#this is so razor core

[t4tpumpkinduo]

it is rlly funny that sm people wanna play the moral high ground game with ranma characters like part of the appeal isn't that they all suck so bad

[light-wrath-paradise]

Anyone up thinking about The Nightmare or am I the only one currently depressed about her.

[littlelamy]

𝓼𝔀𝓮𝓮𝓽 𝓼𝓹𝓸𝓽

rafe’s eyes glinted with an unrelenting hunger, his focus razor-sharp as he studied you. he was a man on a mission, determined to unravel every inch of your body, to leave no inch unexplored, no whim unmet.

“don’t hold back on me,” he murmured, his lips ghosting over the sensitive skin of your collarbone. his hands were warm, trailing down your sides, fingers pressing into the soft curve of your hips. he kissed his way along your neck, his tongue flicking out to taste your skin, each breath he exhaled a tantalizing mix of warmth and desire.

his mouth found your pulse, and he sucked gently, teeth grazing just enough to make your breath hitch. his journey continued downward, his lips following a path of fire, leaving a trail of open-mouthed kisses that made you shiver beneath him. rafe’s tongue circled your nipple before he took it into his mouth, sucking, his teeth nipping lightly before soothing the sting with his tongue.

your back arched into him, and he smirked against your skin, loving the way you responded to him. but he wasn’t satisfied yet. his mouth moved lower, exploring your stomach, tracing circles with his tongue around your navel. his hands never ceased their exploration, skimming down your thighs, parting them as his kisses followed, down, down, down.

he nestled between your legs, his fingers pressing into the soft flesh of your thighs, spreading them wider. “i’m going to find it,” he promised, voice thick with intent. “i’ll kiss every inch of you until i do.”

his mouth pressed to the inside of your thigh, his tongue darting out to taste you, the sensation sending a jolt of pleasure straight to your core. he kissed along the sensitive skin, closer and closer to where you ached for him most. rafe's breath ghosted over your wetness before his tongue darted out, a tentative lick that made you shudder.

“oh, you like that,” he whispered, his voice like molten honey, his lips curving into a wicked smile. he licked again, more firmly this time, his tongue exploring every fold, every crevice. he was relentless, his hands holding your hips steady as his mouth worked, determined to find that elusive sweet spot that would make you cry out his name.

his tongue flicked over your clit, and you gasped, your hands flying to tangle in his hair. rafe moaned into you, loving the way you responded, the way you trembled under his touch. he sucked on your clit, his tongue swirling around the sensitive nub, and you could feel the heat pooling in your belly, the tension building, spiraling higher and higher.

“come on, baby,” he coaxed between licks, his voice low and rough. “let me hear you. let me know i’m doing it right.”

you were helpless against him, your body bowing off the bed, your moans growing louder with each swipe of his tongue. his fingers joined the fray, slipping inside you, curling just so, and the combination of his mouth and hands was enough to send you spiraling over the edge.

“rafe!” you cried out, your body shaking, your vision going white as the orgasm tore through you, leaving you breathless and trembling.

rafe licked his lips, his grin smug as he watched you come apart beneath him. “found it,” he murmured, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction.

taglist: @namelesslosers @maybanksangel @averyoceanblvd @iknowdatsrightbih @starkeysprincess @anamiad00msday @ivysprophecy @wearemadeofstardust0 @rafesangelita @sstargirln @rafedaddy01 @soldesole @bakugouswaif @skywalker0809 @vanessa-rafesgirl @evermorx89 @outerhills @ditzyzombiesblog @slavicangelmuah @alivinggirl @heywardsdoll

[saintobio]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐃 & 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐓. (final part to 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐈𝐍 & 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐑.)

in the painful memory of what once was, sylus learns that love can't be bound where it was never meant to stay.

♱ pairings. sylus, fem!reader

♱ genre. angst, smut, boss/assistant, 18+

♱ tags. sylus's pov, reader is not l&ds!mc, sylus might be ooc, main story spoilers, razor's dance spoilers, nightplumes spoilers, lots of timeskip, fast-paced, unrequited love, profanity, petnames (kitten, sweetie), espionage, jealousy, brief smut, mentions of pregnancy/impregnation kink, mentions of accidents, suicide attempt, injuries, blood, usage of guns, usage of knife, killings, death, my own theories incorporated into the lore, sylus groveling bcos yall want him to

♱ notes. 9.5k wc. l&ds!mc is referred to here as 'diana'. THIS IS A REPOST of the original post i accidentally deleted. i already posted this several hours ago, so if you’re seeing this new one again, blame my dumbass 🤧 oh well life is life.

Sylus had a part of him that wished things could be different. 

Ever since he turned away and left you that night at the alleyway, he didn’t really realize the chain of events his decision would set into motion. He simply underestimated how strongly your threats were backed by the grudge you had on him for bringing the hunter girl from Linkon into his base.

After all, you were just an assistant of his. And her, she was everything to him. It wasn’t just about the Aether Core, too—their bond stretched back into his distant past, into another planet where two of them ruled before the inhabitants of Philos came to ruin everything. Him and Diana had a connection he couldn’t sever no matter how much you had come to mean to him. And he spent years, centuries even, just to search for her. 

So, how could a mere assistant he had known for less than a decade have such entitlement to her role in his life? 

Eventually, days turned into weeks. Weeks into months. With your prolonged absence from the Onychinus base, Sylus’s business transactions and illicit deals had become increasingly unruly. He had grown too dependent on you as his right-hand woman, relying on your meticulous management to ensure all his illegal activities ran smoothly. Yet now, without your oversight, things were falling apart.

And while he was contemplating how to fill the void your absence had created, the office door slammed open. A subordinate soon rushed in, breathless and wide-eyed. “Boss, she’s betrayed us!” Luke exclaimed. “She’s gone to the Hunter’s Association. We got word that she was a high-ranking intelligence agent there!”

“A.K.A a spy!” yelled the other twin, Kieran, who looked equally hurt at your betrayal. “She fooled all of us. And here, we treated her like family.” 

That was how Sylus learned that you had left the N109 Zone, seeking refuge in Linkon City, and had exposed critical intel on Onychinus. At the time, rage naturally exploded within him. Didn’t he take good care of you while you were here? He had given you everything, trusted you, and you had thrown it all away. Four years of falling into his trap. Four years of being his partner in crime, his right-hand woman, his lover. People even saw you as the modern day Bonnie & Clyde. Sylus couldn’t understand the root of your betrayal, couldn’t imagine how letting you slip away from his grasp would cost him so much in return.

When you vowed to do everything in your power to kill Diana, was this just a part of your grand scheme? What other machinations were you orchestrating in your pursuit of revenge?

“She’s a wild animal on loose.” Sylus looked up at the twins, maintaining a calm yet ruthless mien as he sat on the couch. He might be idly tossing a coin like he didn’t care, but inside his brain was chaos ensuing. “Where’s she now? Any news?”

It was Luke who shrugged in response. “She hasn’t been seen anywhere, boss-man.”

“We suspect the Association is hiding her,” Kieran added. 

The hunter girl, Diana—the very girl you were jealous of, was sitting next to Sylus throughout the conversation. Their hands were connected by a strong energy linkage that was seemingly ignited by the Aether Cores in their bodies. They couldn’t separate themselves even if they wanted to. And God forbid you would have lost your mind tenfold had you seen their situation right now. 

“That g-girl,” gasped the hunter girl, eyes wide in bewilderment at what she was hearing. “Sylus, your assistant. She did all that? She was a spy from the Hunter’s Association?” 

Luke tilted her head at the girl, his beaked mask mocking her. “Oh, miss hunter! Haven’t you heard about the HIS? You should know them better than us.” 

“Well.. what is the HIS?” 

“Hunter Intelligence Services.” Sylus was the one who answered, releasing a deep sigh while rubbing his temples. “They’re top secret. Regular hunters wouldn’t have known about them, because they only deal with people like me.” 

Diana looked between him and the twins, rubbing her wrist before moving closer to the boss of Onychinus. Her close proximity allowed him to smell her familiar sweet scent. “Is she… after me? But I don’t understand. If she’s part of the Hunter’s Association too, then shouldn’t we be colleagues?”

Kieran cleared his throat. “Ever since you came—”

“Place a bounty on her head,” Sylus interrupted the twins, and also ignored the question of the girl next to him. She didn’t need to learn the history behind you and him, or why you chose to target her. “Make sure to bring Y/N back to me. Alive.” 

“Roger that, boss!” 

It was his last desperate attempt to draw you back to him. Now that you had the Hunter’s Association protecting you, Sylus knew that locating you wouldn’t be as simple. Otherwise, he would have easily captured Diana long ago. He convinced himself that the bounty was to punish you, but deep down, he knew it was because he couldn’t bear to lose you to his enemies completely.

~~

It took you a year to return to the N109 Zone.

Did you forget he had eyes and ears everywhere? He was the boss of that infamous No-Hunt Zone. Even if you leaked intel about his residences and the Onychinus base to the Hunter’s Association, Sylus still had a few tricks up his sleeve. He had hideouts in places that even you weren’t aware of, and the residents of the N109 Zone were loyal to him. Too loyal that they wouldn’t give any information to anyone no matter the consequences. 

And how foolish were you to forget about Mephisto’s existence?

“Caw! Caw!”

The mechanical crow’s eyes glowed with the same red hue as Sylus’s as it landed on his arm, projecting visions of you entering the underground fight club disguised in an Onychinus uniform. It was almost farcical that you thought you could infiltrate a place Sylus frequented unnoticed.

But then, the vision shifted to you speeding on a motorcycle with a truck in hot pursuit. Sylus quickly recognized the truck’s decals—it was the hitman he often employed for dealing with his enemies, now terrorizing you in a high-speed chase. Without hesitation, Sylus grabbed his leather jacket and mounted his own bike, racing to your location in sixth gear.

He arrived just a minute too late. And what was meant to be a dramatic reunion turned into a scene of you lying unconscious and injured on the road, while the hitman grinned nearby with an expression of triumph. If it hadn’t been for your helmet, Sylus would have been met with the gruesome sight of your shattered skull.

“Mr. Sylus!” the hitman exclaimed, jumping out of his truck with arms outstretched in petty victory. “Can I get the $500,000,000 in cash?”

As Sylus’s gaze fell on your unconscious, injured body sprawled on the ground, a surge of anguish overwhelmed him in ways he couldn’t understand. But it was quickly replaced by seething rage—rage that made him summon his black-red mist, enveloping the hitman in its dark tendrils.

“I said not to harm her,” Sylus growled, his red eye glowing ominously against the desolate highway backdrop. “You failed your task.”

“P-Please, Mr. Sylus! I thought you—”

Without another word, Sylus scooped you up in his arms while his mist dealt with the hitman behind him. The hitman’s desperate cries were soon drowned out by the expanding tendrils, which tightened around him until he was engulfed. Then, in a violent burst, the mist exploded, reducing the hitman and everything around him to dust.

Sylus brought you to his underground hideout immediately after. And an unfamiliar—or perhaps strange—pang tugged at his heart as he gently laid you in bed, his gaze lingering on the road rash you obtained from the crash. The injuries were severe, with patches of skin nearly stripped away in the most brutal fashion he could think of. He could only imagine the burning pain you had to endure as soon as you skidded along the gravel, and Sylus felt his own frustrations knocking at the door knowing that he didn’t have the power to extend his fast-healing abilities to you.

“Tch. My kitten’s reckless as always, riding without the proper gear,” Sylus grumbled, looking at your unconscious body. “You’ve never been one to follow the rules, have you?”

To make up for his inability to save you on time, he applied a potent medicinal ointment all over your body and placed you in an anesthetized state while you healed. His mist enveloped you like a protective shroud the entire time you laid in bed unconscious. Every single day, Sylus tended to your wounds, changing your clothes and bandages, and applying the ointments over your bare body. He even took special care to ensure the twins did not enter your room without his permission. 

Despite the care he showed, a persistent question echoed in his mind: Why am I doing this for you? You were his enemy, a traitor, and a woman who had betrayed him. It didn’t make sense. 

That afternoon, feeling suffocated from this internal conflict, Sylus decided to leave you in the care of Luke and Kieran while he went to Linkon. He knew he needed space to grapple with the feelings that were driving him to care for you in the first place.

He needed to see the real woman he should be caring for. 

Because you had not only exposed intel on Sylus and Onychinus to the Hunter’s Association, you also asked for them to isolate Diana so she would have no way to see or contact him. Who knew that mere feelings of jealousy would spark you to do such trivial things? 

Frankly, you were insane. You were dark and twisted like him. 

But in a way, it only underscored how similarly deranged the two of you were. Perhaps, in your madness, there was a strange compatibility—one that Sylus found unsettlingly fitting. The suggestion of you two being more a suitable pair than he and Diana gave him an unease that he couldn’t simply shake away. 

It should be her. Her. Just her and her alone. He dedicated his whole life into finding her, yet you came into his life to ruin the foundations he had built to meet the person he was supposedly destined for. He had repeated it over and over in his mind like a broken record—the voices in his head telling him to let you go, to hurt you, to make you suffer. 

However, as he stood across the pedestrian crossing, watching Diana from afar, a realization hit him like a cold gust of wind. There she was, oblivious to his presence on the other side, but the spark that once ignited in his heart whenever he saw her was gone. Now, his pulse remained steady and his heart stayed still.

With a wary glance around, mindful of any watchful eyes, he decided to pick up his phone and ring hers. It was a good thing he was able to seamlessly blend into the crowd, with his practiced nonchalance making him invisible among the throng of people. After all, he was Sylus Qin, the mastermind of Onychinus—disguise was second nature to him.

“Sylus?” Her voice came through the line, tentative and filled with a mix of emotions as she scanned the faces on the other side of the crossing.

“According to the conditions set by the Hunter’s Association, we shouldn’t be meeting again.” His voice was steady, almost detached, as he kept the phone pressed to his ear. “Or if not, you will be marked as a Tenebra.” 

Her eyes eventually found him amidst the walking crowd, keeping an expression on her face that showed both longing and forlornness. “Not the first time someone has been marked a Tenebra because of you,” she managed to slip in a snarky remark in her worried expression. “Are you hurt? Did they hurt you?” 

“Are you worried about me?” he nonchalantly asked, watching as she stepped off the curb when the light turned green. Each step was a step closer to him, but nothing changed the pace of his own heartbeat like it should have. Nothing stirred within him as it once did.

“You have the audacity to use a phone when you’re right in front of me,” she snapped, frustration flaring as she yanked the phone from his grasp. Without hesitation, she grabbed his arm, dragging him along with her to escape the dangers of being seen in public. They ended up in an alleyway, a place hidden from prying eyes, an irony that made Sylus chuckle under his breath. The alleyway. Why has that become such a memorable place to him? “Sylus, what’s so funny? I was so scared something happened to you! You couldn’t even call me back or text me the past few days?”

He remained expressionless as he observed her outburst. Strange. In her frantic worry, she reminded him of you, and it was a discomfiting parallel that sent chills down his spine. “I said I’d need to disappear from your life completely, so I have to tie up loose ends,” he began, each word seemingly a dagger to her heart. “We haven’t been able to resonate either way, sweetie. There’s no reason for us to keep meeting.” 

“No!” she adamantly denied the thought, pulling him into an embrace. “No, you’re not allowed to disappear just like that! We need to find a way to get—”

“It’s a dangerous gamble to be caught in my world,” he said in a low voice. 

But she was stubborn. “I’m already caught in it! So, please, Sylus, take me with you. Take me to the N109 Zone or wherever you’re hiding. I want to be where you are.” And in spite, she uttered words that made Sylus think twice about his perception of you. “It’s her fault that this is all happening. She’s a traitor to you and to the Association. Her loyalty isn’t with anyone but herself, Sylus. She’s the one who needs to disappear!”

~~

Back at his hideout, Sylus was careful to ensure that Diana remained oblivious to your presence in another room. He was already grappling with how to manage the situation—torn between the woman he loved and the woman he had wronged who, ironically, were both now under the same roof. The thought of you two crossing paths was a nightmare he didn’t want to deal with, so he gave strict orders to the twins, notorious for their loose lips and loud mouths, to keep Diana far from you.

Because when Sylus returned to your room, he knew you were awake. The dark classical music playing from the vinyl record had likely stirred you from unconsciousness. It had been nearly a week since the crash, but thanks to his meticulous care, your wounds had mostly healed, leaving only faint scars behind.

“You can’t hide from me forever.” Sylus hovered over you to whisper into your ear, summoning his protective black-red mist to slowly release you. “Wake up, kitten. We have unfinished business.” 

When you finally opened your eyes after what felt like an eternity, Sylus told himself it was natural to feel relieved, that it was only right for his heart to soften at the sight of you returning to consciousness. But as you awoke, the voices in his head—the damned, relentless voices—grew louder, mocking him, provoking him, and luring him into darker thoughts. His right eye began to glow like a flickering candle, and when he saw the fear on your face, the words that followed weren’t his own. They were driven by the unforgiving side of him he couldn’t control, a side that thrived on your terror. The beast that couldn’t be tamed. 

She’s a traitor.

Punish her. 

Hurt her. 

Devour her. 

While in a heated, dramatic exchange with you, Sylus was spewing words he didn’t mean. He was doing actions without regard. He was mocking your pain. Your jealousy. Your heartbreak. The drive to hurt you was strong in his head, but he fought desperately against it. The demon inside him that tried to consume his every thought. He tried to battle his own self just to protect you. 

“I betrayed you because of her!” 

His laughter died down, but the amusement in his eyes only deepened, replaced by the wicked smile on his face that enjoyed seeing you suffer. “It’s always been about her, hasn’t it? You see me with her, and you can’t stand it. It eats at you, makes you act out.”

You tried to move away, but Sylus pressed his foot firmly on your wrist. She betrayed you, Sylus. Punish her. 

“I’ve seen your struggle,” he continued, his voice soft but laced with corrupt satisfaction. “The way you watched me with her, the way it gnaws at you. It’s almost poetic, really.”

It wasn’t until you reached for the gun on his nightstand, pointing it at yourself, that Sylus snapped out of his dark trance. The horror in his eyes was a stark contrast to the sorrowful shine in yours as you stood there, sobbing in front of him. Each word you spoke was tailed with the pain of a heart shattered by everything he had done and said. 

“...All I wanted was your love,” you choked out with tears cascading down your face, “I j-just wanted you to love me. I turned my back on the H.A. for you. I left all my friends and family for you.” Your breathing was still for a moment, but your heart had already been blown into smithereens. “All I had was you. I loved you. I devoted all my body and soul into loving you, Sylus. Why c-can’t I have even a little bit in return?”

Even as his gaze softened and a flicker of regret passed across his face, you had already made your decision when your finger tightened on the trigger. The recoil jolted your wrist, but before the bullet could find its mark, Sylus’s hand shot out and expertly deflected your aim. Instead of ending your life, the bullet shattered a window, ricocheting off the glass and disappearing into the night.

“Are you out of your mind?!” Sylus roared, his voice a thunderous mix of fury and disbelief.

You were barely responding to him as he cupped your cheeks and forced your lachrymose eyes to lock into his crimson ones. It was as though you had already resigned yourself to reality, that ending your own life would have been a better option than being with the man you hopelessly loved. 

“Y/N,” Sylus tried to shake you awake, desperate for you to look into his eyes. “Y/N! Enough. Let’s end this game.” 

“...I was never playing one with you.”

Sylus was overwhelmed by a profound, indescribable pain that pierced his chest. It was a pain that mirrored yours but was infinitely more intense. “I warned you many times before to never fall in love with me,” he said in a low, softened voice, “It’s for the best, and it’s what will keep you safe. Why don’t you listen?” He longed to pull you into his arms, but the crushing reality was that he only now realized how deeply he cared for you. It was devastating that his awakening had come at the cost of your near-suicide, forced by a love he was unable to return.

Was it truly too late for him to come to terms with his feelings for you? Was it too late to accept that he had fallen in love with you rather than the woman he believed he was meant to be with?

His answer came in the form of a gut-wrenching realization. It manifested in the frantic voice of Diana—the woman he believed he loved, piercing through the haze of his thoughts by yelling, “Sylus, step back!”

“No!” he shouted, his black-red mist swirling to intercept the bullet.

But his efforts came too late. The bullet had already been set in motion, and it tore through the side of your head. 

It penetrated your skull with a cruel precision, not just once but twice. And the warmth of your blood seeped through his fingers as he caught your head before you fell onto the floor. 

Sylus’s mind raced with the enormity of what had just happened. His face grew ashen as he looked at your bloodied head and lifeless eyes, a wave of acid welling up his chest until he couldn’t breath. But the reason for his suffocation was because of his own guilt and grief. It was at the force of a sledgehammer when he was hit with the admission that he had always been in love with you. All along, despite your tangled mess, it was you who had captured his heart in this world.

His chest tightened, his breaths coming in ragged, broken bursts, while he held you close in his arms. And your last three words, your very last words of “I… love… you…” as you stared despairingly at him was icing on this bitter cake. 

No… no! 

He couldn’t fucking accept it. He was losing his mind, he was going insane. He was plunging into madness. Utter hysteria. “Y/N, please,” he begged, his voice breaking as your eyes, once full of life and light, were now glazed over with the sheen of death. “Don’t leave. No, I can’t let this happen!” For the first time in a long time, he once again felt hot tears leaving his eyes. It was an emotion so rare it only ever showed toward the people he deeply cared about. “I love you too,” he struggled to say. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean what I said back there.”

Sylus held you close, disregarding the blood staining his clothes while he was consumed by agony and regret. He had driven you to this, pushed you away, and then drawn you back into his orbit only to lose you forever. 

Though he may have conquered your heart, in doing so, he had only destroyed the both of you. The memory of your love and the warmth of your touch would haunt him for the rest of his days. And as he held your lifeless body, he knew that he would never be whole again.

But it shouldn’t be too late. No, it shouldn’t! He didn’t know if it was the hysteria or adrenaline kicking into him, but he had thought of an idea—no matter how immoral—that would return you back to him. He just couldn’t weigh which strong emotion he had to deal with first; should he grab the gun and shoot Diana out of anger? Or should he ignore her presence entirely and just focus on you?

Sylus chose to proceed with the latter as he carried you through the corridors of the base, his steps heavy with guilt and his shirt drenched in blood as you remained unconscious in his arms. The hunter girl had followed him in his spiritless steps, her eyes wide with confusion over his anguish.

“Sylus, why are you doing this?!” she demanded, grabbing his arm to halt his progress. “She would’ve killed you. That girl’s a traitor!”

Although he stopped in his tracks, he couldn’t really return her gaze. His eyes could only look at your lifeless ones. “That girl you shot in the head,” he spoke low and in despair, “is my woman.” 

Diana was horrified. “But… but you never said—” Before she could finish, the twins intervened, holding her back from pursuing Sylus further. “What about me?”

He had already turned away. “I’ll fulfill my promise to protect you from afar, but this is where our paths part. Do not come near me again.”

~~

Sylus stood over your unconscious body, his eyes bloodshot and tears-streaked, while his heart pounded with a mix of grief and desperation. He had summoned Philip and the finest surgeons he knew to his hideout, where you lay in a medical bed, exposed and vulnerable, as if you were a subject in a desperate experiment.

Philip arrived with a grim expression, his eyes scanning the scene with both skepticism and professional detachment. Sylus could barely contain his desperation as he demanded, “Do everything you can to save her. Even if it means infusing a high-grade protocore in her brain.” After all, he had plenty of that. Sylus had all the resources, protocores of the highest grade, each with their own purpose and capabilities.

Yet Philip hesitated, his face contorting with concern. “Mr. Sylus, you know I can’t do this. She’s gone. The best thing to do is accept—”

That was when Sylus’s composure cracked. He kicked the nearby chair out of rage, tears streaming down his face as he begged, “You’ve done it before. Do it again! Please, I need her to live!”

The sight of Sylus, usually so imposing and dominant, breaking down in front of him was shocking. Philip felt a pang of sympathy toward the Onychinus boss who was willing to do everything for a woman who was already dead. His hands trembled as he spoke, “I-I can try. But I’m warning you, Mr. Sylus… even if she survives this, there’s zero chance her memories will be the same. They may even become altered, and it will be out of our control.”

Sylus’s gaze never left you. “I don’t mind. Just do it.”

~~

Weeks later, Sylus found himself in a secluded alleyway, meeting with a deepspace hunter who was also an enemy of his from another planet. Of course, the atmosphere was tense as both men stood in front of each other, eye-to-eye, carrying a defensive stance from one another. 

They were never friends. But that day, they weren’t enemies either. 

“How’s she?” Xavier broke the silence first. 

Sylus answered with a low voice. “She hasn’t woken up, but she’s stable.”

“Why’d you ask to meet?”

“I want you to look after her,” the Onychinus leader began, his voice steady but carrying an undertone of desperation, “Speak to the Association about taking Y/N back and forgiving her for her betrayal. In return, I’ll step away from Diana’s life. She’s all yours. I just want Y/N to return to her normal life.”

Xavier’s expression was serious. “You’re forgetting you still have a bounty on your head.”

“And you’re forgetting you and your backtrackers destroyed the planet where I was living,” he replied in equal disdain, but only enough to trap Xavier into a wall of guilt and obligation.

“I’ll see what I can do,” said Lumiere—or, in his current form, the deepspace hunter, Xavier. “The HIS will be easy to convince. But what if she wakes up and wants to go back to the N109 Zone?”

Sylus felt a tug of deep sadness pulling at his heart. “She won’t. Her memories of me are gone for good.” 

~~

If this was his karma for hurting you, then it was definitely the worst kind. 

Sylus maintained a distant watch over you after you returned to Linkon, observing from afar as you rejoined your life with the support of the Hunter’s Association and former colleagues. Each day, he sent Mephisto to monitor your whereabouts, carefully tracking your interactions and daily activities. The mechanical crow often returned with glimpses of your life, which Sylus scrutinized with intense focus as if he were watching a movie. Each glimpse offered him a sense of relief, happiness even, at knowing how easy you were settling back into your old life. 

You had been officially dismissed from the Hunter’s Association due to a medical condition that rendered you unfit for duty, but they continued to cover your pension and provided free lodging—likely thanks to Xavier’s persuasive influence over the Association. The official story was that you had been sent on a dangerous mission where a Wanderer had placed you in a life-threatening predicament. The narrative praised your honor and dedication to the end. There was no mention of Sylus, Onychinus, or the N109 Zone. No hint of the life you had once led or the truth behind your memory erasure. 

Yet, in a bitter twist of irony, perhaps the story you were told may not actually be farther from the truth.

After all, Sylus was the dangerous monster that sent you to that life-and-death situation.

But at least now, you were well cared for. So much so that Sylus fought to contain his jealousy whenever Mephisto’s eyes relayed visions of you sharing lunch with a physician named Dr. Zayne. He struggled to mask his irritation as he saw the man drape an arm around your shoulders while guiding you out of the hospital or wrapping a scarf around your neck to keep you warm. He would often even drive you home and send you gifts that were masked as tokens of “recovery.”

Bullshit.

Sylus clenched his fist, his thoughts of jealousy consuming him. My girl, he thought in despair, my beautiful girl is cherished by other men, while he remained imprisoned in the desolate shadows of the N109 Zone, longing for you.

Eventually, Sylus felt an overwhelming urge to see you in person. After discovering that you had taken a job at a café in Bloomshore District, he convinced himself that observing you from a distance wouldn’t cause harm. He just wanted to be near you, to ensure your safety, and to protect you from any potential threats.

As he sat on a nearby bench, Luke joined him with a comment. “Boss, you said we needed to disappear from her life.”

Kieran, taking a seat on Sylus’s other side, added, “Do you think she’d recognize us if we walked into that café? If she doesn’t, I’ll give her a hard time with my orders ‘til she remembers us!”

“Ha ha! Let’s do that!” 

“Boss, let’s go!” 

“Leave her be.” Sylus took a deep breath, adjusting his sunglasses and setting aside his newspaper—part of his disguise—as he watched you through the café window. He noticed the subtle traces of familiarity in your actions, but the connections that once bound you were now distant memories. “...I’m just here to make sure no one’s bothering her.”

The truth was, he wrestled with his emotions each time he visited the café you were working at. He wanted to approach you, to speak to you, but he hesitated each time because of the fear of rejection and the pain of seeing you not remember him holding him back. There were so many what-ifs in his head that it drove him insane to think about. 

Because if anything, what if you were already seeing someone else? What if you were already in a relationship with that scumbag doctor from the Akso Hospital? 

It was petty jealousy that drove Sylus into stepping into the café. And the first time your eyes met since you resurrected, his heart initially froze, then raced uncontrollably. His heart swelled with hope as you looked up at him, but it was quickly replaced by the lack of recognition in your eyes the moment you spoke from the counter. 

“Hi. What can I get you?” you asked, treating him no differently than any other customer. 

Sylus was caught off-guard, but he knew he had to play the part. “I, uh, I’ll get an Americano. Large.” 

“Alright, sir. And your name, please?” you asked, following your routine without any real interest in the man before you. 

But in a way, this was a relief for Sylus. It confirmed that the protocore embedded in your head was functioning as intended, and that any dark memories from the past had been completely erased, even if it meant he was no longer part of your life. 

“Skye,” he said with a soft smile. “That’s my name.”

~~

There wasn’t a single day Sylus missed visiting the café. 

At first, he worried that his constant presence might seem odd, or that you might think of him as a stalker. But as the days passed, seeing you became an essential part of his routine. A day without catching a glimpse of you felt incomplete, almost maddening. Seeing you was like a drug he couldn’t get enough of.

Initially, you found his regular visits a bit strange, but gradually, the small interactions between you two evolved. Sylus began to appear at the café just when you needed him most—whether it was fixing a broken coffee machine, addressing rude customers, or simply offering a helping hand. These acts of kindness somehow transformed your view of him. What started as a customer-service relationship slowly became more personable, and in recent days, you often greeted him warmly and smiled whenever he walked in. If only you knew how badly it warmed his heart that he got to do things for you without making him feel like he was intruding in your life.

And to be honest, Sylus even felt like he might be—as Luke termed it—foolishly ”crushing” on you. 

“Who knew our boss-man could be a hopeless romantic~?”

There was a time when he visited the café, only to find out from your manager that you called in sick from work. Sylus knew where you lived, but going to your place uninvited was a different story. He had to put some boundaries no matter how worried he was for you. But that was when Mephisto became useful; the mechanical crow would simply fly off to your place and observe you from outside. Then, an idea to drop a box of medicines and chocolates at your balcony was something he had thought of at the last minute. 

Back in the N109 Zone, Sylus anxiously looked at his crow. “Are you sure she didn’t see you?” 

“Caw! Caw!” 

“Did she eat the chocolates?” he asked, exhaling a deep breath he didn’t think he was holding.

“Caw! Caw! Caaaw!” Mephisto responded, fluttering its wings as if to reassure him.

~~

And then, that day happened. 

The day Sylus finally gathered the courage to ask you out, fate had other plans. And what began as a simple gesture to offer you a ride home during a stormy night quickly escalated into something far more intense.

Because one moment, he was offering you a ride. The next, he found himself in your bed, having the most passionate sex he had ever had with someone. He wasn’t even sure if he could call it that, because it felt more like he was making love to you, even if to you, he was probably just an attractive guy you unexpectedly hooked up with. 

So, he had to make himself known. He had to hear his real name leaving your lips. “Sylus,” he breathed into your ear, hands tracing your curves, “Call me Sylus, kitten.” 

That night, he was an insatiable man who could only be satisfied by his woman. 

When he was buried far too deep inside you, he enjoyed the sight of ecstasy on your face and lavished at the sounds of your titillating moans with his every thrust. Not only did he miss the feeling of your walls tightening around his shaft, he also remembered how badly you used to want him to cum inside you. 

And so, he did just that. At his climax, he released hot spurts of seed into your womb, fulfilling a wish from the past that he used to deprive you of. 

But as the night progressed and the heat of the moment faded, the conversation shifted to a more profound and emotional terrain. Sylus wrestled with the urge to reveal the truth about his true identity—every painful detail and the secrets he kept from you. Yet, he knew that doing so would only complicate matters further and risk causing you more pain. The idea of hurting you again, after such a meaningful connection, was unbearable to him, especially now that you were still fragile as glass, ready to shatter at any moment. 

“Why do I get the feeling that I was the one who experienced a one-sided love before?” 

“No, you were loved. You were very loved. There was no one else,” he pressed, forcing you to believe the narrative with his rueful eyes staring back at you. “I was the one who wasn’t worthy of you… But I’d like to try and win your heart again this time. If you allow it.” 

“Sylus… I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry for not recognizing you before. I just… I lost a chunk of my memories, and I don’t know if it’s been altered or what, but…” He caressed your back as you took a deep breath. “I’ll try to remember, okay?”

“Please don’t.” He shook his head, crestfallen as he thought of the past that was rightfully erased. “And there’s no need for apologies, sweetie. There wasn’t anything you did wrong.” 

~~

Your relationship with Sylus remained unclear since that night. And it seemed as though the roles had reversed—now he was the one left wondering where he stood in your life. Because on the surface, it did seem like you were willing to work on building a relationship with him again, but every encounter you two had were always physical rather than emotional. 

Sylus found himself at your apartment frequently, three or more times a week, engaging in intense, passionate encounters. He had lost track of how many times you two could do it in a single night, exploring every possible position, in every corner of your home. He had tried his hardest to make you feel like he was the only man who was more familiar with every inch of your body than anyone else. Yet, despite the physical closeness, he sensed that the emotional barriers between you remained intact.

No matter how deeply intertwined your bodies became, the walls around your heart remained firmly in place, and Sylus knew that there was a part of you he still couldn’t reach.

That, and the fact that he was still seeing you interact a little too closely with that doctor from Akso. 

It somehow didn’t surprise you when Sylus’s car showed up outside the hospital to pick you up, and you got on with a guarded look. 

“How’s it for my kitten today?” Sylus asked as he secured your seatbelt, his lips brushing against yours in a quick peck. “You didn’t mention you’d be at the hospital.”

You shifted uncomfortably, avoiding his gaze. “Oh, I just... didn’t think I needed to inform you of my whereabouts.”

Dammit. He knew you weren’t officially together, but it hurt more than he cared to admit. And it didn’t help that Sylus’s pride couldn’t naturally take it, so he probed more. “That doctor. He’s not your neurologist, is he? It seems a little inappropriate for him to always be around you like that.”

“Well, I’ve known Zayne for a long time,” you merely replied, eyes focused on the view outside rather than the driver of the car. “I’d also appreciate it if you'd be less territorial over me, Sylus. I know you said we have a history together, but I don’t remember a thing, so… I hope you won’t rush me.” 

The Sylus you knew back then would have been enraged. Who were you to order him around? Who were you to tell him what he should and shouldn’t do over someone he rightfully owned? But he was a changed man now, and it was all because of you. You were the beauty that tamed him into a powerless beast.

“I understand,” Sylus replied, swallowing his pride as his hands tightened around the steering wheel, focusing on the road ahead. “I apologize.”

He heard you sigh beside him, and a part of him wondered if it was out of sympathy. But before he could dwell on it, you spoke up, your tone more serious. “I was at the hospital today because I had a pregnancy scare.”

Sylus hit the brakes at the red light a bit too abruptly, his heart racing in excitement. “Are you?”

“No, thank God,” you breathed out in relief. “But... can you please stop doing it inside? I really don’t like it. It’s not smart for me to get pregnant by a man I barely know.”

His chest tightened in a way he couldn’t describe. The old you nearly begged him for a baby so he could be yours forever, but he was aware that this version of you right now was not the same. It never would be, and that was the price he had to pay for love. 

“I won’t do it again.” Once again, swallowing his pride. “I’m sorry.” 

You still invited him to sleep at your apartment that night, and your reason being to work on the memories of him you had lost. Time and time again did Sylus tell you it was better you didn’t remember them, but he could also understand your dilemma when you told him that you always felt like a piece of you was missing ever since that “accident”. 

“And this ugly scar on my temple,” you pointed it out, settling into your side of the bed. “What kind of Wanderer did I fight for me to get a traumatic brain injury?”

Sylus placed a tender kiss on your scar. “Perhaps it was a heartless monster more terrifying than a Wanderer.” 

Like me. 

“Oh, well.” You pulled the sheets over your body, suggesting you two would have no action tonight. “Good night, Sylus.” 

“...Sleep tight, kitten.” 

You didn’t need to worry, though, because he wouldn’t have touched you even if you had explicitly asked him to. After hearing your words that afternoon—about not wanting to get pregnant by him and asking him to stop being so territorial—Sylus felt the need to pull back and be more cautious in his actions toward you. Your words had cut deep, but he understood you were only protecting yourself from a man who was, essentially, still a stranger to you.

And despite the sting, he had promised himself that he would be patient for the only woman he cared about.

~~

However, that same night was a different story. 

No, it was actually way past midnight when Sylus woke up from an agonizing scream that pierced the silence of the night, chilling him to the bone. Instinctively, his hand reached out to the side of the bed where you should have been, but the sheets were cold and empty. And then panic gripped him, forcing him to leap out of bed, his mind racing with a single horrifying thought: the protocore.

He darted outside of your bedroom and deeper into your apartment space, his eyes scanning every shadow, every corner. The image of you, eyes wild and frenzied, ravaged by the effects of the protocore, haunted him.

What if it’s happening now? What if I lose her for good?

The horrifying thought of the protocore making you berserk like a wild Wanderer was always there.

His heart nearly stopped when he saw you on the kitchen floor, curled up, your body wracked with sobs. Relief washed over him to have found you, but it was fleeting, replaced by a deeper, more insidious fear. He tried to approach you cautiously, his voice soft as he placed his hands on your shoulders, “Sweetie, are you okay?”

You flinched at his touch, and when you turned to face him, the sight made his blood run cold. Your eyes, usually so warm, were now wide and filled with tears—tears of terror, of anger. And in your trembling hand, you held a knife, its blade gleaming in the low light as you pointed it directly at his throat.

“Don’t come any closer!” you cried, your voice breaking at every word. Sylus froze, his breath catching in his throat as your sudden hostility surprised him. The knife’s tip hovered dangerously close to his skin, but it wasn’t the threat of violence that shook him—it was the raw, unfiltered pain in your eyes.

“Kitten, let’s talk about it calmly.” His voice was laced with cautiousness. 

“Stop calling me that!” You swallowed hard, your grip on the knife tightening. “You! I had a nightmare... about you. But it felt real, like a memory. You were torturing me at your base, laughing... and then, you shot me in the head.”

Sylus’s heart dropped into his stomach at hearing your altered memory. He felt his soul tear apart at the edges as he stared into your tear-streaked face. “It was just a dream. It wasn’t real, kitten.”

But you weren’t listening. “But is it also not real? That you…” You uttered each word with a threatening voice, “are the boss of Onychinus?”

The question hit him like a physical blow. He opened his mouth to answer, but the words were stuck in his throat and refused to form. He was trapped. The situation felt like a dead end—he could deny that your dream was a real memory, but admitting he was the leader of Onychinus would only validate that lie.

His silence alone was an answer to you. And your expression crumbled into one of betrayal at that. “You lied to me! You’ve been lying to me this whole time. How am I supposed to believe anything you say now?”

The anger in your voice enforced the stillness of Sylus’s breath. He knew he had no saving grace from this situation, but still, he took a step closer, his hands raised in a placating gesture. “Y/N, I never wanted to hurt you—”

“Get out!” you screamed, the knife shaking in your hand. The sight of you so broken, so shattered, tore him apart. “Get the hell out of my sight! I don’t wanna see you ever again, you monster!”

But Sylus couldn’t leave—not like this, not when you were hurting because of him. So in his desperation, he lunged forward, grabbed your wrist, and forced the knife into his own chest. The sharp pain radiated through him as he plunged the blade in and stabbed himself repeatedly, his face twisted in agony, but not from the physical pain. This was nothing compared to the torment of knowing he was the source of your suffering. Again. 

“Even if I can’t die,” he choked out, his voice ragged as he tried to absorb the stinging ache in his chest, “I’ll take all of this pain away from you.”

His own blood soaked his fingers, staining your hands as he released his grip on the knife. It fell on the floor as he stepped back, his heart aching more than his wounds ever could, but those wounds easily healed. The pain of losing you again, on the other hand, would never heal.

He looked at you one last time, seeing his monstrous reflection from your frightened eyes, before turning away. Sylus walked out of the apartment with heavy steps, feeling his soul crushed from your antagonism. He knew he had lost you—perhaps forever—and the realization was more than he could bear.

~~

A haze of cigarette smoke and the clink of glasses filled the air of the bar. Sylus sat alone at the counter, his new glass of whiskey untouched as he stared blankly into the amber liquid. The sting of alcohol was nothing compared to the numbness that had settled in his heart after that agonizing night with you. Every swallow of the hard liquor was a desperate attempt to drown out the torment of recent events, but the pain lingered, and it was damn persistent and unforgiving.

As he poured himself another drink, the muffled sounds of conversation around him blended into a dull roar. That was until a familiar voice cut through the haze—someone he wished he hadn’t come across.

“Sylus?” 

He looked up, squinting against the dim light, to see Diana standing before him. He hadn’t seen him for the past year or so. And surely, her presence was unexpected, but he felt a sudden tinge of irritation at the sight of her. While her, she looked both apprehensive and determined, as if she had just made a hard decision to confront him. 

“H-How have you been?” she asked the question as a conversation starter, but Sylus could see the faint hint of unease in her eyes.

He then straightened up, and his posture became stiff and defensive. “I told you it’s not wise for us to cross paths,” he said curtly, his voice slurred from the alcohol but still holding a note of finality. He didn’t want to engage, not with her, not tonight.

On the one hand, Diana’s eyes flickered with an emotion he couldn’t quite place—regret, perhaps. “I… I wanted to say sorry for what happened with Y/N. I didn’t realize how much she meant to you. Xavier… told me everything. About you and her.”

The apology was genuine, but the mention of your name was a fresh wound, and he felt the anger and sadness surge again, bubbling beneath his carefully maintained exterior. He wanted to lash out, to blame her for everything, but he swallowed the words, knowing it wouldn’t change a thing. In the end, this was all his doing and he couldn’t point fingers over the mess that he alone had created.

Sylus tried to stand up, the room spinning slightly as he steadied himself. “I’m leaving.”

But Diana stepped closer, her hand reaching out as if to stop him. He simply brushed past her, his movements unsteady but undeniably distancing from her. The desire to remain composed was slipping away, replaced by the harsh reality he faced every day since you were taken from him.

He made his way to the exit, pushing through the bar’s heavy door with a forceful shove. Sylus’s next move was to lean against the wall outside as the cool winter breeze blew on his face. 

“Boss.” Kieran’s voice held a note of concern as he and his twin steadied Sylus by wrapping his arms around their shoulders. “We’ll take you home.”

Luke glanced at his brother with a sad glint in his eyes before leading Sylus toward the car. “Maybe it’s time to let her go, boss.”

~~

February nights were the coldest. And it was supposedly the day for lovers, too. 

Unlike the couples that littered the riverside, Sylus stood alone, his breath forming small clouds in the frigid air. His dark coat offered little protection against the biting wind, but he stayed committed, his gaze fixed on the empty expanse before him. Four hours had passed since he had sent you the message, and each minute he stood there waiting for you felt like an eternity. The biting cold gnawed at him, but he was determined to wait even if he’d end up getting frostbite. It was the least he could do.

The frozen river’s surface glistened with a thousand points of light as the moon cast its silver glow over the landscape. And for the next thirty minutes that passed, he was still alone. 

She won’t be coming, said the voice in his head. Give up. 

As he prepared to leave, the ache of disappointment settled in his chest, and his heart skipped a beat as he recognized you, standing cautiously across him, your eyes wide and filled with both curiosity and trepidation. The sight of you, despite waiting in the cold for hours, instantly warmed his freezing body. 

“Thank you for coming.” He took a deep breath, his voice trembling slightly as he spoke. “I won’t keep you long.” 

You maintained your distance, wary of his next move. “Why did you want to meet?” 

With a slow, deliberate motion, he began to peel the scarf from around your neck, and he felt a prick in his heart seeing you flinch. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

He waited until you allowed him to proceed, his fingers brushing against your skin in a touch that was both gentle and reverent. You looked at him with confusion, the chilly air fought by the warmth of your breath. Sylus was just carefully replacing the scarf with the necklace he had given you long ago, the red Beryl crystal catching the light and sending soft, radiant glimmers into the night. 

Do you even recognize it? 

“I’m just returning a gift, kitten.”

As he fastened the clasp behind your neck, he pressed a tender kiss to the nape of your neck, his lips lingering for a moment before he straightened. That small gesture of his was actually carried by the depth of his affection and regret. And, if you may, it was his silent apology for all that he did to you.

“Sylus…” 

His red eyes shimmered, intensified by the bloodshot whites. Sylus stared at your face with a mixture of love and ruefulness clouding his expression. He was looking at you like you were the most precious thing in the world. And he struggled to hold back the tears that threatened to spill, with his voice breaking as he feathered the snowflakes that rested on your hair. “Take care of yourself. Always lock your doors at night and stay warm.” He took the scarf Zayne gave you, and pulled out a new one from his coat. It was a silly scarf with kitten prints all over it, that he soon carefully wrapped around your face and neck. “Wear that whenever you can.” 

Your own eyes were large and rimmed with tears as though you were also hurting inside. “Why are you saying this?” you asked, keeping the weakness inside. “You sound like you’re saying goodbye.” 

Sylus’s gaze was suddenly directed back to the river, but it was only because he had to avoid looking at your eyes or he would lose it. “The Association managed to track me here in Linkon and they’re still after me. I just managed to escape, but I can’t stay here,” he explained calmly, “I only came back to this city because of you… But now, I have to disappear, so don’t worry about having me around. I won’t bother you anymore.”

Your eyes widened in shock, and the tears that had been pooling your eyes finally spilled over. “Are you crazy?” you cried, seemingly unable to comprehend the words he was spewing. “You’re leaving me?”

Sylus’s heart broke at the sight of your tears, but he had to restrain any weakness by giving in. Instead, he reached out, and his hand trembled as he wiped a tear from your cheek. “I love you, Y/N.” He wanted to be the first one to say it this time. “Even if you regain all your memories of me—good or bad—I want you to know that I regret every pain I caused you. Even if you hate me, I’ll still love you. Today, tomorrow, and in our next lives.”

Sylus took one last, lingering look at you, his eyes filled with a sorrowful haze that nearly blinded his vision. He turned slowly, walking away from the river’s edge, with each step causing distance from the love he was leaving behind.

And you, you stood there, the necklace around your neck feeling heavy as you watched him disappear into the night. A surge of emotion overwhelmed you, and without thinking, you sprinted towards him. You took quick, long strides just to reach him, pulling him into a tight embrace, and crashing your lips against his in a bittersweet kiss.

Both of you cried as the kiss deepened, and you were encasing each other’s lips in a tight lock. The intensity of your emotions poured out in this poignant, intimate moment. And frankly, Sylus had never been this emotional. No one had ever seen this fragile side of him that he had always kept hidden. After all, what dominant, cruel boss of Onychinus would spill tears over a woman?

But they wouldn’t understand it. They never would. 

When you finally pulled away, your eyes were red and swollen from tears. “Be careful,” you sniffled, barely unable to catch the breath you needed for the next. “Keep in touch if you can. And when I’m ready, I’ll find you.”

Sylus’s eyes were also filled with tears, but he managed a forlorn smile as he nodded. He reached out to brush a strand of hair from your face, his touch gentle despite the heaviness of the moment. “I’ll wait,” he promised softly, his voice breaking slightly. “I’ll wait for you, no matter how long it takes.”

“Until we meet again.”

As he stepped back, the distance between you seemed impossibly vast, but the promise in your eyes and the love in his heart made the separation bearable, if only just. And when Sylus turned away, his heart was heavy but full of the hope that one day, you would find each other again. That one day, this distant love would become a cherished memory that you would look back on as you grow old and wrinkled, yet insurmountably happy and content with the life you had lived. With or without him.

PREVIOUS PART

[monstersholygrail]

So about this Demon priest, I'm intrigued... go on. I can imagine as he's in the middle of a sermon, reader walks in, as reader just felt led to enter the church. As soon as Demon priest sees reader... he stumbles over the carefully and well prepare recitations. Sight focused on the back pew that reader silently sat on, not even noticing the uncharacteristic falter of the priest, nor realizing his eyes trained on them. He's been enraptured.

This is amazing, I am all for making this canon to Demon Priest. He’s so stinkin cute.

When you first walk into the church, Demon Priest swears he’s finally been graced with the presence of an angel once more. Your beauty ethereal, your presence divine in nature.

Hope blossoms within his chest that he has finally completed his repentance. That he will finally be welcomed back into those pearly gates. With heavens light shining back at him in your eyes how can he think otherwise?

He meets you after the service and realization dawns on him that you were not a messenger sent from above to take him to rejoin his fellow brethren. No, he realized instead that you were something far greater.

As part of his repentance, Demon Priest feels the pain of remaining inside a holy sanctuary. His feet burn with every step he takes, his hands while holding all blessed liturgical objects, and his face with the use of Holy water. With his demon healing they heal, only for them to come once more. Yet they each leave their own scars.

But as soon as your hand slips into his in greeting, Demon Priest feels as though a balm has been washed over his soul. The pain leaving him instantly with your touch. You certainly weren’t there to bring him home but perhaps you were something better than he could’ve ever imagined.

You were a gift.

Sent down from above and placed on his path. A testament to his strength and devotion. And he would be so utterly devoted. To you.

At every turn he seeked your approving gaze. At every chance he could risk he seeked your soothing touch. You had so utterly consumed him, turning his world upside down until it all came back to you.

It wasn’t long before he could no longer resist the idea of what it would be like to feel more of you. To grasp your supple flesh in his palms. Take your hardened nipples between his razor sharp teeth. Taste the sweet nectar of your essence on his tongue. He wanted all of you. To consume you as you had him.

Now as his hands run all over your body, leaving a lustful heat in his path, he finally has. The stain glass windows of his office shine down on you, illuminating your beauty as you ride his cock.

Your body bouncing so prettily along his hardened length, his eyes watch you with a feral hunger. Claws digging into your hips as he fucks up into you, not being able to help himself from taking you as roughly as he’s been wanting to. Your cries of pleasure being the most lovely sound he’s ever heard.

“Yes! It’s s-so good. Feels so good. I can’t believe we’re doing this,” you exclaim, baring your neck for him. His cock twitches within your wet heat, the curves of your body driving him closer to delirium.

He molds himself over your form, not being able to get close enough to the ecstasy of your skin. His lips latching on and sucking heartily at each of your breasts, leaving you panting as you try and match his every thrust.

“Tell me, my beloved, how can I be expected to deny you? That which I most crave. My greatest temptation…” he growls and you feel the vibration move through your body and shoot straight to your soaked core.

His claws sink into your plush hips, using his hold to slam you down on his needy cock. A hoarse cry is ripped from your lips. Hands finding purchase and bringing a soothing relief to his shoulders as he drives himself into you.

“Let me worship you,” he whispers with an intensity that sends chills up your spine. Yet you can’t focus on its meaning as your pleasure bursts through you, clenching down as you cum hard on his cock.

Demon priest grunts, his fierce eyes never leaving your expression so deeply filled with ecstasy. The sight of your pleasure enough to send him right over the edge with you, stuffing you full of his length as he shoots his cum deep into your womb.

And it’s in that moment he knows. He has found salvation in you.

[savanir]

I found your missing cat

It had taken a lot of work but about a month ago Danny finally got deep enough into A.R.G.U.S to be allowed into its Black Room. and my, what a treasure trove it is.

In the following weeks Danny has spent a lot of time finding all the lost Infinite Realms artifacts he was supposed to locate and return, as was part of his kingly duties. The Observants had been constantly on his ass about this but now that the results of his efforts are actually visible they have finally shut up.

Today though something new has gotten brought in and he’s eager to take a proper look, he could feel the Tyrant king’s influence from a distance emanating from it after all.

While on his way he noticed one of his colleagues, Miss Barbara Minerva if he remembers correctly, talking to who looks to be Wonder Woman. Danny hasn’t had the chance to do so himself yet, he’d love to introduce himself properly but he’s also a little worried about all the knowledge he has on Amazons from Lady Pandora (which he very much shouldn’t have) coming out the moment he tries to have a proper conversation.

Still he hopes nothing bad comes from those two ladies being on friendly terms. Miss Barbara's vibes are all over the place, and most often nowhere good, but who knows, maybe her being around Wonder Woman more will fix that.

He gets to his little section in the compound with the big examination table all decked out and ready for whatever. Today he gets to look at one of Pariah's lost blades, the godslayer sword.

Danny is working on getting all the murderous enhancements off of it and depowering it into something nowhere near so dangerous and deadly when something perks up within the weapon. 

Sensing a kindred protection spirit it leaps up from the blade and into Danny, happily nestling around Danny's core and starts purring up a storm. 

Danny however is violently startled out of his work. It's hard not to notice the sudden claws he feels both on his hands and feet. The spotted fur that covers seemingly his whole body now, his shifted ears, eyes and nose. And the fact he's now sporting a tail of all things. 

The Cheetah may be pleased with this new development but Danny is certainly not. 

Footsteps thunder his way, followed by a shout, "what is wrong!? I heard sounds of distress and- oh!"

"Uuuhhmmm..." What does he say!? How is he supposed to explain all this to Wonder Woman!?

She marches forward and firmly grabs his clawed hands in her own, not worried in the slightest about his now razor sharp nails, "worry not, we shall break this beastly curse that has befallen you, you have my word" 

She gives him what he thinks must be a reassuring smile, "I am Diana of Themyscira and-"

Danny isn't really listening after that, she's probably just giving him more reassurances. It's nice but she's also pretty intense. And Danny is still freaking out a little. 

"- so no need to fret"

Danny blinks,"Uh thanks, I- I'm Danny Fenton" 

"It is most pleasant to meet you Danny Fenton, even if the circumstances are quite unfortunate"

"Yeah uhm, just Danny is fine"

"Very well you may call me Diana" She nods and lets go of his hands.

Diana then wishes to see the artifact that cursed him so, aka the blade (which didn’t curse him), Danny thankfully already fully depowered the damn thing safe for some minor traces of whatever Pariah saw fit to stuff in it. 

By now Steve as well as Barbara have come to take a look themselves and though they appear startled at his new catlike appearance they are mostly just worried once Diana tells them he's cursed. 

Which he's not, this isn't a curse at all. The big cat spirit still tightly curled around his core is clearly a blessing of some sort, that'll make dealing with it all so much more complicated...

But at least Danny got to meet wonder woman right? That's cool.

[from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras]

I was thinking again about how Movie Aragorn is so much hotter when he’s dirty and unkempt (as one does), and I just had a very belated realization. At his coronation, Aragorn is sporting a much fuller beard than he has at any point before that. This:

vs. this:

Since the coronation proves that he can/will grow a full beard if he doesn’t shave, does his appearance in the rest of the trilogy imply that he was shaving then? Did this man lug a razor or beard trimmer around for hundreds of miles of hard core trekking through snow and mines and wilderness, on boats and horseback, and into battle? Was he getting up early every morning so that he could do a quick touch up before fighting a Nazgûl or summoning the king of the dead? I think the answer has to be yes, right? Surely someone else has considered this and has an answer already.

[storiesoflilies]

hiraeth

synopsis: the story of two broken souls trying to heal themselves by finding solace in each other and the mysteries of the universe, until shadows from the past threaten everything. the follow up to metanoia. w.c: 18.5k.

pairings: toji fushiguro x f!reader / satoru gojo x f!reader.

warnings: ANGST! sfw, descriptions of grief, mentions of death, the healing journey, a touch of satosugu vibes. there are fluff and wholesome moments, i promise.

a/n: it’s finally here! just in time for me n my most beloved blorbo’s birthday :3 i hope you all enjoy this story, and that the ending is everything you’ve been hoping for. it’s been so fun returning to this au! @gothsuguru this one’s for you bestie <3

art / art / divider / playlist / ao3

there was a certain comfort to be found in absolute silence.

it was warm, precious, and free from any judgement in a way that nothing else in the world could be. at that time, to be consumed in its invisible, molten core of gold felt wonderful. her mind was free from all the music and the dancing numbers and the scratching of the angels’ quills on their scrolls.

and it was silent when toji fushiguro left her.

so maybe, it was in silence that he would come back to her.

that’s what she wanted to believe.

but it was all nothing but a foolish, hopeless dream of a lover.

she could not recall most of that summer, no matter how hard she tried. it was lost in a haze of salty tears and the smoke of dreamless sleep. but she remembered the dull ache in her bones, the heaviness pressing down on her chest, crushing her cracking, splintering spine into the bed.

she had no fight in her to resist any of it – not anymore.

there wasn’t much she could do but lie there, like ice melting against the salt of her dried tears, seeping into every stitch and loose thread in the sheets.

there wasn’t much of the world left anymore, either.

there was only a white ceiling and the yellowing, dirty bed linens. the steady drip! drip! drip! of the kitchen sink, and the dull smell of a very tired, stale room that she couldn’t even recall ever holding any happiness within its walls.

everything that had once made her who she had already dissipated long ago into the atmosphere, leaving nothing behind but the white noise that filled her ears with the silent screams of angels.

let them.

let them scream, let them cry.

she hated them all.

she hated the green tea she used to drink, and the stupid, big ceramic mugs she had poured it into, and all the numbers and letters that led her here, and vanilla ice cream dripping down, down, down onto the pavement, and shaving razors and–

a violent sob caught in her throat, nearly choking her on her own admission.

that she hated toji fushiguro too.

she didn’t even have to try and solve for any sort of equation to arrive to that answer.

somebody, please help me.

and that was all she remembered of that summer, before her phone lit up with a call.

| Φ |

“i can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”

| Φ |

the cafe hadn’t changed much at all over the summer.

there was some new artwork done by students at the university hanging on the walls. they were all different sizes and colors, with no particular theme connecting any of them to each other. there was also a new bell hanging above the the entrance door. it was a much louder bell, not at all delicate or mellow like the last one.

she much preferred it that way.

there were too many memories in the old one’s tune.

she was currently staring holes into a piece of art hanging on the wall behind the cash register. it was hard to decipher if there was supposed to be any hidden meaning beneath the seemingly random swirls of red and bold blue brushstrokes of what looked like oil paint to her. no, maybe it was acrylic?

she clicked her tongue, already giving up on trying to guess.

a customer entered the shop, and she was sharply reminded of what her manager had said to her not even an hour ago.

“don’t forget to smile sometimes, yeah?”

they had said it sympathetically – sheepishly, even – because it came from a place of shameful embarrassment of having to even say it in the first place. of course, she knew they meant well, but it was the not so hidden implication of it all that echoed through her head like the memory of the old bell above the door.

she wasn’t who she used to be anymore, and she certainly wasn’t doing very well at all.

and everyone had seemed to notice.

she swallowed down the stone stuck in her throat and quickly went about making the customer’s order, forcing a smile on her face in the hopes it would just make him go away faster. it wasn’t fair to the customer, she knew that, but she couldn’t help how she felt.

any sort of human interaction was just so unbelievably tiresome for her now.

towards the end of the summer, she made the split-second decision to pursue a master’s degree in physics. she didn’t know what else to do, but two things were certain: she couldn’t go back home, and she couldn’t bring herself to find a proper job. her mind was far too numb for either of those things, lost in a fog that weighed down heavy on her entire being. she had no energy to network or put up false pleasantries to build any sort of meaningful connections both in and out of the workplace.

so, when she got the call back from her manager that she could stay on at the cafe, everything seemed to conveniently fall into place. no one could argue with what she was doing. she was furthering her education and saving more money by taking the course part-time.

and that was exactly what she wanted – to be bothered as little as possible.

deep breath in…

as she handed the customer his order in a pale-green styrofoam cup.

and out.

that was how she got through every interaction, day after day.

because if she could survive for long enough, then maybe – just maybe – she could begin to claw her way out of the crumbling black hole of obsidian she was buried under.

she hoped.

the doorbell rang out loudly.

she looked up sharply, and put on the best smile that she could muster, so much that her cheeks almost hurt.

it was the owner of the shop.

what– why are they here?

and then, a star walked in.

she sucked in a breath.

no, it was just a boy. a boy who looked like a star that had just fallen down from the heavens. all blues and pearly, fluffy hair and teeth shining in the brightest, most perfect smile she had ever seen in her whole life. he must have been born from a blue nebula, she thought, because he was so wonderfully rare, unlike anything or anybody else at all.

she could have sworn she heard the sound of a quill tapping against the side of an ink pot.

| Φ |

“you don’t have share anything you don’t want to. just say whatever feels right for you.”

| Φ |

the boy’s name was satoru gojo, and he was the owner’s nephew.

“he’s just transferred from a university in tokyo,” they’d said, with a proud, hushed reverence in their voice when they whispered the last word.

she could only nod along silently, pretending to be impressed, while all she was really thinking was why on earth he would transfer from a probably prestigious university to come here of all places.

it didn’t really matter; satoru was here now.

and he was her new colleague.

the extra interactions she had to handle on a daily basis were absolutely bone wearying. teaching him how to use the coffee machine, where all the ingredients and cleaning supplies were kept, and how to lock up the cafe for the night. it was all just too much; she hadn’t signed up for any of this. the next two years were supposed to be as easy as they possibly could be.

but more than anything, it was satoru and his irritatingly perky attitude that got on her nerves the most.

it wasn’t fair to him at all, and she knew it, but she couldn’t help the nagging, grating annoyance he made her feel. his chirpy voice was like nails on a chalkboard, scraping away at her already thin patience. and then there was him, with his stupidly good looks that made every customer that came in through the door do a double take.

more than that, it was the way satoru had the gall to pretend he didn’t enjoy it – when he obviously did.

no, that wasn’t the worst thing of all.

it was the way that satoru persistently attempted to get to know her. it confused her to no end, haphazardly cutting through the endless haze of brain fog, because she couldn’t understand for the life of her why someone like him would ever want to know someone like her.

“so,” he began one day, the autumn sunset filtering through the window. “you study physics too?”

too?

her manager must have been running their mouth, again.

she cleared her throat, putting down the damp cloth she’d been using to clean the cash register. “yeah, uh– you too, huh?”

satoru smiled that signature lopsided smile of his. “second year.”

when she only nodded silently, picking up her cloth again to silently signal she wasn’t interested in continuing conversation, he pressed on anyways. “yeah, i heard you’re doing your master’s now too. you must be really enjoying it.”

the last part was more of a question than a statement to her.

“sure,” she replied flatly, perhaps even snappily, and satoru’s smile faltered slightly.

a strange pang of guilt struck her that only got worse as the silence between them stretched on uncomfortably. she squirmed in her seat, aggressively rubbing her cloth between every nook and cranny of the register, while satoru busied himself cleaning the coffee machine, uncharacteristically quiet.

finally, she couldn’t stand the awkwardness anymore, and put down her cloth with a sigh as she swiveled in her seat to face him.

“so, are you enjoying it?” she asked quietly, her gaze dropping to the dried skin around her cuticles.

“sorry, what?”

“are you enjoying your course?”

“oh, yeah i am, actually,” he replied, a twinkle in his cerulean eyes as he laughed heartily. she suddenly felt quite warm. “i’m quite the genius.”

“oh, really?”

from then on, he wouldn’t – or, rather he couldn’t – shut up about it. it was like the floodgates had opened, and he went on about anything and everything that sprang to his mind. how he was planning on solving all the unknown theories of the universe, like he was planning on plucking the answers straight from the stars. the more she listened to him, watching the way his lips moved animatedly, the more she believed that if anybody could do it, it was him.

strangely enough, she found that she actually liked listening to satoru gojo talk.

but what struck her the most was how he was like her – and more. she knew that if he wanted to become one of the greats, he would.

if he wasn’t already, that is.

for the first time in what felt like years, she felt her lips curve into a genuine smile.

| Φ |

“it’s okay to cry. you’re really brave for coming here, and i know it’s not easy taking this first step.”

| Φ |

they started studying together at the cafe during the quiet afternoons that stretched into the evenings.

there was the air of familiarity to it all, the same aura of memories she had of doing the same thing not so long ago with a vastly different boy. it brought an unbearably searing heat of anxiety straight to her stomach. she tried her best to shove those feelings deep down into a pit of pebbles, zoning out often and long enough that satoru would frantically wave his palm in front of her eyes.

“you’re doing it again,” he said, his head tilted, a heavy hardback textbook split open in his lap.

she blinked once, shook her head a little, and lightly tapped her cheek twice. “sorry,” she mumbled, then took a few sips from her mug of bitter black coffee, which had long since gone cold.

green tea was something she hasn’t touched since, well, that day.

satoru looked at her for a moment too long, a strange look crossing his face that she couldn’t decipher, before he buried his nose back in the book on his lap.

the sun had set quite some time ago, and the beginning of winter was already making the days so much shorter. only the warm glow of pale orange lamps filled the cafe, bathing anyone inside in a warm, cozy glow. there were no customers at the moment, much to her relief, probably because it was still the beginning of the semester and the students weren’t in cramming mode just yet.

another hot bubble of anxiety churned in her stomach, and she fought to keep from wincing as her heart started to race.

“so, how are you finding that book?” she blurted out, trying to distract herself.

satoru hummed thoughtfully. “it’s good, thanks for letting me borrow it. you’ve got good taste.”

she snorted, though it was somewhat strained, forced. “hah! well, thank you, i suppose.”

he looked up at her again, and she felt herself shrink just a little. she could never get used to his eyes no matter how hard she tried. they were unlike anything she had ever seen before, and the longer she stared into them, the more it felt like they multiplied into six eyes. it felt like he could see right through her and rummage through the mess of broken heartstrings and glass inside her, and know everything that had ever happened to her – and everything that ever would.

was he an angel?

maybe he was the one who had been trying to solve her equation this whole time.

she almost laughed at that.

don’t be ridiculous.

“you’re too good at this, you know?” satoru suddenly stated, closing the book over with one of his fingers wedged between the pages he had been reading.

she frowned. “what do you mean? physics?”

“yeah. you’re like me, you have a gift for all this. even when you don’t really care about it, you’re still good at it.”

she picked the edge of her finger. “i-uh, wait, what do you mean i don’t care about it anymore? i obviously do. i’m doing a masters for fuck’s sake.”

she didn’t know why she felt the need to lie about it or why she suddenly felt so defensive.

he was hitting a nerve, and he knew it.

satoru gave her a look, a smug smirk on his lips. “no, you don’t.”

“i do!”

“no. you don’t.”

“yes actually, i do.”

“you’re lying.”

“no, i’m not! why would i lie?”

“i dunno, you tell me.”

damn you, satoru gojo.

she bit her lip to stop it from wobbling. satoru’s face crumbled like tumbling stones, and his book dropped to the floor with a loud bang.

“hey, hey,” he rushed, standing up and nearly knocking his chair over behind him. “hey, i’m sorry. i didn’t mean- fuck! i’m so sorry.”

the delicate skin of her lip throbbed from how hard she was biting it, and she was sure it would bruise by tomorrow morning. she swallowed thickly, avoiding satoru and those stupid, all-seeing eyes of his.

“it’s fine,” she muttered, hoping the tears gathering in the corner of her eye wouldn’t spill in front of him. “i-uh, let’s just get ready to close, okay?”

satoru frowned, rubbing the back of his neck like he wasn’t sure what exactly he wanted to do.

in the end, he said nothing at all.

they quietly packed up their things, locked the door, and the bell sang them a sad goodbye tune as they walked their separate ways into the night.

| Φ |

“so, your friend told you to come here?”

“i-uh, more like made me. sorry.”

| Φ |

being alone wasn’t so unbearable for her anymore.

but it still wasn’t good.

she’d moved out of the two-bedroom apartment she’d shared with her old roommate soon after starting her master's. there was no point in paying for an extra room, and she certainly didn’t feel like living in close quarters with another human being. so, she moved into a studio apartment in the building next door.

it was… decent.

perfectly adequate, really. there was no peeling walls or mold anywhere, and it didn’t drain too much of her energy to keep it all somewhat clean. in the beginning, the smaller space was oddly comforting. she felt secure, like a little mouse in a tin box.

safer.

snugly enclosed within the walls of a home that hadn’t been tainted by old memories.

although, she still didn’t have much energy to cook. there had been too many things she'd wasted money on, too many things that had gone out of date that she had the unpleasant task of cleaning up before moving out. the employees at the 7-eleven across from the cafe had grown embarrassingly familiar with her as she bought cup after cup of instant ramen for her dinner every night for weeks during those first weeks after moving in.

one night, an employee – an older lady with obviously nothing better to do –finally said to her, “you know, there are fresh bento boxes on sale at the end of the day. it’s healthier than… this.”

she’d just sniffed at the woman, pushing her cup forward with a defiant jut of her chin. the lady had sighed, shaking her head as she scanned the noodles. when she arrived home, she took her shoes off and threw her keys onto the kitchen counter. she flicked the kettle on and walked over to her bed to change out of her clothes.

and that was when she saw it.

her reflection in the mirror.

god, she didn’t realize just how awful she looked. her skin was horrible, her eyes tired and sullen, probably from living off a diet of instant noodles with little to no water. she didn’t know why, but the sight shocked her to the core.

she knew she wasn’t doing well.

but, she just didn’t think she looked that tired.

from that night on, she bought the bento boxes on sale every night. the employee never bothered her again after that, just gave her a smug smile that told her everything she needed to know. the changes in her were small, barely noticeable, but it felt like a step in the right direction.

she hated to admit that the lady had been right.

but still, it wasnt a complete fix.

so here she was, quietly chewing on a bite of peppered beef and rice, doing her best to stifle her sobs as music played from the radio in the background.

she hadn’t meant to get so emotional, but it had gotten too overwhelming for her to handle. satoru and all his damn questions – why did this random boy from who knows where in the world manage to get under her skin so much? she barely even knew him at all. the only two things that tied them together was that cafe and physics, and even that was fragile at best.

it was almost like at the start with…

no.

she couldn’t even say his name in her head.

it was all absolutely pathetic – she was pathetic.

“even if you don’t really care about it, you’re still good at it.”

is that what her life was going to be from now on? living a lie? pretending that she cared about whatever it was she was doing, while on the inside, she was still falling down that infinite green hole the boy with a perfect scar on his lip had pushed her into.

she sniffled, tossing the now empty box into the bin.

when would it all end?

she just wanted to stop feeling so hopeless all the time. she wanted to be happy again, to hear the numbers and angels singing to her like they used to, to feel and be how she once was.

but everything was still so quiet.

and probably would be for a long time.

that was why being here, in her tiny box of a house, still felt like no home at all.

| Φ |

“do you want to start from the beginning?”

“not really, but sure.”

| Φ |

the next day, when she arrived at the cafe, satoru was already there waiting for her.

and he was so obviously nervous that it set her teeth on edge.

from the moment she caught sight of him from outside the window, she could tell something was off. he was behind the counter, his hands a blur as he poured coffee and punched the buttons on the cash register to hand customers their change. satoru must have been keeping an eye out for her, because the moment he spotted her through the glass, he froze.

a snowy deer caught in the headlights.

then, he gave her what was probably the most awkward, jerky wave she had ever recieved.

right up until she walked behind the counter to stand beside him, he was a jittery mess, his foot tapping incessantly as he waited for the two girls hovering in front the cash register to finish deciding what they wanted to have.

“hey!” he greeted, far too cheerily. his voice was a little high-pitched, a crack in it like chipped porcelain.

she blinked twice, slowly, as she tied a beige apron around her waist. “hi.”

one of the girls at the counter cleared her throat, clearly unimpressed that nobody was paying attention to them. satoru snapped back into reality, mumbled a half-hearted apology, and she hurriedly got started on making their drinks. meanwhile, satoru fumbled with the coins as one of the girls dropped them into his open palm.

this was all so unlike him.

he was always so smooth and confident, annoyingly so.

it felt almost wrong to see him like this.

but they continued in a fragile, comfortable silence, serving customers and cleaning up tables after they left. when it was golden hour and the shop was somewhat empty, satoru finally let out a great big breath, like he had been holding it in the whole time.

“sheesh!” he exclaimed, stretching his legs, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. “that was so busy. how did you used to do this all by yourself?”

she gave him an amused look. “well, it wasn’t this busy a year ago. it’s gotten much more popular.”

satoru grinned, but it was tight, forced. “really? must be because of you and your great service.”

she didn’t know what to say, but she snorted, somewhat amused.

“hey, so uh… about last night,” he started, already stumbling over his words, but she quickly held up a hand to stop him.

“it’s all good, satoru,” she said firmly, trying her hardest to still be gentle. “i didn’t mean to get so emotional, so i’m sorry about that.”

he stared at her for a heartbeat longer, and she felt a strange flutter in her chest. she couldn’t stand the feeling, and got right back to adding more pink mooncakes to the clear display box at the counter. this time, it was her turn to keep an eye on him. satoru was breathing rapidly, his chest puffing and falling quickly, a peach-pink blush dusting the tips of his ears.

he looked positively miserable.

like he was absolutely bursting to say something but was holding back.

she bit her lip. “are you okay?”

satoru froze, his hand pausing from refilling the jar for the lids for the takeaway cups.

“yeah, i just-” he swallowed thickly, not quite looking at her. “i’m really sorry about yesterday.”

“is that all? i promise you, satoru, it’s all good.”

satoru fidgeted, his fingers rapidly tapping against a white lid. for a moment, neither of them moved, the low hum of a handful of customers conversing filling the air. a cup clinked loudly against a saucer, shattering the tension between them, and he inhaled sharply.

“i’m sorry if i push you too much,” satoru said softly, like he wasn’t sure whether he should even say it at all. “i don’t mean to.”

a stab of guilt pierced her heart.

it would be a lie to say that he hadn’t been pushing her out of her comfort zone. for the last few months, he had been nothing but persistently nice to her. anytime they crossed paths on campus, he always smiled and waved, pulling her into the orbit of his blue brightness, no matter how hard she tried to avoid it. at first, she was convinced that he would get bored of her quickly, that he would find more interesting company to keep than hers.

so, she tried to ignore it when she could.

but satoru never let up, not even a bit.

when she wouldn’t wave back, turning her back instead, there would be a tap on her left shoulder, and satoru would pop out from her right, spooking her with a laugh that made it seem like he knew exactly what she was up to.

and he didn’t care or seem to mind.

whenever she was clearly making no move to initiate a conversation, he always did it for her.

and he’d always ask her how she was.

how her day had been, or if she’d slept well the night before whenever they worked a morning shift together. during their quiet study sessions at the cafe, he’d always ask her how her course was going. at first, she thought satoru was just trying to fill the silence, that he was restless – too full of energy that he didn’t know what to do with. but now, she saw that she had been wrong the whole time.

she’d been blinded by his eccentricity and her own self-wallowing to notice it before.

that satoru gojo had a big heart.

and for some reason, he genuinely cared about her. it might not have been hard to notice that she wasn’t okay, but he had – and had tried to fix it. little by little, their study sessions and conversations were slowly pulling her back to the version of herself she thought she would never get back.

“you weren’t… pushing me,” she said slowly.

satoru gave her a pointed look. “yes i was. you know i was, especially last night.”

“okay,” she laughed a little, and a small smile appeared on his face. “maybe just a little.”

they both spared a glance at each other and broke into a nervous fit of laughter. for a moment, it all seemed normal, but then their smiles fades, and the silence crept back in like a parasite, with the light in satoru’s eyes dying like a smothered candle.

“well, i promise not to bother you half as much anymore,” he huffed playfully, though his eyes shifted away from her face.

she chewed the inside of her cheek.

“i… don’t want that.”

satoru looked back up at her sharply.

“you don’t?”

“i just- i’m not… it’s hard for me to feel good about things anymore.”

but being around you has been the only good thing for me. you’re the only person who makes me feel even a little like how i used to.

she couldn’t bring herself to say that, though.

because, whether or not satoru had meant to push her so much didn’t matter anymore. she had now realized, with a particularly harsh slap of reality, how much she had needed it. her changes had been so small and gradual that she hadn’t even noticed them herself. she couldn’t even remember the day when she finally didn’t dread leaving the house anymore, only that it had just happened.

and the boy made from blue starlight had been a huge part of making that happen.

satoru was like an icicle suspended over the edge of a cliff. was it concern, or maybe even shock on his face? she clenched her fists, nails digging into her skin. she didn’t know what she would do if he decided she was just too much for him, too heavy a burden that he hadn’t signed up to carry. if satoru decided to let go and fall, she didn’t know what she would do. she’d be all alone again if he left, and she didn’t think she could survive it this time.

please, i’m sorry. i’ll be better, i promise. just hang in there and wait for me a little longer.

but then, slowly, satoru flashed her that feather-soft smile he had given her the first time she finally waved back at him. it was softer, different to the way he usually smiled, like the notion meant so much more to him than she realized.

and she felt like everything might finally start to be okay.

| Φ |

“do you regret letting the things that happened to you in the past hurt her too?”

“of course i do, that’s why i’m here. i’m fucking broken, and i need help.”

| Φ |

the streets were dusted with a light frosting of snow.

there wasn’t much of it at all, really. it was hardly deep enough to make a snowball from, but it was enough to blanket everything in a sea of powdery whiteness. a cold drop of water dripped from a streetlight straight onto her nose, and she shivered profusely from the shock of it, pulling her itchy woolen scarf tighter around her neck.

there were faint tracks in the snow leading up to the cafe, and she guessed they probably belonged to satoru.

they had both been tasked with decorating the cafe with a little festive cheer on this crisp sunday morning. satoru had groaned about it, complaining that he would do anything but that on his day off. he only begrudgingly agreed to it after being bribed with unlimited access to the seasonal sweet treats.

and only if she helped him too.

so, that was how she had also been dragged into it on her day off.

she pushed open the door, scraping her damp boots against the entrance mat as warmth seeped into her bones. satoru had actually remember to turn the heating on, and her heart swelled with gratitude.

however, her good feelings were quite short lived.

“satoru,” she hissed. “what the fuck?”

the place was in absolute disarray.

tangled lights were strung about randomly, baubles of various shapes and colors rolled haphazardly across the floor, and the branches of the fake christmas tree were decidedly not attached where they were supposed to be. satoru was lazing at the counter, completely engrossed in his textbook, not even sparing her a glance as he deadpanned.

“what? i took everything out of the boxes like you told me to.”

“ugh! not like this, and you know it! seriously, it looks like you just dumped everything out onto the floor and just left it.”

his humorous snort told her that was exactly what he did.

it was painfully obvious that satoru gojo absolutely did not like christmas.

as soon as december hit, satoru became quite restrained, even dejected. he wasn’t up for doing much at all, except sitting around and reading her old textbooks. whenever someone asked if he had any plans for the holidays, he would just say “no,” in a way that completely shut down the conversation. if he overheard customers discussing their festive plans for too long, he would zone out, like he was lost somewhere far away from here.

she strode toward him, making sure to stomp her feet a little. satoru never bothered to look up at her, so he didn’t see when she picked up a plastic candy cane and threw it at his head.

“ow! seriously?”

“help me. now.”

letting out an exaggerated groan, satoru slammed the book shut with a loud slap and slowly – very slowly – slid off his chair.

it took several hours of hard work, but they eventually managed to turn the cafe into a mini wonderland. dainty red bows and lights were tastefully placed around, gold and silver tinsel glinted playfully in the sunlight, and the tree in the center of the tables was adorned with emerald and blue baubles.

“what do you think, satoru?”

but he was hardly paying any attention.

“sure, looks fine.”

in fact, satoru looked like something was crawling painfully beneath his perfect skin. he seemed ready to bolt outside without saying another word to her.

“are you alright?” she asked carefully, setting down a pretty green bauble she had been holding.

he looked up at her blankly. “yeah, i just don’t like all…” he gestured around him. “this.”

“not a festive person?”

“not really.”

“oh, okay.”

“it’s not for everyone sometimes, you know?”

“well, yeah… sure.”

“and it’s so much fuss for just one day.”

“mhm.”

“i hope you don’t think i’m like… i don’t know, a grinch or something.”

“i don’t think you’re a grinch, satoru.”

she tried not to notice how he shivered when she said his name.

“good, because i’m not. i don’t actually want someone else being miserable too.”

“what do you mean too?”

at this, satoru fell silent, like he’d said too much, revealed something she wasn’t supposed to know. they were quiet for a while, mostly because she didn’t know what to say, and satoru seemed quite lost in a place she wasn’t sure she wanted to follow him into. then, he flashed her that signature smile of is, his teeth glinting, and for the first time, she felt like she was seeing it for what it really was all along.

a defense mechanism.

for everyone to stay away, to not get too near him. to be blinded by his beauty and not ask too many questions.

“well, looks like we’re all done here!” he exclaimed quickly, clapping his hands together with a flourish. “wanna go get something sweet?”

satoru didn’t wait for her to answer.

before she knew it, he’d shoved his dark beanie over his snowy hair, and was bounding out of the shop. she watched him briefly through the window, rubbing his hands together, his breath coming out in little wispy puffs. he caught her looking and motioned with his head for her to come on.

she sighed, switching off the heating and locking up behind her.

“you know,” she said, not missing the way he winced. “you can always talk to me, right?”

satoru seemed to think about this for a moment before shaking his head and replying with a far too-cheerful, “of course! now, let’s go.”

the boy was hiding something in his galaxy of cerulean stars.

but then again, so was she.

| Φ |

“what was it like being with her?”

“it was peaceful and she was so beautiful, and god, so smart. like, she could discover something that would change the world, you know?… fuck!”

| Φ |

it was christmas eve.

she was watching the snow falling outside, holding a mug of coffee between her palms. the radio station, with its faint static buzz muffling the words, was the sort that lonely people listened to in movies. the host was chatting away in between songs like they didn’t think anybody was listening, probably assuming that everyone was being festive with their families, and not tuning in to some random station.

i’m listening, though. i’m here.

“it’s a lovely, quiet night, isn’t it? some people hate the quiet, though. like there’s something wrong with it.”

she’d pretended that she absolutely had to work over the holidays to avoid going home, and she didn’t regret it one bit. this was all somewhat… nice, actually. her mind was mostly quiet, focused on the coffee and the radio and the snow falling delicately to the ground below.

she took a sip from her mug, a pleasant, tingling burn on her tongue. there was some truth in that sentiment, she mused.

“but i think that it’s only when things are quiet and still, that you can find out a lot about yourself!”

well, she wasn’t so sure if she had discovered anything new about herself other than pain.

ring! ring! ring!

she nearly spilled her coffee all over her lap.

it was satoru.

for some reason, he hadn’t gone back home either. she hadn’t pressed him on why he didn’t, probably because he wouldn’t have told her the truth anyway, or brush her off with a half-hearted joke instead of a real answer.

slowly, she reached for her phone. “hello?”

it was quiet.

too quiet.

and then, the barest sound of what might have been a sniffle.

“hi,” satoru greeted, his voice filled with broken glass.

and it was like all the light and happiness in the world had gone. her eyes became glossy. he sounded familiar, only because she knew that she had once sounded like that too. she could recognize the sound of a person who had lost everything, and was barely clinging onto this plane of existence.

“what are you doing?” he whispered.

she stifled a sob. “nothing really, you?”

“same.”

there was a gust of wind outside, sending the snow dancing in a large, swooping whirlpool.

“can i, uh-” he swallowed quite audibly. “can i see you?”

she didn’t miss a beat. “sure.”

“okay, right. i’ll see you in a bit.”

her screen went black as satoru ended the call, and she tapped her cheek three times just to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. when she realized that she definitely wasn’t, she scrambled up from her warm spot on the sofa, picking up all the random clothes off the floor and shoving them into drawers just for the time being. she was overthinking everything, every little mess, and what satoru would think when he saw her apartment.

should she give the counter a wipe?

was there maybe a smell about?

knock! knock! knock!

there was no time to think about all that.

how had he gotten here so quickly?

she breathed out shakily, wiping her forehead as she hesitantly opened the door.

and there he was with his head bowed low.

there were plenty of snowflakes clinging stubbornly onto his beanie and coat, and she guessed that he must have been outside for a while. when she looked closed at him, she realized with a start that he was wearing his pyjamas – washed-out, grey sweatpants paired with a shirt with a faded superman logo on it. it might have been funny, but when satoru looked up at her, his eyes were rimmed with bright red crescent moons.

she didn’t need to guess that he had been crying.

“hi,” he said softly, his voice cracking like an old mirror.

“hey, come in,” she replied, stepping aside to let him in.

satoru shivered as he stepped over the threshold of her apartment, pausing to puff hot breaths into his hands. she offered him a tea, asking if he wanted it heavy on the sugar, which he shyly accepted. she watched as he took off his boots at the door, expensive black leather dripping with icy sludge, and took a good, long look all around her apartment.

the radio crackled softly, and satoru only seemed to notice it existed then. “huh, you don’t like t.v or something?” he quipped sadly, hardly carrying any bite in his words at all.

“i can’t be bothered getting one,” she admitted with an awkward smile, stirring the teabag in his mug.

satoru hummed and moved to sit on the sofa, sinking into the cushion like he wanted to just melt into a puddle. he rested his neck against the back, long fingers clasping and flexing like he didn’t know what to do with them. she handed him his tea, and then settled on the other end of the sofa, tucking her legs beneath her, and making a conscious effort not to sit too close to him.

for a while, they both didn’t say anything.

the host on the radio was talking again between songs, their voice soft and airy like the snow falling just outside. the next song slowly faded into life, a familiar wistful version of ‘have yourself a merry little christmas’ filling the quiet room. satoru was just staring at the ceiling, the faintest tremor in his hands as he lifted his mug to sip his tea. she didn’t say a word about it, letting herself zone out as she stared at the loose threads in the carpet.

“sorry, i don’t usually do this,” he finally said. “barge in like this, i mean.”

she blinked, and gave him a small smile of reassurance. “it’s okay, i wasn’t doing anything anyways.”

“oh, okay. you didn’t feel like going back home?”

“i could ask you the same thing.”

satoru swallowed, his throat bobbing up and down. then, his shoulders slumped, and his head fell forward in a silent surrender.

she held in a breath.

the angel’s were reaching a key moment in solving their formula, she could feel it in her bones, in her soul. she could hear them and their quills, motions quick and decisive, the noise slowly building like pressure inside a closed vessel.

“his name was suguru.”

the name was a stone falling off the edge of a waterfall, crashing against stone and water and air, and here it finally was – in this tiny, unremarkable apartment that didn’t feel like it was nearly good enough to host such an incredible moment.

it all felt inevitable, really. that she was supposed to be here, in this moment, and that everything in her life had happened just to bring her here. how she fallen in love with a quiet boy with green eyes, and how he had left her. how she nearly faded out of existence, only to be pulled back by a call to work where it all began. how her and satoru met, and how their lives had become so beautifully intertwined.

it was like newton’s second law of motion.

every force that had ever acted on her, every event she had collided into, was all to propel her straight into this moment.

“he was my best friend since middle school, and when i tell you we did everything together, we did fucking everything together.”

satoru paused for a moment, pulling his phone out from his pocket and rapidly tapping and scrolling as he searched for something. when he seemingly found it, he carefully handed his phone to her.

it was a picture of the two of them.

she couldn’t help but smile. satoru was all scruff and awkward teenage smiles, much too tall for his own good. and suguru was… beautiful, really. he was everything his best friend wasn’t – composed and regal, with long, dark hair that looked like it had been dipped in black ink. his eyes were a warm, honeyed chocolate, and she didn’t need to have known him to tell that suguru was kind. the quiet, dependable sort. the kind of person you knew would never leave you behind.

“when we graduated, we even decided to study physics together at uni in tokyo. i mean, i genuinely didn’t have a life without him. but it was like, no matter what happened, as long as suguru was there, it would all be okay.”

tears slipped from his eyes, and he bowed his head low, almost dropping between his knees.

“he died a year ago today.”

oh.

oh, god.

“i thought it was a joke, you know? when i got the call from his parents. i mean, seriously? he’d just gone to visit our old school to help out with some stupid fucking basketball tournament the kids were doing. nothing bad was supposed to happen.”

satoru become incredibly quiet, trapped in a fog of lost memories.

“he’d asked me to go with him,” he admitted, his words dripping in shame. “but i didn’t want to.”

she could hear the unspoken words he wanted to say hovering in the air like a ghost, like the angels whittling away at their little equations.

i should have been there.

“the police said the crossroads were all slippery because of the ice, and that suguru fell over.”

i might have saved him.

“the driver wasn’t even looking properly, but he was going way too fucking fast anyways.”

he could still be alive.

“and yeah, i know it’s so pathetic. i can’t even stay in the same city that he died in. it was just too much for me to handle. that’s why i transferred here, actually, because it just wasn’t the same without him.”

it’s all my fault.

she didn’t know what else to say other than, “i get it.”

because she really did.

her and satoru gojo were one and the same, she knew that now. they might have once been two different variables in the same equation, but now the angels had proven them to be equal to each other, melding them into one and solving for the same outcome.

“you know, you’re the only person who hasn’t tried to lie to me about it,” he mumbled, partly to himself, his fingers tight around his mug. “it never gets easier, no matter how much time passes.”

“i agree. you just get better at carrying it while you try to live on.”

satoru finally spared a glance at her, his pale eyes searching her face, as if he was beginning to realize and understand the person who shared atoms with his soul. that everything had changed for them now, and there was no going back in time.

“there’s a page missing in your book, did you know that?” he said carefully, gently, like it might break her.

“huh- what? no. what are you on about?”

“the one you gave me. i had to look the page up online to find out what it’s about.”

“okay… and?”

“well, why would you rip out a page on relativity?”

oh.

she was flooded with memories she didn’t want to remember. if she looked over satoru’s shoulder, she could almost swear she saw a mirage of a certain dark-haired boy looking at her with a resigned expression, like even the ghost of his past didn’t want to be here. she couldn’t remember even doing it, but she must have torn that page out sometime during the summer. satoru clearly noticed the look on her face, must have seen that familiar, haunted look, and realized he’d unknown touched another nerve.

“you want to tell me about it?” he asked softly.

she looked up at him through lashes heavy with tears, while the ghost’s hazy green eyes pierced into her, silently begging for release, for her to not let him continue to haunt her.

“i will, i promise.”

she blinked, wiping her blurry eyes, and the vision was gone.

“but tell me more about suguru.”

| Φ |

“it sounds like you really did love her.”

“i did, i still do. she was it for me.”

| Φ |

on christmas morning, after satoru had spent the night on her sofa, she told him everything about toji fushiguro.

it was the first time she had said his name aloud after so long, like coaxing death back to where it belonged beyond the veil, and breathing life back into the boy with dark hair and everything that had happened to her. it had been much easier to have pretended that toji was actually dead this whole time.

well, he could have been.

after all, she had no way of knowing, but it was an unhealthy coping mechanism, and she knew it. she couldn’t dare do it anymore either, not when satoru was sitting there right across from her having actually lost his person forever.

so, she didn’t hide a thing.

she told him how it all started. how they fell in love, and all the things that happened in between. the green tea, teaching him about her numbers and stars and the summer of vanilla ice cream. for some reason, she felt sheepish at revealing the trauma that had happened to toji when he was a child, but she had to do it. it was the catalyst for why he had just up and left, and none of it would have made sense to satoru.

much like when she had listened to him the night before, he hadn’t said a word the entire time she spoke. but she knew satoru was listening. in fact, he was completely immersed in her story. like he could feel everything she could. he smiled at the happy parts, even laughed, his expression only turning twisted and sour at the end of it – like her anger and pain was his to bear too.

it made her feel much less alone in all of it.

“i hate him,” she said when she finished, her voice sharper than a knife’s edge, dripping with green, green venom.

but he was looking at her like he didn’t believe that for a second.

she didn’t even know she was shivering until satoru got up and draped a blanket over her shoulders, gently prying the mug that she had been gripping tightly. he looked down at her so kindly it made her chest tighten, an encouraging smile curling his baby-pink lips upwards like it was the only thing holding all her pieces together.

there was something… changed about him.

even with his fluffy hair, a messy pile of snow and stardust, there was something a little more airy and less burdened about him. his shoulders were more pulled back, not slouched like before, which she hadn’t even really noticed he had been doing until now.

“you got any food?” satoru asked suddenly, striding confidently over to her fridge and opening it.

she frowned. “for breakfast?”

“no, i mean for dinner. we have to have some kind of feast don’t we?”

“really? now you want to be festive?”

satoru lazily stretched his back, the skin of his waist peeking out. “festivity is subjective. besides, we just so happen to be celebrating on a day everyone else is.”

“uh huh, and what are we celebrating exactly?”

“well, us.”

he said it like it was totally obvious.

“tell you what, i’ll go out to the store and get us stuff for tonight,” he said firmly, already putting his coat and beanie on. “please tell me you have pots and pans we can use.”

she deadpanned. “yes.”

“hey, i’m only asking because i’m not the one who goes into a 7-eleven every night for dinner.”

she threw a pillow in his direction, but he was already out the door before it could land anywhere near him. sighing, she rubbed her still-tired eyes and glanced around the apartment. whatever satoru was planning for later, it wouldn’t do to have the place messy. she mopped the floors properly and gave the kitchen a good clean, scrubbing all the pots and pans that had been sitting unused in the cabinets since she moved in.

by the time satoru came back with several white plastic bags of groceries, the apartment was spotless and ready for whatever mess was about to unfold in the kitchen.

“you certainly don’t skimp out,” she remarked, eyeing the bags and their contents as he dumped them out onto the counter.

satoru only laughed, rolling up his sleeves and washing his hands. “i’m rich. so, no.”

“pft! well, thanks for all this.”

together, they started prepping for their feast, deciding to make oden with all the fresh vegetables that satoru had bought. soon enough, a wonderfully savory, wholesome scent filled the apartment. she assembled the table while satoru stirred the pot, putting together the sides, the radio merrily playing christmas tunes on and on. when they finally sat down to eat, when she took the first bite of her stew, she almost cried.

she hadn’t realized just how much she had missed this – taking care of her body, cooking something nutritious and homemade. maybe that was why her apartment didn’t feel like home.

how could it be? she had never even made a home-cooked meal in it.

she decided to remedy that from that moment on.

as the evening wore on, they ended up back on the sofa together. a blanket was draped over their legs, a dip between them filled with all the sweets satoru had brought over. the radio switched between more mellow tunes and cheerful ones, and that same host from last night was on again.

but she wasn’t listening in this time.

her and satoru were completely engrossed in one another, talking about what had drawn them to physics in the first place, and about all the stars and planets they wish they could see one day. she felt something warm kindling in her chest. maybe it was the atoms of herself coming back together, little by little. she wasn’t sure, but it felt like a flicker of something familiar.

it wasn’t happiness, not yet.

but as satoru tore a piece of red bean mochi in half, offering her one part with that stellar grin on his face, she thought it might just get there.

| Φ |

“i hope you had a happy new years- ah! yes, of course, it was your birthday as well! how was it?”

“yeah, alright, thanks. was just a quiet night in for me.”

| Φ |

the rest of the school year passed by in a hazy kaleidoscope of colours.

it certainly wasn’t rosy, but it was satoru and her, and all the colors that made him.

mostly, he was dripping in hues of red.

vibrant and lusciously full of life, satoru exuded a sort of confidence that made her want to grit her teeth. she was jealous of him when he was like this – a glorious star of red that burned bright and hot. she wished she could put up her own veil of red to the world, something gushing with so much vitality and mirth that nobody could ever guess she was green with sadness. but it was all a front, a distraction to hide what he was feeling deep down.

because above all, satoru was blue.

she knew it had everything to do with suguru. he would withdraw from the world, hiding away in his bedroom for days. she'd knock on his door, and satoru would answer with heavy bags under his eyes and a glossy sheen in them. he wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t sleep either – just lie there and stare up at he ceiling like he wanted to float up through the atmosphere and into space.

but the worst was when he was purple.

an infinity that blended his melancholy and beauty. satoru was borderline cruel, even a touch mad, when he was like this. he’d flash everyone a stellar smile, drawing them in while his fangs glinted, enticing them with the sweetest honey they didn’t realize was dangerous until they were trapped in its sticky depths.

she recognized him for what he was in those moments.

something pretty to look at but never, ever to touch.

still, she gradually came to understand all of satoru’s colors the way he understood hers. she learned how to dip a paintbrush in them all and create something different. there were soft, cooler tones for his burning red to sizzle out against, streaks of yellow through his blue to remind him of the light within him.

none of it was perfect.

it was jagged and messy at the best of times, but it was real. eventually, satoru learned to sit there and take the time to paint too, his hands shaking and unsteady, with an indomitable will to fight through it all.

and now, at the beginning of the summer, she knew satoru gojo was healing when he said to her, “come with me.”

she looked up questioningly. “what?”

“come with me,” he repeated casually, not lifting his eyes from his sheet of messily scrawled calculations. “come and spend the summer with me in tokyo.”

tokyo.

that seemingly faraway place where everybody wanted to end up. where a persons merit was deemed worth enough if they had made it there. the place where love ran away to die a death unseen, still but acutely felt, even through all the distance.

it felt forbidden to her.

that it was toji’s place to hide away, and she would ruin it all for him if she went there.

satoru glanced up when her silence stretched on for too long. his eyebrow quirked up unimpressed. “if it’s money you’re worried about, then don’t. you can stay with me at my place. my parents won’t mind.”

“it’s not that,” she mumbled, rubbing a pink sugar packet between her fingers.

he pursed his lips, shutting his book, and got up from his seat. motioning for her to take his place, satoru set about preparing something. she furrowed her brows, perplexed, but trying to focus on his calculations to avoid staring at him.

and then, a steaming mug of green tea appeared – a pool of pale green staring up at her like a ghost.

“drink it,” satoru ordered, but his voice was gentle, like a helping hand. “if i can go back, you can do this.”

she stared at him for a moment longer, her heart ticking faster like the sound of an alarm clock about to ring. she thought of the law of inertia, and how she had remained motionless, stuck in the same place for so long. maybe it was time to move on, to overcome her own resistance and start moving again. a year had passed, after all, and if he could just run away and live his life, then so could she.

and with that, she took a sip.

| Φ |

“i just want to say that i’m very proud of you and your progress over the last few months. you’re doing very well for yourself.”

“ah, hah! well, thankyou.”

| Φ |

satoru gojo was rich.

she already knew that he was. it wasn’t like he bragged about it often, but she could just tell. it was in the little things he did – or didn’t do. he always wore good quality shirts, the kind that weren’t so prone to wrinkles, and they always looked like they had been pressed by someone else who did it for a living. he never even thought to check his receipts for his grocery shop after swiping his card at the till, and she would click her tongue in amazement at not having to worry about such a thing.

but she didn’t realize just how filthy rich he was until she stepped foot into his apartment.

her jaw had actually dropped.

because of course he had a penthouse, and of course it was like something straight out an interior design magazine. with its floor-to-ceiling windows that hugged the whole space, and perfectly balanced blend of modern and traditional minimalism. there was the scent of tasteful freshness around her, something that was actually much like satoru – linen and eucalyptus, with a hint of peppery sweetness.

she couldn’t help but feel a little giddy.

“satoru,” she whispered with glittering awe on her tongue. “tell me something.”

he hummed questioningly, throwing his two duffle bags onto the floor and collapsing with a huff onto the sofa. “what?”

“why the fuck would you move to our shitty university when you live here?”

“oh, this? my family home is much bigger, actually. just wait til you see that.”

“you- you mean this… isn’t?”

satoru barked out a laugh. “no, this is just my own place.”

“pft!”

the sun had fallen below the skyscrapers, and she pressed her head against the cooled glass to watch the bustling world below her. the lights were twinkling madly, winking at her like they were trying to entice her out into the streets with all its colorful neon signs and billboards. her fingers twitched with anticipation, and she squealed in excitement.

“let’s go, lets go!” she exclaimed suddenly, feeling a burst of energy to explore in a way she thought she had lost as a child. “c’mon!”

satoru grinned at her, and pushed himself off the sofa.

and so began a new summer, one made of blue and white instead of green, green, green.

there were plenty of late nights spent wandering the streets, savoring all sorts of vendors and restaurants. the occasional bar hop in shinjuku, stumbling and bumbling like buzzing bees drunk on nectar, weaving their way back to a train station to get home and sleep the heat of the day away, only to do it all over again.

tonight was one of those particular nights.

they had their arms around each other, her leaning on satoru much more heavily than he was on her. it was too late – or rather, far too early – to catch a train back to the penthouse. satoru was loathe to call his driver, because of course he just had access to one on call at all times and didn’t bother to use them.

“this is sooo much more fun anyways!” he slurred, a glossy bottom lip protruded in a pout.

she blew a raspberry at him, her feet aching and legs feeling numb, but whether it was from the alcohol or pure exhaustion, she couldn’t tell. it was all fun, really, a memory she knew she would always look back on. something to make her smile and shake her head at the antics she used to get up to.

oh, how growing older was so eerily strange.

one moment, she was playing hide and seek, scraping her hands and knees on the pavement as she learned how to ride a bike.

the next she was crying in a heap on the bathroom floor as the love of her life blocked her number and left.

poof!

like he had never even existed in the first place.

“poof!” she mumbled, feeling her stomach lurch with bubbling anxiousness.

“heyyy! what’re you thinkin about?”

satoru’s voice startled her, and she hadn’t realized she’d stopped moving or that the weight of him was no longer slowing her down. he was peering at her expectantly, two moons of blue shining through the dark and bathing her in his aura.

but he already knew.

satoru always knew.

he sighed, reaching out a hand to her like salvation. she realized that he was, her saving grace, her cerulean light at the end of that infinite tunnel of vacuum and green ink.

she slid her palm in his, their fingers tangling together and fitting perfectly together in each other’s equation.

“can i take you somewhere?” satoru whispered, staring in drunk awe at their hands stuck together.

“mhm.”

the sky was just starting to change, as the sun gently pressed delicate kisses to it, making it blush in strokes of indigo and pale orange. she didn’t know where they were going, and she didn’t care. her brain was far too tired to comprehend anything. all she knew was that she and satoru were on one of the first trains of the day, the rhythmic hum of the train was soothing, and his arm was around her.

and it felt nice.

when they eventually got off the train, satoru never let go of their hands or his arm around her, steadying her as the walked and walked.

until they finally stopped.

they were in the middle of a street, standing against the flow of people brushing past them on their morning commute. the smell of a kfc just behind them tickled her nose, making her empty stomach grumble in protest.

“satoru, what are we doing here?” she asked, voice heavy with sleepiness.

but he didn’t answer.

in fact, satoru was much too quiet, his grip on her hand acutely missing as he stared straight ahead. she followed his gaze to the bold white and black stripes of a pedestrian crossing a few meters away on the busy road beside them.

her mouth suddenly felt dry.

“it’s a strange thing, isn’t it?” satoru mumbled. “we’re in this plane of existence between innocence and death, and we all just continue on.”

the longer she stared at the crossing, the more she could have sworn she saw deep red splatters flashing on the white, staining the deep black with an unnatural dullness.

she wanted to be sick.

“but that’s all we can do, isn’t it? just move on. try to forget everything when you really just can’t, because there’s nothing you can fucking do to change a thing.”

change – a chemical change.

like when paper burns, or iron turns to old rust, or flesh decays deep down in the earth. things that change and never return to what they once were, no matter how hard you tried. that was just it, really. she was something like a cigarette, set alight and burned for all she was worth, only to be stubbed out on the concrete beneath an unforgiving shoe as soon as the hit was over.

she would never be the same.

who could?

“i’ll never forget suguru,” satoru sighed, like he was resigning himself to his fate. “but that doesn’t mean i don’t want to be free of him.”

be free.

she couldn’t imagine being free of toji.

“satoru,” she said, her voice like a feather floating in the wind. “why did you bring me here?”

“because… to show you that if i can be here, in the one place on earth i never want to be, that starting to let go is possible. that if i can do it, then so can you.”

could she?

could she really be free?

she bit her lip, willed herself not to burst out crying in the middle of a very public street. the music was loud here – quite loud, in fact. and satoro was there in a pristine white shirt, holding a match to her, gently setting her on fire in a beautiful green flame, letting her atoms scatter and roam free wherever they wanted to go.

she nodded slowly.

maybe…

maybe it wasn’t so frightening after all.

| Φ |

“so, how did it go?”

“i just couldn’t fucking do it. i choked up as soon as i heard her voice.”

| Φ |

before she knew it, the summer was already coming to an end.

“maybe i could do my phd, then i’d be able to put ‘doctor’ on all my legal documents. wouldn’t that be cool?”

“seriously? you haven’t had enough of academia yet?”

she and satoru were lounging on his pristine sofa. it was so soft she felt like she was sitting on a cloud, sinking into its fluffy depths, drowning in powdered marshmallows and the crisp scent of fabric freshener. even though the holidays were nearly over, the days were still much too hot to venture outside into – a fierce heat that made her feel like a piece of fish sizzling on a frying pan. instead, they would pig out and binge television shows in the cool comfort of the air conditioning, some the peak of entertainment that would spark passionate discussions.

others not so much.

“ok, this is fuckin stupid,” satoru muttered, prickly annoyance lacing his words like cactus spines. “i’m changing this shit.”

she only hummed, absentmindedly scrolling through her social media feed. it had been far too long for her to try and remember the last time she had been on any kind of social app, but there wasn’t much else to do during the day, and the mood had just struck her to see what sorts of things people she barely knew were up to.

it was pretty much what she expected.

a seemingly endless stream of aesthetic travel and lifestyle photos, silly poses with overly wide smiles. the occasional engagement announcement, compilations of sappy wedding posts, and even the odd pregnancy reveal. how funny it was to watch everyone’s lives moving on through pixels on a screen.

until it decidedly wasn’t.

her thumb froze mid-swipe.

oh.

“oh my god.”

satoru tilted his head towards her, his eyes still fixed on the tv screen. “what?”

it was really him.

toji.

there was no mistake about it. he was standing there with his knuckles wrapped in white bandages, his chest bare and glistening with a thin sheen of sweat, a minuscule smile tugging at his lips as he posed beside shiu kong. the backdrop was clearly a gym – the mirrors behind them reflecting a sleek array of expensive looking equipment.

hard work pays off! for a limited time only, fushiguro is offering a special discount for new clients 💪 dm us to get booked in with the man himself!

she couldn’t breath.

she stared so hard at the photo that her vision blurred, her chest tightening like a snake had coiled itself around her, squeezing for all it was worth. like toji could see her through the screen and was laughing at her and how crippled she was by such a small thing. this had to be a joke. some sick, cosmic joke that the angel’s were snickering about as they dipped their quills back into their ink pots. her pulse thrummed in her ears, blocking out the world and the music and everything.

until it was just her and her phone and that damn photo.

she hated how the first thought she had was how much she missed him.

and how unfairly attractive he still looked.

upon clicking on shiu’s account, she scrolled through post after post documenting the journey of the gym’s grand opening. it was clear that bucketloads of blood and sweat that had gone into the place, with plenty of videos showing the two of them actively contributing to build it. she didn’t need to be an expert to tell that it was a great place to go, and her chest constricted again.

so, he actually did it.

he went and did what he said he was going to do.

and i’m still here.

“hey, what’s up? you get another weird silent call?”

she flinched.

satoru’s voice yanked her back into the present, a curious lilt in his question. his baby blues were fixed on her, the tv remote in his hand swinging lazily back and forth in his hand as he fiddled with it.

she bit her lip, shutting her screen off with a sharp click.

“oh, it’s nothing.”

why didn’t she want to admit it?

oh right, she was supposed to be moving on from all this.

“uh-huh,” satoru deadpanned, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. “what were you looking at?”

there really was no hiding anything from him, was there?

with an exasperated sigh, she unlocked her phone and flipped it over for him to see. satoru squinted at the screen, plucking her phone from her hands for a closer look. a white brow arched in what seemed like a mixture of disgust and recognition as he zoomed in, the sofa creaking softly beneath him as he leaned back into the cushions with a huff.

“well,” he quipped, a strange edge to his voice as he handed back her phone. “you know he’s alive.”

she didn’t say anything, her hands trembling as she set her phone down on the coffee table, farther away than it needed to be, as if it had stung her.

it had.

satoru sighed, and asked much more gently this time, “do you want to talk about it?”

“what’s there to talk about?” she replied far too quickly, the words tasting too much like bile.

the silence stretched on.

somewhere far below, a car honked aggressively, the sound faint and barely audible this high up from the hustle and bustle of tokyo. the beginnings of trailers and clips from shows began to play in the background, but neither of them seemed to be paying attention to it.

“if you ever saw him again, wha–”

“satoru. i don’t want to play that game.”

“it’s not a game if it’s a genuine question.”

“i–fuck! i don’t even know.”

“c’mon, you must have thought about it before.”

she groaned exasperatedly. “satoru.”

“what?”

“can we not talk about this?”

“no, we’re gonna talk about it. what if we bump into him while you’re here?”

“ugh, i just… wouldn’t say anything i guess.”

“seriously?”

“well, what more do you want?”

“you’d have absolutely nothing to say to the guy? you wouldn’t fucking scream at him, hit him? something?”

“no, and why should i? he’s the one that left me, and he doesn’t deserve even one word. he’s clearly moved on, and so am i.”

“right, because you totally looked over it just there.”

her jaw tightened, and she scowled at him.

“fuck off.”

it was quiet for a heartbeat until, “that’s what i would say for a start,” satoru snorted.

she rolled her eyes, rubbed them wearily, and let out a half-hearted laugh. “shut up.”

“that works too if he decides to speak, and then i’d swoop in and deck the guy.”

“are you sure you wanna do that?”

“excuse me, are you implying i couldn’t take him?”

“you definitely couldn’t.”

“uh, yes i could. quite easily, actually.”

he flexed his bicep, tilting his head and nodding approvingly at the taut muscle. she barked out a laugh, despite the churning feeling twisting her stomach with acid.

what would she actually say?

fuck you for leaving me.

what was the point of it all?

you could have at least said goodbye to me. i know i messed up, but i didn’t deserve what you did to me.

or maybe she would she just turn around and run away, just like he had? it was so easy to imagine that she would be brave enough to stand her ground and give him a piece of her mind. but she didn’t think she would. she would always be doomed to dig her roots deeper into the ground, hold her tongue, and silently defend herself against the battering storm.

“let’s not think about that anymore, yeah?” satoru attempted encouragingly, giving her foot a teasing nudge. “out of sight, out of mind, am i right?”

she smiled tightly. “right.”

right?

| Φ |

“you still mean to go through with your plan?”

“yeah. i don’t even know if she’ll be there, but i have to start somewhere, and… i don’t know. it feels like the right place.”

| Φ |

before she knew it, it was the start of winter.

that familiar crisp cold air was settling on her nose and tongue, jolting her tired bones into feeling just a little more alive. it wasn’t snowing, not yet, but it certainly wasn’t far behind. she tucked her hands into the crooks of her elbows, quietly chided herself for forgetting her gloves at home.

as per usual, she was on her way to the cafe.

she had been working a lot more than usual lately. satoru’s final year was significantly busier than his previous years, so he hadn’t been working as much, leaving her and her other colleague’s to bear the brunt of the busy end-of-year season. not that she minded, her brain had been quite preoccupied lately, and actual work was a better distraction than her studies.

she didn’t really understand what or why she was feeling so strange.

it was almost like something bigger than herself. the anticipation of the drop before leaping off a diving board, or the creeping dread that something was coming for you. that things were about to change too quickly for her to even try and keep up.

she hoped it was just all in her head.

the cafe was just around the corner now, its familiar sign flickering and wonderfully colourful against the grey clouds that hung darkly over the afternoon like an omen. she quickened her pace, boots crunching loudly against the pavement, already imagining the comforting blast of warmth that would envelope her as soon as she stepped inside. the windows were fogged over, but she could still make out the warm glow of the lamps and the outline of customers hunched over their drinks.

the doorbell chimed as she walked in, the strong scent of cinnamon swirling through up her nose like an old friend’s greeting. it was predictable and grounding, and the unease that had been chasing her for weeks was left outside to freeze in the cold.

until she walked outside again.

but that was a problem for after her shift.

“oh, thank god you're here!" her manager exclaimed, dashing past her as she shrugged off her coat, a tray of teacups balanced precariously with one hand. "can you handle the to-go's?”

from that moment on, for the next hour, she was thrown into a frazzled mess of oat milk and sickly sweet caramel syrup. her apron was stained within ten minutes, and she kept apologizing profusely for any sort of delay, even if they had only been waiting for a minute or two, or whenever she brushed against a customer's hand with her sticky syrup fingers to return their change.

it was chaos, to say the least.

she felt like a machine on autopilot, firing through order after order, hardly paying attention to anything but the job at hand.

the bell chimed – again.

she tapped the side of the cinnamon shaker against a styrofoam cup, a blinding ray of unexpected sunlight slanting through the windows. the world was suddenly skewed, an equation of pure molten gold weaving together this plane of existence for just one precious moment.

a cup clattered loudly.

huh, the sun must have come out.

a shadow fell across the counter, long and somewhat familiar.

“oh, sorry for the wait! what can–”

she looked up, the words dying painfully in her throat like shards of shattering glass.

and there he was.

the boy with dark hair standing there with his hands in his pockets, just like he used to.

it all felt so frighteningly familiar, like she'd been here before in another lifetime. she would have believed it too, because the moment stretched infinitely, impossibly, dragging on and on. it was him and his green eyes and that perfect golden scar on his lip that warped the world according to his own laws of gravity and time. she'd once traced that scar with her fingers, had once loved it, and brought forth a teardrop of blood from it.

her breath hitched.

the music was frighteningly loud now, as though the angels had been waiting for their beautiful muse to come back to them after all this time. it curled in the space between them, across the counter, beckoning their fingers to reach out and touch each other again.

toji.

she didn't say his name, couldn't. it looped in her mind like the numbers and greek letters she'd pondered over for years, never quite able to solve – maybe not even wanting to. if she did, he might just disappear altogether again. even if a part of her wanted him to, it was unbelievably sickening how her body and soul craved the sight of him.

her fingers twitched uncomfortably.

you can't be real.

no, you're not. none of this is real.

he was equal parts familiar and foreign. his mop of black hair just a touch longer than she remembered it to be, but still in that same messy style that was his. but what struck her the most were his clothes. they weren’t faded or worn, no random holes poking through anywhere. they were all clean and ironed, with a well- structured black coat over it all that looked like had just bought it from a shop and put it on.

he wasn't the same, no. that much was obvious.

but it's still you.

the cinnamon shaker slipped from her fingers, clattering onto the counter, its echo piercing through the void.

she gasped, “oh, s-sorry!”

and then he finally spoke. “s'alright.”

oh, toji.

his voice was rougher, deeper, yet even quieter than it used to be. it struck her chest like a hammer, reverberating throughout her hollowed bones and down the long hallway where the angels scribbled on their scrolls. he was staring at her like he was trying to solve her too, trying to decipher how she was really feeling on the inside.

she hated it.

hated how he was in a position that meant he knew her, even a little bit. hated that he knew everything, and would know that slight change in her face when she was about to smile or about to cry. hated how it took just about everything she had not to run away.

but most of all, she hated how she wanted nothing more than to just go to him.

to reach across the counter and pull him into her. to say how sorry she was and how much she had missed him, even beg him not to leave again.

i don’t want to love you anymore.

i wish, i wish, i wish i never did.

“i didn't think you would still be here,” he admitted, a tone of surprise in his words.

she felt a flash of annoyance.

how dare he acknowledge that she was still in the same place? it was embarrassing – shameful – that he had been able to go off and do what he said he was going to do, and she hadn't. that she was left behind in the dust of everyone else who had moved on.

“i'm doing my masters,” she replied flatly.

toji’s face fell a little at her tone, and he rubbed the back of his neck. “that's great! really. you were always smart. not that you aren't now, obviously.”

she only stared blankly at him. “would you like to order something?”

toji hesitated, his chapped lips parting, but then the doorbell chimed behind him, loud and jarring.

“hey! it's absolutely freezing outside, isn’t it?” satoru's unmistakable drawl lashed through the air like a whip, larger than life.

her head whipped towards him, an immediate wave of relief washing over her before it was replaced by cold, hard dread. toji turned slightly, glancing at the boy with starlight hair who had strolled in like he owned the place. satoru's easy grin landed on her, dazzling her in his red.

until he noticed who was standing in front of her.

his eyes turned to ice, narrowing into daggers like he was ready to slice toji up into pieces. then, deliberately slow, satoru strutted over, plonking himself behind the counter right beside her, casually leaning forward as if he had all the time in the world.

“you need something?” satoru asked dangerously, his words dipped in a deep purple.

toji looked between the two of them, and something in those green eyes of his made her feel uneasy, even a dash of unwarranted guilt. his fists were tight, fingernails digging his palm so hard it made her own hands hurt. without saying another word, he swiveled on his heels and walked back out the door, disappearing into the afternoon that had gone grey again.

“nice meeting you!” satoru called out after him, a heavy hand resting on her shoulder.

but toji was already long gone.

| Φ l

satoru didn’t want to leave her alone.

“he doesn’t know where i live,” she’d hissed as they walked back to her studio together, a brooding hulk of a guard dog beside her. “satoru! you’re acting like a lunatic.”

“shut up, will you?” he snapped, his eyes darting suspiciously at every person who passing by. “he knows where you work.”

“i think that was just a random chance,” she mumbled quietly, her breath coming out in small, hot puffs, not sure why she was even defending toji at all.

but satoru had just ignored her, ushering her through the door of her building like the boy in question was right behind them, shutting it with a particularly loud slam! she almost felt like she was in trouble for something, even though rationally she knew that absolutely none of this was her fault.

she had just never seen satoru so unbelievably angry.

after firmly making sure she had eaten something wholesome, and after much convincing on her part that she definitely wasn’t planning to leave her apartment for the night, satoru finally left her alone. not before giving her a long, hard look that made it clear that if she needed him, she was to call him immediately.

she might have been touched by it if she wasn’t so utterly consumed by thoughts of toji.

why had he come? why now?

why, why, why?

endless questions swirled around her brain, circling like a goldfish swimming around a perfectly clear crystal bowl. she lay there on her bed, the only light coming from a flickering streetlight outside. sleep was completely out of the question for tonight, so she counted the seconds between each rhythmic flicker of light, trying pathetically to distract herself from it all.

just when she might have been able to slip into the darkness of a dreamless sleep, her phone lit up beside her.

buzz! buzz!

she frowned, not recognizing the unfamiliar number.

“hello?”

“hey, uh- it’s me.”

her heart stopped, then stuttered back to life. she sat upright, gripping her phone tighter.

“sorry, you weren’t asleep were you?” toji continued, his tone slightly sheepish.

she blinked. “no.”

“oh, great!” he cleared his throat. “i didn’t think you’d pick up.”

“it’s late.”

there was a pause. “right, yeah. well, i just… i wanted to call you for a while now, but i don’t know. it just didn’t feel right to talk to you over the phone.”

she waited with bated breath.

“about what?”

she knew exactly what.

“i just wanted to say that i’m sorry.”

of course she knew – in the same way that the universe might have known the big bang was coming. that existence was on the brink of becoming itself after an explosion, stretching and rippling outward like a drop of water in an infinite ocean.

there was another pause, followed by a deep breath. “i don’t expect calling you to fix everything that i did, but i wanted to start by telling you that i’m so sorry for everything.”

did the universe know it was going to hurt this much?

“i'm so sorry,” he continued in a fragile whisper. “for the way i ran away and left you like that. and i'm sorry for being such a coward.”

maybe it had been okay with it. that’s just how something grows, isn’t it? a sudden explosion of growing pains to become something better, newer.

“you didn't deserve it.”

but the universe was born silently when it exploded into existence – a voiceless scream as creation erupted into being. she wondered how long it had been quiet for after it was all over.

“you still there?”

“yeah.”

she wondered if she would be silent too.

“well i-uh, i know that you've probably moved on from all this, but i just wanted to try and make things right.”

“mhm.”

he coughed, and cleared his throat. “you know, i went to therapy.”

“you did?”

“yeah. it was… kinda forced on me at the beginning, but i knew that i needed it to start fixing myself. i learned a lot about myself, and about why i did what i did. and i know that i definitely didn’t deserve you back then, but that i also didn't deserve to come back you if i was still the same.”

“and do you think you're... fixed now?”

“yeah, i’m just trying to be better.”

the light outside flickered again. one, two...

“you know... there's nothing you can say that'll make me forget what you did.”

three.

a sharp inhale, followed by a rough, “i know.”

“and you can’t just expect to walk back into my life like nothing happened.”

“i know.”

she turned over, burying her face in her pillow, the phone pressed against her ear.

“but that's not why i called you,” toji murmured. “i’m not trying to get you to forget what happened, because i can't either. but i’ve changed, and i just want to try and make things a little better, and to maybe be... friends, at least.”

“you want to be friends now?”

he paused for a long time.

“if you'd be okay with that, then yeah.”

“look, toji, i- i don't know.”

“i’d understand if you don't want to, believe me. and if you never want to hear or see me again then i’d get that too. and its selfish of me to even ask you this in the first place, but i have to try and keep you in my life because i still need you.”

holy good god.

“and i think about you all the time, every single day for the past two years, because you're it for me. you’re my person, and even if you don't want the same as me, then that's okay. i’d rather have you as a friend than nothing at all.”

what was she even supposed to say to that?

“and even as a friend, i promise not to leave like that again.”

“but what if i don’t want you as a friend? what if i don’t want you as anything to me anymore?”

“then i’ll leave.”

even the angels had stopped writing, their quills frozen mid-number as they peered over their desks, watching the two little humans they had tangled together in a messy scrawl of numbers and letters.

“say something,” toji said, a sad desperation in his voice. “please.”

“you hurt me, toji. do you know how much i hated you for that?”

“believe me, its not more than how much i hated myself for doing it.”

don't say it, don't say it, don't say it.

don’t you dare.

“okay,” she whispered.

“okay?”

her mind buzzed with thoughts and the consequences of allowing toji fushiguro back into her life. she thought of satoru, and how angry he would be, and how her brain screamed with all the words she wanted to hurl at toji about the true extent of how much he had hurt her.

but that didn’t matter, not yet.

not when he was here and promising to stay – to stay and be there for her, to listen to everything she had to say.

there was time for all of that.

and perhaps it was time to be born anew in a different universe.

“yeah, okay, but i can’t just be around you like that again. it doesn’t work that way, and i need time to get used to… you.”

toji’s voice sounded more hopeful, more positive, like the sun had broken through the clouds and was shining down on him again. “y-yeah, i get that! i’ll wait! however long it takes, i’ll wait.”

“okay,” she said quietly, almost as if reassuring herself.

“well it’s-uh late, i guess,” he said, a shaky cheerfulness in his voice that made the ghost of a smile play on her lips. “goodnight, and maybe call you tomorrow?”

“goodnight, toji.”

the line went quiet.

fuck.

but her mind certainly didn’t.

| Φ |

“it really brings me so much joy to have been able to help you, toji.”

“haha, thanks, but god, i just had so much more to say to her, ya know? but i think there’s still a chance, and i have you to thank for it.”

| Φ |

having toji fushiguro back in her life didn’t seem real.

it was slow and awkward, like dipping her toe into the cold sea again after having forgotten what it felt like. of course, he couldn’t stay in town for too long. tokyo and his work were calling him back, and she understood. so, they mainly kept in touch through texting, which was basically an all day affair. every spare moment they had, whether it was in between her making a cup of coffee, during study breaks, or toji in between training sessions. it would be a lie to say she wasn’t clinging tightly to every text, or that her heart didn’t leap every time her phone buzzed.

but it was also easy.

something she could nestle into, like a gentle wind beneath a bird’s wings.

sometime during the quiet nights of spring, they began calling each other to fill the silence.

“hey,” toji would greet, a bashful shyness in his voice, and she could tell that he was smiling.

she’d bite her lip to keep her own smile from forming. “hi.”

he’d ask her about her day, and all about what she was doing – every little mundane detail, as if toji was trying to collect all the parts of her that he’d missed. she told him about about her course, what she had been up to, and even about the summer she spent with satoru. he’d even ask her to remind him of some of the theories and laws she had told him about all those years ago, and she couldn’t tell if it was because he wanted to genuinely learn them again or if he just wanted to keep her on the phone longer.

she asked him about his life too. she learned that it was only a month after he arrived in tokyo that toji bumped into shiu kong in a random pachinko parlor. they had gotten talking, and before toji could count to three, shiu was already drawing up business plans for their doja on the back of a napkin. it was perfect, really. toji had the physical experience, and shiu had the connections – and, most importantly, the money.

“you know, i don’t think i’ll ever get used to just having money like this,” toji admitted, and she wanted to cry.

one day, after clearly skirting around the topic for some time, toji finally asked her, “so, uh, is satoru your…” he smacked his lips together. “boyfriend?”

“pft! no.”

his relief had been quite palpable.

“what about you?” she returned, chewing the inside of her cheek and tasting acrid metal. “have you been seeing anybody in tokyo?”

“no,” toji replied gently, like it was so silly she even asked in the first place. “not one.”

she knew her pathetic relief was most definitely palpable.

although, it wasn’t always so easy.

more often than not, just when they thought they had slipped into a sense of familiarity, the harsh reminders of the past came knocking. both of them would test the waters, perhaps asking a question that was too deep, too painful – usually about how they had coped in those early days of being apart.

it was just too hard for either of them to hear the answers. toji didn’t exactly enjoy hearing just how much she had hated him, or how utterly crippled she was for the first couple of months after he left. she could tell that it tore him up on the inside, and a part of her liked it. he deserved to feel every ounce of guilt he was capable of, and then some.

“you want to know what it felt like for me, do you?” she hissed, so much venom gushing from her bite that it even surprised her. “well, i’ll fucking tell you then.”

and she did, in great detail.

toji would snap back too, it was only human of him to.

“what, you think i had an easy time trying to fix myself?” he’d say, his voice quaking and breaking apart her resolve. “i didn’t. i was fucking miserable all the fucking time, and everytime i looked in the mirror i had my scar reminding me of my biggest fuck-up to date.”

those conversations usually ended up with her abruptly hanging up the phone and crying herself to sleep.

but she would always wake up to a message from toji, and they were always so incredibly gentle. he’d tell her how he just wanted them both to shed the weight of all their pain off their shoulders, and for her not to worry about how he felt heari all those things. that he could take it all – the pain, everything.

and that he still wasnt going anywhere.

it really struck her in those moments just how much he had changed.

still, there was something holding her back from falling back into him again.

and she wasn’t sure if it was because of satoru, who was less than impressed by it all.

“he called you, didn’t he?” he asked the day after toji called the first time, twirling a sugar packet between his fingers like he didn’t care what her answer was.

she gave him a look, saying nothing, and licked her dry lips.

he let out a long sigh, rubbing a hand over his face. “so…what? are you two back together now?”

“no,” she admitted quietly, feeling like a child about to be scolded. “but i’ve given him a chance.”

satoru’s eyes flashed a bright cerulean, like a star burning the brightest blue it ever could, before his gaze hardened.

finally, he grunted, “i get it.”

she almost spilled the latte she had been preparing.

he quirked a brow at her incredulous look and muttered, “i can’t sit here and pretend i wouldn’t do the same for suguru if i was able to.”

but before her smile could look too relieved, satoru added rather sharply, “but that doesn’t mean i like this.”

and that was that.

he never once asked how they were getting on or what they talked about. whenever her phone buzzed with a notification, he stared at it like he wanted to burn holes into it, but he said nothing – only a tight grimace appeared on his face, and that told her exactly how he felt about toji fushiguro.

and now, it was the end of her very last semester in the world of academics.

it was really dawning on her this time that her goodbyes would be final. that these last couple of months would be her last at the cafe and at the studio apartment she had eventually learned to love. on satoru’s insistence, she had decided to move on and get a proper job after graduating. he had told her he knew some contacts in tokyo who could hook them both up with decent jobs within the industry, and who was she to say no to that?

besides, it was nice to know that she wouldn’t be alone in this big, bad world.

she slipped through the door of the cafe, wiping the damp from her shoes on the entrance mat. there weren’t many students in studying at this time, the busier hours actually came later, at the start of the all-nighters. the students must have all heard that it was a quiet cafe at night, and now everyone came at the same time. the smell of sweet, buttery pastries made her tummy grumble, and she put a hand over her abdomen, as if that would quiet it down.

it did, because sitting right at the booth by the counter, was toji.

with satoru.

both their expressions were unreadable, but toji was hunched forward, nodding solemnly to whatever it was satoru was saying. her best friend had a towel draped over his taut shoulder, his starlight hair a mess, like he’d run his fingers through it one too many times.

she hesitated at the door.

what is going on?

satoru noticed her first, and his sentence trailed off like fading music. his gaze held hers firmly, fiercely. she felt that if she looked away, the world would crumble beneath her feet, and she would surely die. then, toji turned too, and the wind was knocked right out of her.

the cafe suddenly felt too small, not nearly big enough for all three of them and the weight of their pasts. satoru moved first, beckoning her over with his hand. her feet moved of their own accord, like she was a piece of metal drawn towards a magnet, helpless in trying to resist his pull.

“well,” satoru said lightly, placing the towel onto the counter. “i was just leaving.”

her throat tightened. “satoru.”

she didn’t know why the thought of being alone with toji felt more terrifying than being with both of them together, but it did. but the look that he gave her stopped her cold. it wasn’t harsh, not in the slightest, but it was mesmerizing – a thousand and one blue stars were exploding in his eyes. it made her heart hurt, her head swim with all the colors that made satoru gojo who he was. and then the stars softened into something warm and comforting, and she knew he was trying to tell her something without words.

he glanced at toji.

then back to her, giving her a barely perceptible nod.

it’s okay.

you can trust him.

she huffed a breath, the relief hitting her all at once. satoru turned back to toji, giving him a brief nod, and then he was out of the door.

a folded sheet of paper lay in front of toji, his large hand placed over it like he was afraid it might flutter away. she stood behind the counter now, a shy smile tugging at her lips as she tied her apron.

“i wanted to give this back to you,” toji said before she could say anything, a dusting of pretty pink on his cheeks as he slid the paper towards her. “i’m sorry for ripping your book.”

she unfolded the familiar paper, noting how the creases were soft and a little worn, and skimmed over the words.

oh my.

it was the page satoru had told her was missing from her book, the one about the theory of relativity, and right there in the corner was the equation for quantum entanglement written in blue ink.

“you once told me that when two particles belong together, they’ll always be connected no matter the distance between them. i’ve never forgotten it, not once this whole time.”

and then his hand was over hers, and the world and her heart was on fire.

“you still believe it?” she asked, her voice trembling, as she stared down at his thumb brushing her knuckles with a tenderness she had forgotten.

“yeah, because everything that i do, and everything that i am, is you.”

she didn’t know what toji fushiguro and satoru gojo had said to each other that day.

and perhaps she never would.

but as she poured toji a fresh batch of green tea into a big mug the way she used to, it didn’t really matter at all, did it?

| Φ |

“take care now, and i wish you all the best.”

“goodbye! and really, thankyou. for everything.”

| Φ |

today was a profoundly bittersweet occasion.

“satoru! i can’t believe this is actually happening.”

“well, you might want to start soon.”

it was her graduation day.

again.

there was some parts of it that felt unnervingly familiar, setting her teeth a slightly on edge at the reminders of the past. her kimono was laid neatly on her bed, exactly as it had been the first time. she was sat cross-legged in front of a mirror doing her makeup exactly the same way as she had on that fateful day.

but this time, it already felt better than it did the last time.

she wasn’t paralyzed with worry over the disappearance of a certain dark haired boy. she wasn’t sitting here working herself into a nervous fit over her future. no, she was here, in a new home with her best friend in the whole world. the one who had held her chin and tilted her head for her to look back up towards the stars. the one who had helped steady her shaking bones, his arms around her as he had called back the scattered atoms of her broken soul.

she looked at him fondly, far too fondly, and her angel of the stars looked back at her, alarmingly perplexed, his cheeks flushed in a bright strawberry red. “what?” he mumbled shyly.

he only got a giggle from her, her knees bouncing off the floor with a rush of excitement. she grinned as she she delicately swiped her mascara over her lashes, and satoru shook his head in confusion. he sat down carefully at the edge of her bed, smoothing out any little folds that had formed in her kimono. it was satoru’s graduation gift to her, actually – the kimono. they had picked out the fabric together, spending hours hiking through ridiculously expensive textiles that she insisted was too much, before settling on a luxuriously silky material with green and blue sakura flowers fluttering down the length of the fabric.

“you should have a piece of me on that stage,” he’d said, pointing to the blue petals, then to the green. “and i guess he deserves to be there too.”

it was then easy for her to decide that satoru gojo must be an angel.

she glanced at him again. “are you going to go and get ready, or what?”

“oh, psht! that wont take me long, don’t worry.”

he was currently in a plain black t-shirt and jeans, hair extra fluffy and untamable, and looked absolutely nowhere near ready to attend a graduation ceremony in less than an hour and a half.

“you better not, or i’ll actually kill you.”

satoru only rolled his eyes at that. “yeah yeah, sure. so you can give toji my ticket? no chance.”

while there had been a fragile peace between the two, and satoru didn’t grimace everytime she mentioned toji, he certainly still wasn’t as fond of the dark haired boy as she would have liked by this point.

“speaking of,” satoru continued with an air of nonchalance. “what is the guy doing today without a ticket?”

it had already been decided some time ago that satoru would be the one to have the spare ticket to her graduation. by the time toji had started getting closer to her, it had been too late to change it, and maybe it was also the faint lingering trauma from what had happened at the last one. she was hesitant to give it to him, and it would be a lie to say that toji wasnt disappointed.

though he had tried his best to hide it, she could see right through him.

“oh, he said he would try and sneak in the back to watch. if not, i’ll just meet him at the cafe later tonight.”

her best friend only hummed, watching with fascinated interested, his head tilted as she put her makeup on.

“sneaking in, huh? doesn’t really seem like his style.”

she shrugged her shoulders, blending an extra touch of concealer with her fingers. “he really wants to try and be there for me this time, you know?”

“as he should. i was sorta worried about you both for a while.”

“huh, you? worried about toji?”

“yeah, you’re right. it’s more of a very bland interest.”

she gave him a hard look.

“okay, okay! honestly though, i felt like the only thing stopping him from really getting to you was me. and that after we had that conversation, he would just dive straight back into what you guys had without a second thought.”

she glanced at satoru through the mirror. “well, neither of you want to tell me what you said to each other.”

“mind your business!”

“pft!”

“anyways, i guess it was more that i was worried about something happening and it tearing you apart again. i can’t watch that happen, not after you’ve just put yourself back together.”

satoru sighed, his knee bouncing rapidly. “and, well… i suppose i can only really ask you about how it's going.”

her hands suddenly felt stiff, and she set down her brush. “it’s not… easy, sometimes. we’ve talked about everything that happened, and its painful, but it also just feels good. there’s a part of me that feels more stitched together than i did before. we’re not perfect yet, but we’re both trying, and it’s nice.”

she added more softly. “we laugh more than we used to. a lot now, actually.”

the blue nebula in his eyes sparkled. “yeah?”

“haha, yeah.”

satoru hummed thoughtfully, “you really think its different this time?”

“yeah, i do, satoru.”

“you know, i’ve never told you this, but you say my name the way suguru used to.”

a shaky, lopsided smile played on her lips, her eyes glossing over. “he must have really loved you then.”

satoru’s pearly lashes fluttered, as if he was startled by the weight of her words, and another bashful blush spread across his cheeks, his lips forming a glossy pout.

“like i do,” she added, more teasingly this time. “in case that wasnt obvious enough already.”

“right, okay,” satoru huffed, rubbing the back of his neck as he turned his head away from her. “don’t get all mushy on me now, miss graduate.”

he got up and patted down his jeans, his fingers slipping into his left pocket to feel for his invitation. “i guess i’ll see you after it’s over.”

she squealed excitedly. “okay! see you later!”

| Φ |

the air outside the auditorium was positively electric.

huh, i must have missed out on this feeling the last time.

there were plenty of nervous, jittery smiles and hand shakes as the waiting room buzzed with static energy. she mingled briefly with some of her classmates, musing with them at how far they had come and all the challenges they had overcome. some of them even talked about what their plans were for the future, a few jaws dropping when she quietly admitted where she would be working in tokyo. soon enough, they were all being ushered in to take their seats on the stage.

the reality of the moment was really sinking in as she took her seat. as she smoothed out her kimono, her eyes scanned the seemingly endless rows, which were filling fast with family members and close friends.

she frowned.

satoru’s unmistakable starlight hair was nowhere to be seen.

he must be running late. hopefully he gets here before it starts.

the lights dimmed, and the doors at the back of the auditorium shut with a decisive thud.

i’m really going to kill him.

her heart panged with disappointment.

and then she saw him.

toji fushiguro.

the boy with dark hair who used to never have much to say, and was perfectly happy with not being liked by anybody – except her. the boy with forests in his eyes and a scar on his lip that he didn’t let anybody touch – except her.

the one who hadn’t been there the last time and almost seemed out of place now.

but he was here – for her.

because she was the unexpected variable, the singular exception that had been thrown into his routine equation just to shake the foundations of his existence. and maybe there would be other inexplicable formulas – there probably would – but that didn’t matter. she knew the angels had entangled them together, and there was nothing more to do or say about it. because no matter what had happened, or what would happen, they belonged to each other.

there was a constant pull for each other souls through the broken skin of a golden scar.

satoru must have given him his ticket.

toji was grinning at her, so proud and perfect, standing up and clapping for her like she was the only person in the room as she accepted her certificate.

the music of the angels played on in her mind, bright and clear, for one last time.

and her equation was finally solved.

| Φ |

©storiesoflilies 2024, all rights reserved. please do not plagiarize, translate, or repost any of my work on other sites! i only post on ao3 and tumblr.

[ineffably-human]

So here's my problem.

And it's not about Nandermo, not exactly anyway. Because I didn't expect Nandermo to become textual until the very end, if at all. The show kept making it clear that they liked their ambiguity to keep the relationship on the razor's edge, and Paul Simms made it clearer and clearer that for some reason (put a pin in this) he just couldn't see their connection as a sexual one.

But I frankly don't care about that, because if anything is canon in this show it's that the vampires will eventually fuck everything, and Nandor canonically fucks his other friends. More importantly, their connection was always the emotional core of both characters. And Paul always did say he saw their relationship as a romance, if a strange and non-sexual one.

So I figured we'd maybe get Nandor confessing that Guillermo meant a lot to him (and immediately walking it back a little), or Guillermo confessing how lost he feels without his vampire dream and Nandor offering him a place. Maybe an ambiguous, could-just-be-queerplatonic-partners 'I love you'. Maybe just the hug they kept teasing for three or four seasons and never got. We got like...half of two of those, in episode 10, so I guess that's a wobbly semi-fulfilled thing by my definition of it.

But it's not the Nandermo of it all. It's the Guillermo of it all. And how this final episode seemed to almost mock Guillermo's place at the emotional core of the show.

And the Guillermo of it all is why we never got the Nandermo of it all.

Shadows has vampires doing absurd-ass things, but every character also has things they want and feel, and there are various amounts of emotional ink spilled about it. The show has found space, sometimes very poignant space, to take that seriously in between the piss and sex jokes. The vampires change very slowly and in spirals, they repeat a lot of their old issues that stem back even to their mortal lives. But they always try.

And things do change in the vampire house; that is not the same household from the first season. Every single character, right down to the Baron and the Guide and Derek, are in different and better places than they were before the show began. They've made progress in their individual desires, and a lot of that is due to the improved connections they have with each other, connections we've watched them foster. A lot of the time it's because they're talked about as a found family, something Guillermo started and Guillermo believed before any of the rest of them did.

---

So where is Guillermo this season? Our human point of view, our dynamic character, the character who has a dream and wants something more than any of the others? Whose dream drives the storyline of the entire show?

Guillermo has chosen to be human, and he thinks he can't be part of the household if he's not a vampire. We watch Guillermo try to throw himself back into the human world trying to make up for lost time - to the point that he forgets the person he called his best friend, the people he called his family, in a way I think we never fully resolve. He thinks he's thriving, and he doesn't even seem upset about leaving the others behind.

We watch him revert (and that's fine, people revert sometimes) to the same waiting lapdog he was when we started the series. We watch him realize that and he says no. Nandor stands up for him, and feels better and more fulfilled in doing so, and that's a great capstone for Nandor and Nandor's own tendency for selfishness. And that's excellent. Episode 10 was a great start for all the ground they had to cover.

Nandor offers for Guillermo to be his partner in crime. His sidekick, but Guillermo expressed that desire back in season one so it's not an insult inherently. But here's the problem. Here's the part of Guillermo that has frankly always been a problem, because I thought it's something the show was eventually going to cover respectfully, and instead it was always part of the joke.

---

Guillermo is someone who made a decision sixteen years ago as part of a very young man's desire, to be respected and have cool powers, to live forever, to see the world. (He somehow thought being a vampire, and only a vampire, could get him those things but that's a rant for another time.)

That young man has grown up. He's in his mid-thirties, he has a body count. We've watched him at various times be empathetic, clever, cunning, and brave. Also extremely sexy in bodyguard gear. (And for some reason, the show keeps wanting us to forget that for a season he was extremely competent and badass and sexy pretty much all the time, and he seemed thrilled to be in that role, and he didn't even care about being a vampire if he could protect Nandor in that way and be regarded as 'part of the team'.)

Then Nandor dresses him in a stupid cowboy costume, and gives him a sidekick name ending in 'Kid', which he seems less than thrilled about. They all still talk about him the entire episode as if he's a disobedient child. The vampires speculate if Guillermo is having a fling with the crew, but no - Guillermo's had one boyfriend, who we saw him hug once and nothing more. Despite living in a house for fifteen years that is openly raunchy and shameless, he seems like a character designed to be both desexed and humiliated, and they never expand on the reason why.

(And if Guillermo were ace it'd be amazing, hell it's my headcanon at this point, but I don't think that's what they're going for. I think the show just desexualizes Guilermo. As a matter of praxis. For some reason.)

And the show has done this more and more to Guillermo in the later seasons. Nandor says he could steal original!Freddie easily from Guillermo if he wanted to. The vampires laugh at the thought of him being a vampire - "a little bat pooping everywhere," and Guillermo's time as a vampire has him basically feeling no different in his sexuality or, after a very brief moment, his confidence. Even Nandor's big climactic moment in Episode 10 has him saying that just because Guillermo isn't as cool or hot or interesting or strong as Jordan (or Nandor) doesn't mean Guillermo deserves to be treated poorly.

Look, I don't know if it's because Harvey Guillen is babyfaced, or because he's fat, or because he carries a different energy to his masculinity. Or because it's great to talk about gay sex and being horny, but writing a gay relationship is just too hard. Or some fun combination of all those things.

But I keep thinking about everyone freaking out when Nandor swooped into the collapsed floorboards to save Guillermo in season 4, and everyone freaked out and swooned. And Paul Simms expressed that as "[Nandor] has to save his little buddy."

Guillermo is a grown-ass man, with a desire to feel powerful and special and accepted, who Nandor sees as his little buddy. (Who everyone in the house sees as their little buddy, and it's nice he's part of the family, but...) After every emotional beat that makes them seem like equals with a special connection, he reverts to the less-cool sidekick who makes Nandor feel special and important. And Guillermo's prior devotion to Nandor - not to vampirism, not to a job or promotion, to Nandor - changes to other things, but Nandor never figures out why that hurts him so much. And for some reason the deepest bond of the series just isn't sexual, the showrunner just can't see it that way, in a house where everyone's fucking but not you Guillermo.

We're at the end of the story, and that's our punchline.

---

And we don't end on one of the points where Guillermo is asserting himself as someone who deserves to be taken seriously, and given the things he wants - and the show has had plenty of those moments, all of which seem to be building and evolving his relationships over the years.

We end on Guillermo being told that suddenly, the documentary is packing up without any fanfare or clarity on what they were looking for in the first place. We get Guillermo stumbling for clarity on what it all meant, what the point was for him and what his life is going to be now. We're told over and over again the documentary (and Guillermo, and the viewers) needs a satisfying capstone, needs emotional closure.

And the vampires tell him to shut up. And they tell him this has all happened before, and none of it is special to them. ("No human is special," Nandor said several episodes ago, and never went back on it.) And they tell him to do a little dance for their amusement, and Colin recites some pithy lines. And every attempt to take a moment to care about Guillermo's journey, or the core of his character and what he needs, is turned into a joke for him and for us.

Guillermo's looking for a point to it all, for some kind of fulfillment, and there wasn't one. And everyone is satisfied in that but him. And even if there were times Guillermo got the chance to be respected, to have cool powers (which he kept, but the vampires keep forgetting them), to live forever (he will die and leave Nandor someday!), to see the world - none of these things are going to come to him now.

It would make absolute, complete, and devastating sense for Guillermo to feel he's outgrown them and to leave. Nandor doesn't even seem upset enough to try and stop him. We never really get a clear reason about why he decides to stay.

I mean, it's for friendship or something, with a line about how they can still be close but he needs 'his own thing'. But in six seasons, over and over and over, we've been driven back to the idea that the most emotional part of this story is Guillermo's desire to become accepted in this family, and the effect he has on Nandor. That Guillermo needs this home and he consistently makes Nandor softer, kinder, less selfish and more fulfilled when they're together.

But those parts of their relationship, the love story parts, don't matter. Guillermo is going to find 'his own thing' when it's been clear how entrenched in this world he is (right down to his DNA), but Nandor will drag him back into shenanigans anyway, probably keeping Guillermo from whatever 'his own thing' is.

And Guillermo will always be Nandor's sidekick, his little buddy, never to be taken seriously. And one day, Guillermo will die, and he'll be someone they all forget. And for some reason, he'll be just fine with that, because he belongs with them but will never really be in a better position.

And he'll be satisfied with that. For some reason. But I won't.

[ninibeingdelulu]

Crawling back to you

synopsis-> His new concubine start to slowly become an obsession for him

The dimly lit chamber is thick with the heady aroma of sandalwood and smoldering embers casting their flickering amber glows across ornately gilded walls.

You kneel demurely before the towering entity that is the indominable King of Curses with a tray of succulent fruits balanced precariously in your lap.

Despite the dozens of lithe, scantily-clad courtesans draped across plush cushions surrounding Sukuna's imposing throne, not a single one possesses the capability to enrapture his full, unadulterated interest like you.

He attempts schooling his expression into one of practiced aloofness yet finds his scrutiny involuntarily drinking you in from the corner of his periphery.

The modest way loose tendrils of obsidian tresses fall around your delicately sculpted features...How those full lips part just enough to reveal a glimpse of glistening teeth worrying your lower pout while plucking a ripe persimmon free...

Even the flutter of those thick, sooty lashes framing those eyes as you peek up through them with an achingly sweet naivete.

Something viscerally primal stirs low in Sukuna's abdomen each instance your gazes accidentally lock - simultaneously thrilling yet inexplicably vexing him to the core.

He shouldn't find any fascination or particular novelty in your obvious purity and fragility, should he? After all, you pose no formidable threat to one who has mercilessly throttled nations with nary a conscious thought.

Yet he cannot prevent those four obsidian-tipped limbs from imperceptibly tightening with the overwhelming compulsion to simply...take you right there.

To lash out and possess every scant inch until the searing brand of his essence remains molten and permanently etched into your very marrow.

Maybe then you'd no longer exude such blinding radiance capable of rooting him in place like some pathetic, feeble-willed human wretch.

Every sinew instinctively coils rigid when your delicate fingertips drift upwards to present that glistening persimmon temptingly close.

Except your feather-light caress doesn't retreat once his lips part to accept your offering.

Instead, the pad of your thumb ghosts across his bottom lip with a tenderness and reverence he finds utterly transfixing.

And just like that, the last thread of rigid control over his carnal urges combusts instantaneously.

Sukuna's vision fractures into a million shards of ruby as your hopelessly innocent proximity suddenly consumes his restraint whole.

"Get out..." The abdominal maw snarls in a guttural rasp now utterly stripped of his usual controlled veneer.

Every talon-like fingernail hollows razor-deep grooves into the armrests flanking his throne when you instinctively flinch back with those dewy irises rounded in terror.

"Now."

The massive chamber remains utterly frozen until you scramble backwards on hands and knees finally fleeing his presence.

Only then does Sukuna finally permit himself to surrender - lifting a single beckoning digit to numbly brush across the very spot your captive touch seared straight through his exterior not a moment prior.

What sacrilegious witchcraft have you entangled him within?

This unfathomable compulsion to simultaneously profane and protect?

He's the almighty King of Curses - feared and reviled across every realm. Yet a solitary brush of your chaste fingertips against his mouth threatens to dismantle every staunch defense he's meticulously crafted over centuries of brutality and indiscriminate annihilation...

Head bowing forward until his pallid death mask cracks in a bitter sneer, Sukuna releases a blustering huff of mirthless derision directed solely at his own lamentable weakness.

Loathing how you've wormed your way beneath his armor so effortlessly with scarcely any intent whatsoever.

He vows to purge this infuriatingly inexplicable yearning to possess your radiance before it blossoms into something...darker. Something treacherous...

For both your sakes...

[ilys00ga]

𖹭── there's no other love, it's only yours...

₊˚⊹ ᰔ 𝐍𝐎 𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 || MYG.

⌗🍵A/N: kinda inspired by cas' discography. I've missed doing this sm.. 🤧 pls lemme know what u think! enjoy 𖹭!

⌗🍵 no warnings, just delusion.

The moon speaks the language of night, beauty, and love. The moon sits in his eyes and underneath his tongue.

Yoongi loves just like the way he writes, the way he sings, and the way he speaks. Slow, deep, careful, and passionate. With one hand on your waist and the other one deep in your hair, his lips, ever so shy and sweet, press against yours, as if testing the waters of your very soul before allowing his body to dive head first in.

Slowly, they press harder, then longer, the shiness melts and slips right into your saliva as your lips crash together. A gentle brush turns into a sinful dance. The familiar butterflies in your stomach are wild as his hand slowly creeps its way up to your torso, and you've never felt more human than you do in his arms, inside his mouth.

Your skin, like dew drops resting on smooth leaves, quivers with every single brush of his maddening fingers. A hungry man he is, kissing on your neck, starving for the burning stardust that drops from the sky onto your skin.

His kisses taste like the combination of whiskey and a tinge of cigarettes, long sessions of work, and sleepless nights. When his teeth, the ones that peek brightly every time he gives you a smile, are never shy to carve dark red bites everywhere they can reach on your body, and your smooth skin burns as his tongue plunges into your ocean and sinks deeper, lower, down to your core, to then lift you up to highs unknown.

His kisses taste like a poet yearning for the words to spill out of his mouth and crown the little poems he often writes for you.

His kisses taste like soft petals on an early spring night. When his body is pressed against yours and the bed craddles your pair. His lips touch your temples, then your forehead, across your face, to finally reach your own in a gentle, innocent kiss.

His kisses taste like the wind, ruffling tall grass and heavy tree branches. Together, they dance and they sing, loud and passionate.

" trust you with everything, even with a sharp blade against my skin," he says, shaving foam spread all around his mouth, right after you make the joke of accidently tearing his pale skin open with the razor in your hand.

He never declared it aloud, but it wasn't hard to recognize the way he loved it whenever you shaved his face for him.

His eyes, they never lie. They watch your every single move. The way you pour your entire attention on the small task of shaving his face, A task so frequent and simple in its nature, yet so incredibly, intimate, and heartfelt, just like the kisses he leaves on your shoulder and the whispers he declares into your skin every single morning, while your limbs tangle together underneath your duvet.

It is his way of letting you, the sun and the sky above know that he's there, flesh and bones. That he breathes, loves, and cares for you, too. His way of saying: 'Thank you, for never leaving razor scars on my skin, for never letting my hands run cold, for always putting a smile on my face.'

His kisses taste like the way he loves you; slow, deep, careful, and passionate.

[hurthermore]

»»------► 𝚁𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑 𝚆𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝙻𝚘𝚟𝚎 (18+)

Pairing: 𝙰𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚛 𝚡 𝙵!𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛

Warnings: 𝚂𝚖𝚞𝚝, 𝚖𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚔, 𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑 𝚜𝚎𝚡, 𝚜𝚙𝚊𝚗𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚜𝚌𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚔 𝚘𝚏 𝚙𝚘𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚊𝚕 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚗𝚘

A/N: 𝙸'𝚖 𝚜𝚘𝚛𝚛𝚢 𝚒 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎𝚗'𝚝 𝚞𝚙𝚕𝚘𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚗𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚒𝚗 𝚊 𝚐𝚘𝚘𝚍 𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚎 - 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚋𝚞𝚜𝚢 𝚃.𝚃 𝚜𝚘 𝚒 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎𝚗'𝚝 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚏𝚘𝚌𝚞𝚜 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚕𝚢 𝚘𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚢 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚔𝚜. 𝙸 𝚗𝚎𝚎𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚝 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚍𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚜 𝚜𝚘 𝙸 𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝚞𝚙 𝚠𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊 𝚜𝚖𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚜𝚗𝚒𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑, 𝚍𝚎𝚋𝚊𝚞𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚍 𝚜𝚎𝚡 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝙰𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚛. 𝚡𝙳 𝙴𝚗𝚓𝚘𝚢!<𝟹

As Alastor threw your body face down against the bed, you squeaked ever so slightly, clawing your freshly manicured nails into the sheets as you looked back at him. It was often you forgot how strong the Radio Demon physically was due to his preference of using his demonic powers, tentacles, or shadows to deal with any situation that needed to be handled; including the sexual intimacy you both shared.

Before you could utter a word, echo his name from your glossed lips, his clawed talons threaded through your hair before gripping along the back of your scalp, only to shove the side of your face into the mattress below you. Leaning his face down to yours, he pressed his lips against the fat of your cheek lovingly. “You asked for this, my dirty little love.” He whispered against your flesh, pressing your face further into the mattress before leaning away.

He was right, you had asked. You had sat in his lap, diverted his attention from his book before whispering into his neck, relaying to him how awful your day was, how stressed you were, and how you had begged him to make you forget about it all, forget about all the distressing situations you had to deal with oh so prettily. 

Initially, you had expected him to just stroke your hair, to place loving kisses all over your face and to hold you close as he spoke words of encouragement to you.

But Alastor, the man who had captured your heart, knew you better than that.

He knew the best course of action for helping you destress was fucking you into the pits of oblivion with a force to be reckoned with.

Letting out a soft cry as Alastors roughed palm hit the rump of your posterior with a sudden harshness, you spoke a single word to him, a word that let him know exactly what mood you were in, what kind of erotically debauched sex you wanted from him; how roughly you desired him to be. “Master,” You had mumbled against the sheets, forcing Alastors movement to halt altogether, his irises locking onto yours in unadulterated lust as you spoke that simple word with absolute want. “I need you.” You pleaded before moving your hips with intention, pressing your clothed ass against your lover’s growing erection.

With a growl on the tip of his tongue, his claws pressed into either side of your posterior, his talons dragging, piercing into your skin as he shredded the fabric of clothing that hid the softness of your flesh to him; hid the glistening of your perfect cunt from his perverted sight. “Stay still and let your master take care of you, little darling.” His voice groaned through clenched, razor sharp teeth. 

You couldn’t help but obey, not as you felt the heaviness of Alastors well girthed and lengthy cock settle harshly against your scratched and spanked ass. He gave you hardly no warning, only another sharp strike against your ass before his flushed red tip intruded the folds of your cunt, forcing your unprepped core open with his veiny length despite how tightly your sex prevented him from slipping in with ease; but that didn’t matter to Alastor.

He would force his way in, whether you were ready or not; just how you liked it.

Rough was all you could perceive as he forced his cock to thrust into you entirely, pushing and bullying against your cervix with his large tip, causing a swell of pain to spike through your nervous system. 

He was relentless, cruelly so as his claws latched into the flesh of your waist, guiding, forcing your body to meet his harsh thrusts that he pummelled into you. Without a whine, you allowed your mind to go blurred as you lost yourself in the brutalisation of your cunt, in the sensations of his heavy balls slapping the flesh of your clit when every insertion, stimulating you in multiple ways as the sound of his body slapping your skin echoed the room. 

His claws pierced into the skin of your ass forcing your body to move along with his thrusts to make them meet him harder, with more impact. ”My perfect little slut, take your masters cock; such a good fucking girl, keep taking me and I’ll reward you, I promise.”

Screaming through your vocal chords in response to his utterly debauched words, your eyes rolled back into the depths of your mind as your lips parted widely. You could barely think, let alone comprehend anything but your master's name, voice and cock as he continued to brutalise your cunt in the best ways possible. 

“That’s it,” His voice rasped in a groan. “Pant like a fucking dog for me, darling.” One of his clawed hands released your posterior, only to latch around the front of your throat before he forced you to bend your spine backwards sharply, allowing him to look at your fucked out face from a better angle. “Fuck, pretty little thing aren’t you? Always looking so fucking perfect.” 

His thrusts became harsher, despite him already going at an excessively rough pace. All you could see was your master’s wicked yellow smile as he allowed his black tongue to roll from the innards of his mouth, his oral appendage swiping along the skin of your cheek, and across the lid of your eye. All you could do was mumble an incoherent mass of swears as his cock continued to bully you.

“You love it don’t you?.” He growled as he forced your back to bend further, making you scream out in slight discomfort. ”Being fucked dumb on your masters cock. Such a little whore, you’re lucky you’re mine, because only I can satisfy you like this, isn’t that right?”

You agreed vigorously, responding without hesitation as your saliva drooled from the corners of your lips, your cunt persevering through the roughness of your master's large, girthed cock. “I love it; love you, only you, master.” You had managed to semi coherently cry out as Alastor’s grip around your throat became tighter, forcing a gasped choke to echo from your larynx. 

“Perfect little slut.” He groaned through clenched teeth, his claws piercing the skin of your throat as his other hand wrapped your hair around his fist, only to pull you further back yet again. 

He was going to break your spine in half if he carried on this assault, you were sure.

“Scream for me, darling. Let me hear my beautiful darling’s voice as she screams my name.” It was a request, a demand you gave in to all too quickly as you allowed a mantra of bloodied screams to sing through the musked air of your shared bedroom. 

Licking his lips, Alastor kissed your temple with such passionate roughness before moving his kiss down to your cheek, forcing you to stay in your uncomfortably awkward position as he continued to fuck himself into you. Resting his cheek against yours, his grip seemed to become more loving as he sighed and groaned into your ear. “I’m going to fuck you til you pass out darling, and even then I won’t stop. You’re mine and you’ll take everything I give you, won’t you? Beautiful little thing.”

Sorry it was short T.T but i hope this suffices for my lack of uploading

[dreamscapesofimagination]

Love Bites

AN:I had a THOT lol

TW: smut, biting, bruises, clothed sex, Taiga is brutal tbh i imagine he fucks chaotic af

-------

"Fucking stay still!" Taiga snarled from behind you, fingers digging into your hips with each brutal thrust.

A pitched moan was your response as his thrusts ripped the breath from your lungs. The burning stretch and molten pleasure had easily stripped all thoughts from your mind.

You don't even know what had happened- you had gone to Taiga's room like usual, normally he would pull you to the casino floor, forcing you to sit on his lap while he played, claiming you were his good luck charm.

When you had shown up, he hadn't even said anything before pouncing on you, messy kisses trailing into sharp nips at your neck into bite marks lined with razor teeth scattering your flesh.

Between his sharp teeth and the sensation of his clothed cock at your core were dizzying. Before you knew it he had turned you over, yanking your panties down, pulling his pants down enough to release himself before pressing into you.

He immediately started a brutal pace, turning you into a mewling mess.

Taiga was far from a gentle lover, almost psychotic in his actions.

If you were able to think, you would think that maybe it made you psychotic too. The wet shlick between your legs with every thrust proved how much you enjoyed his animalistic habits, unable to process the white-hot pleasure that filled your body.

He cackled as your high flooded through you, body tensing as you let out a loud keen of his name, walls clenched so tight that he snarled.

Drool leaked from your mouth as you whimpered in sensitivity, his thrusts not slowing as he tried to chase his own high.

With shaking limbs, you tried to scramble off of his rude dick, only to freeze when his teeth clamped on the nape of your neck, a warning growl exiting his lips as he held you in place.

The burn from his sharp teeth piercing your skin and the overstimulation in your core caused your body to go limp as you whined.

Taiga's thrusts became meaner, dick twitching deep inside of you as he approached his end.

With one last, harsh thrust, he groaned through his teeth as he violently twitched, dragging you into a final, cataclysmic orgasm.

You both lay there, panting heavily as you came down from your highs. Taiga unlatched his teeth from your neck.

You winced at the feeling, discomfort setting in in the spot left behind.

A soft kiss pressed to the bite mark, cuasing you to turn your head in surprise.

Taiga met your gaze with a satisfied grin.

"You look so pretty covered in bruises." The words themselves were unhinged, but it was Taiga. And you knew that was about as sweet as he could manage.

You had long since accepted being his chewtoy, and he knew how to make your legs weak enough to keep you there to take it.

[satorusugurugurl]

Hiii can i request reader x gojo, where reader keeps ruining his orgasm n just messing with him? And he’s all whiny and begging and shit? 🥺👉👈

Cranberry Juice and Rings

Pairing: Gojo Satoru x FAB!Reader

Word Count: 1,725

Warnings: Edging, orgasm denial, smut, whinny Gojo, dirty talk, sexting, toys

A/N: Ah, nothing like a good old whing Gojo fic! I love whimpering, groaning men!

Satoru was known by many as a pain in the ass. He was arrogant and cocky, but that didn’t stop you from loving him. He was one of your favorite people, a goofball, and he spoiled you rotten. You couldn’t have asked for a better partner.

But he was Gojo Satoru. Some days, he was unbearable to deal with, even for you. Days like today, for example. You had gotten a nasty UTI and were on a strict sex ban for a week. Gojo had been kind the first few days, picking up your prescription along with cranberry juice and supplements. By day four of the sex ban, he was pent up and decided it would be fun to tease you relentlessly. He started sexting you, sending you pictures and voice memos that had you clenching your thighs to try to ease the throbbing between your legs.

Satoru: I’m so sweaty! Look, it’s running down my V-line, baby~!

You: Stop trying to turn me on asshole. I literally cannot flick my bean or have sex for the next three days.

Satoru: Oh? That sucks for you. I don’t have to deal with that.

The man then proceeded to send you a video of him jerking off in the bathroom. If you didn’t feel like razors sliced you each time you used the bathroom, you would have found him and made him pay for a new pair of underwear and take care of the mess he had turned you into. However, the unpleasant throbbing between your legs prevented you from acting upon your desires.

You: Keep it up, Satoru. I will make you regret your choices.

Satoru: Oooh, I’m so scared~!

Your dear, sweet, idiotic boyfriend did not heed your warning. He only seemed to get worse after your ominous threat. Three days of torture later, Satoru eagerly ra into your shared condo, his calendar chiming with a reminder today was the day your medical sex ban was lifted. He has a week's worth of pussy eating to make up for, and he planned to take his time with you.

”Sweetheart!” He sang out, making his way through the condo. “I hope you’re ready!” Stepping inside the bedroom, Satoru blinked, finding you sitting on the edge of the bed in your sky-blue lace set. “What a good girl you are!” Drooping to his knees before you, he clapped his hands together. “Thanks for the mea—“

”Shut the fuck up and get on the bed.”

The stern tone of your voice has Satoru staring. “I’m sorry?” His smile was full of confusion as he forced your legs apart. “I said thanks for the meal, didn’t I?” Satoru began to dip his head between your thighs, but before he could reach your sweet, dripping core, you put your foot on his forehead, pushing him away. “Hey!” His bottom lip stuck out in a pout.

“Didn’t I warn you I would make you regret sending me all those thirst trap pictures and messages?”

”H-Huh?”

”I said, didn’t I warn you I would make you regret your choices?”

”W-Well, I m-mean you did, but I—“

”Good, boy.” A round silicon ring hit him in the face. “Now put that on and get on the bed.” Gulping, Satoru shakily did as you commanded, regret setting in the pit of his stomach as he did.

Any hopes for mercy went out the window as you bounced up and down on his cock as he sat upright against the headboard. You were grinning, hands gripping his shoulders as you came around him, pulling off, denying him the pleasure of feeling your cum, denying his orgasm for the third fucking time.

”F-Fuck Toru~ you’re such a good dildo.”

”S-Sweetheart—please, baby, I need you.”

”You need me?” You questioned with faux sympathy. “Oh, sweet boy, am I teasing you too much?” A delicate hand wrapped around his red throbbing length, the cock ring preventing him from cumming, thus making him ten times more sensitive.

”A-Ah! Yes, yes, baby, please, please, I need you!” Blue eyes watched as you stroked your hand up and down, pre-cum dribbled out of his tip, running over your manicured nails. “Oh fuck, I can feel it, keep going, keep going don’t stop!”

“Yeah?” Satoru cried out as you wrapped your other hand around him. Your hands squeezed his shaft as you moved them up and down, smirking as he whimpered, eyes transfixed on your tiny hands as his mouth opened in an ‘O’ shape. “Are you close, Toru? Are you going to make a mess for me?”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!”

”Gonna cum pretty boy?”

”Fuck yes! Oooh fuck I’m so close, so fucking close, almost there, almost there!”

The second you saw white lashes flutter, you yank your hands away, preventing him from reaching his sweet release. Your boyfriend’s eyes narrowed and shot open in disbelief, focusing on the throbbing, swollen red tip that sobbed pre-cum instead of actual cum. His dick looked as upset as him, the intense orgasm fading.

”Babe!” Satoru threw his head back against the wooden frame with a pathetic whine. “I wanna cum!” Reaching out, you gently rubbed the pad of your thumb over his bottom lip.

”You wanna cum?”

”Yes, so bad!”

You straddled his hips with a hum, lowering yourself back down onto his velvety shaft with a satisfied moan. “Well, that sucks for you, I don’t have to deal with that.” You quoted his text before dragging your tight wet pussy up and down his swollen cock.

Satoru cried out, whining as you used his cock like it was a sex toy. This was literal torture, feeling your wet, warm walls clamp down around him, watching you tilt your head back in pleasure. Even hearing your moans fill the bedroom was driving him insane. You looked so hot and beautiful when you used him like this. He just wished he could be holding onto your hips, fucking his cock up into you, filling you with his cum as you both lost yourselves in pure orgasmic bliss. Lips moving against lips, swallowing each other, moans as you came down.

Instead, Satoru was crying out, whimpers sounding in the back of his throat. His hands fisted the sheets as he bit down on the inside of his cheek. He had thought teasing you this week was all fun and games! Get you all worked up and desperate for him to rearrange your insides. In his horny mind, it was like mental edging without touching

Yourself. What a terrible mistake that had been. The only one having fun and getting off at the current moment was you. While he suffered from the worst case of blue balls in his entire life.

“Shit! Oooh, shit!” Your brows furrowed as you cried out, reaching down and rubbing your clit. “C-Cumming~! Cumming Toru!” Just as your orgasm hit, you pulled off of him, squirting all over his stomach and cock with a squeal.

“F-Fuck, oh god.” Satoru quickly grabbed his cock, stroking himself off while you came all over him. “So hot~ so fucking hot!”

You recovered just in time to see Satoru jerking himself off, the tips of his ears turning red as his eyes began to roll back. “Nuh-uh!” swatting his hands away, Satoru groaned. “Bad boy!” When he reached for his swollen cock again. You grab both his wrists, pinning them down on either side of him. “I said no!” Poor Satoru cried out in frustration, tears welling in his eyes.

“Sweetie, baby, please.” He sobbed, cock dribbling more pre-cum onto his lower abdomen. “Please let me cum, please, baby, please! I'm sorry I was such an ass this week. I won't ever do it again!” Fingers gripped the sheets underneath him. “Please let me cum! Please!” Those tears filling his eyes finally spilled over his white lashes, staining his flushed cheeks.

“Oh, my baby~” Leaning in, you locked the salty tears up with the tip of your tongue. “You learned your lesson?”

“Uh-huh!” Satoru hiccuped as more tears streamed down his face.

“You see how it's not nice to tease? How cruel is it to cum in front of your partner when you're unable to do anything?”

“Yes! I’m sorry, honey! So sorry!”

Releasing both his wrists, you grabbed the sparkly blue cock ring that was securely on his base. “Good boy, Toru.” As soon as the toy was off, Satoru shoved you off, pushing you into the mattress. “Ooh fuck!” Giggled erupted as he threw both your feet over his shoulders before sliding into you.

“So good! S-aS good!” He cried out, throwing his head back, crying softly, and he slammed on and out of you. “I’m going to cum! Please cum with me! Milk my cock, baby! Milk it!”

“Yes, Toru! Cum inside of me, baby!” Your fingers found your clit with ease, rubbing it back and forth, whimpering as Satoru twitched inside of you. “Cum on, baby~ cum for me!”

Satoru’s jaw dropped open, eyes clamped shut as he cried out. He was crying out your name, whining, and whimpering like a cat in heat. Thick ropes of cum painted your insides, filling you to the absolute brim, leaving you crying out with him. He rubbed his hips against you, only stopping when his eyes rolled back, dizziness overcoming him.

He collapsed onto your chest, full weight resting on you as he whimpered into the crook of your neck. He could stay like this forever, but just as he found himself dozing off, you were tapping on his shoulders. Lazily lifting his head, cerulean eyes met yours.

“Five minutes; I’m pushing you off if you stay inside me any longer.”

“Huh? Why?” Your boyfriend panted out.

“The last time we fell asleep like this, I got a UTI!”

“Mmm, it’s fine.” he’s sleepy, wrapped his arms around you. “Just five minutes.” you relaxed against him as he agreed on your time limit. “I love you, sweetheart.”

“I love you too, Satoru.” as he snuggled in closer, humming sleepily, you smiled, fingers brushing strands of hair off his brow. Maybe ten minutes wouldn’t hurt.

Forever Tag List!

@darkstarlight82 @pandoness

[mivalyn]

😈 The beast within 😈

18+, mdni!

Wanderer! Sylus x fem! reader

Cw: non-consensual sex, size difference in sexual activity, intense pain, unrealistic body proportions/monster features, dubious consent, power dynamics

!Requests are open!

Word count: 1,846

The key scrapes against the lock, a pathetically mundane sound utterly dwarfed by the raw, primal fucking energy thrumming in the air – a low, guttural vibration that resonates deep within your cunt, a promise of the brutal, ecstatic, mind-blowing agony about to unfold. It's a promise of pain so exquisite it'll leave you begging for more, a promise of pleasure so intense it'll shatter your sanity. The door creaks open, revealing him – Sylus. Your Sylus. But this… this isn't just some cuddly-wuddly Sylus. This is something ancient, something fucking powerful, something utterly, terrifyingly alien, and overwhelmingly, sickeningly arousing.

He's sprawled across the sofa, a breathtaking monstrosity bathed in the harsh, judgmental glare of the setting sun. Massive, crimson wings, like silk stained with the blood of a thousand ravaged, screaming innocents, spill over the armrests, each feather a razor-sharp glint of crimson fucking fire. Two obsidian horns, wickedly curved and polished to a lethal, seductive sheen, jut from his head, casting long, predatory shadows across his face – shadows that seem to writhe and pulse with a life of their own. His tail, thick and corded with muscle the size of your goddamn thighs, thrashes against the plush cushions, the dark, pointed tip a constant, insistent reminder of the raw, brutal power coiled within him – a power he's about to unleash on your quivering flesh. His skin, usually a dull olive, now pulses with an unnatural inner light, a luminescent sheen that hints at the terrifying, earth-shattering power simmering beneath the surface – a power that's going to rip you apart and put you back together again, better, broken, and utterly his. His features, normally sharp and ruggedly handsome, are softened, yet possess a chilling, almost ethereal beauty; less the man you know, and more a creature of nightmare and exquisite, agonizing, breathtaking desire. The muscles in his arms and legs ripple beneath his skin, a horrifying, beautiful display of raw strength that both terrifies and enthralls you, leaving you weak-kneed and desperate for the pain he's about to inflict. A knot of primal, terrified fear twists in your gut, inextricably bound with an overwhelming, insatiable, depraved lust that leaves you panting and wanting more.

He rises slowly, deliberately, the movement of a predator assessing its prey. But the predatory glint in his eyes has softened, replaced by something else entirely… a yearning so intense it’s almost palpable, a hunger that mirrors your own – a hunger for your destruction, your submission, your complete and utter annihilation. He moves towards you, each step echoing in the sudden, suffocating silence, the air thick with the raw, unspoken promise of brutal, ecstatic, soul-crushing release. The scent of him fills the room – ozone, sweat, something musky and primal, uniquely him, a scent that both repels and utterly captivates you, a scent that screams of power and raw, untamed sexuality.

"Hello, love," his voice is a low growl, a vibration that resonates deep within your core, igniting fires in places you didn't know existed – places you never even knew could exist.

You don't scream. You can't. Your breath hitches, stolen by the sheer, terrifying, breathtaking beauty of him. He is breathtaking. Dangerous. A fucking god amongst men. And then you see it.

The monstrous, alien bulge pressed against the nonexistent fabric where his trousers should have been. His cock. It is obscene, impossibly thick and long, a throbbing, vibrant purple monstrosity that strains against the confines of his abdomen, a pulsating, alien phallus that dwarfs anything you've ever witnessed. The head is swollen and glistening, slick with pre-cum, a promise of pain and pleasure so intense it makes your knees weak, your insides melt, and your mind scream for release. You’ve explored his body before, mapped every curve and crevice, discovered hidden landscapes of pleasure. But this… this is beyond anything you could have imagined. This is primal. Raw. Alien. And fucking incredibly, obscenely, terrifyingly arousing.

Your pussy clenches, spasming involuntarily. Heat radiates through your core, leaving you breathless, aching, weak, a quivering mess of need and terror. Yet you remain rooted to the spot, mesmerized, your will completely broken by the sheer, overwhelming power of him. The sight of him – impossibly huge, impossibly beautiful, impossibly alien – ignites a fire within you, a lust so raw it obliterates any remaining sense of reason or fear.

"Sylus…" you whisper, your voice a trembling breath, a pathetic whimper of submission.

He reaches out, his fingers brushing your cheek, sending a jolt of pure, unadulterated electricity through you, leaving you tingling and desperate for his touch. "I… I wanted you to see," he murmurs, his voice thick with emotion, raw and vulnerable, a stark contrast to his otherworldly power. A blush, a stark contrast to his otherworldly features, colors his high cheekbones, a fleeting moment of human vulnerability. "This… this is who I truly am. I… I haven’t known how to show you before."

The air crackles with unspoken lust, thick with ozone and that musky, primal scent, a suffocating blend of power and desire that leaves you breathless and wanting more. You reach out, your fingers tracing the sharp, smooth edge of one of his horns, the heat of his skin searing through your fingertips. You run your hand down his spine, feeling the taut corded muscles beneath, the roughness of his hair sending shivers down your back. Finally, your fingers brush against his impossibly large cock. A gasp, raw and desperate, escapes your lips – a gasp of pure, unadulterated need.

"Show me," you breathe, your voice barely a whisper, a plea for more pain, more pleasure, more of him. "Show me everything."

He leans down, his lips brushing your ear, his breath hot and wet against your skin, a fetid whisper of impending doom and exquisite pleasure. "My love," he growls, his voice low and dangerous, a rumbling promise of pain and ecstasy, "you have no idea what I want to show you…" His hand moves down your body, cupping your breast, his fingers tightening, his touch both tender and brutally possessive, a terrifying blend of gentleness and violence. The heat of his skin burns through your clothing, igniting a fire within you that spreads like wildfire through your veins. His fingers find your clit through your panties, a rough, demanding stroke that sends a jolt of pure, unadulterated pleasure shooting to your brain, a white-hot explosion of sensation that leaves you gasping for air. A moan escapes you, a sound of pure, desperate need, a primal scream of submission.

He tears your panties away with a sharp rip, the sound echoing the tearing of your inhibitions, his gaze intense, his eyes burning into yours as he takes in the sight of your slick, glistening cunt, a gaping maw of desire ready to receive him. His lips find yours, a hungry, demanding kiss that leaves you breathless, his tongue rough and invasive, exploring every inch of your mouth before trailing down your neck, leaving a trail of fire and wetness in its wake. His lips linger on the sensitive skin of your neck, his breath hot and ragged against your skin, a prelude to the storm that's about to break. His fingers find their way between your legs, his touch expert and brutal, teasing and tormenting your clit until you are writhing, a writhing mass of desperate need, your body convulsing with the pleasure and pain of his touch. He pushes two fingers inside, then three, stretching you, his touch growing more insistent, more brutal, more demanding, pushing you to the very edge of your endurance, the precipice of oblivion. You arch your back, your hips bucking against his hand, desperate for release, for the oblivion that only he can provide. He knows exactly what he’s doing, pushing you to the very edge of sanity, to the precipice of complete, utter, blissful surrender.

He doesn't waste time. His massive, alien cock, a throbbing purple monster, looms between your legs, a monstrous, pulsating testament to his power, his dominance. The sheer size of it is both terrifying and exhilarating, a promise of pain and pleasure so intense it steals your breath, leaves you gasping for air, begging for release. He positions himself, his weight pressing down on you, the heat of his body searing against yours, a suffocating weight that both terrifies and excites you. The head of his cock presses against your entrance, and you gasp, the anticipation nearly unbearable, the edge of pain a tantalizing promise.

He pushes, slowly at first, testing your limits, stretching you to your breaking point. The pain is excruciating, a fiery burn that threatens to consume you, to obliterate you, but the pleasure is even more intense, a wave of exquisite agony that washes over you, a tsunami of sensation that leaves you breathless and wanting more. He moves deeper, stretching you, filling you completely, until you're nothing but a vessel for his raw, untamed power. You dig your nails into his back, your body arching, your legs wrapping around his waist, a desperate, primal embrace.

He moves faster, his thrusts deeper and more powerful, the rhythm driving you insane, a relentless pounding that pushes you to the edge of sanity. You scream, your voice raw and hoarse, a mixture of pain and unadulterated ecstasy, a primal cry of surrender and triumph. His tail thrashes against the bed, a silent counterpoint to the rhythm of his thrusts, a pulsating testament to his power. His crimson wings flutter slightly as his body moves, casting shifting shadows on the walls, adding a surreal, nightmarish quality to the already intense experience. He grunts, his own orgasm building, his body shuddering violently against yours, a violent tremor that shakes you to your core. You climax again and again, wave after wave of intense pleasure and unbearable pain, your body convulsing around him, until finally, he empties himself inside you, collapsing onto you, his weight heavy but satisfying, a crushing weight that leaves you gasping for breath.

You lie there, spent and breathless, the only sounds the pounding of your hearts and your ragged breathing. This wasn’t lovemaking; it was a violation, a conquest, a brutal, primal merging of two vastly different beings. And it was fucking incredible. His large cock still fills you, his weight heavy upon you, a warm, pulsing weight that leaves you trembling with aftershocks of pleasure and pain. He’s asleep already, lost in the aftermath of his own savage release, and you… you aren’t even sure you want to move. The throbbing in your cunt and in your head, the phantom ache of his muscles, his size, the sheer, overwhelming power of him… it’s all so intoxicating, so utterly, completely consuming. The lingering heat between your legs… the promise of more… the terrifying, exhilarating promise of more… it's a promise you're already eagerly anticipating.

*****

As soon as I saw the new video yesterday on the Love and Deepspace YouTube channel with Sylus, I knew I had to write this~

[puckinghischier]

Listen I just wanna feel the scrub in general.. but like especially between the thighs you know… beard burn

i was trying to behave but since you brought it up 🤷🏼‍♀️

feeling the gentle scratches of his beard on the sensitive skin of your inner thighs as his warm mouth places hot, open mouth kisses on your cunt

he knows how much you love it, so he purposefully nuzzles his cheek into the soft skin, feeling you clench against his tongue at sensation, squeezing your thighs around his head to intensify the slight burn from the coarse hairs digging into your skin.

“quinn, fuck, please don’t ever shave. i’m throwing away all the razors as soon as, ah!” you gasp at the feeling of the scruff hair on top of his lip scraping deliciously against your clit. “as soon as this is over.”

quinn chuckles, making sure to lean slightly to the left so his beard brushes against you again.

“so you want me to hurry up, then?” the vibration of his words on your core mixed with the friction on your skin creating a delicious combination.

you nearly sit straight up in distress. “please, don’t ever stop. just let me die like this,” you plead in a half moan, half prayer.

pleased with himself, quinn decides that if you don’t throw out his razor, he will, loving how much of an effect the product of his sheer laziness and lack of motivation to shave has on you.