beyond what was right in front of you. You realise, with a strange pang of guilt, that you’ve built your entire image of infatuation with Choso, from incomplete sketches. Filling in the blanks with whatever fits into the tiny box you’ve kept him in.

“Hey, do you have Netflix?” Yuuji’s voice cuts through your thoughts, bright and eager. “I want to watch How to Train Your Dragon. It’s Fushiguro and Kugisaki’s favourite movie!”

The names are unfamiliar, but Yuuji’s excitement is infectious. You cannot help but smile at the boy, his messy hair and too-big shirt. It’s hard not to be fond of such a kid. You take the iPad from his sticky hands, logging into the app. All the while, chasing yourself around mentally with a baseball bat for the biggest fumble of the century.

If last night felt like a disaster, this morning was just the encore performance. And you were the unwilling star. Just the effort of peeling yourself out of bed felt like an Olympic event. And facing your reflection of swollen eyes and blotchy skin felt like punishment for sins that were way out of your paygrade.

Reluctantly, you’re tugging on your blazer, and clipping a barrette into your hair. There’s a sparkling, diamond tennis bracelet fastened around your wrist. All little things that you need to don like armour, to face your senior year, the student population and the empty locker that would remain untouched next to yours.

Satoru and Shoko are the first faces that you spot in the crowd, and Satoru’s practically bouncing down the hall, “Oh, yeah, I got it locked in,” he announces, cheeks flushed with an absurdly boyish grin, “I got it in the bag.”

He’s sliding his sunglasses down just enough to peer at you, wordlessly handing you his coffee cup, as is your morning ritual. The overly sweet, creamy warmth does nothing to ease the ache in your chest, and your lip-gloss stains the edge of the paper.

“What about you, eh?” Satoru chirps, but you must look blatantly devasted. Because your best friend’s grin falters, the corners of his mouth pulling down.

“Wait, you’re joking right?” His voice is marred with disbelief, and his eyes scan the hall like he’s trying to spot someone’s dark head of hair, “Where is he? Jughead Jones lookin’ ass? Shoko, do you know where Choso Kamo sits? Because I’m going to give him a real piece of my mind and —”

You cut him off, abruptly shoving the coffee back into his warm hands, “It’s fine. He dropped out school, anyway.”

Shoko hums beside you, her fingers absentmindedly twirling a strand of cinnamon-brown hair. The chipped polish on her nails catches the fluorescent light, “Prom queen and valedictorian in one year? Not a bad run for you.”

You glare at her, and Shoko’s doe-eyed expression softens. The breeze from the open window catches her sleek hair, making it sway gently, and she shifts. Voice dropping to something quieter, more thoughtful, “That really does suck, though. Sorry.” She sounds like she means it now, her usual flippancy up in smoke, “I didn’t even know you liked him like that. Not until Gojo told me, like, two hours ago.”

Your eyes snap to Satoru who, for once, has the good sense to shut his mouth.

Shoko’s voice is subdued, “I wonder if it had anything to do with him being called into admin.”

“Wait, when?” Satoru interrupts. He’s taking another long slurp of his sweet mocha, the froth giving him whiskers.

“Three days ago,” Shoko shrugs, “Some big guy rolled up to the office. Demanded to see the principal. No idea who he was, but he was important. And rich. Like you need to be super wealthy to call the shots in a school for the children of the top one percent.”

You must look tragic, because even Shoko pauses mid-chew. Her lollipop moving from one side of her mouth to the other. She looks at you, really looks at you. You can see the careful shift in her demeanour, as though she’s considering the most diplomatic answer that she can offer you to avoid making things worse.

“Well, you don’t have to go to prom with anyone, right?” Satoru says, the words hanging awkwardly in the air like a balloon that’s just lost its helium. His consolation is well-meaning, but a bit clueless. But now, his sunglasses are perched atop his head now, leaving his eyes exposed. Icy blue, framed by lashes so long that they practically flirt with his eyebrows. For once, there’s a flicker of real concern in them, clouds passing over clear skies.

“I know,” you gripe, your voice flat as you find yourself glaring at a group of juniors who are skipping by, with their phones out in unison, clicking away like it’s a competition. Fantastic. You can already see the gossip Instagram stories by lunch, wondering what happened to you. Rumours milling about the reason for your glum expression.

Shoko shifts her heavy bag onto her shoulder, patting your arm. “I’ll see you at lunch. My treat,” she says, turning her heel for the Chemistry building. Leaving you alone with Satoru, as Shoko quickly picks her pace up to catch her Honours class.

“So,” you start, keeping your eyes on him out of the corner of your vision, watching how his fingers twitch around the coffee cup, “How did it go with Geto Suguru?”

Satoru’s shifting, as though he’s trying not gloat, but clearly bursting to tell you, “It was nice,” which is an unusually subdued, sensitive explanation from Satoru. The one who can take five hours to tell a story that you could wrap up in ten minutes. “He was really friendly. More than I thought he would be.”

“That is nice.” You’re forcing some perk back into your voice, but it comes out rather weak, “Like, genuinely.”

Satoru crumples the empty cup in his hand, tossing it into a nearby trashcan. Then, he shoots you a sharper look, “Did you actually talk to Choso, like, in-person? How did that go?”

You exhale, “Turns out I was babysitting his little brother,” and Satoru’s eyes widen slightly, “He was fine. And then he wasn’t. I asked him to be my date, and told me he dropped out. I said something…stupid. And now he’s going to hate me forever.”

Satoru stares at you, his gaze sharp, as though he’s dissecting you. And you swear that he can see right through your skin, right into your bones. It’s moments like this that make you feel like maybe your best friend has a sixth sense, some secret radar for picking up on these things.

“Wow,” he murmurs, a touch of something in his voice, “It really got you bad, huh?”

You bristle, a mix of annoyance and embarrassment flooding your chest. You’re straightening your shoulders, but it’s all too obvious and so fucking frustrating, “Yeah, well, I don’t even know why it matters so much.” The bite in your voice is more directed at yourself, than him.

Satoru doesn’t flinch, just tilts his head, and he’s quiet. It’s a weird look on him, soft concern, “You genuinely really liked him that much?”

The truth sticks to your throat as your chest tightens, and your eyes blur. It would be nice to tell Satoru that you didn’t really care that much. That it was never fully that serious, but the lie won’t leave your lips. The lump in your throat is palpable, and all you can do is sniffle, “Yeah. I did.”

“Do you want to cry?” Satoru’s voice is gentle enough to catch you off guard.

You open your mouth to retort, something sharp and defensive. But before you know it, tears spill as your chest constricts. It’s sudden, like a storm that breaks on the horizon.

And just like that, your best friend pulls you into him. For once, the wild energy that crackles off him is gone, replaced by something quieter and more unwavering. You can feel his shoulder under your cheek, soft and warm, salt staining the expensive fabric. And if anyone does see you sob into Gojo Satoru’s arms, while the white-haired boy pats your back, no one says a word.

But to borrow a line from Bangtan Sonyeondan, life goes on. The next few months slip by like the kind of indie film that you’d see at film festival. It’s bittersweet, and there’s a melancholy that everyone can taste in the air, especially as you all realise that this last blue spring of youth is slipping through fingers like sand.

In this haze of time, you discover a few things that you didn’t expect. For instance, Geto Suguru is, in fact, far more than the tall and brooding figure that you once shrugged off. He’s the stillness to Satoru’s sharper teeth, the quiet that counters the blue eye of the storm. He’s soft-spoken, with an easy patience that tempers Satoru’s edges. He’s become a bit of a constant presence, as they always bicker and makeup in a sort of perpetual cycle.

Spring arrives like a first kiss. It’s hesitant, not rushing in. Just tiptoes around you, tentative enough as it coaxes you out of winter’s gloom. Before the flurry of sparkly gowns and speeches, there’s Utahime’s birthday to celebrate. It’s supposed to be a relaxed affair, she insists that she has no desire for fuss. But you all show up anyway, surprising her with a giant, pastel cake that takes up nearly half the table.

Her laugh is loud, and carefree, mixing with the salt of the ocean breeze on this beach trip. Her black hair whips around her face, even as she blushes at the attention. She’s protesting, but it’s swallowed by laugher, by the sound of waves breaking against the shores.

The awards and titles are all well and good, prom queen and valedictorian. A shiny, little stamp on your high school resume, a golden ticket to the next chapter of your life. But when anyone brings it up, or someone presses too hard on the subject, you shift uncomfortably, your fingers toying with the edge of your pre-med acceptance letter like it just might tear under the pressure of your grip. No-one talks about how you’ve been visiting your locker less and less.

Satoru, of course, loudly denies crying at graduation, even as salty, shiny tears tack to his cheeks. They’re practically immortalised in every digital snapshot that you take. But for now, he’s too busy wrapping everyone in a bear hug, clutching the group that it’s the last time he’ll ever see them. Nanami’s already peeling him off, shaking his head with a worn sigh.

It's late in the morning after the graduation ceremony, as you all pile into cars, driving to a riverside café. It’s one of those places where people with money go to prove that they have money, to prove that even their breakfasts are above the meals of the common folk. But you all sit there, with the graduation ribbons still pinned to your lapels. There’s the debate over who cried the most during the ceremony (Gojo, easily, though Haibara is a close second) and who’s the one who peaked in high school. Everyone unanimously votes for Geto, who sulks as he tosses his hair out of his face, ever the drama queen.

“Bullshit,” he’s grumbling, “Just you wait. You’ll see what I accomplish in ten years.”

Satoru grins, all teeth and lazy confidence, “Yeah, what? You’re going to start running a pyramid scheme cult?”

Utahime’s voice cuts through the chatter, her white ribbon flouncing as she leans towards you, blinking at the empty space in front of you, “Where’s your food?”

You wave her off with a smile, “It’s fine. You guys can go ahead and start, I’ll just go and check.”

You hear Satoru choke around a mouthful of food, already bulldozing half his way through his plate like a bottomless pit.

There’s a pretty glass display at the front, filled with delicate chiffon cakes that glisten in the soft light. You wonder if you should have just ordered one, perhaps to share with Nanami. You know he likes desserts like this.

“Can I help you?”

Your pulse stutters as you bite your tongue, heart crashing against the rocks. You soothe your tongue over the tang of iron that blooms in your mouth from the stupidly familiar voice.

Choso Kamo.

You’d like to say that he looks good, but the truth is, he doesn’t. The hollows beneath his eyes are far more accentuated than you remember, and his hair is pulled back into a messy knot at the back of his head. Even his pale skin has taken on a sicklier pallor than usual.

“Hello?” His voice cuts through the silence, sharper this time, carrying an edge that takes you by surprise.

“Oh, uh, hey. Choso. Just wanted to check on my order,” you say, like it’s a poor prelude to small talk. It sounds far too chipper, almost artificial.

Choso’s expression tightens immediately, in an ill-omen. It’s as if he’s irritated that you even have the nerve to recognise him, to stand there in his space. He doesn’t meet your gaze, his attention flicking back to the screen in front of him with a quickness that almost feels deliberate.

“Hello.” He’s muttering back, more out of obligation than any real interest. Like it’s a formality.

The sharp, hollow feeling in your chest expands, deeper than you’re willing to admit. The last time you saw him, you had been standing at his door, and he had slammed it in your face.

“What are you doing here?” Your question is clumsy, hanging in the air, and far too intrusive for a stranger.

“What?” Choso doesn’t even look up. But then he does, just briefly, his gaze flicking to yours with the same disinterest. He shrugs, as though the query is too trivial for any answer.

“It’s just…it’s been a while, yeah?” You’re not quite sure how to word and I want to know how you’ve been.

“I’m fine,” Choso replies quickly, dismissing your question with a wave of his pale hand, “Just working around here and there.”

It’s offbeat, landing wrong. You don’t think it’s unfair to think that everyone expected more of him. One of the smartest, most brilliant minds in your cohort, who had been a shoo-in for medicine, alongside you.

The bustle of patrons behind you intensifies, but you stubbornly dig your heels into the polished tile, “How’s Yuuji?”

The mention of his younger brother softens him, just a little. A small, bashful smile tugs at the corner of Choso’s pink lips, hesitant, like he doesn’t quite know how to let it show, “He’s good. Says you were the ‘bestest’ babysitter that he ever had. Even asks about you sometimes.”

You fight the urge to smile too openly, not wanting to seem too affected by the gentleness that suddenly lingers in the space between you two, “I’m glad. And…are you still working for your uncle?”

It’s as if you’ve thrown a switch, causing all the warmth to evaporate from his features. His jaw tightens, as his brow furrows. Settling a coldness over his expression, “Who the fuck told you that?”

You blink, surprised at the sudden harshness of his words. “Yuuji mentioned it,” you murmur, quieter now, careful. The hesitation in your voice isn’t feigned, and you realise you’ve broken the golden rule of ‘never push Choso Kamo about his personal life.’

Choso doesn’t seem keen on letting you explain, as his glare cuts through you, “If you wanted to snoop into my life, just ask me your stupid questions, okay? Don’t drag my little brother into it.”

The accusation lands like a slap, stinging you more than you expected, “What? I wasn’t snooping,” you insist, defences flaring open, “He told me that himself. I didn’t even ask him anything, and I didn’t ask anything else!”

He just stares at you, eyes burnished and unreadable, but he seems mollified by your answer. Like he knows that your explanation is sincere, but the chasm is nigh impossible to bridge, “Sure. Okay.”

You don’t know how to respond, opening your mouth to ask what on earth has made him so unreasonable. To dig the tips of your almond nails into his long sleeves, and demand that he treats you as adoringly as everyone else in your life does. But he interrupts you first, “Your order’s coming.”

Choso’s tone is clipped, colder. As though he’s already moved on, “And I’ve got a lot of other customers to serve. Nice seeing you again, or whatever.”

A dismissal, if there ever was one. The embarrassment rushes up your neck, hot and insistent, but you bite your tongue. You let your heels clack a little more loud than necessary, as you stomp away. You’re swivelling your head to deliver a final, withering stare but his gaze is no longer on you.

Choso’s looking at the table where everyone is sitting. Where your friends are laughing, leaning into one another as they snap their final graduation photos. Where Geto has his lips pressed to Satoru’s cheek in a rare display of affection, arms linked with Shoko and Utahime. Where even Nanami’s smiling, the sunlight leafing through his golden waves of thick hair.

There’s no anger in Choso’s eyes, or even that solitary, brooding stare. He looks almost…sad. Profoundly sorrowful, in a deep and aching way that makes your anger dissipate.

He’s looking at your friends, at their graduation certificates stacked in sleeves on the table, as though he’s lost something that he never had. It aches your chest tightly, a knot pulling at your heart.

Once, he was Choso Kamo — the quiet boy you liked in school. Then, he became Choso from the café. Soon, he'll be someone whose name you won't even remember in a few years, someone who's path you'll probably never cross again.

You find yourself blinking furiously, feeling as though you've just lost something yourself, but you fight back the salt that threatens to blur your vision before your friends see.

THREE YEARS LATER.

Your day had started off deceptively well, like a glass of water poured perfectly. Clear, refreshing, with no chance of spilling. The sun was shining, your skin looked like it was having its best day, and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. But of course, it didn’t take long for things to spiral, as they tend to do.

It was like playing a real-life Sisyphus game, except instead of a boulder, it was a series of small, dumb annoyances that you couldn’t dodge fast enough.

First, Satoru had texted to cancel lunch. And to be fair, you weren’t that bothered. He had been talking all week about a world-renowned professor dropping in on his fourth-years Honours class, something about nuclear engineering. And you knew that Satoru lived for anything involving theoretical mass and explosions.

Then, your favourite tote bag had decided it was done with you. The strap had snapped off with a surprising, sudden violence. Your beautiful new water bottle had hit the floor with a sickening, metallic thud. Pens rolled across the tiles like little soldiers. You had been kneeling, already late for class, muttering curses under your breath when your phone had rung.

Your mother.

And you already knew that tone well enough, that voice that could cut through steel.

“You missed the charity dinner? You know how embarrassing it is for your father and I to come up with excuses, just to explain your absence —”

Yeah, like you had personally insulted her by choosing to study for your exams, instead of milling around an event hall. You tried to explain, but it was like trying to explain Satoru’s quantum physics to the wall. Totally pointless, and not worth your time and energy. And naturally, her tone escalated, because that’s what she just tended to do. Nevermind that she was calling from some ritzy hotel in Europe, crackling over the phone.

And then, just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, the course coordinator paged you in for a meeting. You were still in your first few weeks of medicine, so you had been scratching your brain for what he could have possibly wanted, snapping gum as you rushed and clacked up stone steps, breezing through campus.

Now, here you were. Standing in front of his desk with your arms crossed, almost petulantly. The room smelled like old coffee, and expired textbooks as the man coughed, leaning back against his desk, littered with academic transcripts and stacked envelopes.

“Look, there’s no denying that you’re one of our most brilliant students. All the tutors and lecturers admire your work ethic,” and the professor stopped, and you grimaced. Ah, here it comes.

“But, you’ve chosen Ieiri Shoko as your partner for the past three years, am I correct in saying this?” His dark eyes are narrowed behind wiry glasses, as you frowned.

“Yes.”

Shoko had practically excelled in Pre-Med alongside you, surviving late night study rants, extreme caffeine dependency, and textbook-induced breakdowns.

“You work together well,” the coordinator adds, looking like he was trying to make this sound like a compliment, “But you need to branch out. Develop your versatility. In a noble field, such as medicine, it’s important to be able to work with others. Not rule and conquer.”

You blink at him, “Branch out? I don’t know how else to say this, but I don’t like anyone else in my class. And Shoko and I are easily the best.”

He ignores your comments, “So, I’ve thought it better to move you to a new stream. Instead of Tuesday’s clinical practice, I’ll have you attend the Thursday session, starting today. There’s a new partner for you, and I assure you, he is just as competent as Ieiri Shoko,”

You doubt it. No-one can handle the sight of infected perineum stitches like Shoko can.

It seems there’s only one card left for you to pull, “My grandfather paid for this entire wing of the building. His name is on the plaque outside.”

The coordinator doesn’t even budge, “That may be true. But you still need to grow. You will never learn if you just continue to stick with what is familiar.”

You leave the office with a sour taste in your mouth, clutching the crisp sheet of paper that’s already being emailed to your student account, no doubt.

“Collaboration,” you’re muttering under your breath, “Building character, my ass.” You’re squinting at the page, trying to decipher the name of your new stream partner, but it’s obscured by a hastily scribbled note with your classroom change.

The faint ache in your neck refuses to budge, and you roll your shoulders with a sigh. Pushing through the double doors to the anatomy facility. Immediately, the frigid air bites at your cheeks, sharp and unwelcome. These buildings always feel like high-tech mausoleums, with tables lined up like gleaming altars. Surfaces cold enough to numb your fingertips if you’re careless.

The faint, cloying scent of formaldehyde hangs in the air, sharp and chemical. It’s supposed to preserve the cadavers, but it has the unfortunate side effect of making your stomach growl at the worst times. Hunger, and embalming fluid. A combination so disgusting that you try not to dwell on it for too long.

Your lab coat is rubbing uncomfortably against your arms, and your Loewe sweater is bunched awkwardly around your elbows. It’s a long-suffering sigh that echoes the hall as you shove the heavy barred doors to the classroom.

The tutor is a stalk-like man, with perpetually knitted brows, glancing up at you as you enter, “Ah, yes. The transfer,” he’s brisk with it, “Got the note about you moving to my Thursday stream. Just sit over there, for now. Yeah, there. Your partner should be along soon. If he’s a no-show, I’ll reassign you to a different table.”

You nod wordlessly, scanning the room as you head to your non-descript, assigned corner. The faces at the other tables blur together, some curious and others indifferent. Most focused on pushing worksheets under steel clipboards.

Great. A room full of strangers with all the warmth of wet cardboard.

Sliding into your plastic seat, you pull your notebook out and flip it open, the pages crinkling and echoing in the too-quiet room. It’s a minute, maybe two of shifting uncomfortably in your chair, feeling the awkward hollowness of sitting alone at a two-person station. But the door swings open with a groaning creak.

“Perfect! Full class today, that’s what I like to see. Just head to your usual spot, and I’ll start passing the models around.”

You glance up, squinting at the figure who’s broad enough to cause a solar eclipse of the fluorescent light.

“Get out,” you blurt.

“This is my class,” Choso Kamo stares at you, equally bewildered. His bronze eyes widen briefly, flickering from your face to the lab tables, to the unaware tutor.

“Don’t care. Get out,” you scowl, speechless for a moment, “No. Don’t sit. This is my assigned stream. Don’t tell me that you’re my —”

“Partner?” Choso finishes for you, deadpan.

“Of all the people in this entire school —”

“I’m starting to feel offended,” Choso cuts in, already pulling out the chair beside you, and slinging his bag down with an air of resignation.

“What are you doing here?”

Choso’s lips twitch, but he doesn’t quite smile, “I’m getting an education. Obviously.”

Your gaze flickers away from his unfairly handsome face, following the motion of his hand as he shifts. There’s a single black hair tie, looped around his wrist.

But something just does not add up for you. This isn’t just any medical program. It’s the kind of rigorous, cutthroat, soul-consuming degree that requires three years of a top GPA from Pre-Med. It’s designed to weed out the faint hearted before the first semester is even over. Graduates here don’t just get jobs. They get titles, and invitations to Westminster where the British monarch probably bestows them with Dame, or Sir, or some other archaic title.

And Choso Kamo is a high school dropout, with nary a certificate to his name.

“You got into medicine?” It’s as blunt as you can get.

“What? Like it’s hard?”

“Don’t quote Legally Blonde at me,” You snarl, wordlessly taking the tray of silicone gashes from the tutor.

Choso blinks, as though he’s truly stumped by your hostile reaction, “Then don’t ask stupid questions.” He seems…different now. Sharper, and less apologetic. There’s a streak of confidence that’s as unnerving as it is infuriating. Is he taller? He seems taller.

You exhale sharply, a sound between frustration and resignation. It’s not like you can go up to the course coordinator now and say, ‘Oh, sorry! I can’t be in this stream because my new partner is the boy who broke my heart in high school. I cried and threw up on my best friend’s blazer for three days.’

But you’ve definitely given the group chat enough material to fuel their devious amusement for days, even weeks. You’re practically writing the jokes for them.

With a defiant swing of your arm, you hoist your bag onto the desk. The soft leather tanking against the sterile surface, like a gauntlet being thrown. You slide it firmly into position, the strap dangling just enough to make a point. That this is your line in the sand.

“Don’t move one centimetre over your side of the desk.”

Choso just rolls his eyes.

“They…modify bacterial ribosomes.”

“Wrong.”

You sigh and tap the edge of your notebook with the tip of your mechanical pencil. The rhythm is irregular, your thoughts too scrambled to produce anything like a steady beat.

“They inactive carbapenems,” you try again, your tone pitched with the kind of hope that knows it’s already on life support.

“Nope.”

Choso’s shaking his head, the movement loose and lazy, and it sends strands of his chestnut hair tumbling into his face. The harsh fluorescent lights above make his hair shine with an almost metallic lustre, and as he tugs a thick sweater over his broad frame, your gaze drifts.

The fabric of his white top is riding up, revealing a pale stretch of skin. There’s the faintest dusting of dark hair trailing downwards, and your eyes snap back to the textbook. Your cheeks flushed, for the briefest second as your resolve breaks.

“Just tell me the answer.”

Choso exhales, in a soft and patient sound, sliding the textbook your way. He’s tapping the page with his finger, his blunt nail landing on the highlighted sentence.

“Extended-Spectrum Beta-Lactamases hydrolyse a wide range of beta-lactam antibiotics, including third-generation cephalosporins. This contributes to antibiotic resistance.” His voice is smooth, but it carries that faint rasp that always makes it sound like he’s just woken up.

“I was close.”

“Close doesn’t get you any marks,” Choso replies, deadpan.

Your retort dies on your glossy lips, when a sharp shhh cuts through the air. You glance up, spotting a student two tables away, glaring at you over the rim of her stylish tortoiseshell glasses.

Your next sip of coffee is deliberate, making an obnoxious gurgle as you drain the bottom of your cup. Choso’s eyes flick to the order scribbled on the side, Caramel Crunch Latte, Extra Whip. His lips twitch, but what can you say? Satoru’s dropped a habit or two on you over the years.

This has become the routine over the past few weeks. The outright disdain you had initially felt had eroded, once you had realised that you were truly stuck with the man. It had become something closer to a begrudging truce, but ‘truce’ may be too generous a word.

The two of you found yourselves studying together. Regularly. Choso needed to interact more with people, and less with his old, dusty laptop. And you needed a study partner that could match your wits. Unfortunately, Choso seemed entirely oblivious to the reason you nursed an ancient grudge against him, choosing to accept your bad attitude in stride.

It doesn’t help that Choso is, well, hot now.

In high school, he had always been cute in that underdog way. Endearing, if not exactly the type to inspire confidence. He had been the subject of your sweet trope-like fantasy that you would nurture during long, dull classes.

You, the radiant prom queen, standing under a canopy of glittering lights, extending a perfectly manicured hand to him. The shy, awkward loser who’d clearly underestimated how gorgeous his messy hair and tendency to trip over his own words were. Ugh, now you’re not sure who had been the bigger loser.

But three years had passed, and the Choso that sat across from you now bore only a passing resemblance to that daydream. Time, it seemed had been suspiciously kind to him. Unfairly, even. His frame was lean but undeniably defined. His shyness remained, because you knew that he refused to correct the woman at the food trucks whenever she got his name wrong, but it had softened into something less clumsy, and more self-contained. Far less teenage angst.

The dark violet smudges beneath his eyes were still there, giving him that haunted and sleep—deprived look. And his hair was still the same stringy, chestnut mop that you remembered. But it was more of a deliberate statement now, instead of an oversight. It hung just over his shoulders, and you had heard many a passerby giggle and whisper about hot emos on campus. Like, get in line.

“What are you doing next weekend?”

The question comes so abruptly that your head snaps up like a spring-loaded trap.

“Huh?” You blink, the tip of your pencil teetering dangerously close to snapping against the page.

Choso stares back at you, his expression maddeningly neutral, “Like, are you busy?”

“It’s my friend’s birthday on Saturday, we’re going out at night,” you’re narrowing your eyes at him, already feeling your composure fray.

It’s Suguru’s birthday, and Gojo’s gone full-out with a surprise planned at some five-star restaurant. You managed to get your hands on a vintage vinyl turntable for him, courtesy of a Sotheby’s auction.

Choso nods, like he’s filing that away somewhere, “What about Sunday?”

“Sunday?” You repeat, dragging it out, “I’m free, I guess.” Against all reason, you find yourself answering honestly, even as some internal voice is screaming at you to lie and make up an excuse.

“Do you want to study at my place?”

There’s a pause, long enough for the air to grow heavy between you two. You wonder if he remembers the last time that you asked him to go out with you. Your eyebrows shoot up, and your mouth must be twitching in something close to incredulity.

Choso notices, for his ears go pink first. Then his cheeks, like someone’s spattered him with a splotchy watercolour paint. The flush sits pretty, just under the dark mark that crosses the bridge of his nose, “No, I mean, like really study. Just studying. It’s easier than being here…” He twitches, looking anywhere but you, “Yuuji would be happy to see you again, and stuff.”

And stuff. How ridiculous that two words make your heart trip over itself. Your three-year resolve to keep him firmly in the do not touch zone has basically cracked wide open. There’s a traitorous smile tugging at the corner of your lips, but you manage to suppress it. Barely. Playing it off with a nonchalant hum.

“Hmm. Sure, I’ll think about it.”

Choso lives in an apartment now. Not a polished high-rise with sleek fixtures and panoramic views, but a tired and unremarkable building with flickering yellow lights that cast long and ominous shadows along the stairwell. You clutch the slip of paper that he scribbled his address on, squinting at the nearly illegible scrawl. It’s barely decipherable, a penmanship perfect for prescriptions and indecipherable notes.

In your other hand, you balance a box of cream rolls from the bakery that Nanami swears by, their golden horns stuffed with airy dairy and dusted with cinnamon sugar. The smell is warm and sweet, a sharp contrast to the questionable stairwell.

The ascent feels longer than it should, each step accompanied by the faint swing of those tired lights overhead. But you bite back any judgement, you’ve made that mistake before.

Someone else is already there, a tall figure that knocks on Choso’s door with wide, lazy knuckles. Once. Twice. The man huffs, pocketing his phone and pulling out a key. There’s a practiced ease to the way he clicks the lock open, and for a moment, you hesitate, wondering if you’re witnessing a breaking-and-entering type of situation.

But there’s something familiar about the muted shock of rosy, pink hair that spikes over his head.

“What are you doing?” His voice is rough, deep, with an edge of irritation that makes you stand a little straighter. He looks over you once, and his eyes fall on the box of pastries in your hands. Disinterest giving way to a little bit of curiosity. It reminds you of Itadori Yuuji.

“Uh,” you clear your throat, “Choso invited me.”

The man’s eyebrows lift in surprise, and you’re fascinated by the tattoos that curl around his face. Even running along his jawline, and down his neck. There are silver studs littering his ear, and if you didn’t know better, you would say that there are real precious stones scattered among them.

“Didn’t know he had a date.” The man seems gruffly amused, and you stomp your heels, the sound snapping off worn walls.

“It’s not a date. We’re studying.”

“Don’t care. Didn’t really ask.”

With that, he swings the door open, stepping inside before you can. You linger in the doorway, before hesitantly following him, watching as he kicks the door shut with his heel. He seems to be making himself at home like he owns the place, peering through an empty fridge and rifling through cabinets. All before collapsing on the sagging couch like it’s his throne, sprawled out as he starts scrolling through his phone again.

You just perch awkwardly on the edge of a cold chair, as the space suddenly feels oddly claustrophobic. Your fingers toy with the edge of your notebook, as you wonder whether you need to call Choso, to see if this was all a mistake. Instead, your gaze flickers over to the man sitting opposite you.

You’re sure that he comes from money. You’ve spent enough summer holidays backstage at Milan and Paris shows to recognise the season’s latest pieces. And the crimson racing jacket on his shoulders is definitely a Dior piece that costs more than what you assume is the rent of this entire apartment complex. Plus, you had spent enough time flicking through Van Cleef’s catalogue to recognise the whirring, high-jewellery piece that sat on his wrist. A watch with an eye-like mechanism, studded with Burmese rubies. Easily the price of your penthouse.

“So, you friends with Choso?” He asks suddenly, lowering his phone. His eyes are sharp russet, locking with yours.

“We know each other from high school,” you say, trying to keep your tone neutral. It’s best to leave it at that, it’s safer that way. You’re playing Choso’s game, the one where you don’t share a thing about your personal life.

“Hmph,” The sound is more of a grunt than a response, and it makes you bristle. Why bother asking a question if you’re not interested in the answer?

“Did I leave the door unlocked?”

You hear Choso’s faintly bewildered murmur, almost to himself, before he catches sight of you. It’s cute, how a bashful smile creeps over his face again, almost embarrassed at the sight of you. But it darkens instantly, sharply. His bronze eyes are fixed on the man that loiters on his couch.

“Get out.”

The man is unfazed, “Why? Am I interrupting your date?”

“It’s not a date. We’re studying.” Choso’s mirroring your exact, previous words. His tone is stiff, like you’ve never heard it before. A snarl, with irritation bubbling underneath the surface.

“I don’t know how else I can stress this enough, brat. But I really do not care what you do to get off.” The man drawls, pushing himself off the couch. He’s absurdly tall, easily the height of the ceiling. You catch a glimpse of the tattoos trailing up his forearm, dark ink that winds around his wrist. A startling splash of red staining the sleeve of the pristine jacket. It’s dried up now, crusting the edges of the fabric. Sort of like…

Weird. And impossible.

Choso grunts, “Fine. Get up. Go,” and he’s gesturing towards a door leading into another room, his jaw clenched tight. The muscles in his neck are taut, the apology in his expression at you somehow mixed with a faint flicker of regret, like he wishes you weren’t here to see this.

What happens next is an absolute masterclass on being nosy. You’ve edged closer to the door, shifting on the couch so you’re practically perched on the armrest. You can hear the muffled thrum of Choso and the stranger’s voice through the door, but it’s not enough. Curiosity is clawing her sharp nails at you, and you wonder if you should text Satoru. Or maybe drop a quick message in the group chat.

You end up leaning in closer, ignoring the way that you’re teetering on the very edge.

The conversation is low, like the rumble of thunder in the distance, but the voices are gradually building until —

“What? You did not just fuckin’ throw something at me!” The man’s voice booms so loud that you almost jump out of your skin, “What is wrong with you? Can’t even have an honest conversation these days?”

Choso’s response is tight, simmering with frustration that you don’t understand, “Nothing you do is honest. And don’t break into my place then!”

“Your place?” The man’s scoff is almost a sneer, like he’s amused at the mere thought, “Brat, let’s not forget all the favours I’ve done you.” There’s a crash, something hitting the floor with a thud, and the man’s voice bellows again, “Oi! Put that down right now. Don’t you dare throw something else at me. Fuck, you’ve got good aim, I’ll give ya’ that.”

You can hear Choso shuffle, spit something sharp in response.

“You’ve done all these things for me before, eh? Why the hesitation now? Got tired of cleaning it all up?”

Choso’s response is firm through the thin walls, “I’m done with doing your dirty work all the time.”

The silence that follows is thick, suffocating, punctuated with a low and disbelieving laugh.

“You said that last time. But you came crawling back when you couldn’t handle looking after the kid all on your lonesome.”

“Leave Yuuji out of this!”

There’s another muffled scuffle, a loud thud that makes your heart race as the stranger growls, “Can’t believe you bit me.”

The door swings open with a suddenness that almost knocks you off your seat. Choso’s practically putting his entire back into shoving the man out with a sharp grunt, like he’s had enough.

The stranger turns, giving you a lazy, bored wave. Like he knows that it will simply irk Choso off even more. And he’s right. Choso, not having it for a second, snaps at him, “Get out. And don’t come back.”

The man rolls his eyes, but not before pulling out a pricey Italian wallet, slapping a wad of thick bills down on the kitchen counter, “That’s for this month. I’ll send a cheque next month for the little brat’s birthday.”

Then he’s gone, muttering something about bitchy, little bastard children, born on the wrong side of the sheets, with sharp teeth.

Choso’s whirling around to you, his expression unreadable and blank. Like the surface of still water that refuses to betray even a ripple of emotion. You school your features, meeting his gaze with a look of equal, quiet disinterest.

“Friend of yours?” You ask, your voice cool. But there’s questions dancing on the tip of your tongue, and you can taste them in the air.

He doesn’t answer right away. He’s flicking through the thick stack of bills that the stranger left on the counter. The sound of cash shifting in his hands is oddly loud, and you whistle low, almost involuntarily. It makes Choso look up, catching your appreciative gaze. His fingers tighten around the stack, his jaw clenching, as if to keep in whatever thoughts or words are threatening to spill out.

“Don’t say anything.” His voice is a low mutter, hard.

“I didn’t.”

Choso looks at you again, his hazel eyes softening just enough that you catch the flicker of something unsure. He lets out a low sigh, “But you want to ask.”

“Will you let me ask?” You’re pushing, your voice a little softer and coaxing than you intended. You can already see the signs, the slight stiffening of his shoulders, the way his gaze flickers to the door as if he’s considering an exit. Choso’s like a clam, snapping shut, as if there is a pearl that he’s not ready to share.

“What do you want to know?” He’s saying this like it’s a chore, as if it is the last thing he wants to do.

You make your way to the kitchen counter, “What will you tell me?”

If Choso is irritated by the vague, passive nature of your questions, he doesn’t show it. He simply tugs his purple sweater down, sharply. “Yuuji will be sad if his uncle didn’t send him money for his birthday. He turns ten next month.”

“So that was…Uncle Kuna,” you ask, murmuring more to yourself than to him. But Choso’s sharp gaze flicks to you, a faint confirmation in the nod that follows.

“Mhm.”

And just like that, something clicks in your brain. A conversation that you had overheard once, perhaps a year or two ago. A rare moment that both your parents had been home, still too distracted to realise that you were listening. The realisation hits you hard, like a small shot of adrenaline, “That’s not Sukuna, is it? Ryomen Sukuna?”

Choso’s amber look is like fragile glass now, “Yeah. How’d you figure?”

In a world such as yours and Satoru’s, it’s quite hard to avoid gossip, and whispers that float around in the backrooms of business meetings, or in the too-quiet halls of private clubs. For all the older business-clans, Sukuna is quite the upstart. A man who clawed his way to the top, not just content with money, but power and influence as well. Apparently, he made quite the name for himself, building an empire with wealth beyond measure.

And all at the low price of being wanted in more than thirty-five countries and territories. A businessman, a crook and a criminal. Your father said that Ryomen Sukuna’s ledgers were written in red ink, fresh blood for both personal and financial debts that were owed to him.

“Why did he say that you came crawling back to him?”

Choso’s eyes flutter shut, and you can see that he’s calculating whether it’s worth the effort to respond.

“He’s the reason I dropped out of school,” Choso mutters, the words low enough that almost don’t catch them. They land with a soft thud, the kind that makes your pulse stutter. You stare at him, with the kind of look that people give when a ticking time bomb has just been dropped in their lab.

Choso scoffs, eyes darting away, “Yeah. He’s always been sending money for Yuuji. And I was stuck doing his…favours.”

Suddenly, you’re back in high school. On Choso’s doorstep, watching him try to hide a cardboard box of surgical tools. There’s a little corkboard map in your head connected with red strings, as you pin other things on there. The latex gloves in the box, Choso’s general lack of squeamish misery when it comes to the stickier parts of medicine, and the bloodstain on Ryomen Sukuna’s Dior jacket.

It’s almost odd, in a morbid way, that a crime boss chooses the latest Vogue streetwear, instead of a dark Godfather suit and a cigar.

Your expression must betray the pieces that you’ve put together, because Choso’s eyes widen, like he can see the cogs turning in your brain. “Look,” he stammers, voice rougher now, with a nervous edge, “I didn’t do anything wrong. Never saw what he did. Not really. Just —”

You shush him gently, a hand reaching out to land on his, a little too quickly and a little too hot. The instant your skin brushes against his, there’s a sharp feeling. Like you’ve touched something that burns beneath the surface. His face flashes a faint pink, muscles stiffening as though your touch seared him in a way he wasn’t prepared for.

“Go on,” you hope that your tone is reassuring.

Choso swallows, his throat bobbing as his fingers suddenly curl around yours, “Anyway, I got tired of doing his dirty work, you know? Thought that if I dropped out, I could get a job. Work enough to support myself and Yuuji, without taking a single dollar from him.”

“But he’s your uncle?” Your question is tentative, like you’re testing the waters of a deeper pool, “Wouldn’t he support you, too?”

Choso’s sigh is deep and weary as he gently corrects you, “He’s Yuuji’s uncle. Yuuji’s my half-brother.”

Suddenly, Sukuna’s comment about ‘biting bastard children’ snaps into place with clarity. Oh.

You’re not sure what to say now, what words could possibly fill the emptiness that lingers between the two of you. What a misery it would have been. Being a teenager with such potential, forced to close off your own future for the sake of family, and those that you love.

You remember Choso’s face that day, after graduation, with his hollow expression as he watched your friends celebrate their youth. There’s a bitter lump in your throat, but for once, you keep it down. This really isn’t about you.

You frown, the thought sneaking up on you and settling in your chest like a splinter you can’t ignore. “He said you owed him favours.”

Choso exhales sharply, his shoulders stiffening as if bracing for something unpleasant. His voice is low, bitter. “You think high school dropouts pay their own way into med school without a benefactor?”

Right.

“So?” Choso’s voice cuts through the fog of your thoughts, and you blink at him, startled.

“So, what?”

Choso shifts, unease seeping into his posture. His calloused fingers are still curled tightly around yours, like he’s afraid that you’ll pull away and slip past him.

“Are you angry?”

You’re not sure whether to laugh, or sigh, “Why would I be angry?”

He’s hesitating, dark hair falling loose around his face, “I was a jerk to you.” The words come quietly, like they’ve been gnawing at him, biting at the edges of his thoughts, “At the time, I don’t know, I guess I was just angry. Everything felt unfair, and I didn’t want anyone else to be involved.”

You frown, not fully understanding what to say, “You were still a teenager,” you say slowly, like you’re trying to convince both him and you. You hesitate, unsure whether you’re underplaying things, so the worlds come out a little jagged, not quite as comforting as you wished. “I guess…” It feels weak as your words suddenly stagger off.

Choso’s eyes flicker to yours, searching, like he’s trying to figure if there’s something else, you’re not saying, “What?”

You can practically hear Satoru’s voice in your heard, groaning and whining about screwing the long game. But you puff a breath through your cheeks, worried you’ll lose the nerve, “You know, I really liked you, right, Choso?”

Choso’s mouth drops open, as his face flickers with disbelief. The same way it had three years ago, “Like, really?”

You nod, a smile tugging at your lips without even thinking, “Yeah. And you know, everyone else thought I was being, like, silly. But I really liked you. I just never knew what to say to you.” It feels so stupid, and obvious now. But back then, it had been a great chunk of your world. You force yourself to hold his bashful gaze.

Choso’s quiet for a moment, before he admits, “I couldn’t believe it when you asked me to be your date. I thought it was just a game you were playing, or there was no-one left to ask.”

And then, after a beat, “Who did you go with?”

You snicker, a little too bitter and honest, “No-one.”

Choso’s quiet, relieved ‘damn’ makes you laugh even more, threading your fingers with his.

“I just can’t believe he’s in your classes. What are the odds?” Satoru mutters, abandoning his sunglasses for the evening, his bright eyes flashing like sunlight refracted on water. He claims that his eyes are less sensitive today, but you’re certain it’s an excuse for him to freely rifle through your kitchen without obstruction. In the living room, the rest of your friends hover like a pack of starved hyenas, waiting for the snacks that Satoru is currently monopolising.

“I’m telling you, when I first saw him, my heart dropped straight to my ass,” you say, tearing open a bag of sour cream crisps with more force than necessary. The chips tumble into the earthenware bowl in a noisy cascade.

Satoru snickers, expertly arranging small platters on a big, oaken serving board, “I pity the lack of cushioning it got.”

You flick a stray crisp at him, the chip bouncing off his shoulder with a gratifying crunch. For a moment, his grin is steady, but it quickly turns rueful. That slight furrow in his brows, the way the corner of his mouth twitches downwards. There’s something else simmering under that veneer of carelessness.

“You’re not happy, Satoru?”

His expression hardens slightly, plucking a cluster of wine-red grapes, twisting them off their stems with methodical precision.

“Well, yeah,” Satoru admits after a beat, his tone uncharacteristically sober, “I’m glad that he’s, like, nice now or whatever. But he basically broke your heart, didn’t he?”

You glance away, your fingers tighten on the corner of another snack bag, “He had his reasons.” Your flat reply avoids his curious gaze, perceptive and knowing. You hadn’t filled him on the Sukuna-lore. You’re not sure what it is, but there’s bad blood between the Gojos and Sukuna, and you’re not keen to exacerbate it.

Oh, hey, Satoru! So, Choso is like Sukuna’s adopted nephew. And I think Sukuna forced him to like clean up people’s chopped fingers and arms, or whatever. But I have a big crush on him, yep. Right after I said that I wouldn’t catch feelings again.

Satoru scoffs, wagging a long finger at you. A glistening droplet of grape juice clings to his thumb like a ruby bead, “Don’t make excuses for someone hurting your feelings. You know better than that.” His tone carries the same theatrical lilt as always, but it’s underpinned with something firmer, genuine.

Before you can fire back, a new voice meanders into the kitchen, soft and unhurried, “Who hurt your feelings?”

It’s Suguru, propped lazily against the doorway, choppy layers freshly framing his sharp features. The dim kitchen light catches on the faint sheen of his silver rings as he crosses his arms.

Satoru grabs a bag of pretzels, lobbing it towards him, “Choso Kamo. Remember that emo guy I told you about?”

Suguru catches the bag with practised ease, without looking, his mauve gaze flicking to you. You silently curse Gojo Satoru for broadcasting your love life, or lack thereof, to what feels like half the city.

“What’s he look like again?”

You narrow your eyes at the tall man, “He was literally in our grade.”

Suguru shrugs, his palms raised in mock innocence, “I never saw him, okay? He was quiet as hell, never had classes with him.”

“He wasn’t that quiet,” you protest, but your words are drowned out by Satoru’s triumphant declaration.

“Hold up! I got visual aid.”

He’s whipped out his phone, unlocking it with a brief glance of his face, before shoving the dimmed screen inches from Suguru’s puzzled face. The photo, a grainy yearbook photo of Choso in junior year, gleams under the kitchen lights. You wonder if you’re going to need to fight for your life on the frontlines again.

For a moment, Suguru’s expression remains neutral. Unimpressed even. Then, as if someone’s flipped a switch, his eyes widen with dawning recognition, “This is Kamo? His girlfriend’s my neighbour.”

Half a grape travels down Satoru’s windpipe, “The villain!”

Your best friend’s exclamation ricochets off the kitchen walls, loud enough to silence whatever protest was forming on your lips. Not that you had much ground to stand on. How would you even know? Choso had talked to you about his family, not his love life. You saw him a few times a week, and then the two of you would drift away, back to your own orbits. And he was a grown man with a life that had surely moved past you.

You had told him that you had liked him, and he hadn’t said a word back that hinted at any mutual connection. How had you missed that?”

Satoru is still recovering from his near demise at the hands of fruit, “What girlfriend? You’re sure, Suguru?”

Suguru raises an eyebrow, looking like he regrets ever opening his mouth, “Hey. Don’t pin this on me. But he comes by, with a little pink-haired kid. His brother? And she’s like talkative,” and he gestures vaguely above his head, “Like, really tall. Blonde.”

Your eyes had drifted to the unopened case of vodka sitting on the counter.

Satoru clocks you immediately, “Don’t even think about it. We’re going to handle this like mature adults.”

“We?”

Satoru nods solemnly, looping his arm through Suguru’s leather jacket, “Yes. Your Choso loss is my Choso loss,” and he pulls Suguru closer, “Our Choso loss.”

Suguru sighs, not shaking him off as he looks at you sympathetically, “Why am I a part of this? No offense. You could skip all this misery, and I don’t know because I’m just spit balling here, ask him?”

The dark-haired man continues, “Or, and I know this is radical for two divas like you, you could just let it go and spare yourself the drama. If you’re going to be working in the same field, wouldn’t professionalism be better?”

Satoru scoffs, “Or! We do some reconnaissance. I mean, you’re the girlfriend’s neighbour, Suguru. Go snoop around.”

“Why is it always me?” Suguru’s pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Because it is always you. You’ve got the best sneaky liar face I know,” Satoru replies breezily, ignoring how Suguru mutters about the love he feels in this kitchen, “And you need to do this for the greater good. All that noble shit.”

Suguru shoots you a half-hearted glare, as if this is somehow your fault, and not Satoru pulling every string. You’re one more inconvenience away from slumping onto the counter, head in hands, a shot glass by your side.

Your mind flickers to the hair tie that Choso always wears on his wrist. It could be innocuous, sure, but the green-eyed monster claws itself up in your chest. You imagine this faceless girlfriend passing it to him, like an intimate, inside joke.

“What am I supposed to do? Corner him in the break room on placements, and interrogate him? Should I pull out the clan funds, and pay him to date me?”

“It’s what I did with Suguru,” Satoru quips, not missing a beat.

“Now who’s the liar,” Suguru murmurs.

The hospital’s looming ahead. A hulking mass of glass and steel that outline the bleak sky. It’s a bitter Monday morning, the kind that bites at your cheeks and sinks into your bones, no matter how tightly you bundle up. The drive has been long and so utterly tedious, the pale sunlight doing little to brighten the cityscape as you crawl along congested streets.

Now, on the far edge of the suburbs, you’re left squinting and fuming as you circle the parking lot for the third time. The situation is grim, spots are scarce, and every turn feels like an ill-fated gamble that only ends in someone else’s bumper.

You mutter curses under your breath, the heater in your car doing little to thaw your mood.

Choso’s already there, not a massive surprise, for his apartment is far closer than your waterfront residence, smack-bang in the city’s central district. His dark hair is loosely tied back, and he’s thrown an old hoodie over his scrubs. There’s a clipboard tucked under his arm, and a coffee cup in the other.

He extends the cup towards you without preamble, “Want it?”

You blink, catching on the incongruity of the gesture. But Suguru’s intel still echoes in your mind, he has a girlfriend.

You furrow your brow, the cup hovering between you, “Where’s yours?”

Choso shrugs, “I don’t drink coffee. Makes me jittery.”

This answer irritates you for no logical reason. Who doesn’t drink coffee? It feels like some fundamental character flaw, and you snatch the cup from his hand. Doing your very best not to unfairly glare at him, for the sole crime of having a life outside of you.

It’s hard to focus when he’s nailed your exact order. You lower the cup, the warmth seeping through the cardboard sleeve and into your fingers, doing little to melt the icy knot that sits in your chest.

Choso seems almost unnervingly chipper this morning, a far cry from his usual brooding demeanour. There’s no scowl etched on his handsome face, no trace of his typical stoicism. Instead, he wears the faintest trace of a smile, a subtle and almost tentative thing that pulls at the corners of his mouth as he glances over a nearly printed itinerary.

The sight throws you further off-kilter. It’s rare to see him like this, easy and unguarded, and you can’t help the way your lips twitch, the barest hint of a smile threatening to escape before you smother it.

“We’re starting in the ER for two hours,” he reads aloud, voice steady, “then, the paediatric unit.” He pauses to flip the page, his expression shifting to mild exasperation, “And then, paperwork in the break room.”

“Figures,” you grumble, tucking your hands into your coat pockets, “Free labour from the students, yeah?”

Choso glances at you, from the corner of his eye, an unimpressed but faintly amused look on his face, “Thought that you would start the day with a more upbeat attitude.”

You grunt in response, which only earns a shake of his head as he folds the itinerary back into his clipboard.

A beat of silence stretches between you, only punctured by the sound of light metal snapping as you clip a badge to your pocket, but he’s speaking again.

“You good?”

His bronze eyes flick to yours, clearly searching, and your pulse stutters, “Yeah. Obviously.”

Choso takes a deep breath, his chest rising and gearing up for something monumental. The way his fingers fidget against the clipboard betrays him, they tap out a staccato rhythm. There’s a flush creeping on the back of his neck, subtle but unmistakeable.

“Want to get dinner tonight?” He blurts, the words tumbling out so fast that they barely sound like a sentence.

You blink at him, confused, “Bless you.” Your automatic response, because he spoke so quickly that it sounded as though he had sneezed.

Choso’s scowl is immediate, “No.” He says it firmly, drawing out each word in exasperation, “I asked if you wanted to get dinner tonight. After this.”

Oh. Oh.

The realisation hits you like a jolt, and for a second, all you can do is gape at him. He’s looking at you now, an almost defiant sort of expectation in his gaze, as though he’s worried that you’re going to laugh at him. But before you piece together a coherent response, there’s a sharp rap-rap-rap of knuckles on the doorframe.

The ward manager is here, her expression brisk and no-nonsense, gesturing for the two of you to begin your shift placement.

Your head snaps back at him, mouth moving before your brain diplomatically catches up, “I don’t think that’s fair to your girlfriend, do you?”

Choso’s brows knit together, his expression shifting to something startled and indignant. Irritated, even, as you push past him.

He’s trying to speak to you. It’s painfully obvious, as he’s got that mildly dazed look. All that awkward, earnest attention is squarely focused on you.

You’re having none of it.

He steps to your side as you shuffle through patient charts, his broad frame taking up more than his fair share of narrow space, shadowing your elbow as you scribble furious notes. His mouth opens, probably to say something that you don’t want to hear, but you’re faster.

“Hey, Choso, what’s her blood pressure?” You interrupt, not bothering to look up from the faintly lined paper.

There’s a second of hesitation before he answers, “120 over 50. Just write that down. Got it? Okay, yeah, can you stop moving for a second and —”

You squint at the chart, cutting him off again, “Hmm, don’t you think that the diastolic is a little low?”

His shoulders slump, “Yes, but the doctors already know that. She has hypothyroidism, you told me that when you interrupted me like half an hour ago. Can’t you just —” Choso stops mid-sentence again, muttering a resigned oh my god, when you pivot away and head to the next room without so much a glance back.

It sets the tone for the rest of the shift. You make a sport of avoiding him, weaving through the emergency department like a fish slipping upstream, leaving Choso stranded in your wake. He follows, persistent in his mild-mannered way, but you’re relentless.

“Can you hand me that chart?” He’s trying again, as you’re elbow deep in filing.

“Oh, this one?” You sweetly ask, holding it just out of his reach, before conveniently remembering that you need to double-check something on it. He just huffs at you.

By hour three, it’s clear that Choso’s patience is wearing thin, and fighting a war against his professionalism. He corners you near the supply cart while you rummage for gloves.

“There you are.”

“Oh, are we low on size medium?” You cut in, loud enough to catch the attention of a passing manager, “Should we restock?”

Choso inhales through his nose, “We’re not low on gloves. We’re fine on gloves. Can you stop talking about gloves for one second?”

You flash him a smile that’s all teeth, “Gloves are important, Choso. Hygiene is crucial.”

This time, you see him run an exasperated hand over his face, before realising that now he’s just contaminated his own pair of gloves. Snarling at you as he rips the blue latex off and reaching for the size large box.

Your phone buzzes in your pocket, once and then twice. Then thrice, as if whoever’s contacting you as something urgent to say. You ignore it, you’ll check it after placements.

The hours tick by, and your strategy remains the same. Stay busy, stay distant, and stay unreachable. Don’t make it seem like you’re irrationally bothered by Choso having a life of his own and having a girlfriend. Or that you actually had hope that this time round, his feelings for you were requited.

By the time you both stumble into the break room, Choso looks as if he’s experienced the full emotional spectrum, like he’s been knocked through the five stages of grief and landed somewhere in the resigned space of acceptance. He looks as if he’s clearly preparing to lecture you, to tirade you on professional conduct and —

Without warning, his phone buzzes.

You don’t even look up from cracking open your water bottle, the sound of plastic barely crinkles louder than the dull thud of your own heartbeat. Choso glances at you out of the corner of his eyes, a flash of alarm crossing his face, before he draws his attention back to the screen of his phone.

You hear the faintest scoff from his direction, and he’s shaking his head as you watch in mild interest.

“What?”

Choso doesn’t answer immediately, still scrolling through his phone.

“I’m not dating Tsukumo Yuki.”

Your mouth goes dry. You blink rapidly, wide-eyed as if he’s just spoken in an ancient, dead language.

“What?” You manage weakly, “Who? What? —”

There’s a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, and you fear the cause of this slow and curling chest is a meddling duo of two men, one with dark hair and the other with snowy-white.

Choso doesn’t even glance up at you, his voice tinged with something incredulous now, “Why is Gojo Satoru texting me? He says that you’re not replying to his or Geto Suguru’s messages. And apparently, this is super urgent, and he feels like he must do his divine duty by interfering before you do something stupid.

Choso pauses, finally looking at you as if he’s truly baffled, “And you all thought that I was dating Tsukumo.”

You’re crafting a list in your head. Twenty creative ways to kill Gojo Satoru and not land in prison afterwards.

Maybe you should ask Choso for Ryomen Sukuna’s contact.

“That’s crazy,” you say, the words tasting thin and hollow in a bitter, embarrassed lie.

Choso shakes his head at you, some dark strands of hair falling across his eyes, “She looks after Yuuji sometimes. I take him over to her place because Yuki’s adopted a kid, Todo. The two of them are friends.”

“Uh.”

Choso turns back to his phone screen, scrolling through whatever nonsense Satoru is feeding him, “Have you being icing me out all day, because you thought I had a girlfriend?”

“Will you hate me if I say yes?” You’re looking anywhere but him, focusing on the chipped, lilac paint on the break-room door. Or the slightly off-centre light bulb flickering above. Somewhere, in the back of your mind, you’re adding Geto Suguru to your kill list.

Choso’s voice is softer when he answers, almost too quiet, “Hey. You know I couldn’t hate you if I tried.” But there’s a strange mixture of amusement and disbelief in his voice, a bemused chuckle that lingers in the air, “Wow. Just wow.”

You grimace, fingers toying with the edge of the water bottle as you wrangle your thoughts into words, “Are you mad? I mean, look. I told you I liked you. And then you held my hands, so I thought you liked me back. And you got me coffee. But Suguru said you had a girlfriend, and you can’t blame me for being — Oh my god, I’m going to stop talking, you’re looking at me like I’ve gone crazy.”

Choso’s expression shifts, just staring at you. You don’t more than a split-second to process his strangely intense look. There’s no time to recover before he leans down, his hands surprisingly warm and gentle as they cradle the side of your face.

Your breath hitches, but before you can form another thought, his lips are on yours. They’re warm, deliberate and surprisingly firm. The scent of crisp green apples falls over you, as his hair envelops your face.

He pulls back just enough to study you, “Was that okay?” he asks, his fingers still lingering at the curve of your jaw, like he can’t believe he just kissed you. You can feel the sharp blush sting your face, as your heart practically goes into cardiac arrest, nodding quickly.

“Uh, I’m not really an expert in this field,” Choso murmurs, “But I can’t believe that I waited this long to do that.”

“You can do that again,” you say. Wondering if you should buy Satoru and Suguru a bouquet of flowers instead.

Choso, predictably, blushes deep enough that it nearly looks like he might combust. His eyes flicker away, avoiding your gaze in that way he does when he’s trying to sort through his emotions. But it’s hard to miss the warm flush that’s firmly planted on his neck.

“Can I do it over that dinner?” Choso murmurs, his voice dipping lower, before he quickly rephrases, “I obviously do want to kiss you now, again, that is, but if they catch us in the break room —”

You suddenly beam up at him, patting him on the cheek, “You can kiss me as much as you like over dinner.”

Choso looks as though he’s been struck with a metaphorical thunderbolt, as if he didn’t expect you to agree so straightforwardly. And then, as if he can’t help himself, he presses a quick and soft kiss to your forehead. For the briefest second, it feels as if you’re a teenager again, caught in the whirlwind of something simple and so sweet.

“Okay. So, is that a yes?” He asks, a little breathless, as if he’s not sure what kind of confirmation he’s just gotten but needing it to hear it anyway.

“If it’s a proper date, it’s a yes.”

Choso mutters under his breath, “You know Geto Suguru texted me with a five-paragraph apology, something about sneaking around my apartment. Stalking me this morning,” and here, he looks at you, utterly exasperated but fond, “Something about checking to see if I had a girlfriend. I mean, I don’t even know the guy. We never talked in school.”

You loop your arm with his, pulling him in slightly, “See, I always did say my friends were super nice. They’re going to be super nice, and normal. Trust me.”

ONE WEEK LATER.

“And to my brother-in-law, my brother-in-arms, my brother in the Constantinople Crusades of 1204,” Satoru hiccups, his words slurring together in a rambled mess, as he sways over the edge of Suguru’s arms, and for a split second, you’re worried the white-haired man is going to tip over entirely, “My new brother, Choso. We always knew it was going to happen, eh?”

Choso’s cheeks turn a faint shade of crimson in the sudden spotlight as everyone cheers, and he shifts awkwardly. Suguru’s shooting him an apologetic look, the corners of his mouth twitching as he props Satoru up, “He’s a lightweight. And we watched a historical movie last night.”

“I can tell,” Choso grumbles, his face flushed now as Satoru’s monologue drifts like an aimless plastic bag in the wind, his words growing nonsensical as you reach over to pinch at his cheeks. He yelps but continues to babble on about how he and Choso are going to be best friends now, and they’re going to go shopping together, and ice-skating, and fruit-picking. All nonsense burbles being strung together by the tequila shots that Satoru swore he could handle an hour ago.

You glance over at Choso, faintly embarrassed, but he just laughs, a sound that’s unexpectedly light and unguarded. His fingers slide into yours once more, and the motion is gentle and natural, as though this, you, are exactly where he’s meant to be. And he drapes the wide expanse of his aviator jacket over your shoulders.

Meanwhile, Suguru is wrestling with Satoru, pushing him back down from his impromptu toast to your boyfriend, before the bartender can usher you all towards the exit. The burly man is already giving Satoru’s drunken proclamations a nasty look.

Shoko, of course, is grinning at you, a tankard of beer glimmering in front of her. Her eyes gleam with the sharpness of someone who’s won a decent amount of money in a bet. And Utahime is standing back with a faintly judgemental expression that only veils her gossipy curiosity, and a glum look as she passes wads of cash into Shoko’s waiting hands.

“They really do like me,” Choso murmurs, his voice low and almost carrying the undertone of vulnerability, alongside some quiet self-awareness.

You laugh, brushing your thumb over the back of his hand, leaning in to press a quick peck to the dark mark that streaks over his face, “They all have no choice. You’re my boyfriend now.”

The words slip out effortlessly, and for a moment, they hang between you like something solid and unspoken, as though saying it aloud has made it feel real in a way it never quite did before. Choso’s eyes flick to yours, and something shifts in his expression — just a slight softening around the edges.

Then, without warning, you lean in, closing the distance between you, and kiss him. It’s slow, deliberate, with none of the frantic energy of your first kiss but instead the quiet certainty of something just beginning to bloom. You feel the faintest sigh from Nanami in the background, the sound of Geto groaning as Gojo whoops with drunken delight.

The noise from the bar fades into nothing as you focus entirely on the warmth of Choso’s shy lips against yours, the gentle pressure as he presses more into you, the soft thud of his heartbeat where your hand rests over his chest. For that moment, it’s just you and him, and everything else is an afterthought.

“Okay! I’ve had enough of the lot of you snogging and yelling in my bar! And take stupid Jack Frost out with ya’!”

#choso kamo #choso kamo x reader #choso x reader #choso fluff #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen fluff #jjk fluff #jjk x you #choso x y/n #jjk choso #jjk fic #jujutsu kaisen x you #jjk angst #daphworks

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 1 month ago

Text

Not a Word 2

No tag lists. Do not send asks or DMs about updates. Review my pinned post for guidelines, masterlist, etc.

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as noncon/dubcon, age gap, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You live a life in hiding, away from your father and the world, until a man decides to drag you into the light. (non-verbal reader)

Characters: Captain Syverson

Note: 😻.

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Please do not just put ‘more’. I will block you.

I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖

You hear your father in the garage. It’s a comfort knowing he isn’t in the house. You’ve learned to navigate so that you rarely run into him. The fact of your existence only ever seems to irk him.

That day, there’s a low rumble between the clank and clunk of his tools. You’re not sure it’s the engine or something else. The last time you glimpsed inside the garage, the engine wasn’t even in that old Bronco he’s worked on for seven years.

You rub smooth the lines in your forehead and give a long blink. You’ve been squinting at the diamond art for much too long. You sit up and roll your shoulders. You need a break.

As you emerge from your room, you feel guilty. A break from what? Doing nothing. That’s what your dad always says. Then he laughs and finds something to throw at you.

You take his lunch box from the floor by the shoe mat and bring it to the kitchen. You open it up and clean out all the containers. Those things you do, as small as they are, like cleaning and making his meals, aren’t enough. He doesn’t fail to remind you of that.

You dump the uneaten crust from his ham and cheese sandwich as the door from the garage clatters open and lets in the smell of oil and dirt. You turn your attention to the sink as you put the container with the rest. It’s only as you flip the faucet on that you realise the steps aren’t your dad’s.

“Scuse me,” Sy says. “Don’t mean to bother, but, uh, had a bit of an accident.”

You face him as he holds out the front of his tee shirt. You gulp. There’s a smear of shiny oil across it, ready to drip onto the floor. Your eyes round.

“I can clean it in the bathroom, I see you’re busy.”

He goes to turn away and you put your hands up. The oil won’t come out if he just wipes it into the shirt. You would know since you deal with your dad’s stained jeans.

He nears as you sidle down to grab the baking soda from the cupboard. He looms, his shadow moving in your peripheral, and you shift the faucet to off. You grab a paper towel and turn to him. You hesitate to reach for him, that seems too much but before you can make a move, he peels his shirt off.

You flutter your lashes and point to the counter. He lays the shirt out and you open the box of baking soda. He stands back and watches. Heat trickles down your back as you focus on the task. You sprinkle the powder over his shirt.

You let it soak up as much as it can then blot daintily.

“You’re clever,” he muses. “Helpful.”

You shrug.

“How lucky’s that daddy of yours, huh? You out here cleaning all his mess. You make his lunch?” He peeks over at the sink and you follow his gaze. You nod. “Hm, think he’d be nicer then, wouldn’t ya? Well, I know him, he ain’t a nice fella.”

You return your attention to his shirt. If your daddy isn’t so nice, why does he come around? You wouldn’t ask even if you could. You can barely concentrate with him exposed like that.

Your eyes dart over in a fleeting peek. His chest is hair and his stomach thick, his arms too. You’re always aware of how big he is but at that moment, he seems even larger. You look at his shirt. It’ll need more time to soak and wash.

“Could wash it with the hose, don’t wanna ruin your machine,” he offers as if reading your mind.

You frown and shake your head. You hold up your finger and flit away with his shirt. You put stain remover on it and dump it in the machine. You set the cycle then hesitate. What will he wear now?

Your dad isn’t as big. He’s a pretty small guy. He might have something...

You hurry into the closet of old things and search around. There’s one of those tees he got from a case of Labatts. They always pack the XLs and nothing else. It has some sports team logo on it.

You go back to the kitchen and offer it to Sy. He crosses to you and accepts it with a smile, “thanks, sugar. That’s mighty nice.” His fingertips brush yours.

He unfolds the shirt and shakes it out. He pulls it over his head and your eyes crawl down his torso unintentionally. You back up a step as he tugs down the hem, though it hangs short of his belt. Even that is too small for him.

“You’re not scared of me, are ya?” He asks as he curls his shoulders as if to make himself smaller.

You shake your head. Shy is all. You’re not eager to mingle with anyone. Nor they, you.

“You know, I might have a word with your daddy. He shouldn’t be so nasty to ya. ‘Specially all the work you put in.”

You shake your head frantically and clasp your hands. You know better than that. Even if he’s trying to be nice, it’s the worst thing he can do.

“What’s wrong? Huh? Just wanna tell him what a good girl ya are,” he crosses his arms and seems to double in size.

You pout and press your hands together. You cower and takes another step back. His expression turns dire.

“Sorry, sugar, hope I didn’t upset ya there. I was only... only bein’ nice, ya know? Seems you’re not used to all that.” He drops his hands to his hips. “Fine then, I’ll just have to save them sweet words for you, huh?”

You look down and chew your lip. You’re not used to the attention. Your dad’s other friends, if you can call them that, just ignore you or laugh at his jokes about you. You nod and turn, gesturing to the sink. You walk up to it, clinging to the excuse to get away.

“Yeah, I know, you workin’ hard,” he praises. “I’ll be outta ya way now.”

You bob your head and turn the tap on again. You work at scrubbing the containers, waiting and listening for him to go. When he does, you can breathe again. You’re not so sure why he’s being nice. Not like you can do much but stare.

💘

When your dad’s at work, you’re as close to peace as you’ve ever been. There’s still that constant restlessness that follows you. The gnawing reality that time is passing you by. That you have no purpose. No direction.

You envy others. That they have a reason. That they have everything you don’t. They have other people, ones that care, not those burdened with them; they have important work to do; they have fun things to celebrate; graduations, new jobs, marriages. They have voices and you remain unheard.

You busy yourself with the tidying when he isn’t there. If you try to clean with him around, he only antagonizes you. There’s a roast out for dinner. It will last a few days. Most times, you lose your appetite. You spend all day craving and making the food then lose all desire the moment it’s before you.

The small pleasures you once treasured fade with each day that starts and ends the same. You can’t feel too bad for yourself. Your dad doesn’t have to keep you. You’re an adult now. Maybe he’ll never say so, or even show it, but he must care, right?

You finish mopping and start on chopping up the potatoes. You arrange them in the roasting pan around the slab of beef. Then carrots and celery. You save the onions for last because they make you cry. You’re saved from tears by the rumble of thunder on the horizon.

Curiously, you set the knife down and go to the window. Would your dad be home early? Some days, they shut down the shop when business is slow.

It’s not him but you recognise the grating on the truck’s nose. The large truck sends up dirt and gravel as it cuts across the worn roadway. Your confusion floods to panic and you rush out the front door.

Is your father hurt? Why else would Sy be here?

You hover on the top step as he grinds to a stop and shuts the behemoth truck off. The driver’s door creaks as it opens and Sy jumps down. Instead of his usual camo cargo shorts and sweat-dampened tee, he wears a button-up with short sleeves and a pair of brown slacks. It even looks like he combed his beard.

Your face twists in a grimace. What’s going on? Why is he here?

He reaches back into the truck and brings out something behind his back. You can’t see it as he keeps his arm bent behind him and shuts the door. He grins and walks up to the house as you watch.

“How’s it goin’?” He asks brightly.

You blink. You look at his collar, the top button straining against his thick neck. You lower your gaze to your loose blue tee and barrel jeans. You’re dressed like a laundry line. Your clothes offer no shape, nothing. They just do the job.

“I, uh, I wanted to surprise ya, and uh, I was thinkin’ ya know, this place deserves a bit of colour,” he chuckles then clears his throat, “and you deserve good things, so, uh, here.”

He reveals the flowers from behind his back and you blanch. You stare at the dainty petals, white with violet edges. They are pretty. Too pretty for this place or for you. Besides, why would he do that?

“You don’t like em? Should I have got roses?” He asks.

You flinch. You don’t want to hurt his feelings. You come down the steps and cautiously reach for the paper cone. He hands it over and you stare at him. Then you smell them. You think that’s what you’re supposed to do.

“Smell good?” He asks.

You peer over the petals at him and nod. You’re not sure how to react. What do you do now? You can’t just leave him out in the yard. You raise your thumb and point it over your shoulder and tilt your head.

“Sure, I’ll come in,” he accepts.

He steps forward, a bit too close, and you hop backward up the step. You barely keep from tripping. You get onto the porch and spin around, scurrying to the door. You open the door and step to the side to hold it for him.

He laughs again, “now, I’m a gentleman, sugar.”

He grabs the door and gestures you through. You take his directive without pause. You hurry inside and he follows. As he stops to take off his shoes, you continue on into the kitchen.

You search for an adequate holder for the flowers. You find an old canister and set them in it with some water. His presence lurks behind you. You put the bouquet on the table as he looks around.

“You cookin’ a fine dinner, huh?” He says. “Like I tell your daddy, he’s a lucky man. Any man’d be lucky to have that waitin’.”

You shrug. He shifts.

“I don’t mean to take advantage of your kindness but I was gonna ask ya a favour.”

You look at him blankly. He reaches in his pocket. He pulls a length of silk. A tie.

“Couldn’t figure this out,” he explains. “Thought maybe you might...”

You stare at the tie. You remember tying your daddy’s for your grandma’s funeral. That was a long time ago but you think you could remember.

You swallow down your nerves and approach him. You take the tie and he glances around. He pushes a chair out and sits. He leans his head back.

“Just wanna make sure I look good for ya,” he says.

You flip up his collar and bring the silk around his neck. As you do, your thumb brushes his coarse beard. He hums.

“Don’t worry bout pullin’ my hair,” he scoffs. “Won’t bother me none.”

You line up his tie, knuckles brushing his shirt as you go through the steps in your hand. You pull the tie snug and fix hit collar. You step back and he sets his head straight. You hug yourself and give him a questioning look.

“Ya like your surprise?” He asks.

You look at the flower then nod.

“And what about the other?”

You face him again and your brows draw together.

“Me,” he snorts.

You purse your lips and shrug. What does he mean?

“We’ll wait for your daddy, huh? Then I’ll ask his blessing.” He rests his elbow on the table, “and you’ll have dinner all ready, won’t ya?”

#captain syverson #dark captain syverson #dark!captain syverson #captain syverson x reader #series #fic #dark fic #dark!fic #not a word #sand castle

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dumpywrites · 2 months ago

Text

Nomenclature - Kim Taehyung / V

Prompt: “Tell me your name.” “No.”

Prompt request: HERE

Genre/tags: Fluff, strangers to lovers, simp! Taehyung, christmas cliche, some mentions of Yeontan passing (RIP Yeontan 🪽)

Pairing: Taehyung x she/her reader

a/n: I was again inspired by their song, winter ahead's music video is just truly beautiful :') Happy holidays everyone!

“Tell me your name.”

“No.”

“But, why???”

You rolled your eyes, simply walked past the guy who had been pestering you for weeks now.

Allegedly, his name was Kim Taehyung. Ever since he moved to the town and bumped into you that one time at an art exhibition, this was all he ever did. You found out he was a sculptor, and that a few of his pieces were in fact shown that time. No one was supposed to know about this information because he was using an alias called “Vante”, but your friend Namjoon who was the art curator was a bit nosey. That was also probably how this Taehyung guy found out about your workplace.

To be quite honest, you didn’t know why someone like him would want to move in a small town. He had looks, money, and supposedly fame too. He looked more like a Los Angeles or Paris kind of person. With those wavy black hair, perfect sculpted by the gods face, you would assume he was a model. But instead here he was, disturbing your cleanup duty.

“Namjoon said that you’re the same age as me.”

“Namjoon needs to shut the fuck up sometimes.”

“Wow, easy.” He chuckled, slumping down on the table. “I never ask him for your name though. I want to achieve it myself!”

You looked around your donut shop and sighed. You still needed to clean the tables and it was already half an hour past closing time.

“I’ll help.” He stood up with a boxy grin, pointing his finger up.

“You can help me by going home.” You rolled your eyes.

“Come on… I have no friends here.” He whined.

“Namjoon is your friend, no?”

“He’s barely in town.”

“I’m sure you can make friends elsewhere.” You said as you wiped the counter.

He hummed, puffing his cheeks. “Why don’t you hire me? I can work part time. I’m mostly free! It seems like a lot of work just by yourself here…”

“It’s only busy on holidays, usually I can manage it very well. And I do have a staff with me, he’s just currently not here since his dad is sick.”

He chewed the inner part of his cheeks, seemingly in thoughts again. He didn’t say anything but you saw him started cleaning the mess from the tables and throwing them to the trash.

“So, how long have you been running this place?”

“It’ll be two full years this December.” You said, your voice slowly going far as you moved to the kitchen.

The man quickly followed you, clearly still wanted the conversation to keep going. You didn’t even bother to tell him away at this point. Maybe the company wasn’t so bad.

“That’s cool.” He nodded, looking around the kitchen. “Have you always loved baking?”

“What is this, an interview?” You glared.

“Maybe?” He giggled.

“As a kid I used to want to study fashion and tailoring, but money was tight and I ended up just going for a normal and boring degree which is, accountancy.”

He voiced an “ah” and nodded. “If you have the chance, would you still do it? Pursuing fashion and all…”

“I don’t know.” You sighed, hands full with the dishes. “The shop needs me. She doesn’t have anyone else.”

“She?” He looked at you in amuse.

“Yeah, it’s a she.” You held down a chuckle.

He quietly helped you dry the plates and put them on the rack.

Finally finished with the chores, you turned off the lights and grabbed your jacket. As you moved to the door, the man just followed you around like a puppy.

“See ya, Taehyung.” You waved blankly and turned away, walking to the opposite direction.

“Wait!” He called, making you stop in tracks. “Do you want me to drive you home?”

“My home is just a ten minute walk.”

“Then I’ll walk you!” He smiled happily.

“I’m not giving away my address to you.” You folded your arms.

“Uh… text me when you get back home then?”

“I do not have your number.”

“That’s why we need to change that now.”

“It’s fine.” You turned your back again, the disappointed expression in his face went unseen to you. “Thank you for the offer though.”

He sighed with a smile, but waved his goodbyes to you anyway. There was always a next day, he thought.

You didn’t see him again until the next three days. This time he dropped by for a coffee, that you had recently noticed was bought for the sake of buying something, and a chocolate donut along with it. It seemed like this time instead of bugging you, he just sat there, sketching on his small sketch book, looking like he was shooting an advertisement for your cafe.

He never greeted you nor had he said anything to you and he had been sitting there for four hours now. Your staff had offered to talk to him, but it just did not feel right to disturb him while looked so passionate. The shop wasn’t too busy at the moment anyway.

“You sure he’s not a creep?” Jungkook, your staff said to you in a whisper.

“Can’t exactly say he’s not one, but he’s harmless.” You told him.

“He hasn’t touched his coffee.”

“I don’t think he even likes coffee.”

“Then why even order one?! What a weirdo…” Jungkook looked at the guy with side eye.

You heard the entrance door opened and saw a costumer. “Kook, handle the register for me, I’ll talk to the guy.”

Jungkook nodded and you went inside the kitchen. Grabbing an empty cup, you filled it with water before heading to the man sitting prettily at the corner.

Taehyung was quick to put down his pencil and book as soon as he saw you placing down a glass of water. “Oh, hello!” He gave you a warm smile.

“You need to drink something.” You told him, pointing at the water with your eyes.

“Thanks, I already have the coffee though…”

“You haven’t even taken a single sip from it, Taehyung.” You folded your arms, leaning slightly at the table. “Why order one when you don’t like it?”

His eyes beamed. “You noticed???”

“You’ve been here for hours and the cup’s still full.”

“Sorry,” He chuckled and then took a full sip from the glass of water. “I wanted to look cool.”

You rolled your eyes. “I don’t like coffee either. Not by choice cause I have acid reflux.” You told him.

“We’re bonding already, I see… miss, uh…?” He eyed you.

“Nice try.” You turned, walking away from him. You hoped he didn’t see the corners of your lips curled up ever so slightly.

In the next few days he continued to visit your cafe to seemingly work on his sketch, but he did not get any coffee anymore. Instead, he now ordered some lemon tea alongside the chocolate donut.

Usually, your shop would be closed on Sundays. You needed some time for yourself in order to prioritize your mental and physical health. But with the Christmas and New Year just around the corner, the place had been extra busy so you decided to open half day on Sundays just until the holiday season was over.

That was why Taehyung looked so excited when he walked past the cafe and saw the lights on.

“Welcome to Adore, what— oh.” You dropped your greetings as soon as your eyes met.

“You’re open on Sundays now?”

“Only during the holidays.” You simply said. “What can I get you?”

“Cherry jam filled donut?” He asked, pointing at the glass display.

“Yup. It’s a holiday special.”

“Interesting.” He hummed. “I’ll get one.”

“Alright. Anything else?”

“Nope. Please do print the bill with the cashier name on it this time…”

“You’re never gonna give it up, huh?”

“You’re so dramatic. We’re basically friends at this point, why can’t I have your name?” He chuckled.

You shook your head in disbelief. “If there’s nothing else, that would be two—“

“Boba-eyed boy isn’t here today?” He asked while looking around.

“Jungkook’s shift doesn’t include Sundays.” You sighed. “Can we please proceed? There’s a line behind you.”

“Right, sorry…” He grinned awkwardly and paid the order. He waved you goodbye in a goofy way before exiting through the door.

A lady who was a returning costumer was next in line. She smiled at you and spoke, “I’ve never seen him around before.”

“He just moved here around a month or so.” You told her. “What can I get you today?”

“Oh, the usual would be great, darling.” She smiled and you quickly typed matcha latte into the order. “I’d like the holiday hamper too, they look adorable.”

You immediately went to get the donut set. “I know, right?” You smiled at her.

You quickly typed and tally her order. After she was done with the payment, she spoke up again. “That boy seems nice… and seems into you.” She snickered.

“Please don’t mind him.” You smiled at her and sighed. “He just has a lot of time in his hands.”

“Don’t be so negative, sweetheart. It’s almost Christmas.”

She smiled before waving you goodbye, as you did the same to her.

After the half day, you decided to spend your free time at the mall, window shopping and some actual light shopping too since you were looking for small gifts to give to your friends. On the way home, you were surprised to see Taehyung in front of your shop. He was tiptoeing in cold, hands in his pocket, trying to take a peek inside the closed store.

“You’re here!” He waved cheerfully. “I didn’t know you closed early?”

“I only open until three on Sundays.” You said, feeling a little nervous seeing him outside work. “Did you wait for me…?”

“I want to give you this!” He quickly handed you a piece of paper, what appeared to be a ticket. “There’s a small art pop up at the town park next week. I have some of my works there and I was wondering if you want to come and see them with me?” He looked at you with hopeful eyes.

You looked at the ticket and at him back and forth. A small art exhibition wouldn’t hurt anybody. The lady’s words somehow flashed through your mind. Maybe you needed to loosen it up a bit with the negativity.

“It won’t clash with your work! It’s on Sun—“

“Sure.”

“Aww, man… I was hoping— wait, did you just say yes???” He widened his eyes at you. It was funny how he was already expecting you to reject him.

“I mean, I’ll probably go either way so…” You shrugged. “I’m surprised Namjoon hasn’t told me anything about it.”

“I told him not to.” He smirked.

“Well, that explains it.” You broke into a small smile.

“Wow.” He gasped. “I just made you smile.”

Your expression dropped when you realized. “You’re crazy.”

He giggled, appeared to be very happy with himself. “Wanna take a stroll?”

Both of you ended up sitting down on a random bench across the river. The cold winter air was making you shiver and Taehyung being Taehyung, he quickly removed his coat and draped it across both of you. So now you were sitting shoulder to shoulder, under the moonlight.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you, the cherry donut tasted great! You should keep it on the menu.” He showed you his thumbs up.

“Really? I wasn’t so sure with the jam since I made them from scratch…” You thought. “It’s not overly sweet? I was worried the powdered sugar would be too much.”

“Nope.”

“You sure?”

“Why?” He turned to look at you with a mischievous grin. “You don’t trust my opinion?”

“N-No! I’m just making sure…” You looked away.

Never knew looking at him in such close range would be this… nerve wracking. You never noticed his beautiful lashes, nor how unique his eyes were, one eye with monolid and the other had double.

You cleared your throat, backing away slightly. You wondered why it suddenly felt hot even though you were out in the cold winter weather.

“Is there a reason why I can’t know your name?” He suddenly asked.

You looked around, fidgeting the hem of your sweater. “You’re too positive, too eager… It scares me.”

You were smiling, but Taehyung didn’t like the way your expression looked. The smile looked like it was laced with sadness behind it.

“What made you decide to move here?” You asked, changing the topic suddenly.

He looked like he wanted to protest, but chose not to. “I can’t stand the big city. Always thought I was born to live that life, but turns out I hate the crowd.”

“Did you not have your alias before?”

“I used to star in movies.”

“Damn, didn’t know you’re THAT famous.” You pouted your lips, impressed.

“I’m no Ryan Gosling or anything, my thing was only on small movies or series.” He chuckled.

“Wait, so you quit just like that???”

“My company kept pushing me on projects that don’t represent me. I was so fed up of putting on a facade in front of everyone, including behind cameras when meeting people in parties and whatnot…” He sighed. “And with my dog passing away recently, I thought a fresh start might be good for me. Cutting off all the toxic branches, you know?”

“I’m so sorry for your loss…” You couldn’t help but to feel sad hearing his story.

“It’s okay. He’s been sick for so long, so he’s happier now somewhere.” He smiled. “Do you wanna see his pictures?”

You widened your eyes in surprise. “I can?”

“Sure. Just a sec…”

He took out his phone and showed you a few photos from a dedicated album. Your heart melted upon seeing the images of the adorable Pomeranian. There was a few photos showing the dog wearing costumes, some he took with his friends, and even some selfies of him with the late dog.

“His name was Yeontan.” He said, fingers still scrolling through the phone, letting you see more pictures.

“I’m sure he was a good boy…” You gave him a smile.

“The best.” He smiled back, almost teary eyed.

Maybe it was the festivities around you, making your heart softened, but you finally agreed to him walking you back home. It was almost awkward to say goodbye as deep down you wanted to hug him. Not only as a farewell, but you wanted to comfort him after hearing his story. You were fighting with your inner morals and self respect, then ended up with a simple fist bump. To be fair, that was more you coded anyway.

He was very sweet, waiting in front of your house, making sure you entered the door before leaving. You had to shoo him away through the window to make him leave. The sound of his laughter as he waved at you, sounded like a soft Christmas song.

You did not get to see him until the day before the exhibition. You and Jungkook were busy cleaning up the place, and you could hear your staff’s growl when the sound of the door bell could be heard, thinking it was a costumer coming on closing time.

“Oh, it’s the creep.”

“Hello, boba boy.” Taehyung greeted playfully at the guy.

“I do not like this guy.” Jungkook pointed to him and looked at you.

You gave Tae a small smile before patting Jungkook’s shoulder. “I don’t either.” You chuckled.

“Oh, yeah sure!” The younger guy protested, rolling his eyes.

“I’ll be done in ten minutes.” You looked at the guy who was waiting next to the door.

“Take your time.” He smiled at you, but earned another glare from the staff boy.

After you were done and Jungkook went home, subsequent to giving the waiting man a few death stares. You heard Taehyung huffing and puffing, hands inside his pocket, while you were locking your entrance door.

“What do you wanna talk about?” You asked him.

“The exhibition is tomorrow…”

“I know.” You giggled. “And?”

“Hey, I don’t have your phone number to just text this thing, okay?” He said in defense, making you laugh. “I have something to give you though…”

“Oh? You don’t have to!”

You backed away one step from him but that did not stop him from taking out something from his pants pocket. He took out a small maroon colored jewelry box, and your heart was racing out because, to random people this might look like he wanted to propose to you.

He opened the box and showed it to you. A beautiful silver-plated Vivienne Westwood necklace was inside of it, you could notice it right away with the iconic Saturn orb.

“Taehyung, I can’t accept this! I don’t even have anything to give you…”

“I just think it’d look great with formal looks, for the exhibition and all…” He looked away shyly. “Just take it, please.”

Your hands were slightly trembling as you reached out for the box. “Thank you. It’s really beautiful.”

“Uh huh.” He grinned, rocking back and forth playfully. “So uh… can I finally have your phone number? I kinda need to know when to pick you up…” He looked at you with hopeful looks.

“Sure.” You chuckled.

“Yes!” He threw his fist up, before quickly recollecting himself and cleared his throat. “Uh, here…” He handed you his phone.

As you typed your number in, he suddenly stopped you.

“Don’t type your name in!”

You looked at him with crooked head, wondering if he had lost his mind. The fact you were about to do it too.

“Just tell me tomorrow, if you want to.” He grinned.

“Okay…?” You chuckled and handed him back the phone. “What’s this all about?”

“Where’s the fun if I tell you.” You could see his cheeks turning a rosy color despite the low light.

“Suspicious.” You eyed him, couldn’t help a smile. “But I’m intrigued.”

He flashed you his usual boxy grin, hands inside the pocket as he blew a cold smoke. “I’ll take you home?”

You might not realized it, but Taehyung had slowly but surely began to tear down the barrier you built one by one. Whether it was the constant affection, random jokes, or the small details that he would always noticed, whatever it was, his presence made you felt safe.

Came next day, you had texted Taehyung when to pick you up at your home after work. The struggle and anxiety of choosing the right outfit really joined late. The whole day you thought you had figured it out, but when you finished putting it all together, you started overthinking. Does Taehyung like woman in skirts? Does he prefer woman with hair up or down? Would it be too much if you wear a little bit of makeup?

The choices landed on a simple black mini dress with a white shirt under it. It was the most formal-but-not-try-hard-but-also-still-cute kinda outfit you had. Your red plaid patterned pumps matched the whole theme of the Vivienne necklace that was gifted to you days prior.

As you take a look at your reflection in the mirror, your phone rang. Expecting it to be Taehyung, you looked up the caller name revealing your friend Namjoon instead.

“Hello?”

“You’re coming to the exhibition, right?”

“I am. Why?”

“Tae’s picking you up?”

“Yeah, I think he’ll be here in fifteen.”

“I’m assuming things are well between you and him?” There was a hint of sneaky teasing in his tone of voice.

“Didn’t know you were trying to make something happen between us.” You said as you looked at the mirror, applying lipgloss.

“Wasn’t suppose to, I don’t think that was his initial intention either.” The guy chuckled from the other line. “But I don’t know man… I just think it’s good to see you with someone again, no? You’ve been through so much and I think Taehyung is a good person.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, we don’t even know if he’s even thinking that way.”

“Well, I know.” He emphasized. “Dude wouldn’t even make a move without my permission.”

You broke into a smile. “I didn’t know you’re that protective of me.”

“Hey, ever since what happened with that sick bastard, you had been shutting yourself down. You kept yourself busy with work, you don’t even socialize that much anymore…” He sighed. “And I know you are scared. I know you’re afraid of people that show you so much interest so fast, people who are all sunshine and happiness. But don’t you think it’s about time you try to trust again?”

“I don’t know Joon… to be honest with you, I feel safe with him. He seems like he has the purest intention, and even if he doesn’t even think about this romantically, I still want a friend like him. But…” You paused. “That’s why it’s even scarier. He’s broken all the walls I’ve built. If he hurt me, I’ll be back to ground zero again.”

“It’s always worth the risk.” Your friend said sternly, assuring you. “And don’t worry, I’ll personally punch him in his goddamn top five most handsome men face if he ever tries to hurt you.”

You laughed. “Thank you, Joon.”

“Go get dolled up. I want jaws on the floor when you arrive.”

“That’s not gonna happen, but whatever.” You laughed again. “See ya.”

“See you, lover girl.”

You had your fair share of Christmas movies. You were also never much of a romantic person yourself, so the Christmas movies dreamy golden retriever boy coming to sweep you off your feet cliche was never your cup of tea. But never say never, people said.

The sleek back hair, the preppy white button up, the black suit. Who were you kidding, did this person steal his outfit from a movie set or something? You were sure you were getting picked up by a friend, not the prince himself.

“Hi.” He said, a bit breathless.

“Hi there.” You said bashfully. “You look great.”

“Don’t steal my line.” He laughed, pulling his collar slightly. “Oh shit, I forgot.”

“What is it?”

You saw the man quickly ran to his car and picked up something from the back seat.

Lord saves us all. He came back with a bouquet.

“Oh my god.” You rolled your eyes, laughing. “You can’t keep doing this!”

“It’s too much, is it?” He eyed you with a smirk.

“I like them though.” You smiled as he handed you the flowers. “Although I must admit, red rose is a bit overrated.”

“It matches your shoes though.” He pointed out.

“I guess you’re right.” You giggled. “Wait just a sec, I’ll vase them.” You came back a few minutes later after quickly finding a jar for the roses. “Ready?”

“After you.” He playfully said.

You had the opportunity to bond over music taste through the car ride. You shared your playlist and so did he. You tried your best to not sneak in looks but you caught him doing the same thing a few times, in which both of you just laughed it off.

“Wow, she’s finally out and about, folks!” Namjoon greeted you as soon as both of you were in sight.

“I do go out sometimes, you’re exaggerating.” You slapped your friend’s arm jokingly.

“Buying groceries doesn’t count.”

You rolled your eyes. “Let’s just leave this guy.”

Taehyung laughed. “Wasn’t planning on letting him trail us anyway.”

“You guys are disgusting. I am busy too, excuse you.” Namjoon shook his head playfully. “Enjoy the show, don’t forget to see the main piece!” He eyed Taehyung, wiggling his eyebrows.

“We get it. Now shoo.” Taehyung gestured with his hand at the tall guy. Namjoon laughed once again before leaving the two of you. “Shall we?” He asked, gesturing his arm in hopes you would link yours over.

You nodded and happily obliged.

He cleared his throat as both of you start walking. “I’m supposed to be your tour guide and I rehearsed my whole opening speech, but now I’m nervous as hell with you being this close to me.”

Your cheeks flushed and you giggled. “It’s okay, let’s just both be visitors today.”

“Alright…” He breathed out. “You can ask questions if you’d like. Not everything here is mine but I know a thing or two about them too.”

Soon your eyes landed on a grayscale painting with random splashes of shapes decorating it. You let go your hand from his arm, stepping closer to the artwork, admiring it from close range. The amount of small details made up for the lack of vibrant colors, the visible brush strokes and different textures made it look very unreal to you.

“Caught your eye?”

“It must took a lot of time and effort doing all the different textures and details.”

“Yeah, it took me months. Made this while thinking about the last time I fell in love.” He smiled at you.

You were taken aback. Your eyes went down to the small signature done by the man himself. “One would’ve think being in love involves more bright colors…”

“It was more complicated than that.” He stepped closer and stood next to you, eyes on the painting as well. “There was a mix of emotions in there. Happiness, sadness, the in betweens… But all of that memories belong to my past, hence the gray palette.”

You were debating if you should ask more about the said past.

“You could ask, you know. If you’re curious…” He said, as if he could read your mind. “It’s okay, we ended on good terms. She just fell out of love. I guess I just bore her.”

“That’s awful. How could someone find you boring?”

You froze when you realized what you had just said.

The man chuckled as soon as he heard. “Thank you for the compliment.”

You turned away, blushing. “Let’s move on.” You walked ahead.

He followed your pace and walked aside you. “What about you? What’s your past like? If you don’t mind me asking…”

“I don’t really have that much experience.” You said with eyes still roaming the area. “Namjoon didn’t tell you anything?”

“He loves to gossip but he also cares about you very much, so no.”

You smiled and puffed a sigh. “It might not sound like that much of a big deal, but the last person I dated lovebombed me at the lowest point of my life. I was dealing with the loss of my grandma, moving back to this town to continue her bakery, and he came to me just like that only to leave me for another woman like I was nothing.”

“Hey, that is a big deal what are you even talking about.” He stopped and looked at you, seemingly a bit pissed too after hearing your story.

“I try not to let it get to me anymore, I guess.” You pulled the hem of his sleeves, signaling him to continue walking further. “It’s getting better now, thank you.”

“Thank you?” He eyed you.

“Yeah, thank you.” You smiled.

He chose not to question it and just continue the tour with a big grin decorating his face. The two of you continued the tour before Taehyung suddenly stopped you from making a turn to the last room to see.

“Uh, before you go I need to tell you something… I want you to know that this didn’t happen on purpose.” He plastered a nervous smile.

“What are you talking about?”

“The inspiration didn’t quite reach me until the very last few days… I was supposed to sculpt a whole different thing, but I ended up with a bust.”

“Oh? Then I can’t wait to see—“

“Wait,” He grabbed your wrist, stopping you. “I want to let you know that I made this because it’s all that’s been occupying my mind the past few weeks and I don’t mean it in a creepy way… in case you’re offended.” He chuckled nervously again.

“Why would I get offended?” You looked at him suspiciously.

He took a deep breath and breathed out heavily. “Let’s go see it.”

Once you were inside, the first thing that caught your eye was a huge bust sculpture facing back. There was somewhat of a drip effect coming from the neck downwards, huge mess of concrete pooling at the bottom, creating the illusion of an unfinished raw work. From the looks of it, the statue seemed to be of a woman, but you couldn’t judge for sure. As you stepped closer, circling to get a better view, Taehyung quietly followed you from behind.

You began to notice the ear, the side profile and how oddly familiar looking it was. Once you finally see the full front view, it all made sense to you.

The sculpture was in fact made to look like you. It had your eyes, nose, lips, everything. It was you, with your hair up like how you would during work hours.

“T-Tae… is this…”

“Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck, looking at you with reddened cheeks. “What do you think?”

You were still in awe, speechless of seeing a literal art piece of yourself, most importantly, presented to the public eye. You weren’t sure if screaming or crying would be the appropriate way to react.

Seeing you stunned silent, Taehyung began to panic a little. “It’s creepy, isn’t it? I’m sorry…”

“No!” You quickly voiced out. “It’s just… I’m just loss of words. I can’t exactly believe what I see.”

“I can’t either.” He said, looking uneasy still. “It just happened out of nowhere. I only realized when I was already halfway done with your nose.”

“I…” You took a good look at the piece again, before continuing. “It’s really beautiful. I wasn’t even sure it’s me until I see the full view.”

“Well, that’s how you look in my eyes.” He giggled.

You blushed. Clearly you didn’t have any comeback ready in you for this.

“If you look closely, this piece doesn’t have a name yet.”

You looked down to see the name plate empty, as told. Then something just connected in your head. This cheeky smart bastard.

“Wanna name it?” He looked at you with a big contagious smile on his lips.

You nodded, mirroring the smile he had on. Instead of immediately saying your name, you stepped closer and hugged him, in which he instantly returned, resting his head on top of yours. In his embrace you looked up and finally told him your name.

The expression he had was mixture of joy and surprise. Both of you bursted into laughter in unison. For a moment, the world seemed to have stopped just for you. You even forgot the existence of other visitors wandering around. It was just you and him.

Taehyung took out something from his side pocket, a black marker, which he wiggled playfully in front of you. He looked left and right, making sure no one would notice, before he quickly wrote something on the golden plate.

“What if someone sees you?!” You whispered.

“Don’t worry, Namjoon already knows.”

He chuckled and took your hand in his, intertwining your fingers together as he led you through the exit. You didn’t get to see exactly what he wrote on the plate, safe to assume it was probably just your name.

Little did you know, Namjoon had reached the room, examining the new named sculpture, with the word “Love” now scribbled on top of its name plate. He couldn’t help but to be happy for his dear friends.

Thank you for reading! 🎨

#bts fanfic #bts fic #bts scenarios #taehyung imagine #taehyung scenarios #kim taehyung #bts v #taehyung x reader #taehyung x y/n #taehyung fluff #bts christmas

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boopshoops · 10 months ago

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Please welcome Yuu Shi as a limited time (fan)summon!

Upon Summon: You know, at first I thought I'd like this social, but now... Ah, forget it! I'm just tired. Shall we dance? I'll lead.

Groovification: ???

Set to Home: Stunning? I know.

Home Transition 1: R-Royal Sword Academy is here too? Ahaha.. no, no! That's... fine.

Home Transition 2: Did you see how many skin products Vil made Epel bring? Like, I get caring for yourself, I do the same, and it's VERY important... but... there's such thing as too much sometimes.

Home Transition 3: GRIM! Quit sneaking bites of food from the bakery! I can't keep paying for it! Haaa, when I get my hands on him...

Home, After Login: I spend ages getting myself all dolled up, only to end up in the middle of yet another catastrophe. Figures. I should be used to it at this point.

Home Transition/Groovification: ???

Tap Home 1: I admit, I worry about Deuce being paired up with Azul. It's like I'm babysitting my siblings all over again... but hey, he's a sweetheart. He gets a pass.

Tap Home 2: My mask? I know! It's so heavy, but I got to make sure no one recognizes me, right? It's not Yuu Shi tonight, it's just me!... and remember to keep that to yourself~

Tap Home 3: Trying to get all buddy buddy with Rollo is exhausting. He's such a drag, and that makes mirroring him a drag. Talking with him makes me feel like I'm taking a bite of aluminum.

Tap Home 4: Ahh... I'm getting all nostalgic. I remember when I learned how to ballroom dance at my old school back home... I much prefer contemporary. Not a fan.

Tap Home 5: QUIT- Oh! You! Q-Quit tugging on my sleeves like that. I had to rent this dress, you know, I don't exactly have the funds for it. Hmph... personal space, please.

Tap Home/Groovification: ???

Writing and art tag list! Just lmk if ya wanna be added @lowcallyfruity @cecilebutcher @skriblee-ksk @kitwasnothere @justm3di0cr3 @thehollowwriter

✨PART 1/2✨

Part 2/2

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manhattanstrawberry · 12 days ago

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HE LOVES ME, HE LOVES ME NOT, HE LOVES ME!

Synopsis: You’re the assistant general manager and he’s the hot, talented athlete for the team you’ve been working for. You’ve known him for years but the sudden distance he puts between to the two of you has your mind racing and you can’t stop wondering— “does he hate me?”

Tags: fluff!! msby atsumu x assistant general manager reader, extremely overthinking reader, slight self sabotage on both ends, smoking (cigarettes), consumption of alcohol, intoxication, fluff!! He’s in love with you and you’re just going in circles in your mind

Warnings: mdni , sexual content, suggestive content, doesn’t go too much into the details

Word count: 7.6k

Author's note: Realistically a general manager of a professional sports team in your early/mid twenties is not realistic, and neither is an assistant general manager because they’re both a lot of work but we shall ignore reality and indulge in the make belief that make fics work! I try my best to keep outfit descriptions as vague as possible while also keeping the occasion in mind so you can kind of imagine your own thing while still sticking to the theme. I had a martini in the middle of writing this for extra brain power and I don’t think it worked, so I hope you enjoy!! ღ

Art credit: @Freaka_LoonyZ

He hates you. He has to. You’re convinced that he harbours an unmeasured hate for you. At 7:30 every morning he walks into the gymnasium for training, heading to the locker rooms before starting his routine in the gym before he’s ready to start training on the court. You’ve built up a patience for his recent behaviour around you or perhaps the behaviour of not being around you at all.

You know how Astumu is with everyone else, he’s unruly, chaotic but passionate and determined and he cares— well for everyone but you. You’re not completely sure if it's exactly hatred for you he possesses or just a simple dislike, you’ve seen him interact with people he doesn’t like, teasing and berating them right to their face in subtle humour. He plays his dislike for people well when he’s around them, but for you…there’s no teasing, no snide remarks, not even that little snicker he used to do whenever you got water dripping down your shirt from trying to fill your water bottle with the faulty water dispenser that's yet to be replaced.

Perhaps you've done something wrong, something that's upset him? But you can’t recall a moment where you could have caused him to feel like he had to start distancing himself from you. Even now as he walks into the training center 16 minutes earlier than usual, and you’re unaware it's him behind your office door when you hear three knocks.

“Come in!” You absentmindedly invite the individual into your office, without looking up from the documents you’re flipping through. The sound of the door knob twisting has your head lifting up only to see Astumu walking through the door. His hair is a bit dishevelled, probably from trying on three different shirts to decide which one to wear today and his socks are about one shade different from the other. He’s unmoved by the door, as you stare back at him.

“Oh Miya, you’re here earlier than usual.” You give a polite smile, trying to settle your own nerves while simultaneously watching your words hoping not to upset him any further than you have. You see his face fall for a milli-second from your greeting. He’s not used to his last name coming from you after all this time of knowing each other.

“Yeah, coach said to check ya this morning. The nutritionist did up a new dietary plan for me apparently.”

“Oh yes, sure.” Reaching behind you for the folders stacked on top of the low shelf. “Here it is, if you need anything to be clarified, you can always reach out for me or the RDN.”

Your fingers hold the folder at the edge of the edge to prevent the opportunity for your fingers to touch his, although the folder is about 10 inches long and he holds on to the top while you hold the bottom. Your nerves around him will surely kill you soon.

He utters a thank you before he turns away to leave the room.

You watch him exit the room reaching for the door knob to close your office door, but you catch him turning around with a slight tilt of his head, a few strands of blonde falling into his eyes.

“Are ya always here this early?”

You give him another polite smile, while gently nodding your head. “I’m here everyday by 6:30.”

“Ya learn something new every day.”

And he’s off with the click! of your door closing. That’s the most he’s said to you in about a month and half.

As of lately you’ve barely been around the team as much, as you're covered with the increasing workload, which increases every second you fail to find a community relations director. The organization has always been strict with giving back and allowing their team members to work with others, from charity events to allowing aspiring children to learn a few things from their favourite professional players.

Your biggest fears came true and everything went to shit about two months ago when the current community relations director at the time had resigned abruptly due to illness, leaving you with the job to find a new one on top of your already heavy workload.

You check your wrist watch to see the arrows point to 12 and 3, 15 minutes past noon. Maybe you should get lunch or maybe you’ll continue to work and discuss with the coaches, general manager and athletic director about the two best profiles that caught your eye.

You leave your office and head to the courts, where you find Coach Foster, with his arms folded, talking to Meian as the other members are lying around the court, probably on a quick water break.

The click of your heels against the PVC flooring catches his attention as he turns his head to look behind him to see you walking up.

Meian calls your name with a familiar greeting as you greet the two men.

“I haven’t seen you out of the rabbit hole in a while.”

You laugh a bit, at the obvious lack of your presence around the team as of recently, “I’ve been swamped with work.”

“Got any good news for me today, I’m not sure if I can handle anything else today.” You hear Coach mutter with an exasperated expression across his face. You give him a sympathetic smile hoping that you’ll be able to lift a bit of weight off of his shoulders. Meian excuses himself before jogging back on to court towards Hinata excitedly telling Astumu about something that happened to him in the morning. You meet Astumu’s eyes for a second before turning back to the coach quickly.

“Yes, I’ve got two profiles to look over for our new CRD. If one of them works out we should be able to get the team at an event in hopefully two weeks to raise money for the AFL charity organization.”

“Great, I think they’ve been a bit on edge about the whole thing, especially Meian, so I’d like us to nip this in the bud as quickly as possible.” He massages the bone above his eyebrow as he sighs. “Thank you, just let me know when the meeting with the others will take place.”

He gives you a grateful smile as you nod. Your head turns once again at the loud excitement from Hinata’s voice, his story still not close to the end and his eyes are once again on you before he turns away quickly without a care in the world.

Three knocks at the door once again, it’s 6:54 a.m and you doubt Atsumu decided to come over 30 minutes early to the training center and then choose to visit your office.

“Come in.” You shift the stacks of paperwork on one side to the other to pick up another 200 pound binder of documents.

A familiar mop of ginger hair catches your eye and you look up to see a smile on his face.

“Hi Shoyo, do you need anything?” You give him a welcoming smile as he plops down into one of the two armchairs in front of your desk.

“Ya, Tsumu and Inunaki both got new dietary plans but there's no change in mine and I swear mine is not up to date with me anymore! Did Mrs. Yasuda say anything about meeting with me?” You hear a whine behind his words. You let out a small breathless chuckle at his behaviour, not surprised at all at his drive to improve himself even more.

“No she hasn’t said anything to me yet, but I’m sure she’s drawing up something for you and I’ll check back with her just in case.”

His face lights up as he's bowing in the chair, almost hitting his head on the desk in front of him. He sits up straight again and his eyes fall to your desk buried under papers and files before he looks at your face.

“Did you go home last night?” He quizzes you, even though he’s sure he’s got the answer from the way your white button down is wrinkled with the top button undone. Your undereyes are dark and he can see a hue of red in your eyes from hours without sleep. Your reading glasses are slipping from your nose and it seems you barely have the energy to fix them. You’d never be at work looking so worn out with your jacket hanging on for life on your office chair and your outfit looking like that.

“No.” You softly smile at him hoping he won’t make a big deal out of it but it’s Shoyo and he values self care immensely, you start to regret not locking your office door at 5 am. “I have some things to finish up for today.”

“You should go home, if you don’t I’ll tell on you.”

“Shoyo! I’m fine and I have two interviews to conduct today for the CDR so I’ll leave after that I promise.” You bite your lip nervously hoping that's enough to keep him from being worried about you for such silly reasons. “So don’t tell on me, okay?”

You can’t take a break now and you can’t let the coaches or your supervisor hear that you’ve been working non-stop, it’s been a problem before and you had promised to take better care of yourself and rest properly but you have work to do so you just let them think that you have been taking better care of yourself.

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Did I tell you about almost losing my big toe on the way here yesterday?”

Two long interviews later and a pounding headache, you’re ready to leave the training center. You can feel the pressure from your arched heels shoot pain into your back as you walk outside of the training center to head to your car. Thank God for reserved employee parking near the entrance and exit.

You feel a bit grateful that none of the coaches visited you or a call from your supervisor, letting you know that Hinata tattled on your unhealthy way of living.

It’s about 7 PM and you can still hear the sound of volleyballs ricocheting off the floor and walls. You’re close to passing out and you’re not sure if you have the energy to drive back home but you slap your cheeks as you settle in the driver’s seat.

The car gets cold quickly from the blasting AC as you drive home and you’re already dreaming about diving into bed.

You enter your apartment, walking from the entry hallway to the living room before it hits you. You still have work to do to wrap up plans for an away game in Spain, you immediately feel dizzy at the reminder going off in your head.

Instead of racing to the office in the apartment you get ready for bed, passing up dinner and setting an alarm to wake up at 2 am to reach the training center for 3 or 4 to get back working.

Your eyes feel heavy and your legs are barely holding you, you’ve got a meat bun in one hand to hopefully carry you for the next 4 hours and a coffee in your other. The training center is mostly empty, only auxiliary staff for the morning present or a few other administrative workers working late or perhaps early like yourself.

You enter your office sluggishly, placing your handbag down on a cabinet near your desk to sit in your chair. You immediately get to work on the itinerary first for the athletes and everyone involved. You’ve got most things checked off for the upcoming travel plans. Flights booked? check, visas secured? check, hotel booked? check and the request to access a gymnasium for the athletes to train has been sent out for weeks.

All that was left was for an itinerary to be drawn up for the team and a confirmation from the gymnasium that the athletes could use once they got there.

You draft up the itinerary and look it over about 5000 times before you mass email to everyone involved. Yet you still feel unsettled that a confirmation to use the gymnasium requested hasn’t been sent back and so you dive into work to deal with that instead of taking a break.

You look on your wrist watch to check the time to see its only 5, you’ve been here for only an hour and a half but it feels like an eternity and you wonder if you should take 100 melatonin pills and go into hibernation but you pinch yourself from falling over on to your desk and rub your eyes to force them awake. You hear three knocks on your door and you have no clue who could want you at 5 am in the morning. But you try to straighten your shoulders as best as you can before responding to the person at the door.

“Come in.” Barely any energy in your voice as you invite the person in. “Oh, Coach Foster, Good Morning.”

You use all the energy left in your body to stand up and lightly bow. He takes a seat in one of the armchairs in front of the desk as you sit back down.

“You’re here earlier than usual.”

“Oh– yes I came in at three this morning to wrap up everything for the upcoming trip.” You nod at him hoping he won’t catch on to your deathly work ethic.

“Right…Shoyo told me you hadn’t gone home at all yesterday.”

God he’s such a blabbermouth sometimes.

“Yes but it’s fine. I was able to finish up everything I needed to do and I went home last night to get some rest.” You smile at him, an indicator of how fine you are, which barely convinced him.

“I don’t see you in the documents you’ve been sending us for the trip, are you not coming this time around?”

“Oh no, I’ve got too much to do right now to leave the country and go elsewhere, but Mr. Tsuchida will be going so everything for me to handle over there will be taken care of.” You nod again.

“I see, I think you should come— take a short break, but I’ll let the others know.”

You nod as he gets up to leave you alone in your office. By now you're sure the other athletes are probably awake, perhaps on their morning jog before they get ready for training.

At About 7:45 your door slams open, “You’re not coming with us?!”

You wince at Bokuto’s loud voice and you wonder if the impact of his hands against the door broke the hinges.

“No, I’m sorry but I’ve got a lot of work to do, dealing with you and your teammates by the way!” You remind him as you give him an apologetic smile.

“But you always come! And you didn’t come last time, you have to come!”

God if Bokuto’s begging like this, you’re dreading when Hinata realizes.

“I’ll see what I can do.” You reluctantly reassure him.

Which is how you find yourself on a plane to Spain. You were told to work as little as possible and enjoy the city. You’re not sure how to treat this like a trip and forget work when you’re travelling with the team you work for but you brush aside the complexities as you take in the populated city of Madrid. The beautiful architecture of the city has you seeing stars before you get to the hotel. The team’s got two days until the games start so they’ve been taking the time to plan what they want to do tonight.

The boys feel at ease that Hinata has Spanish under his belt so going out to party before heavy training is a must for them tonight. You can see the coaches shaking their heads at their upcoming antics for the night before sliding into lecturing them to not drink too hard and to get proper rest as you nod alongside them in agreement.

Sakusa seems the least interested in the whole ordeal but you know he’s about to be dragged along with the help of the others.

The team separates as everyone heads to their rooms, some getting a single room or double as per requested. You’re a bit surprised that Astumu and the others didn’t choose doubles to room instead of singles and your mind, as it always does it wanders to what Atsumu plans to do, perhaps he’ll find a woman to bring back or something. You’re just overthinking and thinking completely wild things to put your mood down. When will you stop?

You’re on the same floor as the athletes, still sticking to your job to oversee things but you allow yourself to relax as you enter your room. It's gorgeous and spacious enough where you can still get work done while also getting some well needed rest.

You take a quick shower before you decide to take a nap before dinner and at 7:56, you hear three knocks on your room door. You almost fall off the bed trying to get up as you drag your feet against the floral rug by the bed. You walk to the door and open it slowly to see Meian outside telling you that they're going down for dinner. You perk yourself up at the sound of putting something in your stomach as you quickly get ready to head down.

You slip on a simple white dress that falls to your mid thigh, pairing it with a pair of kitten heels before you rush out of your room in time to see Hinata and Sakusa heading towards the elevator.

You’re hoping Atsumu is asleep or elsewhere so you don’t have to see him at dinner but your hopes come crashing down as you catch him where Meian and Bokuto are sitting with Inunaki. Shoyo takes a seat by Bokuto while Sakusa takes the empty seat beside Meian, leaving you with the choice to either sit in the last empty seat beside Atsumu or tell them you’re sick and you should go back up.

But you’re starving, and you force your legs to walk to the seat beside Atsumu as you sit down in the chair, slightly scooting the chair away from him so his hatred towards you doesn't somehow enter your food and poison you.

You give him a quick smile and clear your throat a bit as you pick up the menu, distracting yourself from his cologne and the way his arm flexes for a second as he reaches for another menu. You drown out the conversation around you as you try to choose something on the menu.

“–are you coming?”

Still immersed in the menu you don’t realize they're all looking at you awaiting your response. At the growing silence around the table you finally look up before Bokuto asks you once again if you’re coming.

“Coming where?”

“We found a club nearby, we want you to come!” Hinata exclaims, excited and ready to go out after the meal.

“Oh, I don’t think so I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“Weren’t you instructed to not work.” Sakusa retorts.

“Well, you guys go on without me, I’m tired.” Meian sighs before you hear Bokuto refusing his choice and begging him to come but when Meian makes up his mind he makes up his mind.

“This is my job, I have to work.”

“Pleeease come.” Bokuto clasps his hands and you hear a clap from Hinata as he follows Bokuto’s position.

“Okay, I’ll see.” You murmur, hoping that by the time they get there they’ll be too trashed to notice your absence.

You put your attention back to your menu, taking note of the fact that not a word came from Atsumu, to come. He’d always try to invite you out with them before, always trying to get you to relax and take a break from work to go to some party but now he’s silent.

And once again your brain goes elsewhere, that perhaps he got tired of you declining and thought you were too uptight and prissy to go out and he hates you of course.

You order and try your best to ignore his presence beside you, but it’s hard when he looks that good for a casual dinner. The sleeves around his biceps straining against the fabric as he tears apart the steak on his plate, the way his jaw tense everytime he reaches for a bite and the bob of his adam’s apple as he drinks from his glass of mint lemonade. While you opted for a dry martini with the hopes of easing your nerves.

As dinner wraps up, you head to your room planning to go to bed for the night, but you toss and turn checking the time every 5 minutes as you sink into the fluffy blankets of the bed trying to get your eyes to shut for the rest of the night.

The next time check you do it’s 11:14 p.m and you’re sure the boys are on their way to the club at this moment and you feel a bit regretful for declining the offer because you don’t think you’ve ever been in more of a mood to get wasted and forget about work and everything else and as if the universe was answering your prayers you hear three knocks at the door.

You race to get the blankets off as you rush to the door to see Hinata standing there with his hands clasped and his eyes closed before he does a full 90 degree bow.

“Please come! I’ll do a dance routine if I must and I’ll st–”

“I’ll come.” You smile before he can finish his loud begging sequence.

“Really!” He straightens up excitedly.

“Yes, do I have time to get ready?” You ask a bit timidly hoping that you’re not inconveniencing them to arrive at the club later than intended.

“All the time in the world!”

“Okay give me a few minutes”

You close your door, trying your best to look hot for the little time you have to get ready, opting for a more tighter and shorter dress than your dinner dress with another pair of heels, you do whatever you can with your hair and a quick makeup look that doesn't say that ‘you decided to come here 1 minute after hopping out of bed.’

You rush out the door and walk through the halls until you see both Hinata and Sakusa near the elevator.

“You look great!” Hinata exclaims and you’re sure half of that excitement is really from the fact that you’re coming. Sakusa nods in agreement before he presses the button for the elevator, muttering to Shoyo beside him.

“God, he’s going to lose his shit.”

“Shh.”

You ignore the strange interaction between the two. “Where are the others?”

“Atsumu and Bokuto left earlier, I decided to take on the liberty to force Omi to come and you!”

You laugh a little at his clear excitement to go out and party.

The blaring of music in your ears has your heart feeling the loud beat of the speakers. The small flashing lights around the club have you wincing everytime they pass by your eyes while the red overhead lights providing most of the light to the club doesn't do much for you to see the faces around you properly.

You catch Hinata saying something to the both of you but you’re barely hearing him over the loud music.

“They’re by the bar!” He shouts a little closer to you and you choose to nod to avoid bursting your vocal chords from attempting to talk. You walk to the bar with the two men to see Bokuto talking to two other men and his face lights up from the sight of you walking towards him.

“You came!” He eases you closer to the bar. You nod and turn your head to the two men he was speaking to expressing a polite greeting. You look around you and Atsumu’s nowhere to be seen and you sigh a little. Maybe he knew you were coming and decided to go elsewhere because he hates you of course.

“Can I get you a drink?” One of the men in front of you and Bokuto offer and you nod, deciding to be careless for the night although both you and Bokuto watch the man like a hawk as he takes the drink from the bartender to give you. Safety first.

You drink from the chilled martini glass handed to you and you can feel your shoulder’s relax a bit more. You stand close to Bokuto as the two of you converse with the men, every now and then ordering a new drink before you move on to getting shots. You were serious about letting loose and perhaps having fun on your own tonight.

Hinata is elsewhere while Sakusa stays close to you guys, listening to the conversation but not interested enough to say more than 10 words when he inputs. And eventually you move away from the rest of the group with the man who bought you a drink. You’re not very sure of his name although he’s tried to tell you twice, but the music is louder and the alcohol is stronger so you don’t care enough to know.

He’s leaning against the wall as he pulls out a cigarette from his pocket, lighting it before you can feel the smoke in your face. The familiar smell has you reaching for the cigarette from his lips to take your own drag from it, blowing it back into his face. It’s been a while since you’ve touched one after graduating university and it feels even better now since you restrict yourself from buying a pack everytime work gets extreme. You pull out one from his pack and he lights it for you. You’re smoking a cigarette with this man that you really have no interest in but you’re out and you’re having fun and most importantly you’re distracted from the thoughts of Atsumu.

Which doesn’t last long, as the man blows the smoke to the side of your face, you’re giggling as you turn your head to feel the smoke against your left ear.

And you see him leaning on to the side of the bar, his eyes trained on you from where you are. There’s a woman swaying around him as she’s talking to him, but he’s paying her no mind. His jaw is tense and his arms are crossed but you can see the way his eyebrows furrow not in anger or frustration— disappointment…sadness?

You’re not really sure and now that you’ve got alcohol flowing through your veins you kind of want to storm over to him and demand an answer as to why he’s been acting like this towards you for months. But you don’t and instead you ask for another cigarette and a light before quickly shuffling through the crowd away from the man.

You need air, you’re begging for air and you kind of want to be far away from Atsumu’s gaze. You could leave now, if you tell the others you’re not feeling well they won’t hesitate to take you back but you don't want to disrupt their fun. You exit the club and walk a few feet away from the entrance, taking a drag from the cigarette as you lean against the wall.

You laugh a little under your breath, you’re sure he doesn’t think you’re that prissy and uptight anymore.You suppose you are, because smoking a cigarette with the stranger was the furthest you were going with him tonight.

The air is a bit cool on your exposed legs and arms, only the cigarette provides any sense of warmth for you at the moment.

You’ve known him for years and you wonder where you could possibly have gone wrong to keep him so distant from you all of a sudden.

It’s probably about 1 a.m and you think you’ll just try to walk the short distance to the hotel in 4 inch heels and tipsy from the alcohol wearing off. You're stationed against the wall trying to build up your strength to walk back to the hotel but the sound of footsteps coming close disrupts you and you turn your head to see him walking up to you. His jaw is still tense while his shoulders look a bit more relaxed.

“You look beautiful.”

“Are you drunk?”

He gives you a breathless laugh as he moves closer into your space.

“No, tipsy maybe.” He breathes out as if he’s holding himself back. “You?”

“Tipsy.” Your arms fall by your side as the ash from the cigarette falls to the floor, the hourglass of the situation.

“Why did you follow me out?” You ask quietly, nervousness hinted at in your words. Maybe he’ll tell you the sight of you here is stopping him from having fun, because well, he hates you of course.

“I can’t stand— I didn’t like seeing ya with that guy.”

You’re confused. You’re confused at his words and the way he’s so close to you, and the exasperated look in his eyes.

“What do you mean?” Your voice strains as you question him. His hand combs through his hair in frustration, and he’s trying to articulate what he’s thinking without chasing you off.

“Atsumu.”

He looks at your face to see your eyes glossy, and he knows it's not the liquor in your system.

“What do you want? You hate me.” He feels your hand on his chest trying to push him away. His eyes widen and he’s taken aback from your accusation.

“I what? I don’t hate ya? Where’d ya get that from?” His eyebrows scrunch in confusion, with a frown to pair.

“You! You’ve been ignoring me for weeks!” You stumble a little as you move away from the wall to jab your finger in his chest. “If you don’t hate me then why do you ignore me and speak less than 10 words to me and look away from me everytime I catch your eyes on me as if I’m going to turn you to stone.”

Your finger jabs at him every time you list something and you wish he wasn’t so built because you’re sure it's not hurting him at all because you want him to feel a little pain close to what you’ve felt the past few months.

He catches your wrist after the last jab and holds your hand down before hesitantly pulling his hand away.

“I don’t hate ya, that’s not even possible for me to do.” He breathes out, as he clamps his hand into a fist. “I thought you hated me and I–”

“Me?!” You point at yourself in disbelief. “You thought I hated you? Why would you think that?”

He hesitates to answer you before he musters up the courage.

“I wanted to talk to ya one day, but I overheard you talking to Sho in yer office. Said ya were tired of me or something’.”

Oh.

You can kind of see everything coming together in your head. You lift the other hand holding the cigarette to take a drag before you speak, easing your nerves. You want to go into this calm and collected.

“I don’t hate you Atsumu!” You sob, and he’s a bit taken back at the volume of your voice, he’s never heard you like that before. “I’m not tired of you! I was jealous and I was tired of everything and you only heard that part you didn’t hear the rest of what I said and I didn’t mean it like that.”

He looks at you as if you’ve hung the stars and moon in the sky as you ramble on and on, sniffling in between your sentences. “What were ya jealous of?” He steps closer to you, you take a step back only to meet with the stone wall behind you. The dim streetlight a few feet away from the two of you highlights his cheekbones and the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes in and out.

“Nothing.” You cower, once again in that timid, uptight manner you always do, that he can’t help but love.

“Tell me please.” He whispers for only your ears despite the fact there’s no one around except for the occasional pedestrians across the road and the small groups of people leaving the club every 20 minutes.

“I don’t want to.” You whisper back and he feels like he’s being teased but he knows you’re being secretive and serious, choosing to protect yourself. “Why do you want to know.”

“I’m in love with ya.”

The cigarette drops to the floor before the hot ash could burn you. He did it in time anyway.

Your lips form a small ‘o’ at the sudden confession. You stay silent, not a word coming from you.

Okay you’re trying to piece this puzzle now.

“Oh I see.”

He purses his lips before bursting out a laugh.

“Ya see that I’m in love with you?” His features softening as his face inches closer to yours. You nod like you're in a trance, not trusting yourself to verbally express how you feel right now.

“You don’t have to say anything ba–”

“I’m in love with you too!” You exclaim as if you’ve finally solved a problem with the fine writing in a document. You clutch on to the shirt he’s wearing, fearing that your voice isn’t enough to let him know as you pull him forwards and back by his shirt. He’s barely moving, from your actions but he gets you and starts to rock himself so he can play along with your nervous antics.

“Would’ya kiss me— or kick me, whatever yer up to.”

You circle your arms around his neck to pull his head closer to yours, noses gently bumping into each other before you nod.

He presses his lips against yours as one of his hands grab your waist to push you closer, the other holding the back of your head to keep your lips on his. You stumble backwards into the wall as his body pressed against yours heatedly as he gently pushes more into you, there’s not an atom of space between the two of you as you gasp in the kiss allowing his tongue to slip in. He can taste traces of the drinks you’ve been having through the night but he can mostly taste the sweetness of you and the sex on the beach you last had before you exited the club. He can taste a bit of the cigarette from earlier but he couldn’t really care less. He feels as if he’s floating in the sky and this is the first time in his life he truly feels like he’s made the nice list this year with an early gift from Santa Claus himself.

“Atsu–” He hears you moan from the kiss and his knees go weak. You’re most definitely trying to kill him. He begins to move his hips against yours and you almost slip down the wall but he keeps you close to him, holding you with one arm as your back almost becomes one with the wall.

He pulls apart for a second as his lips travel down your jaw and to your neck, you bury your hands in his hair, tugging and grasping at the strands as he litters your neck, sucking and kissing and you’re sure you can feel the blood rise to your skin.

“Atsu– Atsumu, the hotel.” You mewl as he kisses a sensitive spot on your neck. You roll your hips into his as he continues kissing your neck before going back up to place a gentle kiss on your lips. Your lipstick is all over his mouth and chin, and you giggle as you kiss him back, a smile of his own growing as he slides his lips over yours.

“Let’s go.”

You bite your lip timidly and nod as he takes your hand in his to walk back to the hotel.

“Wait Atsumu, the others.” You pull him back a little as you stop walking.

“Who gives a damn.” He looks back at you as you look at him before pulling out his phone to send a quick text that he’ll be walking you back because you don’t feel good or ‘something’.

Not even a second into his hotel room, he slams the door as your back is pushed up against the door. His hands are all over you and you grab his hair a little every time he kisses those sensitive spots. You feel hot as you move your lips against his, his teeth nipping your bottom lip to tease you.

He slides the straps of your dress down before he’s kneeling on the floor to push your heels off, then moving his hands towards your waist, he pulls your dress down to him. The little dress falls to the floor and he kisses your ankles before letting his kisses travel up your leg and to your inner thigh. He raises himself a little to kiss your stomach until he reaches your chest and back to your neck.

You moan breathlessly as his hands on your waist hold on to you a little tighter and his lips are back on yours in a second.

“Fuck, sweetheart, yer driving me crazy.” He moans into your mouth. “Yer so damn pretty.”

“Atsu.” You whimper. You're basically naked, only leaving you in your underwear as he continues to kiss you. You grab onto the back of his shirt as if you’ll fall to the floor any second now, yet his strong arms keep you upright as you push into him.

He hikes one of your legs up to his hips as he grinds into you, a sweet sound of his name leaves your lips again. The sound of his buckle has him pulling away as you chase his lips, looking at him as if you’re ready to run away with him and grow old together.

Wait, he’d like that.

“Are you sure?” He moves one of his arms away from your waist to gently hold on to your wrist that was failing terribly at trying to release his belt buckle.

You nod at him before giving him a short kiss on his lips.

“I want you, Atsumu.”

He thinks his knees just buckled a bit, there you are being so sweet and he wants to make you feel good. So badly. And whatever you want you’ll get.

The sun peeks through a little slit through the two curtains meeting by the windows. Your eyes flutter and you feel a bit cold in the room, the sound of the AC blasting lulls you back to sleep, but the lack of warmth you felt from his arms as you fell asleep last night is absent and you open your eyes to look beside you. The spot is empty and the corners of your lips turn downwards as your arm reaches to the empty side of the bed. It’s not as cold as you’d thought it’d be and you suspect the AC is the one responsible for the lack of warmth on the sheets.

You bring the sheets up to your nose as your eyes focus on the spot he was in last night and you can feel yourself getting hot from the way he touched and kissed you last night. The feeling of his bare chest on yours still lingered on your skin and the sounds he pulled out of you has you feeling a bit embarrassed.

Your back faces the entrance of the room as you fail to hear the sound of the door opening, but you turn your head a little when you hear the click of the door closing and his footsteps coming towards you. You feel the weight of the bed beside you dip and you shift a little to lie down on your back. He sits beside you on the edge of the bed, before fixing the blankets by your feet.

“Hi, sleeping beauty.” He greets you with a kiss to your lips before moving to place one on your forehead. Your eyes close once again as you pull him down closer to you. He’s laying over you with his arms holding him up enough from crushing you with his full weight. He feels a bit like a weighted blanket tempting you to fall back asleep.

“What time is it?” Your voice soft as a whisper as you try to fight back sleep, and he can’t help but coo at you as you sink into the soft pillow underneath you.

“11:52.”

“Atsumu!” His body rises and falls back onto the bed as you quickly sit up. You swiftly turn to look at the little shiny clock on the nightstand. You groan as you move to massage your thigh a little from moving so quickly while sore.

“Sorry, I wanted ya to sleep in. I know ya haven’t been getting much time away from work.” He’s lying beside you as you still sit up massaging your thigh over the sheets. “Sore?”

“Mhm.” You fall back on to your back and he shifts so that he can rest beside you. A little kitten kiss to your neck has you immediately forgiving him, fingers carding through his hair.

“Are ya hungry?”

You shake your head.

“Have you eaten yet? Mrs. Yasuda said you’d have to be strict about eating at certain times.”

“Yer not supposed to talk about work.” He muffles into the junction between your neck and shoulder.

You huff at his reminder, easing into the warmth from his arms around your bare torso under the sheets. The soft cotton of his shirt gives you goosebumps as he lays almost on top of you.

He’s got training later and you should probably inform him of the plans on the itinerary you sent out to the team, but you breathe in the scent of his freshly washed hair from this morning’s shower and decide to enjoy a few more moments of the afternoon with him.

The loud cheers of the crowd reverberates through your eardrums as you sit in your reserved seat. You nervously tap your heels on the floor as the whistle blows for the game to start. You watch Atsumu walk to the line for the first serve of the game and for a moment his eyes meet yours before he’s off.

The crowd goes into an uproar from the first service ace of the game.

You watch your team fight to keep the ball in the air from the current rally taking place before the ball lands on their side of the net. They're leading the game by 8 points, but you still mentally repeat in your head that they’ll win.

Your eyes flit back to Atsumu, as he wipes the sweat dripping down his cheek with his arm and you can see the edge of that bruise peeking over the neckline of his shirt. You internally facepalm at the carelessness of marking him so close to the edge of the neckline. You're sure he wouldn’t give a damn if his whole neck was covered with evidence, so telling him to be careful about everyone seeing seemed pointless. And concealer would slide right off from sweat so what could you do.

You pray that the cameras didn’t catch it, afraid that by the time you get back home, magazines of a ‘secret relationship' are filling up the shelves from Osaka to Tokyo.

You watch as Meian ends the game with a leading score of 25-17. You’re sure after four rounds, they're exhausted as you meet the coaches while the boys get interviewed and head to the locker rooms.

“Did’ya see me out there.”

You nod as he comes into your space, wrapping his arms around you to lift you for a second before putting you back down, still holding on to you.

“You did great, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of you.” You tease him. He laughs, it’s breathless and you can hear the exhaustion but it’s so genuine and soft.

And he’s reaching for your lips to press against, a soft groan leaving him from the feeling of your silken lips. And although you’re both a bit hidden from everyone in a little empty hallway you’re still a bit paranoid.

“Atsumu, be careful someone might see and we–”

“Let me be yer boyfriend, please.” He whines and you’re sure if anyone was passing by they’d think you just saved his life during heart surgery, from the way he looks at you.

“Okay.” You nod and giggle as he plants a few soft kisses to your neck. “But don’t go around telling every person passing you on the street.”

“Damn it.”

He gives you another smile that has you weak in the knees, warmth blossoming in your chest as his lips find themselves back on yours to press a soft kiss.

The sound of a click of a camera and a bright flash causes your eyes to open to look past Atsumu, as you watch the journalist run off before you can stop him.

“Well, problem solved.” He shrugs.

“I have to call the PR manager.”

“Let them have it, I want everybody to know I’m yours.”

And sure enough by the time you’re back in Japan, the blurry picture of the two of you embracing is at the front page.

And although you don’t have to deal with the PR manager yourself, you do have to deal with Astumu sulking about the quality of the picture and the fact that he’s covering you too much for anyone to see it’s you.

But he solves that problem himself at the next game when he kisses you during an interview in celebration of winning the game and the love of his life. And there’s no PR manager that can take that away from him.

A/n: can you tell idk how to write smut 💔

Divider creds: @strangergraphics @v6que @firefly-graphics

#haikyu x reader #hq timeskip #hq fluff #hq atsumu #miya atsumu #haikyuu atsumu #atsumu x reader #atsumu x you #msby #msby atsumu #msby 4 #atsumu x y/n #atsumu fluff #atsumu miya #miya atsumu x reader #miya atsumu x you #miya atsumu x y/n #hq x reader #hq

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nipuni · 3 months ago

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Yapping time, Hello! It's rainy and Nicolas is making lentil stew 🥰

I wanted to thank everyone for the enthusiasm over my art and all the comments you sent yesterday 😭 you are all very sweet you make me excited to share and keep making art and that is such a huge gift I'll always be grateful for. I not very proficient at social media and keeping up with everything everywhere and end up feeling like I'm not thanking you enough or talking enough so I want to make sure you know that every comment and funny tag makes my day!!

I was going to make more posts talking about DAV but halfway through writing down my frustrations I realized I was not having a good time (and most of my issues with the game have already been covered by Chelsea over twitter way more eloquently too 😆) so I'm going to focus on the parts I did enjoy! I settled on a personality for Rook and now I'll probably replay as a couple of classes to find the one I enjoy the most since I've only tried mage so far.

We also got back to our quest of watching all of David Tennant's work! now in our cozy new sitting room with a fireplace 😭 what the fuck

We finally watched 'Rivals'! We were not expecting it to be a raunchy Pride and Prejudice in the 80's lmao. It was very YA and very gratuitously sexual which is not something we normally go for. We were not really into the main couple and were more invested in Declan's success and whatever Tony and Cameron had going on lmao but it was a fun watch regardless!

Then we also watched 'You, Me and Him' and we were expecting it to be one of those 'it's so bad it's good' cringy comedies but it was genuinely so funny and sweet lmao we always seem to have opposite taste to most critic sites sjakfh The styling was so accurate and hilarious and it felt very Hallmark. We loved it!!

Now we will probably watch the second season of Arcane! we loved the first one a lot so I'm sure this one won't disappoint.

We are trying so hard to resist the urge to rewatch Doctor Who, Broadchurch, There She Goes and Jessica Jones though lmao our crush remains as strong as ever if not stronger 😭

I think I've read every single Broadchurch fic in existence at this point, and I'm painting Alec as we speak oughhgrh help

Other random updates, we managed to get train tickets for a short trip to Madrid on Christmas so we can spend it with Nicolas' family who are still visiting. And also Nicolas is learning about mushrooms since he found a bunch growing in our garden and it has become his latest passion. Now he wants to go gathering, he has already cooked a bunch, he is so excited.

Anyway I think that is all for now!! I'll have more art soon now that I'm finally settled and can get back to my normal schedule 😊 I hope you are all doing well!

#nips blogs #personal

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wystiix · 11 days ago

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❥ pairing: siren!robin x sailor fem!reader ❥ synopsis: The ocean listens keenly—you should have known that. You were a curious individual, so you decided to test out an old fisherman's tale. A silver offering, a song at sunset, and a voice that hums back from the deepest parts. You should have never sought an answer—but now, the sea has heard you. ❥ cw: major character death, slight mind manipulation ❥ additional tags: second person perspective, siren au ❥ word count: 3.3k ❥ notes: haha i saw the hoyofair art... holy shit robin is gorgeous i just had to write about it. yeah uh ig this is my first hsr work. not sure if i'll write more. i hope to god i didn't mischaracterise her cuz i was just writing about how sirens usually act. and yes i know i know I KNOW SIRENS WERE ORIGINALLY DEPICTED AS HALF BIRD IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY. i was mainly basing this off on how the philippines depicted these creatures (sirena), because "sirena" in tagalog means "mermaid". so ya!! i would also like to give a special thanks to bbg @papiliotao for proofreading this for me <33 love you rei, to the moon and back /p

The ocean was no stranger to you—you had known it throughout your whole life. Since you were a little girl, staring at the shimmering surface turned into a routine. You admired how it seemingly stretched out an eternal expanse of azure blue that met with the sky’s horizon before you.

You’d dip your feet beneath the shallow waters and allow them to sink into the sand without a care in the world. The tides would crash and the waves licked up your legs. The ocean was your comfort. It was your home.

And yet, you often wondered: what laid beyond the reef?

You had come from a long bloodline of those who were masters of the sea, men and women who lived and died by the waves. Like the masters they were, they taught you everything you needed to know—how to read the stars, predict the tides, how to navigate your way through the waters to avoid getting lost. But above all, they never fail to warn you about the dangers of the deep.

Countless legends and stories have been told to you about the lives of your ancestors being taken by the same waters you had come to love. Monsters, storms, mistakes which eventually led them to their demise. However, one tale above all haunted your family’s stories.

They said the waves would often get mischievous. They led sailors’ boats further astray into the mist where the rocks waited. Among numerous creatures of the deep, none would come as close to dangerous as the ones your ancestors perceived to be beautiful singers.

They had voices like honey, sweet enough to drown out any coherent thought. They often appeared to sailors as women who were part-fish—beautiful beyond words with skin that glittered like the sea itself.

But looks can be deceiving. For those who followed their songs never returned.

However, it didn’t stop there. Some believed that you didn’t have to wait for them to find you. Apparently, you could summon them.

It was stated that when the sun bled into the water with hues blossoming red and gold, the summoner should bring a gift—something precious, an offering of silver. Toss it into the waves and wash your face on the shore as the waves slowly take it away. Hum a tune, preferably one expressing your deepest yearnings and desires, for it will attract and bring them closer. Then, wait for the sea to answer as the sun fully sets.

Old fishermen warn you not to cease your melody, for the sea listens keenly. These creatures aren’t particularly known for their patience; silence could summon their wrath instead. Keep your melody alive and listen closely. When you hear a tune drift back to you from the depths, you know you’ve been heard—the ritual is then deemed successful.

If you were lucky, a benevolent creature may grant you mercy. It was a common belief that they may offer you a kiss—one that could grant gifts and blessings. Stories claim that this kiss could fill your lungs with the ocean’s breath and grant you the power to swim as one of them.

But luck was a dangerous, fickle thing to gamble. More often than not, when these creatures appeared, these gifts weren’t given freely. If they came at all, they never left any witnesses behind. They were more of a misfortune than a boon.

Now, you were a skeptic. You weren’t one to believe in such things. They were merely fairytales to you, and you knew that the ocean was more forgiving than that as long as you didn’t go beyond the reef. Though, you couldn’t help this lingering curiosity eating away at the back of your mind like a swarm of pests.

And so, you decided to test this theory.

One evening, you found yourself standing at the rocky shore. You knew the stretch of this coast well, the rocky areas always seemed to slope faster into the deep strangely. This seemed like a perfect spot to do the bidding.

In your hand was a hooped silver earring, one from a pair you had lost a long time ago. It glinted as it caught the last rays of sunlight as you watched the sun set. While it was precious, it was merely a trinket. You could live with its loss.

This was foolish. Childish, even. Testing an old sailor’s tale? You should have laughed and left it at that.

The faint smell of the salty breeze met your senses as you took a deep breath. Your pulse quickened with anticipation—or was it fear? Either way, there was no turning back now, not after all the trouble you went through to find a trinket you thought no longer mattered and to travel all the way to the beach.

You let the earring fall from your fingers. The silver flashed briefly before the tide claimed it, and it evanesced into the water.

A sigh slipped past your lips as you crouched by the shoreline. For a moment, you hesitated. What if they were right? What if these warnings weren’t just tales after all?

No, you were here now. This was merely a ridiculous test because you had nothing to do. Nothing was going to happen. Even if it were real, you weren’t one to give in to temptations so easily. You were not exactly easy to impress after all.

The cool water lapped at your hands and you splashed it onto your face with the salt stinging your skin. A stray drop had managed to slip into your lips and you immediately spat it out, grimacing at the bitter taste that settled on your tongue.

Then, you parted your lips and sang.

A gentle tune floated from your lips. Simple and familiar, no grand notes or anything. It was the kind that was second nature to you as if it had always belonged to the waves itself.

The sun continued setting slowly, and the waters were painted with deep crimson and orange. The final note left your lips and you waited. You were unsure if you had done it right. Would anything happen at all? Did you make a fool of yourself?

Your ears strained as you listened. To keep the melody alive, you hummed the whole song over again. The last rays of the sun disappeared beneath the horizon and the ocean seemed to grow still when you finished.

Nothing. You heard nothing. You almost felt foolish.

A frustrated sigh spilled out of you and you stood up. You had just practically tossed your silver jewellery into the water to test out some absurd myth. There was no one to blame but yourself in this situation. You turned on your heel, about to walk away with humiliation.

Until you heard it.

The waves crashed against the rocks. You backed away from the edge so the waves wouldn’t catch you, but you listened closely.

A note. It rose faintly from the waters, and the sea seemed to hum it.

Upon one summer's morning, I carefully did stray…

Your blood froze.

Down by the Walls of Wapping, where I met a sailor gay.

You weren’t alone.

Conversing with a young lass who seem'd to be in pain,

Saying, "William, when you go, I fear you'll ne'er return again.

Your heart thudded in your chest painfully as you glanced at the water with your eyes wide, straining to see among the shifting tides in the darkness. And there, you espied something.

A head popped out from beneath the surface. Lilac-silver hair and emerald eyes stared straight at you. Confused, you blinked a few times and rubbed your eyes, unsure if your vision was deceiving you. But when you opened your eyes again, it was gone. The water was empty, and the eerie hum of the ocean was the only sound to be heard.

Your pulse quickened.

Had you imagined it? Something told you that this wasn’t a coincidence.

This time, you decided to be a little risky. You stepped near the edge, feeling the moss and jagged rock beneath your feet to take a closer look. Your eyes fixed on that one spot where you had seen the head.

There was… definitely something beneath the surface. Something was moving, and it looked like a fish tail. Ripples lapped gently at the water’s edge as the head emerged again.

This time, however, it was closer to you, and you could see a few more prominent features. A crown of coral adorned her head, and gills of fish rested by her ears. The same emerald eyes stared at you as if her gaze was piercing into your soul.

“Hello?” you blurted out almost foolishly. “Did I disturb your swim?”

Her intense gaze made you nervous and made your heart race. The figure simply tilted her head as she looked at you, almost with deliberate slowness as if she was sizing you up. Then, she smiled.

“You summoned me.”

A chill ran down your spine. You blinked momentarily, your mouth parting as you thought of what to say. And then the realisation hit you, and you smacked your forehead in embarrassment. Fool, you scolded inwardly. Why in the seven seas would you ask such a thoughtless question?

“I—uh—” You cleared your throat and you felt the heat rise in your cheeks. “I didn't think it was… possible?”

She merely chuckled and rose slightly from the surface, sitting on a rock just close to you. Droplets of water dripped down her face and neck, and for the first time, you could see a creature like her in full display. Her hair swayed gently as if caught by an unseen breeze. Her hair colour reminded you of periwinkle flowers; ethereal, elegant and eye-catching. The three E’s.

Her tail glistened with rich shades of violet and curled around her as she sat. Its scales were arranged perfectly with iridescent patterns that shifted in the light, creating a stunning display of brilliant colours. Were those tiny wings hanging behind her ears? Your ancestors hadn’t provided many details on these beings’ appearances.

The sight of her made your breath catch in your throat.

“Did you think I was going to leave without greeting you?” she asked, breaking you out of your trance. Her voice was smooth and soft like silk, and it almost sounded like a lullaby.

You swallowed hard. The weight of your reckless curiosity was starting to sink in.

“No…” you mumbled. Her fixed gaze on you wasn't making this situation any less frightening. The darkness didn't help either, as the sun had just set. It was as if her eyes were the brightest thing around, glowing faintly.

The sea listens keenly. You should have heeded that warning from your masters.

“I had no idea what I was thinking,” you continued sheepishly, attempting to salvage every last bit of your dignity. “I guess I wanted to know if the old tales were real—”

“Tales.” Her smile widened. “You didn’t think they were true?”

Not until now. The truth had punched you in the gut and you were left feeling lightheaded. Of course they were true.

You didn’t know whether to cry, laugh or flee. Or all of the above. Perhaps the ground could open up a hole and swallow you instead, that’d mostly be preferable.

The silence stretched for a long moment. Then, she spoke again, breaking that silence.

“My name is Robin,” she said lightly, as if offering the name was some casual gift. “And what’s yours, sailor?”

Your heart pounded in your chest, unsure if you should be terrified. However, provoking these creatures wasn’t exactly encouraged. Swallowing, you crouched down and answered nervously. “[Name].”

Robin eyed you for a moment before smiling. “[Name], how lovely,” she hummed looking down at her reflection in the water. “Well, [Name], how fortunate for you that I’m feeling quite generous tonight.”

You knitted your eyebrows together. “Generous?”

Her finger traced lazy circles on the surface of the water. “What is it that you desire the most?” she asked. “You had a reason to summon me, did you not?”

“Oh.” Shaking your head, you waved your hands dismissively. You had completely forgotten about that. “No, not at all. This was… merely a test of courage.”

“Shall I reward that courage?”

“What?”

Her tail flicked, scattering droplets into the air as she slid off the rock and sank into the sea once again. “Shall I grant you a blessing to reward your bravery?” She pressed herself against the crag and leaned in just enough to make your pulse quicken. “A curious sailor like you deserves such a gift.”

The water curled towards the rock at your feet. Had you heard her right? A gift? Something about it made you suspicious, yet her gaze seemed sincere.

When you didn’t answer, her eyes gleamed as she continued, “I don’t offer my gifts lightly, dear. A kiss from me, and you could have it all. Swim with the tide, breathe beneath the waves, see the ocean as I do…” Robin sighed and rested her head on her hand. “It’s a rare offer. One that most sailors would beg for.”

“That easy, huh.” You eyed her warily, crossing your arms. There had to be a catch.

Robin’s smile didn’t falter. “Would you rather I make it difficult?”

You blinked a few times before shaking your head. “No, I—” A sharp exhale slipped out of you.

You were going to say no. You were sure of it. So why couldn’t you?

��So what’s wrong?” she asked, watching you closely. “You troubled yourself to come all the way here and summon me. Surely you wouldn’t just leave empty-handed? Ridiculous. Why hesitate?”

The waves lapped slowly at the rock and the rhythm of your pulse quickened. The ocean seemed to stretch endlessly behind her.

Why hesitate?

The question should have been easy to answer. So many answers, so many reasons. Yet, you just… couldn’t seem to name them.

“You’re thinking so hard,” she mused. “Is it really so difficult?”

You stiffened.

Yes, it was.

“I-I just…” you murmured, sheepishly rubbing the back of your neck. “As much as I appreciate the offer, I would much rather have my feet stay on land.”

Silence enveloped the both of you like a blanket. Robin narrowed her eyes at you, putting her hand down, and her eyes were locked onto your face which made you more nervous. It seemed like she was examining you. Closely.

Did you perhaps tick her off?

Dark waves rolled in like silk as the ocean shimmered. The air felt a lot heavier. It clung to your skin, thick with salt and something else you couldn’t name. Words are unable to be formed and for a moment, you swore you heard the tide humming.

A haze settled into your mind, thick and intoxicating. The stars had just come out, and they shone in a way that felt unreal. In fact, your surroundings felt unreal.

She was closer now, humming a soft melody to like the lull of the ocean itself. When had that happened? Her cold, damp fingers brushed against your cheek which made your breath hitch.

“You’re trembling,” she spoke softly. “You're not afraid, are you?”

Afraid? No, not at all. In fact, the fear had eroded away the moment you heard her sing. There was something about her voice, something that allowed each note that spilled out of her lips tug at the threads of your heart. Any thought seemed to wash itself out as you drowned in the pools of her emerald eyes.

You felt her hand gently caress your face, inclining your head closer. Before you knew it, soft lips brushed against yours in a tender kiss. Your heart pounded loudly in your ears and your head spun as the kiss lingered for a moment, unable to bring yourself to pull away.

It was an unexplainable, intoxicating allure that had you trapped, rendering any attempts of resisting fruitless. Her lips tasted like sin itself, enticing you deeper—and you wanted more of it. Your mind melted as the world around you seemed to blur at the edges. It just urged you to lean in a little more, fearing that to pull away would shatter this utter bliss.

“Still with me?”

Robin’s voice was a sweet and sugary lilt as she murmured against your lips, and it wrapped around your senses—lingering like the taste of salt on your tongue. You nodded, unsure if you even remembered how to speak. Or think. Or breathe.

Her lips were warm. But why was the water so cold? You could feel it rise to your ankles. Then your knees. Then your chest.

Wait—when did you step into the sea?

Your body swayed and it felt weightless. Somewhere far away, you heard the tide singing and Robin singing along with it. You could feel her hands cup your face and tilt your head deeper into the kiss. A low hum rattled in your chest, vibrating throughout your bones.

The ocean listens keenly. You should have known that.

Your lungs felt full as she pulled away. Not tight. Not desperate. Just… full.

She was still so close. You hadn’t moved, had you? But you were closer. You blinked slowly at her as she swam in and out of focus. Were her eyes glowing? Or were yours just dimming? It was hard to tell. She hummed a soothing melody that eased your thoughts.

“I thought you sailors were clever.”

Huh?

The realisation came in slowly like thick syrup, a heaviness that settled in the pit of your stomach. You were sinking. Or had you already sunk?

Something delicately grazed your cheek. A strand of hair, drifting freely into the water. Yours or hers?

…Had you been holding your breath all this time? The ocean was in your ears. Your lungs. Salt was burning your throat and your mind. Your head tilted back instinctively to take a breath as you struggled.

But there was no air left to take.

You tried to lift your legs, but they felt heavy and sluggish. The cold ocean wrapped around you like a blanket, pressing against your skin.

The only thing you could see was Robin’s face. Crown of coral adorning her head, and gills of fish resting by her ears. The same green pools of eyes you drowned in pieced into you.

She was smiling.

“Close your eyes,” you heard her say. At least you think you did. “It’s easier that way.”

The pressure in your chest was heavy but no longer frightening. It felt familiar—like the hundreds of warnings you have heard from your masters the moment you were old enough to walk. They echoed in the back of your head.

You remembered the tales, the stories. How they had lured those before you. How the sea listened so carefully to their songs they were later consumed. You remembered the warnings passed down from generation to generation. The fear it was supposed to ignite.

But now, as you sank deeper, there was no fear. Only acceptance.

Robin’s hums echoed in the depths. It seeped into your bones to your very essence. It was the same melody you heard her sing, the same lullaby your ancestors must have heard. The one they couldn’t escape. You thought you were clever. You thought you weren’t easy to please. You thought you could even have a chance of escaping. You thought wrong.

You parted your lips, perhaps to call out the name of your family, perhaps to scream for help, but your words got lost in the water. They were swallowed by the depths.

Now you understand. Now you understand why they didn’t run, why they didn’t escape—the allure was not just the beauty, but the temptation. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t resist it. The sailors were left with no choice. Neither were you.

The ocean listens keenly. And, like it did to your ancestors, it answered.

You felt Robin’s hand graze your cheek as she gazed at you with that deceptive, soft look in her eyes. You both then shared one last kiss. Her breath—the sea’s breath, rather—filled your lungs.

And you let it. You succumbed to what was promised eternal bliss. It was easier that way.

#☆ wystys ink #hsr x reader #hsr x you #hsr x female reader #honkai star rail x reader #honkai star rail x you #robin x reader #hsr robin #robin hsr #hsr robin x reader #—stellaronhvnters.

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nerdy-hyperfixations · 6 months ago

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So I was going through tags when I discovered your art and man you've got a lot of skill and it looks so cute. So because of that it gave me the courage to ask ya a idea I've had for awhile. So my 2 all time favorite characters are Ramona Flowers from Scott Pilgrim and Bill Cipher and awhile back I was thinking how it would be like if they fused into 1 person (cause I'm huge into SU) so can ya please draw this fusion, it'd look so cool!

I’m sure this isn’t what you meant but this is what came to mind lol

Good thing Canada isn’t real guys! Otherwise we’d have a real problem!

Here’s a bonus I didn’t feel like digitalizing

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chunkypossum · 5 months ago

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Happy ERIS WEEK !!

New AZRIS dropping today!

Under the Weeping Beech

Two parts - 22k words

Disclaimer: DEAD DOVE(read the tags, heed the warnings); Major Character Deaths, NO COMFORT X DO NOT READ THIS FIC X honestly don't... I only wrote it because the demons said that I had to. That said thank you @pippsmcgee for being the bravest solider and helping me make sure this one made sense and cleaning it up! You're the best! I owe you so many cookies.

"His grief was a coat of thorns, the roses all torn away by time and cruel hands. All of the pain, none of the beauty."

Art note * This fic is a tragedy. No one screams tragedy with their whole chest like the ancient Greeks. So my rendition of them for this art was a bit more classic and mature than I have seen most artists go for in the past. Also, I’m almost 40 so I was craving something older.

Day 1: of @erisweekofficial- Bonds and Bargains

Read on Ao3

Summary:

*So I didn't actually mean for it to but this turned out to be pretty anti- Mor so if that's not your thing... move along. Pro Eris though it does NOT seem like it.

Deep down, Azriel knew that in some strange way, he and Eris were connected by more than their teenage affair, and they would never be able to fully let the other go. Though, he couldn’t understand it and couldn’t hope that he would be able to recover the truth before the fog ate it away completely.

Or.

"Mor's power is truth." What does that mean? It's a question you might regret asking.

I have some suggested songs for certain parts linked in the fic itself BUT If you decide to read this (which I don't actually recommend) I assume you're in it for the pain. So to kick it up a notch why not play the companion playlist in the background:

The knives felt appropriate thank you @@tsunami-of-tears for providing the dividers!

Holla at ya boi if you want on or off the Azris tag train :

@talibunny30 @iftheshoef1tz @born-to-riot @fell-in-luvs @fieldofdaisiies @aktrain @honeysuckle-daydreams13 @secret-third-thing @acourtofladydeath @pippsmcgee @youvereachedthenearest-lovergirl @baileybird71 @skyesayshi @yanny-77 @areyoudreaminof @unanswered-stars @futurehunt @ninthcircleofprythian @matrixsss @going-through-shit @c-starstuff-man0 @jules-writes-stories @the-darkestminds @krowiathemythologynerd @cauldronblssd @hieragalbatorixdottir @yourlazykitkat @hellolordling @climbthemountain2020 @lilah-asteria @shadowsandlint @acourtofbatboydreams @theeternalstruggle @christeareads @molcat07 @mistandmemories @neciebee @dusk-muse @brunetterebel010

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yuri-is-online · 1 year ago

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I can get why yutus so afraid of azul. He's heard a hundred stories about a suave, smug, but clingy octopus and then he meets him and hes this possessive little swinderler who's trying to get him to sell his soul to him and fuck his parent lmao

referencing the tags on this ask about this au

Tako Yutu didn't have the easiest time as a kid.

He was a chubby little thing raised by a single parent who didn't have the clearest memories of his father, or of their past at all really. I wrote Yuu and Yutu as being a sort of outcasts in the community because people thought they were strange, and were skeptical of Yuu's amnesia. Azul! Yutu was really bothered by that, much like his dad he got bullied and sought solace in books, but unlike him Yuu decided to enroll Yutu in some martial arts classes and hey. He was pretty good at those, his submission holds are real bad news, even won him some competitions. But he's not some muscle head even if he sort of looks like one (he didn't really drop his baby weight so much as he did bulk up) so when he gets his first real look at his father... everything in him is screaming that this guy is sketchy. He knows that Azul and the twins are watching him even if he can't see it outright and to make matters worse, when he asks his parent about him they make a face. A face Yutu knows well that he thought was reserved for the annoying nosy couple who lived next door to you and not his father. His father who Yuu's few memories had made sound wonderful; his father who was supposedly talented and hard working, smart and proud of it, but so desperately in love with his parent they still longed for him with broken memories in a completely different world. His father who Yuu had said he was so much like.

"He's not a bad guy." Yuu says and Grim huffs.

"Don't listen to them Henchuman 2." Yutu has no idea how he feels about Grim calling him that. "Azul's reeeeeeeal bad news. If he's interested in ya' it can only mean one thing, he's after your tuna and he's after your magic."

"That's two things." A smooth voice says at the same time he does and for once, Yutu sees surprise on Azul's face when he tries to make eye contact and not carefully calculated confidence.

"Well they do say great minds think alike." His father says and extends a hand. "But I must say you didn't strike me as the shy type, it is Yutu right?" The way he says it, the way he shakes his hand, Yutu knows he at least suspects him. So he smiles and makes sure to make his handshake just a touch too firm when he responds.

"That's right." Yutu is impressed that Azul doesn't flinch even slightly when he pulls back his hand, if anything his little action makes his smile wider. "And not so much shy as just curious and knowing better than to poke my nose where it doesn't belong."

"Not until you've asked anyway." Azul really isn't content with letting him remain ambiguous, he thinks nervously glancing back to Yuu. "But still there really is no need to bother the prefect over such trivial things, if you have questions about me you can just pay me a visit at the Mostro Lounge. My door is always open to poor unfortunate souls such as yourself." Azul smiles at him and adjusts his glasses and Yutu is... impressed even if the thought of being alone with this man terrifies him. But he's going to have to be eventually, Azul really wants to talk to him for some reason and Yutu finds himself wondering if he's going to find it possible to lie, or just what price he will be expected to pay to have the privilege of keeping his secrets.

But when he looks at the way Azul talks to Yuu... he isn't sure if he likes it but he does find it funny. Azul is so horrendously down bad and Yuu is so unaware of it (there's a part of him that thinks Azul might be a little bit jealous of him which he finds really funny). And Yutu understands why Yuu likes Azul so much. He is everything they remembered him being: smart, ambitious, and motivated. It makes him a little more secure in his existence even if he doubts that Azul will like having a son like him. But that's ok too because a son like him is exactly what's needed to make sure his parents get to stay together in this timeline.

now if only he can convince him to stop bugging him for his real name

#<3 asks #twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #future kid au #azul ashengrotto x reader #i was in a big azul phase when i wrote all this au stuff so azul and riddle yutu are more fleshed out than some of the others #idk i like talking about this au #and it is nice to be able to post something since my current work is still fighting me for every inch i am so sorry #meh i had a um picked out for azul yutu that required him to have a lot of physical strength to not get hurt using it #so he sort of needs to be stronk ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ but he still feels self conscious because his dad is a smort guy who dislikes muscle heads #... not that i think azul would hate yutu because he is extremely smart and good at reading people and more importantly #he's his c:#and that's really what matters #sorry for the essay in the tags i should be asleep

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afreakingdork · 1 month ago

Text

Attempted Execute of Non-Executable Memory - Chapter 7

RotTMNT Michelangelo x Kendra

I have always been in awe of @pegibruno 's art and it was such an honor to gave them do the titular chapter art for this series!

Rated: Teen and Up Audiences

Warnings/Tags: Fake/Pretend Relationship, Revenge, Falling In Love, Love, Romance, Dating, Aged-Up Mutant Ninja Turtles, Love Confessions, Human/Turtle Relationships (TMNT), Step-Parents, Neglect, First Kiss, First Generation Immigrant Kids, Acculturation, Loss/Removal of Cultural Identity, Incarceration, Prison Time, I flesh Out Kendra’s Character, Character Exploration, Character Study, I Give Kendra a Backstory

Synopsis: After hitting the lowest of lows, Kendra has carved out a simple life for herself. She’s content enough to live this way until opportunity walks through her place of employment in the form of an orange turtle mutant. She just needs to get close enough to him to plant a virus in his infuriating brother’s servers, but will she be infected long the way?

Also available on Ao3

First 🧡 Previous

“I’m going to your apartment!” Mikey danced through what was very much not her front door and continued to sing. “I’m going to your apartment!”

“Not if you keep that up.” Kendra breezed by him into the store.

Mikey lowered the volume, but continued to sing the phrase.

She picked up and stuck him with a basket.

He took it like a prop and she mistakenly made eye contact with the shop’s attendant.

The cashier at the desk looked up against her long lashes. “Been wondering when you’d be back.”

“Shut up.” Kendra strode down the familiar aisles to the one she needed.

The woman’s laughter chased her.

Mikey was first caught looking back at the employee and then at all the colorful packaging. “She seems nice.”

“Oh, yeah. So nice.” Kendra growled out. “So easy to upkeep a rainbow Mohawk when your uncle owns the store and you get shit for free!!”

Mikey looked up the fluorescent lights and waited to see if the lob would land.

There was obvious grumbling from across the store.

“Always someone.” Kendra glared at the shelves of dye.

She shouldn’t be here yet.

She needed to get everything else first. “This way.”

“You do get judged a lot.” Mikey followed.

“Thanks.” She retorted bitterly as she got to the developers.

She tossed a bottle into the basket.

“Like more than me.” He went on.

“That was code for ‘knock it off.’ I’m not in the mood.” She hissed as she passed him.

“I wonder why.” He went on regardless.

She ignored him and went over a mental tally of what she had at home. Most of her stuff had definitely expired which had prompted this impromptu trip to the beauty shop she frequented. Her mixing bowl and brushes were still usable. She had a plethora of ratty towels and all the clips necessary. She could get by on what bleaching products she had so it was just developer and hair dye that was missing.

He caught her eye and turned to her openly. “Like your vibe is not inviting it, so why does it happen?”

“Don’t know. Always has.” She stunted out as he continued to be endlessly stubborn.

“Is it the hair?” He wondered.

“Mikey.” She tried to put a finality in her tone.

“I know. I hear ya. I just…” He shook his head.

“Look, I don’t know and you sure as hell don’t. If I find out, maybe I’ll tell you.”

He softened a little. “I’ll take it.”

“You sure you can spot check this?” She let her doubts leak to cover up his gooey expression.

“Yup! Been there, done that on my own! Nearly burned all the hair off of my head.” He tossed his locks.

They were well maintained to her eye.

He came up into a salute. “You were clear: I’m here to watch and nothing else. I will point and maybe help out only if there’s a spot you can’t reach.”

“Easy, solider.” She pushed his plastron gently.

“Sir, yes, sir!” He tossed his arm out in an act, but smacked a shelf.

He caught all the items before they hit the floor and juggled them in his arms as he failed to get them back to their places.

She stepped in to help him. “You’re a mess. I should have asked someone else.”

She had no one else.

She hadn’t had anyone else in years.

She could have done it alone, but there had been mistakes.

Spots.

This was the first time in a long while that she could do this and save money by doing it herself. It wasn’t like her family friends supported her color. She’d been shelling out way too much on doing this at a salon. It always felt like an annoying waste when she knew how. She’d been doing it since she had virgin hair.

That time she permanently stained Deborah Ricci’s tacky yellow bathtub.

The woman had been forced to redesign her whole gaudy color scheme.

Jase had spotted her back then until she had gotten Jeremy into it. They had dying parties. There was hair management. They used to mask on weekends and watch movies. They weren’t good times; they were simply times.

Of the past.

Kendra moved to her section of purples.

Her exact shade wasn’t in stock, so she evaluated for the next closest.

She didn’t care as long as it pretty much read what she wanted it to.

She was here.

She was saving money.

Mikey was useful because he could catch those annoying spots.

She had cleaned up her apartment for this.

One payment for another.

The stupid balancing act.

“You know art or whatever, right?” Kendra asked without looking.

His voice closed in. “Yup! That was my other credential.”

“Which do you think between these? I like this brand.” She held up two similar shades of purple for him.

He hummed loudly and clearly was juggling two boxes of his own.

One orange.

One cyan.

She stared a little too obviously at one box. “What are those?”

“Huh?” He looked like he had forgotten he was holding anything.

He laughed.

He held the orange up beside his face. “What do you think? This is so my color, right?”

His lashes fluttered.

He squished closer to the box that matched his mask.

“Yeah, sure.” She stepped forward with the purple boxes out like a plea. “What’s that one?”

Her eyes hadn’t moved.

Mikey followed her gaze and lit up.

“Oh, this one’s yours!” He offered it.

“No.” Her eyes followed. “It’s not.”

He stared. “Uh… Yeah, it is.”

“No.” She shook the boxes with purple hair dye. “This is. I’m asking you which one.”

“Oh, yeah. I was thinking about that.” He closed the gap.

The cyan box got closer.

“Of those two, the one on the left. Er, your right. I always mix that up.”

She hadn’t looked away.

“But I was thinking… Are you sure this isn’t your color?” The cyan dye shifted in his hold.

“What are you talking about?” She spat.

He didn’t flinch. “You’re wearing it right now.”

She didn’t have to look.

There was her signature cyan lipstick.

There was a cyan splash across her otherwise drab hoodie.

She had thrown it on just for the sake of going out.

Something to cover up her bleached and stained top that she wore when she did her hair.

That didn’t mean anything.

“It’s not.” She told him with a voice that could cut glass.

Again, he was somehow immune to the barbs. “I’m gonna be straight up and you can get as mad as you want.”

Her gaze finally moved to his face.

“Do you even like purple?”

Her lips parted and it sounded like a crash to her ears.

He was impudent.

He should be scrubbed from the Earth.

How had she let this happen?

She let a man in that would say something like that to her face.

She had let him get close enough.

For what?

He knew nothing.

They were kindred spirits.

They had nothing in common.

He was a fool.

A jester.

She had kept him in her court because she found him entertaining.

She knew the real reason for fools.

Control the masses.

You allowed one wretch within your means to make fun of you. It gave the others the illusion of freedom to do the same. They could laugh along, but that was it. The royalty still ruled with an iron fist. The jokes kept them passive. It made them think they could entertain their complaints. In reality, they were offed one by one.

Heads rolling.

That was what Kendra sought.

Totalitarian rule.

She didn’t need to keep a fool.

She was in no position.

She would get another when the time came.

She had one who was assigned to her since matrimony.

Jase looked better in bells than he ever did in anything else.

“Obviously.”

He continued on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Cause like I get your old group had the name in it, but that was because it was your school mascot and it’s not even just what you’re wearing right now. I don’t think you own much purple. I mean I haven’t seen your house yet, but, you have, what? No purple clothes that I’ve ever seen.”

She couldn’t speak for fear his stupidity would make her stutter.

“Or food! Not that… there’s a lot of turquoise or purple foods, but…” His brow creased with his mask. “That’s a bad comparison. What else have we done?”

She was still holding those purple dye boxes.

“It doesn’t matter!”

Like a buffoon.

“It just seems like-”

She was the clown.

He was still talking.

It was makeup, she thought then.

Not like her lipstick, but everything.

Everything she put on was a costume.

It was her power.

It was pretension personified.

What else could she do?

She’d never been the tallest.

She’d never been the fastest.

She’d been the smartest.

She was the first amongst anyone to realize a brand.

She then crafted her own bit by bit.

From tomboy to trendsetter, she had tried out a series of hats in a store until a random person walking by complimented her beret. It was a comment along with some song she hadn’t been particularly impressed by, but she would own it. They would love her; she would make them.

Her hair came later.

After the jacket design.

After Jase.

After Debroah Ricci.

The bathroom redesign.

The internal version of herself smirked, but it felt empty. The void of her mind was aflame, but the fire wasn’t purple. Her avatar, a digital one as that made the most sense, was purple lighting. It struck the wasteland and filled it with teal flames.

It was wrong, she screamed without a mouth.

That was not her color.

Her color was-

Why had she chosen purple?

The Purple Dragons.

She was the leader.

She had built her brand on that stake.

A tech club that won awards where there hadn’t been anything prior to her.

She’d clawed up with her nails. The ones she couldn’t paint because any would be ruined by all the typing. Her hair was fair game. From a black flag, she rose the sails of her turning tides. She chose the most electric color that was also the cheapest. The tub had been ruined with her first round of bleach. She fried her follicles, but what arose was her.

Purple.

When people saw her they thought of that.

Purple Dragon.

She hadn’t been one in years.

A hacker.

That violated her parole.

A convict.

Patently true, but not one she filed beside her name.

Purple.

She was purple.

She was.

She had to be.

Had she ever changed her lipstick?

That predated it all.

It was a faraway memory, but it struck down her avatar.

Right into the cyan flames.

A clip started of her going through her mom’s makeup and getting scolded. If she was so interested then she should get her own products to ruin. She was taken on a transformation trip all her own and it was there that she picked the first audacious color that caught her eye.

Her mom grimaced even though she still made the purchase. That neon swatch heralded in years of evolution. It was no longer some swatch that rubbed off her lips after a few minutes of wear. It was eventually upgraded to a custom formula made at a lipstick lab. She no longer had to ask; a refill was her automatic Christmas present every year.

It grew beyond her lips.

She chose teal sneakers for a new school year. There was once a seafoam bedspread donning her mattress that had since been tossed out. Her entire decor centered around fringed frames and binders in aquamarine.

When had she ever chosen purple?

She picked it because it said something.

It was supposed to say her name.

Had it?

Did it?

When had it not?

Cyan muddied her purple avatar.

The flames burned through the exterior.

Revealing what lay beneath.

Something chosen for the sake of it.

No deeper meaning.

Because it had caught her eye.

She liked it.

She liked the way it sat on her skin.

She had tried other lipsticks, but they weren’t as satisfying.

She liked to be electric.

Bright.

The CYMK pressed for print.

Layered colors.

A true leader and a purest form.

When she turned back a tear was sliding down her cheek and Mikey was still talking.

He was downright babbling.

She looked at him and saw he had only a box of purple in his hands now.

“I dug through the stock and compared and this one isn’t listed! This is it though, right? This is your current color? I’m so sure it is. I was going to ask the cashier, but yeah, we all know that wasn’t about to happen. Like I need her help. I have an eye for color and this is it. I’m sure. I’m like 98% sure, but I can make up the other two. You know we can mix color? I know how to blend! I’ve watched hundreds of hours of those palette matching videos. I love the way they smear, but I hate the sound! I just watch them on mute, but that’s not important. What’s important is I was talking out of my ass and I’m sorry, but I got the color, didn’t I…!?”

She looked at the box.

Her preferred brand and, damn him, her exact color.

Or what was.

Maybe it was time to move on.

“Where is it?” She spoke thickly through her tight throat.

“Where’s what?” He blinked wide at her.

“The other one… You said teal. It’s cyan.”

“The box said teal.”

A bubble of anger rose and popped in a way that made her stomach feel fizzy. “Where is it!?”

He fumbled the purple box like a volleyball and barely caught it.

In a full rotation of his body, he expertly swapped it out for the cyan dye and presented it to her.

“You don’t have to-”

“Stop.” She took it from him and stared at the shade.

It was a little too blue based on the art, but her thumb on the box paired well enough with it.

“If this looks bad, you’re paying for the fix.”

“Done.” He spoke stunned.

She glanced at the purple.

She watched it go.

Back on the shelf where it no longer had a tag.

The last of its kind.

“Let’s go.” She turned. “You got the basket?”

“Yup!” He grabbed it because he had actually set it down and followed her to the counter.

“This.” Kendra slammed the dye down in front of the employee. “And that.”

She stepped to the side in perfect time so Mikey could make some noise putting the basket down. “Much appreciated!”

Kendra stared at the little one-off products around the register like candy.

“That’s new.” The employee spoke as she rang her up.

“Is it though?” Mikey spoke in her stead.

“Uh, yeah. Who are you, by the way? Buy-or-leave doesn’t have friends.” The employee pointed at Mikey with a bottle of developer.

“Aw cute.” Mikey chirped. “Your nicknaming skills are on par with your color knowledge.”

“Excuse me?!”

Kendra’s head whipped around.

“I mean either you or your stylist is spinning the color wheel, but it’s crazy someone shoved violet in-between red and yellow. It’s ROYGBIV and I know my orange. Don’t they teach that in like, kindergarten?”

The last item passed the scanner and the employee dove under the counter.

Mikey covertly swiped the items into the bag.

The employee popped up with a mirror in hand and was desperately rotating her head to get a glimpse of her mohawk.

Mikey seemed to wait for a particular move before he slammed a few buttons on the computer screen and the pay now option popped up. Kendra patted down for her wallet, but Mikey beat her to that too. He swiped his card for the chip and then confirmed the purchase with another stretch of his arm across the counter.

“What the fuck!?” The employee hissed at her reflection.

There was a ding of a completed transaction and her attention shifted.

“Hey!”

Kendra caught the bag and ran.

“Put orange in its place next time!” Mikey hollered as he chased her.

The employee continued to yell after them until they got several blocks away.

There Mikey puffed with laughter which interfered with his breathing.

“What was that!?” She elbowed him as they slowed to a regular walking pace.

“I noticed it the second I saw her! Why’d she do the colors like that?” He continued to chuckle. “So off.”

“What if I can’t go back!?”

“I mean maybe I can’t go back, but why wouldn’t you?” He addressed her openly.

“She’s pissed at both of us! I brought you there!”

“Find somewhere else? She sucks.”

“It’s closest to my apartment!”

“Eh…!” He strung out the syllable before a light bulb went off. “I get to go to your apartment!”

She made a move like she was going to shove him into traffic and he readied himself. She didn’t do it, as much as she wanted. Instead, she bumped into him and stayed close. With her head down, heart beat anxiously out of her ears. The teal hair dye felt heavy in the box.

Mikey adjusted ever so slightly after the wave of surprise had passed and offered his arm.She pinched his skin for the sake of it. He clearly squirmed, but didn’t retreat. For that, she slunk her arm through his. They walked in silence that she thanked him for with her prolonged contact until he slowed.

She checked out and found he had taken them as far as he could before he didn’t know where her apartment proper was. She pulled on him gently before getting her arm free and pointing. She caught his hand in the process and he allowed himself to be led with a smile. Only the bag of products crinkled as she dodged into an alley and then turned down a narrower one. It was out into a back plaza where she hooked a fire escape.

It came down with its usual rusty creak and she made the perilous journey up it as she had many times before. She could feel Mikey oozing unsaid questions behind her, but he kept his trap shut. She knew it was strange that this was the only way to access her apartment, but it was because of this and the building’s absent owner that she was able to afford this much.

They turned a corner and there was her door.

She could hear Mikey’s jaw drop at the sight of a door on a fire escape.

She dug out a key and unlocked it. “Wait til you're inside.”

He nodded furiously and she opened the door for him.

“Don’t say shit.”

He checked with her before he ducked in through her threshold. She followed and nabbed the bag from where he was stuck. The door closed behind them and she left it for now. She would come back and lock it, but first she went to drop off the items in the bathroom. When she returned Mikey was still staring at her studio apartment and the mattress on the floor that had been messily made.

“How are you always so quiet and so loud?” She complained as she did up three locks.

“I don’t have a bed frame either.” He blurted out.

She looked up from the last lock and turned to him.

“I sleep in a hammock.”

“What? Like outside?” Her face screwed up in confusion.

“What?! No!” He seemed to think better. “Well…?”

“You’re still in the sewer with the rest of them?” She tossed the question as she gestured for him to follow.

It was only a few steps to her tiny bathroom where they clearly both weren’t going to fit. “Not the sewer exactly. You can get there from the sewer, but it’s an old subway depot.”

“Huh.”

“Can I say what I’m most surprised about?” He blurted out suddenly.

She rolled her eyes.

She had heard it all before.

She had only had a few visitors, but it was always the same.

No one could believe she lived like this.

“Sure.” She stunted out. “I’m stuck with you for the rest of the afternoon so keep that in mind.”

She unearthed a color bowl and brush along with a silver shampoo she hadn’t remembered she had.

She was reading the label when Mikey finally spoke up.

“There’s no electronics. No TV. You don’t even have an alarm clock.”

She looked up in her vision without moving her head.

Had someone mentioned that?

She couldn’t recall.

Maybe about her lack of a computer.

“Call it rustic.” She decided.

Mikey snorted.

“What?” She glared at him in the mirror as she used the sink below it as a platform to mix the bleach powder she had with the developer she had just purchased.

“Rustic is for cabins.”

“Uh huh.”

“You wouldn’t be caught dead in a cabin.”

“You don’t know.”

“You like hiking?”

“No.”

“Do you like outdoors?”

“Not really.”

“Bugs?”

“Turn around.”

Mikey spun and saw a cockroach crawling up the wall that she had spied in the mirror.

He screeched, recoiled, and flung a fireball at it that expertly scorched the thing without burning her wall.

She turned her head to view him where she was stirring. “And here I pegged you as an advocate for bug lives.”

“Not cockroaches. Nah!” He shuddered.

“My roommates that don’t pay rent.” It was a joke that amused her and she finished up mixing her first bowl. “I’m gonna start with the back. There’s a computer chair propping up my clothes rack and a stool with my phone cord wrapped around it. Grab those.”

He went to search for the necessary items as she yanked her hoodie off.

She left it on her bed and Mikey returned with the chairs.

“Take your pick.” She waved him off. “Turn to the wall for a second.”

He set the chairs down and dutifully did as he was told.

She dropped her leggings in one fell swoop and snatched up a pair of athletic shorts that had fallen off the side of her bed. She threw them on as they were disposable if they got product droplets on them. When she was clothed again, she smugly summoned Mikey and sauntered over to show off that they had a strip lining of purple. He took his assessment fast and returned her gaze with an equally smug look that said he knew that they were expendable for the process. She turned her nose up at him and went to her vanity to section her hair off.

He set the computer chair ready for her like a throne and hopped up on the stool, which teetered beneath him.

She scooped up a blob on her brush and started painting bleach on. “What are you, anyway? Eagle Scout?”

“Todd Scout.”

“That’s not a thing.”

“Nature’s not really my thing either.”

She eyed him in the glass.

“Come on, admit it.”

“Fine. It’s boring.”

“It’s pretty.”

“I guess.”

“The trees. Being able to breathe. The water.”

“The booming quiet. The bugs. The lack of general humanity.”

“I thought you were going to say AC.”

“I don’t even have AC.” She met her own eye.

Mikey had to turn. “We can find you one of those window ones. I saw some good deals on a resale site.”

“’We?’”

“Yeah. I’ll show you the marketplace I use. I’ve got a good eye.”

That wasn’t her point, but she let it slide. “Purple’s a bitch to strip. This’ll take a while so bring it up.”

Mikey bobbed with laughter that shook his stool.

“What?”

He flapped a hand at her.

“Mikey.”

“Phrasing!” He quacked.

“It’s true.”

“I believe you.” He puffed with giggles.

“You’re thinking of your idiot brother.” She finally started painting bleach into her hair.

“I am.” He admitted.

“Gross. Y’all are too close.”

Mikey grunted as he popped upright. “Hey! Don’t be nasty!”

“Me?” She gave him an exaggerated look.

“Yes! I was thinking about how hard it is to get him to take off his battle shell sometimes!”

For a split honest second, Kendra couldn’t help but agree.

A lifetime ago when they had stolen said objects, the lot of them had waited hours for him to finally deactivate all three so they could remote in.

Before that he had endlessly used one or all of them in a rotation.

It was only for a moment and she was back.

“Sure…” She dragged out the word as a tease.

Mikey wriggled with irritation. “That bleach is boiling your brains!”

“It’s going to, with the amount I’ll need. How’s the coverage?”

“Get…” Mikey turned his head and demonstrated with a point to his own. “Here, above the bottom on the right.”

She nodded and started to paint with her eye on him.

He nodded appropriately and she coated the strands. “Good job though.”

“I’ve done this before.”

“No, talking about Donnie. I appreciate it.”

“It was like five seconds.”

“Five seconds more than before; I love my family.”

She continued to apply bleach. “Sorry your favorite brother got in my way.”

“He’s not my favorite.” He responded immediately.

That gave Kendra a quick pause.

“Gotta be second.”

“You rank them.”

“Yup.”

She chuffed. “Now that doesn’t sound like you. I can hear your whiny voice. ‘I love all my brothers equally.’”

“I do!”

She didn’t bother giving him a look; he surely felt it.

“It’s just that… sometimes they get on my nerves and I put them in an order that changes based on my mood which is a nice little dose of revenge because they totally lose it when they drop a spot!”

“Spoken like a true youngest.”

“Coming from what? An only child!? That’s the vibe you give off!”

“Step.” The word felt punctuated as she began to move around toward the front of her head.

“How many?”

“One.”

“Huh.”

“Jason.” She felt the need to name him. “Jase.”

“Who’s older?”

“Me, barely.”

“So it wasn’t really-?”

“I was stuck with him.”

“Oh, like that.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s a big oldest child complaint, pretty sure. Raph hated me when I was younger.”

Kendra paused to think.

“My favorite.” He clarified.

She turned her head a little to glimpse him.

He shared the look.

Her eyes darted away.

“Kendra.” He openly scolded.

“What?”

“You don’t know which one he is, do you?”

“It’s not my fault!” She bristled.

“We’ve been dating for months!”

That felt like a cold shock. “You barely talk about them!”

“I-!” His complaint died in his throat.

For a moment, there was only the sound of thick bristles painting strands of hair.

“That’s weird. I guess I haven’t… Huh.”

She didn’t want to, but she felt the same chilling confusion.

She had lost her way.

Here, Michelangelo was, in her apartment, willingly sharing information she could use and she hadn’t thought twice about. She now knew for sure that they all still lived together underground. He openly approached the topic of Donatello and she didn’t immediately bite his head off. He openly confirmed that Donatello didn’t rank highly which meant it would be easier for her to scam said man without upsetting this one.

The bleach fumes must have been getting to her because she paused.

Why did she care how Mikey felt?

She was supposed to ditch him when this was over.

Plant the virus and be rid of him.

Months.

They had been dating for months.

She had been the one to invite him here.

She hadn’t even plotted out any talking points to get her closer to her supposed goal.

Was that still the point?

She was meant to ruin the symbol of Genius Built.

The grandiose golden boy was going to become a new type of poster child.

So why didn’t she feel like she particularly cared anymore?

She went back to bleaching her hair because that’s what she was doing. She could now see the locks turning blond as the blueish color of the bleach sank into the layers. It stripped the fading hues because that was the chemical process taking place. Her old brand was being dissolved in real time to make room for her new one. Whether it would become teal or cyan depended on whatever convention best fit the marketing.

She felt empty and liminal in a way that one felt amidst great change. It was a sensation that she usually only took on as a precipice. For her, it was one to fling herself over and never look back. She had already done the climb and sailing off the cliff was the goal. The achievement beyond what was tangible and it had never been one she had to think about. There was always a clear goal post to head towards in the sky.

Except there hadn’t been in years. She worked the bleach deep into her stubborn roots. It was just like those garden beds where the top crop had to be cut free before she could access the weeds. She had been shorn for a while now but had cowered instead of growing once again. Her roots were suffering in a visible way because she was suffocating. Doing this, right now, was a step, but she had no direction or plan.

Nothing had changed.

She was still the deadbeat felon who could barely afford to cover her rent, let alone eat. She carted around a loudmouth who, no matter how hard she tried, would never fit her usual lackey mold. He stubbornly walked beside her. She added the last bit of slop to her hair and glanced at him.

He was quietly pondering to himself, but felt her eyes and looked up. “You pretty much got it!”

“Yeah…” She looked at the sink before reviewing her application. “Which one is Raph?”

“Red.”

“So Lee… Leo? Is that the last one?”

“Blue, yeah.”

“Confusing…” She told the strangely calm version of herself.

The one that put up with this.

“You guys match with another thing besides colors.”

“Bandana styles?”

“Sure.”

“Yeah, Leo and I show head and the other two don’t.”

“You have hair.” She emphasized as she set a timer for the bleach to do its work.

“Didn’t always.”

“You match, so where’s Leo rank?”

Mikey clammed up.

“Last.” Kendra smirked.

“I love him! We match mask styles!”

“Did you do it to make up for not getting along with him?”

He gave a horrified gasp. “We get along!”

“Always, right? Just like how Raph hated dragging your baby butt along.”

His mouth audibly snapped shut.

“I get you guys do the hero thing, but it doesn’t have to be all the time. It’s a job, right?”

“I guess.” He sulked.

She felt like she had both misstepped and not.

She chased the latter feeling because it was a strange one.

She didn’t usually have this sort of foresight outside her person.

Another odd sensation for the book of today. “You’re orange. You like orange, but you don’t like when that’s all you are.”

She could feel him watching her closely.

“You grew up as part of this set and it’s… I don’t know. You don’t need my permission, but it’s okay or whatever for your life to not be about them!” She sped up as she went on because her chest twisted up around the statement.

The foreign feelings stuck in what should have been the black hole in her heart and made it all too tender.

Mikey was especially quiet.

She checked the timer as if she could rush the process. This all unnerved her for a reason that she couldn’t quite place and she was getting sick of the stacking unknowns. Her hair was a smoothed image in the mirror and she decided then to similarly unruffle herself. There was no point in sulking in what she didn’t know and her time was better spent working on what she did. “Gonna get ready to rinse.”

She still had twenty odd minutes, but decided to widdle it away. He stayed behind as she ducked into her bathroom with the bottle of shampoo. She left the door open behind her as a point. She sat on the toilet as it was buddied up to the tub. It was the perfect place to hang her head over when it was time to turn on the tap.

She spent several minutes finally reading that bottle. She spent a few more doing a quick check of her email. The last went down to resolving her will and she got the water going to her preferred tepid by the time the alarm sang. She pulled down the handheld shower head. It was the one modification she had really done to the place and she was absolutely taking it with her when she left whether she had to rip it out of the wall or not.

After a thorough rinse, suds, and rinse again, she cleaned her hair until the tingles subsided before she realized she had forgotten her ratty towel. “Mikey!”

“H-here!” He spoke on a bit of a delay.

“Can you get me…? Ugh! It’s like my ugliest towel! Tie dye when it shouldn’t be!”

“One used for dyeing, I’m going to look around!”

“Yeah! It shouldn’t be far.”

“Found it!” He chirped near immediately. “Can I…?”

“Door’s open! Geez! Give it, hurry up!” Blond tips dangled in front of her vision.

He appeared behind her and the cotton brushed her hands.

“Thanks.” She stunted out before scrubbing her head right there.

“We’ve… always… only had each other…”

“What?” She twisted the towel up on her head before sitting back to view him.

“My family.” He looked at her meaningfully from where he leaned in the door jamb.

She felt similarly stripped and small sitting on her toilet lid. “Oh...”

He rubbed his arm. “Sorry… I’ll just…”

“No…” Her hand raised and she flicked her fingers at its audaciousness. “No, I mean… I…”

He leaned against the old wood for the pressure.

“Don’t… expect any gooeyness!”

His expression grew fond.

“I don’t know! I guess it makes sense! You were all cooped up underground for years or whatever! Then you went straight to saving the world or whatever it is that you told me! I guess that makes it hard! When all you have is each other. When the city… seems really big and maybe not to you because to you it’s new, but to your parents it’s a totally different city than they knew, so they’re homebodies and they’re doing their best, but it feels like you gotta escape that oppressive feeling…”

Her voice felt too loud.

“But you’re you! You wanted to show your hero-dad up or whatever! You’re part of some set, but you’re your own piece and getting older, that’s all leaving the nest and not even the most understanding parent is going to agree with everything you do because that’s life. You’re living it. Not them. You gotta stick it to them and stick to your guns… even if… if you fail…”

She had to move and stood.

He expertly swung against the jamb like a second door and she exited.

She approached the mirror and took a deep breath. “I usually bleach twice, but I am so over this.”

He watched as she unraveled the towel. The blond didn’t look right against her skin, but it was lighter than she expected. She turned side to side and the wet follicles slapped against her cheeks.

“This might work though…”

“I want to color it.”

She snapped her head at him and had to wince when some of her hair smacked into her eye.

“Let me.”

When she could see again, it was like viewing fire from a man who could create it in thin air.

For the first time in the last few hours she felt a surge of sureness.

A comfort that she could depend on and she breathed out her lung capacity. “Okay.”

No threat.

No comment.

That was it.

“We need to dry it first.”

She sat in the computer chair and he wheeled her into place. She watched as he moved around her vanity like it was his house. He found her ancient hair dryer before she could tell him where it was. He got the plug going and took a second to depress the breaker. With a firm air, he only had to make one adjustment for the length of the cord before he turned the dryer on his palm. He waited for it to warm up before he readied himself for her.

She bowed for him to go ahead and he got to drying her hair. With light sweeps of his hands, he worked down through her roots to eradicate all moisture. Her dirty blond locks puffed up as they were free of their downy liquid and grew to a lighter dry shade. It strengthened her resolve that this would work and her faith grew in time.

Mikey squashed the last of the anxieties that she would never entertain. She paid attention to him out of curiosity and nothing more. If he was secretly a hairdresser on the side, she would believe it. She would need to look up his cosmetology license and finally get him on having lied to her about something at least partially nefarious.

The way he cleaned the bowl of residual bleach said he had no finesse of the sort.

He only had his own experience, which he showed in asking for foil.

She had only the cooking type to spare in an oversized roll. She did some light internet research to see if it was applicable and it seemed like it was. Mikey prepared a pile of sheets before he checked the bowl and brush a second time. He found them satisfactory and snapped her damp dye towel to lay it over her shoulders like a cape before he got to work.

“You know, your hair being a little yellow’ll work. I’m pretty sure this cyan is too blue.”

She tried not to move too much as that fluttering in her chest cavity returned. “You forgot gloves.”

“Nah, I like to feel my paint.”

“And dye your hands.”

“I’m pretty dark already.” He showed her his palm in demonstration before bringing it right back to start painting her strands.

“And your clothes?”

He paused for that one.

She looked at him from around the first swipe of cyan in his hand.

He shot over to the sink for a wash before he yanked his top off.

“Hey!”

“Problem?” He flexed for her.

“Stop! Don’t strip in my place!”

He laughed. “It was your idea.”

“I didn’t say ‘take your clothes off,’ I said ‘ruin them, loser.’”

“You did not.” He chastised and went back to her hair.

“Well, I should have.” She pulled up her legs to get comfortable.

He went on coloring her hair until he seemed to relax amongst the paint.

“You good?” She asked before she could think better of it.

“This is helping.”

“I was too harsh, huh?”

He shook his head.

“I have a hard time believing you.”

“You have a hard time believing anyone.”

“I wonder why!?”

“Sounds exhausting.”

“This is why Red got tired of you. I bet you were like this when you were younger, but worse.”

“I absolutely was. Terrible twos who? I was terrible til like twenty.”

He wasn’t usually self-depreciating and she frowned.

He caught it as he folded some foil. “Obnoxious, not terrible.”

“Not much different.”

“It is.”

“You believe everything your family tells you?”

“Do you?”

They had a stare off.

“Okay, let’s be each other’s judge. I’m hearing a whole lot of us needing perspective here. We swap back and forth sibling stories.” He suddenly spun her chair around.

Her vision rotated until she landed on his scorching gaze.

Her stomach flipped and her scowl turned down to squash it back into place.

He cock a knowing grin.

“No competition allowed. Got it?”

He broiled the statement into her skin until her cheeks burned and she had to look away. “Fine! Calm down… Geez…”

He was more gentle in replacing her chair so she could see herself. “And when you have new hair we’ll put out our verdicts on whether we were bad or not.”

“I never said I was.”

“You tried to convince me that you were beneath me on our second date.”

That was an oversimplification, but he would get her on semantics.

“I’ll start?”

She stared at him through the mirror before giving a curt nod.

“During one of our first official sleepovers ever, I made Leo so mad that he went to dad, but he couldn’t, ya know, go home because we were home…”

She shared a tidbit about how her household stopped buying jello because Jase had one allergic reaction. It then went back to Mikey who used the allergy angle and how he ate peanut butter with his fingers. He apparently put Raph into epileptic shock by scratching an itch he couldn’t reach with the substance under his nails. It pinged back to Kendra, who had to take a dive off a trampoline to save Jase at one of the Ricci family gatherings and the escalation continued.

They bounced off each other in the usual ping-ponging of verbiage until they were soon just complaining about family instead of talking about how they wronged them. It was exaggerated groans of commiseration and champing at the bit to get the next tale in. Judgment was passed early and flippantly. Mikey clutched his pearls a few times, but with Kendra’s relentless press, he snuck in small comments on how he agreed. The color was applied along with a timer and they continued to talk straight through to when it went off.

“Look now or later?” Mikey asked her firmly.

“It needs to be washed first.” She told him with the same gravity.

He nodded and turned her away to get the foil out. She tried peeking, but he took great care in tucking her hair back and out of her periphery. She put on a growing scowl until she wriggled in place and he had to badger her to stop. She hated how much she appreciated when he was poignantly stern and with it when he finally pulled away.

He whipped the towel from her shoulders and a shriek died in her throat about how it would stain her shirt.

He had pinned her length up at some point to keep from doing that exact thing.

She looked to see him holding the towel up like a cover to block the mirror.

She couldn’t see his face, but felt his toothy grin from behind it.

She rushed to the bath and called to him for forgetting the other shampoo.

With a quick scrub and a lengthy loss of color that always seemed to be too much, the water eventually ran clear.

“There’s another towel.” She called with urgency.

“Which?!” He sounded like he was already looking.

“A white one! Clean! I bleach it!” She tried not to look at the swatch of hair right between her eyes.

“White. White…” Mikey’s voice moved until it headed her way. “White! Got it!”

It appeared to her left and she scrubbed it over her head.

There was cyan transfer.

Her heart skipped and she allowed it.

It felt like monumental fate as she took the three steps from the toilet to the vanity.

Her image appeared in the dirty mirror with uncharacteristically wide eyes.

Joy, if she had to label it.

Perfectly wet and dark cyan locks spoke to her eye that they would dry the exact shade she wanted.

For one second, her vision welled up.

She then looked right past it as she grabbed the counter and leaned forward.

Her reflection looked back at her as a cyan avatar.

She could easily command the flames with this.

🧡 NEXT 🧡

I can't believe we're already here... My deepest thanks to my betas @tmntxthings and @unrestrainedhotsoup

#AENEMfic #rottmnt #rise of the tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt Michelangelo #rise Michelangelo #Michelangelo hamato #rottmnt mikey #rise mikey #rise kendra #rottmnt kendra #me #fanfiction #my fanfiction #kenkey

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