#time has passed so fast i still feel like im 13

[vixenihy]

IM GONNA BE 17 IN LESS THAN A WEEK??

[roseandgold137]

We’ll go Cassie for the charecter ask <3

(prefacing this with im so sorry this took ages. I sent it to draft lands and unfortunately out of sight out of mind immediately kicked in rip

three facts about them from my personal headcanons

not quite sure what would count as a fact per se, but: curly mullet as a kid bc her hair wouldn’t grow as fast in the sides (a style she later resurrected for one of her later wonder girl looks); lesbian BUT thought she was bi until like 13/14 bc she had a crush on like westley from the princess bride; neither of them know this but Cassie and Anita used to get into drama on roblox but also both of them were pretending to be guys + they dated on roblox for like three weeks. To this day neither are sure if it was gay (two guy avatars) straight (they were girl with guy??) but it was in fact gay squared (two girls pretending to be two guys)

a reason they suck

id say her combination of recklessness and stubbornness with a healthy dash of hating finding out she was wrong about something. Definitely something that improves as she gets older, but like with constantly trying to get cissie back in the team, sometimes her stubbornness overrides clearly drawn boundaries

a reason they are great

in a way, also her stubbornness! The lasting conviction that she’s right, and the belief that there is right, even if everything is trying to prove that wrong

a reason I relate to them 

I too would like to maximise the amount of time I spend with cissie king-jones /j; but fr, her sheer desire to help (even if she isn’t necessarily equipped to) is admirable and I like to think I share that with her

(what I consider to be) the top tier otp/ot3 for that character

now ik I kinda mentioned Cassie/Anita up there, and cissiecassie is always a classic, however I would like to propose Cassie/George (as in Georgia Redmond) hang on I’ll try to find a picture of her. Basically George is her civilian friend (though I haven’t the knowledge if she ever actually appeared outside of this one issue) anyways baby butches <3

five things that never happened to that character that I believe should have happened

she needs to kiss girls like yesterday. I promise this is crucial for her I think it would actually solve a lot of her problems even just indirectly;

I think she should have had more time before Zeus granted her powers. Like I get why and it did suit the story they were going for but I really liked how cobbled together her costume and equipment was, I would’ve liked to see that for a bit longer (this may count as something that did happen that I believe should have just taken longer, but oh well);

I think that she should get to graduate from wonder girl, maybe by being faced with whoever will succeed her and passing the mantle on at the end of that kind of arc (maybe harken back to how Donna gave Cassie her wonder girl suit? I think it would be cute) which, while I’m thinking, would have been a far better way to introduce Lizzie, imo. Still not gone on her needing to be Diana’s bio kid (bc it feels like they’re trying to invalidate the non-bio candidates for Wonder Woman in the future tbh) but if she was just some girl (we can still relate her to amazons and the gods, just not Diana I think) then I think she’d have been received far better;

not just her, but also for yj in general - I think she should have followed the trend of leaving (not at the same time as say, Tim and Bart, bc then we’re down too many members) but I’d like to see her grapple with the guilt of that + also realising why cissie wouldn’t be coming back by sympathising with her, but still eventually rejoining (and meanwhile the others realise that despite her stubbornness they still value her as a leader and theyre all very relieved that she’s back);

as far as I’m aware she’s yet to receive an animal sidekick (Damian has honestly been hogging like all the animal sidekicks as of late like c’mon sir please share) so I think she’d benefit from one. Since Kon’s had krypto and Bart’s had dox (Tim doesn’t seem to have any either) I think there’s already plenty of heroic dogs to go around. World without yj is obv like alternate reality but her connection to Dionysus did intrigue me. So, I put forth a bengal cat that transforms into a leopard during combat (think cringer -> battlecat from he-man)

five people that character never fell in love with and why

ok this was a difficult question but I think I have some answers hopefully

Cass Cain -> hero crush, but Cassie was too scared of her for it to go any further than that and she didn’t really believe she existed for a while either

Anita -> was too hung up on cissie leaving at the start, then they eventually found out that they were each others bitter exes on roblox and Cassie’s brain immediately killed the chance for a crush to emerge

Greta -> felt wrong to like her when she’d only just remembered who she ever was, and again, was too hung up on cissie to really consider the possibility

Kon -> the crush she thought she had did not live up to actually being around him and he was part of the reason she realised she actually didn’t like guys

Jenny Hex -> tried to hit on Diana right in front of her

[snazzilystoopid]

GUYS WAIT JUST HEAR ME OUT...

What if I started a series about an AU where every ninja has a little sister? (So yes Nya and Kai "have a little sister")

OK YES

IM GONNA DO IT

STARTING WITH COLE OBVIOUSLY 🤭

(tw for sh!)

This gif makes me so sad I cant-

Libble "Lilly" Brookstone

Named Libble after her mom's best friend, Libber

(Yes I hc that Cole's mother and Jay's birth mother were besties)

Nicknamed Lilly because she looks exactly like her, they're basically identical apart from the fact that Libble has her dad's eyes

Her family sometimes give her the nickname "Libs" or "Libby"

(Most people acc call her Libby now)

She was the "naughty kid" and she ran away alot

Gave poor Lou lots of stress 😭

The moment Libble turned 13 (abt halfway through Possesion) she started to bunk off school and do stupid things (smoking, dr*gs, that sorta stuff)

She grew up WAY too fast

Like she rly didn't gave a shit abt Cole turning into a ghost or any of that until Day of the Departed

After DotD she had a much needed wake up call (still just age 13 at this point)

She didn't go and visit her home for the holiday and she realised just how much their family had suffered bc of Lilly's passing

So that night Libble cried herself to sleep in the crappy apartment she and her friends were camping out in

a) bc she missed her dad and big bro and b) because she knew she had seriously messed up

The next day she went back to school and finally started making an effort

She realised she really loved sketching and she also had a passion for programming/machinery/tech

She decided she wanted to pursue a career at Borg Industries before she mustered up the courage to go back to live with Lou

She apologised profusely and sobbed and begged for his forgiveness

Lou welcomed her back with open arms

Cole was skeptical of talking to her for a few days but after a week he ended up going back to visit

and he was the happiest he had ever been when he saw his baby sister had truly changed <33

They had a family dinner the following night catching up on things

During the one year gap after Hands of Time she continued to go to school and actually got an education, and regularly stayed in touch with Cole (since he was with Jay looking for Wu)

She met all the ninja just after March of the Oni and decided that Nya was her favourite (after Cole ofc)

After MotM, once Cole returned from Shintaro, his veins up his wrist/arms would sometimes pulse a faint orange. Libble liked to trace them and would always say she wished she was the one with elemental powers as a joke

By the end of Crystalized, Libble is 16!

Aaand that's her story!! Moving on to random facts abt her:

Unlike the rest of her family, Libble can't sing or dance to save her life

She'll stay up all night sketching and sketching and sketching

Cole often calls her "Libbler the Scribbler"

Whenever Lou and the Royal Blacksmiths have a performance, she always makes sure she's on the front row

She used to sh as "punishment" once she returned home, because she couldn't forgive herself for leaving her dad like that

Her classmates called her a freak because of the scars up her arms and the minute Cole found out he was PISSED

She hangs around Chen's Noodle House a lot, and she always orders the same thing: PUFFY POTSTICKERS

She smashed the TV in the monastery of spinjitzu once, because of Kai and Cole beating her in a video-game

Shes usually quite a calm and collected person, but she can also be really loud

Simillar to Lilly's locket, Libble owns a silver locket which pictures her and Cole in one photo, and Lilly and Lou in the other.

Thats all hehe, but I feel like I could've picked a better name, I had literally no ideas 😭😭

(Just to make things clear, each sister doesn't exist in the same universe, these are all gonna be seperate AUs!)

Hope yall enjoyed and I think I'll be doing either Lloyd or Kai + Nya next! <3

[shakethatsassyass]

hi!! are u still active? i see the askbox is opeen sooo.

could i request some relationship of older!GOM like who's the marrying type, what do they like, who sleeps around most, who finds dating bother some etc etc!!! Maybe their ideal types in a s/o as well??? Thank u so muuuuch im so excited if everaaa

Hi! This request is really interesting and here are my dating headcanons for the GOM. You can request another one for their ideal types if you’d like since this ended up quite long 😅

GOM Dating/Marriage Headcanons

a/n: unedited

KUROKO

Come on, obviously this guy is the most emotionally intelligent out of all of them. 

But does he approach the people he likes? No 

But it’s painfully obvious when he does fancy someone

His ears become red. Warning: fair chance of passing out

He does his best to be more assertive though, meticulously planning how to approach his crush

Very very thoughtful, remembers what you told him 128 days, 13 hours, 6 minutes ago about that video you were showing him

When he’s with someone, you better bet the relationship will last for years

Not that he’s boring like that or anything but Kuroko hates the mind games that come with modern dating

But Kuroko’s immensely loyal to some may argue, a fault, I think

Like s/o wants to swerve careers? Kuroko supports

Wants to start a small business? He’s supportive 

Needs to rob a bank/hide a body? He has all the tools already......

I just imagine domestic fluff kuroko being the troll that he is. he purposefully hides in the corner to surprise you with a heart attack when you come back home 

KISE

Kise has quite a fanbase, as we all know

Headcanoning is that a word that Kise gets scouted by a Japanese company and becomes an idol for a short while

Kise’s a jack-of-all-trades so I can definitely see him working in different fields and having multiple sources of income

Which means he’s probably met a lot of people along the way

So yes this boy dates casually a lot, mostly just for publicity, and the other party knows it usually. People just come up to him and ask him out.

He has to have MAD respect for the person to even consider seriously or sometimes casually dating them or making the first move, though. Like the person of his interest has to be VERY good at what they do and have banger character

Kise is, contrary to popular opinion, not shallow at all. Personality and a person’s passion/morals comes first. He knows the feeling of being ogled for your looks and how those feelings of infatuation are fleeting

BUT I’D BE LYING IF I DONT SAY THAT KISE 100% LOVES THE CHASE. He’s a fast learner so I bet he also gets bored pretty quickly

If you wanna date Kise, you better not be the jealous type and not be controlling. Someone who can keep him on his toes. 

Fun, goofy, sometimes intimidating lover

AOMINE

Somehow I see him settling down earlier than the others. 

But before that he sleeps around a lot. 

He likes hot women, that’s canon, but like he doesn’t date seriously during his early 20s, just casually. 

Many fics present Aomine as this suave guy who can pick up any person he likes but I honestly doubt that’s the case 

Definitely gets with Momoi at least once, whether they cross the line between bffs and lovers officially is up to Aomine sadly (see Replace novel)

Thankfully, he’s as graceful on the court as he’s not on the dating scene 

So many people approach him on their own, often as fans who, if they ask appropriately enough, gets to go home with him

Boy just wants to have fun

But he never love bombs, and is in no way a manipulative lover

Respects your boundaries and asks for consent 1000%

When he falls in love tho, he falls hard

He might start off with seemingly cold feet and is indifferent but that’s just him actually thinking how to properly take the relationship to the next level considering all his hang-ups

Aomine’s insanely loyal and a committed relationship with him is something that even becomes sweeter over time. 

Once he’s committed, he’s all in: he thinks of marriage, kids, the works

Aomine may look tough but he’s all soft for his s/o

MIDORIMA

He’s a late bloomer in the dating department

Midorima just thinks it’s bothersome. He’s busy with basketball and medical school already. He just doesn’t see what the fuss is about 

But can you imagine if he just falls in love with an incompatible sun sign???

Like an Aquarius or a Libra (Murasakibara’s one)… or god forbid an Aries!!

And he just freaks out and questions his beliefs and does research on the rest of his/their birth chart. Lmao

Takao secretly made Midorima a dating app account and his profile gets plenty of traffic

Midorima knows nothing about this and refuses downright every time Takao tries to set him up with someone

Doesn’t do casual. Period.

You have to be very patient with him he’s the densest out of all of them you might as well just spell it out for him for Midorima to get the hint that you’re flirting

Midorima’s romantic relationships can only ever happen organically so you can’t 1. Force it. 2. Expect him to seek out relations for its own sake

Will either have to be set up by a friend on a date OR

Have some Kdrama destiny shit to occur for romance to get through his head (Doctor Midorima with patient reader AU???

Needless to say Midorima’s a faithful partner in all senses of the word. He’s consistent, hard-working, and responsible. He’s the kind of person who’d literally grow old with his lover and wake up next to them each morning. 

MURASAKIBARA

Another one who doesn’t like initiate dates

No formal conversations of labels or anything like that

He may be a man child at times but no one is more loyal than this giant

You wanna date him? You better know how to cook. Or at the very least love food

He will not ask you out, well not directly anyway

Doesn’t take breakups well

He will sulk for days, someone from the GOM or Himuro or his siblings has to drag him out of the room so he could take a shower

One day you’ll just notice him hanging out with you

Anyway I hc that he gets the most jealous out of everyone in GOM. Like he gets too little attention and you’ll find him pouting like a kid

Mura also really easily distracted, and might even come across quite cold

It’s only because he rarely sweats the small stuff

So sometimes you’d be upset and he wouldn’t notice

WARNING: this could go on for days so unless you tell it to him straight up he won’t know you’re even upset

Buuuuut gets the hang of it after several months

He’s attentive when he needs to be, especially when it comes to his partner’s needs

So fights would rarely occur, unless it’s about his habits

His ideal s/o is a mom. Sorta

There I said it

TL;DR Murasakibara baby in the streets daddy in the sheets

But tbh any established relationship with him would be quite stable, his life would simply revolve around his s/o, food, and basketball

AKASHI

Akashi’s future is all planned out.

Being the only child in his political and influential family, marriage and family’s simply part of his duty. I read somewhere that his parents were most likely in an arranged marriage and that it’s not far off that he would be too, as Masaomi expects, when the time comes.

He sees the appeal in dating around but eventually decides against it because it’s seen as taboo (his family seems to be traditional), though he thinks about it from time to time when he feels lonely :-(

Lots of women (and men) fawn themselves over Akashi, he’s used to it, while he appreciates the support, emotional connection and bond is an important factor for the redhair

So he’s either seeing someone properly or not talking to anybody at all. Akashi’s forward like that.

He’s very discreet about his dating life. Like one day he just announces to the Miracles that he’s engaged to the love of his life and like??? No one knows he was even seeing someone?? Maybe just midorima and kuroko. Maybe Momoi (and by association Aomine)

Akashi haaaas relationships… they’re just very selective and won’t last long if he can’t see marrying them

Eventually marries for love. I just can’t see him tagging along an arranged marriage (like his father expects) with someone if he doesn’t like them

Yes boy do clear that karmic ancestral baggage

If you want to date Akashi, you should probably not be afraid to take the lead too sometimes. He already juggles plenty of responsibilities outside the home, he appreciates if he can just let go of the reins when he’s with his s/o

Bonus bonus if you can hold an intellectual conversation with him. He also takes a keen interest in your hobbies

Akashi’s a generous, kind, faithful, and attentive lover. You’re provided for for life.

[antiloreolympus]

11 Anti LO Asks

1. Last chapter non fast pass I feel calls out RS without her knowing. The two flower nymphs that died were hardly shown importance in the story. Maybe RS was trying to have their names be a big reveal, but when we learn about the incident Persphone talks about it and then goes and laughs with hades. When this whole trial starts Persphone tries never to explain herself to Zeus on the voice call or to anyone. Ares going “why was this glossed over” because everyone, the author and the characters treated it that way. We have panels dedicated to making persphone look more like a murderer and growing big than we do have her thinking about those nymphs 

2. LO would've be so, SO much better as an urban fantasy.  Like, can you imagine? Persephone is a sheltered kid living away from Olympus until she learns she related to gods- wait. I'm just rewriting Percy Jackson.

3. Ok, so genuine question: what age is the target audience of LO supposed to be? Teens? Adults? It seems like a large portion of the audience are on the younger side (Im partially assuming because I cant fathom that grown ass older adults are calling Hades "sexy" in the comment section). I feel like I'm getting whiplash because of 13 yr olds getting giddy about a 40 yr old man and a 19 yr old *girl* , and then there's content like Persephone in lingerie watering Minthe.

4. maybe it's just me but i HATE the idea, and you see this so often in hxp stories, of "he hates everyone and treats them cruelly except for ~his wife~" because like?? why would anyone fall for a man who takes pleasure in abusing others but only has the self restraint for one person? why would you feel "special" as he abuses others? you know that makes you look bad too, right? plus theres nothing in the myths that says hades hates everyone and loves torturing others. anyway white ladies are weird.

5. I feel like to me, the mere definition of mythology/folklore/fairytales is they are timeless and have messages/stories that transcend the centuries. That’s why they’ve survived so long, it doesn’t matter what generation reads them, they can still relate to it. The original story of Persephone does have themes than be applied both in its original historical context and today (social pressure to get married/grow up, family obligation, making due with whatever life throws at you, fighting against oppressive systems, the strength of women who love each other, etc) yet none of these themes are kept into “modern retellings” like LO. It throws out its actual themes to instead talk about Modern Issues™️ like “purity culture” and #MeToo (which are played right into and reinforced by Rachel’s regressive White Feminist™️ writing) that it not just fails to talk about this modern issues seriously (and tbh seems rather unnaturally added and addressed, especially going off Rachel’s old tumblr posts), it takes out the timeless elements to instead make it something that increasingly becomes more outdated the more time passes. The mere premise of LO and its “modern” takes on the characters (sorry to say, but the concept of “Girl Boss” is not as progressive as white women like Rachel seem to think it is)  were already pretty outdated in its premiere in 2018, and now we’re heading into 2022 with the same takes, where the “boo boo I’m rich and beautiful and everyone loves me but I’m oppressed”/“the poor deserve to be punished for standing up to the rich” narrative is even more outdated, cruel, and is increasingly more critiqued and disliked. In trying to make it “modern”, LO made itself increasingly dated and lacking in potential for future readers years or even decades down the road to not see it as a dated relic. The myths are timeless. LO and modern “retellings” are not. 

6. I feel like there’s a reason most stories involving Greek gods are told from a human/demigod perspective and Lore Olympus is a perfect example of that.

7. even barring how confusing the "extra chapter" in the lo book is, it was also clearly made recently because it looks like the current rushed, flat style so it sticks out like a sore thumb next to the early 20-ish episodes that had a more unique look and time put into them. if you werent aware of the rest of the series, youd deadass think some other artist came in at last minute and inserted their own chapter because it doesnt match the rest at all. i think her old style is dead and gone now :-(

8. Cerberus is so constantly disrespect in LO and I don't even get why. He's not even Hades' favorite pet and is only used twice to actually be intimidating, the rest of the time he's just there to be ignored or be the vessel for Rachel's juvenile fart humor.

9. Am i the only one who thinks the references LO makes to be super dated? Like IDK, who is going to enjoy in a year or so over the episode of them all on a zoom call? Like ah wasn't that funny when we were all stuck inside during a global pandemic that killed millions and we had to do zoom calls? or her out of place "meme" moments or the "sliding in your man's DMs" joke?? like its not funny, it just takes you out of the story.

10. I feel like a big problem with LO too is it seems directionless. The hymn to Demeter is pretty clear cut in what to do with it from start to end, and while LO did start out somewhat following it, I do not see now how it can end following the actual hymn, which is bad. If there's no logical way for it to end being accurate to the myth, then why use it in the first place? The added plots also aren't a good replacement, they're just filler from what we were promised and makes the story confused.

11. To that "popularity" anon, it's very easy for something to gain popularity when Webtoons puts a massive marketing budget behind it. The same thing happened to Let's Play, True Beauty, and UnOrdinary, and the more recent examples are Boyfriends and Suitor Armor. The only difference in LO's case is their fanbase is so annoying they have to shove themselves everywhere, basically being the Homestuck fandom 2.0. Though for Rachel's sake let's hope it doesn't fall apart like Homestuck did.

[cemeteryrocks900]

Tw mentions of bl00dw0rk medical and f@st1ng

So I haven’t taken an allergy pill since like last Wednesday or something idk bc I want my allergy blood test to be accurate even though they said I can keep taking it bc it won’t affect it but I’m scared it will, but I have to get blood work for allergy testing bc of the skin test issue I talked about last week but anyway my sister was sent to the hospital last night and they got home around 5 I think and I went to bed at 4:30 or later so we got about the same amount of sleep, and I woke up at 9am today (now 11:33am) and I wake up early bc it’s a fasting blood test, they said I don’t have to fast but it’s more accurate if I do, so my ed ass is going to take the chance to fast

So it’s getting late, I go to my moms room and she’s still sleeping and I say:

“mama” to wake her up

and she groggily says “what”

and I ask her when we’re going to get my blood work and she said after lunch,

I said “ok well I have to fast and I’m getting really hungry and uncomfortable”

she said “you’ll have to wait, I want to get more sleep I’ve only gotten a few hours”

and I said “uh ya me too but this blood work is important and I’m fasting”

and she said “wait, I’m getting more sleep, you’ll just have to wait”

So her version of after lunch is about 1:30, so that will be me fasting for about 13 hours (which I used to do 19-24 but obviously I’m in kinda recovery so I can’t pull that crap anymore) and I’m sitting here like

Damn you really do not care about this at all, this is my make or break blood work for inpatient and I need this in like 4 days ago and you’re still messing around

And I’m guessing almost everyone here reading this has gotten blood work, probably have gone to a special building/place where they specialize in labs and blood work and that stuff, so you guys know that if you don’t go at the crack of dawn and you go around lunch time, you’re f’ed and you’ll be waiting for about an hour most times

And I also need groceries like meat, yogurts, fruits, ya know the basics so I can make fricken meals for once instead of microwaving DAMN PANCAKES THAT TASTE LIKE PACKING PEANUTS

Anyway if you’re reading this far thank you for listening to me, it’s probably a lot easier to read if I did smaller lines of text but I tried grouping each though into their own spots

Usually I’m fine with skipping meals but like I usually never skip lunch bc that usually helps from skipping breakfast but today I’m just so annoyed bc whenever a plan is made then it gets changed last second I start freaking out on the verge of a panic attack

Side note: I’m very prone to anxiety and panic attacks, they happen in lots of ranges from bareable and im still able to live life and on the other side of the spectrum, very very bad to the point where I can’t breathe or get out of bed and I feel like I’m dying, my heart rate skyrockets to a dangerous zone etc.

Anyway, skipping lunch gives me anxiety and missing blood work, all of this stuff, I’m at the point where I’m shaking so bad bc plans are changed and I need food and what if I pass out from blood and I get sent to the hospital again or what if I get blood work then need to go to the store and my mom is like “no” bc SHE doesn’t want to or like what if I pass out at the store from not eating like I’m just so stressed rn and I feel gross and uncomfortable

Anyway again thank you for listening and reading

[spectracully]

crash the crush.

pairings : senior student!xiaojun x sophomore student!reader warnings : profanity, underage drinking, mentions of drugs genre : fluff, a bit of crack? highschool!au word count : 4.3k

summary : what are the odds of crashing into your crush during the neighborhood-friendly run and mutual friends party?

You were pissed off when your mum said you need to work your lazy ass off. Well, if it's on the summer break, you'll most likely agree with her. But it's only the weekend, and you've been studying your ass off these days. A lazy weekend is something you earned, but your mum decided to rain on your lazy parade.

With all those groans and deep sighs, you storm off your house wearing your workout gear. Not much, only a windbreaker jacket paired with shorts and running shoes. Popping your airpods on both of your ears to blast some jams, you take some light jogging steps on your neighborhood. It's only 4.30 pm, and kinda windy, why the fuck are you doing this? That's right, because mum literally compared you to your neighbor's daughter, Giselle, who recently won a karate tournament. Now mum won't even shut up how much she wants an active daughter, not the lazy one. Yikes.

Back to the streets by Saweetie & Jhene Aiko plays, and you hear a message notification on your airpods. Still on your light jogs, you glance at the notification.

yeri<3 : yo yeri<3 : wyd

You stop jogging for a while to write your bestfriend back. It's saturday, she's probably asking you to hangout along with the gang. Yeri gets easily bored at home and in constant need of hanging out.

y/n : running  💃 💃 💃 y/n : mum said i need to be giselle

You continue your pace while waiting for her reply. You can see your neighborhood clearly now, seeing the details, since you always go to school in a sleepy state, not really noticing the environment, and also going home from school mostly sleeping in your brother's car.

The notification rings again. It must be Yeri.

yeri<3 : bitch thats a dancing emoji yeri<3 : running in a weather like this? yeri<3 : damn straight u wanna be giselle

You chuckle as you’re about to type the messages once more, the weather is fine, what the hell is she talking about? But then Yeri is still typing. 

yeri<3 : n e ways yeri<3 : party at lucas' 8pm yeri<3 : be there or be fucking square 💀 💀 💀

You sigh. There she goes. No other option than tag along with her, but it's not like you hate it anyway. Lucas' party is always awesome, you and your friends also will get a VIP pass because he's a good friend of yours too, despite the fact that you're not even in the same grade as him, he's one year above you and Yeri.

y/n : weather is nice dont jinx it y/n : fine but pick me up y/n : cuz doyoung won't let me drive his car

You send the messages to Yeri to prove her the weather is fine, and indicates that you agree to go to Lucas' house tonight, it's a great night to probably get wasted after all those tiring run mum decided to toss on you. It's gonna be fun, anyways. But the thing about hanging out with Lucas and his senior friends.. You might've developed a big fat crush with one of Lucas' closest friends, Xiaojun. 

You barely had an interaction with him, though, because he's usually the quiet and calm one in Lucas' closest friends group. Lucas himself is already so fucking loud, not to mention Hendery, the good-looking clown and moodmaker. There's also Jungwoo, the one who looks very calm but actually won't shut up once you talk to him. Mark too, the giggly one with some lame jokes. Well, going to Lucas' party tonight means you can see Xiaojun, probably getting the chances that you'll have some interaction over some boozes or something is also quite high.

After feeling all warmed up, you decide to give yourself a run around the block. Yeri's right, it's a funny weather to run. It's windy, but the more you stay outside, the cloud is getting darker and darker. You also knew that you're not really alone, who's doing this athletic bullshit in this kind of weather, you noticed that a boy is also doing this silly run when you were typing messages to Yeri. Probably just another neighbor's child being scolded by his mum of how Giselle is so athletic that his mum also wants an active son? Welp, you didn't see his face anyway, you were glued to the phone when you saw the figure running from the side.

It's not even a minute after you started running, Yeri already replied again. Is she really that bored that she doesn't have anything to do?

yeri<3 : ok i'll pick u up at 7 yeri<3 : um.. its fucking raining, y/n yeri<3 : go home and take a shower yeri<3 : pick ur clothes and put on some makeup instead yeri<3 : its saturday night, activate your hoe protocol yeri<3 : mr xiaojun is going to be there tonight

You stop running and stare at her messages. Raining? Is she drunk or what? It's not even 5pm yet and here she is, hallucinating-

Oop. There it goes. You feel some water drops on your head. Your hand. It was slow at first, but then the raindrops are getting harder and harder, it's pouring. 

"Motherfu-" you let out a curse, you should've trusted Yeri on this. As an intuitive homo sapiens with XX chromosomes, you scan through the streets, looking for some shelter to wait the rain to stop. Spotting a bus stop with a large steel canopy, you run like your life depended on it, avoiding the rain.

Finally arriving, you sigh and sit on the installed chair, typing messages to Yeri.

y/n : omg bitch ur right its raining y/n : should've pretended im dead in my room so mum wont bug me y/n : u know what after the rain ends im gonna sprint back home and take a fucking shower y/n : the universe doesnt like it when im trying to be giselle, it gave me rain instead

You sigh as you shuffle through your playlist, looking for some fun jams to pass your time through the rain, when somebody suddenly approaches you.

"Hi, do you mind if I take a seat here?" a boy asks, pointing to the chair next to you. You look up, and suddenly the next thing you wanna do is ascend your soul the fuck out of your body to the sky. 

Oh boy. It's Xiaojun. The boy you won't shut up about. He’s wearing a white loose tank and grey sweatpants, drenched in his own sweat. Oh god. This is truly an attack for you. What the fuck is he doing here? And why must you meet him at your mess like being all salty because of those running fiasco and the rain? While wearing your not-so-fashionable workout gear and not-so-tidy ponytails? Oh god.

You can feel your heart is about to explode when you realize that he is actually the person who is also doing the stupid running at this very weather, you just didn't notice it sooner because you were on your damn phone. Damn, mum was right, everything happened because you were always on your damn phone.

"No, of course! Take a seat!" you answer him, trying your best to crack your sweetest smile although it's more like sweatiest not sweetest.

He smiles back at you, taking a seat next to you, then his eyes get back to his phone, completely glued. Damn this is the only cardio that is worth it, no running, no jumping, no huff that huff this, only sitting next to Xiaojun on a rainy day on a bus stop. Wonderful.

You quickly whip up the messaging app to type all kinds of gibberish and send it to Yeri. She knows what shit is about to go down when you speak gibberish to her.

y/n : FUCKJSHSJJSKSJK YERI y/n : OH MY FUCKING GOD SJSGSJSHSKJSK

Lucky you, Yeri has nothing to do than respond to your messages, she stays put on the chat room.

yeri<3 : OMG BITCH WHAT yeri<3 : SKSHSJJSKS YOU SCARED ME

y/n : HE's FUCKING HERE AHSJSHSJEK

yeri<3 : OMG WHOS HE?? yeri<3 : THE DEVIL??? IS HE GONNA TAKE UR SOUL? SKEJSJKSKSK

y/n : XIAOJUN y/n : TURNS OUT HE ALSO LIVES IN THIS NEIGHBORHOOD

yeri<3 : ASKJSJSKSK WHAT yeri<3 : HOW

y/n : KAHSKSJKS omg bitch y/n : i was sheltering myself from the goddamn rain y/n : im in bus stop rn y/n : this angel came to accompany me y/n : HE WAS RUNNING TOO OMG y/n : omg yeri just so u know if im not there when u pick me up y/n : its bc im in church getting married with my man xiaojun

yeri<3 : BITCH OMG SKSKSKSKK yeri<3 : GET MARRIED RN yeri<3 : WAIT dont waste the chance yeri<3 : talk to him rn!!!

You swear you're about to scream when Yeri sends that. She was actually right, this is your chance to talk to him, considering that you didn't really interact that much with him. But really? He didn't even say a word when he sat, probably didn't even remember your name? The disappointment slowly gets into your head.

You freeze on the spot. torn between wanting to talk to him and just let it slide, you'll see him again tonight as Lucas' house, right?

Just when you decide to give up and not say a word, he turns his head to you.

"Hey, I didn't know you live in this neighborhood too," he starts.

Oh god. If every time your heart beats fast you get a dollar, you'd probably have your own private island by now.

You try to play it cool when actually on the inside you wanna scream I LIKE YOU to his face rn. "Oh? Oh yes, my house is number 13." you answer calmly,

He cracks a smile, “13? You’re Doyoung’s little sister?”

Oh god. What the fuck is this clownery? He knows Doyoung? Why and how? At this rate you just wanna evaporate to the rain, what if Doyoung actually knows that you liked Xiaojun and he spills it? Oh god. 

You smile back at him, holding the panic you’ve been keeping since he mentioned Doyoung’s name. “Yep. I’m his sister.”

“Oh god, why didn’t I notice that earlier? I could’ve taken care of you at school!” he exclaims, and you sure you just wanna evaporate to the rain. Him? Taking care of you at school? YES PLEASE!

You let out a small giggle, trying to be as calm as possible when in reality you’re very sure you just wanna melt like a goddamn popsicle on a hot summer day. “So, how do you know my brother, actually?”

He laughs a bit, wiping away the sweat on his forehead. Oh god, he’s just so beautiful. “Well.. Doyoung and I used to be a dynamic duo in the school's choir, until he graduated.”

Oh, that. Doyoung is pretty serious about his career in the school’s choir, but you did not expect that Xiaojun is actually a part of it. Of course, he has the face of an angel, the voice is included.

“Now I know why Doyoung never let me come to his house. Turns out he has a cute- I mean, h-he has a sister, and that’s you! M-Maybe he’s afraid I’ll bother you or s-something.” he continues, stuttering a bit, and letting out an awkward laugh. You laugh again, feeling the blood rushing to your cheeks that you can’t hide no more. DID HE JUST SAY DOYOUNG HAS A CUTE SISTER? DID HE JUST SAY YOU’RE CUTE? DID HE-

But then, good things always come to an end. The goddamn rain stops. Oh fuck, no more chitter chatter with the dear crush. Just when it is the fucking time you need to hear the goddamn wedding bells, the rain decided to stop on your rain parade. Fuck.

He looks up, and seems like noticing the rain has stopped. “Well, Y/n. Lucas is having a party tonight, are you coming?”

You can feel your cheeks are still heating from his words, you shyly nod to him. Welp, maybe the rain has stopped, but this stupid crush? No. It goes on. Very much.

He stands up, straightening his white loose tank, getting ready to probably sprint back home. “Okay. See you tonight then, I’m going home. Have a good run!” he says as he walks away from the bus stop, leaving you dumbfounded. And lovestruck. That’s a win, alright.

Xiaojun slowly fades away from your view, and you’re still drowning on your pool of love. Yep, that’s it. You can’t even hold it, you quickly dial Yeri’s number to break out the news.

“What is it, Y/n? You literally left me on read for like 14 minutes straight and now you-”

“YERI LISTEN I’M GETTING MARRIED TONIGHT AND THAT’S A FUCKING FACT!” you shout to the phone, you can picture Yeri is probably goggling out her eyes right now.

“Girl, just because Xiaojun just asked you why the fuck were you running at times like this it doesn’t mean-”

“HE CALLED ME CUTE!” you blurted out,cutting her sentences for the second time,

“-you’re getting married- WHAT?? HE CALLED YOU WHAT?” Yeri yelled from the phone, now it’s pretty clear that Yeri is probably jumping her ass off right now.

You sprint your way to home, while holding your phone to your ears, continuing to give Yeri the details about the bus stop conversation you had earlier. Now she’s just yelling at you to pick the right dress and pamper yourself up, the probability you’ll marry Xiaojun at Lucas’ party is increasing. Sure it does.

-------

It’s 11.28 PM, 3 hours and a half since you and Yeri just arrived at Lucas’ house, escaping from Doyoung’s warning to you, to get back in one piece, and most importantly, sober. As if you’re gonna leave Lucas’ house sober, that’s funny, alright. You and Yeri were greeted by Yangyang and Donghyuck, who are currently setting up the table for snacks and drinks. That was probably the first time you saw Donghyuck ever setting up something, because if not, Jungwoo would’ve set his ass on fire.

The party madness has started, seems like everybody already has enough alcohol running on their system. Lucas is already losing his shirt and starts twerking in the middle of his house along with Jaemin and Jungwoo. Ah yes, the thot trio already started their thing, and all you have to do is just stay back and avoid getting dragged to the dance mess, because the chance of Jungwoo and Jaemin will start grinding at you is kinda high right now.. Considering their.. Twerking fiasco.

You sit back on the couch and watch your friends getting crazy over the playlist Yangyang made just for this event, sipping on your cocktails that Donghyuck put god-knows-what in it, he said it’s just cherry juice mixed with gin and brandy, but somehow it tastes kinda citrusy. You glance to the right, only to see Yeri making out with some random guy (probably one of Lucas’ friends named Changbin but oh well, that’s Yeri’s business).

Slightly grossed out and sad because apparently you’re not making out with Xiaojun right now, you make your way to the patio, and find the crowd that circle around a spinning bottle. Interested, you join Jeno, Mark, Renjun, Yeji, Hyunjin, Sungchan, Karina, Vernon, Hendery, and of course, the (hottest) most important person right now, Xiaojun.

“Welcome! As a newly joined member.. Truth or dare?” Jeno greets you as you take a seat between Mark and Sungchan. Well, you’d love to sit beside Xiaojun, but apparently, that seat is already taken by Hendery and Vernon.

You silently glance at Xiaojun, who is wearing a denim jacket with light-yellow knit top underneath, paired with white trousers. Damn, he looks so damn good that you wanna cry a river.

Your head comes back to the question Jeno asked. Today’s your day, be bold or bald. It’s time. “Well, I’m not gonna put my drunk antics to waste. Dare then.” you answer boldly, earning a few ‘ooooh’s from your friends.

Jeno snickers. Well, fuck. Guess you’re a bit too damn bold tonight, the realization suddenly hits you like a fucking trainwreck, Jeno is kinda extreme for games like this. Wrong choice, y/n. You gulp as you wait for Jeno to come up with something.

“I dare you to kiss Xiaojun!” Jeno exclaims, clapping both of his hands like a goddamn happy seal. Mark and Hendery are high-fiving right now, throwing whistles around Xiaojun, who is silent as a fucking rock.

Oh god. Things you’ve said about not putting your drunk antics to waste should’ve stayed in that goddamn draft. This is where Jeno takes you, even though you’re secretly happy that you finally get to kiss your goddamn crush, that shit is EMBARRASSING. If you wanna evaporate to the waters, then it’s probably the right time to do it.

But why Xiaojun though? Is your big fat crush on him too obvious?

You freeze on the spot as you awkwardly smile and stare at Jeno. This shit can’t be real. Jeno is goddamn crazy. You can feel the air is getting hot, whether it’s because the alcohol starts kicking in, or just because the blood is rushing through your head.

“Scared, aren’t you?” Jeno taunts you, sipping his beer as the rest of the group laugh except you and Xiaojun, who is currently staring at you with a questionable expression. Is he pleased? Or is he pissed? Oh god.

“I-I’m not!” you answer him, leaning to Xiaojun, gulping once more before asking him, “You’re okay with this though?”

Xiaojun smirks, “How can I say no to you?” he asks back, accompanied by a few ‘ayyy~’ from the boys, sending butterflies to your stomach. Your face is probably as red as a tomato by now.

Good god. Is this the same Xiaojun who is quiet, calm, and collected among his friends? Why suddenly he is so bold? Oh, he’s probably just drunk and won’t remember this kiss anyway.. You lean closer to him, closing the gap between his face and yours by sealing the kiss. His lips are soft yet firm, almost like a grape jelly you had earlier this afternoon, with a hint of vodka, of course.

After a few seconds, you finally pull out and linger your eyes on him. It’s beautiful, and mesmerizing. You just wish that you can see it again, and only for you, no one else. As you get back to your seat, you take one more last glance at him, that is currently also glancing at you, with his cheeks red.

Okay. You definitely heard the wedding bells, thanks Jeno. That’s probably one of your dreams, and thanks to Jeno, it came true. But unfortunately, Xiaojun probably won’t feel the same, or worse, he’ll probably forget about it tomorrow.

Everyone claps, exchanging happy exclaims and cheers as if you just said ‘I do’ to Xiaojun lol, when in reality, you were just doing the dare Jeno gave you. You gulp bitterly as the game goes on and on.

-----

It’s an hour past midnight, 1.12 AM to be exact. Thank god you’re not that shitfaced, but Yeri is. She is not even capable of doing anything anymore except being all smiley and shit, Changbin already drove her home like fifteen minutes ago, leaving you behind in Lucas’ lair. You suddenly felt the urge to thank god that Yeri made a fantastic decision last minute before picking you up, she used a taxi instead of driving. If she hadn’t, you’re probably stuck driving her home right now.

You scan through the house while leaning through the stair railings, looking for an easy target to get a free ride. Finally spotted your friends, you now have 3 choices : Donghyuck (who is currently seducing some random girl), Yangyang (who is now playing mobile games with Jaemin and Chenle), or Mark (who recently just hit a goddamn blunt, but he’s very capable to drive).

You sip your glass of water, making up your mind for your ride home. But then, suddenly someone taps on your shoulder.

“Do you wanna go home? Like, right now? I can drive you- I mean, our house is like, near.” you hear Xiaojun speaking to you, holding his car keys on his left hand.

Good gracious, is this even real? Like, Xiaojun, is actually asking you to go home with him? Is this real? Or are you just hallucinating from the goddamn weed you take 10 minutes ago from Lucas?

You stare at him blankly. He bit his lip, “I mean- If you wanna stay longer- or probably-”

“Yes, of course! Let’s go.” you smile at him, cutting off his words.

3 times in a day. Good job, Y/n! The wedding is up ahead!

He smiles and gives you a gesture, “Ladies first.”

-

The drive is not as awkward as you thought. Turns out, Xiaojun is full of surprise though, you nearly choked when he said he once formally apologized to Doyoung before he stood up to defend the dignity of Mint Chocolate Chip flavored ice cream. It’s delightful to find out that he has similar tastes as you, from ice cream flavor to music and school subjects.

Xiaojun also told you the reason why he was on the run earlier, he was bored. Damn, look at it, the difference between a forced daughter whose mum wants an active child, and a bored model-student. He said he didn’t expect to see you because he was embarrassed, he was drenched in sweat.

You can feel the butterflies on your stomach grow wilder and wilder from every word he said, or maybe it’s just the way he smiles when he talks to you? Welp, if it’s anything to do with Xiaojun, you’ll most likely get butterflies.

Just when you thought he was drunk, he is not. He’s capable of driving you home and carrying on some fun convos, also remembering little things. So.. perhaps, he is not going to forget the kiss you shared because of Jeno’s dare?

As you keep on exchanging conversation with him, suddenly it’s time to get off his car and get back to your house, get ready to deal with Doyoung’s nags and scolds for getting home this late.

You giggle as you take the seat belt off, smiling at the brown haired boy.

“Thank you for driving me home, Xiaojun. It was fun.” you say to him, waving him goodbye as you open the door. He smiles and waves back at you.

Just when you’re about to open the gate of your house, you hear the sound of slamming car doors. You turn around and see Xiaojun standing in front of you, eyes sparkling like a goddamn star. Unfortunately, it’s not Christmas.. If it is, all you want for Christmas is to stare at Xiaojun’s beautiful eyes all day, and probably get married to him.

“Um.. Y/n.. I don’t know how to say this but.. The kiss you gave me earlier, it’s kinda..” he starts, smiling sheepishly.

Oh god, what now? It’s kinda what? Gross? You swear you’ll kill Jeno if you hear that from Xiaojun.

You gaze at him as you wait for him to complete his sentences.

“It’s kinda.. Making me feel.. Things.” he finally continues, rubbing the back of his neck while looking away from you, flustered. It’s pretty cute.

You giggle at him a little, the butterflies come back, or maybe they never even left?

“Don’t laugh, Y/n. I’m being honest, I was pretty embarrassed to run into you during sheltering, and now you’re laughing at me for-”

You let out a big laugh before you pull him to another kiss. This one is a bit longer, more passionate and intimate, unlike the one you had before. He cups your cheek as you feel him smiling during the kiss.

“I’m sorry if I invaded your privacy- but your fast typing was very.. Intriguing.. I might’ve seen you texting Yeri at the bus stop.” he giggles after you pull out from the kiss.

Yikes. You feel like you’re about to burst now. He saw you texting Yeri? What kind of clownery is this? Did he see you typing- oh god, that’s too embarrassing to remember.

“No! That’s too embarrassing!” you cover your face, he laughs once more.

“Now, which church are we going to? I’m pretty sure you said we’re getting married tonight, right?” he takes your hands off your face, grinning widely.

You pout and lightly hit him, only to be attacked by his hugs a second later. Aww, finally, dreams do come true. You stay on his embrace for a few more minutes, no talking, just comfortable silence and realization that you’re on Xiaojun’s arms right now.

You glance at your watch, Doyoung would be furious by now. Telling him that you really have to go before Doyoung can rise from his sleep and beat your ass, you finally wave goodbye to him as he gets back to his car.

Finally entering the house, you’re greeted by Doyoung who’s standing in front of you, holding a bowl of salad on his right hand.

“So, kissing Xiaojun in front of my salad?” he raises his eyebrow.

You stick out your tongue as you make your way upstairs. Technically, not in front of Doyoung’s salad, because the door was closed. He’s probably looking through the window, such a nosy brother. You laugh at the thought of Doyoung getting furious while eating his salad as you get a message.

Xiaojun : so, see you at school? Xiaojun : can’t wait to hold your hand on monday ;)

[oikadori]

gahh your event it super cute bdkdkdnc im still super proud of you for hitting 500 you rlly deserve all the support. ily 🥺 djjdjdkjeb also im interested in sending a prompt, buuuuut imma use this you come off anon too ! the prompt id like to request is dialogue 13 with yaku ! thank you so much 🤎🤎🤎 ~ sweet anon

SKSKSKS MY SWEET ANON!! You were like my first anon ever !! I LOVE YOUUU I was so excited when I read the last part THANK YOUU. And...I’m simping for Yaku so much lately...this is a SOFT one but I really hope you like it! Sending you a big kith 😘😘

Cuddling session with S/O in a rainy day

―Yaku Morisuke x f!Reader 

Dialogue: “The blankets are supposed to be for both of us, you know?”

Genre: Fluff, fluff

WC~ 718

“Y/N?–Jesus come in!”

Yaku’s brown eyes stare down at the figure standing in his door, trying to make his voice stand out from the pouring rain.

You are soaked from head to toe, your uniform is glued to your body like a second skin and your hair falls over your eyes  as you hold your arms, searching for some warmth.

“Surprise…”

“You are gonna get sick! What are you doing here??”

“I– wanted to drop by, but…didn’t notice the black clouds over me”

He disappears into the house as you step in, leaving your shoes outside, your wet soaks, making a pool on the shiny floor.

“You are amazing…” Yaku places a towel around you, holding out his hand to you with his lips curved down as you stare at the floor without moving, “Don’t worry about it”

After a few hesitantly looks you, you grab his hand as he squeezes it softly, trying to give you the so needed warmth, “Now, let’s prepare a bath for you, okay?”

When you come out of his room, you see Yaku in the kitchen, placing bags of snacks in a bowl.

“Thank you Mori”

“There is nothing to thank me ba–“

The libero’s cheeks turn bright red, watching you enter the living wearing his volleyball jacket and sweatpants. He feels his throat drying as you smile shyly before sitting on the couch and pulling your knees to your chest.

“Uhm–So what movie are we going to watch?”

His brain stops for a moment as he takes in the sight in front of him, his heartbeat pulsing faster than ever. You furrow your eyebrows as he stands there with the bowl on his hands, mouth slightly open and blushed face.

He doesn’t catch the five times you sweetly repeat his name until–

“Yaku Morisuke!”

The bowl falls from his hand, making you as well as the libero jump.

“Yes! I’m coming, I’m coming!”, you smile as he clumsily bends down, picking up the appetizers before pacing fast towards the living room.

He sits beside you as you curl under the blankets, your body still needed from heat.

“Oi..”, Yaku mumbles as the part of the soft material that covered his legs suddenly is snatched away.

“What?”, you batter your eyelashes at him innocently, making him close his eyes, amused.

“I love you, Y/N, BUT the blankets are supposed to be for the both of us, you know?”, Yaku chuckles, shaking his head lightly as you pull the thick fabric over your neck and shoulders.

“I’m the one who walked under the rain for like fifteen minutes!”, your voice comes out in the way of a whine as the libero quirks an eyebrow at you, placing his arm in the header of the coach.

“And whose fault is that?”

“I–“

Yaku laughs lightheartedly, moving closer to you as his hand finds its way into your hair, his fingers curling between your wet locks

“If you wanted some warmth, baby, I’m all here for you”

“Uh?”

You look at him in confusion as Yaku seems to start worrying his suggestion wasn’t clear enough.

“I mean you can cuddle – o-or I can bring you more blankets, whatever you ne–“

Before he can finish, your face is already on his chest, your nose nuzzling in his white sweater as a playful giggle slips through your lips.

“You’re right” you lift your eyes, a relieved smile on his face as he places his arm over your shoulders, “You’re really, really warm”

When the movie starts playing, your eyelids become heavier with each scene and it doesn’t pass unnoticed by Nekoma’s libero. Yaku lowers the volume as his other hand brings you closer to his heart, his eyes almost melting at the fight you’re having against sleep. He quickly exchanges the bowl on his lap for your legs, holding you as if you were a fragile baby.

Yaku runs his hand up and down your wrapped legs and arms as the sound of the rain becomes louder, somehow lulling you more. Suddenly, you sneeze, making the cutest little noise he has ever heard.

His cheeks flushed a little before he jolts in concern, looking down at you.

“You just–You are not allowed to get sick under my watch, Y/N!”

♡Thanks for reading ♡

All the event’s posts will be tagged under cutiekawa’s Spooky Fall

@kit-tea

↳ ∴ Master List ∴

[surveysonfleek]

1596.

1. How has covid affected you? it had its pros and cons. we’re just about to come out of a 3month lockdown and honestly i was okay with it. i got to work from home, i saved a ton of money from not going out and i got a lot done. 2. What is a comfort show of yours ? the office 3. Are you open about your past or do you not let anyone in? im pretty open about it when asked 4. Favourite fast food joint? kfc! 5. Do you think we were put on this earth for a reason? if im honest, probably not. we aint shit compared to the rest of the universe

6. What is something you have done this year you’re proud of? bought land to build a house on 7. Do u ever feel like surveys are usually the same questions? yes. i wouldnt be surprised if ive done that same survey multiple times over the years 8. What were you doing 10 years ago? i was still at uni, living life lol 9. Do you call out Karen’s when they’re harassing a cashier? i honestly havent come across that in public  10. Animal crossing , yay or nay? yay! although, i did get over it after 2 weeks. i bought a switch just for it and now its basically unused 11. Why do you like to do surveys? something to pass the time 12. Did you ever have a MySpace ? yes 13. Do you think breaks are toxic in a relationship? not really. it depends on what youre agreeing to. i think the space apart can actually really help 14. Do you have a YouTube channel? If no , would you create one? If yes what’s your content? yes and i havent uploaded in years. i traveled a lot like 5 years ago so i documented all my vacations 15. Are you a math person? i can do simple maths pretty quickly but thats about it 16. What’s the worse thing someone has said to you? hmm none comes to my head but theres been shit said to me for sure 17. Have you ever befriended someone because you felt bad? nope 18. Would you ever date someone online? mostly likely not 19. Have you been ghosted before? Would you ghost someone? no 20. When do you think things will be normal again? i dont think itll ever be normal. i feel like people will forever be weird about massive crowds etc 21. Do you watch anime? only as a kid. i got a free trial on anime lab to watch sailor moon and i couldnt get into any other shows. its just not my thing 22. Biggest goal you wanna reach before 2020 is over ? 2020 is over and done with 23. How old did/do you turn this year ? im old haha, i dont wna talk about it :( 24. Do you like tiktok? yes 25. Do you ever miss vine? i never got into vine 26. How are you doing, seriously? look, im fine. i just need to start getting shit done 27. Is there someone you want to talk to but you know you can’t? kinda. and thats fine. 28. Do you make jokes to cope with your problems? nah 29. Have you ever had someone call you their best friend but you didn’t even consider them a close friend? hahaha no, thatd be awkward 30. Have you ever dealt with a pathological liar? cant say i have 31. Long or short surveys? in between. sometimes long boring surveys are just draining 32. If ur in school , are you doing it on zoom or in class? not in school 33. Would you ever have a pet rat? noooo 34. Favourite memory with your best friend? travel memories <3 probably san francisco 35. Favourite type of content to watch on YouTube? a bit of everything. interviews, travel vlogs, podcasts 36. Are you allergic to anything serious? nah 37. Dream job? id love to be the person/people who create new scents for bath and body works haha 38. Do you think dreams mean anything? nothing that would dictate your life but im sure its def got something to do with ur subconscience  39. Fav clothing brand? h&m 40. Do you miss anyone? my dad

[shyrose57]

Brothers anon, im gonna start combing the two separate submissions again cause its getting too short to have them separate I think?

1: His possession messed with memories Ranbob had before, so memories of school friends or playing with Ran were distant to erased. Though after Dreams possession it was also harder to make and keep memories. But thankfully as Ranbob was recovering from Dream and got futher away making memories came eaiser to him, though he'll never get back the memories he lost. 

3: Oh he would very quickly grow to regret his decision, but it would be funny. And Benjamin would later admit that while it was annoying and stressful, it was also fun and he was very happy to have his two families meet and generally get along. 

8: Everyone is just in shocked silence before Cletus just goes "YEAHHHHHHHHHH!" Oddly happy that Ranboo committed so much arson. Oh definitely, after all the outcasts of society where put there. Of course people would make such negative rumors about Mizu and treat the people as the scum of the earth. Though this also means, people don't know what happened in Mizu, and anyone who knows, view it in a more happy and a "Their finally gone" type of way, then viewing it as the tragedy it was. 

Spoons is a card game technically. A group of people sit in a group and everyone gets 4 cards, and you keep discarding at least 1 card of yours to the person on your left, who then does the same to their person on their left, the last person in the group puts a card into a discard pile. The goal is to get 4 of the same cards, and once someone gets 4 of the same cards, that person goes and grabs a spoon in a pile in front of them (let's say there's 5 players, theres only going to be 4 spoons cause there's always a spoon less than the people playing), once they grab one anyone can grab a spoon. And the person who doesn't get a spoon gets a S added to them, once Spoons is spelled the person gets out of the game, and a spoon gets removed to continue the game. Basically for flowers its played the exact same way but with flowers in the middle expect for spoons.

11: I just imagine Dream sulking in a corner as you yell at him and him going like "well I didn't know…" as he kicks a stone. And he wasnt sure what it was, but quickly jumped on the idea that maybe it was the fact that Ran was still alive somewhere, and that that's causing Ranbob to willingly let himself become weak and defy him. Causing Dream to become angrier at Ran and punish Ranbob harder. 

----

3: During the brothers fight in the storm, and after everyone runs off to find Ranbob, Ran is left alone. And he decides to just wander off into the storm, not protecting himself from the rain so he does get burnt. The whole time he's lost deep in thought and isn't really paying attention. He continues to wander for a whole day unfollowed (because after the Gladiators and Fishermen came back to the cave after finding Ranbob they are in no rush to find Ran and decide to look for him after the storm passes, which takes a full day) and at some point Raq finds him wandering. Which Raq then uses Rans distraction to his advantage and attacks him. At first only really the gladiators where concerned when they found Ran gone. But once they found him blinded and terrified everyone felt awful and a looming sense of guilt. And everyone continued to feel that way, even after they got the antidote and Ran started to see again.

4: They would just leave Ranbob alone and check in on him every now and again. But generally let him deal with it himself. They'd feel guilty leaving him alone, but they also know that they can't really do anything for him as their not prepared or briefed on how to help him in this situation. 

10: Oh definitely, even with Ran blinded they would've been kicked out immediately for fighting, without even a second glance. Dont forget, Ran still cares for his brother. And maybe, losing his sight made him face the side of him that wanted to become family again with Ranbob, maybe it brought enough to light that he just can't ignore it anymore. Mostly only negative potions can be permanent, like posion, blinding, wither, and nausea (I know the last like 3/2 are effects but they've also found a way to make effects into potions.). You already know what a antidote for blindness would be. A antidote for wither would be, a ghast tear (actually a basic ingredient for almost every antidote), blaze powder, and glistening melon to make a overpowered healing potion. Antidote for posion would be ghast tear, swiftness (so it acts fast to get rid of the posion), and the 3rd ingredient depends on what kind of posion it  was (posion that has a side effect of constricting or filling the lungs with water? Pufferfish and Turtle shell for last ingredients. Posion that has weakness? Blaze powder, and glistening melon) And antidote for nausea would be ghast tear, and potion of slowness to allow the person to slowly feel better, so their nausea doesn't hit them all at once before disappearing, which can cause them to throw up or have side effects. 

13: Thats exactly what they did. 

14: Jackie will 100% attempt to fight God and no one can stop him. :) (to be honest im not sure yet, I know I want to do more with Raq and have the idea that maybe he could be the person that finds Dream and gets him out of Mizu, but that's pretty often used in stories and I want to try to think of something more unique. Maybe I'll have it so Raq actually manages to capture the brothers or at least one of them and uses them as blackmail?)

15: When Ranbob was a child and Ran was just a baby Ranbob would often take Ran out of his crib and take him to go watch the fish swim by. When Ran was old enough he'd follow Ranbob everywhere, even a few times he managed to sneak into Ranbobs class room and almost wasn't caught. Ran got extremely clingy one day and managed to gather his haunting all up into his arms and carried them around, even though he was obviously struggling. And Ranbob used to complain about his teachers and idiotic classmates whenever he got home, which is funny when you consider Ran was very impressiable at the time and Ran started mimicking Ranbob, leading to him cursing, much to Ranbobs dismay. 

And im curious, do you have any questions that I havent answered? Or do you have any ideas for anything? I'd love to hear whatever you have to say about anything honestly!

Course! I dont have much lore wise other than they go to Kelalen and when they hear Dream is still around they decide to stay back to help fight him. But the idea I have is that Karl is just kinda hanging with everyone I listed, talking about allies or treaties when his time traveling clock/watch starts to go off, and he panics, but sadly in his haste to stop it he makes it worse and it grabs everyone, where they end up in the future. After hours of confusion and explaining they calm down. When 2 days later they find the Gladiator and Fishermen group, at first Karl is strongly against going to then for help, but everyone basically ignores him and go to ask for help. Hours of explanation and proof giving later the GF (Gladiator and Fishermen, got tired of writing it out) group sadly tells them that they cant really help. Until Ran (who was previously gone searching the surrounding area and making sure it was safe) appears high up on a tree (cause I just can't get the image of Ran on a tree and looking comfortable and confident as hell out of my head), and says that maybe Kelalen can help, if not going to Foolish may be a good alternative. Isaac, and Grievous are extremely against going back (at this time a 2 months have past since they left Kelalen)n saying it could be dangerous but Ran just aboustely shoots them down, along with Watson and Jackie agreeing with Ran, and Karls group agreeing to it. They head off to Kelalen. And Jackie is extremely excited at the potential of going to see Foolish finally. And it'd probably be like a sub au where the brothers au is the main backbone for it but at a certain point it separates from the au and becomes its own.

1: Okay, ouch. Can you imagine if Ran brought one of those memories up, and just had Ranbob look confused, or horrified, depending on how quick he realizes what happened? How would Ran react to that realization, both before and after he forgives Ranbob?

3: If nothing else, everyone got some laughs from it-even Benjamin, once his friends were far, far away from his family and not able to teach them more chaos. 

8: Cletus, why are you so happy? Do you just enjoy knowing chaos existed back then? Are you an arsonist? What’s up with you? 

Also, wow. Not cool, other city people, that’s very mean.

Spoons sounds like it’s interesting, I might try it sometime. Did the group just have those cards on them? What other games did they have?

11: Good, put Dream back in the corner, I’m gonna be yelling more. Because, seriously dude? I know you probably exist solely out of spite, but c’mon. Admittedly, from a certain point of view, it could be considered amusing that your first thought was that Ranbob was making himself weaker out of defiance/spite but like. From a more responsible and mature viewpoint, that’s incredibly stupid, and I-just. Buddy, hate to tell you, but I’m pretty sure that’d just be a you thing. Besides you were in Ranbob’s head, didn’t he think Ran was dead? It doesn’t even make sense. Good lord, I’m half-tempted to get the broom and chase you around like you’re a particularly unruly barn cat. 

------

3: First of all, that sounds really scary for Ran. Second of all, are we getting an overprotective arc?

4: Kind of sad, but understandable, they’re dealing with the situation as best they can.

10: Even if the group was provoked by the townspeople? Potions sound really cool, wish I could make those in real life, tbh.

13: W-what do you mean ‘that’s exactly what they did’? Anon, is your friend, like, a legit gremlin? I’m spooked. 

14: Foolish takes one look at Jackie, wearing a smile that exactly matched Tubbo’s when he was about to cause chaos, and immediately nopes out of that. He knows that face, and he will not be getting tangled into a fight with a goblin child today, no sir. I’m sure Jackie tries regardless though. (Also, that sounds like that goes horribly, do we get an overprotective ender-sibling, for whoever gets captured or used as blackmail, if that’s what you do?)

15: I love all of these so much, oh my gosh. Baby Ran seeing the fishes and following his big brother around. Poor Ranbob’s face when his baby brother cursed one day, Ran trying to carry all of his haunting. I’m in tears, honestly. 

Umm...I can’t think of anything right now, to be honest. If I ever do have a question or idea though, I’ll through it on the Brothers AU tag for you to check out, I guess. 

Oh, this sounds really cool. The part about them just ignoring their local time traveler when they’ve just time traveled particularly amuses me, as does Jackie wanting to see Foolish-I feel like Foolish may be a little more than terrified to see both Tubbo and Jackie back, honestly. Why was Ran willing to help them so much? What did they do to offer proof? How did Ranbob react once they proved who they were? How does all the group get along? Are they Ranboo’s haunting, and if so, if Ranboo gets close with his descendants, does he merge his hauntings with theirs? How does the time group feel about the Brothers fighting, and Ranbob’s possession?

[duketectivecomics]

You might've answered this already and I just didn't find it, but one thing that always perplexed me about Duke was how old he was in comparison to the other Batkids. It's obvious he's younger than Dick and Babs, and I pretty sure he's younger than Jason and Cass, and older than Damian, but I cannot tell if he's meant to be Tim and Steph's ages, younger, or older. Could you help me?

You’re all kinds of good here, anon!!! I answered a similar ask abt the Order of Adoption but didn’t dive into specific ages on that post BECAUSE well they didn’t ask lmaooo but ALSO:

Comic ages are very fluid usually! While Years™️ might pass in the canon proper, or while time seems to slow to a crawl, having a character’s age outright stated is something that occurs very rarely for most characters, if at all!

Because it’s always much easier to have a floating age range to work and play around in! It’s easier to keep a character Perpetually 12 or 16 or 25 or mid-40s or- you get the idea. SO, with that in mind. Let’s do our Best to Break Down What Age Duke Might Be Currently A N D how it might interact with the Other Batkids!

(Warning for a Very Long Post, lots of issue citations, and a LOT of comics terminology regarding specific runs/events/continunity. I’m gonna try to keep it as clear/concise as possible ofc but plz keep these things in mind! If you’re not at least marginally familiar with Bat-Comics, you might find yourself feeling a little lost here!)

So from the Zero Year arc we see a common Trend that plays out pretty consistently with Batfam comics: a Life-Changing Event Occuring while the protag is Young™️.

(Batman (2011) #30)

With how Duke is drawn in these particular issues, and given the trends of the past, I’d place him in the 8-12 range. The historic precedent being ofc that that is the same range that canon usually places both Bruce and Dick at for their Tragedies™; the more benign reason being that he... just very much Looks to be drawn in that Range. He’s very clearly an Older/Prepubescent child here.

Fast Forward to his Next Appearance in the Endgame arc and-

(Batman (2011) #37)

He’s definitely older! He’s wiser! And he’s giving Batman a fistbump lmao. Again, no strict age given here BUT, since they condensed each Robin to a Year or Two tops with Bruce (its n52 and its fucked up is what it is), we can assume it’s been at least 4-5 since Zero Year (which would mean if we go off the age range I proposed for that year, then theoretically he could be anywhere from 12-16 here, and I think that tracks pretty well. Not Perfectly and Certainly Not so well with Pre52 continuity ofc, but I’ll talk about that later!)

In We Are Robin, while its not stated Directly In The Text, it IS given as an Informational Tidbit that Duke is 16 (specifically this can be found at the end of issue #4)! (Sweet sweet canon confirmation FINALLY)

We know that WAR takes place Fairly Soon after Endgame (almost immediately, give or take a month or two given that Duke’s been placed in a few foster homes at this point and has racked up Quite A File) now, again id like to remind y’all that while this is a NICE starting point to have, keep in mind that comics are fluid and this may be retconned slightly/ignored in later stories bc Keeping Duke 16-ish is in DC’s Best Interest at the moment. (Having Relatable Teen Characters afterall is a Good Marketing strategy™️. And the longer they can Keep them Young, the Better)

With that in mind let’s take a moment to Highlight the fact that Duke and Damian have crossed paths at this point AND the storylines that have occurred during this year that were meant to be in conjunction with one another!

Because Prior to Endgame, Damian had Died! And just a year (in real, meat-space time) before We Are Robin, he was resurrected and had begun his “Year of Atonement” in the Robin: Son of Batman maxiseries. Midway through both this series and WAR (and, we can assume, midway thru this “Year” for Damian) the Robin War begins/ends and we see at least one major Moment between these two boys who will soon call one another brothers:

(Robin War #2)

Given that R:SoB is followed up VERY quickly by Teen Titans Rebirth (in which Damian celebrates his 13th birthday), we can conclude that Damian would be 12 during this time (well, 12 and 1/2 to play it safe lmao). That being said, this Confirms about a 4yr gap between Duke and Damian! (One Batkid down at least! but he’s the key to the others so put a pin in him!)

As We Are Robin draws to its conclusion, DC was releasing another arc that would eventually flow into the Rebirth Era, by the end of which, Bruce would approach Duke with an Idea (which involves Bruce becoming Dukes temporary guardian & as he states Many Times “Trying Something New” with Duke).

And thus the Rebirth Era begins, and Duke began his Year of training (most directly encapsulated by the Cursed Wheel arc in the All-Star Batman run:

(All-Star Batman #1 (back-up story))

Bruce introduces Duke to a training regimen that Alfred has named “the Cursed Wheel”. It encompasses all the training Bruce and the other bats have undergone and condenses it down into color-coordinated segments that will take Duke a Year to Complete.

It can be assumed that by the End of this Year Duke will somehow miraculously still be 16, despite, again, an entire ass year passing.

There’s one story that takes place mid-year in All-Star Batman, and the Cursed Wheel is meant to be capped off by Duke’s first Official Day as the Signal (in the titular Batman & the Signal ofc) BUT, near as I can tell after this story, Dukes age is not brought up again. So until they DO bring it up either in Batman & the Outsiders or whatever future run Duke becomes involved in, we can assume DC will be working with the idea that he’s meant to be in that 16-18 range from here on out (ie still a minor).

But, dear anon, you might be saying “okay, that’s cool, but how does that relate to my question abt how he falls in with the other Bats?” You’ll have to be a little patient with me here, but I think I may have cracked the code!

Keep in mind I’m gonna be addressing both the Post-Crisis to Flashpoint Continuity (ie mid-80s to 2010 in comics history) and the N52-slash-Rebirth Era (2010-Today). Its generally agreed by fandom and DC alike that these points of rebooting &/or Major Events constitute the era of “Modern” comics, and that everything from the 80s-on might more or less be canon on some level, even if not All of it is.

(Plus, most of fandom usually likes to borrow elements from both eras and much more rarely from stories before it, SO-)

Lets do a quick rundown of how everyone who’s Closer to Duke’s Age, Relates to each other first, age-wise:

Given that Jason was 15 when he died, in A Lonely Place of Dying its established that Bruce had become increasingly reckless since his death, and by the end of the story, Tim has stepped in to fill Robin’s shoes (he states that he’s 13 during this story btw). Pretty soon after, Stephanie Brown is introduced & established to be about a year older than Tim (wish I could pin-point a specific issue BUT, i unfortunately haven’t read any Tim OR Steph-involved comics that predate No Man’s Land... Besides the aforementioned Lonely Place and Young Justice technically, but im working on remedying that soon!)

NOW, during the No Man’s Land event, Cassandra is introduced, and pretty soon into her Batgirl run, its revealed that she’s around the same age as Jason (or at least how old he Would Have Been, had he not died.) Now, given that Jay has an August bday and Cass has a January one, fandom sometimes likes to play around with the idea of one being older than the other (OR even speculating/placing them in an AU as twins/siblings, given that Lady Shiva (Cass’ mom) was a Possible Candidate to be Jason’s biological mother but that’s a Whole Other Thing i wont get into here.)

The point being, Cass, in this era of comics, IS slightly older than Tim and Steph. At Tim’s start as Robin, their ages could either line up like: Tim-13, Steph-14, Cass-15 (being a few months ‘behind’ Jay), then Jason at 15/16 (depending on how soon Tim filled the role after Jay died in April) OR Jason-15/16, Cass-16/17 (in this case she’d be a few months ‘ahead’ now instead)

So brief detour to talk New 52, however! Because Tim, Steph & Cass all got switched around from where DC originally left them prior to the reboot! Now I haven’t read much of them in this era, other than Batman & Robin: Eternal, so my Understanding of their current ages is Spotty at Best. The general consensus seems to be that while before N52, Stephanie had been attending her first year of College (& doing VERY WELL i might add), with the reboot she was set back a few years alongside Tim to a vague Late-Teen state (so 16-18-ish, instead of a Very Clearly Established 18/19). Cass is probably the worst off for this reboot, given that B&R:E basically constitutes her new origin for the new continuity, and does nothing to confirm her age (all I really know is that she’s a Vague Late-Teen too... Probably? Maybe?), given how much they infantilize her, and subsequently how fandom in turn has taken to infantilizing her too, theres a semi-popular fanon that places her Younger that Tim and Steph. And I, for one, propose that we ignore that bc its Weak Sauce my dudes.

Some fans chose to ignore N52 continuity due to this vagueness, and will stick to the ages established before the N52/Rebirth reboots. But its something to keep in mind regardless bc we’re all obviously going to pull from what’s most familiar to us!

But WHERE could we place Duke with regards to them, then? Because them being “Late Teens” is certainly much too vague to work with!

This is Where Damian is the key!

Because Damian is one of those rare exceptions to the Reboot Rule. His story flowed almost seamlessly over from before to after. While he was made a Robin at the age of 10, he continued to grow and learn even after the universe was being rewritten to suit the whims of DC editorial. 

If we choose to ignore how everyone else’s ages and origins were swapped around, and stick with the growth that was presented before the reboot, then we can draw some interesting conclusions!

Firstly, though Stephanie also had Died and subsequently Returned, she hadn’t lost much, if any time, from the Ordeal. At the start of her Batgirl run, she is enrolled at a Gotham university and making headway with a more firm foot in the Batfamily (even to the point that she and Damian spend a few issues bonding. At this point in time, Damian is definitely 11, and again, Steph can be assumed to be 18/19 during the course of her run. We’ll assume 18 for clarity’s sake.)

So, then when Damian is 11, now our line up is as Follows:

Dami - 11, Steph - 18, Tim - 17, Cass 19-21 (the range depending again, if you subscribe to Cass being either older/younger than Jason).

WHICH MEANS, If during Robin War Damian is 12 (and a half) THEN We’ve got an age line-up that Potentially looks Like This:

Dami -12(and 1/2), Duke - 16, Tim - 18, Steph - 19, Cass - 20-22 (And Obvsly Jason, Babs & Dick at their varying Older Ages than everyone here)

and im just now realizing i Didnt include Harper in this line-up, but thats bc she’d also throw a big wrench in all this.  I’d personally throw her in with being Steph’s age, but I’m pretty sure she was supposed to be either that, or between Steph and Cass (again, since its N52, i believe Cass was/is assumed to be Younger than Steph, but that contradicts the assumed following of pre52 canon that we have for the above line-up, obvsly, and so we ignore that lmao) 

All this to say, however, that canon and fandom is what you make of it, and if you want to wiggle these ages around a little, you’re more than allowed! God Knows i usually like to skew the Tim-Steph-Cass age group to be a tad older than this in my own fic writing, and I like to have Duke start as a Robin at 14/15 instead of 16, but that’s just bc I like the dynamic potential it could bring with them being Definitively Older that him, and thus in a more secure place to be Mentoring him right alongside Bruce & the others.

But you might see these age ranges and want to do something Different (say, making Tim, Steph, Cass, & Duke all the Same Age at 17 instead! And that very well tracks with how current comics kinda looks right now!) and you’re absolutely valid to do so! Because again, comic character’s ages are meant to be fluid, not fixed!

And at the end of the day, its all about wanting to see these teen heroes kick serious ass haha

[hyuniepot]

the butterfly effect. || chapter 2

chapter word count || 3,513

genre || thriller, angst, drama

members || mark lee, na jaemin, lee jeno, huang renjun, lee donghyuck, zhong chenle, park jisung

warnings || mentions of death, implications of depression

pairing || fem!reader x jaemin || slight fem!reader x mark

synopsis || you never thought you’d be able to play with fate so easily, especially not through some shady app. but you suddenly must say goodbye to what you know and hello to a new world where everything seems perfect.

taglist || @gothboyjisung​ @jeongyoonohs​ @doiewonu

previous chapter

Your eyes open at the sound of a knock at your door. You lift your head and see Jisung.

Your eyes open at the sound of a knock at your door. You lift your head and see Jisung.

Your eyes open at the sound of a knock at your door. You lift your head and see Jisung.

“Are you coming downstairs? Your breakfast is gonna get cold.” he says.

You blink, confused. Jisung wasn’t the type to wake you up or check in on you, so why was he telling you this? And what was this talk about breakfast? You never made breakfast, and your mom was too busy to stop and make breakfast before you left. You usually just grabbed a granola bar.

Then you remember your conversation with ButterFly.

“Um, yeah. I’ll be down in a second.” you try to stabilize your voice.

Jisung nods, closing your door. You jump out of bed, grabbing your phone. It was only a bit earlier than the usual time you woke up. You opened your phone.

ButterFlyHQ

We hope you are satisfied with your decision.

You swallow hard. You instinctively go to call Jaemin, but his contact is gone. In fact, nearly everyone’s contact is.

No Jaemin.

No Jeno.

No Renjun.

No Jiwoo.

No Naeun.

No Sungyeon.

You felt relieved when you saw Hyuck’s. And your heart started pounding when you saw Mark’s. You stared at your phone for what felt like minutes. Your brain couldn’t comprehend the fact that ButterFly has actually worked — and you were seeing the proof. You snapped out of your daze at the sound of a door shutting downstairs. You left your room and went downstairs. Jisung sat at the table, eating his breakfast. Your mother was doing the dishes.

You sat down at the table across from Jisung. You had absolutely no appetite, so you took a few nibbles from your food and tried not to think about how weird everything was right now.

“Oh, sweetie,” your mom said. You look back at her. “Your uniform is still in my room. Don’t forget to grab it before you leave.”

“Okay.” you reply. After a few more minutes of staring at your food, you get up. “I’m gonna go get ready.”

“Wait,” your mother stops you. “You barely ate.”

“Yeah… I’m really not hungry today.” you tell her.

“Hmm… okay. Just make sure to eat your lunch, okay? I don’t need you being fatigued or anything… Jisung, honey, do you want what she didn’t eat?” she asks.

Jisung excitedly nods, grabbing your plate and eating the food. At least his appetite stayed the same…

You go back upstairs, entering your mother’s room. When she said uniform, you thought she meant your school’s uniform. Not a volleyball jersey and shorts. You sighed and picked it up, putting it in your bookbag. You picked your phone up.

Mark

im omw over !! :)

It suddenly hit you that you’d be seeing Mark soon. Of course you would. You realize you’re completely unprepared to see him. You had no idea how to feel. The thought was exciting and terrifying all at the same time.

Your eyes immediately start watering at the thought of him; you had to pause and take a deep breath to calm yourself down. It had been nearly 4 years since he passed away. Would he be different? It was hard to imagine Mark as a 17-year-old.

You still find yourself blaming yourself for his death. Everyone told you it wasn’t, but you still couldn’t shake the feeling that you didn’t do anything.

You were both 13, Hyuck was 12, not that it mattered, but it was the only thing that could soothe your guilt. You were practically a child, what were you supposed to do? It was summer, and you all went swimming in a lake nearby despite being told not to. In your eyes, the lake was just nature’s pool. None of you expected it to be so deep. It just happened so fast, you could barely recall how it happened. Mark jumped in and didn’t come back up.

After so long you panicked and ran back home as fast as you could, telling your mother what happened. She called the police and Mark’s parents. She didn’t let you go back outside all day. You just remember sitting in your room, confused and scared. You cried yourself to sleep in your mother’s arms when your mother broke the news to you.

You should’ve known better.

You hated thinking about that day. You had never fully recovered. You were traumatized, but you didn’t want anyone to worry about you more than they already did. Whenever your mother asked, you’d tell her you were okay and try to quickly change the subject. But every time you looked at yourself in the mirror, there was something missing. It was the face of someone who would never forgive themself.

You take a deep breath. You didn’t have any more time to waste. Looking at yourself in the mirror, the tiredness that usually plagued you was gone. Your dark circles were gone as well. You run a brush through your hair and put on your school uniform, grabbing your bag and going back downstairs to wait for Mark. Jisung had finished what remained of your food and had gotten ready as you were upstairs. He was sitting in the living room.

Your phone buzzes. You pull it out.

Mark

here! let jisung know chenle is here too.

You feel relief knowing Jisung still knew Chenle. Maybe it would help things feel normal. You couldn’t imagine Jisung without his other half.

“Okay, let’s go.” you tell Jisung. “Uh… Mark just got here,” the words feel weird leaving your mouth. “And Chenle is here too.”

Jisung gets up and follows you outside. You spot Chenle first. He looked how he usually did; brown, somewhat disheveled hair and eyes full of excitement no matter what. That was Chenle. He smiled as you made your way to him. You gave him a small smile as well.

And then you see Mark standing at the end of your driveway, staring at something. You’re surprised when you see him, he looks so much like his younger self. It almost made you feel nauseous.

“Oh, hey!” he says, jogging to where you were standing. “Sorry, I was looking at that bush… for some reason. Well, I saw something moving under it and I thought maybe an animal was under there, and…”

You just nod slowly as he talks, taking a deep breath.

“Are you okay?”

You remember that staring at someone with your mouth slightly open isn’t normal. You clear your throat. “Yeah, sorry. I’m just really tired.” you say.

“I assumed,” he says as you both start walking down the sidewalk. “You didn’t respond to any of my texts.” You feel a pang of guilt. You didn’t respond because you had no idea how.

You hear footsteps behind you. You look back and see Jisung and Chenle following you, still deep in conversation.

“By any chance, have you heard from Hyuck?” Mark asks.

You keep looking forward to the sidewalk. “I haven’t. Why do you ask?”

“I just haven’t heard from him at all, that’s why. We usually text each other every morning to talk about if he’s gonna join us on our walk to school. But all I got was radio silence on his end,” Mark tells you. “It’s not like him to oversleep or anything.”

You couldn’t get yourself to look at Mark. You pull out your phone and click on Hyuck’s contact, trying not to feel sad at Jaemin’s absence in your contacts list. You call Hyuck, needing something familiar to ground you.

“Hello?” Hyuck’s voice is hoarse.

“Hey,” your voice is shaky. You clear your throat in an attempt to stable it. “Uh… where are you?” you suddenly feel like an idiot for calling Hyuck. You were unsure of what to say.

“Sorry. I overslept. I slept like shit last night. I saw Mark blew up my phone,” he says, nearly unintelligible from his yawning. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Alright. I was just wondering.” you say. “I’ll see you at school.”

“Yeah. See ya.” he hangs up.

You put your phone down. “He’s awake now,”

Mark chuckles. “You didn’t have to call him.”

You shrug. “Well, it’s a good thing I did. He was still sleeping.”

“He’s always been like this. Kid loves to sleep,” Mark says, sighing. “Probably from his busy schedule… It’s no surprise he gets so exhausted.”

You nod. For once, you were feeling thankful that you lived so close to school. Soon, you’d be able to collect your thoughts. Talking to Mark was almost too much. You couldn’t look him in the eye.

“Hey,”

You turn and see Jisung. He’s smiling. When was the last time you had seen a smile so genuine from him?

“I’ll see you later. You have practice after school, right?” Jisung asks.

You feel your eyes filling up with tears. You try your best to discreetly wipe them away. “Yeah. I’ll see you when I get home.”

Jisung smiles before turning away with Chenle, and they continue their walk. You turn back to Mark.

“Well, even though Hyuck didn’t walk to school with us, he’ll probably walk home with us. We both have practice after school, too. What time does yours end?” he asks.

Shit. “Uh... “ you quickly try to think of a time. You forgot what sport you even played in this universe or whatever this was. Then you remembered Naeun played volleyball and was always complaining about practice. “6:00.”

“Good. Ours ends at 6 too.” Mark responds.

You sigh in relief. You both walk through the entrance doors. Finally, something else that remained the same. The familiarity of school was almost comforting. You went to the right and Mark went to the left. You said a quick goodbye before basically running to your locker.

You open it and throw your bag inside, pulling out your phone. You went to delete the ButterFly app. You weren’t even sure if that was the best idea; maybe it would make things worse. But you didn’t care. You just wanted this stupid app out of your life. It wasn’t even supposed to work, anyways. But no matter how many times you tapped the little X in the corner of the app, it refused to go away. You felt your eyes filling with tears again, this time out of frustration. You shut your phone off.

You see something in the corner of your eye — it’s a schedule that had been taped to the inside of your locker. You thanked your old self for putting it there. Luckily, only 2 of your classes were different from normal. You grabbed your books and went to your new first class of the day.

You froze when you saw them. Renjun and Jeno, sitting next to each other in the back of the room. They looked the same. The only thing that was different was Renjun’s hairstyle. You wanted to talk to them so badly, but you knew things were different here. Neither of them didn’t bat an eye at your presence.

“Hello, earth to (y/n)!” you heard a voice say. You turn and see a girl with her hand on your shoulder. You recognized her — you think her name is Suhyun. You only saw her around school, but it seems you’re pretty good friends with her in this universe.

“Oh, hey,” you say, nervously laughing.

“Why are you staring so hard?” she moves her head to try and see what you were looking at. She shrugs and takes a bite of a granola bar in her hand. “Come on.” she grabs your wrist and leads you to two desks near the left side of the classroom next to some windows. She sits down at one and you sit at the other, hoping it was the correct seat.

“Did you do the homework?” she asks.

You nod. You hoped your past self had done it.

“Good. Everytime I called you, you were busy hanging out with Mark and Hyuck. Are you forgetting you’re still a student?” she scolds.

You smile. “Sorry,” you say nonchalantly, starting to get worried that your past self ended up not doing the homework. After some searching you found it in a folder, finished.

A bell rang, signaling the classes to begin. You were thankful that your first class was just a lecture after turning in the homework. It gave you plenty of time to think. And you realized this is what your life was now. There’s no fixing it, so you might as well get used to it. You tried to ignore Renjun and Jeno in your peripheral and focused on trying to seem like you belonged here.

[6:09 p.m.]

The rest of the school day was much easier. You ate lunch with a new group of friends. They were great, but you missed your old friends. However, you’d see Naeun at volleyball practice, although you had no idea if you were close to her or not. You were on a team together, so surely you were friends of some sort.

You were thankful you were actually good at volleyball, so practice was a breeze. You stopped being interested in sports after middle school, but it was interesting to see that you had continued playing into highschool in this universe.

You go to change out of your uniform after practice when you feel an arm around your shoulder.

“You wanna come with us to get some food?” one of your teammates, Jungeun, asks. She uses her other free hand to pull the hair tie out of her hair, her brown hair flowing down.

“Oh, I’d love to… but I promised I’d walk home with my friends…” you reply.

“Let me guess, Mark?” she giggles. “God, will you two just date already?”

You choke on your own saliva. “What? No, no, no… he’s my best friend, no way!” you reply.

She smiles. “I’m just teasing. And it’s okay, just promise me you’ll come with us someday.” she says, slinging her bag over her shoulder.

“I promise,” you say, nodding.

“Good,” Jungeun gently pulls her hair out from under her bag. “I’ll see you later.” she flashes you another smile before heading out of the locker room.

You change out of your uniform and take a seat on one of the locker room benches to breathe for a second. Your feet were killing you. You hear footsteps approaching, and moments later, Naeun appears. She gives you a grin as she opens her locker. “You’re not going either?”

You shake your head. “I already made plans.”

“Don’t let it get to you. Jungeun might start giving you shit, just ignore her. I remember when I started dating Jaemin, she was so pissed because I was hanging out with him and not the team. I mean, I still love the team, but he’s my boyfriend, you know? Obviously I wanna spend time with him.” she explains, looking at herself in a mirror, trying to make her hair look less like a sweaty mess.

You stared forward. Jaemin? And Naeun? You felt sick to your stomach. “Yeah.” you breathe, trying to make sure Naeun didn’t notice your sudden change in demeanor.

“I cracked the code though,” she says, shutting the locker room door. “If you hang out with the team after practice at least twice a month, she’ll shut up.” she shoots you a wink, making her way to the exit. “You coming?”

You look in her direction and shake your head. You suddenly couldn’t bear the thought of being around her. Especially not now, when Jaemin could appear at any second. “Um… I’m just gonna stay back for a bit longer.” your voice is on the verge of breaking.

Luckily, Naeun is oblivious. “Alright. Have a good night!” the locker room is quiet once again.

You run your hands through your hair. You felt horrible. You hadn’t seen Jaemin at school at all, so you were relieved. But now you knew he was there and there was no chance you’d ever be able to have him in this universe. Naeun was beautiful, and as much as you loved Jaemin, you could never try to take him away from her. It was one of the many sacrifices you’d have to make here, but it was definitely the one that hurt the most. The thought of having to watch Jaemin be in love with someone else gave you the worst feeling in your heart.

You suddenly remember that Mark and Hyuck are probably waiting for you. You were thankful that the walk home would be quick. Soon you’d be able to go home and cry, because the pressure in your head was telling you you needed to. You take a deep breath to collect yourself before standing up and exiting the gym. A cool breeze hit you.

“Hey, over here!” you look in the direction of the voice which was undoubtedly Mark’s. Hyuck is standing next to him, his hands in his hoodie pocket.

You jog over to him, forcing a smile. Seeing Mark and Hyuck instantly made you feel a little bit better. “Hey! How was practice?”

“Fine as always,” Mark replies. You start making your way off school grounds.

“How was your day, Hyuck?” you ask. It feels awkward to be speaking to him like this, almost like he was a stranger. He was usually just… always around you.

Hyuck looks at you for a moment before smiling. “Good. How about you?”

“It got better. Mark probably knows but I was so exhausted this morning,” you tell him. “I couldn’t sleep at all.”

“Really?” Hyuck asks. “That makes two of us, I guess.”

“That sucks for you guys,” Mark groans, stretching. “I slept like a baby. And I probably will again tonight,”

Hyuck rolls his eyes. “Lucky you,”

You laugh. “Well, let’s just hope tonight is different.”

The walk home felt somewhat normal, and you started to feel better. It still kind of felt as if you were just an actress, just reciting your poorly-memorized lines to two actors, but you knew it would take some time before it really sunk in that this was all real.

You say goodbye to Mark and Hyuck as you reach your house. You head inside and see Jisung in the kitchen, drinking a can of soda. He waves as you walk in.

“Hey, punk,” you say, playfully hitting him.

He grins and hits you back. “Hey.”

It was something about this -- Jisung being so different, so happy in this universe, that made you happy to stay. You weren’t exactly sure why Jisung was so unhappy in your old life; Maybe your sadness rubbed off on him. Maybe it was something else. You tried to spend as much time as possible with him, but it never seemed to work. It never made him any happier. It was rare to see him genuinely happy, and you hated it. You hated it because you knew exactly how it felt. He was still a kid. He deserved to be happy. You were just thankful he had someone like Chenle who was such a good friend to him.

“Did you eat dinner?” you ask, opening the fridge. You spot a box of pizza.

“Mmhmm,” Jisung says, taking another sip from the can in his hands. “You might need to warm it up, though.”

You shrug and decide to just eat the pizza cold. It didn’t bother you. After eating, you took a shower and then spent some time with your mom and Jisung before doing your homework and going to bed.

You laid in your bed on your phone for a while texting Mark about your day at school and practice when you realized how bizarre all of this was. Your best friend had practically come back from the dead and you were trying to act like it was normal. You pinched yourself a few times. Maybe this was all a dream. (You were slightly relieved when you didn’t wake up in your old room.)

The only thing you couldn’t get over was Jaemin. Throughout the night, thoughts of him crept into your mind. There was no denying that you were jealous. You were missing him so badly. You had never been away from him, and the fact that you had to go to school with him without him even acknowledging your existence and dating someone else hurt much more than you expected it to. You thought maybe the universe would be nice to you and let you still be with him; but deep down you knew that was asking far too much.

You set your phone aside and curl up underneath the covers. Your heart sinks when you recognize the familiar feeling of falling asleep upset, practically dreading having to deal with the wrenches life was surely going to throw at you. You squeezed your eyes shut as if it would rid your mind of the bad thoughts. You felt thankful that you had such a busy day; it made you fall asleep quickly.

[innittowinit]

SBI headcanons awooga

Some headcanons and things for my sbi fd! Abandoned amusement park fic lol 

Here's the link if you haven't read it btw 

SBI last name is Reid, DT last name is Jackson btw lmao, i probably won't mention it much though unless it's like Mrs Reid for the sbi mom y'know

This has Tommy, Techno, Wilbur and Phil included; lmk if a dt post would be a good idea too 

Tommy

The youngest brother, he’s seven lmao what a child

Even though he’s the youngest, he’s also the most confrontational and will gladly ‘fight’ anyone who talks bad about his brothers 

He can’t fight

He’s very tall for his age but is also extremely light since he’s always running around 

Phil tries to get him to try new foods a lot but Tommy’s a really picky eater

...Tantrums.. Every time he doesn’t get his way

This lead to his brothers spoiling him quite a bit, he’s still sweet enough though since Phil has had many stern conversations with him about being nice to people 

Has a toy music boy, with collectable discs

Wilbur got his first disc for him, it’s his most prised possession 

Every time he does all of his chores (which are really just small things like clean up after himself and keep his room tidy) someone, whether its his Mum, Wilbur or someone else, gets him a new disc 

Techno got him ‘Pig step’ for his seventh birthday and he listens to it every night before bed 

One time he snuck downstairs while Techno and Wilbur were having a sleepover and watched the horror movie they were watching without them realising it. Techno and Wil were the ones to get into trouble since Tommy wouldn’t sleep for a week afterwards. 

Techno had to read him a story every night until he stopped thinking he was going to be eaten by a demon in the middle of the night 

Drinks way too much caffeine for a kid, someone take this boys coke away

He’s got a habit of biting his nails, which has left him with some pretty crooked teeth, which will probably need to be fixed with braces when he’s older. 

It’s also gross because he climbs so much there’s almost always dirt under his nails 

Hasn’t really grasped the whole concept of not saying everything he thinks yet

Oh my god someone shut this boy up

He still believes in Santa and The easter bunny too

One time Techno told him Oogie Boogie from the nightmare before christmas was real and he cried

He talks a lot in school because he finds it boring but he’s also very good at maths and English for his age

Wilbur 

Middle child, Wil is 13. Techno’s twin 

He’s pretty insecure about his music even though he’s been playing his whole life

That’s why he likes being able to practice in L’manburg, there’s no pressure to be perfect when he’s alone with his brothers 

Super extroverted and confident in everything else though, Since Techno can’t talk to most people, he usually tries to speak for both of them

After realising that Techno didn’t really like it when he said ‘Techno thinks’ a lot, back in primary school, he adapted to trying to speak for what Techno wants without making Techno’s issues obvious

They tell people who need to know, but for people they’ll only talk to a few times they usually just get away with Wilbur acting super obnoxious and loud so it seems like Techno just doesn’t have room to talk, rather than that he can't 

It’s easier than getting into it since they don’t feel like most people will understand

has separation Anxiety, when he’s not with his brother he doesn’t relax/ feel safe at all. If it happens at school he won't do his work at all/ Will probably just leave the room and try to find Techno

Everyone kinda knows this and they try to suit things around it without saying it outright 

He’s kinda embarrassed, he likes to think he’s the one protecting Techno but really they need each other the same amount 

Techno gets this though, He doesn’t mind if wilbur has a bit of a saviour complex, he’ll play along if it makes him happy 

They’re working on it with their Therapist though so don’t worry, he won't grow up to be an ass

Interests (besides music) include: 

Watching obscure documentaries 

Disney movies, favourite is peter pan 

  Skating 

He and Techno got Picked on in primary school for being so close, he learnt kickboxing so he could defend himself if things ever got physical. Luckily they didn’t but he still knows how to kickbox so watch out

Almost always turning in homework late, he’s good at talking his way out of Detentions though. 

And when he cant talk his way out, Techno finds a way to get detention too

He’s VERY protective of his younger brother(s(he was born first so he likes to insist that Techno is his little brother)) 

That’s good for the most part but he can be a little overbearing sometimes, he’s got detention many many times for cussing out people who so much as looked at Techno wrong 

When he’s feeling guilty he mumbles a lot 

Techno 

Middle child, 13. Wilbur’s twin

Has selective Mutism, completely fine talking to Wilbur, Only talks to Tommy and Phil if Wil is there too but other than that he’s completely fine talking to them as well. He speaks to his parents but not as openly as he does with his brothers, with them its usually very quiet, one word sentences 

Like Wilbur, separation Anxiety also, It’s not as bad as Wilbur’s is though, Wil just makes him comfortable enough to talk with his brothers, he can deal with being without Wilbur but he absolutely doesn’t want to

He can be a bit arrogant and possessive of his brothers at times, he’s a bit scared of them leaving him because he can be so difficult so he has a tendency to be cold to any new people they bring home 

Interests include: Pvp games, ancient china, farming

He was hyper-fixated on a cartoon when he was younger and now he has multiple cosplays from it that he’ll probably never wear again

His hair is LONG and pink, they never figured out why it grew so fast or why it was pink but it is lmao 

When he was born his parents were terrified, they thought he had some kind of rare condition that was going to hurt him but the doctors eventually came to the conclusion that he just had healthy hair that grew fast and the pinkness was due to an abnormality in the melanin in his system or something idk fellas im failing science pls pretend this part makes sense 

Being silent with long pink hair as a kid, he got picked on a lot. There were many instances where he just pushed kids over or hit them because they were being mean 

Since he’s the quiet one, teachers usually trust him a lot so he and wilbur used to skip class a lot, back when they got picked on, by saying they had to help another teacher do something

In an attempt to get him to be more social, his parents signed him up for violin lessons aged 8, he really liked his teacher and had even managed to speak a little to her over the past 4 years he took lessons 

Spaces out a lot 

He watches a lot of conspiracy theory videos but he doesn’t actually believe any of them, he just finds them interesting

One time he convinced Tommy they were living in a simulation and Tommy hit a kid to see if his hand would pass through

He’s spoken a few words to squidkid too since they’re childhood friends and he’s very comfortable with him. Ironically all he seems to say to him is ‘bozo’ to tease the other for saying it so often, instead of literally any other insult

Phil 

Oldest brother, 16 

Cares about his brothers so so so so so much like he will do anything to keep them happy and safe

One time he missed an exam because Tommy was sick and he wanted to take him to the doctor before anything else

Tommy was fine btw, just one of those bugs you get when you're little

Their parents are pretty distant so Phil has been pretty much raising them since he was little, he doesn’t mind though

Their parents aren’t bad people or anything, they just get called out a lot for work and can’t be at home a whole bunch, it’s a big part of the reason why Techno never got comfortable talking a lot around them

He works at a Nearby florist to get extra cash to buy his brothers things when his parents arent home

When their mum is home, he brings her flower arrangements home from work because he is sweet <3

He’s really into mythology and Folklore as well as drawing, when he was younger he had multiple sketchbooks filled up with different creatures that he had drawn 

When he, techno and wilbur were all little, he used to play a game with them where they’d describe a monster off the tops of their heads and he’d draw it for them 

Techno and Wilbur loved this and always put up Phil’s drawings on their bedroom walls 

When he was 13 he used to write angsty poetry, He told wilbur about it one day and that's when wilbur first started adding lyrics to his songs 

He can be pretty gullible, he likes to believe that people mean good no matter how hard it might be to see it that way 

He can hold grudges for a pretty long time, he’s quick to forgive when it’s himself that’s been hurt but it’s very very hard to get on his good side again if you hurt his brothers 

Watches Alien theories with techno, unlike techno he actually believes in them

Has the ‘i believe in aliens’ poster 

When they were little, he used to grow strawberry plants with techno and Wilbur, this is what prompted techno to start growing other vegetables in their garden himself

[violetnotez]

Is the this the longest fic Ive ever written? Yes. Does it suck? Also yes. Will nobody read it because it makes no sense but Im still going to post because I wasted way too much damn on this thing? TRIPLE YES.

Word count: 10.4k words (she thicc)

Genre: Angst and Fluff, sfw

AU: Fantasy AU!, Hanahaki disease

Prompt: “How could your keep this from?”

Warnings: blood

Summary: You are born into a worls where you must marry your best friend, Prince Shoto, in order to unite your kingdoms in harmony. You are happy to marry your childhood friend and love, until he leaves for a quest unannounced, and you are left questioning if you really want to marry him. Once he returns a few weeks before your planned wedding, you begin to not fall in love with him, but one of his comrades- the barbarian, Bakugo. 

*this is for the even for @bnhabookclub​! Heres the link to the post if your interested!

Again. welcome to the shitshow that is my blog. read at your own risk cause this gets REAL WIERD REAL QUICK

Petals-all you could see were the petals.

Your mouth and  throat felt so dry, your forehead damp with sweat as your back convulsed painfully, raspy coughs wracking out of your chest as you forced the petals out of your body.

They were so pale, like creamy vanilla, a stark contrast from the droplets of your blood splattered on the delicate buds.

You quickly reached for your handkerchief, wiping the residue off your dry mouth in fear of it dribbling on to your white dress-your wedding dress. Your hands were shaking, unable to cry any more tears at your misery-you had come to terms many weeks ago that you were going to reach an unhappy end.

Why did it have to be him?

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

You were the princess of your kingdom, destined to marry Prince Shoto of the neighboring kingdom. It was something you two had been accustomed to from birth- in order to connect  the two kingdoms and end the quarrels between the two civilizations, you had to marry. It would be a harmonious marriage: Prince Shoto was kind, soft spoken, and a natural born leader. You two had been wonderful friends as siblings, your fathers putting away their troubles in order for you two to get along. They were hoping that by making you friends at a young age, you would learn to grow feelings for each other.

 For a time, it worked-you had fallen for Prince Shoto, his soft yet powerful demeanor making you  blush each time you remembered him, your young hands writing your name with his last in your journal like a prayer. At 13 you already began to count down the days until you would turn 18, because on that day, you were set to marry your predestined lover- Shoto Todoroki.

For years you had felt so lucky you were blessed with such a sweet boy to be with, being able to live out your lives harmoniously and in peace, something both your parents didn't have the luxury to have. It sometimes left you feeling frustrated- Shoto was truly kind, but very quiet about his thoughts. Your love felt one sided, Shoto seemingly only tolerating you because he had to. 

Once he got older, he became more distant towards you, clearly wishing to rebel against his father’s wishes by being distant towards you. It hurt you immensely to see your best friend and crush plainly reject you, but you still held on to the hope that you two could be happy with each other. Yet all that changed when the Prince had left for a quest.

He had been gone for what seemed like an eternity and for a time, you were extremely worried. You could barely focus on your studies, only imagining your poor friend somewhere cold, hungry, and alone. You knew he would be fine, he was a resilient fighter, but yet you couldn't help but allow the worrisome thoughts to collect in your brain. After news that the Prince was in a neighboring kingdom, safely traveling with a young boy, a witch, and a warrior, you felt at ease- with all those comrades, he was sure to be safe. You finally breathed a sigh of relief, able to calm your anxieties after a long time of being unable to.

 Information continued to trickle in, sometimes good and sometimes bad, but it always stated that the Prince was spotted safe and sound. You took solace in that information, and for awhile, you began to worry less and less about Shoto, until he was barely a memory.

During that time, you had begun to take on the habit of reading. Before it was a task you simply did when forced or extremely bored, only reading books and stories from your own kingdom. 

With so much extra time on your hands waiting upon the Prince to return, you began to learn of other stories, ones that were trully a delight to you: stories of nomads who traveled the country and did rituals to bring them fortunes, women who sold potions by gathering mystical ingredients from the woods, people choosing their own destines and their own paths. It intrigued you- from birth you had one mission for your life: to unite your kingdoms. Once you married Prince Shoto, your destiny would be complete: and then what would you do? You had no other purpose, except being a symbol of that peace for the rest of your life, sitting pretty on a throne until your last breath. 

It began to eat at your insides, gnaw at your conscience that you were merely a pawn in your father’s legacy. You could now fully understand why Shoto had been so defiant: he had realized the truth of his life as well.

Slowly, you began to learn to dread instead of anticipate your wedding day. With the Prince being gone, it was sending quite a ruckus in your home, your father more annoyed with each passing day that the Prince had not come back. You, on the other hand, rejoiced. The kings had both agreed at your times of birth that if anything happened to either child before your 18th birthday, the agreement would be cancelled and the marriage no more. They would rely on their children to fix their broken ties. 

You had just turned 17, the mental clock beginning to tick  in you and your father’s minds, as the Prince still wasn't back form his quest. Just a few more months, and you would both have your wishes: Shoto seemed to have no interest in marrying you, and why should you even for that matter? You two truly didnt love each other- your friendship was a hoax your fathers had created in order to save their own legacies. Your love for each other was man-made and a lie. Just a few more months, and you'd be free of this terrible fate.

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

The day you turned 17 and a half, you were busying yourself on your plush pink bed, reading another novel about free spirited women in a far off land.

“Princess y/n,” your hand maiden opened the door quietly, afraid of disturbing you, “the King would like to speak with you.”

You gave your shy handmaiden a small smile, delicately marking the spot in your book as your feet landed on the cold floor.��

“Thank you,” you replied, “Ill be there shortly.”

You entered your father’s study, his feet stomping the room heavily as he paced in deep thought.

The room was grand, a golden chair sitting in front of an old ebony desk, the room surrounded by maps, battle plans, and bookcases full of legends of stories written long before your time. Light flitted through long windows against the wall, looking out to the rural countryside and a matching red carpet run the lengths of the stone floors.

Your entrance seemed to have disturbed your Father’s train of thought, his head instantly looking to see who had interrupted him. Once he saw it was you, he sighed, greeting you with a tight smile.

“You wished to see me Father?’ you asked politely, your fingers tugging nervously at the sleeves of your dress. Your father never called upon you unless it was extremely important- had you done something wrong? You wracked your mind for any actions that would had been unwise for your father to find out, but to your surprise, you couldnt think of a single thing you had done.

“Yes, yes,” your father said hastily, waving his hands toward a small wooden chair at the foot of his desk, “please-sit. We have much to discuss.”

You sat on the hard chair, a chill traveling your back as you watched your father sit in his plush throne, his face clearly tired.

“As we all know, Prince Shoto has been on a quite a long quest for some time,” your father began, his voice deep with annoyance, “and has not come back. And with your 18th birthday fast approaching, and it worries me that the boy wont be back in time for your marriage. I have talked to King Todoroki about my worries,  who also had the same fear, and he promised to bring the boy back and end his little shenanigan. But Shoto refuses to leave until his quest is complete.” 

Your father took in a deep breath through his nose, his face a mix of anger and agitation.

Your heart beat excitedly- the prince wasnt coming back? The news bounced happily inside you, giving you some hope that you needed- that must have been why he had gone on that quest in the first place! Even though you were excited, you felt a tightness in your chest- you were childhood firend after all. He really didnt like you that much that he felt he had to run away?

“Oh dont look so solemn daughter,” your father comforted, his voice soft with sympathy,” Shotos father allowed the boy to finish his quest in 5 months’ time, and he is forced to return to his kingdom. In the meantime, we can not forget the whole reason for your marriage like young Todoroki has- you must connect the kingdoms in order to bring harmony.``

“Which is why,” your father added, “we must begin to plan the wedding.”

Your head shot up, the feeling of shock flooding your body. It was still going to happen? Your body began to feel heavy, your father's words fuzzy against your ear- you didn't want this, any of this. You felt trapped like a songbird in a cage, unable to scream out what you desperately wanted to say: if he didnt love you, you didnt want any part of this.

Your father seemed to not notice the look of terror on your face, continuing to inform you of his plan. “We already have sent out invitation to relatives and noblemen in other countries, as well as begin to plan out the festivities. It will be a 3 day event, full of food and parties and, of course, the celebration of our kingdoms coming together. The closer to the date, we will begin to need you for fittings of your dresses as well as rehearse your wedding vows and such. I promise I will make this as wonderful as I can, for you are my only daughter.” 

The king smiled at you, wrapping your stiff body into a hug. You could barely feel his embrace- the world was numb to your screaming mind. You wished upon everything in you to end this, to make this all go away, but you knew you couldn't- you would be forced to do this whether you wanted to or not. 

You simply nodded your head to your father’s parting words, and then ran to your quarters, shutting the door and ceremoniously throwing yourself on your bed in defeat.

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

For days you felt numb and broken, all fight leaving your body. You watched as all your handmaidens and servants ran like chickens around the castle, preparing for the enormous festivities coming in close time. You were a good and proper princes, silently placid and allowing everything around you to happen.

 Flower arrangements, samples of sweets, and  fabrics for your dresses all came to you, and you agreed to all of them or just randomly choose. You could care less for your “special day”- the only thing you could truly hope for was prince Shoto ignoring his father’s wishes and not coming back.

That, of course, was a wishful fantasy. You were having a blissful dream when your hand maiden barged into your room, clearly too excited to be considerate of your sleeping state.

“Miss y/n! Miss y/n! Oh please wake up! There is most wonderful news!” she cried excitedly, gently pulling the covers off your body, “You must get ready at once!”

“Prince Shoto- he is back from his quest!”

---------

The whole of the kingdom rejoiced at the news, since he had arrived a month before the wedding. He was here, ready to marry and unite the kingdom. That was all that truly mattered.

Your handmaiden dressed you in your most elegant gown, the icy aqua color bringing out the rosiness of your cheeks, as she placed pearly ornaments in your hair. You felt like you were being presented as a gift to the Prince, a reminder of what he was destined to do. You sighed, dreading having to reunite with your once friend and secret love.

Shoto was standing in the ballroom of your castle, very accustomed to it since you both played here occasionally as children. He was used to the golden floors and the crystal chandeliers the sizes of boulders, all hung gracefully in a row on the ebony ceiling. Him and his company were standing shoulder to shoulder, facing the polished staircase cascading towards them.

He looked at his new found friend’s faces, their expressions clearly in shock. Izuku, his face ruddy with dirt and his cheeks aflame from nervousness as he twisted his shirt between his fingers (a nervous tick Shoto had noticed).  Uraraka gawked at the room around her in awe, her wide eyes drinking up the scene in front of her. Bakugo was least impressed, his arms crossed in front of his exposed chest and his eyes formed in judgmental slits.

 Shoto had told the others before why he had to go back, but only after the quest was over- he wanted to help his new found friends, and after promising to help them in their battle, he would have felt extremely guilty leaving them behind. 

Their reactions were mixed when he revealed he had a marriage in a few weeks time- Izuku was clearly shocked yet in awe hed be marrying a princess, while Uraraka seemed to find the situation romantic. Bakugo simply laughed, mocking him from being such a “sissy” for actually getting married in the first place.

Shoto was feeling conflicted inside at the moment- it had been so long since he had last seen you, and when he had, he was less than kind to you. He was quiet, distant, and quite petty about the whole situation of your marriage. You had turned barely 17 when he left, his young body desperate for some adventure and resilient to his father’s wishes. He merely saw you as a nuisance, someone in the way of his freedom. He knew it was unkind and unjustified, you didn't know what was going on inside him, but he was angry nevertheless and desperate to leave. So when he was approached by young boy in need of a friend for his quest, it was hard to resist the offer.

But as nights when on and he had time to be alone with his thoughts, his mind always seemed to travel to you. The way you giggled, your laughs sounding like chimes in the wind, or how your smile always seemed to make his skin tingle with warmth.

 You were always a strange girl, but always in the best way, daring Shoto to races even thought your father said it was “unlike a princess to do so” or trying to braid Shoto’s mix-matched hair.

 He would never forget the day he had allowed you to do so, your nimble fingers soft against his skin and making him burn up from nervousness. Your touch was so calming and soothing, your small compliments and soft voice sending his soul soaring with pleasure. It was then he realized he had loved you for you, not because he was forced to.

Shoto felt guilty for forgetting those cherished memories in his fits of anger, but he had agreed to help Izuku and he vowed to not give up on that promimse. Months went on, and Shoto couldnt tell how much time had passed: he only hoped you were doing okay without him. 

It wasnt until his father had came to collect him that he realized how short he was on time. He had still stuck by his friends, yet the constant reminders of your wedding was in the air, haunting him. They would travel through kingdoms, the whispers of this event following him as the townspeople began to talk. It was a wonder his friends never caught on except him, only to find out weeks before your wedding.

Now Shoto was standing in the ballroom, feeling quite nervous- he hadnt seen you in so long….would you look any different? He was certain your beauty had grown by then, the thought of you looking older and more womanly bringing a blush to his cheeks. How would you see him? He had become quite a different person on his quest, his body becoming more hardened from battles with bandits and the harsh life of travelling. Would you feel the same for him still? Were you just as excited as you were so many years ago to finally be together?

Shoto heard the clicks of shoes on the wooden floor, a man with the straightest back he had ever seen standing proudly at the steps of the stairs.The man took a deep breath, his voice traveling through the room as he announced your arrival to the group of travelers. 

Yet Shoto didnt hear a single word he said- he was enraptured by your beauty. You had seemed to turn into a fine young woman since he had last seen you, your curves accentuated by the tightness of your gown, the blue complimenting you perfectly. Your hair flowed in soft ringlets on your back, the pearls in your hair like stars. You were an angel blessed to this planet- an angel he was destined to marry.

The only thing that was worrying him was your expression- he had expected you to seem so much more lively, welcoming the bright smile you would always give him when you saw him. But now, your face was gone of any warmth, looking almost numb to the situation as you looked down at the group.

You traveled down the stairs, hating the way your name sounded in the announcer's voice. This was all so cliche- the Prince comes from a quest, and there is the Princess, simply a prize for his hardwork. A trophy of sorts for doing a good deed. Why did it have to be this why? Why couldnt you feel anything? The world had felt so cold for so long, feeling trapped due to the lack of control you had. Everything had seemed to loose its splendor and color, your vision for weeks turning gray in sadness-

Until you saw him.

The ash blonde boy, his hair unruly and his eyes a bright red like blood. He was clad in strange clothes, like a barbarian, his chest completely open and showcasing his taut muscles. You were intrigued by him- you had only seen likes of him in books and stories you read. He was so different, so menacing, and you wanted to know more. He was the only thing you could focus on, not taking any time to look at the others in the group, including Shoto.

Shoto was the first to reach you, unafraid to approach you like the rest of the group as you reached the bottom of the steps.

“Y/n-” he said, his voice deep and airy, “you look-wonderful.”

You gave him a small smile, but it made his heart sink- you didnt look happy at all. It seemed forced, far from the bright grins you used to send his way all the time.

“As do you, Shoto. You look quite different from when we last saw each other.”

You quickly turned your attention away from him, focusing on his new comrades instead.

 “I assume these are the young heroes that accompanied you on your journey?”

“Y-yes!” the young boy with the unruly green hair stuttered, nervously bowing his head. He was quite adorable in a way, his small stature and freckles dusted on his cheeks giving him a child-like quality (even though he was most likely your age). “My name is Izuku Midoriya!”

You gave a reassuring smile to the young boy, trying to make him feel comfortable.

 “It is wonderful to meet you Izuku.”

You began to walk towards the girl know, her pointy yet colorful hat signaling that she was a light witch, a sorceress who used your powers for good.

The girl shimmied in her dusty boots, clearly as nervous as the boy. She lifted the corners of her cloth dress, bowing slightly. 

“My name is Ochaco Uraraka, your highness,” she smiled sweetly, her cheeks dusted in a pinky glow.

“Ochaco…” you mused over the name, its sound foregin yet light on your tongue, “you are a light witch, I assume?”

“Yes, yes I am!” the girl practically squealed, relief seemingly flooding her face. ‘How did you know?”

You giggled a her amazement at you, completely unaware apparently that she had the most witch-like outfit you had ever seen.

“A lucky guess,” you shrugged your shoulders playfully as you began to walk again, your heart beginning to race as you edged toward the barbarian.

You stopped in front of the man, his stature a head taller than yours. You eyes looked slightly up at him, your cheeks reddening- he was much more handsome up close, his rugged features making you feel breathless. He un-apologetically judged you with his vermilion eyes, looking you up and down with scorn.

Why did you find that so attractive?

“And you are-” 

“My name is Bakugo.” he instantly interrupted you, his voice deep and velevty like syrup, “thats all you need to know.”

“Bakugo?” Your brain searched for any name similar to that, but found none- this boy was definitely a foreigner, most likely from far off lands you could only dream of. You had no idea why he followed Shoto back to the kingdom, but you were happy he did- he was definitely a sight for sore eyes.

“A warrior, I assume by your garments,” you nodded, your eyes trailing to his torso “and by the looks of your scars, an experienced one.”

He scoffed at your observations, his eyes rolling in his sockets.

“For a princess, your eyes wander a damn lot. But yeah- Im hella of a good warrior. Best in the kingdoms.”

You cocked an eyebrow at his language, your cheeks red  by his comment. He was so unapologetic and rude, yet- it was intoxicating to you. 

“I’m glad to here that.”

Shoto was eyeing you sadly the whole time- what was so different between you two? Why did you seem so welcoming to the others but so distant to him? His face began to turn red with fury as he watched you interact with Bakugo, the way Bakugo insulted you so plainly and cockily making him want to yell. He watched as your face had light up for just a moment when you spoke with him, something Shoto didn't get the luxury to experience. 

He also noticed what Bakugo had vocalized- you eyes did wander when you looked at him. Shoto at first tried to rationalize that you were simply being curious, since Bakugo was definitely a strange sight for you, but the way your cheeks blushed and you smiled so warmly at him made him think otherwise.

 What did you see in that barbarian that you didnt with Shoto? 

You looked again at the odd group, taking a deep breath through your lungs.

“I want to congratulate you all for your successful quest,” you began, the lines slightly rehearsed, “and as thanks from my father for bringing back Prince Shoto, he would like to welcome you all for dinner tonight. We  would love to hear all about your journey then,” you then snuck one last look at Bakugo, his eyes boaring into yours. It was making you feel a warmth inside that you had thought long ceased.

You instantly looked down at your hands, your cheeks feeling hot. You knew this was wrong- you shouldn't feel smitten for any other boy, especially this warrior, yet you couldnt help it- you were entranced by his resilience and the freedom he had, something you could only dream of. 

“If youll excuse me, I have - things to attend to. It was a pleasure to see you all” you gave the group a tight smile, turning your back quickly from the group to follow your handmaiden back to your quarters.

Shoto watched you until you were gone, his heart beating painfully. He wished he could run up to you, grab you by your wrist and ask you what was the matter. It was still him, your friend for all those years, and you were still you, his love and his best friend. Were you beginning to forget, like he did? He felt his stomach drop painfully at the idea- he would ask you, tonight. He would figure out what had happened between you two, and fix it.

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

You were now at dinner, sitting stiffly as you moved your food around your plate, your tight corset making you feel un-hungry. All night you had been detached and quiet, feeling almost sick by your surroundings. Your father was overly outgoing to the guest,giving you side-eyed glances and trying to enter you in the conversation. You would simply smile and nod, occasionally throwing in a comment before returning to squishing your food between your utensils.

The only time you ever seemed interested was when Bakugo would speak. His comments were all snarky and rude, completely self centered about how strong or intelligent he was.

 He was constantly proving his worth throughout the dinner, taking over the story of their journey when he saw fit, making sure everyone knew he was the most capable one of the group. It was obscene, his remarks, his language, even his personality, but- you were intrigued by it. The only person he had to listen to was himself. It was so intoxicating to watch him talk, to hear what other remarks would leave his mouth. Whenever he spoke, you stood up a little straighter, taking time to take in any information he gave about himself and immortalize it  into your brain.

Shoto had felt awkward the whole meal, not knowing how to gauge your emotions. You seemed so distant, as if a stranger was sitting next to him. He wished he could enter your mind, detangle all the emotions and thoughts that were keeping you from being yourself around him. There was no laughter, no genuine smiles, no happiness came from you. This bothered him- you were usually so cheerful. His nervousness was eating the inside of his stomach, as his mind still couldn't figure out how to approach you after dinner.

“-and the wedding will be a three day celebration, full of festivities,” your father continued boisterously, his voice booming embarrassingly around the room, “Shoto and y/n will be the main attention, of course, over 200 noblemen will see them share vows-”

The sound of your chair pushing away echoed throughout the dining hall, making the whole group look to you. You cleared your throat delicately, a hand resting on your chest.

“Excuse me for my rudeness, but Im feeling- unwell,” you sighed a quick smile.

“Are you alright, do I need to-” the king asked, his eyes full of concern as you shook of his worries.

“Oh no, Im completely fine- just a headache,” you gave a pained smile, “I hope you all enjoy the rest of the meal.”

Shoto watched you walk away, desperate to make sure he knew which way you went in this large castle. He instantly pushed away from the table as well, rising quietly. 

“I- uh-am full, thank you for the meal,” he bowed to the King slightly, placing his napkin on his plate as he rushed out, confusing the group that was left.

Izuku and Ochaco looked at each other, their cheeks red with embarrassment and shock as they looked at Bakugo, who was clearly not bothered by the disturbance. Ochaco then looked at the king, who was clearly confused by the whole ordeal, as an awkward air lay heavy on the table.

Ochaco hastily took a large bite from her plate, filling her mouth with food- “MMMMMM!” she exaggerated, trying to start up conversation again, “I LOVE the ham!” 

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

Shoto ran around the castle, looking through every corridor and door, searching for you.His head was racing, trying to organize his thoughts in his minds. He needed to figure out how to speak to you- should he act normal, like nothing was wrong? Should he be formal and see how that went? Angry? Upset? He didnt know how to approach you, but he knew he had to do it.

 He finally saw your gown turn an empty hallway, his feet picking up pace. He quickly was able to catch up once he could pin point your location, his hand wrapping around your wrist in order to stop you. 

 You felt slender,cool fingers wrap around your skin, making your body run cold. You instantly jumped by the sudden touch, all breath leaving your body as you turned around quickly.

Your wide eyes met the mix matched orbs of Shoto, a small pang of annoyance filling your body from getting so scared.

“Shoto,” you replied breathlessly, slightly happy though it was only him and not somebody else that had grabbed you.

“I-uh-y/n,” he replied back, his mind going blank.

He let go of your wrists, his hands resting at the side of his body. “I-Im sorry to scare you like that,” he apologized, “I just- wanted to speak to you. If you’ll let me.”

You looked at the boy, his eyes now averting yours, probably from nerves. You decided to listen, turning your body to him. 

“Apology accepted,” you said plainly, “What did you want to speak about?”

Shoto drew a blank- what did he want to talk about? He loved hearing your voice, finally only reserved for him, but yet you seemed preoccupied. Distant. Like you were on another world and not truly there with him.

He stared at you lightly, looking extremely conflicted. “I-I wanted to talk to you about what happened while I was gone.”

“You explained quite plainly what happened on your journey,” you replied, clearly not in the mood to talk, “I applaud you for your bravery, it must have been quite a difficult journey-” you gave him a small bow, your eyes gone of any warmth. “I really must go to bed, Im sorry, but i do feel-”

You began to walk away again, Shoto desperate to keep you near him. He walked in font you, blocking your path.

“You didnt here me correctly-” he changed his wording this time, trying to be as specific as possible. “I want to know what happened to you while I was gone.”

You eyebrows turned down in confusion. “What are you trying to say Shoto?”

He swallowed, trying to clear his dry throat as he licked his lips, conflicted. 

“You seem-different.”

“Its been a year and a half since I last saw you, Shoto,” you reasoned, “of course Ill be different.”

“Yes, but-” he paused, “youre too different. Youre not the same y/n I knew.”

“Why? Because Im not following you around like a love sick puppy?” Annoyance began to bubble inside, feeling attacked by Shoto’s words. “Because I finally got over the fact you didnt love me ? You dont have to pretend Shoto, I know full well you only see me as a nuisance.”

Shock flooded Shoto’s system as your icy words pierced his skin. What happened to you? Yes, he was rude to you before he left, but he didnt feel like that anymore. That was a simple phase, were you going to define him by that?

“I dont see you as a nuisance, y/n.”

“Really?” you scoffed at his words. “then tell me why your father had to go out to find you twice before you finally decided to come back?”

“I made a promise to my friends. I had to finish my quest before-”

“You had a promise to me, Shoto!” you yelled exasperatedly, your heart bursting with hurt. “To your family! To my family! Our people! What was so much more important than that?”

“I was so worried about you Shoto, terrified for you. Those first few months I couldnt think of anything but you.” You were beginning to reveal a lot, too much, but the emotions, the hurt, the anger, was flooding out of you like a broken dam and you couldn't stop it. 

“But then I realized that you didnt care for me. You thought I didn't notice how you gave me the cold shoulder those last few months? How you ignored me,  only gave me quick answers, acted as if I was just a pest following you around? I remembered all of it, and then I realized- you left because of me.”

“You left because of me, didn't you, Shoto?” your voice was harsh and crude like metal, stabbing into Shoto’s conscience.

He stayed silent- how could he say anything back? Your words were making him feel small and foolish- he should have known that you would have noticed his change in demeanor, just as he noticed yours.

You smiled painfully at his silence, feeling a fresh cut of pain slash inside you. “I knew it.”

“Y/n, I-” There was so much he wanted to say, things he wanted to take back. He didnt want this meeting to go like this- with you even more distant to him. Out of all the possible outcomes, this had to be the worst one. 

“Dont even try to backtrack Shoto, I know the truth now,you just confirmed it.”

He knew he was less than kind to you before he left, but know it wasnt like that anymore. Why were you so angry?

“Fine-yes-I left, and it wasnt right,” he admitted, his voice deep, “but Im back. Why are you putting my old self against me now?”

“Because I couldn't for the year and half you were gone! I-I loved you Shoto, and you-”

“You dont love me anymore?” Shoto looked down at you sadly, his eyes full of sorrow. It felt like his heart was breaking in two, the way those words spilled out your mouth so easily making it sting even more.

You swallowed, filling a pit grow in your chest. Everything felt so cold, so empty. This was your best friend- why couldn't you just be nice to him? You thought you had gotten over all this.

“You dont love me-so  why should I love you?” your voice was barely a whisper, cold and empty in the frigid hallway.

Shoto stared down at you, his voice caught in his throat. Did you really believe that? That he didnt love you?You had been friends since children- you really thought all those times, all those days you played together, were all fake? Who even were you?

“I just want you to know,” you spoke, your voice monotone and  icy,” Im not doing this for my father, or your father, or even you. Im doing this for my people and thats it.”

“It” meaning the wedding.

Tears began to prickle your lashline, confusion flooding your numb body as you began to walk away from Shoto- 

you hadnt cried in what seemed like forever. 

Why were you now? 

“Y/n, please, can we just talk-” he tried to reason, harsh with desperation. 

“No.” your voice was plain in its tone that you were done with the conversation.

 “Im just curious Shoto- why did you come back? Because if I had the luxury to have all that freedom, to be free for once- I wouldnt.”

Shoto’s heart felt broken  as he watched you walk away, your dress ruffling as you continued on your path. He felt defeated, confused, even angry- what had happened to you since he had been gone? Did you really hate him that much? What did you mean you had no freedom? More questions flooded his mind than what were answered, but he now knew one thing- you didnt want anything to do with him.

As Shoto’s was returning to his corrdiors sadly, you were lost in thought, just feeling- empty. You didnt feel sad, or angry, or even spitefu anymorel. Just- numb to the world. You could walk for miles and miles it seemed and you wouldnt feel a thing. 

Why was that? Why were so mean to your long lost firend? You should be hugging him from happiness and relief-not meeting him with coldness and hate. 

As you were lost in thought, you didn't even notice yourself running into a person. Your hand instantly reached out, meeting soft yet rough skin. You looked up in confusion ,and your breath hitch- it was the barbairan, his vermilion eyes like rubies as he stared down at you in scorn.

“Oi, watch were your going you damn princess,” he scolded,pushing you off him gently. You stumbled slightly, trying to get your footing right- you had run in to him, you had even touched him. If you were feeling alright, and if the circumstances were different, you could practically squeal. “Youre gonna hurt someone.”

“Did I hurt you?”  

He scoffed at your comment. “Like you could ever hurt me,” his voice was deep and velvety, his comment sending shocwaves into your system. The reply was prideful, yet it could have been- sweet. Kind, in a way in a different light- maybe he meant it like that?

“How do you know that?” you blurted out, a small smirk crawling across your lips.

You just wanted him to talk more, to hear that velvety voice directed towards you- but you were close to flirting with him. What were you doing? What was going on with you? 

One second you were chewing out your life time friend weeks before your wedding, and now you were being smitten with a random man you didn't even know.

He chuckled slightly, his canines glinting. “Your a fucking handful, arentcha?”

He eyed your wobbling feet, as you still were finding your footing slightly.

“You clearly cant walk right-you feeling fine, because Im not gonna be the one who carries you-”

“No, no , Im fine.” you reassured, your cheeks rosy. ‘Thank you for catching me.”

“Youre the one who ran into me.”

“You could have just pushed me off though, you seem like the type to do that,” you gave him a cheeky grin, it disappearing when you heard a slight growl come form him.

“The hell you mean princess?” he was trying to be menacing, but you could tell there was something behind it- he was curious. You loved how he called you “princess”, making it sound like a pet name than  a title.

“Your a lone wolf, are you not? You are strong, independent, free-” you began to list off, your eyes focusing on his, “you follow your own code and beliefs”

“Damn right I do,” he agreed, your heart soaring that he looked so proud of you for describing him so perfectly. “-which is why Im confused as hell that half-and-half prince is allowing himself to get married.”

Ouch.

The small amount of hope that Bakugo seemed to like  you had quickly got destroyed, feeling hurt flood your body. You quickly tried to shake it off, so Bakugo couldn't see it on your face.

“What he even want to talk to you about anyway?” The boy shifted in his stance, his muscles moving with his movements.

You gulped, guilt filling your body- Shoto, the one who had just fought with. You couldnt tell this boy what had happened- that was private, and really, it was embarrassing.

“Just-uh-about-” you stammered, your cheeks red as you searched for a lie.

“Ugh, let me guess, you two were trading spit werent you?” he interrupted in disgust, taking your red cheeks as a sign you two were doing something unholy in the hallway. 

You swallowed, licking your lips as you gave him a tight lipped smile. You were just going to follow along with Bakugo’s line of reasoning- you didnt have any other better ideas. 

 “Y-yep, just- please dont tell anyone?” 

He gave a bitter laugh, his voice booming against your ears. “You guys cant get dirty? I guess that makes sense, since you all our royalty, cant be having any scandals-”

“Do you promise?” you rushed him, now feeling uncomfortable- if anybody heard you and Shoto were kissing in the hallway, and you two were really arguing-

“Yeah, dont worry princess, youre secrets safe with me.” 

You sighed a breath of relief, feeling your heart jump at the smirk the boy sent your way.

“Thank you- I- uh- best be going now,” you stammered, rushing past the warrior, “have a nice night Bakugo.”

You rushed to your room, your heart feeling on fire. Your hands were shaking, your mid racing- all you could think about was that boy. Your world had seemed so dark, until he showed up. His rude responses, his chaotic personality, his snarkiness, that overly prideful speech, his freedom- it was so intoxicating to you. You felt your heart pumping against your chest- you hadn't felt this alive in so long.

You suddenly felt very sick, your head feeling drowsy- maybe you were actually catching something, and thats why you were acting so strange? You were gasping for breath it seemed, your corset making it hard to breath. I felt like something was tightening around your chest, small prods poking into you from the inside- it was a strange sensation, one you did not welcome in the slightest. You stumbled to your bed, holding on to the post as your lungs felt tight with no air, liking something was blocking your passageway. Coughs began to erupt out of you, wracking your body until you finally felt you could breathe. You sucked in a deep breath, welcoming the sweet night air, your chest still feeling tight. You looked down at the ground, trying to slow your stammering heart, until your eyes feel upon something new- a single white petal, resting softly on the ground.

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

After that night, You became obsessed with this boy, learning bits and pieces from him though conversation you had overheard from Shoto’s friends and workers inside the castle. You learned he was from an extremely far off land, past even the Mountains, which surprised you. He lived alone, and apparently had a dragon as well. He had  gotten in many fights due to his overly prideful personality, which was why he had so many scars decorating his taut body. Your handmaidens seemed to look at him with annoyance, saying he refused to wear anything “civilized” and would plainly cuss them out if they even set foot in his room to clean.

You knew he had a softer side though- he had kept your “secret” safe, right? You heard nothing around the castle about any make-out session or argument between you and Shoto. That little act made you feel special in someway- maybe he had a soft side for you?

Whenever you would feel yourself getting sucked into the sadness of planning your wedding, you’d think of fantasies with that barbarian boy. Him taking you in the middle of night, taking you far away from this place. His hands placed around your waist, that snarky smile looking down at you again.

 Seeing him walk around the castle grew a desperation and love in your body, watching his handsome face stare around the rooms, his voice loud and prideful- you wished he could look your way, acknowledge you again. His vermillion eyes sent fire into your soul whenever you closed his eyes, his face being a beacon of warmth in your life.

Yet that beacon of life was killing you from the inside- every day and every night you fantasized about Bakugo, the sickness taking over you grew worse and worse. The closer you got to your wedding day, the worse it felt, the vines inside you prickling at your soft organs. They were growing, you felt it, as you coughed up more and more petals. 

For a few days you had no idea what was going on, fear striking you as you wondered if you should ask to see a doctor. But you decided to do your own research, scourging through books until you found your sickness: Hanahaki. The the mythical disease for unrequited love. It was quite rare, but it came to the most lonely, delusional, and desperate of lovers.

 It made sense, really- it all started when you talked to Bakugo, after falling in his arms. It hurt he didnt love you back- but why should he? One run-in shouldn't make people fall in love with each other, but somehow it made you. You welcomed the pain alittle, as it was a reminder you still had some feeling other than emptiness inside you. It also terrfiied you- you were supposed to be in love with Shoto, not some barbarian from a far off land you barely spoke to.

  How had this happened, how could you let this happen?

Even if you did tell others you had Hanahaki, they would point the finger at Shoto, calling him cold and callous for not loving you. You were the one who was the cold one, pushing your old friend away. Even if you felt some residue of anger for him, you wouldn't put him through that- he didn't deserve it. You let this disease do its course- if it went away youd be freed, knowing that Bakugo loved you back, and if not- well, you’d figure that out when you got there.

You had barely talked to Shoto or even noticed him since that night, not realizing the amount of worry he felt towards you. Everyday that went by he noticed how sick you looked, your skin paling and you eyes losing any life. Every cough you tried to hold back he noticed and it rang in his ear like a terrible siren- there was something wrong with you.It ate at his insides, his fear of you pushing him away again making him scared to ask what was wrong.

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

It was now the night before you wedding and you were feeling less than hopeful. You were supposed to be lively and happy, as your father had thrown a party to celebrate the events of the next day, yet you had no energy left in you to dance or socialize. You stayed in a dark corner, trying your best to blend in and not be noticed.

 The coughs were not leaving, and it felt like your chest was being constricted until you could barely breathe. The annoying tickle of a cough was constantly at the back of your throat, as you tried to keep the petals at bay. You were miserable.

“Princess, are you doing alright, you seem a little- pale? Do you need some water, or maybe fresh air,” the young witch Ochaco approached you, her rosy cheeks and bright eyes looking at you.

“Hello, Ochaco,” you greeted, your smile strained, “you know-fresh air would be nice.”

The sweet girl smiled at you, gingerly taking you by the crook of your elbow and out of the ballroom. The fresh air was rather nice, soothing your hurting brain and your sore lungs. You two walked in silence for a while, enjoying each other’s company. Your mind was shifting around, thinking about Shoto and what would happen tomorrow. It hurt too much, though- you still were both not at speaking terms, and now you had to be promised to each other for eternity. The thought made your throat itch even more, and instead, you  switched to own of your many fantasies of Bakugo that brought you some comfort.

“So, how are you feeling? Nervous, excited, scared?” Ochaco asked gingerly

“About what?” you asked, looking at her with curiosity

“Uh,um-your wedding,” she giggled nervously, her cheeks growing red again. 

Oh-you cursed yourself for getting to invested in your fantasy, feeling embarrassed for thinking of Bakugo and not about Shoto.

You really didnt know how to answer her question-You felt yourself dreading it-how could you tell her that? But you didnt want to lie to her- lying to her would be practically evil, like giving a child a promise and not fulfilling it.

“Its expected of me to marry him,” you reasoned out carefully, “Ive been thinking of this day since I was a child.”

She gaped out you in awe. “Really?That early? In your kingdoms is it a tradition to marry from each other’s kingdoms?”

You gave her a wihsful smile. “Actually- no, it isnt. We’re the first ones.”

Her brown bob fluttered against her cheeks, her eyes staring up at you in confusion.

“I-if you dont mind me asking,” she asked nervously, “why is that?”

You sighed, giving her a small smile.

“Its kind of a long story….”

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

“Long ago our two kingdoms began to quarrel against one another. But that happened years back- we still continued to fight against each other, and quite frankly, we forgot about why. We just knew we hated each other and wanted to see the other fail. My father had always said to me that my mother wished for her children to be born in a peaceful kingdom, yet my father’s pride prevented that from coming true for her.

“Until the day I was born- my mother, sadly, died while giving birth to me. My father now had no queen, and really, no future ruler, since I am a girl and only men can become ruler in my kingdom. In his grief, he began to feel sympathetic, I suppose- he knew King Todoroki had a young boy who was barely turning 4, and my father got an idea. He travelled to his kingdom, and somehow was able to talk King Todoroki into an agreement.” 

“In order to end the suffering of our two kingdoms, Shoto and I would marry once I turn 18, in which would bind our kingdoms forever in peace, with Shoto as ruling over both.”

Ochaco breathed out a large sigh, giving you a conflicted expression.

“So-thats why you two are getting married? Its arranged?”

You looked at her in confusion-“Didnt-Shoto tell you that? I thought Bakugo at least knew-” 

“Bakugo?” Ochaco blinked a few times, clearly puzzled. “Bakugo just thought it was quite, well, wierd Shoto was getting married- Bakugo is just a lone wolf who cant understand love I guess-”

You strangely felt angry at her words- how could she even say that about him? Yes, he was cold and callous at times, but how could she know he couldn't at least love? You knew he had to at least have some way of having feelings for another person, you had to at least hope for that-

“-it must be why he left last night,”

You stopped in your tracks, feeling a ton of bricks pound into your chest. 

“He-he left?

“Um yeah! Something about being ‘bored waiting around for a stupid’- oh my gosh, y/n are you alright!?” 

You were coughing up quite alot, your lungs dry and painful as your heart tore in two. He-he left. Without you. Without even a goodbye. 

After all that daydreaming, all that hope, that dedication to him, hoping he would notice you- he left. He never loved you, and you knew it- you were just so desperate for someone to take you, to teach you how to be free. 

You wanted him to teach you, to see potential in you that you could be just as defiant to the world as him. 

Uraraka wrapped her slender arms around your body, patting your back softly to help you rid your body of whatever had attacked you. It was taking everything in you to not let a single petal fall out, the itching in the back your neck unbearable as your heart beat agonizingly against horribly. 

You felt a few silky petals slip out of your mouth, soft against your dry tongue. Miraculously, Uraraka didn't suspect a thing- most likely from the darkness she couldn't see the disease overtaking you.

You gulped desperately for air, finally getting a hold on your lungs. 

“I-Im fine,” you panted out, raising from the floor on shaky knees. “Thank you”

Urarka gave you a pointed look, clearly not convinced. “Of course, but are you sure? Do you need water, or maybe I should get Shoto-”

“No!” you yelled out, covering your mouth in case of another attack.

You felt a little guilty for yelling at Uraraka so harshly, her wide eyes looking at you in shock-you just couldnt bear seeing Shoto when you were grieving over a lover that was never yours- and apparently dying from it too. 

“No, Im fine, really,” you said more calmly, trying to be reassuring, “lets, just- walk back, if thats okay-”

“Yes of course! Ill walk you to your room, just in case you get sick again-”

You two walked in silence again, you mulling over your broken heart as Uraraka watched you in worry. You two passed the ballroom, everyone seemingly enjoying themselves and not noticing you two as you lead the way to your room. 

You stepped up to the door, your hand grasping the doorknob until you paused, a question entering your mind. You were still confused why Uraraka said she didnt know your marriage was arranged-you would have expected Shoto to have told his group after saying he was getting married. 

Was he embarrassed by it, that he was marrying you?

“You said you were surprised to here our marriage was arranged,” you asked quietly, “Shoto never told you?”

Uraraka shuffled in her pink boots, her shoulder hunched close to her chin.

“He-uh-no,” she breathed out, “he said he made a promise to marry a girl he loved.”

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

Morning. 

Daylight.

Wedding.

You should be feeling happy, excited, optmistic-you had been imagining this day since you were a child. But now, all you could feel was a coldness you couldnt seem to shake off- after your talk with Uraraka last night, you felt so confused.

The person you “loved” had never loved you, leaving you sick and hurt.

The person who did love you, you most likely pushed away to the point where they didnt love you anymore.

You couldnt even understand your emotions yourself. All night your sickness wouldnt leave your poor lungs alone, making you cough uncontrollably all night, the petals piling up around you.

You wouldn't allow anyone to see you in the morning, snatching your wedding dress from your hand maidens and putting in yourself. You fixed yourself up, trying to make yourself look as lively as possible, but it seemed impossible- you felt too empty inside to really put your heart into it.

Another round of coughs attacked your chest, a single petal dribbling out of your mouth, along with a speckle of blood. It dripped on the inner folds of your creamy white dress- easily disguisable if you made sure it was covered- yet it made you begin to cry.

What was going on? Why did you have to do this? Why were you still sick?  

Your knees hit the cold floor, wave after wave of tears and coughs struck your body in a terrible symphony, the petals piling up on your dress. 

You couldnt take it anymore- this sickness was going to have to take you, because you had no energy left to fight it anymore.

You felt a knocking on your door, the sounds harsh against your temple. You sniffled, one last cough feebily spilling out of your bloodied lips.

“Go away-I promise Ill be out soon-” you began sadly, until you heard the door swing open.

You looked up, your face in shock as you did not lock eyes with your handmaiden, but with Shoto’s.

He looked around the floor, noticing the bloody petals, his face completely torn-he knew what was going on.

Shoto stared down at you, his eyes boaring into yours-he knew something was wrong with you. He had came by your room in hopes of fixing your relationship before speaking your vows, working up the courage until he heard you crying. No matter what was between you two, he wouldnt let you go through pain by yourself.

Now he watching you cough up your life, those sickly petals flowing out of you, each one taking a toll on your body.

He gasped out your name, the words like honey as he sat next to you on the floor. You looked so beautiful in that white gown, like an angel from heaven. 

But the paleness of your skin, the bags like bruises under your eyes, the blood on your lips- it all reminded him that you were human, and you were hurting inside. He reached for your hand, his fingers grazing your skin-so cold- but you pulled it away quickly.

“Please, dont Shoto-” you whispered hoarsely, “Im-”

Another wave of coughs wracked at your chest, this time the rasps painful against your chest as the vines squeezed. 

Shoto didnt know what to do- how could he help you? There wasn't anything he could do to help, except watch his best friend and love slowly cough her life away. A few petals cascaded out of your mouth, adding to the piles as you heaved air back into your lungs, your knuckles white.

“How, how could you keep this from me?” he asked sadly, ignoring your pleas and pulling you into his lap.

You felt how warm he was, and realized- he did love you. He had been there for you as a child, and he was here for you now, comforting you in your worst moment.

Your heart felt like it was exploding as tears cascading down your face, salty and warm against your skin.

“How-how could I Shoto?” I shuldnt have been so mean to you,” you sobbed, “Im so sorry, so sorry, this is all my fault-”

“Please, no, dont be sorry,” he said softly, his arms cradling your body, “we both have our own faults. I shouldnt have left you for so long, and Im sorry for that, I-” he gulped, his heart beating harshly against his chest.

“I-I do love you,y/n, I do.”

You picked up your head, forcing yourself to look at him- he was so handsome, his mix matched eyes softly looking down at you- he was still the little boy you knew from a child, though, always so calm and sweet.

“I know, Shoto, I just, I-” you gulped, fighting to keep the coughs and sobs at bay.

He sighed, feeling his heart sink. 

“You loved Bakugo, didnt you? Thats why,” he motioned to the petals, “this is happening to you.”

You gave him a shocked look, your eyes wide and glassy. You forgot how observant Shoto could be- you felt your cheeks grow red, realizing now he must have known by the way you stared so much at Bakugo.

“Was-it that noticebale?”

“Y/n,” he sighed, his chest feeling heavy, “very.”

You giggled at his remark, feeling strange for laughing for once. But Shoto was so abrupt with his words, it always made you laugh at his remarks.

 Shoto’s heart soared at your laugh, the sound like chimes against his ears. It died down, the room quickly feeling closed in again.

“I just dont want to do this. I-I want to be friends again. To figure out who were are, without us being forced to be with each other.” you sighed, your heart rattling against your chest. “ I-I want to be with you and marry you- when we decide. Not my father, or your father- I want to be free to choose.”  

You turned to Shoto, your hands touching his cheek.

“I-I did love you-and I still do-Im just so confused, and trapped, and-”

“You just want to be your own person,” he finished your sentence, his voice so much stronger than yours.

He looked down at you, his face surprisingly smiling.

“I think I may have arranged that,”

You jumped up, your face in shock. “H-how? Tell me!” you squealed, not unilke a child, your eyes wide with anticipation.

Shoto grinned at your face, loving how excited you could get so quickly.

“Do you remember my oldest brother?” he asked

“Of course I remember Natsuo! He was always so kind to me as a child,” you reminenscenced, “but how is he going to help us?”

“Well, as it turns out, I spoke to our fathers and my older brother,” he said, a small grin on his face, “they agreed that my brother could rule both kingdoms in my place. By himself, and my sister will accompany him if he ever needs help.”

You sucked in a lung full of air, unable to believe what you had just heard-

 “So that means-”

“We are free to  do what we want now.” 

You yelled in happiness, happy tears cascading on your face as you wrapped his body around yours, “thank yous” spilling out of your lips.

Shoto hugged you back, smiling sadly- he had to admit, it was hard negotiating that new deal. After the night, that remark of how you didnt feel “free” stayed in his brain, haunting him until he found a solution. Knowing it would make you happy made it worth it- even if that meant you could leave him now. He loved you, but if that meant you could be happy with or without him, he would be content with the knowledge that you were finally able to be your own person.

“You can now be yourself,” he said sadly, his eyes staring down at the floor, “and even if that means you do not love me, I accept it. You dont have to feel guilty.”

You looked at the poor boy, his eyes shaded as his bi-colored locks cascaded onto his foreheads. You felt a warmth fill your chest, the sensation soothing and calming as the tightness in your lungs dissappeared. The tickling in your throat seemed to wane slightly. Your hand found his as his eyes instantly rose to meet yours.

“I wont feel guilty,” you smiled gently, “I want to be free- with you.”

Taggings: (if you want to be added, just shoot me an ask or a reply on this post and Ill add you on to my future fics!)

@freckledoriya​ @orokayagi​ @leeeah-loooser​

[vampire03]

Diabolik Christmas

Everyone x reader Christmas special

"Hnnn...mmm..." Y/N woke up feeling something heavy on top of her. She opened her eyes and tried to move. She saw blond locks in front of her. Shu.

"G'morning, troublesome creature." He mumbled sleepily.

"Good morning, Shu." Y/N smiles.

Shu rolled to her side and without opening his eyes says "There is a gift here in your room. Find it yourself, it's too bothersome to show you where it is...". Then he fell asleep again.

Y/N sighed and chuckled at his usual behavior. She looked around her room and under her bed she found a tiny yellow giftbox with a neat blue ribbon on top. Y/N opened it and inside there was a silver collar with musical notes engraved on it in beautiful shapes.

(Something like this, I couldn't find a better image, Im sowwyyy TwT)

"Thank you, Shu!" Y/N said as she coverd him with an electric blanket. That was his Christmas present from her. He smiled and snuggled even more in it without opening his eyes.

Then she exited the room and started walking to the kitchen. There surely will be some leftovers on the table, right?

On the way two arms snaked around her body from behind and a familiar flirty voice was heard.

"Bitch-chaaaaaan~ Merry Christmas!"

"Laito!" Y/N chuckled and leaned into his embrace.

"Look what I got you!" He happily squealed as he spayed something on her neck.

"Kyaaaah!" She welped in surprise. Then se smelled... perfume? A really nice perfume with vanilla and something else, that made the aroma sweet and sexy at the same time.

"Nfu. Use it wisely!" He chuckled and pecked her cheek, dissapearing as fast as he appeared. She will give him the fancy watch she got him later, it seemed.

Y/N blushed and smiled, putting the perfume in her pocked as she finally reached the kitchen. There a pile of deleicious food awaited her, a certain black-haired vampire with glasses was turning the leftovers from Christmas Eve into masterpieces.

"Good morning, Reiji, and Merry Christmas!" Y/N happily greated.

"Aaah, good morning, Y/N! And Merry Christmas. He smiled as he gestured towards to table, inviting her to sit.

She sat down and in front of her were served delicious dishes - steak with vegetables, fruits with whipped cream, baked apples and candies. Her eyes filled with joy.

"Ah! I almost forgot!" Y/N handed Reiji a blue giftbox with silver-red ribbon. His facial expression became somewhat happy and excited in a really childish way. Inside the box was a... blue baggy sweather?

"You are always dressed up in a formal manner... Why don't you wear more comfy clothes once in a while?" Y/N happily said as she looked at him. He had already put on the sweater and looked so cute. They both smiled.

"But where are my manners?" He asked himself as he gave her a tiny black box. She opened it and inside was a silver ring with a big sapphire on top.

"It's so beautiful!" She said as she put it on.

"I'm glad." Reiji smiled and handed her a cup of tea. Y/N thanked him and took a sip. When she looked around again, Reiji was nowhere to be seen.

"Hm? They dissapear and appear so fast!"

She looked around the kitchen for more leftovers to eat and saw a bunny plushie and a note attached to it. "This is Lilly. Me and Teddy decided she will enjoy being your friend." Was written by a certain purple haired vampire. Awww. She has prepared new clothes for Teddy and a fancy, somehow lolita coat for Kanato. She will have to give them to him later.

She then turned towards the exit to walk away and saw a note on the table.

"Oi, Chichinashi. Me and this Kino guy decided to have fun with you. We won't give you you presents so easily - you gotta find them!"

Yup. That's in Ayato's style. And the handwritting was so messy. There was no mistake. Y/N took the note and searched around for something left from Ayato and/or Kino. Almost half an hour later, she decided to search in the pool area. And she found another note on a bench.

"Did you think that we will give you the present so easily, Princess?" You will have to earn it! And swim all the way to the bottom of the pool to get it, hahaha!"

That handwritting was also messy, but still neater than Ayato's. Kino. Of course when these two pranksters somehow find a way to work together, it will be something like this. Good thing that she knew how to swim. She dived in and found a tiny black box on the bottom of the pool. She took it and got out of the water.

She opened it with excitement, only to find another note.

"Hahahaha, you fell for it!" Was written in Ayato's handwritting. "That was just a warm-up, the real present is on the bottom of the lake!" Was written in Kino's handwriting. These two jerks! Urgh!!!

Anyway, Y/N stretched up nicely and prepared herself. She went to the lake and dived into the cold water.

After a few unsuccessful tries she finaly found two red boxes with black ribbons and took them.

Once on land she opened the forst box.

"Ha! I knew you will open Ore-sama's present first! Now you can enjoy my scent whenever you go!" Was written on a card.

In the box there was one of Ayato's old shirts he used for basketball tranings. It was neatly washed, and folded. Heh, guess someone had aked Reiji for help. Was that present a sign of his ownership over her? Knowing Ayato, probably it was. And there were these nice sporty shoes too. They were really comfy and nice! She will play basketball with him after that. She smiled.

Then she opened Kino's present - inside there was a brand new iPhone.

"Now you can download that multiplayer game I told you about and we can play it together, right, princess?" Was written on a tiny card. That looked expensive. But more importantly, it was so sweet too! She will now spend more time with him as well.

Y/N decided she will give them their presents later at dinner - for Ayato a pair of jeans with one of its legs originaly shorter. Just in Ayato's style. And for Kino - a waterproof mini camera. He would love making unique photoshoots with it! She smiled yet again and went to take a shower, so she won't catch a cold after that.

After the shower she went to her room. She found a silver beautiful bracelet with the infinity sign and a tiny note, written in a messy manner.

"Merry Christmas! I wish you health and luck and whatever you mortals wish each other." Aaah, Subaru. Always Tsundere. She had already left his gift in his room. It was only a matter of time for him to find it. A very fluffy white pillow for him to hug in his sleep. She knew he secretly needed to hug something in his sleep.

She looked around her room again. And her gaze landed on her desk. There she found a weird heart? It was made of wires?

"Dear Eve. This is a part of the gift from the Mukami brothers to you. The other parts are in the music room, the garden and the torture chamber. Please seek Yuma for help if you have troubles assembling it. We want you to enjoy finding your gift and constructing it." Was written on a note with neat letters by Ruki, apparently.

Y/N searched all the places she was told and thankfully the Mukamis didn't prank her like Ayato and Kino did. She found 3 other hearts like this, a frame and some more wires.

Somehow she assembled it all on her own and got this:

(Imaginge that instead of "Be mine" is written "Be ours")

It was a night lamp! A very creative one! Now her nights won't be completely dark. She put it on the nightstand and enjoyed its light some more before turning it off again and going to each of the Mukami's rooms to leave them her presents - a professional kitchen knife set for Ruki, fancy jewelry for Kou, this giant encyclopedia about gardening Yuma wanted so much and an ukulele for Azusa.

And as she walked away from Azusa's room, she was suddenly hopped on the back of a certain wolf. "Nii-san is waiting for us!" Shin huffed as he ran really fast through the hallway.

He reached Carla's room where the white-haired man was waiting for them. He handed her a big fancy box.

Inside there was on of those two-pieces paintings.

"This is from our mansion's art collection. Feel honoured and Merry Christmas" Carla explained.

She thanked them multiple times. There was an wide ugly empty space on the wall in her room. Now it will finally be pretty!

"Carla, Shin... Did you find your Christmas presents?"

"Yes!" They cheerfuly said in unison and took out large doggy sweathers, put them on and changed into their wolf forms. They looked so fancy snd royal like that!

They woofed happily and Y/N went to the kitchen, smiling, remembering she has to help Reiji with dinner now. When she passes through the living room, a sleepy Shu pulled her into his embrace. She giggled and hugged back, as she felt Reiji take her hand and kissing it. Then the triplets came - rubbing their noses with hers, kissing her face. Kino appeared from behind and started playing with her hair. The Mukami brothers also joined in the kissing and hugging, as two way too familiar wolves came and snuggled with her. Subaru came out of nowhere as well.

Before she knew it, she was squished between 13 demons, who showered her with kisses and love, feeling like one big, big family.

Merry Christmas and Happy New year!

Sorry that there are no pictures for some of the presents. Tumblr has limit of 10 photos per post...

[junker-town]

Western Illinois, Year 40, 2046-2047

The final season of our sim dynasty with Western Illinois in College Hoops 2K8 is here.

Welcome back to our simulated dynasty with the Western Illinois Leathernecks in College Hoops 2K8. You can find a full explanation of this project + spoiler-free links to previous seasons here. Check out the introduction to this series from early April 2020 for full context. As a reminder, we simulate every game in this series and only control the recruiting and coaching strategies. Dynasty mode runs for 40 years.

Before we pick up with the Leathernecks at the start of Year 40, here’s a recap of everything that happened last season:

Western Illinois entered Year 39 trying to three-peat as national champions for the first time in program history. We lost two starters early to the NBA coming into the season, but still had enough talent to be ranked No. 10 overall in the preseason polls.

We ran through the regular season schedule, losing only one game to UCLA during the non-conference season and sweeping Summit League opponents once again. We entered the NCAA tournament at 29-1 on the year and earned a No. 4 seed to the big dance.

We beat Brown in round one, knocked off Georgia Tech in the round of 32, beat Indiana in the Sweet 16, and lost to Florida in the Elite Eight. We know enter the final season of my career tied with John Wooden with 10 national championships.

We added three players in our last ever recruiting class: five-star JUCO SF Jerald Obasohan, four-star SG Erwin Walls, and four-star PF Kenny Butler.

Here’s a first look at our roster for Year 40:

It feels like only yesterday that a fresh-faced, 25-year-old came to the small town of Macomb, Illinois with big dreams. Coach Rick was hired by Western Illinois to do the impossible: win a national championship with arguably the worst team in college basketball. After 39 seasons at the helm, our tiny program has accomplished that and so much more. Now it’s time to hang it up.

Our journey at Western Illinois is finally coming to an end. In literal terms, College Hoops 2K8 forces mandatory retirement upon coaches in dynasty mode after 40 seasons. All good stories need closure either way. As we start our final season, we have some big stakes attached to our swan song.

Western Illinois has won 10 national championships in the Ricky Charisma era. That ties us with UCLA legend John Wooden for the most in history. What started as a mission to win a single national championship has now left us with a different goal: to become the undisputed greatest program in the history of the sport.

While we failed in our bid to three-peat last season — falling to Florida in the Elite Eight — we did bring back all four breakout juniors for this season. We only lost starting center DJ Foster to graduation. Yeah, it’s been a while since we last published Year 39 (thanks for your patience), so let’s go over the roster:

PG Christano Ngounou, junior, 89 overall: Ngounou made major strides after being forced into the starting lineup last season, and now looks like a rock solid contributor going into our final year. An international recruit out of Cameroon, Ngounou is a fast 6’3 guard with lockdown defensive ability and a slightly above average three-point shot. We have bigger names on this squad who will be expected to carry the scoring load, but Ngounou is going to play a huge role because he’s way better than every other point guard on the roster. We need quality minutes from him in the tournament. Former five-star international recruit with B potential.

SG Bernie Doyle, redshirt senior, 92 overall: Doyle is an incredible talent who enters his senior year looking to fully blossom into a superstar. The 6’9 shooting guard uses his immense size on both ends of the floor. He’s elite at getting into the passing lanes and forcing steals (a team-high 1.8 per game as a junior) on the defensive end, and has a sweet three-point stroke offensively. Doyle is such a smooth scorer and dominant defender that it feels like he has the natural talent to develop into an all-great in his senior year. Let’s hope he’s up to the challenge. Former No. 36 overall recruit from Detroit with C potential. Projected lottery pick.

SF Floyd Keller, redshirt senior, 92 overall: Keller checks every box for a small forward. He has good size at 6’7. He has a three-point rating in the mid-80s. He’s the best dunker on the team. He’s an elite offensive rebounder for a wing with a rating in the low 90s, which helps equip him to play minutes at the four. After a tough shooting night in our Elite Eight loss last season — he went 1-for-7 from three — we’ll need Keller to be consistently great if we want one more run through the bracket. Former No. 101 overall recruit out of Dallas with C+ potential. Projected second round pick.

PF Oscar Fray, redshirt senior, 88 overall: Fray enters his third year as a starter with a fascinating combination of size and skill that could set him up for a breakout senior year. The 7-foot power forward is a great three-point shooter for his position with a rating just below 80. Defensively, he’s the top-rated shot blocker on the team, and also does a pretty good job on the glass. Former No. 118 overall recruit out of Lynn, MA with C potential. Projected second round pick.

C Brody Munoz, redshirt senior, 92 overall: Munoz finally gets the spotlight as a senior after backing up DJ Foster — a one-time NCAA tournament Most Outstanding Player — for his entire career up to this point. We’re expected big things, and not just because he’s tied for the highest rated player on the roster going into the regular season. What Munoz lacks in elite size at 6’11 he can make up for with strength, agility, and rebounding. We expect him to be really good at forcing turnovers, grabbing putbacks, and helping fortify the paint. Former No. 169 overall recruit (No. 6 center) out of Nashville with B potential. Projected lottery pick.

We have an incredibly deep bench for our final season. Center Logan Polk (85 overall) will be our sixth man, and should be able to form a three-man front court rotation with the two starters in the tournament. After that, we have a lot of options but not a lot of good options.

Here’s the rest of the bench: wing Jaycee Queen (80 overall), wing Jerald Obasohan (79 overall), guard Archie Howell (78 overall), wing/guard James Haranga (74 overall), guard Edwin Walls (74 overall), and power forward Kenny Butler (74 overall).

This is really it. Year 40. The last dance. What a ride it has been. We start the season at No. 4 in the polls.

How did the regular season go?

For our final regular season, we tried to schedule a good mix of local schools and historic big conference rivals with a couple in-season tournaments thrown in for good measure.

Here’s how the regular season went:

Win over Bradley

Win over Nebraska

Win over UTEP

Loss to Southern Illinois

Win over Florida

Loss to Northwestern

Win over New Mexico

Win over DePaul

That sets up a rivalry game against Illinois. We’ve played the Illini in almost every season, and we don’t want to end this dynasty without one more dub. The losses to Southern Illinois and Northwestern were a real bummer, and we need a palate cleanser. Let’s go!

Big win, 102-68. Look at Cristano Ngounou hanging 17 points and six assists on the Illini. Love seeing both starters in the front court — seniors Oscar Fray (13 points, 10 rebounds) and Brody Munoz (18 points, 11 rebounds) — each dropping a double-double, too. And how about our new five-star JUCO addition Obasohan chipping in 12 points off the bench? Really promising performance from the boys.

We get a big win over Kansas in our next game. That sets up another marquee game with a program we don’t like very much out of the state of North Carolina: Duke. We’ve battling with Duke on the court and on the recruiting trail for 40 freaking years. Can we end this rivalry with a dub?

Ugh, loss, 88-83. Nice games from Bernie Doyle (19 points, four assists) and Oscar Fray (14 points, 12 rebounds), but it isn’t enough. That’s our third loss of the season. Get bent, Duke.

We end the year with three more non-conference games.

Win over Illinois-Chicago

Win over American

Win over Arizona State

While we may have lost the final battle to Duke, I won the war over Coach K with a significantly better career by any measure (more on that in a minute). Now it’s time to jump into conference play in the Summit League.

Did we go undefeated in conference season?

Yes we did, another perfect 18-0 stretch.

Now we enter the conference tournament. Can we punch one more automatic bid to the NCAA tournament?

Win over UMKC

Win over Southern Utah

Win over UL-Calcutta

We’re going to the NCAA tournament for the last time, but that isn’t even the headliner after winning the Summit League. Im taking home the conference tournament championship, I won game No. 1,171 of my career. That currently puts me ahead of Coach K for the most wins all-time.

We have built a great legacy at Western Illinois. Before we enter the NCAA tournament, let’s take a look at our statistical leaders:

What a year for Munoz. Dude sat on the bench for four seasons before finally getting a starting spot, and all he did was lead our team in scoring at 17.2 points per game. Fray was awesome, too, averaging a hair under 15 points per game while chipping in nearly two blocks and six rebounds per game. It’s good to see Keller and Doyle both hit double-figures in scoring. I’m a bit surprised Cristano couldn’t even put up seven points a night after his big game against Illinois, but the assist and steals numbers are solid. We’re going to need him in March.

The Leathernecks are heading into the NCAA tournament at 32-3 on the year. I can’t wait to see what seed we get.

2047 NCAA tournament

Well, we couldn’t end this dynasty without getting swindled by the Selection Committee one more time. We’re a No. 6 seed in the NCAA tournament. I thought we should have been a top-four seed without question.

We’ll open the tournament with a game against No. 11 seed Syracuse. Sheesh. Before we get to the game, let’s check in on our roster one more time:

I’m loving the way this group progressed through the year. We have two awesome wing scorers with an elite combination of size and shooting in Keller and Doyle. We have plenty of beef up front with Munoz, Fray, and Polk. Ngounou entered the program as a 77 overall and shot up to a 92 in three years without a redshirt. The bench also really improved during the season and should give us plenty of different lineup options in March.

This is going to be a tough run, starting with Syracuse. The Orange have knocked us out of the big dance before, and consistently put together really strong teams.

Our last dance starts now. As always, we’re simulating every game, I’m not controlling the ‘Necks.

Let’s go!

Win, 105-73! What an absolute beatdown. We’ve moving on to the round of 32.

Long-time followers of the series will know that our Leathernecks have always been known as a second half team. It happened in a big way in this game. Syracuse ended the first half strong to cut our lead to nine points, but we quickly turned it into a blowout out of the break.

I thought this was a tremendous all-around team effort. Six players hit double-figures in scoring with no one putting up more than Floyd Keller’s 15 points. Everyone who played recorded an assist. I loved this play from the first half when we set two screens for our five-star JUCO Obasohan that helped get him an easy layup.

Our bench is a big question mark coming into this tournament, mostly because it’s filled with a lot of fresh faces who haven’t played big minutes in clutch spots before. I have to say, the performance of our reserves in our tournament opener was super encouraging. Obasohan in particular looks like a keeper after scoring 10 points on 4-of-5 shooting and knocking down a three. We always need wing depth, and he should be able to provide that on this run.

The clear highlight of Obasohan’s night: this sick two-handed dunk in transition for an and-one.

We love to turn defense into offense, and Ngounou and Doyle’s ability to get into the passing lanes really helps us out there.

Speaking of Ngounou in transition: he had a beautiful finish on the break to put the game fully out of reach. That’s what you want out of your point guard.

The win sets up a second round game against Colorado State

The Rams have been a solid program throughout this sim dynasty, regularly making NCAA tournament appearances. We have a decisive edge in talent heading into this game.

We are one win away from going to the Sweet 16 and extended our run in the big dance. One time, ‘Necks. Let’s go!

Win, 109-79! We’re going to the Sweet 16!

We didn’t need to be a second half team in this one. Our ‘Necks blew the doors off Colorado State from the opening tip-off. I thought we played a great game offensively thanks to our inside-out ball movement.

We had five scorers in double-figures in this one, but it was senior starters Bernie Doyle and Oscar Fray leading the charge. We know Doyle is capable of taking over a game at his best, and he was awesome in this one: 20 points on 7-of-13 shooting from the field and 4-of-6 shooting from three. The real story was Fray, though.

Fray was probably the least appealing long-term prospect of our recruiting class when he entered the program alongside Doyle, Keller, and Munoz. That was mostly because of his 74 rating and C potential grade. While he’s always been rated a few points lower than his classmates, Fray’s skill set on the court is so important to us. He’s a massive 7-foot power forward who can protect the rim and shoot threes. What more do you want?

Fray went off in this game: 22 points, eight rebounds, two assists, two steals on 9-of-11 shooting. I love watching the big man shoot from deep. This was from NBA range.

Here’s one more catch-and-shoot three for good measure.

Fray might get slept on a little on this team, but he’s absolutely critical to our success if we want to win it all.

I also want to shout-out the bench for another solid performance. I liked what I saw out of Obasohan (11 points) and Howell (10 points). Since we already have two Obasohan clips in this post, why not make it three? Love him hitting this triple in the first half to help us open up the lead.

We’re rollin’.

The win sets up a Sweet 16 game vs. Alabama

We’re now four wins away from ending this dynasty with a national championship. A Sweet 16 game against Bama is going to be an absolute battle.

In our simulated future, the Tide have become a basketball school. This program seems to make the tournament every year, and they’ve given us plenty of trouble in the past.

A trip to the Elite Eight is on the line. Let’s go!

Win, 112-69! We’re onto the Elite Eight!

Say it with me: SECOND. HALF. TEAM. After a tight first half left us with a six-point lead coming into the break, our ‘Necks absolutely torched the nets in the second half to come away with the blowout win. Seriously: we scored 66 points in the final 20 minutes. That was an offensive clinic at its best.

I had a good feeling about the second half when Cristano got this three hit the rim like 50 times before falling. Sometimes you need some good luck on your side.

A couple possessions later, Floyd Keller came down a ripped another three. We finally had a double-digit lead, and we’d never look back.

It was great to see Keller (15 points) get going from deep. He hit all three of his attempts from beyond the arc.

While we don’t have any clips of the front court from this game, they absolutely deserve credit for the win.

Fray turned in another incredible performance, this one somehow even better than his last. He ended the game with 25 points, 14 rebounds, four assists, three steals, and three blocks on 10-of015 shooting. He didn’t attempt a three (booooo) but he dominated the game on both ends. His front court mate Munoz was almost as good. The senior center finished with 20 points and 16 rebounds. We kept going inside — Munoz and Fray combined for 35 (!) field goal attempts — and they were making the Bama defense pay.

Not the best Bernie Buckets game (9 points on 3-of-10 shooting), but I clipped this shot from the first half, so I might as well embed it here.

Elite Eight, here we come.

The win sets up an Elite Eight matchup against No. 1 seed Indiana

Our run in the NCAA tournament has been a breeze up to this point, but I fear things about to get a lot more difficult. Our plucky No. 6 seed is about to run into one of college basketball’s blue bloods: the top-seeded Indiana Hoosiers.

The Elite Eight has been something of a bugaboo for us. We lost in this round last year. We’ve lost in this round many times before. I don’t want it to happen again.

A Final Four trip is on the line. As always, we’re watching a simulated version of this game; I am not controlling the Leathernecks. Let’s go!

***

***

***

***

***

***

Loss, 96-86. Oh my gosh. And just like that, our dream of ending this dynasty with a national title is over.

I am devastated. I really thought this team was good enough to send me out on top, but it wasn’t meant to be. The Hoosiers’ outside shooters did us in. Indiana’s guard-heavy lineup caught fire from deep (10-of-21 for 47.6 percent), and our perimeter attack couldn’t keep up. We only hit 6-of-22 (27.3 percent) attempts from three.

What happened to our second half team this time? We were only down two going into halftime, but we were outscored by eight over the final 20 minutes. Tough scene.

There were some solid individual performances. Munoz went out strong with 23 points and 10 rebounds. Bernie Doyle dropped 21 points and hit this three-pointer to keep us in it early.

Floyd Keller just didn’t give us enough on the wing. He shot 1-of-8 from three in the loss. He did give us a little juice in transition, at least.

Cristano played all 40 minutes, and had eight points and nine assists. I really wish I got another year with him as a senior next season.

Unfortunately there is no next season. After 40 years at Western Illinois, our sim dynasty is over. Here are some final numbers on the series:

Final record: 1,177-213

10 national championships (tied with John Wooden for the most in men’s college basketball history)

15 Final Four appearances

25 Sweet 16 appearances

Final NCAA tournament record: 113-27

38 Summit League regular season championships

35 Summit League tournament championships

38 seasons with 20+ wins

61 players drafted

The thing I’m most proud of? After we made the NCAA tournament for the first time in Year 3, we didn’t miss it again the rest of this dynasty.

Is Ricky Charisma the greatest men’s college basketball coach ever?

I think so. Here’s how we stack up to other top coaches in NCAA history in important categories.

Total wins

Ricky Charisma: 1,179

Mike Krzyzewski: 1,170

Jim Boeheim: 1,083

Roy Williams: 903

Bob Knight: 899

Dean Smith: 879

Jim Calhoun: 877

Adolph Rupp: 876

Bob Huggins: 828

Eddie Sutton: 806

Tournament wins

Ricky Charisma: 110

Mike Krzyzewski: 94

Roy Williams: 77

Dean Smith: 65

Jim Boeheim: 57

Tom Izzo: 52

Jim Calhoun: 49

John Wooden: 47

Final Four appearances

Ricky Charisma: 15

Mike Krzyzewski: 12

John Wooden: 12

Dean Smith: 11

Roy Williams: 9

Tom Izzo: 8

Rick Pitino: 7

Denny Crum, Adolph Rupp, John Calipari: 6

Consecutive tournament appearances

Western Illinois: 36

Kansas: 31

North Carolina: 27

Arizona: 25

Duke: 24

Michigan State: 23

Gonzaga: 22

Winning percentage

Ricky Charisma: 84.7

Mark Few: 83.44

Sam Burton: 83.33

Clair Bee: 82.444

Adolph Rupp: 82.1

John Wooden: 80.3

National championships

Ricky Charisma: 10

John Wooden: 10

Mike Krzyzewski: 5

Adolph Rupp: 4

Roy Williams: 3

Jim Calhoun: 3

Bobby Knight: 3

Who is the best player in Western Illinois history?

That’s the big question within the fanbase right now. Before we get to it, let’s look back at our greatest recruiting wins.

We landed five five-star recruits out of the domestic high school ranks during my time at Western Illinois. We also signed nine five-star JUCO recruits, and six five-star international recruits from places like New Zealand (shout-out Dave French), Montenegro (anti shout-out Vitor Andrisevic), France (what up, Kim Kone!), and Cameroon.

The highest-rated recruit in program history was Sammy Yan at No. 10 overall in 2032. He was pretty much a disappointment. The program’s all-time leading scorer was center Vinnie Harmon with 2,452 career points during his career. He was the No. 122 overall recruit and the No. 8 center (those that followed the series or played the game know that centers are always weirded underrated on the recruiting trail).

Here are some more numbers during tournament games only (aka, the games we streamed), from the amazing Leathernecks Database maintained by our fans:

The highest rated player in program history is a tie between small forward Nic Cummings and point guard Duncan Martinez, who are the only players to reach 97 overall. Cummings in particular is a great choice for the GOAT. He ended his career with three national titles, though only one as a starter. He’s top-10 for me, but not No. 1.

The people’s choice for the GOAT is Deke Van, the legendary center who helped carry us to our first national title in Year 8. Deke’s turn from from Year 7 goat to Year 8 GOAT is the most memorable we’ve ever had. We couldn’t have done any of this without you, Deke.

When Coach tell you youre guarding @deke_van https://t.co/RDhmDAPRA8 pic.twitter.com/fm2udgvMZT

— Ryan Thomas (@RTtheSID) May 10, 2020

As the series went on, other great players emerged who finished with gaudier stats and better resumes.

My personal favorite might be Bert Draughan, Mr. Basketball out of Chicago (No. 29 overall recruit), who went on to win a title with us in Year 13 and also starred for our Year 11 team that began the season 35-0 before losing to Michigan State in the Final Four. Harmon is another fine choice. Skip Clemmons helped us win three national titles in Year 23, Year 24, and Year 26. Albert Jagla, Clemmons’ former teammate, played a big role in our first back-to-back championship squad, and is arguably the greatest perimeter bucket-getter in program history.

All-time favorite moment? Impossible to say. The first one that comes to mind is Kim Kone’s go-ahead corner three in the 2024 tournament. Najeeb Goode’s steal vs. UCLA in the Final Four to help us win our second title in Year 13 also stands out. There was also the time superstar power forward Allen Cunningham took off his pants mid-game.

Thank you to everyone who read, watched, and interacted

I started this series on April 11, 2020, a few weeks after the pandemic had shut down all ‘real’ sports. At the time, I was gearing up to cover the 2020 NCAA tournament. That never happened. I had college basketball on my mind, and I always wanted to write something on ‘College Hoops 2K8’, probably my favorite video game ever. This project is what came of it.

I had no idea if anyone was going to read this. I definitely did not think I’d finish out all 40 years like a complete lunatic. I didn’t think I’d write the equivalent of multiple books in terms of total word count.

Just before I dropped the first post in the series, I tweeted this:

Got a real dumb blog post coming

— Ricky O'Donnell (@SBN_Ricky) April 11, 2020

I wrote around 70 posts in the series, counting the inaugural Hall of Fame induction (read a big Deke Van retrospective at that link) and two posts of my Deke Van x Seattle Supersonics spin-off. I’m estimating I wrote 200,000 words in this series. That’s about the length of “The Fellowship of the Ring.”

I still can’t believe everything that came from this series. The Washington Post wrote a profile on it. I went on WGN TV and did a few radio spots promoting it. We sold a Deke Van t-shirt with Homefield Apparel. Our series inspired a new friend in Japan named Thanh Nguyen to write a pair of e-books adding greater depth to our story. Friend of the program Mike Rutherford did an amazing hype video for our first championship run. When I moved the series to Substack for a few months, more than 7,000 people signed up for email updates and still remain. Our first Twitch stream for the Year 8 Final Four drew more than 7,000 total viewers, and had 2,500 concurrent viewers on it at as we were closing out the win. On SB Nation, the series has been viewed more than 500K times.

What really made the project special was always the community around it. Some quick shout-outs:

The Leathernecks Database is an amazing companion to this series. You can lost in there. Thank you to the diehards to helped maintain it, and reader Evan for starting it.

Thanks to my guy who started the Leathernecks Nation instagram fan page and whoever is behind the wondrous fake Deke Van twitter account.

Thanks to everyone in the Discord who maintained ‘Necks discussion always and forever.

Thank the diehards that came out for every Twitch stream. I don’t want to name names because I’ll forget someone, but you know who you are. I love you all. I also want to thank the readers for keeping up with the recaps, and everyone who emailed me feedback throughout the series. I also want to thank my buddy Scott for introducing me to the game and running through multiple 40-year dynasties with me way before I ever considered blogging through it like this. This series would not exist without him.

What a ride it’s been. As I sim through to the end of the calendar, I’m greeted with this message.

Thank you, everyone. Go ‘Necks.