#unfuck your life

[haruharuz]

Episode #01 / ??

Is life fucking you with a cactus? Do you not know where the fuck to start with getting your shit together? Join the club. I've failed probably a hundred different types of challenges and life transformations. Doing so has taught me exactly how to get my shit together over the years.

The tasks are random and customized to my personal experiences, you can add or remove whatever doesn't fit your lifestyle. I have added detailed instructions or links for those that need help with knowing exactly what to do. There is no "Start date" or "end date" you just do what tasks fit into your lifestyle. These things don't even have to be done on the same day.

TASK LIST #001:

-> Clean The Kitchen Sink & Counters: Wash any dishes or place them in the dishwasher, get a rag or sponge & a toothbrush you don't need, take dish soap or disinfectant multi-surface cleaner (i used pine sol) and scrub the sink. Take the toothbrush and get any small areas (especially behind the sink and faucet) with it. Rinse the rag and wipe it down. Remove any trash / random items from the counters and use a rag with soap to wipe down. Try to get underneath the microwave/whatever else if you can. Any items that were on the counters, find a home for them or place them back on the counter where they belong.

-> At-Home Gel / Polish / Whatever Pedicure : Go on youtube or tiktok and find the instructions for whatever supplies you have.

-> Clean your bathroom drawers and counters: Start with the counter, remove anything unnecessary and throw away any trash. Use a spray cleaner or disinfectant cleaner and a rag/sponge. Scrub the grime off from the sink and use the toothbrush you had earlier to get any nitty gritty areas. Then, open your bathroom drawers and have a small bag (grocery bag, trash bag) near. Look at each item and decide whether you need/want it or not. Throw anything that is expired away, find a place for everything that makes sense. You can optionally wipe the inside of the drawers with disinfectant if you'd like.

-> Buy floss / floss picks / water flosser and place it somewhere VISIBLE . Floss before you brush your teeth that night.

-> Create a Meal Plan / Grocery Plan: Look on youtube, tiktok, or whatever you'd like and find some easy meals you know you can reliably make and eat even on a bad day. When you go grocery shopping, make sure to have at least two kinds of fruit, some veggies, and something that is insanely easy to eat. I have frozen burritos in my fridge right now, they may not be the "healthiest" but it doesn't matter. Start the change today not tomorrow and keep that mindset in your head. It doesn't matter if the change is literally just that you ate an apple today. Make that change now.

[theriverbeyond]

local butch not immune to egolifting, spends 30 minutes on the floor doing progressive lower abdominal exercises to unfuck their back 😔👍

[technikki]

whoever designed the twitterized desktop layout should have an anvil dropped on their head looney tunes style

[tiangouaway]

alright so my dashboard is uhhhhhhh completely fucked thats nice i guess

[rogue-panda]

NaClYoHo vs. ADHD

I'm even more of a mess than my apartment, and I haven't done much about either me or the apartment in ages. But I made some cleaning progress today:

dirty dishes that were in the bedroom are soaking in hot, soapy water

dirty laundry collected and sorted into hampers and moved out of the bedroom

clean laundry put away (some stuffed into drawers, some neatly folded)

some trash and recycling taken to the kitchen bins

giant wheeled container with supplies for church into the living room so I can sort and donate the stuff inside (I'm not doing that job any more! Hooray!)

giant green+spinach salad with turkey, tomatoes, olives, mozzarella, and Italian dressing for dinner

It isn't much, and Dad expressed his regret that my motivation took a nosedive (he said he wasn't criticizing me, but his tone of voice told a different story), but the housework took me three 20-minute sessions. My room is still a mess, and I have a few things to move off my bed so I can sleep. But it was something, it didn't exhaust me, and my room looks a little less awful.

I got one of those tomato-shaped timers to use for UFYH/Pomodoro Method time management, but even 20 minutes seems to be too long. My first 20-minute session ended with me yelping in fear because I'd forgot about the damn thing. I'd got distracted so many times in the first fifteen minutes that I ended up standing in the living room, watching the pie fight in "The Great Race." (Dad was watching it.) I got back to my room just in time for the tomato timer to reach zero and clang shrilly. I'm looking into how to stay focused better while cleaning.

ADHD: 1

Me: 0

I've got into the Beatles recently, and my current favorite playlist on TIDAL is a few dozen of their happy-sounding songs. I've been sick with bronchitis for two weeks, but I am getting better. It was nice to sing (hoarsely) and dance (a very little) while I worked.

P.S. I don't drink alcohol. At all. How the hell did I end up with a bottle of wine on my bedroom floor?

[omisspearl]

Bone weary tonight, but I have made it my habit more often than not to do 15 minutes (by timer) dishes/kitchen clean up and 10 minutes room cleaning.

At the same time I have added a combination of the flylady "clean your sink" and @unfuckyourhabitat make your bed. The latter really gets the generationally emphasized struggle to keep ones various levels of disabled brainbody shambling forward. I have also started making my bedtime routine start at 8 PM. Likewise a ruthless purge of my physical possessions is ongoing to reduce the chaos to manage.

I have a degree of specific skepticism that everything is one minor life change away from falling apart, but man the shame/ego damage of living undiagnosed and then unsupported neurodivergent is something else.

[khihi]

tumblr is now hiding people's icons and making it look like i'm not following them. love a functioning website.

[spicypussywave]

i see a stupid take on a show i had no interest in thinking about (bc others do enough of that) and now i wanna defend it and make op see how delusional they've gotten

[little-homestead-in-the-suburbs]

Operation functional home Take two-week seven

The bedtime cleaning spoons are back.

Picked up dog toys which became clear packages and ended with vacuuming all exposed floors.

Did a few 5 minutes or less tasks earlier using my Picker Wheel thing from earlier this week.

Microwave, exterior of fridge+ obviously bad food, dusted a fan, some laundry, took trash to the dumpster, and cleared a side table.

Also dealt with a helicopter horse owner, who is panicking about her horse's weight. The horse is fine, just an anxious show type who spent the summer learning to be a real horse.

[favvnsongs]

asdfghjkl lmfao has anyone called in a wellness check on dawson french yet or like, what

[krockat]

oh my goshl....... to the depths of the editing mines i go again......,

GAAAAAAAAAURGH

GAAAAAAH

GAH GAH GAH

Y'AAAAAH

,,,,,,

so..... i wanted to edit a short video. its true, i did. so instead of purchasing or subscribing to yet another program for a kindling hobby i looked up free editing software. but i needed to get it Quick and Without Much Thought - cause my hands were Oh so hungry to edit the thing i'd filmed for this specific project today,

Now

aaand so i picked the top placement of a top twelve best free editing programs of 2023

(can you count the potential pitfalls of mistakes in this one sentence?)

and so. i clicmked it and wow! in browser!! thats great.

opened it up and:

wow! its easy to understand,

it reminds me of old programs i used before way back,

and its just. intuitive user friendly enough,

but also with enough bigger boyer tools for me to work with, so i can feel like a bigger boy.

and yea, many features are paywalled, but theres cheaper and manual versions for all of them -

(and those features not being this i minded, i find manual subtitling for example to be kind of a fun and fulfilling problem.)

it was seeming. cool!

but. as i have now layed an hour or so on working on this progrem and project.... i realize to my intense fear and budding dissapointment........

Exporting is a premium feature.

meaning, Downloading, what i have created...................

I HAVE TO PAY FOR`?????????

I put all this time and effort and funny lil skibblywinklies and am now soulbound and connected to this project!!! to this piece ive created!!

with YOUR TOOLS and YOUR FEATURES THAT I MOLDED W MY HANDS THE SUPPLE CLAY OF MY PROJECT:........

and now, poor as i am today, i can not. get my project back. into my hands.

i am late on a bill i have not been able to pay.... and motherfucker you think i shall pay you 192 usd for a yearly subscription for the pro feature, or 24 usd a month with auto rescription for This? you think thats okay??? you cuck swiene???

you who were top 1 free program.

i shall do violence upon the world, instead of doing the violence upon me.

i shall not turn this pain inward. RAAAAUGH RAAAAAHGHRAAAAAAAAUGH uuuuuRAAAAAAAHGHGHGHGHGHHUUHHUHUGHUGHUGHHGHGHGHGHUHUHGUGHUGHUGHUGHGUHG .

why do every editing exploit i do end up in torture.....

[boyapologist]

can anyone in their 20s relate to the weird experience of starting to feel attraction to 30+ men. because I just can't wrap my head around it

[echoedastrology]

[warthogreporter]

A second look at the human fucker community on monster tumblr

🧜‍♀️ Hermaid Follow

After a while you start to notice some trends in how people talk about fucking their hoomans

Vampires: This is Brother Reginald Regicus Regicum who I slowly corrupted and tempted with earthly desires across several long years until he became a creature of the night like myself. We're throwing his one year vampirization party in a month, here's the invite, if you don't come it's a personal insult, to me.

Orcs: This is Himby the Himbo who I snagged in some raid I did because I got bored on my way to the grocery store. It's funny when I make him wear cat ears.

🐻 Beard-Toucher Follow

Demons: These are Sir Good and Sir Goody. I make them wear matching collars because of how they were all but boyfriends before I enthralled them with my dark magic. You noticed their matching collars right?

Werewolves: You'll never believe this, but my human Stucky, who used to be called Lady Stuck Up, was actually a repressed and stuck up person before I helped her embrace her wild side TM.

🐍 Scaled-Scales-Scaling-Scales Follow

Naga: ...Anyway after spending 400,000 years praying I finally met the human who is the love of my life and we recited mantras together, after 200,000,000 years of this we began to *blushes* hold hands and then the gods...

Other kinds of dragons: This is King Dragonslayer the Unfucked. I use him as a display stand for my jewels when not fucking him.

(164,597 Notes)

🐙 WetterThanYou Follow

Showing the humans parts of their world they've never seen (the depths).

(9,846 Notes)

🐎 Seventaur-deactivated20230527 Follow

Man humans really are such pathetic creatures

🐎 Seventaur-deactivated20230527 Follow

Stop reblogging this as a human fucker post! I advocate for exterminating those pests! It's literally in my bio! Human Fuckers DNI!

👿PazuzuOfficial✅ Follow

Hey OP we need to 'talk' IRL. Don't bother turning on your location, I already know it.

(369 Notes)

🐺 HereWolf Follow

Seeing elves in human fucker communities is always such a "bro thinks he's on the team" moment. Oh yeah you're so different from humans with your pointy ears and... oh right that's literally it.

🛣️Elf-Hater Follow

Elves are like humans but lame and pretentious, even lame and pretentious humans are better. Eying a 'human' only to notice pointy ears is like biting into a blueberry muffin thinking it's a chocolate muffin, if blueberries tasted like shit.

🧝Elfeven Follow

🥺

🪓Orcasionally-Really-Cranky Follow

If it makes you feel better I fuck both humans and elves, just got back from a raid where I scored plenty of elves to make into my obedient little whores.

🧝Elfeven Follow

That doesn't make me feel better.

(685,734 Notes)

🦅Feathery Follow

Finally going to an actual human town. What do human eggs look like? Don't want to cause any problems by mistake.

🦋 Gregory-Grigori Follow

People on this webbed site will really just say anything about hoomans huh?

🐂 No-Yournotaur Follow

OP, humans don't lay eggs. It's weird that you thought they did. They're mammals.

🦅Feathery Follow

I thought they were like platypi no need to get up my ass about this

🐂 No-Yournotaur Follow

Okay you know what fair.

(5,873 Notes)

🦋 Gregory-Grigori Follow

I'd say good morning, but I didn't wake up with a beautiful human on each side of me so actually it was yet another mid morning.

(4,384 Notes)

Click here for part 1 and here for part 3 and here for the Christmas special

[surroundedbytheworld]

8 Steps to Unfuck Your Life

(Better Ideas, 2023)

Clense Thy Earthly Bessel

Order The Kingdom

Venture Forth

Sweat

Monitor Thy Treasury

Remove The Hooks

Strategize

Submit

[bkgexe]

if all else fails, i was myself

bakugou x reader ✾ 4.6k

info! no smut sorry gang ✾ tw! trust issues that manifest as issues w physical intimacy/contact, dubcon in its vaguest definition (NOT bkg & reader) ✾ notes! ive been in perpetual writers block for months. is this trite idk. i miss my baby but anytime i write for him im like oops this is gonna be 60k words!!! so here is. a drabble lmao. also big lmao moment this is titled after count me out by kendrick lamar ldskfjdlkjf which was on repeat while writing so uh sorry mr. lamar abt the mha fanfic

katsuki has always known that part of him is wrong.

he’s never liked being touched. every kiss he’s experienced has made him tense as an elevator cable poised to snap. any attempt to go further than that has made him a little ill, made his gut feel like a stack of loose papers being torn to shreds, slow and loud.

it doesn’t help that he’s only ever had three kisses in his life: eijirou at a new year’s party (too many teeth), eijirou again at another new year’s party nearly a decade later (too much tongue), and then his fourth date with kyoka (when he tried to convince himself he just had to push through the discomfort to become normal).

things went further than that. it was a mistake. they both knew it right after it happened—kyoka first, and then katsuki after his head stopped pounding with what if i'm doing this wrong what if she's pitying me for fucking this up what if i don't know how to touch another person correctly what if i was supposed to learn at some point and i missed it how could i fucking miss it will it always be like this because i can't do this again i can't i don't—

“kat," she said after. she looked at him with something only a few degrees removed from pity, and poorly removed at that.

he attempted a halting non-apology. he attempted a real apology. failed at both.

"it's okay, you know," she said. "to not like it."

he scoffed even though he wasn’t entirely clear on what she meant by it, because there was so much he didn’t like. “i like it just fine.”

“if that was liking it, I’m honestly worried about your capacity for enjoying life in general.” it wasn’t a joke. her bluntness was something that'd made katsuki think he could push his boundaries with her. all of her thoughts were laid out plain for him to read, an open-source journal. “i'm just saying you don't have to like it. and you don’t have to force yourself to do things you don’t want to do. don't fuck yourself over for someone else's happiness.”

kyoka still texts him often, checks in, invites him to drinks with their friends. she’s kind. she’s normal. she doesn’t have this weird, shredded thing inside her that makes her balk at the idea of someone’s hand on her skin. that makes her think she's doing something wrong, even if she's not the one that initiated the touch.

when you started your job at the front desk of katsuki’s agency, he never thought that he'd be here, wishing above everything that he could just be normal. just for one fucking day, so he could laugh at your shitty jokes and maybe brush his knuckles across the back of your hand in passing and take you on a date where he could kiss you in his car after driving you home and the thought wouldn’t make his skin crawl, wouldn't tear up his insides to pulp.

because he fucked everything up. he's standing in his empty office where you'd been spending time with him and he fucked it up and hurt you and he's not sure how to unfuck it.

the thing is, he could grin and bear it. he could deal with the odd thing inside him that hates the contact and white-knuckle it through every kiss, every caress. but he’s never been a great actor. he wouldn’t be able to hide that from you.

(kyoka told him, years later, that it’s not that the sex itself wasn’t fine—what made it nearly unbearable for her was the fact that she could tell, only after it was too late, that being physically vulnerable with her pained him far more than he was willing to reveal.)

no one wants to feel like the person they’re with is grinning and bearing it. that they’re white-knuckling it through. katsuki knows this. he knows he’s basically a fucking virgin all but in title at thirty and that he’s got the personality of a dried-out fig you find in your fridge weeks after its last edible moments. he doesn't have much to offer.

but he walked into work one day and nodded at you, curt, a grimace on his face—and you smiled at him so kindly that his stomach twisted.

with you, it wasn't the feeling of something being torn apart. it was different, lighter. leaves wrenched into the sky by a strong breeze. still a kind of tearing, but different—less destructive.

he was wearing a deep carmine sweater his mom sent him in one of her bi-monthly care packages (as if he’s not an adult, and a pro-hero on top of that), and you said, “that’s such a nice color on you. is it new?”

there was that breeze inside his chest, strong, pulling at his bones. “yeah,” he grunted. then slowly, as if remembering how: “thanks.”

it was the attention, he thought at first, that piqued his interest. he wasn't used to it. people always watched him from afar, and he had fans online that were borderline obsessive, but people didn’t approach him. they didn’t say that’s such a nice color on you. they didn’t smile the way you smile.

he’s always had a shallow streak. it’s not like he doesn’t know this. it’s become a little muted over time, a little discouraged by the visible scarring on his face and body from his time in the field, but it’s never fully been eradicated. so it was simple, he thought. you paid him attention and stroked his ego, and he preened like a self-obsessed bird of paradise.

and then you started making these little origami whale sharks.

fucking stupid. it bothered him an annoying amount. you had a bunch at your desk, all different colors and sizes, some taped to your desktop monitor, some hung up with little pieces of string under the desk's storage overhang. you drew dots on the back of each one, a distinct spotted pattern that was unique for each shark. and you made them for everyone but him. eijirou bought you a pack of high quality origami paper and you made him his own fucking school, all with little faces, winking or surprised or angry, their wide paper mouths gaping and empty, the lines of their bodies pressed careful and sure.

he hated it. it was annoying and a waste of company time and he usually didn’t ever use dumb corporate slogans like “a waste of company time” but you were really pushing his fucking limits.

it was definitely just the attention he liked, he told himself, because surely someone doing something as dumb as this would annoy him to no fucking end if he spoke to them.

and then he spoke to you and he was wrong.

he asked why you made the damn things in the first place and you told him, “i like whale sharks. but to be totally honest, i just run out of things to do."

and he saw that as a challenge. you were running out of things to do? rest assured he could find more shit for you to take care of. so he did. tasks that he wouldn't wish on his worst enemy, they were so dull and time-consuming. and you were so achingly competent that it drove him up a fucking wall. you completed everything he asked of you in half the time it would take someone else, and you always reported back with a smile, and you always did good work, and he could see himself having a conversation with you about something other than work but he didn't want to try because he was worried he'd begin to like you as a person.

you're pretty. really fucking pretty. he can see that now, and he sure as fuck saw it then. you're hardworking. you're just likeable, and that's something katsuki had never been. it (reluctantly) impressed him. worse than that, it turned his feelings for you into a sort of interest.

but he knows he's not normal when it comes to things like this.

he tried to distance himself from you because of it, but it turns out that asking someone to do work for you means you do have to speak to them sometimes. and sometimes turned into a lot of times.

sometimes turned into bringing him coffee in the morning, not because he asked you to, but because you're sweet like that. sometimes turned into being the person he bounced ideas off of when he had a board meeting coming up or something otherwise boring and meticulous. sometimes turned into you laughing at his prickly comments rather than going quiet because of them. turned into you saying suck it up, dynamight, this is what it means to be the boss when he complained about doing paperwork.

sometimes turned into staying late with him at the office, getting take out for the two of you to share while you finished filing claims and damage reports and other stuff he hated taking care of by himself. sometimes turned into him asking you to stay late just because he wanted you there. because even when he was quiet, you'd tell him about your day, about things that happened in the office, about how much you like the book you'd both been reading. he loved listening to you talk. felt comfortable enough to tell you things about himself when he'd never felt comfortable doing that before.

sometimes turned into you holding out a piece of fried tofu from your take-out container for him to eat while he was approving time-off forms that he should have looked at much earlier that week, and you being so close that he could notice how good you smelled, and the warmth of your body basically radiated towards him, like all your energy was focused on him, and your smile was small but somehow even more lovely than usual, a secret for him to tuck away and keep, and when you finished feeding him and he had a little sauce on the corner of his mouth and you reached forward to wipe it off for him and your hand lingered there for a moment and your eyes fell to his lips and what if you try to kiss me and i'm wrong and you hate me for it and what if i can't give you what you want and what if i'm not actually what you want what if i've disappointed you already what if—

it was too much.

so he fucked it up. your thumb was so soft against his skin. he reeled backwards in his chair, rolling it whole feet clear of you, and he felt the tearing again, the bad kind, like paper unevenly shredded by clumsy hands, and he had to leave. he had to leave. he needed to leave so badly that it felt like pulling his skin off would be preferable to being in that office with you.

hiding in the bathroom was fucking pitiful. he remembered his breathing exercises. he remembered to ground himself. and when he came back to his office, you were gone.

if he was normal—and he wants to be normal, god fucking damn—he could have stomached your proximity. he could have eaten out of your fucking hand. he could have touched you back like a normal person probably would have and he wouldn't be here, alone, looking at a little purple sticky note you left him that says i finished organizing the pto forms. i hope you feel better!

he doesn't know whose pride you're trying to save with that. as if you didn't leave because he made things so fucking awkward by running away from you when you touched him. when you—maybe, if he was reading the room correctly—were about to kiss him.

and you don't speak to him for days. he doesn't want to push so he doesn't—just watches you out of the corner of his eye whenever you're both in the same room, which is arguably worse. he's not sure. he's just itching to fucking talk to you because he misses it.

he misses you. in a more-than-friends way.

it takes a while for him to realize this. when he does, it hits him like a metal rod up the side of the head. it's fucked up of him to miss you the way he does when he doesn't feel like he can provide you with the things a normal person could. and though he's worked on his patience over the years—worked on understanding that he can't have everything he wants—it doesn't stop him from being selfish and finally pulling you aside to talk.

and baffling as fucking ever, the first thing you say is sorry. "i know i should've talked to you about it earlier. i just—i shouldn't have done that. and i know it. i shouldn't have assumed that—i don't know. that you..."

you look helpless. it's one of the very few times that katsuki has ever felt the compulsion to touch someone. not because he wants the touch, per se, but because he wants to be able to provide comfort. he never figured out how to do that with words. he's so focused on his inability to comfort you that he barely has any idea of what you're actually talking about. instead of doing anything at all, he just stands there like a fuckwad.

"i just want you to know that i would never—like never—have touched you, or tried to... if i didn't think there was like, a vibe?" you shake your head, exasperated with yourself. "god, even that sounds so bad. i'm sorry, i just—"

"wait, what are—?" and then it clicks, because he's been slow on the uptake figuring out his shit when he should have been focusing way more on yours. "there was..." katsuki says, and he fucking hates that he can't find better words for what you were both feeling in his office, "a vibe."

the way your face changes when you're flustered is one of katsuki's favorite things, but it's not as enjoyable when he feels just as flustered as you look. "i—oh? so... so you—?"

his ears feel like they're being attacked by two heated straightening irons and he knows they're red as hell right now. he's gonna have to say this plainly even though he'd rather get his teeth pulled out one by one with a pair of pliers. "it's not you."

your expression loses any sort of hope it once held. you press your lips together and sigh, maybe a little exasperated. he's doing his best here but he knows his best is shit. "i can handle a non-cliché rejection," you tell him. "honestly, i'd prefer a non-cliché rejection—"

"i'm not trying to reject you," he says, and it's selfish of him. because he's really not. he isn't comfortable with the things you'd want from him, but he still wants you in some capacity. "i just don't—do shit like that."

"kissing?"

somehow knowing for sure that you did want to kiss him in his office makes him want you more. he likes that you're bold. he likes that you're not ashamed of that. he wants to be different than he is. "any... of it," he struggles to admit.

"at all?"

he nods.

"just—like touching, and stuff?"

it sounds so juvenile that he can't help but laugh through his nose, roll his eyes. "yeah. touching and stuff."

"oh."

you're disappointed. of course you are. it's not like he expected anything different, but—sometimes he fucking hates his life. hates that he can't be the thing people need him to be. hates that trying is so difficult, that it flings his stomach into space, like a throwing stone skipping across a still lake.

"so you don't go on dates, or anything."

"haven't tried."

"do you not want to?" you ask, and he can tell it's more of a genuine question than anything. you're curious about him, like you always are. it's more than he deserves, for all he can offer.

"doesn't make sense to."

"that's not what i asked."

it's not. and so katsuki listens as you ask your question again, and he really takes a moment to think.

considering the answer to your question leads him to his first date with you. and his second, and his third—his fourth, and he's keenly aware that his last fourth date ended with what he expects all dates are supposed to end with.

he takes you to the aquarium. because of all the fucking origami whale sharks. you still haven't given him one and it sticks in his craw like a bone. in front of the backlit tank that holds sharks of all types, shapes and sizes and teeth he's never pictured possible of a living creature before, he asks, "why sharks?"

you look at him, brow raised. "i don't know. they probably needed the biggest tank in the aquarium. and this looks like the biggest tank."

"no, dumbass—your sharks. the ones all over the fuckin' office."

"what, you don't like them?" you ask, but you're smiling, sly.

he shrugs. he thinks they're dumb as hell. he wants one to hang up at work, like the ones you've got hung up at your desk. "they're whatever. they clutter the fuck out of ei's office. and he's already got issues organizing." you've just made eijirou so many at his point, and it's getting ridiculous. "but what—are they easy to make, or something?"

you laugh a little. "no. not at all, actually." a whale shark swims by, its spotted hide shimmering in the tank's eerie blue lighting, and you watch it intently. "but it'd be boring if it was too easy."

this date ends with him walking you home from the aquarium a few blocks from your apartment and you smiling at him and telling him that you had a really great time, and he feels like a fucking freak because you don't even expect more. you don't wait for a kiss. don't look disappointed that he doesn't try to give you one. the way you look at him holds so much affection that he doesn't deserve and he has no idea how to reciprocate it to you, and somehow he lands on, "make me one."

"one what?" you ask, but he thinks you already know what he's asking. you like to play coy. he likes it when you play coy. when you're enjoying yourself.

"one of your little fuckin' paper things," he mutters, because admitting that he wants one of those dumbass sharks feels somehow demeaning. he doesn't want you to know how much he's wanted one. "ei's got a million of 'em."

your hand was on your door handle, but it falls to your side. he's keenly aware of its proximity to him. he doesn't feel that terrible ripping in his gut and its absence is almost frightening to him. your fingers tighten into a fist. it's cold out. "ah, and you're jealous?"

"no," he says, knee-jerk. "i just don't get why everyone gets one but me."

you smile when he says this and he could live in this image of you, delicate and small and made for him. he goes home and thinks about it until he falls asleep. thinks about it even beyond then, feels that strong breeze inside him tearing every leaf from its grounded perch.

here's the thing—nothing against jirou, but unlike his other fourth date, this one was enjoyable. more than. he loved watching you be amazed by the size of the whale sharks, and he loved watching you put a bunch of coins into the penny press and cranking the machine until one was squeezed out into the pattern you wanted, and he loved watching you lay your hand against the glass where the rubbery wings of a flood of stingrays battled for your attention, and—

he loved watching you. that's weird, right? he sounds like a fucking lunatic thinking that.

but he does. he hadn't realized until now how difficult it had been not only to touch people, but to look at them. maintaining eye contact, watching someone do a simple task out of interest instead of staring them down in an attempt to intimidate them. he's so much more fucked up than he thought but what makes it bearable is that he can do it with you. he can watch the way you enjoy things and feel like he's not intruding on something he shouldn't. without even trying, you make him feel welcome—wanted.

that's it. you make him feel wanted.

the realization affects him in a way he doesn't understand. at work the next day, when you smile at him over the top of the front desk, he feels something incredibly strong—something like instinct—that tells him to touch you. small. a thumb brushed across your cheek. his fingers grazing yours. he wants it in a way that can't be right because he's never wanted to touch someone like this.

he doesn't do it, but he thinks about it all day. your little smiles when you notice him watching you on your dates, the way your fingers graze your lips when you cover your laugh, the softness in the way you regard him. you're quiet, reserved, but when you laugh you laugh hard. he wants your soft, your quiet and your loud, he wants the feeling of your fingers on his lips, he wants your smallest smiles, all things he wishes he could fold up and keep and later display somewhere he can always see them. a school of paper fish, gaping mouths and drawn-on spots and such carefully pressed lines.

so on the eleventh date—(he knows it's ridiculous to count, but he's never spent this much time with one person before, not like this)—he reaches for your hand when you're walking alongside the bay, the air turning cold in the wake of the sunset that the two of you had just witnessed. that's romantic, you'd teased when he asked you to watch it with him. he'd rolled his eyes, shrugged you off.

but maybe he wanted it to be romantic. maybe he wanted to make this as normal as possible for you because nothing has been normal between the two of you so far.

you pull back when he reaches for you, as if on instinct. look up at him, confused, when he reaches out again. "katsuki..." you say, and it sounds as if he's done something wrong.

he tries not to let his brain spiral but thoughts drip inwards. water meeting a dented hull. what has he done this time? what else has he fucked up by being fundamentally wrong?

"you know..." you start, and you lose your words.

he thinks of kyoka, years ago. it's okay, you know. to not like it. he wonders if you'll still text him like she does.

your lips pull into a frown before you speak and katsuki can't breathe. "i was never gonna ask on my own because i know you don't like talking about things like this if you don't bring it up. but—um. katsuki—do you think i expect something from you?"

"huh?" he asks, dumb. breathing is still something he fails to do.

"i know that this is—different. i know you have some things going on that make the physical part hard for you." you look up at him so earnestly, and he loves looking at you. he loves looking at you and doesn't want to have to stop and he's worried that this is it. the moment he'll have to stop. you try to smile and it's small and he wants it all for himself. careful. delicate. secret, for him. "i'm not gonna lie to you. i don't know what a relationship without that kind of stuff looks like. but that doesn't mean i'm not willing to find out. it's—i don't need you to try to do something you think i want you to do."

"i'm not."

"it makes me feel a little sick, kat. honestly. it makes me feel like, i don't know—like i'm taking advantage of you, or something—"

"you're not."

"you don't have to do things like that to keep me around." you look flustered, eyes darting from his face to the skyline. "if you want me, i'm—you know."

it's okay, you know. "i don't know."

"i'm yours," you say, and cringe immediately at your words. "or like—i could be, you know, kind of whatever you wanted, if you—if that's what you want. would want."

katsuki can only remember a few times when his head was this quiet in the presence of someone else. when he trusted someone enough to let his mind go blank, to let himself act on instinct. "can i kiss you?"

you sigh. "this is what i was saying. i don't want you to—"

"no," he says, quiet, and he's closer to you than he's ever been. he likes the way you smell. he's not gonna apologize if that's weird. "i just want—god, i feel pathetic asking again. can i just—?"

just, just, just. just a touch, just a kiss, just a moment of your fucking time—it's all he wants. and he's never wanted like this. he's never trusted like this. his head has never quieted entirely because he's so sure that he's not going to disappoint you, or be something you don't actually want, or be wrong.

you've shown him that he can't be wrong with you, regardless of whether or not something within him is broken.

your lips are warm, a little chapped from the dry air, and he tries to remember what kissing chastely is but it's like something breaks in him further the second the two of you touch. his hands are cradling your face, his tongue is gliding against your tongue, his teeth are clacking against your teeth, and he knows the kiss is bad and wrong and messy but he suddenly needs it. he needs to feel you.

you make a noise against him and worry slices into his stomach before he realizes it's a quiet, breathy moan, and maybe you've been okay without the touch but that doesn't mean you don't enjoy it when you receive it. he can tell he hasn't made his boundaries clear enough—your hands circle his wrists, too cautious to go further, too hesitant to grip him like he thinks you want to. like he wants you to want to.

his teeth hit yours again and you laugh, and he pulls back, stomach tight. there's a hope in him that's ready to be torn.

you see it in his face—the fear. "i love kissing you," you blurt out, as if it's the only reassurance you can think of in the moment. "i mean—you're just." you laugh again, and he realizes it's nerves. you're just as nervous as he is. "can i—can we go somewhere warm? and maybe do this more? or—if this was enough—"

he's pulling you towards his apartment before you can get another word out.

kissing you is easy because you make him feel like it's relatively new for you as well. maybe that's how it feels for everyone every time, but he wouldn't know. he just feels comfortable with you. like you're not so much better than him, like you're not waiting to laugh at him when he fucks up, like you're touching him because you really want to.

so he takes you to his apartment and puts you on his couch and kisses you until your back is against the armrest and he's looming over you and you feel comfortable enough that your hands stray from his wrists to his shoulders to his hair and he didn't even know touching someone could feel like this.

put aside the fact that he's nearly finished in his fucking jeans three times just from your fingers running across his back, from the way you cup his cheek when he pulls back for air because he keeps forgetting to breathe—just having you close is intoxicating. he wants to bury his face in the curve of your shoulder, he wants to bite marks into your skin that'll stay vibrant for weeks, he wants to etch himself into you so deeply that he doesn't have to leave. these wants aren't even sexual—it's something about having you be his. i'm yours, you'd told him, and he hadn't even known that it would be exactly what he needed to hear.

he's in love with you, which isn't shocking to him, but he knows he shouldn't be in love with you yet because people that aren't fucked up in the head don't feel shit like this so quickly. he's not gonna tell you this for a very long time, but he knows—so completely and confidently—that he will reach a point when he can tell you.

"you sure you want this?" he asks, breathy, between kisses.

you stop kissing him, brows raised in surprise. "katsuki, we don't... this is a lot for one night. we can take it slow, still."

"that's—i'm not talking about that." he gives in, then—lets himself bury his face in the crook of your neck, lets himself breathe in deep, lets himself find your hands and intertwine your fingers, and you can probably feel that he's hard as fucking metal for you but that's not what's important right now. it sure as hell makes it awkward to try to have a serious conversation, though. "you sure you wanna deal with all... you know. my stuff."

"are you sure you wanna deal with all of my stuff?" you counter, and he pulls back to look at you. kissed rotten and smiling. "of course i want to deal with it. i like you."

and he likes you too. god, he likes you so fucking much.

the next morning, long after you've left for home, he finds a little orange whale shark hidden behind the alarm clock on his bedside table, stars in the place of eyes, and the trace of you is enough to make him feel warm. to hope that over time his apartment becomes full of the little paper creatures until his home is its own aquarium, until everywhere he looks is a memory of all you've brought him—pieces of you, perfectly arranged and delicately folded by your careful hands, much too gentle to tear.