#when the cicadas are hollow or whatever

[hollowbananer]

Cosplay

[aconflagrationofmyown]

Ain’t No One Goin’ Back to Nod Empty

A Big Daddy Elvis blurb

Note: Somehow it would seem that I have managed to write a blurb for the first time ever, half baked and plotless though it be. I suppose I was missing Big Daddy E a bit too much while working on other projects. And I have given him a newborn because in my worlds we have nice things

Summary and Warnings (Spoilers:) middle of the night nursing and cockwarming and dirty baby talk. yep, that’s what I wrote

Insomnia is no foreigner to Elvis, and while pulling awake in the dead of night he is accustomed to the verve of Las Vegas vibrating it’s way up to the penthouse, tonight he can’t even blame his startlement on the cacophony of cicadas who have found a home in the trees around Graceland.

Tonight the gentle sound that reaches his ears makes him question how on earth his life got to be so sweet, and since when did the gulping noises of his child feeding off you become simultaneously so comforting and erotic. He lays on his back for a few moments, calibrating his eyes to the dark and once he’s certain they’ve adjusted, and that no hope remains for him to fall asleep, he slowly turns and slots himself behind you like the big ole spoon you refer to him as.

Sweeter still than any noise yet, is your pleased little hum of surprise at the sudden contact. The heat of his chest and swell of his belly presses into your back, and he knows you’re happy to have his company, it’s the one thing he’s never in doubt of anymore, your little trio is a mutually adoring fan club.

He and his little peanut might jinx sleep intentionally just for these little moonlit moments.

Elvis can only speak for himself, but when the contented little mewls and the slurping gulps of his infant reach him, he becomes so desperately needy for the same closeness as you and the baby are sharing that his heart pumps more vigorously than it has in years, and while the baby takes from you, he gives.

Returning “cream for cream”, you had joked in a more lucid moment.

With another woman he might have been ashamed, but with you he presses closer, hooks his chin over your shoulder and delights in how you shiver from the tickle of his sideburns against your neck.

“Hi there, daddy, I see you’ve joined us.” you mumble teasingly through your fatigue, suddenly feeling less worn down now he’s turned to you, his strong embrace letting you give into the lethargic haze of a predawn breast feeding since you know he will watch out for all three of you.

“Thought I was sleepin through a beer guzzlin’ contest.” he jokes, reaching a hand over you to poke your baby’s fat cheeks as they don’t even hollow despite the constant sucking, “Heavens honey, you’d think you threatened to take your jugs away from her she’s so frantic.”

“Make yourself useful daddy, calm her down then.” you grin into your pillow, feeling him poking you from behind and knowing you’re gonna get more from this interlude than empty teats.

“Gonna have to get close then, mama.” he reminds you as if this were a clause in the contract you hadn’t considered.

“Whatever’s necessary.” you concede.

It’s a funny thing how you can think you’re close to him until he chooses to truly close the distance. Your man has an ability to shape himself into every dip of you and swallow you whole with his bulk in so heady a way that at one time you would not have anticipated it to have such an effect on you. It makes you moan as the damp heat of him scorches through the thin cotton of your gown and he doesn’t even think to ask as he lifts your thigh in his large hand, reaches below his belly, then he slides himself between your thighs, his height giving him the advantage of still being able to see over your shoulder. The puffy head of him nudges at your clit and the firm chub of him pressing against your heat makes you slump back into his broad chest. You can feel his answering grin against your cheek.

“She can’t settle cause her mama’s all pent up.” he diagnoses the situation before beginning a easy slide through your slick.

You let out a low moan above your baby’s head as you feel your previously unnoticed tension seep into the sheets along with your slick. You wiggle him deeper between your lips and shudder from how ready you already are.

“C’mon lil darlin” he coos, all moist and huffy against your cheek, “take it easy now, ain’t no one goin back to Nod till they’re all full and satisfied.”

He has a nasty habit of this, talking to both his babies at once, and you know he likes the plausible deniability of it, the way you can’t be sure if it’s wholesome or filthy.

He’s a furnace behind you, delighting in the way you are so plaint and giving for him, your thighs rippling with his gentle thrusts and a single ripe breast hanging out to feed the baby tucked next to you. It’s a marvel to him the way you grew his little seed and how you nourish it now, always giving, that’s what you are. Except for right now, nearly drugged you're so tired, your hips start to chase his greedily, all the feelings mounting in a slow but inevitable delight, fueled by his even grind and the baby’s suction.

“Daddy, daddy I need you in me.” you beg, your chest heaving with your breaths and this is backfiring, you’re starting to get worked up and he doesn’t want that, needs to grind you into oblivion.

“Shh, shh, don’t startle my baby.” he takes the calming hand from the baby’s fuzzy little head drags his knuckles over your cheek while angling his hips to truly torture you clit.

“Oh god.” you gasp out and you can feel the dribble of your interest coming from your clenching hole, burning painful in its emptiness. “I’m so tired daddy.” you fuss, knowing he’ll relent, he’s too appreciative of all your sleepless hours dedicated to the little nugget to frustrate you further.

“I’d better give ya your pacifier then, hmm?” he rumbles amused and you would like to swat him for being a menace but your hand is occupied cradling the baby’s head and he is taking mercy anyway -finally.

Joining with him is a slow, burning stretch that has you nearly faint from stratification, all the familiar sensations of him drowning you and soothing you all at once, the friction of his uncut head nudging past, each graduating inch of girth, finally the hairy little pooch of his lower belly snug against your smooth cheeks.

You settle finally, all is right with the world and Elvis groans so loudly in satisfaction at being inside you that the rest of the house must surely hear him. Baby is unperturbed, she’s used to the way her papa worships her mama in these early hours. Ever since that first time after you’d gotten her home, barely healed up when Elvis started clutching and prodding between you thighs with shamefaced desperation, whispering hoarsely into the darkness:

“Jus wanna be close mama, wanna be close with my widdle girls, Peanut’s goin at it ain’t she? Can barely hold her eyes open but she chuggin it down. Jus, just let me in mama, that’s it, just wanna be close, oh goddamn you are snug as anythin.”

[miilkphone]

MCD REWRITE LONGPOST :

The Divine Warriors/Irene powers/Relic Thoughts

okay so starting off. I know I did a poll over if I should rename Aphmau and people said to keep her name as Aphmau but I got attached to the name Amalthea

HERE !!! are a couple of Amalthea concepts, + a face close up of her after unlocking Irene/Malthasso's powers/memories AKA it's her starting her transformation ig + the beard she kinda has going on is her moth fluff, which also runs down her neck ON TO MY THOUGHTS

i will say that a lot of this is copy + pasted from where i rambled in a few disc servers

I'm considering naming the rewrite Metempsychosis

" me·tem·psy·cho·sis [ˌmedəmˌsīˈkōsəs, məˌtemsəˈkōsəs] noun metempsychosis (noun) · metempsychoses (plural noun) the supposed transmigration at death of the soul of a human being or animal into a new body of the same or a different species "

unsure if I actually will or not

I want to rename Irene to Malthasso because the name Amalthea is derrived from it, and it always bothered me that Aphmau and Irene's names weren't a little similar

all of the divine warriors have something buggy going on

Irene/Malthasso - Moth

Shad - Beetle

Esmund - Cicada(thinking of the golden cicada)

Enki - Spider (Because of the Web from TMA)

going along with the moth theme, when Malthasso slumbers to become Amalthea, she goes into a sort of cocoon? and eventually Amalthea comes out, Amalthea has very vague and fuzzy memories of the cocoon and the Malthasso dimension (probably also going to get renamed), but she doesn't actually know what it is until her and the others get sent to the dimension

Now for Malthasso's powers, I saw someone give her time abilities instead of healing, and I liked how they did it so I wanted to do something similar, but I think instead I want to do something similar to how Nhika's(The Last Bloodcarver book mc) powers work. It's a bit hard to explain, but by touching people Nhika can feel every bit of someone's body, all their organs, all their veins, etc., and she can go in and heal whatever needs healing but it's not an instinctual thing, she has to actually learn about the body and how it functions. It's a dangerous power that could either be used for good or bad, it's not only used for healing. Anyway, I was thinking of Malthasso's power working similarly, except instead of being just humans/animals, it could also work for plants n such, like she can feel every bit of the earth and the roots as if it was a body and veins

LAURENCE he does not get his sight back completely, either it'll be like Kenshi from Mortal Kombat or similar to Toph from ATLA leaning towards similar to Toph since he'd be healed from the effect of the Malthasso statue, or at least somehow from Malthasso/Amalthea's abilities, he'd also be able to sort of 'connect' with the world around him

Adding in relic thoughts,

Absorbing and having a relic taken are both very painful things too, as well as having your Jury title renounced(thinking of something specific for the Garroth n Katelyn scene)

Absorbing a relic, when not gone to it's "rightful" owner(but still to a compatible body), it feels very unnatural, suddenly your body doesn't feel like your own anymore, you feel stuck inside a hollow shell and there's always a part of you trying to claw it's way out

Absorbing a relic, when gone to it's "rightful" owner, it still feels unnatural but not in the same way, it just feels like you've gained another limb or organ, you feel more whole than before

Having a relic removed is like having an organ or your heart ripped from you, it's very very painful

I DO HAVE MORE MCD REWRITE THOUGHTS but I figured it'd be better if it wasn't shoved into one big post, trying to kind of 'sort' which thoughts go together. but anyway lmk if you have any questions:))

[the-sonic-crew]

I'm back with another ☝️! So have the rough-and-tumble echidna meeting The L O N G H O R S E

Knuckles would sigh heavily as he lay against one of the stone pillars of the Altar of the Master Emerald and gazed up at the moon, he had a long day of events; Eggman and his usual attempts to take over the world, Rouge annoying the hell out of him along with Sonic, damn near losing his face to a piece of metal flung out when the explosion at Restoration HQ happened, and so on and so on. It was a quiet night out, the silence only broken by the sounds of cicadas and grasshoppers chirping and buzzing. The echidna was just about to rub his eyes from sleep again when he heard a sudden crack, followed by another and another. "The hell..?" Knuckles would mutter to himself as he would get up from the position he was in, listening to the subtly approaching cracking sounds, the scent of cinnamon reaching his nostrils as well. "Who's there?! State your business!" Knuckles would yell out, clenching his fists and growling lowly, positioning himself in front of the Master Emerald, ready to defend the powerful relic at all costs. "BE NOT AFRAID, ECHIDNA." A voice would ring out, sounding otherworldly in a way.. "Who are you?! Show yourself, coward!" Knuckles would exclaim, clenching his fists tightly and ready to swing. Then he saw it. An elongated neck that looked bony and had multiple patches and strands of hair on it, bending all in different directions and seeming endless. "What the hell..?" Knuckles mumbled to himself, unconsciously taking a step back. At the beginning of the freakishly long neck, a horse's skull would be at the end of it, eye sockets hollow yet its gaze would clearly be locked on him. "What are you?! What do you want?!" Knuckles demanded, still on guard and poised to strike if he had to. "DO NOT FEAR ME, ECHIDNA. I MEAN NO HARM TO YOU." The being would say, gaze unmoving. Knuckles would relax his stance a bit, arms at his sides but his fists would still be clenched. "And how do I know that I can trust you?" Knuckles would say as he narrowed his eyes, suspicious of the cryptid.

(got a lil lazy)

"I SAY AGAIN. I MEAN YOU NO HARM. YOU ARE IN DANGER, KNUCKLES. 1:34 AM. TWO MINUTES FROM NOW. YOU NEED TO BE AWAY FROM THIS ALTAR." It would say, one of its neck joints cracks again loudly as it says so. "Pah! Fat chance! You just want me to be away from the Master Emerald so you can steal it! For your information, I'm not stupid, whatever you are!" The echidna would respond bitterly, side-eying the cryptid while he moves closer to the emerald. The cryptid would look at him in what looked to be disappointment. "SUIT YOURSELF, DREDS. I CANNOT CHANGE YOUR MIND. JUST THINK ABOUT IT. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED." It would say, eyes later turning a glowing bright white as it would disappear as soon as it appeared, leaving Knuckles alone. "Hey! I wasn't done with you yet! Bring your hide back here!" Knuckles would yell out, going down the stairs of the altar. As soon as he did that, it would strike 1:34, the sounds of something falling fast being heard. "What the-" Knuckles would mumble to himself as he would whip around, now at the bottom of the stairs as something would hit the altar and explode, exactly where he stood as the red echidna would jump back in alarm. "Oh Chaos!" He would exclaim, later composing himself and running to the spot, checking the fiery inferno. Upon closer inspection, it would be the Tornado, five miles away from it, a familiar furry orange fox laid unconscious, Tails, whose plane had stalled midair and crashed, the two tailed fox having knocked himself out from hitting a tree trunk headfirst. Knuckles would pick up the unconscious fox boy, part of him concerned for the little guy's safety while the other half would go back to the cryptid. That thing.. that thing saved him from being turned into a charred and squashed mess.. It could've been a coincidence, right? Right?

Hope y'all enjoyed! :]

Knuckles, now put on edge, would hold the fox in his arms as he continued to guard the emerald, waiting for Sonic to show up and take said fox to safety.

As if on cue, the blue hedgehog came speeding into view

"Hey Knux! Have you seen-- oh, so you have" He sighed in relief, taking Tails from his arms. "Thanks for holding onto him, and thanks for the help earlier too"

"Yeah, yeah, uhm, so something really weird happened this--"

"I'm so sorry, you can tell me tomorrow, but I gotta get the little guy home" He motions to the twin tailed fox in his arms, and sped away shouting a goodbye.

Knuckles' heart dropped in fear.

He really hated Sonic sometimes.

[desiresign]

Like a Cicada to its Shell

seiga and her life pre-hermit.

link on ao3

posted under the cut if you wish to read here instead!

There’s someone in my bed.

It was quiet, yet the soft, lofty sounds of someone else’s sleeping breaths felt like they echoed through my skull. Furthermore, there was a light in the room, almost as if a torch had been lit, from a smooth, finely cut hole in the wall, pouring in moonlight.

I lifted my bed’s covers.

It was that scholar boy, Huo Huan, the one whose family asked for my hand in marriage, the one who had no life skills.

I remembered earlier as I undressed for bed, when I felt suddenly paranoid, as if being watched.

A sickening feeling blossomed within me and I ran out of bed to alert one of my family’s servants.

He was shaken awake, and revealed his thief’s tool.

It was vile, despicable, and most importantly, it was from a Taoist.

An immortal hermit, even.

My mind was full of thoughts of He Xiangu, my father Wu, and my various books of study. The conversation happening regarding Huan and his escapades escaped my mind, listless, and I made no effort to speak or show reaction.

As he made his way to exit, both of our minds were focused on that chisel, from the way he made sure to get it back.

A servant informed me that he had taken my fenghuang hairpin as well.

Violated.

“This robber’s tool… get rid of it,” I said.

“But it was our matchmaker!” he said with a chuckle, and wore it around his waist like a belt, already looking proud of his treasure.

I snatched it from his side, shoving it into a fold of fabric in my clothes. “No.”

“No?”

I scowled. “You stole something from me. And now, I unto you.” I made a move as if to break it.

I never did.

I was to be married to him.

I had no feelings for him other than disgust.

After the fiasco with our mothers, how else could I even begin to feel except for the start of something awful? Already, the embarrassment made me want to rot away into mush for the bugs to eat at the thought of what had been said. She made me feel violated. Yet, I paid my respects to her. Most of my time was spent alone and lost in thought.

I kept thinking about the chisel.

I kept thinking about the hermit it was received from.

I keep thinking…

I needed to get out of here.

When he was born, I felt nothing.

When he cried, I felt nothing.

When he suckled at my breast, cooing, entirely dependent on me, I felt nothing.

I entrusted my son to a nurse.

I couldn’t bear to look at him.

A mother was supposed to feel warmth and love for their child.

I felt a hollow space chiseled out of my heart.

I would carve out a hole in the room I was shut in to look at the moonlight sometimes. To feel the night’s air on my skin. To see the reflected light shining upon leaves and water.

The bamboo looked beautiful.

I was given freedom, but the family’s definition of freedom meant nothing to me.

If it was truly freedom, I would be long gone, blood full of metal, mind free of any inhibitions that kept me chained to the earth. Flying into a new world, a world where I could do whatever I wanted and go wherever I wanted to go, to be living for myself and no one else.

I did not want to stay.

I did not want to be on this earth, if it meant being stuck here.

I read my books on taoist immortals until the words blended together and my brain felt numb.

As my body’s strength waned and my hunger, once roaring and violent, became quelled and meek, I felt closer to He Xiang than ever before.

Huo Huang checked up on me many times.

He was loving towards me, as much as I hated it.

It didn’t matter. I felt little towards him other than feeling violated. What word could describe a boy who fell in love at first sight with one he had never met other than “foolish?”

It was always an idealized version of myself in his mind.

I knew what I needed to do, and how to do it.

The thought of being dead never made me feel more alive.

“We’ve been fortunate and loving in our relationship for eight years up to this point,” I rehearsed.

“Now it seems that we will be parting for a long time, with only a short while left together, but there’s nothing to be done about it!”

The words felt vile on the tongue, fake and insincere, but I felt giddy.

The chisel was mine.

I tied my hair into loops, using the chisel as a makeshift hairpin.

Not unlike what he had stolen from me.

Was it an immortal’s path to abandon their family?

Leaving behind a lover and a child, was I not unlike my father?

It didn’t matter.

I was getting what I wanted.

And I understood.

As they buried bamboo, I walked along the clouds.

[pararennial-archived]

*‵ ･ comets & cicadas ･ ′

There is something chilling about Benjamin Banneker's poetic assessment of cicadas and their likeness to comets. Excerpts of the analogy flash occasionally in her mind, like sepia-toned memories playing beneath closed eyes.

"... but they, like the comets, make but a short stay with us..."

She is on the rooftop, knees tucked against her chest while her eyes scan the night sky. The soft purple of dusk clings to the edge of where land meets the heavens before surrendering to the inky dark of night's domain. Constellations are captured within cobalt depths, mapping out pieces of her history ⏤ transmission signals between past and present. The line of communication is not apparent, but it's there is dialogue in the form of thin wires suspended within the atmosphere, wavering to and fro like waves. Eventually these strings start to tighten, she feels it pull within her. She cannot stay where she is for long. Something calls.

"... their lives are short, they are merry. they begin to sing or make a noise from first they come out of the earth till they die..."

When a butterfly emerges from its chrysalis, it is rebirth. It rises from the broken rind of its former life anew. From beneath, when gold emerges in the form of cracks along her skin, is this something new? Or something she forced herself to bury like some unknown precious mineral? Or something she lets sleep, dormant until it can't any longer and emerges out screaming?

She remembers how it burned when ichor overtakes blood ⏤ striking lightning, forming roots and branches out of gold ( is it no coincidence that they all look the same, as though Nature intended it? ). That was before it became as natural as a snake shedding its skin. She doesn't know what to make of it, and thus, she lets herself soar, as above, but tethered, so below.

"... the hindermost part rots off, but it does not appear to be any pain to them..."

Flowers, fungi, or bones. It's hard to determine on weathered marble bas-reliefs of women reverently holding the potential aforementioned aloft, bewitching many scholars alike. However, what still remains to be translated are the mysteries of which the ephemeral incessantly reoccurs, like a once-bare branch exalted in bloom in spring after winter. Perhaps incessant isn't quite the right world, but rather, inevitable.

Roxanne would have to guess that inevitability extends to cicadas having to dig their way past mulching petals, mycelium, and hollowed, splintered bone to breach the surface only for a short taste of freedom and merrimaking before they too, must return to the earth rotting away. She would also figure that it goes the same for comet tails pinching off and dissipating into the void of space when they return for their short, appointed hour in dramatic fashion. One would think borrowed time is a sad waste... a loss, but no, it's a small victory. At least to her it is. It doesn't hurt anymore.

"... for they continue on singing till they die..."

For now, she can celebrate what she leaves behind in the wake of the days she mourned what she thought she lost. She feels there is no sense of feeling the weight of being so disproportionate to the rest of the world, like an incorrect measurement of whatever this is. Bearing the burden of ancient ills on her shoulders and carrying out good will in the creases of her palms felt normal to her, at least now she thinks it should... while relieved, at times she wonders if such serenity in embracing this is as limited as the lives of comets and cicadas.

The soft cool of the summer evening and the chirping of crickets ground her again, edges of roof tiles softly digging into her legs to remind her that such familiarity is still to be found. Her neck starts to strain from her fervently staring past the Moon's pale face to the stars twinkling beyond. Message received. The wires run slack and she finds her way down with ease, pulling imaginary wavelengths close to her heart. This is something new.

[inochinoyomikata]

Inochi no Tabekata 2 ch 2-1 Translation

Part #2 — Seem to be Everywhere | mundane lives

“Don’t tell anyone your one wish

Show it off until it rots

Don’t show your one wish to anyone, hide it

Joy belongs to only me in the world”

— “Work #9” S

2-1 Shizukudani Rukana– People Have Their Manners

When she was in her third year of elementary school, they were in the same class for the first time. That child always had a book. A big, thick book. It was a picture book.

She was skinny, and she had bad posture, and every day she wore black and blue. She had black hair and a blue ribbon and she had dark eyes. She had pitted eyes.

At first sight, everyone thought, ‘she’s a strange girl.’

Shizukudani Rukana felt the same way.

She was a very strange girl.

That was her first impression of Itoha Hiiragi.

Itoha was alienated. She was even persecuted. You would say anything to that girl if you were away from the teacher. Whatever you did was fine. You’d be forgiven.

Every morning, various things were placed on Itoha’s desk. Crumpled paper scraps, eraser shavings, weeds that had been plucked, roots with soil, and the dead bodies of insects.

Itoha’s day began with throwing that garbage in the trash can. She didn’t throw the dead insects in the garbage can. She took them outside and buried them in the flower beds. Ants, flies, and weeds were there too.

Itoha carries around a large, thick book. A picture book called “Butterfly and Moth Photo Book — 500 Complete Editions of Butterflies and Moths in the All-Color World.” She often opened the picture book and looked at it. It seemed that Itoha really liked butterflies and moths. The reason that she went out of her way to bury the insect corpses was probably because she liked all kinds of insects, not just butterflies and moths.

Both boys and girls said that Itoha was “gross” and “disgusting,” just like throwing fowl language in the trash can. She was “a thing,” “dirty,” “creepy,” “like a ghost,” “ghastly,” “earthbound spirit.” It was not behind her back. Girls often spoke deliberately so she would hear them. But Itoha was either silently looking down or reading her picture book. She wouldn’t reply either way.

Looking at that situation, some people laughed, saying “she can’t hear you.” There’s all there was to it. What was so funny? Even though she thought so, Rukana kept a smile on her face. 

In her heart, she looked down on her classmates. They were stupid, vulgar, and foolish, so she cared more about the eccentric Itoha than her classmates who don’t even realize that they’re vile.

She was able to locate Itoha’s address immediately. She also learned that she often wandered alone to the park not far from her house.

She didn’t want to be seen, so Rukana pretended to happen to be passing by and talked to Itoha in the park.

“Hiiragi-san, what are you doing?”

Itoha was crouching at the base of a tree. She lifted her head up and stared at Rukana with hollow eyes.

“Larva.”

Itoha said in a low voice.

“I’m looking for larva.”

“What kind of larva?”

When Rukana asked, Itoha’s hollow eyes widened.

“Cicada,” Itoha replied. She was louder than before. But her voice was trembling. Rukana understood her. Itoha was excited. She was delighted.

“Cicada larva.”

+++ + ++++

They never talked at school. It was dangerous. ‘Shizukudani Rukana is on good terms with Itoha Hiiragi.’ She couldn’t risk being seen that way. She secretly met Itoha outside of school. Itoha never asked why. It was just as Rukana expected. Itoha wasn’t stupid enough to ask such an obvious question.

Itoha had changed. But it was not like her brain was slow. She didn’t mind digging up the soil looking for larvae, or catching butterflies and moths with her bare hands, but she did wash her hands with soap and bathed every day, so it was not like she was filthy. Her jet-black hair was well brushed, straight and shiny. Itoha only wore black and blue clothes. All of her casual clothes were things never seen before. Most of her clothes were not ready-made, that was the case, except for her jerseys, underwear, socks, etc. Itoha’s grandmother was good at dressmaking. She asked her grandmother to make her clothes out of black and blue fabrics, which Itoha wore. The blue ribbon she always wore was also made by her grandmother from leftover fabric. She had a butterfly called Ruritateha.

It was not a particularly rare creature. Distributed in East and South Asia. In Japan too. From the southern part of Hokkaido to the Nansei Islands.

Itoha likes insects in general, and loves butterflies and moths.

The Ruritateha.

Rukana was shown a Ruritateha that Itoha caught. Not just a living Ruritateha. Also the Ruritateha that Itoha made a specimen of.

There were many specimens in Itoha’s house. Although not all, many of the specimens Itoha made herself. Itoha could explain all those insects smoothly. While she talked about the ecology of insects, she was sometimes overwhelmed with tears.

“But I like the Ruritateha the best. I’ve loved it since we first met.” 

The Ruritateha was not a rare butterfly. It was just a little different. When its wings were open, the wing surface was blacking with a bright blue band that caught the eye.

“Pretty.”

Rukana honestly thought so, and she said it out loud.

Black and blue. Bright blue that stands out against black. It was because of her love for the Ruritateha that Itoha wore black and blue clothes, treasures her own black hair, and only wore blue ribbons.

“But the undersides of the wings are completely different.”

When she talked about the Ruritateha, Itoha’s pale complexion turned red. Itoha’s eyes were no longer hollow. They were bright and sparkly.

When the Ruritateha closed its wings, the underside of the wings looked like a dead leaf. Perched in a tree, it was not so easy to find. It was far from the wing's surface, and could not be called beautiful. Inconspicuous. Mimicry. The Ruritateha evolved to protect itself and acquired its wings.

Itoha was wearing beige or darker underwear. The lining of her black and blue dress, made by her grandmother, was dark brown.

“I am a Ruritateha.”

+++ + ++++

Rukana had piano and ballet lessons, and she visited Itoha’s house, though not often.

Both of Itoha’s parents worked, and both of them didn’t come home until 7 or 8 pm. Until her first year of elementary school she spent most of her weekdays at her grandmother’s house. After she became a second year, she started to stay at home by herself.

“Wasn’t it lonely?”

Luakana remembered that she had asked Itoha such a mundane question.

It was such a mundane question that she felt embarrassed when she thought about it later.

“It wasn’t lonely. It was fine.”

Itoha had other passions besides collecting insects and making specimens. It was drawing.

Even when Rukana had asked that question, Itoha was drawing a butterfly on the drawing paper spread out on the table in the living room. It was a type of butterfly called an Agrias that lived in Central and South America.

Using colored pencils, crayons, and watercolors, Itoha was able to create pictures that looked like photographs. Rukana was shown a picture of a swallowtail butterfly that Itoha drew when she was a first year. She was good at that point. She didn’t tell Itoha, but she thought maybe she was a genius.

“I show them to my grandmother sometimes, but I never show them to my parents.”

In the past, her mother once scolded her, saying ‘what is that picture? It’s disgusting.’

Crying, Itoha tore up the painting and threw it away. Since then, she has hidden the fact that she paints from her parents.

She begged her grandmother to buy her art supplies.

“But, they'll be gone soon, so I have to use them carefully.”

Rukana bought a set of seventy-two colored pencils with her pocket money and gave it to Itoha for her birthday. Itoha jumped for joy. Itoha really jumped a lot, so as expected, Rukana was skeptical.

“Why are you jumping?”

“Since it’s seventy-two colors, I thought I’d jumped seventy-two times. Thank you very much, Shizukudani-san.”

“Rukana is fine.”

Saying that, Itoha suddenly stopped jumping.

“---Eh?”

“I call you Itoha. You can call me Rukana.”

+++ + ++++

Each house has its own unique smell. Itoha’s house smelled to her like aged soy-sauce. It was an old two-story building that was far from being tidy. Here and there on the floor were newspapers, leaflets, mail such as envelopes and postcards, prints distributed at school, rags or towels, laundry, writing utensils, scissors, cutters, and screwdrivers. Dirty dishes, kitchen knives, pots, frying pans, chopsticks, forks, and spoons were left in the sink and on the counter. When she was thirsty, Itoha took out a bottled drink from her refrigerator and put it directly in her mouth. Rukana brought a water bottle filled with barley tea and hojicha and drank it little by little. 

A narrow, dark, and steep staircase leads to Itoha’s small room, full of paintings and specimens, with no place to step. The area of the dusty sofa and low table in the messy living room was the realm of just the two of them. Neither sat on the sofa, but sat on the floor. She could watch how Itoha manipulated colored pencils, crayons, and paintbrushes. Even while she was painting, Itoha could talk. Not always. She’d have to concentrate on certain tasks, on other tasks she could proceed without problems while chatting with Rukana. Rukana could make that distinction. Depending on the day, she could hardly speak, but Rukana was never bored just watching Itoha draw and her drawing nearing completion.

One day at the beginning of summer, they were fourth year students. Itoha spread out her drawing paper on the table in her living room with her window open, and she wrote instead of drawing.

Hiiragi Itoha.

–she wrote.

“This is an imitation of Rukana(1).”

The characters Itoha wrote are as precise as her drawing, and they were well-ordered like a typeface. Despite this, Itoha was shyly downcast.

“I admire you, Rukana. That’s why I want to imitate you. But if you don’t like it, I’ll stop, so please say so.”

Rukana hugged Itoha(2) from behind. She smelled slightly old, sweet and sour. Itoha was stiff all over. She even trembled a little.

“I don’t mind.”

Rukana whispered in Itoha’s ear.

“I can’t say no. Or rather, I’m happy.”

It was then. Rukana made up her mind. She hesitated the whole time whether to say it or not. She wanted to talk to someone. She had no one to confide in, though. She thought from the bottom of her heart. If it’s Itoha, it’ll be fine to talk.

“I can see.”

“See?”

“There. There’s something that only I can see.”

“Something only you can see…”

Itoha tried to turn her neck to find it while still being hugged by Rukana. Rukana did not let Itoha go. She hugged her and turned her around, pointing to the top of the sofa.

“It’s over there.”

Itoha furrowed her brows and strained her eyes over the holes. It was clear that it was invisible to Itoha. Rukana already knew that. It would be nice if Itoha could see it too. She thought that, but she didn’t expect it. Rukana knew that for a long time.

Rukana could see it. Only Rukana could.

It was on the sofa. When she saw it for the first time in her life, even Rukana was startled.

“It’s like a baby. He has no hair. It doesn’t have a single hair. It’s not like a human. Humans have arms and legs. Not this. Only arms. But not two. Four. He doesn’t have two arms and two legs, he has four arms. He walks by moving its four arms. That's why it has arms like legs. Four legs. He’s not here by chance, he’s following me. He’s by my side. He’s by my side all the time. Oh, and also. He has four eyes. Not two, he has four.”

Itoha clung to Rukana. She was shaking so hard that her teeth were chattering. Perhaps Itoha thought it was a ghost story or something. But Rukana was not trying to scare Itoha with what she said. Itoha believed that it was a true story.

“It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Rukana dared to smile.

“Don’t be scared. It’s not scary. It’s not going to do anything. It’s just by my side. I don’t know since when. I can’t remember. It follows me wherever I go. It doesn’t leave me, even for a moment. That’s what I think, so it’s nothing. But no one can see it. No, it’s only me. So it’s no use talking about it. No one will believe me anyway. I’ve been trying to think like that. It’s there. I can see it.”

“Why can’t I see it?”

Itoha suddenly burst into tears.

“I wish I could see it too. I can’t see it. I wish I could tell you that I see it. But I can’t say that. I can’t see it.”

“I know.”

Before she knew it, Rukana was also crying. She wished Itoha could see it too. She really thought so. On the other hand, she also thought there was no point in her not being able to see it. Itoha was an odd kid, unique and genius. She was not mediocre. Itoha was a good friend to Rukana. However, what Rukana could see could not be seen by Itoha.

Rukana was special, Itoha wasn’t. Nothing more than that.

+++ + ++++

She remembered an incident before when she was three years old.

Rukana was writing her hiragana in her drawing book while looking at the picture book “Book of A, I, U, E, O” that her father bought her. When her mother saw it, her eyes widened and she shouted.

“Rukana, can you write hiragana!?”

“I can write.”

When she answered that and opened the page of the drawing book with the hiragana characters written on it, her mother applauded with joy.

“Amazing, genius!”

The proud expression of her mother was burned into Rukana’s eyes.

When she was three years old, she wrote “HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAPA(3)” on a piece of paper with a crayon and gave it to her father on his birthday. Her father doubted it.

“Did Rukana write this? Are you lying?”

Rukana wrote the same sentence in her drawing book in front of her father. Her father yelled repeatedly as he patted his daughter.

“Amazing, Rukana, you’re a genius.”

Rukana remembered that her father’s glasses looking down at her were slightly cloudy.

When she was in kindergarten, she pestered her mother to take her to a large bookstore every Sunday. She chose one book to buy, and Rukana stubbornly didn’t leave the bookstore until she had finished reading two other books. When she was in the senior class, she read books for the upper grades of elementary school. When she found kanji without furigana, she looked them up in a dictionary and practiced reading and writing. As for practice, she wrote three or four times, which was enough for Rukana.

Both her parents had bad vision. Her father wore glasses and her mother wore contact lenses. She was told she was nearsighted as well when Rukana had an eye test at her elementary school. Her features were intermediate between those of her father and mother, and her bone structure resembled that of her father. But other than that, she was far from him, she thought in the summer of second year.

Both her father and mother had trouble concentrating. He had little ambition, and she didn’t have much patience. The two quarreled over trifles. Even after reconciling, they immediately began to quarrel. They repeated the same things without remorse.

Those two were not particularly stupid. Rukana realized that many people were at the level of a second year. Rukana had to live in a world where only people like that lived.

Of course, Rukana didn’t carelessly treat others like fools. When she was in the senior class in kindergarten, she was made to climb to the top of a jungle gym by a well-built boy named Kamishiro Masaki, and was forced to jump off it.

“You’re impertinent!”

Rukana remembered Kamishiro’s sunburned face when he shouted. Also, when she was in the senior group, Yuzawa Kokoho often pulled Rukana’s hair. He pulled so hard that she had cried involuntarily due to pain. When he was scolded by the kindergarten teacher, Yuzawa excused himself by saying he was trying to pull a joke on her. But no. The act was clearly malicious.

It was not limited to Kamishiro or Yuzawa. There were quite a few children who were hostile to Rukana and hurt her. Why? Rukana thought. Certainly, Rukana looked down on those who were inferior to her. That didn’t mean hitting or kicking. She didn’t bother to criticize. Yet she was made an enemy in their eyes. She wondered what Kamishiro and Yuzawa disliked.

In short, people like Kamishiro and Yuzawa didn’t like the fact that Rukana was superior.

The stake that stuck out was hammered down. There are people in this world who try to drive a stake that sticks out. Even if you hit a sticking stake and make it lower, you couldn’t become a sticking stake. If someone runs out in front of you, pull your leg. Even if you do that, your leg won't go faster. 

“I decided to pretend I wasn’t special.”

She began to reveal secrets.

“It’s kind of troublesome when you’re attacked by these vulgar people. Those guys outrageously outnumber you, and they quickly form factions. There’s only one truth they know instinctively. Outnumber with numbers. Strength in numbers. Even if you fight against the large army of idiots, you will only be exhausted. 

“...I can’t do it well.”

“That’s fine, because it's you, right, Itoha?”

When Rukana said that, it made Itoha’s eyes water and made her whole body tremble. Every part of her face was twitching. Rukana remembered that ridiculously disgusting expression. She always vividly remembered. 

---

(1) She wrote her first name, Itoha, in katakana (イトハ) and her last name, Hiiragi, in Kanji (柊), which is how Shizukudani Rukana’s name is written (雫谷ルカナ).

(2) Not a real note, but here the narrator switches the spelling of Itoha from kanji to katakana to match how it was written when imitating Rukana.

(3) She wrote this in English.

[avas-wonderland]

“Breached”

(CW: gore, lots of it)

Something for @anomalousalchemist’s Danganronpa x SCP AU

————————-/

The Chaos Insurgency building is quiet for once tonight.

Crickets chirped outside the gates. Cicadas were droning from the grassy plains and the sky shimmered with stars. Perhaps tonight was to be the longest this building has ever been quiet for some time if not for the two captives that intel had “borrowed” from their rival company.

The corridors have a hollow hum in its interior. Tonight, it was disrupted by the squelch of fluids followed by a shrill scream.

A burnt hand belonging to a soldier plopped down onto the ground.

Joining it was a spleen, a rib, and a foot twitching with little sparks of light. Two webbed hands slammed into the body’s abdomen. Bolts of bright lighting roasted it’s corpse to a crispy shade of black. Around the corpse’s neck was a pair of handcuffs that once held #7948 captive, aka the anomaly that the soldier had the balls to call a “wimp”.

The Iris of its one visible eye, the other hidden under its bangs, stared daggers at the corpse with a coy toothy grin.

Sirens screeched an ear-piercing signal that sent a torrent of militia rushing to the corridor.

Guns that were blasting bullets now clattered on hard titanium tilted floor

What echoed through the building was the warbled roar that belonged to the figure who dashed along the ceiling. It dodged the bullets that left dents along a neat line on the ceiling, slithering swiftly into an open air vent.

“Don’t stand there, jackass! Get th-“

Another soldier had his sentence cut short when a pair of dark green claws punctured the flesh of his throat. Rows of teeth yanked at his uniform before his body was ripped in half by the claws.

A few soldiers shot at the reptile as quick as they could.

Whatever bullets somehow hit its body felt like nothing more than the bite of a mosquito.

Its eyes—a haunting hue of yellow—flashed bright with infuriated bloodlust.

A swipe of the anomaly’s tail decapitated the heads of three other sentries that charged towards it.

Looking down at the squirming guard in its grip, #682 lifted him up high above the floor

It tossed the two halves of the body onto the floor. A loud “thud” echoed and the corpse was slathered in a pool of his own entrails. The fragrance of blood wafted through its nose, a familiar smell he’s fond of

#682 growled a nearby soldier that backed away slowly from it in attempt to catch off guard with a bullet.

A snarling noise forced her to look up above the open air vent oozing with a red sticky trickle of down-pouring blood.

Sasha leapt out of the air vent, sticking the end of its tail straight into the brain of the unsuspecting sentry, making her drop her gun as it electrocutes her.

It’s tail slid out to rip off the sentry’s head with Sasha taking a hearty bite out of the the abdomen of its limp prey.

Blood spurted out, drenching some of the soldiers so much they they can’t see.

It scampered off the body to go and rip out the jugular veins of another soldier trio among the clutter of guns collapsing onto the tiles.

As vocal cords were being torn left to right, another group of soldiers stormed in only to slip on the puddles of blood below. Multiple skulls cracked against the titanium while a few had brains split open from the impact.

Sasha dove back into the vent from before, a soldier accidentally slamming their face into the vent edges and squishing their face straight through the glass of the helmet.

Hiro unhinged its jaw to chomp a couple soldiers in half, gleefully adding onto the carnage of the hallway.

Sasha emerged out of the vent again in a flash of an electrical adrenaline rush, paralyzing some more soldiers.

Red flares of light harmonized with the blaring sirens from above. A fitting setting for the eruption of insanity that stirred within the halls. The Insurgency’s steel plated walls—once clear steel—now painted with splotches of warm viscera and broken bones.

Hiro roared as its hands slashed open the throats of charging sentries, blood spraying in individual rays of droplets staining its skin and shirt.

Another soldier ran but tripped over a blue tail that clutched her and pulled her into an open vent.

Sasha emerged with a sparking, twitching corpse in its grip before tossing it to three more sentries, shocking them all along wit it.

Screams and sirens surrounded the area but the sound of the anomalies blood spilling drowned out the silenced voices.

Hiro ripped out a soldier’s liver before slamming it into his brain and dragging out the rest of his organs in a trail of sickly sweet stenches.

Bullet shells and torn or electrified bodies littered the floor.

Sasha pounded across the floor, emitting 800 volts of light and striking a group of soldiers upon instant contact before they could even aim their guns at it. She dove into the group with hands sparking wildly with volts.

A loud crash of thunder launched the soldiers into a bloody clump of mangles bodies.

Hiro jumped onto the wall behind a soldier, scaling the building. It ripped out their spine with his own teeth, tossing the open-spined corpse in the air like a chew toy.

The corpse slammed smack into a wall. It slid down, a splatter of blood slid down with it. The hinges holding the one slab of wall together fell apart.

It swung down and crushed three more soldier against the wall, splitting their waists from their torsos.

One moment, the two anomalies were chained up behind a solder after a lengthy capture. But now they were mauling any solder and every soldier they can get their claws on.

The corridor had become a dingy, dry-blood coated, gut spilled plethora or a massacre, all because the damn Insurgency had chosen to “borrow” them from the Foundation without any warning.

A call command rang out on the P.A system for the soldier to retreat.

Two loud roars, Hiro and Sasha respectively, sent the surviving guards to scurry through the guts and bones and through the exit. With the last of the soldiers who were barely alive, escaping via the call command, the corridor was silent once again with the exception of blood slowly dripping into a puddle from above the ceiling.

The sickly sweet smell of organs were in every nook and cranny of the corridor.

Yasuhiro was standing above a soldier’s crushed skull with Sasha standing before another soldier’s charred corpse.

Relief filled the two anomalies that looked at each other in the middle of the hall.

Sasha wiped the residue of blood off its face. She stumbled a little while hurrying towards Hiro, bloody footprints trailing from her webbed feet and tip of iys tail. The humanoid reptile approached the eel woman without hesitation.

Yasuhiro held Sasha tight,sliding down against a bloody wall with Sasha in its arms.

It lifted its feet up to its chest, cuddling the humanoid reptile.

“Huh….it feels like a date.”

Sasha’s voice is sore from roaring but not so sore that Hiro couldn’t hear it. And it heard Sasha loud and clear.

“We should do this more often.”

“Maybe…”

Sasha nuzzled against Hiro as he ran its hands through its hair. That didn’t stop them from hearing the clack of two familiar pairs of shoes on the ground.

“Oh for crap’s sake!”

A slightly exhausted from running Dr Akamatsu and a conceded Dr Gokuhara stood upon the organ-scattered hall of the corridor.

“Those damn soldiers don’t tget it…”

“Gonta shall contact breach center.” The tall man smiled.

Kaede gave him a halfhearted smile.

“Remind me to get a mocha while you’re at it..”

[cedarboots]

could we hear a little about 'planes is a gender' for the wip ask game? or perhaps the heron story as well? 👀

Thank you! Planes is a Gender (or whatever it will end up being called) is a story I started writing this summer, and I think a lot of US Southeastern summer ended up in it even though it is not set in our world. As far as I can make out it's a story about flying machines, falling stars, cicadas, and being a strange quiet kid on the verge of figuring out that they're going to be a queer adult.

Snippets here:

The cicadas had just begun to sing when the star-trapper came to town.

I was twelve that year, lanky and crowd-shy and uneasy in my skin, and what I liked better than anything was to climb the trees on the edges of the fields surrounding town and watch the sky. We were part of a wide stretch of farm country between several great cities, and the sky above us was always filled with travelers: nimble Grasshoppers lofting into the air and gliding for miles until they drifted down for another launch; fast, sleek transports, gleaming Kestrels and Clearwaters that pierced the clouds like darts; sidewinding sky caravans with their many propellers; even the occasional stately airship that cast a shadow over the whole length of Main Street.

From the top of a tree, I felt I could almost brush their underbellies with my fingers-- I recognized the craft that passed again and again, regulars on their routes, and dreamed wild dreams that one day they would take me with them.

...

I broke through the edge of the field and stood panting at the edge of the bank.

The road was down in a hollow between the two raised fields; the far one lay fallow, and in the midst of the high clover sat the strange craft, its props spinning to a halt.

It was built like a skycutter, I decided, but larger and more muscular than any trim little Wayfarer or swept-back Kestrel. The solid body and sturdy riveting made it look almost military. Still, it had the long wings and sizeable fuel tanks of a cutter. I liked her; she was a voyager.

The cockpit opened, and I froze. The pilot climbed out: a stocky figure in a noon-colored flight coat, who removed a heavy round helmet and tucked it under one arm.

I watched silently as the stranger sat down on the wing of the cutter and looked about, quite at ease. The sharp lines of that coat struck me as mechanical, as though its wearer belonged in the belly of that flying machine, another part made to measure.

I would go up and say something. I would. I took a step forward, teetering on the edge of the bank-- the pilot turned and saw me, and smiled.

[crater-lake]

141

7/24/24

It feels dishonest to paste possible poetry from the Notes App, but alas:

Night Book

The deers skinny legs standing in the yard facing me like fence posts. It read me up and down and could not tell I was good. The deer is the whole wide world.

How it trotted the road twice. It ambled adagio.

Katydids, cicadas, humming nights music. Night. The hum of that. Whole shrubs jittered and crept. Street light ebbed and dripped and waxed. The suburban road jut far into the distance: single house upon single house upon single house. Am I ready for fiction? I might have to write my whole story first to get to the rest. And who cares for tankas about the summer? People crave novelty, confession, catharsis, and connection. I might make connection a big umbrella and put everything else under it.

The fog light bleeds into , or out, or with, or through. The fog is speaking by light. The Tappan Zee bridge, beacons mounting its rising pillars, bleeding light into light. It wanders indigo crested firmament, flits into the hollow. Night is contact with void: behold the fracture; horizons hug is broken, behold. Good fog confuses boundary between thing and un-thing. We call clouds that forget how to float, fog, to extinguish their sanctity. They walk among us: not special.

Fog puddles my windshield as I make huge turns on New York roads snaking through deep green foliage and low shacks shadow laden. I am driving my 2004 Honda Civic to get fucked by a stupid man named Victor.

Highway names: Saw Mill, Taconic, the Sprain. They zig zag each other, patchwork through the darkness. Growing up, my family took such highways on our passage to Fairfield: Henry Hudson, Saw Mill, Cross County, the Hutch, then the Merritt. The Hutch and the Merritt are the same highway in different states. The latter is much nicer curving through Connecticut, intoned with flush flora, peppered occasionally with elaborate bridges, low and flourished.

Which is to say a thing changes or doesn't change with its name: but the same road becomes new, an invisible border severing it. Imagine yourself somewhere.

I go to the house. Two coyotes, three deer. He's already there. He leads me to a filthy basement. It reeks of mildew, a proper subterranean space. I do like it. Things are strewn about. I am getting too tired to write this

Binder, ice cream, gaming set up.

Why would I clean? Having lived there is whole life.

You're hot. you said that last time. While putting it inside of me, he said, the gum you swallowed will live in your stomach forever. Ananya said the difference between ass and pussy is that ass keeps going and pussy stops. Who should be jealous of whom?

His house light coming on , looking for the cat, the door already wide open when I arrived.

I can't bear the insides of a story. I rather a poem. I am too impatient for fiction. I rather a poem. Get me to the bones, or whatever I am needing to climb, and have the reader connect dots. And make the story in their connecting or their failure to connect.

I understand I am tired tomorrow. I made the choice. So what?

[sanosoup]

now playing…

…𝐛𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐟𝐭. 𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐬𝐤𝐢 𝐥𝐲𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐬…

angst drabbles w/ bonten inspired by mitski lyrics!

♪ a/n: first post, why not make it sad ;) i might make a part 2 w others or maybe like another artist idk i just thought this might be a fitting post considering my theme wink. also this is just my interpretation of the little snippets of lyrics, def not trying to claim i know the actual meaning! this isn’t my best but i love the concept sooo pls forgive me if it’s a little rough 😰

♪ warnings: angst, mentions of heartbreak/toxic behavior?, unrequited love, mentions of drug/alcohol use + addiction, mentions of vomit (nothing graphic), fwb relationship, just unhealthy coping mechanisms :) 16+ ONLY (<16/ageless blogs dni with this post or my account)

♪includes: mikey, sanzu, ran & rindou

#—mikey

—

“And then one warm summer night

I'll hear fireworks outside

And I'll listen to the memories as they cry, cry, cry”

- fireworks -

—

mikey hates summer, the lengthy days, some dry to the bone, some dampened by the morning fog that tended to linger throughout the day. he hated this day in particular, and he hated how he could see everything transpire from his apartment window, and how he couldn’t even pry his lingering stare from the festival if he tried. mikey couldn’t tell if it was just his rampant imagination, or if he could truly hear the merriment, the giggles, the sound of two lovers hearts beating as a symphony down below in the festival. he sat perched, waiting, listening, watching for even just a glimpse of a face that looked enough like you from how high up he was. there was no one, after all, he’s the one who extinguished whatever flame the both of you shared with his calloused icy fingertips as though it were nothing.

mikey hated summer nights even more, how the cicadas wouldn’t seem to shut up, even in the city; how the festival was still blooming with light and joyous calls of each other’s names. he hated how everything reminded him of you, and he hated how he never let himself feel you anymore. the image of you, engraved in his mind had been long drowned in the sands of time, your smile was nothing to him but ash. he tensed upon hearing cacophony of words that rolled off of people’s tongues all at once, perhaps maybe one or two of those words sounded like your name, but it never sounded right. why should i mourn? he questions, when there is nothing for me to mourn?

the sky lit up deep into the night, fireworks booming and cracking across the sky like explosions of vivid lightning sent from the heavens. each one a different color, impossibly shimmery as they hissed on their way down, burning out before they could ever reach the ground. mikey hates that when the bright hues of the night sky illuminated his face from where he watched on his balcony, all he felt was the way you’d squeeze his hand every time another boom would erupt. it was a special memory hidden deep in the nook of his youth he had since forgotten, something that made the image of your face and sound of your voice, laughter, your sobs, all so vivid in his brain. a hot tear rolled down his cheek. he hurt you, so in turn, in the most raw moments of the night, he feels his skin set aflame and burn in silence. the pain, nearly unbearable, made his ribs feel so hollow and his hands feel so heavy; quiet tears flooded his cheeks and raced to his chin, bracing to fall to the ground. this is what he wanted, isn’t it?

#—sanzu

—

“I am a forest fire

And I am the fire and I am the forest

And I am a witness watching it

I stand in a valley watching it

And you are not there at all”

-a burning hill-

—

sanzu has lost count of how many week long benders he’s been on throughout the years; it always started with a pill, a needle, a lighter, anything he could touch, and he’d almost always end up in your arms. you were a soft warmth, like sun beaten leather, a rough contrast to the unstoppable red roaring flames that were his highs and his coming down. sanzu must admit, you had since become a routine of his, he almost always relied on you to come around when he felt himself start to sink; he had a sickly tender regard towards your frantic drives to hospitals or scurrying across your house to give him something to throw up whatever he could in. he felt the least alone when you desperately held him against your chest and he listened to your heart race, did you really care for him that much?

sometimes he wished he wasn’t like this, a good man perhaps, good enough for you. moments when his head wasn’t clouded by whatever ran through his body were moments spent pondering what could’ve been. he wasn’t sure why he did this to himself at times, but when he thought too much about it, it made him want to do it again. to feel that rush of falsified euphoric splendor, to be free, to fall, and to land right in your arms where he was finally safe again.

sanzu was falling, almost certain you’d be there to catch him, he’d let himself. what a surprise it was when his head hit the cold tile and he felt as though his brain was splattered across the floor in a lovely medley of everything he never was. he had flown too high, drifting across silver clouds and stars, that he never saw you leave your steady position on the ground. it was too late when he realized you were all too smart for him; smart enough to realize that the uncontrollable wildfire ignited in the both of you was sparked only by him. he’ll stand and burn, he’ll let you escape.

#—ran

—

“I could stare at your back all day

And I know I've kissed you before, but

I didn't do it right

Can I try again, try again, try again”

-pink in the night-

—

ran, as cold as he likes to be, can not help that he holds a special regard for you; you made him utterly sensitive, like a child, tears brimming in his eyes at the smallest of notions that you wouldn’t be around anymore. how could he be so careless with something as priceless as his affections? you were, after all, just a friend with benefits. though, he couldn’t help but feel something in his chest churn and beat for more than the quick, hollow touches the both of you shared. he wanted every touch you graced upon his warm skin to be calculated, well thought out, as if seeking more than carnal pleasure.

he was still awake, so silent and weak in these hours that a brush of wind could possibly turn him to dust, nothing more. beside him, you lay, nestled up to your chin in his sheets as your chest rose and fell slowly with the gentle breaths of sleep; he stared, afraid that something so delicate as your constant breathing would stop, that there’d be nothing he could really do about it at all. the thought horrified him, it played with the chords of his tender heart as he stared at your back dancing with the slight movements of breath as his only solace. ran could truly admire the expanse of your back, shoulder blades peaking out in the slightest, and soft skin lit only by the silver licks of moonlight peaking through the windows.

ran never wanted to stop looking at your bare body under the covers, he couldn’t hardly contain himself when you lingered in his bedroom, a silent announcement that you’d stay until morning; it was cruel, the both of you knew this, to sleep beside each other as if it were anything more than it was. yet, in a sense, his stomach leapt with joy to pretend as though it was; he was high off of that faint extra beat in his heart he always got whenever he lied. ran drew in a breath as you rustled in the sheets, the sound of your body flooding his ears and making his heart leap to his throat. his eyes grew watery as he watched you fall back into the deep abyss you had been floating in before, he would miss nights like this when they came to an end, nights where he pondered if you would truly be the only person he thought of like this. ran sighed, surely you were once in a lifetime, and surely he hadn’t held you close enough; then, he was certain, you wouldn’t have left him grasping for answers as though they were there at all.

#—rindou

—

“I found you

I found the door

But when I stepped through

There was no floor”

-i want you-

—

if rindou where to die right now, he would be satisfied. satisfied that he spent his nights in your arms and his days lingering over you; what did you feel like, again? he forgets, only to remember when he touched you again. you were perhaps a dream, so quick and nonsensical, yet he thought of you quite frequently throughout the day. it had been that way since high school, “they’ve got a boyfriend, y’know?” he knew; and he knew when you had broken up, when you had gotten back together with him, when you moved on from him, and when you looked for another option in someone else, eyes always grazing over rindou. rindou feels hollow sometimes, always wondering if you’d ever be able to fill such an obscure nook in his heart that no other lover of his ever had.

he waited for the moments in which you exchanged touches in between separate lovers like windows of spare time you spent with each other; though, he found himself addicted to it, wanting more than you gave him, and when he found himself courageous enough to ask for more, you had already found someone else to give it to. rindou occupied himself with girls, boys and nearly anyone else who didn’t remind him of you, but his wistful imagination always wandered to the idea of you when he knew it was so wrong of him to even ponder your image anymore.

there you stood that warm night in june, plain and lonely, and he as well. the both of you shared freshly broken hearts, raw from the feeling you had peeled from them and tossed to the street as though they never served you any good. rindou wanted your touch again, he looked into your eyes and could see the hunger you held as well; though, this time was different. he felt like nothing more than a fool for doing this to himself, making his heart so numb and calloused that he couldn’t feel anything except for the parts of his lovers that reminded him of you. yet, when he touched you, his tender affections had extinguished at the hands of his own cruel treatment. so in love with the idea of not feeling for you, that he truly gave up feeling, rindou felt his throat swell and his breath hitch as he struggled to feel sad or angry. he felt nothing, nothing besides the cruel sting of disappointment.

perhaps in another life.

play again?…reqs and askbox are open!

©sanosoup 2021. do not plagiarize, translate, repost, or edit my work.

[indianamoonshine]

Strawberry | Chapter 13 | Common Tongue

Summary: This chapter is titled after a Hozier song. Take that as you will.

Rating: M. If I see anyone minor interacting with this or hear of anyone reading it, I will block your ass.

TAG LIST: @t3a-bag @lumimon47 @dodgerandevans @hallway5 @dancingwiththeplanets @steeevienicks @orneryscandallousandevil @ficthots @gaiusfrakkinbaltar @reginagina-blog1 @loveme-tenderly @lastphoenixrising @rattlemyb0nes @rebellou @alljusthumans @gaiuswrites @lovecatsnotpeople @literallydontlook

“I’m a virgin,” you had said to him one night.

It meant nothing.

It meant nothing because, to him, you were the same with or without having slept with someone. Din knew that - had you chose him - it would be an honor. He would think no differently of you either way, and that even if the two of you never had sex, he was glad to have met you.

Now he thinks he may be addicted.

Part of him really wishes that you hadn’t gone this far; that the innocence would have lasted until whenever it was that he forced to leave. Because now he was in over his fucking head.

Behind the shed, you’d grabbed his hand and palmed yourself against the cotton of your underwear. The song of cicadas did a humbling job of masking your little pants or the way you whimpered beneath him. And, sure, Din did everything in his power to break traditional norms, but he wasn’t going to fuck you behind a shed for the first time. His heart broke when he separated himself from you and you whined underneath your breath in protest.

“Come on,” he huffed, lungs attempting to keep up. “Let’s go.”

|

Three minutes.

That’s how long it took to run from the main house to the cabin. Three goddamned minutes was a record. You don’t recall running that fast since becoming an adult. If your high school gym teacher has witnessed the velocity in which you just sprinted, she’d be amazed.

It was good old fashioned motivation.

Fortunately, Din’s barely taken his hands off of you so he managed to catch your clumsy ass when you tripped over the lip of the front door. The two of you had chuckled against the other before he asked, “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” you giggle. You place a hand upon your cheek in feign distress. “But I think I may need to lay down…”

Your tone, which is laced with suggestive demure, has Din raising a brow. “Oh yeah?” he growls.

You nod sweetly, lips still pressed against his. “Mm hm.”

|

You’re so goddamn beautiful.

When he presses you against the plushness of the sheets, he admires the way your hair fans about you and frames your face. Your cheeks are flushed and your lips plump from his kiss, the natural pout of them more pronounced now that he’s bitten and sucked at the flesh. The brilliance of your skin glows beneath the yellow light, neck joining the expanse of your bust which heaves with endurance. He kisses down your pulse point until he reaches the neck of his t-shirt.

His t-shirt.

“Can I?” he whispers against the hollow of your neck, fingering the edge of the fabric.

“Yes.”

|

You’ve never been this exposed to anyone other than the occasional friend (when changing) or your sisters (also when changing). It’s been so long since you’ve gone outside of yourself - into the very thick of reality - so when he asked if he could reveal you to it, the urgent “yes” surprised yourself.

Still - it’s another kind of anxiety; not violent, but in the way. When he’s stripped the shirt from your body - carefully, as though he were unwrapping a priceless antique - it’s a natural instinct to cover yourself, confident of the way you weren’t.

“Take all the time you need,” he whispers against the flesh of your neck. “I’m a patient man.”

It should’ve been enough and maybe in an alternate universe it was. Maybe that version of you threw all misogynistic beauty standards out the window into the night, but in this present day-in-age, you took a minute to go over the mental checklist. What if you weren’t to his standards? What was the situation like down there? What would you do if he wasn’t all that you decided him to be?

How long would it take to heal from that?

Before your mother died she took your hand and made you promise: I will do everything I can to feel joy, as fleeting as it may be. There are lessons to be learned. She’d made you chant it in a monkish way, as though preforming a ceremony in the sterility of a hospital room strung with cheap tinsel and a sad, plastic tree at her bedside. You’d understood what she meant then like the way a student might understand the components of Ancient Greek; not until it is utilized can its full potential make any sense at all.

The philosophers - and your mother - be onto something.

|

Something like a muffled version of his name slips lazily through your lips. And while it’s dissected, pulled apart with a lazy and tense breath, it’s the first time his name has sounded poetic. Din never thought of himself this way; that his person could ever inspire such an organic response as the way you unwound beneath him. He’s laid with women before - three, he thinks - but he’s not positive he’s ever experienced a woman before.

Xian was good at what she did and she knew it; Din wasn’t oblivious to that but it lacked a certain something. The other times his body has been weaved together with another’s was faceless; just hookups he’s tried so desperately to forget. Hazy nights in which he woke up to in the morning, their backs to him, and identity indistinguishable. Eventually he just stopped trying.

It wasn’t until now with your fingers clutching at his hair that he realized how the act - the very dance itself - could be purifying. How it could wash away the very worst of similar experiences and how it made something that always felt cheap now priceless. The body is a temple, his elders would always say, and it never made any sense to him. The body is a fortress made to withstand hurricanes and torpedos. It was no place to kneel, to worship, to inspire anything other than sheer refuge.

How ironic, as kneeling was the very thing he was doing now.

Irony wasn’t the word. Fateful, he supposes, as he tastes the fruit that’s always been so forbidden to him. Your thighs clench around his head and the fingers that have been stroking his hair grip the sheets, white knuckling the starched weave, until a gasp is caught in your throat. And then there is nothing but the pressure of ignition until it crumbles around you, fizzing the air with something akin to champagne bubbles.

There is no nasally whine that follows afterwards like there always had been before you. No wild “yes!” that pollutes the air. Just the instability of a weakened chest, the grasping at air, and the delicious feel of your hand enveloping his after having pulled it from your sex.

|

You weren’t a stranger to penetration though this was was with exceptions; no one had ever done anything to you with foreign or, well, domestic objects. At the age of eighteen, your friends at the time had dragged you to the building on the east end of town that never officially existed until legality said that it did. La Boudoir Rouge was the place ‘vodka aunts’ went to cure the blues, bought mysterious items, and then hid the pink bags in the back of their closets.

So, yes; sex was a foreign exchange policy you’ve never found yourself involved in, but you knew the dynamics. You’d bought equipment and even enjoyed it more than you’d initially expected. Penetration wasn’t at all strange to you.

This made it easier, you think, as Din finally slides in. There was a stretch of course, and it took you a moment to get comfortable enough to brave any movement. Din drops his forehead upon yours, letting out a strangled breath through his nose, as you struggle to come to terms with the size. He’d given off an energy but…

“It’s so big,” you gasp once he reaches the spongey part of you. It feels stupid, it falls short on a botched intake of breath, but it’s the truth.

Din’s composing himself, silent in his endeavor to mold himself within you. His arms are pressed on either side of you, body flush against yours with his pelvis meeting your pubic bone. There’s another moment of silence before he kisses at your temple.

“Are you okay?” he whispers.

A smile graces your lips, though your eyes are clenched. “That’s an understatement.”

|

The pace is fast, sweat inspiring. It drips down your neck until it falls in the valley of your breasts and Din wants so badly to lick it from your skin, but he’s too distracted by the way you clench around him. It’s ironclad - it’s the best goddamn pussy he’s ever had.

He wants to tell you that but he’s unsure of how you’d react. You’ve been letting out delicious gasps and moans reaching an octave you’d never reach sober, but not you’re coherently vocal enough for him to say it outright.

And then you breathe it in a pathetic whine: “It’s yours, Din. It’s yours.”

He almost stops, but his body is hellbent on seeing this through. Whatever the fuck this was; a spiritual experience maybe. Perhaps he’d died after the last mission - broken and buried underneath mounds of dirt - and now rests in paradise where he fucks his way through eternity.

A raw, animalistic response possesses him, the fistful of flesh from your hips is replaced by the swell of you cheeks. He embraces you softly, but sternly enough to incite a whimper.

“What was that, chica bonita, huh?”

You throw your head back as he slams his hips against yours with more force, the excitement conjuring a great wave of adrenaline coursing through his veins. You try to speak but it fails to materialize.

He was balls deep and you were still shy by your interjection.

“What’s mine, sweet girl?” he whispers, mouth tickling along your collarbones. The contrast of gentle words and barbaric thrusts is something he’s never experienced during sex. Ever.

You let out one more mouthwatering whine before saying: “My pussy is yours, Din. Take it. Please, please…”

|

Suffice to say, that’s what does it. The two of you cum at the same time, like a synchronized dance, clutching one another so tightly it leaves red ribbons. Your fingernails had dug into his forearms and his at your waist in which his hands wrapped around. He lets out a deep, broken growl as you whimper, shaking like a leaf, and he pulls out just in time to paint your belly with pearlescent threads.

He collapses on top of you, knocking the wind from your fragile body. You’re absolute jelly beneath him, crumbled into bits, and would never be the same. Let’s stay here forever, you want to tell him.

Din presses his face into the hollow of your neck, listening to the rapid pulse beneath flushed and thin skin. Then he kisses the blood flow beneath once, twice. “My gorgeous girl…”

Stay with me. Stay with me.

You wrap your arms - which have settled from the convulsions - around his neck and hug him tightly against you.

Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.

[dnangelic]

he knows that subtle twitch well , doesn't he ? or at least , he thinks he does . it's the stranded limb of an animal trapped in quicksand , the viscous mud of second doubts clinging to their legs and their waist , the same dense and weighty tar that sometimes swallowed him up and spat him out feeling changed , but only for the worse : grotesque and monstrous . it's a sharp cry for help , self-smothered behind claws and fangs and fur and feathers , and the faint recognition alone briefly shocks him , leaving daisuke to take a single anxious half-step backwards , suddenly afraid that if he were to be too suddenly touched and clung to , then the unbearable pound of his heart would finally tip over its meek limit , and he'd only be left with even more to explain and apologize for .

( and what would he do then , if sakura's terror too turned into betrayed horror , and the desperate clutch became a disgusted shove --- ? )

it's painful --- this tense gap , this hollow , empty-space chasm suddenly ripping itself wide and enormous between their feet , their arms too short to reach across . daisuke's fists clench and his brows furrow even more as he looks on and tries to listen to the other : when had he ever seen sakura so scared ... ? in his mind , if not his memory , the other had always been practically invincible , if not unstoppable . someone who knew how to fight should have likewise known how to protect themselves , if not others alongside with them . but the innocent sentiments split and rupture like the skin on the back of bloody knuckles , sharply stinging all the same .

at first , he doesn't know what to say , and so he merely does the only thing that he felt he could .

a slow and gentle touch , still summer warm , greets sakura's fallen free hand . the flush on the niwa's cheeks grows , but he disallows it to blister ; pools all of his might into just this single moment and its excruciating meanings . should he have done something like this , tamer than a pat on the head instead in the first place ? or would sakura throw another blow to let ... whatever it was , out again ? at him , at the concrete , or at his own face for another round --- he knows he should be saying something , anything , to carry on and helplessly try to distract them so that he might not have to try to hold the other outright back , but the cicada cries merely echo and rattle about the intense numbness of his thoughts , thawing nothing . if only dark were awake right now , then maybe he might have known what to say ...

and yet , the niwa doesn't rouse what second self that he could . instead , his words are simple .

' ... are you okay , sakura-san ? ' maybe , just maybe , the resonant space and sound of the question alone mattered more than the answer . bruises could heal , but worse habits and unpleasant sides always had a nasty , so often secretive way of knowing how to linger . no matter his hopes and staggering faith in the other , he still couldn't bring himself to lie and smile while sakura suffered . so he stuffs his worry into his whisper , the sound of it becoming even more soft and phantasmal --- it isn't just that he's afraid .

' are you going to be okay ... ? ' what can i do ? what should i do ... ? ( --- it's the way he's afraid for the other , too . )

He really wants to speak. He really does. But—

His throat is tight, closed by a fear that tells him the moment he opens his mouth, he’ll screw shit up again. His mind doesn’t grant him such mercy; all he can hear, all he can think, is That should’a never happened, I fucked up, I’ve scared the shit out of him and now he—

And, gods above, he’s apologizing. Daisuke’s apologizing like he’s the one who threw his hand into his face, like he’s the one who made Haruka clench his fist, and it hurts. He’s pressing the ice bag into his cheek like he’s got a grudge against it—and he does, he hates the stupid fucking thing and he hates that he did this in the first place, hates that he couldn’t just react normally—but the ice against the growing bruise is nothing compared to the ice in his blood.

He’s not the one who should be looking like guilt’s eating him alive. Dai should—Dai shouldn’t feel like he did anything wrong. And he, he really needs to know that, he really needs to know that Haruka isn’t mad at him, that he didn’t screw up like he seems to think he did. But he just can’t speak. The words are jumbled in his throat and even if they came out, he isn’t sure what they’d be. He’s not even sure he’d be able to get sound out if his mouth were able to open.

This is what he gets, he thinks; this is the retribution for all the shit he’s ever done. He knows it is because he knows that, if anyone from Furin’d been the ones to do it, he could’ve reacted the way he usually does—getting all flustered, getting a little mad and shoving them off and away from him, and then maybe duking it out with whoever did it, depending on who it could’a been. Again, Umemiya doing it when he was still that nebulous stranger to Haruka was one thing, but even if he did it now, he’d never hit the guy over it; he’d never hit himself in front of him over it. There’d be too much context behind it for him to get as riled up as he just had, if only because everyone in Furin was the same brand of weird and it meant that Haruka’d never intentionally give himself away like that. They’d have to work to get that kinda reaction outta him.

But, fuck, Dai—he isn’t Furin. He isn’t even from Makochi. He was weird, too, in that way that he cares about every little fucking thing that ever happens in front of him, in that way that he cares about Haruka (as if he’s ever given him a reason to, as if he’s ever given anyone a reason to), but he was still different in ways that mattered. The context of him in Haruka’s mind was different. Which means he couldn’t protect Dai (or himself) from the worst of him.

And that really, really hurts. He tried to leave the worst of himself back where he came from. He should’ve known it’d never leave easy.

(That’s probably the worst realization for him to have right then.)

“Butyoudidn’t—”

There’s his voice; he doesn’t know when the ball in his throat left, but it’s gone and he can speak again. The words tumble out of him, desperation and fear so obvious it makes him wanna gag, but he pushes them out and away and gone quick. The ice bag sags—maybe it’s melting already, or maybe he’s finally letting up on it. He can’t tell.

What in the fuck’s wrong with me?

“I-It, it wasn’t—and you didn’t, so—don’t apologize.”

Crumbling sentences that wont leave him, even without obstruction. He feels terrible. He wants to go home. He wants to make sure Dai goes with him because if he doesn’t, Haruka isn’t sure he’ll see him again (and miserably, before he can even stop himself, his free hand’s raising and he’s reaching for him, reaching out to grab Dai and just—just hold on or something; but then that same arm twitches and his gut churns violent, and he forces the limb to fall back to his side). He really wants Dai to stay the hell away from him, to turn on his heel and head straight the fuck back to Azumano because there’s no guarantee that he can stop this from happening again, not with the way that he is and that they are, but if he isn’t here than Haruka can’t scare hurt react like that near him again.

Miserable.

[caramellody]

I honestly expected at least a good 2-3? paragraphs for this au concept but OOPS i made it a proper au

[NOTE THAT THIS WILL CONTAIN MAJOR LMK S3 SPOILERS. IM TALKING LATE EPISODE SPOILERS FOR THE SEASON THAT GO DEEPER THAN THE SMALL COMMENT I MADE IN MY LAST POAT, READ AT YOUR OWN CAUTION]

basically the tl;dr for what im about to say is that the 4th ring hits tripitaka as as it was originally going to, that gets passed on through reincarnation to tang. bad times ensue

now for the longer ramble: courts still out on wether tripitaka dies on impact when he gets hit by the true fire, but i dont think he'd live for much longer. at least not without aome sort of divine power keeping him on some sort of life support.

regardless Sun Wukong feels REALLY guilty about it. and its one of the things that haunt him. and durring the events of season 3, he prays he doesnt walk into some random guy who just so happens to be the reincarnation of tripitaka because if they, in theory, did exist, they would have such a bad time.

but no need to worry about that! its all going to be fiiiine~

SWK not being aware of tang being tripitaka's (and for that mater, the golden cicada's) reincarnation mostly comes from the fact that Tang is well...Tang. hes very much not like the master he once served. add that to the fact that swk just flat out tried to not have as many talks with the fanboy scholar and it kinda makes sence why he probably wouldnt have seen it comming. or maybe he knew and he was denying the truth until it started back at him in his face.

regardless the thing was in tang the whole time and add that to the fact he never really activated his golden cicada powers until season 3 means that both the true fire that was implanted in him and his golden cicada ability that he had inherently, whatever it may fully be, are so intertwined due to centuries of being dormant that they're kinda fused into one.

(this is unlike mei's situation, where she constantly used her dragon abilities throughout the series proper. so in a way the true fire of samadhi and her powers were seperate since she was adept with the latter. Tang doesnt get that luxury.)

the few times it appears in season 3 also have his original power affected in a way, the times he pulls up his shields they posses a golden firey quality to them. and when the golden cicada appeared before him, it burns up rather then disolve into sparkles. and tang could tell something was very wrong if he starts the ritual, but MK was down and everyone else was being held at a grip by macaque. he was really left with two REALLY bad options.

Swk and nezha dont make it in time thats for sure. swk specifically was in such a rush to stop the ritual he didnt realize tang collapsing to his knees as his ring was triggered. macaque is very much like how he was in the episode proper. but hes also just a smidge more terrified because whatever is burning the glasses man alive is no longer just the true fire.

SWK and Nezha figure this out too. and Swk specifically is almost hollow to a sense. to everyone else, when Tang really rips into wukong, its tang venting out his frustrations of just how much swk has failed mk, a friend in the heat of a moment venting how much hes failed everyone. to Sun Wukong? it it brings him back to the journey, to the times tripitaka would call him out on his bullshit, and he knew it was unwarranted for the most part.

not this time. he knew he fucked up.

[qitwrites]

|| 1 || 2 || 3 || 4 || 5 || 6 || 7 || 8 || 

Midoriya is the one that begins the entire ‘nervous system compression’ ritual.

Back at the training camp, when he was banged and bruised and tattered to all hell, bumping into Shoji had been the best-case scenario. Being wrapped up in his many, many arms had cocooned Midoriya’s body from further damage, provided him with great mobility, and Shoji’s grounding personality had been a major reassurance during a frankly abysmal situation.

After they’d finally recovered Bakugou, and after that tragically big reveal of All Might’s biggest kept secret, something in Midoriya had broken.

He was still doing his best to train his quirk, he was still doing his best to exist and thrive alongside his classmates, to study and work hard and eat well and sleep on time. For the most part, he was himself, and he was doing ok.

But then there were the nightmares. Nightmares in which Bakugou misses Kirishima’s hand, or All Might dies at the hand of All for One, or Midoriya somehow fucks up and gives the League of Villains One for All. There’s visions of his friends laying dead at his feet, of the world burning to the ground, and the utter helplessness of letting his friends down, letting his teacher and his idol down, letting them burn.

Sometimes, the world exerts a pressure on Midoriya that would put Atlas to damn shame.

2 weeks after the Kamino incident, when Midoriya is sitting at his desk, his dumbbell moving up and down as he pores over his notes, a wave of anxiety, sudden and heavy, rolls over him and he can’t breathe. There’s not enough air in the room, in the entire world probably, and his vision tunnels, darkening around the edges. He drops the dumbbell and clutches his head, trying to get his breathing under control, but it isn’t working, and he can’t seem to hear or see or breathe.

Distantly, he remembers the training camp. His memories of that time are tainted by the agony he felt when Dabi had vanished with Bakugou in his grip. He doesn’t remember the more fun parts, the training and the cooking and the overall learning experience. He just remembers pain.

And then, a small part of him, so small he almost misses it, remembers warmth.

He remembers how warm Shoji was. He remembers feeling, amidst all the panic and chaos, a sense of safeness in Shoji’s arms. He remembers burrowing in that space against his back, and he knows, even though they failed, that he was only able to find a way to help Tokoyami because Shoji gave him his support, took care of him, supported his weight and his burden, if only for those few minutes.

He remembers how warm Shoji was. And he realizes, even as he’s choking for air, that he wants to feel it again.

The walk from his dorm to Shoji’s feels endless. He stumbles along and drags his feet, and he’s not really seeing at this point, moving mostly from muscle memory. He usually visits Todoroki and Uraraka in their rooms, but he’d memorized the entire layout within the first three days of moving in. Shoji lives two floors above him, right next to Kirishima.

When he finally gets there, he’s hollow and empty and there’s still not enough air. A flash of worry pierces through him because he doesn’t want to bother Shoji right now. He doesn’t even know if its ok, what he’s about to ask for. He doesn’t know if it’ll help, if it’s what he needs. He worries, the way he always does, and the air around him is disappearing faster, and he just wants to breathe.

Somehow, before he can talk himself out of it, he reaches up and knocks, pulling his hand away quickly.

10 seconds. He’ll give himself 10 seconds to wait and see if anyone answers, and then he’ll leave and never bother Shoji again.

Shoji comes to the door in 4.

He opens up, clad in pajama pants and nothing else, his iconic mask covering the lower half of his face even in his own room. He looks at Midoriya patiently.

‘I-‘ Midoriya chokes out, voice rough and scratchy. ‘I am having a panic attack.’

Shoji’s eyes widen marginally. ‘Whoa, ok. How can I help?’

If his vision hadn’t started to tunnel again as he hears Shoji say that Midoriya might’ve noted how easily Shoji had understood the situation, and how quickly he was asking Midoriya what he wanted, rather than doing whatever he thought was appropriate. He knew what he was doing. Clearly, he’d done this before.

Midoriya tries to breathe in, and it gets stuck somewhere in his chest and everything hurts but he starts to ramble, ‘I read in a scientific journal somewhere that our nervous system controls our emotions and that when we are anxious, there’s a dissonance in how we function and there’s a quick fix for it, well maybe not a fix, but more like a way to help, if only a little. It’s like a nervous system compression.’

Shoji listens to him with a furrowed brow before carefully asking, ‘Are you saying you want a hug? Will it help you if I hug you?’

To put it simply, yes. Midoriya wants a hug. Midoriya needs a hug. His body physically needs to be grounded because there’s not enough air and he’s going to pass out if his breath keeps getting stuck in his throat and his fingers are numb and the back of his neck is cold and it hurts.

Midoriya nods because the words are getting stuck in his throat.

Shoji opens his arms slowly, and Midoriya looks up. Shoji holds his gaze and carefully moves forward, keeping himself completely in Midoriya’s line of sight.

‘I’m going to hug you now,’ Shoji says, ‘and I’m going to hold you tight. If you want me to ease up, or get off, just tap me anywhere once. If you want me to tighten up, tap twice.’

Midoriya feels himself starting to hyperventilate and then -

Warm.

Shoji is so warm. He exudes heat, his skin soft and warm and alive. He wraps himself around Midoriya, and he blankets him from everything, driving away the light, the distant sounds of Ashido yelling at Kaminari, the cries of the cicadas, everything. He holds Midoriya against his chest, and he holds him tight. Shoji is strong, ridiculously so, and he knows Midoriya is strong too. He holds him with the kind of pressure that actually lets Midoriya breathe.

And so he does. His shoulders start to slump as he takes one deep inhale followed by another, measured and timed. He follows the rhythm of Shoji’s breathing, follows the rise and fall of his chest, and his fingers loosen up, warming slowly. Hesitantly, he brings his hands up and puts them around Shoji’s middle and receives an encouraging squeeze.

From there, the tension seeps out of him, slow and heavy, draining out of every jagged edge and every crack in his body. When he feels another wave of anxiousness, he taps Shoji’s back twice, and Shoji squeezes, hard enough that Midoriya’s breath stutters, but also hard enough that the anxiety slips away, almost tangible in its intensity. Belatedly he realizes that he’s been crying, but he can’t apologize when his face is smooshed against his friend’s chest.

After what seems like forever, Midoriya is breathing again. He feels somewhat normal. He feels as close to normal as possible, at least. He has feeling everywhere in his body. Nothing feels stuck in his throat, and his mouth isn’t dry. His tears have stopped, and his hands aren’t shaking. His heart is beating, fast and strong and slow. He takes in one more steadying breath before tapping Shoji’s spine once.

The arms around him loosen slowly, opening him back to the world. The overhead lights are bright, almost too much, but Midoriya looks straight ahead, right at Shoji’s chest as he pulls his arms off and steps back slowly. Shoji keeps his arms on Midoriya’s shoulders, and he waits. Patiently, he waits for Midoriya to speak, he waits for him to make the next move.

‘I’m ok,’ Midoriya says, rubbing at his eyes. He sees Shoji nod and pull away his arms, always in Midoriya’s line of sight.

‘That’s good. Can you see and hear properly?’ Midoriya nods. ‘Awesome! And your breathing is ok?’ Midoriya nods again.

‘That’s great Midoriya, well done.’

Midoriya barks out a watery chuckle, and then he remembers his tears.

‘Oh,’ he says, reaching into his pocket to pull out a handkerchief, ‘I haven’t used this yet. Please wipe off my tears and possible snot.’ He turns beet red with embarrassment.

Shoji doesn’t laugh though, or even look disturbed. He takes the offered cloth and wipes his chest gently.

‘No problem at all. I will give this back after washing it.’

Midoriya shakes his head, ‘It’s my snot, it’s fine! I can just…’

‘It’s ok, Midoriya. I’ve got it. Really not a problem.’

They stand by the door for a while longer, not speaking but not really needing to either. Shoji is just endlessly patient, and Midoriya is breathing again, and the world feels ok.

When he feels brave enough, Midoriya looks up and catches Shoji’s eyes.

‘Thank you.’ It’s quiet, but his voice doesn’t waver.

Shoji gives him a nod. His eyes are softer, just a little bit. ‘It was not a problem at all.’

Midoriya worries his bottom lip with his teeth before breathing out with a huff. ‘I, um, I was hoping I could, maybe, if this happened again, I could come back to you for a, you know, a nervous system compression? If you’re ok with it?’

Shoji’s eyes go softer still, and he holds Midoriya’s gaze the entire time as he says, ‘Absolutely. I’m here when you need me. Don’t forget that, ok?’

Midoriya gives him a smile, small and tentative but true, and Shoji squeezes his arm. They say their goodbyes in hushed tones and Midoriya walks back to his dorm slowly, feeling more aware of himself than he has in days.

That night, he doesn’t dream. It’s the best sleep he’s had since Kamino.

[rugbypolycule]

what more could you do

pairing: arisu ryouhei x karube daikichi

characters: karube daikichi, arisu ryouhei

rating: general audiences, no warnings apply

words: 1788

summary: freshly dropped out of university and knee-deep in depression, arisu ryouhei breaks up with karube daikichi with no explanation. months later, unable to deal with the fallout, arisu goes to his apartment. wounds that have yet to fully scab over reopen.

ao3 link

Karube didn’t need Arisu. In spite of his poignant absence, the sun still rose every empty morning and set at frigid night. The cold still crept through the cramped apartment, through the creaking floorboards and in-between cracks in not quite sealed windows. The earth turned, it turned, and it turned without Arisu. In this, there was no argument.

So, Karube didn’t need Arisu. If the suffocating world outside his slowly encroaching walls continued its screaming persistence, then Karube too would refuse to bow out. He would grit his teeth, hunch his shoulders in his too-thin jacket, desperately not recalling an exasperatedly fond voice that would nag him to dress warmer. He would curse as he woke up to flecks of snow on his window pane and wrestle with his useless heater. He would not ache for the childlike wonder of someone who was no longer there.

Eventually, the snow would melt. The man who had left would take the rent money with him, and Karube would have to figure out where else he could take up space. Karube would go to work in a run-down bar in the sticky heat of the coming summer, cicadas filling the silence in his mind where a plan for the rest of his life should sit. Karube Daikichi would be, in all senses of the word, alive.

Even so, his chest was empty – so he filled it with tar. Karube was never particularly interested in smoking before the hole in his life abruptly dug itself. Now, the nicotine numbed the disquiet in his head, and his throat burned, and for a brilliant moment nothing felt real. For mere seconds, he could shed the sense of loss that hung around him like a bad smell. He tried his best to heave his heavy hurt out with every exhale, to no avail. He kept smoking, kept treading the smouldering ashes into the concrete beneath his boots outside his apartment building. Kept telling himself this was the last one, that this would be the last time he allowed himself to feel like this.

Eventually, the pack emptied. His hands trembled with it, fingers clenched around cool air. Pressure blossomed in the centres of his upturned palms, stomach knotted, the spaces between his ribs drawn tight.

He shoved his frostbitten fists in his pockets, steeled himself to face a space that was not his home. But as his eyes followed his cloud of exhale, they caught on a figure on the other side of the empty street.

Karube Daikichi realised he did not need a heart.

What was the point of a muscle which tore so easily? Which couldn’t regulate its sole function when it was confronted with such devastating eyes? His heart, this useless lead pump in his chest, that supplied blood to his forsaken limbs. To the legs that would halt for nothing tangible on this earth as they made their way towards Arisu. Like a pitiful asteroid in its hapless orbit around a star, Karube fell into place in front of the man who had left him.

‘Daikichi,’ was all it took to break him. To snap the thin wire that ran from head to heart, built to forbear embarrassment in times like these.

‘Don’t call me that. You don’t get to call me that anymore.’ His voice was abrasion in the quiet evening air. Arisu, tensed and taught, raised his hands in cautious surrender.

‘Sorry. Karube, then. Karube.’

There was always something wounding in the way Arisu said either of his names. As if it was something precious. As if he hadn’t swirled the taste of it in his mouth and resolutely spat it out at Karube’s feet. It made him feel untethered, strings cut all at once and without warning.

‘You kept paying the rent. You left, without telling why, and you never stopped paying the rent. Do you think I need your pity, Arisu? Do you think I need your father’s money?’

Part of Karube wanted to spit more poison at Arisu. To ask if living as a constant disappointment to his father was really so much better than living with Karube. To ask if he really did hate him that much, that he would run to someone who had never tried to understand him, who never tried to love him. Karube had given him so much love. Why did he throw it away?

‘It’s not pity. I would never pity you.’ Arisu’s speech was often soft and hesitant, but in this statement there was an unmistakable firmness.

‘So then fucking explain! You left, Arisu.’

‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

‘Why do you keep apologising? If you’re really that sorry then just…’

‘Just what?’ And his eyes. Glassy with unshed tears and rimmed with red from many previous. Arisu was a man exhausted. That his spine was curled forward, that his shoulders almost grazed his ears made him seem smaller and more fragile than Karube had ever known him to be.

The useless muscle in his chest constricted itself again. Karube’s veins throbbed with it. Had he ever really known Arisu? Had he ever meant anything to him? He bit his tongue to stifle the pathetic question he so miserably needed to ask. But brittle eyeteeth could only do so much against a brain on fire.

‘It’s not fair. None of this is… is fucking fair, Arisu,’ and he makes a fist around the urge to reach out, to touch his frost-reddened cheek, to gentle a thumb at the thin skin of his eyelids. He buried such bile once again in the pockets of his worn jeans, glared at the pavement like it would fix any of this. And he had to clench his diaphragm, swallow once, twice, to kill the sob that clawed its way up his throat. He could feel Arisu’s stare itching at his scalp.

‘I’m sorry. I’m- fuck I’m so sorry, Karube. Please,’ and the waver in his words stuck like needles in his skin, ‘you have to know that I’m sorry. It’s all my fault.’

And all too suddenly, a hand cupped his cheek. It was the cruellest thing in the world, the warmth of it. How Karube’s neck arched towards its softness, how Arisu’s palm was moulded to fit his jaw like they were fired in the same kiln, forged in the same fire. Who was Karube to stop it, when the seam of his lips smoothed ever so slowly against the length of Arisu’s thumb? How could he have halted the splintered shudder that parted his lips against the tendon of an unfurled fist?

Small, like the first patter of rain on a cloudy day, Arisu begged.

‘Won’t you look at me?’

Could he have? Was it possible stare bare-faced and guileless into the sun without burning? Karube was willing to go blind with it, if it was Arisu asking.

Some of Arisu’s tears had spilt, shimmering rivulets grazing his cold-stung features. Karube’s treacherous thumb carved its home in the hollow of Arisu’s cheekbone. Ridiculous. Both men, all fragile lungs and wounded eyes, stood holding onto one another as if he couldn’t quite believe he was real. As if the other would stay for as long as he was held.

Like breathing, like the most natural thing in the world, Arisu closed what little distance remained between them.

He kissed him, a whimper leaking from between the searing heat of their mouths. It was torturous, and roiling up the arched column of Karube’s throat came a smouldering ire. Arisu always did this, always dealt the blow while looking like the most injured person in the room. It made Karube want to hurt. Thus the kiss became more teeth than lips, a grab for purchase on whatever chilled skin was exposed to him. Karube kissed to mark, kissed to plea, kissed to hollow out a space for himself that had long since closed.

The inside of Arisu’s mouth was hot, and Karube was a man starved for warmth. His other hand settled, curling against Arisu’s jaw, and all at once Karube was cradling Arisu’s face. He crushed their mouths together again and again, lips stinging and teeth too blunt to cut deep enough to make it right. Karube’s rage rose like steam out of him in the slick kiss, leaving a gentle simmer deep down in his belly.

Arisu cradled Karube’s jaw like one would hold a baby bird. His fingers gentled against his jugular, feeling the searing jackrabbit pulse of his blood under the goose-fleshed skin of his throat. His chapped fingers ran feather-light up and down, ever-so-slightly grazing the beginnings of karube’s hairline. In days gone by, Karube’s favourite thing to do was let Arisu run his fingers over his scalp, working through the tangles in his long hair until he was satisfied. This caress now was more of an echo, ringing hollow in Karube’s chest. His lungs burned with it as he gasped for air into Arisu’s mouth, gasped for what he no longer had.

It was like being crushed.

Pulling away was like pulling glass shards out of Karube’s tongue. His lips stung and his eyes burned and his heart hurt.

‘Why are you punishing me for loving you,’ he choked out, mouth filled with sawdust, ‘why can’t I have you?’

The moment shattered, red string of fate slashed to pieces. Arisu recoiled and almost snapped back, spine ramrod, eyes red-rimmed and wild. The spell broke as Arisu remembered what he came here for.

‘I’m just here to drop off my key,’ he said, voice broken but tone flat as he could muster. Arisu was a different man with the same face, a crude impression of the object of Karube’s tragic affection. Nothing felt right in the cold street, not in Karube’s palm where the cruel metal of Arisu’s key was pressed, fingers moulded over it into a fist by Arisu’s pitiless hand.

‘Just like that.’ It wasn’t a question anymore. The air that had so violently filled Karube’s chest as they kissed had seeped out and then some, leaving him deflated and exhausted. What little hope he had left had been dying a slow death since Arisu turned the corner onto his street.

‘I’m sorry, Karube,’ and Karube didn’t doubt that he was in the slightest, no matter how much it made his ears burn and his pulse ache.

He replied, ‘thanks,’ as devoid of emotion as he could muster. Karube didn’t need Arisu. Not his hands nor his kiss nor his apology. Crossing the street and unlocking the door to the apartment he resolved to move out of as quickly as possible was as easy as breathing glass without choking. Karube didn’t need Arisu.

He didn’t look back.