#when I say I truly felt like I was led to this particular path

[traumacatholic]

why do you want to leave Catholicism?

It was never about wanting to leave Catholicism, I didn't, and in a lot of ways I still don't. There was a time in the past, when I considered Orthodoxy and I kind of pushed it to the side. Because it wasn't something I wanted to do. I guess it's hard to explain, maybe someone on a similar path of converting from one denomination to another or from one faith to another might be able to relate in some ways.

[I'm going to put this under a readmore because it's long]

Catholicism was and is very dear to me. When I was in the Intensive Care Unit, it was a Catholic Priest delivering the Last Rites to someone across from me that really got me seriously thinking about the faith. I remember one night when I watched my first ever Mass which was being streamed, crying at the Sermon the Priest gave about how no matter where we are, we are never alone or isolated because the Body of Christ is always there for us. That no matter where we are, no matter our situation, that people are praying for us. That we never pray in isolation.

And when I first started attending Mass, it was like my first time I ever really felt happy. The year prior, I had been struggling intensely with depression and suicidal thoughts. I spent most nights of the week getting myself black out drunk, depressed and alone in my bedroom. I was sexually assaulted. I lost what little friends I had. And then in my second year of university, when I started attending the Mass I felt light. All of those burdens were taken off of me. It felt meaningful that the first Church I would start attending would be dedicated to Saint Raphael - the Medicine of God.

But the longer I was in the faith, the more I clashed with it. My experience in RCIA wasn't positive. I was the only person there that wasn't brought up in the Catholic faith, so everything was geared towards those that had been in the faith. My questions were often overlooked or just brushed away. Whenever I expressed difficulties I was having, these would also be brushed away. This wasn't helped by the fact that I was in an abusive relationship with someone that hated God and Christianity. Over the time of the relationship, I grew more and more anxious about attending Church. To the point I stopped attending, stopped praying. What little interactions I had with God I felt intensely guilty over. I eventually left that relationship. But that time away from the Church really hurt me. And trying to reconnect with the faith was difficult too. I reached out to Priests (I was living in a new area now, so I couldn't attend my old Church). And I was largely ignored when I asked for help or guidance in returning to the faith. The one Priest that did speak to me, downplayed a lot of my experiences and struggles.

Every time I attended the Mass, I was just feeling empty inside. I was overwhelmed with anxieties about everything. But it was the hollowness that was the hardest to grapple with. I struggled for a long time feeling like God had closed the doors to me because I had abandoned Him to remain in the abusive relationship. I reached out to nuns for advice, because they were easier to get in contact with than any of the local Priests. But they couldn't be of much support to me either, it wasn't their role - I don't hold it against them. But by and large the advice was always just 'go to Mass and things will get better eventually'. But the more I did manage to attend Mass, the hollower and more anxious about the faith I became.

My time with this blog led me to reading more about the faith, and this led to me reading about the Church Fathers and the early Church. And every time I read about the early Church, I felt like I was reading about the Orthodox faith. And as I encountered Orthodox theological arguments, I felt a resonation with them. And I also felt deeply guilty about it. I felt like I was betraying the faith, I felt like I was betraying God, the Saints, and I pushed it away. I tried focusing on other aspects of Catholicism, but I always felt a deep anxiety about what I was doing. That I could never really grapple with. I went to Mass and would pray for God to guide me. But I didn't know how to actually open myself up to that guidance. I would leave the Mass feeling hollow. I was intensely anxious about everything.

I attended a Ukrainian Catholic Divine Liturgy with a friend from Twitter, hoping that perhaps I could find some relief in the Eastern Rite. But I didn't. I still felt empty, and so very distant from God. He was an Orthodox Christian, and he began attending Church regularly again. Meanwhile I kind of just spiralled. I wasn't in a great place mentally, I didn't have the energy to grapple with these things. I kind of went back to a weird place where I'd attend a Mass here and there, my prayer life would fluctuate. Sometimes I was completely dead to the faith.

Then when I moved to the new city that I'm in just now. All of those feelings about Orthodoxy came back in an almost suffocating way. I couldn't not see things about Orthodoxy, I couldn't not see arguments for the Orthodox Church. I couldn't deny that I kept feeling like I was being pulled towards the Orthodox Church. When I spoke about considering Orthodoxy, the guy that I attended the Ukrainian Catholic Liturgy with reached out to me - we hadn't spoken in years by this point. He lives close to the city I'm in, and attends the Orthodox Church here. In a lot of ways I accidentally arranged for there to be someone to welcome me into the Orthodox Church. Well, not my doing, but God's plan. In a lot of ways, it's this bit that really speaks to me a lot. All it took was one night of me feeling completely hopeless, and just firing off a twitter dm to a complete stranger at that point, and it really impacted me in the future when I needed it to.

All I can really describe is that first Orthodox Liturgy I attended felt like the fulfilment of everything I had been searching for. Everything I had been grappling for. And this feeling doesn't go away for me. In so many Sermons, it feels like the Priest has somehow written his Sermon just for me. How much it resonates with me, how much it comforts and strengthens me and speaks to the position I'm at in life. I feel the closeness and the comfort of Orthodox Saints in my life. I would be much worse off if it weren't for the help of people at the Orthodox Church I attend, that so freely gave me a spare room, or some money, or their prayers. I have a Priest that will actually answer emails, that is involved in the community. That there is a Church community that I never experienced at any of the Catholic Churches I attended.

I don't think my answer is going to be particularly satisfying for other people. I didn't wake up one day with a theological disagreement with X or Y aspect of the Church. Overtime, I just became more and more filled with the feeling that this was not where I was meant to be. I was so lost and miserable and lonely and in pain as a Catholic and the more I tried to reach out for guidance and support, the lonelier and more miserable I became. And while I do still feel these things in the Orthodox Church, what I can say is that I feel like this is where God has led me to be. That everything in my life exploded as soon as I began attending the Orthodox Church, but there was something empowering about the Liturgy that held me even through those days and nights where everything was so painful and hopeless. That as much as I would cry myself to sleep with pains about being homeless, the breakdown of a relationship, I always found myself going to the Liturgy. And feeling strengthened by it, even for a moment.

In short, I feel happier in Orthodoxy than I ever did in the Catholic faith. And I feel like my faith is connected to my neighbours in a way that it never was in Catholicism. That there is actual community for me here. That the faith is alive for me here in a way in which it wasn't in Catholicism.

[ryuzakistoe]

Could This Be? (Sae Itoshi x fem!reader)

angst, fluff, slow burn, Sae Itoshi, language, smut (heavy?) fem!reader, trigger warning, hopeless/over thinker reader..?, BTW THIS IS GONNA BE A LONGGG ONE.

Yeah there's fingering, orgasms, dominate Sae, big-cocked Sae, somewhat submissive reader?, dirty talk (somewhat?), y’know all the usual.

a/n: give me ideas for who and what to write about next please🙏 cuz I got nothing.

Also, sorry if I made any mistakes on here as I have had not checked for any spelling mistakes or anything. I rushed to try and get this published because well…yeah it’s been a while.

____

(no song for this sorry😢)

Love.

It’s something everyone craves. The warmth of comfort, the security of knowing someone is truly there for you. It’s that feeling of having someone by your side, someone you can open up to without fear of judgment. It’s knowing there’s a shoulder you can lean on when life feels heavy.

Who wouldn’t want that? Everyone longs for that one person who understands them deeply, who stands by them through everything. It’s a natural part of being human.

Yet, finding true love isn’t always easy. Lustful desires can cloud our vision, making it hard to distinguish between the fleeting thrill of lust and the enduring presence of love.

Lust satisfies only for a moment, but love—love endures.

Too often, people mistake lust for love, deceiving themselves into thinking the temporary excitement is something lasting. But in truth, love is far deeper, something that grows and remains, far beyond the surface.

They convince themselves that this so-called "love" they’re experiencing is genuine, when, in truth, it’s anything but.

Then, there are those who have never been loved properly at all. As humans, we often twist the meaning of "love," reshaping it into something that barely resembles true love.

It’s disgusting, really.

The world is far from perfect, and it’s filled with deceivers and liars who spread only flames of falsehood and venom. It’s painful to think that someone like you has crossed paths with these people.

Many have tried to explain what "love" is supposed to be—pleasure, satisfaction, joy, delight, even lust. They use these words to describe love, and it’s horrifying to see how they’ve mistaken and misrepresented it.

What they experienced wasn’t real love at all. Just a shallow, distorted version of something far deeper and truer.

It’s pitiful. The "love" they’ve experienced is etched so deeply into their minds that they believe it’s real. But it isn’t.

Love is so much more. It takes many shapes, each unique to the person, and it goes far beyond fleeting pleasure or satisfaction. Some have been led to believe otherwise, brainwashed into confusing love with something shallow and empty.

They’ve never truly experienced love.

And yet, you, too, fall into this category. You’ve never been loved as you deserved.

These days, it seems like all men want is sex and pleasure. Many of the men you’ve dated claimed to “love” you, but those words quickly unraveled into hollow promises. What they felt was just a lustful attraction, nothing more.

Your heart has been broken more than once by these pretenders, each time leaving you with more questions than answers.

One day, they’d say they loved you; the next, they’d avoid you entirely. And to think, you even lost your virginity to one of these fucking scums.

They left you shattered, vanishing the moment they got what they wanted.

One guy, in particular, slipped past your defenses, convincing you he was different—that he was actually worthy of this "love." He manipulated you in countless ways, claiming it was all in the name of love. He told you that having sex, intimacy, and leaving yourself vulnerable, was the ultimate proof of love.

You were conflicted, torn by doubt, but a deep need to be loved pushed you to trust him. Yet, the days that followed left you miserable and broken, as he cut off all contact after that night.

All you wanted was to be was loved…

One by one, each guy took what he wanted and left, only adding to the ache and emptiness.

You stopped believing in love and began to hate yourself in ways you never had before.

Was love even real? Was it just a fantasy made for movies and stories, something exaggerated beyond reality? No one could convince you otherwise. All those voices claiming to know what love is, how it’s supposed to feel—they seemed almost delusional to you now.

You found yourself pitying them, those blind and hopeless creatures, chasing an illusion you no longer believed in.

What a bunch of animals.

…🌺…

You worked at a small bakery not far from home. Despite everything going on, you couldn’t afford to be broke. Thankfully, this job gave you just enough to scrape by each week. Barely.

You took the night shifts for the extra pay—just in case. A car was out of the question on your income, but that didn’t matter much; work was only a short walk away.

What they didn’t pay you enough for, though, were the rude, bitchy, demanding customers who tested your patience daily. They complained, ordered you around, and acted as if you were their work-slave, to solely serve their every whim. You were surprised you hadn’t lost your mind by now—probably thanks to your coworker or best friend might I say.

“Heyyy, Y/nnie! How’s my favorite girl?” she called out, wrapping you up in a tight hug.

Her name was Yuko. Annoying and overly extroverted as she could be, though you were grateful to have her around.

Her dark, disheveled hair, bounced as she ran toward you. “Hey, Yuko…” you managed, barely able to breathe under her tight hug. Despite her size, she was surprisingly strong.

Yuko’s eyes widened as she realized she was squeezing the air out of you, and she quickly let go. “Ha… sorry, Y/n!” she muttered, rubbing the back of her neck in embarrassment.

“Nah, you’re fine, Yuko,” you said, smiling as you met her gaze.

Your first shift here had been lonely. You hadn’t bothered much with the other coworkers, and they hadn’t really reached out to you either. You’d all just been there to do the job—nothing more.

You hadn’t really minded keeping to yourself, never making an effort to connect with your coworkers. They hadn’t shown much interest in you, either.

Then came Yuko.

She approached you, eager to get to know you better—though, to be fair, she did that with everyone. She was friends with nearly all your coworkers, and now she’d set her sights on making you her next.

You couldn’t deny that her bold personality drew you in. Something about her was captivating, though you couldn’t quite put your finger on it. Was it her loudness? Her confidence? Her outgoing spirit? Whatever it was, you felt yourself drawn to her.

And Yuko felt the same. She sensed there was something different about you, something intriguing, and that made her all the more determined to befriend you.

Who would have guessed that this mutual interest would spark such a strong friendship between the two of you?

You weren’t just another coworker to her—Yuko considered you her best friend. And, honestly, you felt the same way about her.

“I just couldn’t resist squeezing the life out of you, Y/n! You’re just so precious and adorable!” Yuko gushed, clasping her hands together with a loud smack.

“Yuko… you use that excuse every single day,” you sighed, shaking your head.

“Do I? Mmm, I don’t recall…” Yuko hummed, feigning innocence with a coy smile.

You let out a small huff, clearly seeing through her act. With a playful glare, you waited, knowing she’d slip up soon enough.

Sure enough, not even ten seconds passed before she let out a whine, squirming a little under your gaze. “Ah, Y/nnnnieee… how do you always figure me out?” she grumbled.

“You’re just that bad at lying, Yuko.” You chuckled softly, watching as she crossed her arms, giving you a mock-offended glare.

“I am not that bad at lying!” she retorted, pouting.

Lost in your banter, neither of you noticed the soft jingle of the bell signaling someone’s entrance.

“Sure, Yuko, whatever helps you sleep at night—”

“Are you going to take my order, or are you two just going to keep bickering?”

Both of you froze, turning toward the voice with wide eyes.

"Ah… my apologies, sir. Sorry for not paying attention," you muttered quickly, stepping over to the register to take his order.

The man let out a faint hum, as if to agree that yes, it was your fault. Inwardly, you stifled a groan—you could already tell he was going to be one of those bitchy customers.

"Anyway, what can I get for you, sir?" you asked, glancing up.

Your gaze lingered, almost unconsciously taking in his appearance, a habit you’d developed with customers. He had reddish-brown hair and a lean build, at least from what you could see. His eyes, a striking green-teal, were narrowed slightly, showing not a hint of emotion.

You almost paused, a bit envious of his long, dark lashes. What a lucky guy, you thought.

Overall, he gave off an air of indifference, like nothing around him could bother him in the slightest.

“A salted kombucha tea will do,” he replied, barely looking up from his phone.

“Anything else?” you asked, glancing up at him again.

He slipped his phone back into his pocket, meeting your gaze with an intensity that made it feel as if he was sizing you up, too.

“That’s all,” he said, hands shoved casually into his pockets.

You quickly typed in his order, breaking eye contact, though you could still feel the weight of his stare. It was… unsettling.

“And your name?” you asked, grabbing an empty cup, trying to brush off the strange tension.

“Sae Itoshi,” he muttered.

Sae Itoshi? The name struck a chord, tickling the back of your memory. You’d heard it somewhere before, but couldn’t quite place where.

“Alright, your drink will be ready shortly. If you could, please wait over there,” you said, gesturing toward the spot.

Sae’s gaze followed your hand, and without a word, he walked to the designated area.

With the empty cup in hand, you stepped away from the register and started preparing his drink. Just as you began brewing the tea, Yuko appeared at your side, looking as energetic as ever.

“Did I hear that right? That was Sae Itoshi?!” she practically shouted, wide-eyed as she leaned right into your face.

Already feeling the beginnings of a headache, you nudged her back. “Yeah, why are you so surprised?” you asked, raising an eyebrow.

Yuko looked at you like you’d just sprouted a second head.

“Are you serious, Y/n?” She scoffed, gripping your shoulders in exaggerated disbelief. “You call me clueless, but you don’t even know who Sae Itoshi is?”

“That, my dear Y/n, was none other than the Sae Itoshi—the famous football player!” Yuko exclaimed, rocking you back and forth.

No wonder the name had sounded so familiar. What were the odds that a famous soccer player would show up at a small bakery like yours?

“Okay, okay, you can let me go, Yuko!” you yelped, clutching the cup tightly to avoid spilling the drink.

Reluctantly, she released you but continued her excited rambling. “Do you realize how rare this is?” she squealed, practically sparkling with enthusiasm.

“Yeah, I guess it’s pretty rare,” you mumbled as you got back to preparing the drink, hoping she’d settle down.

But Yuko just stared at you, her expression twisting with utter disbelief. What’s with everyone staring today?

“The hell, Y/n? How are you not excited about this?! A famous athlete is literally in our shop right now! Out of everywhere, he chose here!” she ranted, poking the side of your head for emphasis.

You swatted her hand away. “Keep your voice down, Yuko,” you sighed, trying to focus.

But Yuko, unfazed, only leaned in closer. “And not only is he famous, he’s one of those hot athletes!” she gushed, ignoring your attempt to quiet her. “How can you stay calm when we’re literally in the presence of a sexy celebrity?”

You groaned, turning to face her. “Yuko, please. Let me finish this, okay? I really don’t need the noise right now.”

She huffed, dropping her shoulders dramatically. “Fine, whatever, Y/n. You’re so weird,” she muttered, leaning against the counter beside you.

A brief silence fell—until Yuko finally spoke up again. “So… how big do you think his dic—“

“Yuko!” you blurted, stopping her before she could finish.

“What? I’m just curious! Can’t you let a girl imagine these things?” she pouted, crossing her arms with a mischievous glint in her eyes. She knew you were already done with her antics.

“At least keep those thoughts to yourself, Yuko. And you call me weird,” you scoffed softly, snapping the lid onto the drink.

Yuko chuckled, clearly pleased with herself for getting under your skin. She lived for teasing you.

You took a steadying breath, picked up the tea, and headed over to Sae Itoshi, feeling a touch nervous to be serving someone so famous.

“Here’s your tea, sir,” you mumbled, holding the cup out to him.

He glanced up from his phone, his eyes settling on you as he reached for the drink. His fingers brushed against yours, warm and slightly rough, sending a surprising jolt through you. Shaking off the thought, you added, “That’ll be 595.31 yen.”

“Right.” He gave a soft hum and pulled out the exact amount, placing the yen in your hand before taking a sip.

You noticed his eyes widen just a fraction as he savored the tea, clearly caught off guard by the taste.

“This is surprisingly good for such a cheap drink,” he muttered, taking another sip.

You let out an irritated huff. Did he really have to say it like that?

“Glad it suits your taste buds,” you grumbled, resisting the urge to roll your eyes.

He ignored your tone. “Did you make this yourself?” he asked, studying you with unexpected interest.

Caught off guard by the question, you raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I did. Why?”

His gaze held yours as he replied, “No reason. I just didn’t expect it to turn out this well.”

Another rude remark. Will you ever get a break from these customers?

He took another sip, looking mildly impressed. “I might reconsider coming by again for another cup. You make good tea—for a baker.”

You were sure steam was coming out of your ears by now. You just wanted him out of the shop. “Thanks, I guess,” you muttered, barely concealing your frustration.

“No problem,” he said nonchalantly, strolling out the door without a second glance.

You let out an aggravated sigh. The nerve of that guy.

Slumping your shoulders, you turned and headed back to where Yuko was waiting. The moment she spotted you, she practically skipped over.

“Sooo, Y/n, what’d you think? Pretty sexy, huh?” she laughed, leaning against your shoulder.

“Sure, I’ll admit he’s good-looking,” you muttered, rolling your eyes. “But he’s an absolute jerk. Seriously, how do people put up with him?” You groaned, burying your face in your hands.

“Woah, woah, Y/nnie, what exactly happened?” Yuko asked, pulling back to look at you.

You sighed, pulling your hands away from your face. “He practically insulted me—multiple times. And I don’t even think he realized it.”

Yuko studied your face as you ranted, wide-eyed. Clearly, you were more annoyed than usual.

“Well, look on the bright side, Y/n—he probably won’t come back! …Sadly,” she added, mumbling the last part.

“About that…” you muttered, avoiding her gaze.

Yuko’s mouth dropped open, and she grabbed your face, forcing you to look at her. “You’re telling me he’s coming back?! Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh—!”

“Yuko!” you exclaimed as she released her grip, realizing she’d been squeezing your face a little too hard.

“Sorry, Y/n,” she chuckled sheepishly, taking a step back. “But seriously—is he really coming back?” Her eyes were wide, fixed on you like a hawk.

“Well… yeah, he said he might, but I don’t know if he actually meant it,” you murmured, recalling Sae’s words.

Yuko let out an exaggerated groan, tugging at her hair. “Aww, come on, Y/n! Way to get my hopes up!”

“Sorry, Yuko,” you sighed. Not that you were actually sorry.

“Doesn’t mean he won’t, though! Ooh, maybe I can get his number too! I can already picture our future together—wonder how he looks naked in bed—”

“Yuko!” you shouted, interrupting her with a mix of surprise and annoyance.

“Just messing with you, Y/n!” Yuko cackled, wrapping you in a tight hug.

You couldn’t stand how easily she joked about such… lustful things, though you’d never admit it to her. It always made you uncomfortable.

“Aww, I love you, Y/n!” Yuko said dramatically, burying her head in your neck.

That, too, made your stomach turn. You hated it.

Why did everyone toss around the word "love" so casually, like it was just a meaningless phrase? You couldn’t wrap your head around it.

…🌺…

The soft, familiar comfort of your bed enveloped you as you collapsed onto the mattress. A sigh escaped your lips as you began to settle in for the night. It was already 12:05 AM, meaning your shift would start in just six hours.

You let out another sigh, staring at the ceiling, letting your thoughts wander.

Then, out of nowhere, Sae Itoshi’s face flashed in your mind.

Without thinking, you grabbed your phone and searched for his Instagram profile.

What the hell are you even doing?

You scrolled through his posts, which were mostly just photos of him scoring goals, looking effortlessly cool. What is wrong with you?

Your finger hovered over the screen as you clicked on his followers and the people he followed. It was a list of other famous football players, each name more recognizable than the last.

Are you out of your mind?

You navigated through all the social media apps, searching for his name, scrolling aimlessly.

Stop.

You froze, suddenly aware of what you were doing.

“What the hell am I doing?” you whispered to yourself, a wave of realization washing over you.

Why were you so fixated on finding Sae Itoshi online? Was he really that intriguing? Was he worth all this time and energy?

What exactly was so captivating about him?

You had no answers.

With a frustrated sigh, you closed out of every app that featured his name and set your phone down beside your bed. You plugged it in to charge, then wrapped yourself tightly in your blanket.

But despite the warmth, sleep eluded you. Instead, you lay wide-eyed, staring at the ceiling.

What made you do this? Why was Sae Itoshi still on your mind?

Why were you suddenly so desperate to know who he was?

You let out a weary groan, squeezing your eyes shut, hoping sleep would finally drown out the endless questions swirling in your mind.

And after what felt like an eternity, it finally worked. Your thoughts began to fade, and sleep claimed you.

…🌺…

“Well then, Y/nnie, who’s excited to see Sae Itoshi?! I know I am!” Yuko exclaimed, practically bouncing with energy.

“Sometimes you’re too much, Yuko,” you replied, rolling your eyes.

As expected, Yuko was absolutely ecstatic about the prospect of seeing Sae Itoshi again. But could you say the same? You weren’t so sure.

“Come on, Y/n! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! You’ve got to make the most of it!” Yuko urged, clasping her hands around yours with a grin.

“Well, I’d like to make use of my lifetime not obsessing over some famous football player,” you sighed, trying to sound indifferent.

What a lie.

“Gosh, you’re so boring, Y/n!” Yuko huffed, releasing her grip on you. “You’re hopeless,” she added with a teasing tone.

You scoffed. “Me, hopeless? I’m just trying to make enough money to survive out here,” you grumbled.

“Aren’t we all?” Yuko replied, taking a step away from you and heading off to serve other customers.

You sighed, watching her go, then rested your elbows on the counter in the back. Your phone came out of your pocket, and you began scrolling through social media absentmindedly.

Then, once again, that all-too-familiar thought of him crept into your mind.

What is happening to you?

You found yourself on his Instagram page, scrolling through his posts without even realizing it.

Just then, you heard a voice—one you knew all too well.

“You must have a really hard time noticing your customers waiting.”

Your eyes widened in shock. You quickly whipped your head up, and there he was—that stupid jerk—standing right at the register, waiting for you to take his order.

Sae Itoshi…

You quickly turned off your phone, hoping he hadn’t caught you scrolling through his profile just moments before.

Taking a deep breath, you walked up to the register, forcing a neutral expression.

“The same thing?” you asked, trying to sound casual.

“Yeah,” Sae replied, his tone as calm as ever.

With just one word from him, you got to work, preparing his tea with a practiced speed.

It didn’t take long, and within less than 10 minutes, his drink was ready.

“That’ll be—”

“Here.”

Sae handed you the money without missing a beat, then swiftly took the drink from your hands, taking a slow sip.

A satisfied sigh escaped him as he swallowed, clearly enjoying the tea.

You couldn’t help but watch him, eyes lingering on the way he drank.

This guy…

Noticing your stare, he pulled the cup away from his lips and casually spoke, “Y’know, instead of just wandering around looking at my page, you could always just follow me.”

His voice was quiet, almost teasing, but you couldn’t tell if he was joking or serious.

Nonetheless, your eyes widened at his words.

Fuck…he caught you.

“Uh… yeah, I’ll keep that in mind…” you mumbled awkwardly, the words barely escaping your lips.

You could feel your face burning with embarrassment. This is so humiliating.

Then, just as you were trying to regain some composure, Sae spoke again.

“Give me your phone.”

His words hit you like a punch. What the hell? Why would he want your phone?

“May I ask why?” you asked, raising an eyebrow, the confusion evident in your voice.

“I just want to see something,” he replied, his tone flat and unreadable.

You should’ve known better. You shouldn’t give a stranger your phone. It was basic knowledge, after all. But something about his calm, indifferent demeanor made you hesitate.

Strange, you thought, but you didn’t argue.

With a subtle sigh, you pulled your phone from your back pocket, unlocked it, and handed it to him.

Sae swiftly swiped your phone from your hand, his fingers moving quickly as he typed something and tapped on the screen.

“Here,” he said, handing the device back to you.

You took your phone, still confused, and looked up at him. He met your gaze with a calm, unreadable expression.

Without thinking, you broke the eye contact and immediately glanced at what he had done on your phone.

Your eyes widened.

You were now following Sae Itoshi.

"You needed my phone for this?" you asked, your voice laced with confusion as you shifted your gaze back to him.

He took in your baffled expression, his head tilted slightly.

“Yeah, it’s not that hard to click ‘follow,’” he replied nonchalantly, his tone almost taunting.

You glared at him, feeling a frustrated vein pulse at your temple.

Did he really not care how he affected people?

Actually nevermind. He probably didn't.

Now, you were really starting to believe that people probably were paid to put up with this egotistical jerk.

“Whatever. Is that all you needed?” you asked, forcing the frustration down as best as you could.

It was getting harder and harder to ignore his blunt, cutting words.

“Yeah, i guess.” Sae shrugged, his eyes drifting away from you to inspect the decorations and furniture around the shop.

You let out a quiet sigh of relief, grateful that he wasn’t pushing any further.

But, of course, Sae caught it.

His gaze snapped back to you, a hint of curiosity in his eyes. “What? You that eager for me to leave?”

“Somewhat,” you replied, not even hesitating.

Sae’s eyes narrowed slightly as he processed your blunt answer. His brow quirked, clearly not expecting such a direct response. He shrugged it off casually.

“Too bad. I’m coming back.”

Naturally, that soured your mood tenfold. But, oddly enough, you didn’t feel as annoyed as you’d expected hearing those words.

Odd…

"If you're done ordering, please step out of line," you sighed, shoulders slumping. You were already growing tired of his antics.

"Didn’t even get a chance to check this place out, and you’re already kicking me out? What poor customer service," Sae commented casually, holding up his empty cup in front of you. "Might as well throw this away for me, yeah? Thanks." His tone was light, as if he barely noticed how much he was testing your patience.

You let out a frustrated grumble, muttering under your breath as you snatched the cup from his hand, shooting him a glare before turning to the trash can.

Just as you tossed it away, you looked up to see Sae already strolling out, unbothered.

You felt yourself visibly relax as Sae’s figure disappeared from sight.

Seriously, could that guy be any more irritating?

But your brief moment of relief didn’t last.

"Y/NNIEEE!"

Perfect—just what you needed.

"Ah, my beautiful Y/n, how did your date go with Sae Itoshi?!" Yuko teased, a mischievous grin on her face as she draped an elbow over your shoulder.

"Really, Yuko?" you groaned, nudging her off.

"What? Didn’t go as planned?" Yuko pouted dramatically, raising her hands to her face and pretending to wipe away imaginary tears.

"Sometimes, Yuko, you do too much," you mumbled, glaring at her, hoping the hint of annoyance in your tone would get through.

"Y/n, you’re such a peculiar one. Most girls would go crazy by just seeing that guy! I mean, every time I catch a glimpse of him, my heart practically explodes!" Yuko rambled on, forming a heart with her hands and placing it over her chest, mimicking a rapid heartbeat.

"C'mon, Yuko, you know why—" you paused mid-sentence.

She didn’t know. Yuko didn’t know about the pieces of your past you’d left unspoken, buried somewhere you hoped no one would find.

She didn’t know about the heartbreaks you’d endured, the ones that had chipped away at you until even the thought of love felt distant, hollow. She didn’t know about the countless nights spent piecing yourself back together, the silent battles, the disappointments that had left scars no one could see.

Yuko didn’t know about the lies you’d had to believe, the ones that wrapped around you until you could hardly tell where the truth ended and the facade began. She had no idea how those things had worn you down, until something as simple as liking—or even loving someone, felt like too much to ask.

No, she didn’t know any of it. You’d never told her. And maybe you never would.

"Huh? No, I don’t know why. What do you mea—"

"Oh, uh, never mind, it’s nothing," you said quickly, cutting her off, hoping she wouldn’t pick up on the edge in your voice.

But you knew Yuko wasn’t stupid. You could feel her gaze linger on you, her eyes clouded with confusion and curiosity, studying you, knowing something was going on.

Yet, she knew when to let things be.

"Alright, if you say so, Y/n," Yuko murmured softly, letting it drop.

You looked away, voice barely above a whisper. "Yeah."

You exhaled, feeling a small release as her gaze finally drifted from you.

"Anyway, I’ll get back to my shift, Y/n. Talk to you later!" Yuko said with a small smile as she started to walk away, her curiosity saved for another time.

You gave her a quiet nod and returned to your work. Just a couple more hours, and you’d finally be able to go home.

…🌺…

Here you were, lying in bed, getting ready to drift into a deep slumber.

Slipping into your nightwear, you wrapped yourself snugly in your blanket, instantly enveloped in warmth and comfort. Reaching for your phone on the nightstand, you lazily glanced at your notifications.

“Sae Itoshi is now following you.”

Your breath hitched. For a moment, you thought you were imagining things. Was this real?

Heart pounding, you tapped on your profile and checked your followers.

Nope, it wasn’t a mistake. It was real.

But how? How did he even know your name?

Oh. Right. The nametag.

You tossed your phone aside with a sigh, sinking deeper into your bed.

You couldn’t quite pinpoint what you were feeling. There was happiness, maybe even excitement, but it was tangled up with annoyance and a faint thread of confusion.

Why would he follow you? He didn’t seem like the type to care about someone like you. It didn’t make sense.

But the real question lingered: how did you feel about all of this?

It was strange. These emotions felt foreign, like opening a book you hadn’t touched in years. And yet, they felt… good. Comforting, in a way.

But also terrifying.

You couldn’t remember the last time you let yourself feel like this. What if it led to the same pain, the same destruction? Wasn’t it safer to keep your guard up, to not let anyone in?

“The hell are you doing to me,” you groaned, burying your face into your pillow, trying to escape the overwhelming storm of emotions crashing over you.

…🌺…

"Let me guess—the same thing?"

"Yeah."

You let out a small sigh, already knowing the routine as you headed to the back to prepare his drink.

He came in every day, like clockwork. It was almost comforting in its predictability, though he never switched things up—always the same drink, no pastries, nothing else.

As you handed him his order, you asked, "Do you want anything else, or…?" You already knew the answer but asked anyway, half out of habit, half hoping for a surprise.

"No," he replied flatly, his tone as cutting as ever. "Though it’s pretty stupid of you to even ask. I mean, isn’t it obvious by now? I get the same thing every day."

Ah, yes. Classic Sae. Always quick with the unnecessary criticism. What a great way to dampen your already mediocre morning.

"Well," you muttered, brushing off his remark with a hint of irritation, "it’s just that you always get the same thing. Don’t you ever want to try something else?"

Your tone betrayed your annoyance, but honestly, could anyone blame you?

"If I wanted something else, I would’ve asked for it already, don’t you think?"

Now he was just being a smartass.

"I get that," you scoffed, barely holding back your frustration, "but wouldn’t you want to at least try something different?" Your fists clenched at your sides, a subtle outlet for the irritation bubbling inside you.

Sae paused, his gaze steady as he studied you for a moment. Then, with a sigh, he finally said, "If I buy something else, will you stop nagging me about it?"

"I mean… I guess?" you replied, your uncertainty creeping into your voice. A simple "yes" felt too eager, but saying "no" would make it sound like you were intent on pestering him forever. You weren't a begger. Especially not to him.

Sae gave a curt nod and glanced at the display, scanning the selection before pointing at a pastry. "That one looks decent."

Your gaze followed his finger to the pastry in question. "Alright, then," you said, moving to grab a paper bag. Carefully, you placed the pastry inside, sealed it up, and handed it to him.

"That’ll be 645.87 yen," you muttered, barely meeting his eyes as you extended your hand. He handed you the money without a word, his expression unreadable as ever.

You let out a relieved sigh, assuming this was the part where Sae would leave, as he usually did.

Usually.

Just as you thought your morning might finally return to normal, Sae took a step, then stopped and turned back to face you.

You blinked, confused. Wasn’t he done here? Apparently not.

“Before I forget,” he began, his unwavering gaze fixed on you, “I have a match coming up against this program called Blue Lock. I want you to come watch.”

Your eyes widened slightly, your mouth parting in disbelief.

Did he just… personally invite you to his game?

“Wait… what?” you mumbled, still trying to process his words.

He let out an exasperated sigh, his expression tinged with impatience. “I said I want you to come to my match. You’re not deaf, are you?”

And just like that, your initial shock morphed into irritation.

Great. Just great.

“Well, can you blame me? It’s not every day a famous player invites someone they barely know,” you grumbled, narrowing your eyes at him.

Sae shrugged, resting a hand on his hip. “I don’t have anyone else to invite,” he admitted casually. “Besides, you’re not all that bad to talk to.”

Your eyebrow shot up. “What’s that supposed to mean?” you murmured, your tone skeptical.

He met your gaze without hesitation. “You’re someone I enjoy talking to. I’m sick of people who act all formal and fake around me, putting on some persona just because of who I am.” His voice was steady, almost nonchalant. “Not to mention the crazy fans. It’s exhausting.”

He paused, then added, “It’s refreshing talking to someone who doesn’t act like that.”

You didn’t know how to respond. Was he being serious? Judging by his expression, he didn’t seem like the type to lie about something like this.

Your chest tightened, your heartbeat picking up speed.

Were you nervous? Happy? Flustered?

It was hard to tell—everything about this felt foreign, yet oddly familiar. It left you feeling strangely vulnerable.

“Our conversations are also quite pleasant,” Sae added, his tone as flat as ever.

You blinked, your expression instantly deadpan. Did he really just call our “conversations” pleasant?

What a ridiculous statement. The only thing you two ever did was bicker—and by bicker, you meant he annoyed you to no end. Pleasant? Hardly.

You let out a sigh, equal parts confused and exasperated, before replying, “Sure, Sae. I’ll accept your invite.”

The words left your mouth before you could really think about them. Why had you said yes? You could’ve said no—you should’ve said no. That would’ve been the normal response. The usual you response.

But instead, you’d said the opposite.

Strange.

What’s been up with you lately?

"I'll text you the details," Sae said, snapping you out of your thoughts.

And with that, he finally left, pastry in hand, leaving you to process the whirlwind of emotions he'd stirred up.

…🌺…

One day.

The match against Blue Lock Eleven was just one day away.

It was strange—this was the first football match you’d ever been excited about, and honestly, it didn’t feel like you at all. You’d never cared much for sports. Until now.

Was it the thrill of having a big shot like Sae personally invite you to one of his games? Or was it the curiosity of experiencing a live sports match for the first time?

Probably a little bit of both.

But alongside the excitement, there was something else. Nerves.

Actually, scratch that—you were really nervous.

You’d have to go alone—not that being alone bothered you most of the time, but this was different. It would’ve been better to bring a friend.

Maybe Yuko? She could always go, right?

But then again, Sae had personally invited you. That probably meant he’d already arranged for a seat—most likely close to the field. And with how packed the stadium would be, there’d hardly be any open seats nearby. Everyone would be scrambling to get as close as possible.

You groaned, letting your head hang low in frustration.

Looked like you’d just have to suck it up.

“What’s got you looking so down in the dumps?”

You lifted your head, only to be met with none other than Yuko herself.

Speak of the devil.

"Nothing much. Just… thinking," you replied, straightening up to regain your composure.

Yuko raised an eyebrow and stepped closer, stopping just within arm's reach. "About what?"

"Just about an upcoming game," you murmured quietly, crossing your arms as you tried to mask your nerves.

"Why would you be stressed over a game?" Yuko asked, her expression turning confused as she looked at you.

You sighed, feeling the weight of your thoughts. It wouldn’t hurt to tell her, right?

"Well, it’s just that Sae Itoshi invited me to watch one of his games and—"

"WHAT?!" Yuko screamed, cutting you off mid-sentence.

You immediately felt your face flush in embarrassment as her loud shout turned every customer and employee's attention toward you both.

"Yuko! Keep it down!" you hissed, quickly covering her mouth to stop any further outbursts.

"Sborrey," Yuko mumbled, her voice muffled as you kept your hand over her mouth.

You slowly pulled your hand away, gripping her shoulders as you gave her a stern look. "Yuko… please don't shout like that," you grumbled, scolding her gently.

"Mmm, I’ll try," she awkwardly chuckled, a sweatdrop forming on her forehead.

"Anyway… what about Sae Itoshi?" Yuko whispered loudly, leaning so close to your face that you could feel her breath.

"I said, Sae Itoshi invited me to one of his games," you repeated, trying to stay calm.

She froze for a moment, eyes wide. "He… he personally invited you?!" Her voice trailed off in disbelief as she spoke loudly.

"Yuko!" You shot her a glare, but before you could speak again, she broke into a grin that looked almost too wide.

"Yes, he personally invited me," you murmured, now feeling even more awkward under her intense gaze.

"Oh my gosh… OH MY GOSH! Y/n, do you have any idea how lucky you are?!" Yuko practically shouted, her eyes sparkling with excitement. "Any girl would kill to have THE Sae Itoshi invite them to his game! How’d you do it? Did you seduce him? Or did you promise him se-”

"Yuko!" you shouted, quickly cutting off whatever inappropriate thought was about to escape her lips.

"Sorry, Y/n… but seriously, tell me! How?" Yuko urged, clasping her hands together with excitement.

You looked away, scratching your chin, before meeting her gaze again. "Well, he just said he enjoyed talking to me and then invited me," you said, trying to downplay the whole thing.

Yuko’s expression immediately dropped, and she stared at you, incredulous. "Are you kidding me? That's it? No love confession or anything?"

"Um… no," you replied, still staring at her, not entirely sure how to react to her reaction.

"Ugh, that's so lame!" Yuko huffed, tugging at her hair in frustration. "Y/n, I thought you were better than this!"

"What do you mean—?"

"Never mind!" Yuko cut you off with an exasperated sigh. "Well, regardless, this is the first time I’ve heard of Sae Itoshi taking an interest in someone he barely knows enough to invite them to his game." She grinned mischievously, raising her eyebrows up and down as she looked you over.

"Yeah… I was kind of shocked myself," you replied, brushing off her teasing with a nonchalant shrug.

"He's definitely interested in you, Y/n!" Yuko exclaimed, grabbing hold of your arm in excitement.

You deadpanned, staring at her in disbelief. Really? The Sae Itoshi, interested in you? What a joke.

But even as you dismissed it, you couldn’t help but wonder. Why had he invited you? Sure, maybe it was because he enjoyed talking to someone who wasn’t fawning over him like the rest of the world, but was that really all?

Is that really all it took?

"You're funny, Yuko," you murmured, gently shaking her off.

"Aww, c’mon, Y/nnnieee!" Yuko whined, practically bouncing on her feet. "He invited you! He could’ve picked anyone else who was 'sane,' but he chose you!" She emphasized the word sane with a teasing grin.

"Yuko, you’re just making this into something it’s not. It’s probably nothing," you said, brushing it off as you started to move away and continue your shift.

If Yuko could, she would have slapped some sense into you.

She hated when you were this oblivious. "You’re hopeless, Y/n," Yuko groaned, shaking her head as she let you do your thing.

With that, Yuko left, leaving you alone with your thoughts.

Great. Now her words were swirling in your mind, filled with what ifs.

It felt strange—almost disorienting—as your heartbeat quickened along with the rise of these thoughts.

This was definitely not like you. It only made you feel more stressed and confused.

Maybe Yuko was right. You really were hopeless.

Although who could blame you, after everything you've been through?

…🌺…

SAE! SAE! SAE! SAE!" The crowd roared his name, their voices blending into a thunderous chant as the prodigy scored the first goal.

You were completely mesmerized, entranced by his skill. For a moment, you forgot all about the nerves that had been eating at you since this morning.

…(right before the match)…

Come on, Y/N, you'll be fine," Yuko had said earlier, her tone reassuring. "But what if I get lost?" you had asked, chewing on your lip. "I highly doubt that," she replied with a smirk.

Yuko had been trying to comfort you as she drove up to the entrance of the stadium. Since you didn’t have a car, she’d offered to drop you off. Out of the kindness of her heart, she even gave you a full pep talk on the way.

You sighed, sinking further into the passenger seat. "I just don’t get why you can’t take the day off and come with me," you murmured.

Rolling her eyes, Yuko shot you a look. "Y/N, I have another job. I don’t exactly have the luxury to tag along with you today.”

You knew about Yuko's other job. She had told you just yesterday when you asked her to come with you. Still, the idea of navigating a building packed with thousands of people on your own felt overwhelming.

"As much as I love you, Y/N... you need to get out of my car. I'm going to be late," Yuko said, leaning over to push open the passenger-side door.

The word love made you flinch slightly. You weren’t used to hearing it, at least not like that.

"Yuko..." you mumbled, watching her gesture impatiently at the open door.

"Y/N, you’re going to be fine," she said with a firm but reassuring tone. "Just ask someone for directions!"

You hesitated for a moment before sighing. "Fine. Since when did you want me gone so badly?" you asked, feigning offense as you shot her a playful glare.

"Ever since you started making me late!" Yuko shot back, her voice exasperated but light. "Come on, Y/N!"

She kept nudging you to get out, her urgency growing by the second. Despite yourself, you couldn’t help but laugh a little as you finally stepped out of the car.

"Okay, okay!" you chuckled softly as you finally stepped out of Yuko's car.

You shut the door with a solid slam and turned toward the stadium entrance. Glancing back one last time, you caught Yuko waving at you before she drove off. A frown crept onto your face as your attention shifted to the massive doors ahead.

Taking a deep breath, you stepped inside. Instantly, it felt as though someone was twisting your insides. The nerves hit hard.

You wandered through the bustling halls, clutching your ticket like it was a lifeline. But the moment you found your seat, it was like someone flipped a switch. All those negative emotions—gone, replaced by excitement and anticipation.

_______

“GO SAE!" you shouted along with the crowd as he made a goal, cupping your hands around your mouth as if that would make your voice reach him. Deep down, you knew he couldn’t possibly hear you over the deafening roar of the fans chanting his name.

Still, you couldn’t help but grin. You hadn’t expected to enjoy this, not really. But here you were, caught up in the moment, cheering louder than you thought possible.

You smiled, your gaze fixed on the prodigy dominating the field. Admiration filled you, though you couldn’t tell if it was just for his skill—or if there was something more.

From your reserved seat—the one he had bought for you—you watched him intently. And then his eyes found yours.

Your breath hitched as Sae locked eyes with you. The moment stretched, and the longer it did, the warmer you felt, your cheeks heating under his piercing stare. Was that a good thing?

Your palms grew clammy, your heart racing wildly in your chest. And then, just as you thought the intensity might be too much, he smirked. It was a sly, almost teasing look, as if to say, Did you see that?

Your eyes widened slightly as you took in his expression. For the first time, you saw something beyond boredom or disinterest—even anger—on his face. It was subtle, but it was there—a spark of something you couldn’t quite name.

Still, you preferred this over his usual expressionless gaze. That smirk, that piercing look—it made you feel something.

But as much as you enjoyed it, you hated it too. It felt familiar, painfully so. And familiar wasn’t safe. It was dangerous.

You’d felt this way before, and it hadn’t ended well. It left you shattered, broken in ways you swore you���d never let happen again. You couldn’t afford to risk those consequences a second time.

Forcing yourself to breathe deeply, you tried to steady your thoughts, keeping your composure as you held his gaze. Part of you wanted him to look away, to release you from the unspoken tension. Yet another part... didn’t.

It was as if the gods decided for you when Sae finally turned his attention back to the field.

You exhaled sharply, feeling your heart begin to slow. But even as relief washed over you, those lingering feelings—the ones you tried so hard to suppress—still churned within, refusing to let go.

It seemed these lingering "feelings" would take their time to fade, refusing to settle easily.

_______

“Come on, just give me your number, pretty boy!"

Sae didn’t even acknowledge the man’s bold remark, brushing it off as if it hadn’t been said.

Your attention shifted to the source of the comment—a guy with blond hair, the tips dyed pink. He stood out, to say the least. Odd, maybe, but he certainly wasn’t shy.

The game was already in its second half, and you felt more alive and energized than ever. You never imagined you’d enjoy something like this—not in a million years.

The next match was about to start, and you could feel the tension crackling in the air. It radiated from the players on the field and the roaring crowd around you.

They were tied.

This next goal could decide it all.

You sat on the edge of your seat, anticipation coursing through you. Deep down, you hoped for U-20 to win.

Not that you cared too much about the outcome—your loyalty was simple. Sae was on U-20, and he was the only reason you even knew about the team.

Your eyes widened as the player named Shidou seamlessly linked up with Sae. Together, they were nothing short of monsters. Their aggressive, fast-paced gameplay was unmatched, almost unreal. With every precise pass and powerful stride, they closed in on the goal.

But fate had other plans.

In a sudden turn of events, Blue Lock Eleven intercepted the ball. Before you could fully process what was happening, a player named Isagi launched the final shot.

The ball hit the back of the net.

For a heartbeat, the stadium fell silent. Then, chaos erupted—screams, cheers, and a deafening roar from the crowd.

You exhaled a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding. The tension had gripped you so tightly it felt as though the game had you in a chokehold. It was exhilarating—every second of it.

As the crowd began to disperse, you quickly gathered your belongings. But before heading out to meet Yuko, you decided there was one thing you had to do. You needed to see Sae.

Walking down the hallways, you peeked into every room, hoping to find Sae in one of them.

By the time you reached the last door, there was still no sign of him. Where the hell was he?

Letting out a frustrated huff, you pulled your head back and turned to leave. But before you could take another step, you bumped into someone.

"Ah—I'm sorry! Please forgive me, I wasn't paying attenti—"

"Do you always apologize this much, or what?"

You froze. That voice—of course, you knew that voice.

Your head snapped up, and sure enough, there he was. Sae.

"Oh, it’s just you," you said, letting out a breath. "I’ve been looking for you."

"For what?" Sae asked, his sharp gaze fixed on you, his tone as unreadable as ever.

Was he really this dense?

"To congratulate you. Why else?" you said, arching a brow at him.

Sae locked eyes with you, and once again, your heart betrayed you, picking up speed as the silence stretched. Finally, he spoke.

"What’s there to congratulate? We lost," he said flatly.

"Still, you played well," you replied earnestly.

"I guess," Sae muttered, his tone dismissive.

Your jaw tightened. Somehow, he always found a way to get under your skin.

"Could you show a little more gratitude than just ‘I guess’?" you grumbled, shifting your weight onto one foot, irritation bubbling over.

"And what do you want me to say?" he asked, his sharp eyes glancing over your figure.

"A simple ‘thank you’ would be nice," you shot back, your tone dripping with frustration.

Sae stood there, quiet for a moment. Then, in a low voice, he murmured, "Thank you."

It wasn’t much, but it was enough to catch you off guard.

You couldn’t help but smile at his response. “That’s much better. See? It wasn’t that hard, was it?” you teased, your smile unwavering.

Sae took in your smile, then shot back with a snarky reply, “What, do you want me to pick an answer that’ll satisfy you?”

Your smile faltered, and you stared at him, baffled. What was his deal? “Never mind... forget I said anything,” you muttered, letting out a sharp sigh.

A heavy silence fell between you both. It lingered, uncomfortable, as neither of you knew what to say next.

Just as you were about to break the silence, Sae spoke first

“Its best if i get goi-“

“Would you like to have dinner with me sometime?”

Sae quickly mumbled as he cut you off, his voice quieter than usual, almost as if he regretted asking.

You blinked, stunned, processing his words slowly. “Huh?” you whispered, your heart skipping a beat. It took a moment for the question to fully sink in. Did he really just ask you that?

Did Sae Itoshi—the Sae Itoshi—just ask you out to dinner?

You stood there, unsure whether you had heard him correctly, your mind racing. Sae, the same guy who had been so indifferent and sharp with you, was now asking you to dinner? The idea felt so out of place, yet somehow, it didn’t seem like a joke.

The silence stretched again, and you wondered if he was waiting for your response.

“Uh, Sae, can I ask why?" you muttered, still reeling from shock.

Sae let out an irritated grumble before responding. "I said it before, didn’t I? You’re the only person who doesn’t go crazy over me. Is it wrong to want some company?" His tone made it clear he was turning this back on you.

"Well, not exactly, no—"

"Then why is it such a problem for you?" he interrupted sharply.

You stood there, staring at him, utterly confused. Why was he blaming you now?

"It’s not a problem," you replied, trying to keep your voice steady. "It’s just… surprising, that’s all."

But Sae wasn’t ready to let it go. "Why is it such a shocker?" His agitation was growing more obvious.

"It’s not—actually, never mind," you sighed, feeling the frustration creeping in.

You knew this conversation wasn’t going anywhere, and continuing would only make things worse.

Sae let out a satisfied hum, as if your response had confirmed everything he wanted to hear.

Silence crept back in, heavy and uncomfortable. You shifted your gaze elsewhere, refusing to look at him. Something about meeting his eyes made your stomach swirl uneasily.

It was the opposite for Sae, though. His piercing gaze stayed locked on you, sharp and unrelenting like a hawk stalking its prey. He hadn’t looked away from you once.

"So? Your answer?" Sae’s voice cut through the quiet, calm yet demanding.

You responded quickly, almost too quickly. "Uh, yeah. I can. Sure.

Sae's eyes narrowed slightly. You hadn’t even looked at him when you spoke, and for some reason, that ticked him off.

"Why don’t you look at me when I’m talking to you?" he asked, his voice laced with irritation. It was clear he wasn’t just annoyed—he was genuinely angry.

Wow. What a way to cross boundaries, huh?

Still, he had a point.

Why weren’t you looking at him? Why did your palms feel clammy when he stood so close? Why did your heart race like it was trying to escape your chest? Why were you all fidgety?

It couldn’t possibly mean you liked him.

No, of course not. You were just… nervous. Right?

It had to be nerves. This was the longest time any guy had spoken to you, after all. Most of them usually got what they wanted and left.

Actually, thinking about that now made you feel ridiculous—like you were some kind of attention seeker.

Or maybe it was because you felt so small, so insignificant, under the weight of his gaze. His presence was overwhelming, suffocating—a constant reminder of how much larger than life he was. A big shot. Someone untouchable.

And yet, that only made you feel more pathetic.

But what did you really feel?

Maybe—just maybe—he had grown on you. Maybe you had caught feelings. But was it because he stayed longer than anyone else ever had? That thought alone made you feel queasy. It felt wrong.

Desperate.

Attention seeker.

The words echoed in your mind like a cruel whisper. You hated the sound of it. You didn’t want that to be the truth.

But what if you did like him? What if it wasn’t just nerves, or loneliness, or some desperate grasp at the closest thing to affection?

You’d considered the possibility, of course. You weren’t naïve enough to ignore it. But you refused to let it be true.

You weren’t ready—not for this, not for him, not for the chance of heartbreak all over again.

You’d been through it countless times before. And you weren’t sure you could survive it again.

If that’s how you felt—if you really did like him—but he ended up taking what he wanted and leaving like all the others… would you even be able to pick up the pieces this time?

The thought alone was unbearable, and it crushed any shred of hope you might have clung to.

It dampened your mood, dragging it into a deeper, darker place. You wanted to pull back, retreat while you still could. But it was too late now.

"Did you even hear me? What’s up with you and being deaf?"

His sharp tone cut through your thoughts, snapping you back to the present. The weight of your emotions dulled, if only for a moment, as irritation took their place.

"I'm not deaf," you muttered, your voice dripping with frustration.

"I doubt that," Sae shot back without missing a beat.

Resentment bubbled inside you, but before you could fully process it, Sae’s voice broke through again. "At least you’re looking at me now."

That stopped you cold.

He was right. You were looking at him now.

Your emotions screeched to a halt, forced into submission by the weight of his words. You didn’t even realize when you’d started meeting his gaze, but now there you were, staring back at him.

It felt like standing in the middle of a battlefield, with nowhere left to run.

"That aside, what time should I pick you up?" Sae asked casually, as if the question was of no real importance to him.

Your eyes widened. Right… you’d agreed to the dinner he offered.

"Uh… anytime in the afternoon is fine," you mumbled, struggling to find your voice.

"5:30 then?" he suggested, his tone as nonchalant as ever.

"Yeah, that should work," you nodded, quickly running through your mental schedule.

"See you on Sunday, then," Sae said abruptly before turning on his heel and walking off, his dismissal clear.

"Yeah… Sunday," you murmured softly, even though you knew he couldn’t hear you. He was already out the door.

The moment he left, you let out an exhausted sigh, your body finally relaxing. You hadn’t even realized how stiff you’d been.

But before you could fully unwind, your phone buzzed in your pocket. With a weary hand, you pulled it out, unsure of what—or who—was waiting for you now.

"Yuko 🤡."

The contact name flashed across your screen, pulling you out of your thoughts. Right—Yuko was supposed to pick you up.

You stared at the screen for a moment before silencing the call, deciding not to answer. There wasn’t much to say anyway, and your head felt too cluttered to hold a conversation right now.

Shoving the phone back into your pocket, you hurried toward the exit. Each step felt heavier than the last, as if the weight of the earlier exchange with Sae was dragging behind you.

You needed air. You needed to think. And maybe—just maybe—a way to stop the relentless pounding in your chest.

_______

As you stepped out of the building, the familiar sound of Yuko’s voice greeted you.

"Why didn’t you answer my call?!" she exclaimed, leaning halfway out the driver’s side window, her dramatic tone impossible to miss.

You rolled your eyes, suppressing a tired smile. "What about it? I’m here now, aren’t I? Be grateful I even saw your call."

Yuko gasped, hand to her chest as if deeply offended. "The audacity!"

You chuckled softly, shaking your head as you opened the car door and slid into the passenger seat. Her over-the-top antics were a welcome distraction from the weight still lingering in your chest.

"Sooo," she began, eyes glinting with curiosity as she waited for the seatbelt to click, "how was the game?"

"It was good," you replied, sinking into the seat as the exhaustion caught up to you. "Better than I expected."

Yuko hummed, pulling onto the road, but her sideways glance told you she wasn’t entirely convinced by your answer.

"Better than you expected, huh? Was it because Sae Itoshi was there?" Yuko teased, her grin wide as she navigated the familiar route to your beloved sanctuary—home.

You groaned, tilting your head against the seat to glare at her. "No, it wasn’t just because he was there," you grumbled, your tone sharp enough to match your annoyance.

"Oh, really? Well, if you say so…" she chuckled, clearly not buying it.

"Believe what you want, Yuko," you huffed, rolling your eyes. You knew she wouldn’t let it go, but you were too drained to argue.

"Okay, okay," she said, feigning surrender before flashing you another sly glance. "So, if it’s not because of Sae—according to you—what made it better than you expected?"

Her words hung in the air for a moment.

You hesitated, staring out the window as you mulled over her question. The truth was painfully obvious: it was mostly because of Sae. But you’d rather bite your tongue than admit that out loud.

Finally, you hummed, masking your thoughts. “The players were really skilled, and the game was super intense. I was honestly very impressed by their amazing footwork.”

Yuko raised an eyebrow, sparing you a glance as she drove. "Mmm-hmm. Sure, it was all about their footwork," she said, her tone dripping with playful disbelief.

You crossed your arms and leaned back, determined to let the conversation end there. At least, that’s what you told yourself.

You weren’t lying about the players’ skill. They really did keep you on the edge of your seat, and the game had been incredible.

"But damn… now you’re making me regret not going," Yuko groaned, dramatically slumping her head onto the steering wheel. Luckily, you were stopped at a red light. "Having more than one job sucks!"

You laughed, unable to help yourself. "It was a fun game," you admitted, watching her over-the-top display.

Yuko sighed heavily, the light turning green as she straightened up and began driving again. "Rub it in why don’t you," she muttered, though her grin betrayed her fake annoyance.

It didn’t take long for the car to fill with her usual nonsense—playful jabs, ridiculous theories, and random observations that seemed to come out of nowhere.

You quarreled the whole way home, with her spouting dumb, shitty jokes and exaggerated stories, while you did your best to tolerate it—barely. Still, there was a comfort in the banter, her chatter distracting you from the quiet heaviness that had lingered after Sae.

By the time you pulled into your driveway, you felt lighter, even if just a little.

…🌺…

Seeing the taillights of her car disappear into the night, you let out a heavy sigh and dropped onto the couch. The weight of the evening pressed down on you as you tossed the apartment keys onto the coffee table. The sharp jingle and dull clack of metal meeting wood cut through the silence, a momentary distraction as you sank deeper into the plush cushions.

Your expression darkened, a frown tugging at the corners of your lips. Why? Why was it always Sae that haunted your thoughts, filling your mind with questions you didn’t want to answer? No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t shake the lingering echoes of your earlier conversation with him.

The date you’d agreed to—it was just two days away. The thought twisted your stomach into knots. You wanted to back out, to call it off before it began, but the idea of standing someone up felt even worse. Disappointment was something you despised, even more so when you were the one responsible for it.

A frustrated groan escaped your lips as you buried your face in your hands, rubbing at your skin with rough, almost punishing force. Agitation bubbled beneath the surface, a bombardment of emotions you couldn’t quite name. The room felt suffocating, the silence too loud, and yet all you could do was sit there, wrestling with a decision you didn’t know how to make.

You dropped your hands into your lap, staring blankly ahead as your thoughts swirled like a relentless storm, each one louder and more suffocating than the last. The idea of possibly liking him—or worse, getting attached—clawed at your mind. It was a question you couldn’t stop asking yourself, no matter how much you wanted to bury it.

You clung to the hope that it was merely the second option, attachment. Even though you despised both possibilities, the latter felt like the safer bet. Safer, because it didn’t require vulnerability. Safer, because it didn’t come with the promise of heartbreaking pain.

But the thought of giving yourself to someone—as a lover, as a partner—sent a wave of nausea through you. It was too much. The mere idea of trusting someone with the fragile pieces of your heart again was unbearable. You’d rather push them away, let them detach cleanly and painlessly, than risk being left exposed, broken, and abandoned once more.

Hope? No, that was long gone. It had slipped through your fingers like sand, scattering into nothingness long before tonight. You had stopped believing in the gentle caresses and warm embraces of true love. Those things weren’t meant for you. They were for people who hadn’t already been shattered. People who hadn’t spent years picking up pieces they could never fit back together.

You slumped further into the couch, letting the weight of that realization press down on you. The silence wrapped itself around your thoughts, heavy and suffocating, as the void within you grew wider. If love had ever been a possibility, it wasn’t anymore. And you’d made peace with that. Or so you told yourself.

…🌺…

As the hours passed, your anxiety and stress got worse.

You were basically going to have a ‘date’ with Sae in less than 24 hours. And of course with the weight of this realization—it didnt help as Yuko was nagging your ear off as usual.

”Oh come on Y/n, are you even listening to me?”

“Sorry Yuko, what was that?”

You were pulled away from your thoughts as Yuko called you out.

Yuko gave you a slight scowl before returning to her unnecessary speech. However, as soon as she started speaking, your mind subconsciously ignored her words as you began to think about it Sae once more.

It started to become a habit now—thinking about Sae. It was indeed a troublesome habit you’ll admit, but you couldn't help it.

It’s weird. A guy with few words who started showing up at the place you worked at not that long ago—now starting to take such an impactful and heavy toll on you? It was something you could have never predicted.

“And then she thought it was a good idea too—Y/n!” Yuko shouted, grabbing your attention once more.

Your gaze snapped back to Yuko as you were met with an angry look. “Sorry Yuko.” you apologized.

“Are you serious Y/n? Is my story not that entertaining to you?” Yuko spoke as she took a step closer.

“No that's not it all. It's just…somethings been on my mind lately.” you spoke earnestly.

“Spill.” She demanded, not wasting a breath.

You let out a soft chuckle at her antics as you basically gave her a rundown on the encounter with Sae.

_______

“Y-You mean…its an actual DATE?!” Yuko shouted as a very unnatural, wide grin overtook her face.

“Uh I guess..” you sweatdropped, taking a step away from Yuko.

Yuko squealed like a fangirl as she ran up to you, squeezing the life out of you as she gave you her signature hug, pushing your face down to the plush of her breasts.

“Yuko! That's enough…” You mumbled out as she had you caged in.

Yuko reluctantly let you go as she gave you some space.

“Y/n, I told you. WHAT DID I SAY FROM THE BEGGINING! This man is into you! And its Sae Itoshi out of all these men!

“Yuko…its just a friendly date. He's not into me like that…I think.” You spoke with a bit of uncertainty.

“Why are you in denial Y/n?! I have never heard from the media or anywhere of Sae Itoshi inviting a girl he just met not that long ago to dinner just for ‘friendly talk’. I am telling you he's into YOU!” Yuko rambled on, getting some sense into your head.

“Yuko…i think your overlooking this maybe a bit too much,” you mumbled as you tried to drop Yuko’s accusations.

Yuko paused. She slowly turned her head towards you with a deadpan expression. “Are you fucking with me right now?”

“Y/n…are you fucking serious right now?” Yuko spoke with an alarming calm tone.

Yuko took a couple step towards you as she stared you down. An unreadable glint flashed in her eyes as she stood quiet. “If I could Y/n…i would beat you senseless if it means I can finally get this through your head. Its a shame I love you too much to do that.” Yuko finally spoke as she let out a sigh.

“Do I take that as a threat or…” you mumbled, slightly startled by her actions and words.

“Nope!” Yuko chuckled as she stepped away from you. “Ill let you be Y/n. But trust me when I say he’s interested.” Yuko voiced as she looked at you.

“How can you be certain though Yuko?” you spoke.

Yuko smiled at you before she left. Her steps slowly receding as she gave you one last glance before leaving you to do your job. “I know men, Y/n.”

…🌺…

“I'll pick you up. What's your address?"

"It's *****”

"Alright. I'll be there in about 10 minutes."

You set your phone down on the nightstand, releasing a shaky exhale. Even texting Sae was nerve-wracking.

Rising slowly from the couch, you headed into your bedroom to give yourself one last look in the mirror. You didn’t want to seem underdressed—not for a date with Sae. Oh, especially not with the Sae Itoshi.

Dragging your feet across the creaking floorboards, you pushed open the bedroom door. You stopped short in front of the full-length mirror, taking a moment to steel yourself.

You stared at yourself, your own reflection staring back. But the image before you felt foreign, like a mask you no longer recognized. The girl in the mirror seemed whole, unbroken, but you knew better—everything she showed was a lie. Beneath her composed surface was the weight of every heartbreak, every whispered promise that shattered like glass.

You saw your past in her eyes, a pool of anguish and betrayal. Men who touched but never stayed, who spoke of love yet only took what they wanted—leaving nothing but fragments of yourself behind. They had used you, consumed you, and discarded you, their intentions never pure, their affection hollow. You craved love, dreamed of it as something beautiful, but each experience taught you the same painful truth: love wasn’t real. It was an illusion, a cruel trick life played to make you believe in something that didn’t exist.

And yet, as much as you wanted to give up, as much as the mirror whispered that hope was foolish, you couldn’t stop the ache. The craving for love was carved within you. You wanted to be held, cherished, seen—not for what you could offer, but for who you were. But with each passing day, fear groped tighter around your heart. What if love would only break you again? What if the cost of trying was more than you could bear?

You longed for someone to prove you wrong, to show you love wasn’t just a fantasy crafted by movies and books. But even that hope felt dangerous. Could you risk it? Could you open the door to your heart one more time, knowing it could destroy you if it all fell apart again? If someone could rewrite what love means to you, would you let them?

It was odd. Very odd, indeed, that in the midst of such vile and upsetting thoughts, Sae appeared in your mind.

But why?

Why was it him who came to mind?

You’d only known the guy for barely two months. Was that really enough time to feel yourself growing... attached? The thought was confusing—so confusing it made your head spin.

A frown crept across your face. Yes, confusing was the perfect word. It was almost impossible to imagine Sae and love in the same sentence. The word felt foreign and distant, like it belonged to a language you could never hope to understand.

The sudden chime of your doorbell snapped you out of your thoughts. Sae was here. How much time had passed?

You grabbed your belongings in a rush, practically stumbling to the front door. Pausing for a moment, you let out a deep breath, steadying yourself. The nerves were hitting you like a shit ton of bricks, threatening to overwhelm you.

But you could manage. At least, you hoped you could.

You opened the door, and there he was—Sae Itoshi, standing casually yet exuding that air of quiet confidence he always seemed to carry.

Your eyes trailed over his figure, taking in his outfit: a brown blazer layered over a plain white T-shirt and a pair of fitted black pants that somehow managed to look both fitted and effortlessly relaxed.

As you took in his appearance, it seemed he was doing the same to you.

“You actually look decent for once. I was half-expecting your outfit to be as bad as those crappy work uniforms,” Sae remarked, his tone as dry as ever.

Of course. Not a single day passed without at least one of his signature insults.

“Thanks. You don’t look bad yourself,” you muttered, biting back your irritation—a skill you’d honed to near perfection in these past two months.

Sae let out a low hum, a sound that could almost be mistaken for agreement. The corners of his lips tugged upward ever so slightly, a ghost of a smile flickering across his face. “The car’s outside. Let’s go.”

You gave a short nod and stepped out, pausing only to lock the door behind you. The cool night air greeted you as you followed him down the path, nerves still fluttering in your chest but your steps steady enough to keep up.

You followed behind Sae as he led the way to his car, his confident strides making it clear he expected you to keep up. When you reached the sleek vehicle, he headed straight for the driver’s side without so much as a glance in your direction.

What a gentleman.

Suppressing an irritated sigh, you opened the passenger door yourself and slid into the seat. As you settled in, your gaze drifted—unbidden—to Sae. His hands, calloused and veined, gripped the handle firmly as he opened his door. Slim, strong, and steady, they were surprisingly... attractive.

A sudden warmth rushed to your cheeks, and you blinked, snapping yourself out of it. Really? Were you seriously paying attention to his hands? This wasn’t like you. But, embarrassingly, you could now understand Yuko’s endless rants about the appeal of a man’s hands.

You shook the thought away, pressing your lips into a thin line as Sae slid into the driver’s seat. He shot you a brief glance, his teal eyes sharp, curious, but ultimately uninterested enough to probe further.

“So, uh... you have a destination in mind?” you asked, your voice cutting through the awkward silence.

“Of course. I wouldn’t have invited you if I didn’t have a place in mind, would I?” Sae replied, his tone matter-of-fact as he started the car.

“Yeah...” you mumbled, feeling a little embarrassed by your question. Why was it always so hard to hold a normal conversation with this man?

The drive was quiet at first, the low hum of the engine filling the space. But you couldn’t help noticing Sae glancing at you every so often, his teal eyes flicking toward you before quickly returning to the road. It wasn’t subtle—he was clearly taking in your appearance.

The attention made you squirm slightly in your seat, the silence growing heavier with every glance. Finally, you broke it. “Do I have something on my face or...?”

Sae’s gaze shifted fully to you for a brief moment, his expression calm but entirely unreadable. Caught in the act, it seemed. “No,” he said, his voice as smooth and detached as always. “I’m just... still surprised you managed to look this put together outside of your uniform.”

“Put together?” you repeated, eyebrows raising as you tried to determine whether or not to be offended.

“Yeah. You look good.”

The words landed like a wave out of the blue. Your eyes widened, and an undeniable blush crept across your cheeks.

Sae Itoshi—the Sae Itoshi—just said you looked good.

You opened your mouth, searching for a response, but nothing came out. All you could do was turn your gaze toward the window, attempting to hide the warmth that flooded your cheeks. Meanwhile, Sae returned his attention to the road, his expression as unreadable as ever, as if he hadn’t just sent your heart racing.

Your stomach churned, a confusing mix of queasiness and ecstasy, while your heart hammered relentlessly in your chest. You hated it—and enjoyed it at the same time.

Out of the corner of your eye, you caught Sae glancing at you through the faint reflection in the window. A quiet chuckle escaped his lips, low and rich, breaking the silence in the car.

The sound sent a shiver down your spine. It was a rare, almost musical laugh that you hadn’t heard from him before.

Your ears perked up instinctively, and before you could stop yourself, you turned to look at him. Sae’s face, usually so composed and indifferent, held the faintest trace of a smile. The corners of his lips curved softly, and even his sharp teal eyes seemed to soften, crinkling ever so slightly with the expression.

His smile—rare and beautiful—was utterly mesmerizing. His smile resembled something of a masterpiece, delicate and breathtaking, like standing before the most sacred painting in a museum. The kind of art that pulls you in, making the world fade around you, leaving only the singular beauty in front of you. The curve of his lips, the gentle crinkle at the corners of his eyes, the faintest hint of warmth softening his usually stoic expression—it all felt impossibly sacred. It was the kind of sight that engraved itself into your memory, refusing to be forgotten.

"You laughed," you whispered, your voice barely above a breath, as if speaking too loudly would shatter the fragile perfection of the moment. Your gaze stayed fixed on him, wide-eyed and awestruck, unable to look away.

His expression shifted, the corners of his mouth faltered yet still tilted upward, though now tinged with faint curiosity at your reaction. You barely noticed. The sight of him like this—so unguarded, so human—had stolen every ounce of your focus, making your chest ache with something you couldn’t put into words.

“Am I not allowed? Why is it such a shock to you that I can smile?” Sae asked, the same soft expression lingering on his face as he spoke.

Your face flushed with embarrassment. “No, that’s not what I meant! It’s just... I’ve never seen you make any expression other than annoyance or indifference,” you said earnestly, your words tumbling out before you could stop them.

Sae tilted his head slightly, as though your statement was absurd. “I’m not some expressionless robot. You do realize that, right?” he replied, his usual sarcasm laced with a surprisingly lighthearted tone.

Before you could open your mouth to defend yourself, his voice cut in again, smooth and unbothered.

“Well, would you look at that—we’re here.”

_______

The restaurant was... nice. No, very nice. The kind of nice that made you sit a little straighter in your chair and second-guess your outfit. Everything from the polished marble floors to the soft glow of chandeliers above screamed luxury. You couldn’t help but feel out of place.

You’d never set foot in a restaurant like this before—linen napkins folded like origami, waiters moving with the precision of dancers. It wasn’t hard to imagine that Sae frequented places like this. He looked perfectly at home, his tailored outfit exuding effortless sophistication. Even his so-called “casual” attire seemed worlds apart from your own, and the subtle glint of jewelry he always wore hinted at an expensive taste you couldn’t begin to comprehend.

"Have you decided what to order yet?" Sae’s calm voice broke through your thoughts. He was still scanning the menu, his expression unreadable as ever.

You glanced back at the glossy menu in your hands, the rows of elegant dish names doing little to help your decision. "No, not really," you admitted, glancing up at him. "Everything looks good. I can’t decide."

Sae set his menu down, his gaze shifting to you with that steady confidence of his. "Then order whatever you find even slightly appetizing," he said, as though it was the simplest solution in the world.

You hesitated, your eyes lingering on him as you wrestled with a pang of guilt. "Are you sure? Is that okay...?" you asked softly, your voice trailing off. The weight of the prices on the menu and the sheer grandeur of the place were making you second-guess everything.

"Y/n, I have more than enough to cover the meal," Sae said, his tone as casual as ever. He leaned back slightly, glancing around the restaurant with an almost bored expression. "I could buy this entire place if I wanted to."

Wow. Nothing quite like Sae's unintentional flexes to remind you just how wide the gap was between your lives. Standing next to him on any given day was enough to make you feel like an unemployed, wandering vagabond.

"Ah, right. I forgot how disgustingly rich you are," you grumbled under your breath, a sigh slipping past your lips as you slouched back into your chair.

He didn’t react, just offered you a faint shrug as if to say, Well, it’s true.

Soon enough, the waiter returned, and you gave your order, still feeling a pang of guilt for indulging in food you weren’t even sure you’d like. But as the thought lingered, you steeled yourself. Actually, no—screw the guilt. If Sae wanted to flaunt his wealth and bring you to a place like this, the least you could do was enjoy it. Think of it as compensation for dealing with his bluntness and lack of tact on a daily basis. Yes, this was your reward.

Still, the moments after the waiter left were... awkward. Sitting across from Sae in silence was like waiting for a storm that may or may not ever hit. The quiet wasn’t necessarily tense, but it wasn’t exactly comfortable either. You debated pulling out your phone but ultimately decided against it. It would feel rude, and you weren’t about to be that person.

To your surprise, Sae broke the silence first.

"So," he began, his voice low but steady, "how was your day?"

You blinked, caught off guard by the sudden shift. "Uh... it was fine, I guess. Nothing exciting," you replied, wondering what had prompted him to initiate small talk.

He nodded, his gaze fixed on you in a way that made it clear he wasn’t just asking out of politeness. "Do you have any pets?" he asked next, his tone still casual but carrying a thread of genuine curiosity.

The question made you pause. This was... new. Sae wasn’t exactly known for his conversational efforts, and yet here he was, actively engaging. You decided to roll with it. "No, I don’t, but I’ve always wanted a dog," you admitted, a small smile tugging at your lips. "What about you? I can’t imagine you having time for a pet."

He shrugged again, the corners of his mouth twitching ever so slightly. "You’re right. Too much effort," he said simply, though there was a faint amusement in his tone.

The conversation had been flowing smoothly, surprisingly so, until Sae’s next question brought it to an abrupt halt.

"Have you dated anyone?" he asked, his voice casual but direct, the weight of his gaze making it impossible to avoid.

Your eyes widened slightly at the unexpected question, and for a moment, you froze. Quickly, you composed yourself, forcing a small, nonchalant smile onto your face. "Yeah, actually. I’ve dated a couple of people," you replied evenly, though your voice carried a faint tension that betrayed you.

Sae’s sharp eyes didn’t miss it. He wasn’t just observant—he was a prodigy at reading between the lines, piecing together the truths people tried to hide. The brief flicker of discomfort that passed over your face before you answered didn’t go unnoticed. He didn’t pry, though. Instead, he filed it away silently, as if respecting a boundary you hadn’t explicitly set.

"Well, what about you?" you asked, seizing the opportunity to shift the focus onto him. Your tone was light, almost teasing, though a part of you was genuinely curious. "Have you dated anyone?"

Sae leaned back in his chair, letting out a quiet hum as if considering how much he wanted to say. "Not really," he began, his tone even. "Just a couple."

You raised an eyebrow, surprised by his candor.

"The girls I dated were... aggravating," he admitted with a sigh, tilting his head back and closing his eyes briefly. His expression was calm, but the faint furrow in his brow suggested lingering annoyance. "They wanted too much. Too clingy, too demanding. I couldn’t stand it."

A small chuckle slipped past your lips, the sound light and unrestrained. "That’s surprising," you said with a laugh, covering your mouth with the back of your hand as if to stifle it.

Sae opened his eyes at your reaction, turning his attention to you. For a moment, he didn’t speak, his gaze steady as it lingered on your face. He studied you—the curve of your smile, the sparkle in your eyes that hadn’t been there a moment ago. Finally, he broke the silence. "How so?"

Your laughter quieted, but a playful smile lingered as you met his gaze. "Well, you don’t exactly look—or act—like the type of guy who indulges in relationships," you admitted, leaning back slightly in your chair.

Sae cocked an eyebrow, his expression unreadable at first. Then, a small smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. "Really? That’s funny, because at first, you didn’t look like the type of girl to even know what a relationship is," he quipped, the smugness in his tone unmistakable.

You blinked, caught off guard by the remark, before narrowing your eyes at him. "Oh, come on," you muttered, deadpanning as you leaned forward. "That’s so unfair."

He chuckled softly, the sound rare but genuine, and you couldn’t help but feel the tension in your chest ease. "Jokes aside," he said, his smirk fading into something more sincere, "you’re quite the looker. You’re on the attractive side, you know." His tone was casual, but his gaze held steady, focused entirely on you. "I’m not really surprised you’ve been in relationships."

A faint blush spread across your cheeks as his words settled in, leaving you flustered in a way that made your heart race. Sae always had this way of throwing you off balance, his calm yet blunt remarks stirring a confusing mix of emotions. Why did he affect you like this? You glanced away shyly, mumbling, "Thanks, I guess... you’re not bad yourself."

You fiddled with the hem of your shirt beneath the table, trying to focus on anything but the heat rising to your face. But, of course, Sae couldn’t let you off that easily.

"I know I am," he said, his tone dripping with casual arrogance. "My looks are way above average, after all."

You snapped your head up at his words, a small grunt of frustration escaping your lips. Your narrowed gaze locked onto him. "You know," you grumbled, crossing your arms, "I liked it better when you were expressionless."

But even as the words left your mouth, you knew they weren’t true. If anything, you lived for the rare moments when Sae’s stoic mask slipped, revealing hints of his humor, his smugness, or even just his rare smiles.

Sae’s lips twitched slightly, a hint of amusement playing at the corners of his mouth as he shrugged. "Life doesn’t always give you what you want," he remarked, his voice calm and measured but laced with the slightest tease. "Guess you’ll just have to deal with it."

The sheer smugness in his tone made your irritation bubble over, and an exasperated scoff slipped from your lips. You glared at him, but Sae remained unbothered, his smirk now fully formed as he leaned back in his chair.

He was enjoying this—enjoying the way he was getting under your skin, the way he could pull these reactions out of you so easily

After a round of playful—and not-so-playful—bickering, the food finally arrived.

The dishes were plated with such precision and artistry that they looked almost too good to eat. Almost. The aroma wafted up, rich and tantalizing, and your mouth watered instantly. Your excitement was palpable, your gaze flitting from one dish to the next as the waiters carefully placed them on the table. Words failed to describe the sheer joy your taste buds anticipated, and your expression said it all.

Sae glanced up from his plate, his eyes settling on you. A soft chuckle, barely audible, slipped past his lips as he took in the sight of your excitement. It wasn’t loud or mocking—more like a quiet, amused acknowledgment of how endearing you looked. From his perspective, it was as if this was your first real meal. He found himself wanting to memorize the moment, the way your eyes sparkled, your lips curving into an unconscious smile at the sight of the food.

You didn’t waste a second. Grabbing your utensils, you dug in, the first bite sending a wave of satisfaction through you. The flavors were indescribable—rich, balanced, and utterly heavenly. Each morsel seemed to melt in your mouth, and your body visibly relaxed with each bite.

Meanwhile, Sae hadn’t touched his food. He rested his chin on one hand, watching you with a soft, almost imperceptible smirk. He wasn’t sure what was more fascinating—the way you seemed utterly transported by the meal or the unguarded happiness on your face. You were like an open book in this moment, and he found himself… intrigued.

When you finally noticed his lack of movement, you paused mid-bite, narrowing your eyes at him. "What?" you asked, your voice muffled by food but still laced with suspicion.

Sae shook his head slightly, his smirk growing. "Nothing. Just… you really like your food, huh?"

"Of course, I do," you shot back, quickly swallowing so you could defend yourself properly. "It’s amazing! How are you not eating yet?!"

"I was just enjoying the view," he remarked casually, his tone as calm as ever, though his words carried a teasing edge.

Your cheeks flushed, and you glared at him. "Well, stop staring and eat your food before it gets cold," you muttered, your irritation half-hearted.

Sae finally relented, picking up his utensils and diving into his own meal. The two of you ate in companionable silence after that, the earlier tension easing into something more comfortable.

Between bites, your gaze flickered to him, catching the subtle way his posture relaxed, the way he seemed content. Maybe it was the food, or maybe it was the company, but the moment felt… nice. Natural.

And though neither of you said it aloud, the quiet comfort of eating together spoke volumes on its own.

…🌺…

"The food was great. I really enjoyed it," you said as the two of you walked toward his parked car. The evening air was cool, and the soft glow of the streetlights painted everything in a warm, muted hue.

Sae glanced at you, his hands casually tucked into his pockets. "It sure looked like you enjoyed it, considering the way you stuffed your face," he remarked, his tone as deadpan as ever.

Your face instantly flushed a deep red, embarrassment creeping up your neck. "Hey!" you shot back, turning toward him with wide eyes. "You can’t criticize me for that! This was… new to me! I was just… excited, okay?"

The words tumbled out in your attempt to defend yourself, but the more you spoke, the more you realized how ridiculous you sounded. You huffed, crossing your arms as you stole a glance at Sae, waiting for his response.

But he didn’t say anything. Instead, he just looked at you, his expression softening as a warm, genuine smile spread across his face.

It caught you completely off guard.

The embarrassment that had been bubbling inside you vanished almost instantly, replaced by a strange, calming warmth. There was something about the way he smiled—rare and unguarded—that made everything else seem trivial. For a moment, it was just the two of you, standing there in the quiet evening, and all the teasing, awkwardness, and uncertainty faded away.

This whole evening had been… different. Odd, yes, but enjoyable in a way you hadn’t expected.

Sae opened the car door for you, gesturing for you to get in. As you slid into the passenger seat, you found yourself sneaking one last glance at him, his faint smile lingering in your mind.

Maybe this wasn’t just dinner. Maybe it was the start of something more.

_______

"That’s your apartment, right?" Sae asked, pointing toward the familiar building as he brought the car to a stop.

"Yeah," you replied with a nod, unbuckling your seatbelt and stepping out of the car.

To your surprise, Sae stepped out as well, his movements casual as he fell in step behind you. You turned to face him, your brows furrowing in confusion. "What are you doing?"

He met your gaze, hands shoved into his pockets, his tone as calm and nonchalant as ever. "Walking you to your apartment. Isn’t that how you’re supposed to treat a lady?"

You blinked, caught off guard by his unexpected reply. Of all the times for him to act like a gentleman, now was the moment he chose? His words felt both sincere and teasing, leaving you feeling both confused and slightly amused.

Shaking your head, a small laugh escaped your lips. "Whatever," you muttered, rolling your eyes but unable to hide your smile.

The two of you walked up to the building together. As you reached your door, you fished around in your pocket for your key. The sound of metal jingling filled the air as you finally pulled it out and unlocked the door, turning the key with a satisfying click.

Pushing the door open, you stepped inside and turned around, expecting Sae to leave. But he was still there, standing just outside the doorway, his expression unreadable.

The longer he stood there, the more awkward the moment became. You felt a twinge of guilt, unsure if he was waiting for something or simply being polite. After a beat of hesitation, you sighed and pushed the door open wider, gesturing for him to come in.

"You might as well come in," you said, your voice soft but resigned.

Sae raised an eyebrow, as if slightly amused by your reaction, but he didn’t say anything. With a small nod, he stepped inside, his presence instantly filling the space in a way that felt both strange and oddly comforting.

Sae kicked off his shoes at the entrance and stepped further inside, his eyes sweeping over the room. His gaze lingered on the various pieces of decor and furniture, taking everything in with an unreadable expression. One by one, his eyes moved from the small bookshelf in the corner to the slightly mismatched throw pillows on the couch. Finally, he spoke, his voice calm and measured. "So this is your apartment, huh? Cozier than I expected."

You turned your gaze sharply toward him, a familiar irritation bubbling within you. It seemed Sae had an unmatched talent for making even his compliments sound like backhanded remarks. "You always think so little of me, don’t you?" you grumbled, crossing your arms as you watched him continue his casual inspection of your space.

Sae glanced at you briefly, unfazed. "I judge based on what’s shown on the outside," he said with a shrug, his hands still buried in his pockets. His tone was neutral, almost indifferent, but you could sense a hint of teasing beneath it.

Letting out a sigh, you brushed past him and made your way to the couch, the plush cushions welcoming you as you sank into them. You stretched out slightly, the tension in your body melting away as you made yourself comfortable. "Well, I guess that makes you the ultimate judge of character, huh?" you muttered, your voice tinged with sarcasm.

You slouched into the couch, exhaling a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding. The day had been long, but the quiet hum of the apartment seemed to melt the tension from your body. You turned your head, and your gaze was immediately captured by Sae's piercing teal eyes, watching you with a calm intensity.

A strange warmth bloomed in your chest, fluttering like an unspoken secret between you. "So," you started, your voice laced with casual curiosity as you fought to push the feeling aside, "why did you willingly step into my apartment? Not exactly your usual scene."

He tilted his head slightly, his expression unreadable as always. "Why not? I was bored." Sae's reply was as nonchalant as ever, but the way he strolled over to join you on the couch betrayed a certain comfort in being here. He sank into the cushions beside you, letting out the faintest of sighs, as if your living room had somehow become his sanctuary. "Besides," he added after a beat, "it was pleasant hanging out with you. I wasn’t ready for that to end yet."

His words struck you harder than you cared to admit, and a maddening blush began to creep up your cheeks. You quickly turned your head, a small, nervous laugh escaping your lips as you scrambled to keep your composure. "So, you're saying I'm fun to be around, huh?" you teased lightly, hoping the playfulness would mask the sudden erratic rhythm of your heart.

For a moment, Sae’s face remained impassive, but then a subtle smile curved his lips—rare and fleeting, like a secret he allowed you to glimpse. "More or less," he said, his voice low but tinged with an undeniable warmth.

The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable. If anything, it felt charged, like the pause before a thunderstorm. You weren’t sure if it was the proximity, the way his knee almost brushed yours, or the way he looked at you as if he could see past every wall you’d carefully built.

"You’re full of surprises, Itoshi," you murmured, leaning back against the couch. The teasing edge in your voice was softer now, replaced by a quiet curiosity you couldn’t quite hide. "Never thought I’d hear you admit to enjoying anyone’s company."

He glanced at you, the corner of his mouth twitching as though considering whether to respond. Then, without warning, he leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, his eyes locked onto yours.

"Maybe you’re an exception," he said simply.

The words hung in the air between you, heavy with implications you weren’t sure either of you were ready to unpack. Your heart skipped a beat, and for once, you didn’t have a clever retort.

The faint sound of rain began to patter against the window, filling the silence. You turned your gaze toward it, your mind racing. "Exception, huh?" you finally murmured, trying to sound indifferent, though your voice betrayed the faintest waver.

He didn’t reply immediately, and when you dared to glance back at him, you found him watching you again, his expression softer now. "You don’t have to overthink it," he said, his tone a touch gentler than before. "I just… didn’t feel like being alone today."

Something in his admission made your chest tighten, but instead of pressing him further, you simply nodded. "Well," you said lightly, offering him a small smile, "good thing you’re here, then. I wasn’t planning on being alone either."

The rain continued its rhythmic melody, and as the evening stretched on, the distance between you seemed to shrink, both physically and emotionally. Neither of you said much, but in the quiet company of one another, there was a sense of understanding that didn’t need words.

The two of you sat in a comfortable silence, the hum of the television filling the air. You glanced over at Sae, wondering what was running through his mind. After a moment, you decided to break the quiet.

"So, Sae," you began, your voice trying to sound casual. "Do you want to do anything, or...? I imagine you’re probably getting bored by now."

His eyes met yours, his gaze unwavering. He looked... contemplative, as if he were lost in thought about something important, though he didn’t seem eager to share.

"I’m fine," he mumbled after a long pause, though his words didn't match the slight tension in his expression. It was clear there was something on his mind, something weighing him down, but he wasn’t ready to say what it was.

You nodded, respecting his silence, and leaned back into the couch, glancing out the window. The evening sky was a soft mix of dark colors, but your mind kept drifting back to him. The way his demeanor shifted, how he seemed a little distant.

After a second, you decided to try again, pushing past the silence. "So, tell me about your career," you asked, your voice gentle but curious. "What’s it like—"

Before you could finish, Sae’s hand shot out, and in one swift motion, he grasped your chin, gently but firmly, and tilted your face towards his.

Your breath caught in your throat, and your heart skipped a beat. You were so close, your eyes wide in shock as you stared at him, feeling his breath against your skin. The moment hung between you like a fragile thread. You were frozen, not sure what was happening or what had made him do this.

He stared into your eyes, his gaze flicking briefly to your lips before meeting your eyes once more. Every movement of his felt deliberate, almost like he was studying you, and you couldn’t look away. It was as if the world had paused around the two of you, the silence between you thickening with each passing second.

You felt your heart pounding in your chest, its rapid beat deafening in your ears. It was as though your entire body was on edge, strung taut with anticipation, and yet you couldn’t move. You were frozen, caught in the intensity of the moment.

Sae shifted his grip, his fingers tracing your jawline before he cupped your cheek, his thumb brushing gently beneath your eye. The touch was soft, almost tender.

And that’s when you saw it—love.

You almost flinched at the thought. His eyes were so focused, so soft, as if they were seeing you in a way no one ever had before. There was something vulnerable in the way he looked at you, something raw.

Love?

The word echoed in your mind, heavy and foreign. You hadn’t used that word in so long, not with anyone. And certainly not with him. It was difficult to fathom that someone like Sae—so guarded, so distant—could feel that way, could look at you like this.

The panic started to rise in your chest. If this was what he felt—love—then what did that mean for you? For this? You weren’t sure if you were ready to love again. Not like this, not so suddenly, and not with someone who seemed so far removed from the idea of it.

It felt as though the weight of the world was pressing down on you, immense and overwhelming. Would you let him love you like this? Could you let him?

More importantly, could you let yourself love him?

You weren’t ready. Every thought in your mind screamed for you to pull back, to protect yourself from whatever this was. What if Sae broke you? What if you let yourself fall into this and it all came crashing down, just like before? You didn’t want to be broken again. You didn’t want to be tossed aside, left alone to pick up the pieces of a love that wasn’t real.

It hurt. The weight of your own fears, of what could happen, felt suffocating. You didn’t know what to do, torn between wanting to return his feelings and the fear of what would happen if you did. You wanted so badly to let love consume you, to let him pull you in, but you couldn’t ignore the voice that warned you against it.

What if he was just using you?

You couldn’t risk it. The idea of being hurt again, of losing yourself in someone else only to be discarded, was too much to bear. But still, the desire to let go, to give in, lingered within you like a quiet ache. Were you really this hopeless? Pathetic, even?

Tears threatened to spill as you felt Sae’s palm still resting against your face, his touch a tender reminder of everything you wanted but couldn’t allow yourself to have. You tried to swallow the lump in your throat, but it was no use. The tears slowly began to fall, too overwhelming to hold back.

Sae’s eyes widened in surprise at the sight of you, but he didn’t pull away. Instead, his other hand moved to cup the other side of your face, his touch gentle and careful, as though he was afraid of breaking you, too.

With a softness that took you off guard, Sae wiped away the tears that slipped down your cheeks, his fingers brushing lightly against your skin. You didn’t know what to make of it. It was so different, so unexpected. No one had ever been this gentle, this affectionate with you before, not in the way Sae was. His touch felt like he was holding you together, not pulling you apart.

Sae’s gaze softened as he looked at you, his eyes full of something you couldn’t quite place—gentleness, sincerity, something that made your heart flutter in spite of the walls you had built. "Y/n," he whispered, his voice calm, almost tender. "Please don’t cry."

Quiet tears continued to fall, each one carrying the weight of everything you’d been holding back for so long. His thumb gently traced your reddened cheek, and his face leaned in closer, his presence both soothing and overwhelming. The warmth of his touch felt so different—so real.

"You don’t have to cry," he murmured again, his voice low and soft, carrying an unmistakable sense of care. "Y/n… I don’t know what happened for you to tear up like this, but I promise you… whatever happened in the past, I won’t replicate it." His words were sincere, the kind of promise that, for a brief moment, made the pain inside you seem a little more bearable.

For a split second, you searched his face, desperately trying to find any hint of insincerity, any trace of deception hidden beneath the calmness in his eyes. But there was nothing—nothing that suggested he was lying. His tone was steady, unyielding.

Could you trust him? Could you really let him in?

The vulnerability he was showing, the way he was looking at you, it warmed your heart in a way that felt so foreign. So safe. It was everything you didn’t know you needed, and yet it was right in front of you.

"You promise…?" Your voice was small, shaky, as the uncertainty you’d been carrying for so long finally slipped into your words.

Sae’s eyes softened even more, and he lowered his gaze slightly, as if he could feel the weight of what you were carrying, of the hesitation in your voice. He didn’t speak for a moment, just letting the silence stretch between you two, as if understanding how deep the scars of your past must have been.

Whatever had happened to you, whatever pain you’d endured before—it had clearly left a mark on you. A deep, unhealed wound that made it hard to trust, to let anyone close. Sae understood that, and for the first time, you saw that in his eyes: understanding, not judgment. Compassion, not pity.

"Yes," he finally said, his voice firm but gentle. "I promise."

The sincerity in his words felt like a lifeline, like the first breath of air after being submerged in water for too long. And in that moment, despite the storm of emotions inside you, you allowed yourself to believe him. Maybe you didn’t have all the answers, but you could take this one step.

You could let him in.

(Song recommendation: Im Yours - Isabel LaRosa)

Sae's smile softened at you, a warmth in his gaze that spoke more than his actions ever could. Then, without a word, he leaned in, slowly pressing his lips to yours. The kiss was soft at first, gentle as though testing the waters, but it quickly deepened as his hands moved to the side of your neck, holding you closer, grounding you in the moment.

Your hands instinctively moved to his chest, resting against the firm muscles you could feel even through his clothes. The warmth of his body against yours was intoxicating, and you couldn't help but be drawn further into him.

For a moment, Sae pulled away, just enough to catch his breath, but his eyes never left yours. And then, just as quickly, he recaptured your lips in his, this time more urgent, more insistent.

His tongue gently brushed across your lips, a silent request, and you gasped, heart racing at the intensity of it all. He took that moment to slip his tongue into your mouth, and it was like electricity sparked between you. His tongue moved against yours in a slow, deliberate dance, each movement an invitation to fall deeper into him, into this moment.

Everything else faded away. The world outside, the thoughts racing through your mind—none of it mattered now. All that existed was the heat between you two, the closeness that felt like it had been building for so long.

Sae groaned softly into your mouth, his hand threading gently through your hair, tugging just enough to send a shiver down your spine. There was hesitation in the movement, as though he was aware of the fine line between desire and discomfort, but the tension in his touch made your pulse race.

The gentle tug on your hair pulled you back slightly, causing your lips to break apart for a fleeting moment. But before you could gather your breath, Sae's lips were back on yours, this time with a bit more force, more urgency. The kiss deepened, and the pressure pushed you slightly back onto the couch. Sae didn’t hesitate—he used the shift in position to his advantage, quickly climbing over you, his body covering yours, pinning you gently but firmly to the soft cushions beneath.

His legs shifted, placing themselves outside of yours, trapping you in place with a controlled intensity that made your breath catch. His chest pressed against yours, the warmth of his body melding with yours as you felt his weight settle over you.

After a moment, Sae reluctantly detached his lips from yours, his breath coming shallow and quick. He gazed down at you, his eyes no longer just filled with tenderness or care. There was something new there. Something darker, deeper. Lust.

His voice was soft, almost hesitant, but there was an undeniable edge to it. "Y/n... would you let me?" he murmured, his gaze never leaving yours, his body still hovering over you, close enough that you could feel the heat radiating off of him.

A wave of emotion swelled within you, something foreign and stirring. Sae had asked for permission—something none of the others had ever done. Usually, it was a matter of taking what they wanted without a second thought, but not Sae. His consideration, his respect, made you pause. Maybe this was different. Maybe this could be different.

Your heart fluttered, a warm smile spreading across your face as you met his gaze. "Yes, Sae. I will."

Sae’s smile mirrored yours, soft and genuine, before he placed a tender kiss on your cheek—a silent thank you. There was an unspoken understanding between you now, a connection that was more than just physical. It felt like trust, like a promise he was making without words.

He stood, slipping off his blazer with a fluid motion, letting it fall carelessly to the floor. Then, without hesitation, he pulled off his shirt, revealing his toned, muscular chest. The sight made your breath catch. He was... built. Strong, defined—everything about him was a reflection of strength, of control.

Your eyes lingered on his body, taking in every detail. You could feel the heat rise in your cheeks as you tried to focus, your heart racing in your chest.

Sae noticed your reaction, a playful chuckle escaping his lips. His eyes twinkled with amusement, yet there was something more behind his gaze, something deeper.

"Don’t worry," he murmured, his voice low and soothing, yet filled with a hint of confidence. "It’s all yours, Y/n. You’re going to have to get used to it."

Your cheeks burned with a deep blush at his words, but before you could process it fully, his lips were back on yours, pulling you into the kiss with a hunger that matched your own.

As the kiss deepened, your hands instinctively trailed up the firmness of his abs, feeling him shiver beneath your touch. The sensation of his skin under your fingertips made your pulse quicken. Sae groaned into your mouth, his tongue seeking entrance, and this time, you didn’t hesitate—your lips parted, allowing him to deepen the kiss.

It was a kiss that was both aggressive and tender. Sae’s neediness was noticeable, desperate even, but there was a gentleness in his touch, a carefulness that kept the intensity from crossing into something too overwhelming. He was savoring the moment, as if he was afraid of breaking something fragile.

His hand moved to the collar of your shirt, his fingers pausing, hesitating just for a brief second. He broke the kiss, his gaze locking with yours, silently asking for permission.

A soft laugh escaped your lips at the look in his eyes—this was different, this was him. There was no pressure, no rush. Just the quiet, mutual understanding between you two.

You nodded, giving him the confirmation he needed, and without another word, Sae yanked your shirt off in one swift motion, tossing it carelessly to the side.

Now, with both of you half-dressed, skin brushing against skin, the weight of the moment settled around you. Sae’s chest pressed against yours, his heartbeat as erratic as yours. The closeness was dizzying, but it felt right.

You shifted, slowly leaning up as you looked into his eyes, silently acknowledging what was next and what he wanted. Sae's gaze flickered down to you, a silent question in his eyes, asking if you were ready.

You nodded. Sae's hands trembled slightly as he reached behind you to unclasp your bra, the lacy garment falling away to reveal your perfect, plump breasts. His gaze raked over your exposed skin, drinking in every inch of you as he felt a familiar heat building low in his belly.

"Fuck, Y/N..." Sae breathed, his voice rough with desire. "You're so perfect."

He leaned down, his chest pressing against yours as he claimed your mouth in a bruising kiss. It was hungry and desperate, as if you were the only thing keeping him chained to this earth.

One large hand came up to cup your breast, thumbing over your nipple almost earnestly. Although being gentle, there was nothing gentle about the way he wanted to touched you - he wanted to possess you, to mark you as his and his alone.

A low groan escaped your lips at his touch, and Sae's cock twitched eagerly in response. The sound of your pleasure was like music to his ears, spurring him on.

Sae's hands continued their sensual massage of your breasts, thumbs circling your nipples until they pebbled beneath his touch. Each stroke of his fingers sent sparks of pleasure racing through your veins, stoking the fire building between your thighs.

Breaking away from your lips, Sae latched onto the smooth column of your throat, his mouth hot and demanding against your skin. He sucked and nipped, leaving a trail of marks in his wake as he made his way lower.

When he reached your breast, Sae took your nipple into his mouth, tongue swirling around the sensitive bud. He suckled greedily, the wet sound obscenely loud in the quiet room. Your back arched off the couch, a needy moan spilling from your lips.

He pulled off with a lewd pop, smirking up at you with pure, unadulterated lust. But there was something else in his eyes too - a tenderness, an adoration that made your heart skip a beat.

This time, you met his gaze head-on, not looking away. Because despite everything, despite the scars on your soul, you knew you were safe with him. Cherished.

Sae's smile widened as he took in the sight of you - flushed and panting, your body laid bare before him. He had done this, reduced you to a needy, senseless mess with just his hands and mouth.

"Look at you," he purred, fingers dancing along the hem of your pants. "So beautiful like this.”

He glanced up at you, seeking permission even in the heat of the moment. That was Sae - always making sure you were okay, that you wanted this as much as he did.

"Please," you breathed, lifting your hips in silent offering.

Something dark and possessive flashed in Sae's eyes as he slowly unbuttoned your pants, dragging the zipper down with agonizing leisure. He peeled the fabric away, leaving you clad in nothing but panties.

A noticeable dampness revealed your growing arousal, drawing Sae's attention. His breath hitched, his jaw tightening. An irresistible urge surged within him—he needed you.

Sae tossed your panties aside carelessly, leaving you completely exposed and vulnerable beneath his intense gaze. Every inch of your bare skin was on display for him, a feast for his hungry eyes.

Bending lower, he nuzzled into your inner thighs, kissing and licking a path towards your core. You trembled beneath him, hands fisting in the fabric as he inched closer to where you needed him most.

Your body jerked at the contact, instinctively trying to close your legs. But Sae's strong hands on your hips held you open, keeping you spread wide for his ministrations.

"Open for me, Y/N," he commanded, his voice a heady mix of sternness and care.

Obediently, you let your thighs fall open, granting him unrestricted access to your most intimate places. Sae grunted approvingly as he took in the glistening pink of your aroused sex.

Gripping your knees, he pushed your legs back and apart, forcing you into a position of total surrender. The new angle had your entrance on full display.

"So gorgeous, Y/n,” he murmured appreciatively. "And all mine."

Slowly, teasingly, he slid a single finger into your dripping core. Your back arched off the couch as pleasure sparked through you, a needy moan spilling from your lips.

Sae crashed his mouth to yours, swallowing your moans as he fingered you with increasing intensity. Your velvety walls gripped him like a depravity, fluttering and clenching around his plunging fingers.

"You're so tight," he grunted against your lips. “I love it. You’re so good to me Y/n.”

He curled them just right, rubbing mercilessly against that sensitive bundle of nerves deep inside you. Your hips bucked wildly, seeking more of that friction, chasing the pleasure only he could give you.

Sae obliged, plunging his fingers faster, harder, driving into your soaked heat with relentless precision. Lewd squelching noises filled the air as he fucked you with his hand, the vulgar sounds spurring him on.

"That's it, Y/n," he groaned roughly. " ‘m gonna make you feel good.”

He could feel you tightening, your inner muscles starting to flutter and ripple around him. Your moans grew higher, needier, and Sae knew you were close.

Sae's fingers stilled as he felt your walls start to quaver, signaling your impending orgasm. He slowly withdrew his hand, denying you that release.

Your eyes fluttered open, hazy with need and confusion. "Sae? Why did you stop?" you murmured breathlessly.

He smirked down at you, his voice low and commanding. "Not yet, Y/N. I want to feel you come undone on my cock."

With quick movements, Sae unbuckled his belt and shoved his pants down, kicking them off impatiently. He stood before you, clad only in a pair of straining boxer briefs. The sizeable bulge at the front left no doubt as to his arousal.

You sat up slowly, eyes widening as you drank in the sight of his powerful body. Sae's smirk widened at your reaction. He grabbed your hips, pulling you flush against him as he guided your hands to the waistband of his underwear.

"Pull them down for me, Y/N," he ordered, his tone leaving no room for argument.

Trembling with anticipation, you hooked your fingers under the elastic and slowly dragged the fabric down.

Your eyes widened as Sae's impressive length sprang free, bobbing mere inches from your face. It was thick and heavy, the bulbous head already glistening with precum. A thrill of excitement mixed with nervousness raced down your spine. Could you really take all of that?

As if sensing your hesitation, Sae cupped your cheek, his thumb brushing over your bottom lip. "Don't worry, Y/n. You can handle it," he reassured, his voice a low rumble. "I'll start slow, ease you into it.”

He pushed you back onto the couch, his larger body covering yours. You felt trapped beneath him, pinned in place by his solid weight. Sae reached between your bodies, grasping his throbbing cock and giving it a few slow strokes.

Then, with agonizing leisure, he placed the tip against your entrance. You held your breath, every muscle tensing in anticipation. This was really happening.

"Tell me when, Y/N," Sae murmured against your ear, his hot breath sending shivers down your spine. "Remember, I'm yours. You're in control here."

He sealed his lips over yours in a long kiss, his tongue delving deep inside. You moaned into his mouth, your hands fisting in his hair as you lost yourself to the sensation.

When he finally pulled back, you were both panting harshly. Sae's eyes bore into yours, dark with desire but also filled with a tender understanding. He would follow your lead, let you set the pace.

All you had to do was say the word.

“Make me feel good, Sae," you breathed against his lips, pulling him in for a quick, heated kiss.

"Of course. Anything for you," he murmured back, a small smirk playing on his lips.

Sae's tip nudged against your entrance, teasing you. You squirmed beneath him, aching to be filled. His large hands gripped your hips, holding you steady as he slowly pressed forward.

"If you need me to pause at any point, just say the word," Sae reassured, his voice low and soothing. "You can tell me anything, and I'll do it. This is all about you, Y/N."

You nodded, trusting him. Then, with a slow, deliberate push, Sae sheathed himself inside you. A low groan rumbled from his chest as your velvety walls stretched to adjust his girth.

He gave you a moment to adjust, peppering kisses along your jaw and neck as he waited patiently. When he started to move, it was with shallow, careful thrusts. Each roll of his hips sent sparks of pleasure shooting through your core.

Sae's breath came in ragged pants as he pounded into you, his brow glistening with sweat. Each thrust drew a groan from his lips, especially when your walls clenched around his throbbing shaft.

"Fuck, Y/N... so tight," he grunted, his pace growing more erratic. "Feels…amazing”.

You could only moan in response, your head thrashing on the fabric of the couch as he hit that perfect spot inside you over and over. The wet slap of skin on skin filled the room.

"S-Sae," you gasped out, wrapping your legs around his waist.

His name coming from your lips made him eager, slamming into you with ease. The new angle had him nailing your G-spot with overwhelming precision, sending bolts of electric pleasure zinging through your nerve endings.

Sae's breath came in harsh, ragged pants as he pounded into you, chasing his rapidly approaching climax. The way your walls clenched around his throbbing shaft, the sting of your nails scratching his back, the breathy cries of his name falling from your lips - it was all driving him wild with lust.

"S-Sae..." you stammered out, your voice high and needy. "I'm so close..."

He could see it in the glazed look of your eyes, feel it in the way your body was starting to tremble and tighten around him. Sae knew he wouldn't last much longer either.

"Me too, Y/n," he grunted, his movements growing sloppy and erratic.

With a final, powerful thrust, he buried himself to the edge, grinding against your G-spot. At the same time, he reached between your bodies to circle your swollen clit with his fingers.

Sae let out a low, satisfied groan as he felt your warm essence dripping down his softening cock. With a final, shallow thrust, he pulled out completely, shooting his load onto your lower abdomen.

Exhausted, he collapsed on top of you, nuzzling his face between your breasts. His arms wrapped around your waist, holding you close as he caught his breath. You both lay there in the afterglow, the only sound the soft panting and huffing filling the room.

No words were spoken for a long moment, the silence comfortable and intimate. You gently ran your fingers through Sae's hair, massaging his scalp soothingly. He let out a contented hum, burrowing further into your embrace.

“Sae..." you murmured softly, breaking the quiet.

"Hm?" he mumbled, his voice slightly muffled by your skin.

You bit your lip, suddenly feeling vulnerable. "Everything you said... did you mean it? About me being yours, and you wanting to take care of me and make me feel good?"

The words tumbled out in a rush, tinged with uncertainty. In the heat of passion, it had all seemed so real, so intense. But now, in the calm aftermath, doubt began to creep in.

Was it just dirty talk, empty promises made in the act of lust? Or had Sae truly meant every word, genuine in his desire to cherish and care for you?

You needed to hear him say it again, unclouded by the haze of sex. You had to know if this was something real, something that could grow into more than just a physical connection.

You held your breath, waiting for his response, your heart fluttering with a mixture of hope and fear.

Sae lifted his head from the plush of your breasts, his teal eyes locking onto yours with an intensity that stole your breath. "I meant every word, Y/N," he murmured, his voice low and earnest. "I'll take care of you, I promise."

A small, shy smile tugged at the corners of your lips, hope blooming in your chest. Sae's hand cupped your cheek, his thumb brushing tenderly over your cheekbone.

"I like you, Y/N. More than you know. Maybe even love,” he confessed, his gaze never wavering. "These past two months, spending every day with you at the bakery... I've fallen for you. Hard."

He let out a soft chuckle. "To be honest, you're the only reason I keep going there. Just to see you, to be near you, even if it's only for a few minutes."

Your heart swelled at his words, a warm sensation flowing through your entire being. This was everything you'd secretly hoped for, dreamed of, but never dared to believe could be real.

Until now.

Leaning into his touch, you let yourself get lost in the depths of Sae's eyes, seeing the sincerity and affection shining there. In that moment, you knew with absolute certainty what you wanted, what your heart craved.

You wanted this. You wanted him.

The walls you'd built around yourself, the barriers you'd made to keep people out and protect your fragile heart... they crumbled to dust, swept away by the force of your feelings for this incredible man.

Now, it was time to let him in, to entrust him with your heart and let yourself be loved in return. No more holding back, no more running from what you truly desired.

"Sae..." you whispered, your voice trembling with emotion. "I... I think I'm falling for you too. I want this, I want you. I'm ready to let you in.”

You gazed up at Sae, your heart swelling with a love so profound it threatened to burst from your chest. In his warm teal eyes, you saw a reflection of everything you'd ever wanted, everything you'd been searching for all these years.

Comfort. Affection. Devotion. Love.

With Sae, you felt safe, cherished, whole. Like all the broken, jagged pieces of your soul had finally clicked into place, forming a beautiful painting of love and trust.

"Let me be in your life, Y/N," Sae murmured, his voice raw with emotion. "Let me love you, the way you deserve to be loved."

Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes, overwhelmed by the depth of his words. How had you gotten so lucky, to find someone who saw past your walls, your wounds, straight to the tender heart underneath?

"And I shall let you love me, as I will love you, Sae," you whispered, a radiant smile blooming on your face.

This was everything you'd ever wanted, everything you'd never dared to dream possible. A love that healed, that uplifted, that made you feel invincible.

With Sae by your side, you finally felt complete. Like you'd found your home, your haven, your happily ever after.

"I'm yours," you breathed, reaching up to cup his cheek. "Now and forever."

Sae surged forward, capturing your lips in a searing kiss that poured every ounce of his love, his commitment, into the press of his mouth on yours. You melted into him, losing yourself in the exquisite taste of his devotion.

In that perfect moment, the rest of the world fell away. There was only you, only him, only the infinite love binding your hearts and souls together.

Forever and always.

a/n: omg im so sorry this took so long I didnt expect it to take a while😭

Btw sorry if the ending is rushed and crappy I just wanted to end it since it was getting too long. Plus…he was a bit too ooc for me🙁

I was originally going to make two parts but somehow I didn't so it took longer to post!!! I'm so sorry!!!

I should've made this a wattpad instead…yo wait hold up⁉️ I should make a wattpad‼️

Regardless…SAE IS SO FINE WHAT. He looks so scrumptious in these new bllk episodes😫 (Rin’s better tho. THE BETTER BROTHER!)

Yum😋

[genericpuff]

Do you have any big plans for Rekindled this year? Like specific moments/events/developments? Also, would you ever consider going back to a weekly upload schedule?

welllll as for stuff that's like, in the immediate near future, we're gonna be tackling a VERY famous scene in LO that I have some fun ideas for that will hopefully make it feel familiar but with its own twists for y'all to enjoy. Considering the current roadmap the story is on and what's been established over the past few "days" within the story, I'm sure y'all will figure out pretty quick which scene I'm talking about ;333

But in the long-term over the course of this year... I don't wanna speak too soon, but I think this is the year that we're finally gonna enter the biggest turning point of the story, so big that it literally diverts LR's plot away from the blueprint of LO and we end up in truly new territory. Granted, there are still some elements of the original LO present after that point, but what we do with those elements is entirely different. I think it's gonna parallel well, because while LO's S2 era took a massive turn away from everything it had been building up towards throughout S1, LR's "second season" will be taking a massive turn towards those setups and outcomes that were clearly abandoned (or just not thought of entirely, even the stuff that was like... plainly obvious to anyone who was paying attention lmao).

I'm hoping that after we've reached that point, the path that LR walks will feel way more satisfying for the readers like myself who felt that everything beyond S2 of LO was a complete misfire and lost potential. Again, it will hopefully feel familiar to those who remember that era of LO - but still refreshing and interesting to really drive home how this is meant to be an interpretative rewrite of what could have happened if LO hadn't gotten distracted and had actually stuck with its original plotlines and themes. I think the biggest one of those themes that was present in LO but never fully realized will be everything concerning "Persephone" herself, the Act of Wrath, and everything that led up to her moving to Olympus.

It is a little nerve-wracking, because it'll be at that turning point where I truly have to carry this story's progression for real and can't use LO quite as much to guide me through the dark, but I'm also excited because it's where I finally get to loosen a lot of the limitations that were set from the foundation of LO and really go wild with everything that I had been hoping LO would be. It's when I'll really get to write some proper payoffs to the things that I've been building up to from the foundation of the original comic as my starting point. It's where things are really gonna start to feel truly "new", at least in my opinion!

As for what that massive "turning point" is... I'm not gonna say specifically what happens, but you will absolutely know it when you'll see it. Obviously there are already a lot of differences between LR and LO in terms of the plot threads and how everything is being progressed, but this one turning point in particular is a huge one that fundamentally opposes one of the biggest flaws of LO that would define its downhill decline in its storytelling for the rest of its publication.

But for now, until we get there, I'll leave the rest up to your imagination ;3

---

As for the update schedule, I would honestly love to be able to return to the weekly schedule again, but currently my work-life balance is just not gonna allow for it :'0 For those unaware, when I'm not making Rekindled, I'm also working my day job as a contracted tattoo artist which comes with its own load of responsibilities and obligations, many of which are what I need to fulfill in order to do things like pay my rent and, y'know, not die LOL In terms of the work-life balance, even when I'm not working on Rekindled, there's still a lot of work taking up my life LMAO (including a second retail job that I've been doing a seasonal position for, though it's wrapping up at the end of the month~)

While I love making Rekindled and spend as much time as I can each week working on it (and I wish it could be like, the only thing I had to worry about LOL) it is still just a fanfiction project that I create for free, and so it just can't be at the top of my priority list, at least not without sacrifices from those other obligations - but those other obligations are, again, what I need to do in order to not only survive, but to ensure that I can afford to keep making Rekindled, even if it's at a slower pace than I would like.

That said, Rekindled is still a very high priority for me! It's just a matter of balance, and changing to a bi-weekly schedule was part of maintaining that balance. It was either that, or stick to weekly and make the episodes shorter, but I ultimately settled on the former option because it allowed for a healthier work-life balance (which is still not even super healthy but I'm working on it lmao) and because the rhythm of my writing wouldn't have worked as well in shorter doses, especially not with many of the plotlines we've been tackling as of late. It can be a drag to wait every two weeks, but it means I can bring y'all episodes that are fully realized to their full potential, rather than hacking them up into tinier portions that might not read as well and would require a drawing schedule that wouldn't fit well with my current circumstances.

All in all, while I do wish I could be back to making episodes on that weekly schedule, it's really only because I would love to bring you all more of the story more often, because there's a lot that I'm really excited to show you all! But the bi-weekly schedule is currently more viable for both myself, Banshriek, and the comic as a whole, because it means we get the time we really need to make every episode feel special with every update <3

[chartreusejelly]

Am I Born to Die? || Sean MacGuire x f!OC

Fic Summary: A former fiddler in a traveling band reminisces on her short time in the Van Der Linde gang in the year 1889 through memories and letters. During a time when seeking a fresh start from a path of crime led to finding kinship, love and a hell of a lot more trouble.

Chapter Warnings: Violence, death, RDR2 spoilers

Pairings: Sean x f!OC some implications of Arthur x f!OC

Characters: (in this chapter) Arthur Morgan, Sean MacGuire, John Marston, Lenny Summers, Micah Bell

Wordcount: 2,699

[AO3] Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

A/N : If you've been reading so far, thank you so much! This is my first attempt writing these characters, so thoughts, feedback, constructive crit is always welcome! Would love to know what you think so far!

 If the Blackwater ferry heist had gone as smooth as Dutch had hoped, who knows the kind of life I would be living now. 

Perhaps the gang would have disbanded after getting a cut of the very large sum we were expecting or all headed to Tahiti like Dutch would later suggest, to live a life of freedom from the law.  But it couldn’t have gone any worse if we had tried.  

I had been with the Van Der Linde gang for nearly two months at this point. Long enough that I had earned their trust and they had earned mine, for the most part. You could say I was even starting to think as crazy as they did. Whether or not being away from civilization with no one else to talk to had anything to do with it, I couldn’t say for sure. I had been out with a few of them robbing stagecoache a couple times and I was beginning to experience the adrenaline rush they talked about. It truly was addicting.

All I knew was that Dutch made robbing this ferry sound like it would be a walk in the park, and twice as fun. Most of us seemed to agree afterwards, that Arthur and Hosea’s absence due to finding another lead on a job was a major reason things went sideways. I didn’t realize that the two of them often served as the backbone of these bigger jobs, as Dutch’s most trusted men and the ones the rest of the gang looked to for guidance. Though most seemed confident enough we could pull it off without them. 

I don’t remember much in the days we neared Blackwater, except most of us being cold, bored and itching for some action. I didn’t try to murder Sean again, or anyone else for that matter.  I did craft some gloves made from mountain goat skin for Arthur. I had worked on them until my fingers bled, trying to get the right size and style. Thinking about practicality and wanting to make sure they were both warm and durable enough for him to pull a trigger if he had to. Mary-Beth teased me about it a little bit which I just rolled my eyes at, but I will admit I was nervous to give them to him.

I hadn’t felt that way in a long time. Looking back, it reminded me of the way I felt around a particular ranch hand I once knew. On the ranch in Georgia where my father and I ended up living and working for years, before the fire. Arguably, I did most of the work, since Pa needed a cane or a horse to walk. I was his legs on the farm. Chet was a ranch hand who I basically grew up around. I was too young to know what romance was, but oh, how I admired him. It was probably nothing more than a schoolgirl crush on a man about ten years my senior, but it was the closest I had ever been to falling in love. Arthur reminded me of him. Both rough around the edges, but kind when they thought no one was looking. Both so dedicated to their work the people around them depended on them a great deal. I saw evidence of this with the Blackwater disaster, or massacre, as the papers would later call it.

That morning we were packing up camp for the last time until we could find a new hideout. That was when Dutch had heard about Colter, a little abandoned town further up the mountain than we had already ventured to avoid being caught by these Pinkertons. They had been patrolling the area for folks like us. Arthur was talking with Dutch and Hosea about plans to meet up there once they had parted ways for their own job. I watched him saddling up, nervously touching the soft hide of those gloves before I decided to approach him. 

“Arthur?”

 He turned towards me, tilting his hat. “Miss Donahue,” he greeted. “You be safe out there. I know you aint use to these kinda jobs, but I’ve seen you with a gun. I know you can handle yourself. And I know Dutch’ll look out for you. Just stay close by. Keep your head on a swivel. You’ll do just fine.”

I gave a nod. “Thanks, Arthur. I will.” I paused a moment before I held out the gloves. “I…I made these for you. For getting me my fiddle.” I watched his face as he took them and started to ramble nervously. “They’re goat skin. From the couple mountain goats we got when you took me out shooting a few weeks back. I didn’t know your size…if they’re too big I can adjust them.” 

Arthur looked at the gloves and pulled one on his hand. “Millie, these are some fine gloves. They fit just perfectly. Christ…you didn’t have to go through all this trouble.” 

I shrugged. “Well..I didn’t have nothing better to do.”  I let out a nervous laugh and his blue eyes smiled. 

“Thank you, Millie.” He gave my shoulder an affectionate squeeze. I felt the warmth of his hand long after he’d let go to mount his horse. MacGuire showed up and had to ruin the moment, as he often did. 

“Looks like you’ve got an admirer, English.” Sean chuckled as he approached us. My face flushed with both anger and humiliation.  “It’s called human decency, Sean. Somethin’ you could use a lesson in.” Arthur said and smiled down at me from his horse apologetically. “I’ll see you folks in Colter. Don’t get yourselves killed now.”

Sean and I watched him set off on his horse. I was about to join the rest of the gang in tearing down the last of camp when the Sean spoke. “Ay. Irish.”  I cringed at how he addressed me. “I have a name.” I said sternly, but he ignored this. 

“Have you got enough goat skin to make another pair of gloves? I heard it’s gonna be cold up in this Colter, and Dutch doesn’t want us goin’ into town.” he asked me.

I let out huff of annoyance. “You shoulda’ thought of that sooner. It’ll take me days to make another pair.” I kept on walking, and he followed.

“Come on . I’ll freeze up there. Look, I’ll pay you. How does five dollars sound?” Sean asked. 

I looked at him over my shoulder. “Twenty.” 

“ Twenty !?” He squawked. “Are ya out of your damn mind? You gave Morgan a pair for nothin’”

“You asked me at the last minute.” I pointed out. “And you aint even supplying the leather. I can have ‘em to you in a couple days for twenty.” 

Sean hesitated and let out a defeated sigh. “You drive a hard bargain, girl. But alright. I don’t got the money now, but I will. After this ferry heist we’ll have more money than we can count. And I’ll give ya your lousy twenty bucks. They’d better be the best damn gloves you’ve ever made.” 

I held back a satisfied smirk. I wasn’t sure if I’d actually charge him that much. He had a point, after all. If this heist went as well as Dutch seemed so sure it would, twenty dollars would be nothing. 

—-----

 I figured being so new to camp, Dutch would have me hang back with some of the women. When he’d asked me and Lenny to bring the getaway horses along the riverbank I was eager to prove myself. Maybe he’d asked me because he knew I use to work with horses on a ranch with my Pa. Or maybe I was meant to be a human shield. I still wonder about that sometimes.  Our job was simple: keep the horses together, and take out anyone who tried to follow us. Having never been involved in a gunfight before, I was a little uneasy. “Just keep your head down.” Lenny had warned me. “And shoot before they shoot you. If you get too nervous, just hide behind a rock or something.”  Which did little to reassure me. 

We watched the ferry carefully. Time seemed to go by painfully slow as all we could do was wait. Then, all of a sudden, there was an eruption of chaos as we found ourselves in the middle of a bloodbath. Bullets were flying everywhere when our boat hit the shoreline. The gang started to jump out one by one and mount the horses. There were Pinkertons chasing them off the boat, and a band of bounty hunters were approaching on the shore as soon as they’d been tipped off.

Everyone was shouting as we rode off into what felt like a battlefield. Davey Callandar was on the back of Charles’s horse, wounded and screaming. Jenny Kirk was on Javier’s horse in rough shape, having taken a few bullets on the ferry.  “Where’s Mac?” I heard someone yell over the sound of gunfire. Micah Bell answered. “He’s done for. Had to leave him behind.” 

Horses whinied and galloped along the hard packed dirt trail as we dodged bullets and fired them right back. John Marston was riding behind me. I turned my head in time to watch blood spray from his arm as he was hit.  “Fuck!” The man clutched his arm and dropped his gun. I shouted at him to get in front of me while I shot at the bounty hunters that were right on our tails. I shot one off his horse. Three more showed up. “This way! Up the hill!” I hollered at John and we made a sharp turn up the rock ledge to lose them, separating us from the the rest of the gang. From the corner of my eye, someone who was clearly on our side and shooting with me appeared. 

“Is Marston hit?”  I heard Sean’s voice and was surprised he had come to our aid. 

“I’m fine.” John answered. “Just keep them off our ass. If you can manage that.” 

The hunters were relentlessly chasing. I later figured out that they had likely wounded John to take him as hostage. Just as the noise died down and my heart began to calm, I heard another shot and galloped the horse I was riding faster. I turned and steadied my rifle as I heard Sean’s horse make a loud distressed sound. I saw the animal rear and buck Sean off as the bounty hunters were gaining on us once again. I pulled my reins back, slowing down. I knew the risk of going back for him, but I had been raised better than that.  I turned my horse to go back when a bounty hunter got to him first and leaned over his horse to scoop the young dazed Irishman up from the ground. I heard him laughing. “Got one, boys! It’s payday!” 

I aimed my gun and fired as the man headed in the opposite direction with Sean, only to hear the click of an empty barrel. “Shit..” I watched their horses tear out of sight, Sean’s copper-haired head bobbing limply on the back of the horse. I hurried my horse up the hill again to find John who had gotten a decent head start and was making a tourniquet for his arm from his ripped shirt sleeve.

“John! They..they got him! They took Sean!” I stammered, trying to catch my breath. 

“They did? Shit.. He still alive?” John looked up at me. 

I nodded quickly. “I think so. What do we do?” 

“Little Irish prick. It’s his own fault for gettin’ caught.” John winced holding his arm. He uncapped a flask with his teeth and poured whiskey over the wound before taking a long drink. “Head to camp. Before I lose this damn arm, that’s what we do.”

“But they’ll kill him!” I shouted in disbelief. 

“Not necessarily. They’re bounty hunters. They’ll probably turn him in. Then they’ll kill him.” I could tell John was much more desensitized and unbothered by this than I was. “Maybe we can bust him out before they do. But right now we got bigger problems. Christ, girl. We gotta toughen you up some.”  I frowned, taking offense to his statement, but I followed him, hoping he was right. 

—----

Colter carried the stench of blood in the crisp air from the moment we arrived. 

Jenny bled to death before the gang even made it to our new camp. Javier and Lenny found ground thawed enough to bury her in a shallow grave nearby. I hadn’t known the girl long. She hadn’t been with us much longer than I had, but many were saddened by her loss. Losing the Callandar brothers was a hard hit, as well. We presumed Mac was dead. Micah said he’d been hit more than a few times and there wasn’t much left of him. Davey lived for a few agonizing days before he succumbed due to either blood loss or infection. He joined his brother in whatever afterlife awaits outlaws, and we buried him next to Jenny. 

I thought about Sean. Some presumed he was already dead. I couldn’t help but carry the weight of guilt in knowing that if they hanged the young man it was my fault. Dutch had given me a chance, and I had blown it, letting one of his men get captured. But Dutch seemed to be going through his own personal hell over the deaths and knowing that the entire township wanted his head because he had killed an innocent girl on that ferry.

The emotional state of the camp was as miserable as the weather. We were all anxious to get out of the cold and away from Blackwater before we all faced the gallows. We were low on money, food and morale. I started making those gloves Sean asked for to keep my mind busy, not knowing if he’d ever get to wear them. 

When Arthur and Hosea returned, they were as rattled as we all were to hear how badly things had ended on the ferry. We all had to face the reality that we had to start over, or die there on that mountain. If the law didn’t kill us, the mountain surely would. “I’m sure glad you made me these gloves, Miss Donahue.” Arthur told me one morning while I was huddled by one of the wood stove, stitching Sean’s gloves in the house we were lodging in. He pulled up a stool. “My fingers might have fallen off by now if you hadn’t.”  I smiled politely, but my mind was elsewhere, and he could see it. “Don’t you worry, Miss.” He added. “This gang has seen hard times before, and we’ll surely get through this. We’ll be outta this frozen hell soon enough.” He looked down at the gloves. “You’re making another pair?” 

I let out a sigh. “They were for Sean. But..someone else could have them, I guess.” 

His expression turned serious and he reached out putting a gentle hand on my arm. “I heard what happened back there. You did good, Millie.”

I scoffed and stopped stitching. “ Good ? I let our man get captured. I should have reloaded my gun sooner.”

Arthur gave a shrug. “Happens to all of us. Besides, you saved John’s sorry hide. He’s too proud to thank you for it, but I know he’s grateful in his own way.” Arthur pointed out. He sat back and nodded to the gloves. “You keep at it. We’ll get Sean back, you’ll see. We never leave a man behind, if we can help it.” He started to rise but not before teasing me with a coy half-smile. “I thought you hated the boy.” 

I frowned, my cheeks warming from his insinuation that I felt anything besides dislike for Sean. “I don’t hate him. Don’t have any particular use for him, but I don’t hate any one of you.” 

Arthur chuckled. “That’s the spirit. You’ll probably feel the same way about most of us, with time.” As he walked away it occurred to me that perhaps I was missing the lad more than I was worried about him. At least he was in a warm dry jail cell, being fed, probably. It was Sean’s cocky remarks and obnoxious singing that kept most of us in high spirits, whether we cared to admit it or not. And we sure could have used that in our time on that mountain.

[lunarsands]

Multi-SMP Fanfic: Which Fate’s Fairest To Us All – Ch 6

Characters: Mythical Sausage (1st), Rusty the Copper Golem, PearlescentMoon, Scott Smajor (1st), Mythical Sausage (2nd), Hermes, Mythical Sausage (3rd), Scott Smajor (2nd), Rocky the Goblin, and a couple of briefly mentioned cameos at the end!

WARNINGS: Character death (but they get better because Afterlife/New Life rules are in play), body horror

Chapter Summary: The group escapes the labyrinth at last only to run straight into a new battle against Sparrow and the sculk. Afterward, fate continues to have other plans for Myth and Smajor as they find their way to Sanctuary…

Sequel to Mirror Tenfold, Beyond the Wall and follows sometime after the events of Thou, O Kings, Fair Be You All.

(Also available on Ao3!)

[ Chapter One ] [ Chapter Two ] [ Chapter Three ] [ Chapter Four ] [ Chapter Five ]

---

Chapter Six

That tide felt like it would sweep Myth himself away.

“It all started when he – well, when I did what guardian angels do, try to defend against evil, and vampires are the epitome of evil, right? My holy water didn’t seem to do much, so I ran away and he chased me down, and I ended up unconscious, and I woke up as his prisoner for him to feed off of whenever he wanted. He had taken my wings to display as a trophy and cut me off from the sky and sunlight. Eventually he weakened me enough that I ‘died’ – in a way – but I returned to life still in that dungeon but as a wither. Maybe there was something to that resurrection magic for choosing that particular creature for me to become, maybe some sort of influence after all, because I now saw the world from his point of view, and teamed up with him to spread despair in the world.

“But we were never fully on friendly terms. I snapped one day and withered my own wings, no longer allowing him that victory but staying at his side to continue down the path of evil. And then one day he came back dying from poison. And then he revived as an angel. And that was when my mind truly snapped, convinced he had stolen my holiness from me so he could turn himself into something more powerful. We both fell into insanity from the overwhelming need to get revenge on each other, and that’s how we ended up going through dozens of lives, all with different powers and different ways to murder each other, ignoring the rest of the world as we sought to kill the other a final time and win.”

Myth drew a deep breath. “I found a little sanity at some point, probably after I suffered five deaths in a row. Then I became a blazeborn, and Smajor became a gravital, and we had a stalemate going, and I led him into the Deep Dark hoping that a Warden would help take him down a few times. But we ended up going through the portal, and found ourselves in that labyrinth. And then we ran into our doubles, and when they got their previous powers back and I saw how my double looked at his Scott with adoration when he regrew angel wings… I snapped again. And instead of three of us working together to subdue Smajor, we all fought each other. It was that Scott who defeated me – subdued <i>me,</i> saying he had no intention of killing me despite knowing the exact weakness that would destroy me, and I came back to my senses.

“The other me dealt with Smajor and even tried to ‘fix’ him – using his wither powers, he temporarily removed Smajor’s soul and used some combination of his abilities to stabilize it, removing Smajor’s insanity and knocking him out, too. Then they flew off to try to find an exit. Which they did, returning to lead me out and that’s how I knew how to get here this time.”

Now he sighed wearily. “But just because Smajor was no longer insane it didn’t take away his need for revenge. So, that’s why he caused the death that made me a seraph. I was foolish to think that it was a reward for working together with the Mythical Sausage who was the complete opposite of me. I thought it was a sign to avenge everything Smajor had put me through for as many times as I saw fit. But I went too far, causing myself to become fallen. The celestial realm rejected me and punished me, turning my wings blood red to serve as a warning for others to stay away, that I wasn’t any kind of savior. But I didn’t care. I kept taking vengeance on Smajor. I took every life he had, in every form. No powers he gained could stop me. And eventually I became something more condemned than a fallen angel – I became a cursed one.”

Myth’s gaze went to Sausage. “That was the me you met. By then I had found the limit of the transformation magic in our world, and Smajor had no powers at all. But he didn’t die a final time, so I kept him imprisoned, because I could never believe he would change his ways. If he was allowed to go free, I just knew he would find a way to be a menace again, and he had plenty of time to figure out how since we’ve both been doomed to miserable immortality.”

Everyone’s attention was glued to this honest disclosure of Myth’s past. Scott and Ghast-sage had expressions of uneasy concern, while Sausage and Hermes had different amounts of sympathy clear on their faces. Rusty was silent, although his antenna did bob a few times.

“One time, the doubles we had met here appeared in our world – this was before Sanctuary, but the other seraph was in his final form and his Scott was some sort of purple sparkly creature that could call down meteor strikes – as you can guess, I fought with them again… but I really just wanted them to leave me alone. I had given up on redemption. Fate had already told me that I was cursed to be Smajor’s warden.”

Myth grimaced at the irony of the term, given what they had just been through. “Then, one day – after the Sanctuary incident – some kind of magical force teleported us to another world. It was the Superhero’s world.” Here, he cast another glance at Sausage. “Smajor’s double found him before I did, and used vampire powers to turn Smajor – giving him supernatural abilities again. Honestly, I’m just glad Smajor didn’t gain ten powers at once like those guys. The Superhero, his teammate, and I stopped them both, but I went too far again and… was ready to kill that Scott because I assumed too much about his preference for his vampire powers. The Superhero stopped me, things calmed down, a portal appeared that had what we thought were obvious signs it would take us home, and we left on unwelcome terms.”

He hadn’t wanted to admit the one part, worried that the Scott in front of him now would no longer trust him – a justified thought, as Scott took a hasty step back. Myth continued to keep his arms at his sides even though the lack of gesticulating as he spoke made him feel weird. “Something happened during the teleport once we went through. I lost sight of Smajor, and then suddenly I was turned into a phoenix. And then I stepped out of a Nether portal into your world.” He gave a nod to Scott and Ghast-sage.

“Everyone who came by assumed I was their ghast mage, so I pretended to ‘forget’ what had happened that made ‘me’ turn into a phoenix just so I could… well, wrap my head around it all. Rusty knew something was up, but he let me adjust to life there. It was… a nice break from the back-and-forth murder. I… had a chance to just live and learn new things, like all that technology you have. I, um, I tried to keep things in good condition for you.”

Myth briefly glanced at Ghast-sage, then lowered his gaze only to glance back again. “Then Smajor showed up. He had changed, too, into a fungal mage. He had accepted being mistaken for their Scott, too, but he somehow grew a conscience and wanted to find the versions of us that belonged there. I told him to go away because I didn’t trust his motives. Then he came back with news of where his investigations had led him: the Ancient City and its active portal. I knew what that meant. And he knew that I was the only one who would know how to get out of the labyrinth.”

Myth sighed regretfully. “I still didn’t want to trust him, and I didn’t know which option was better: both of us going in and unwillingly splitting up to find you, or only me and having no choice but to trust him to not destroy the portal behind me. And then I had no say in it, anyway, because sculk began to attack and he used his powers to fight it – and to fling me into the portal. And now that is what could be waiting for us on the other side.”

Myth brought his hands forward to look at them as he curled and uncurled his fingers a few times. “Guess I also now have what I need to stop the sculk and stop Smajor if he tries anything.” He nodded at Sausage and Hermes. “At least you can safely go through your portal. It will let you out where you entered. My plan is to go through with them, destroy the sculk if it’s still there, grab Smajor, and come back here. All of you must destroy your portals after that, and any others you find in your worlds to stop anyone else getting stuck in this limbo dimension – and stop any of that mutated sculk from escaping here.”

Hermes slowly panned his gaze over the entirety of the portal cluster. “What about the rest of these? And what if there are more spots like this in here with more portals?”

“I’m going to drag Smajor through each one and back to warn the people in those worlds. I’ve got infinite time to do it.”

“Mate, that’s going to take too long.” Hermes began ticking off a list on his fingers.  “You’ll lose him every time you come back in. He could escape through any of the other portals while you’re trying to find him. More people might wander in while you’re busy in just one world trying to convince them. You might meet people who want to stop you.” He shook his head emphatically. “I think you’ll want to leave this to someone who has more experience with navigating the multiverse.”

Myth scowled, all too aware of the logistics; a second later an amused smirk crossed his face. “Ah. So, if the Guardian of Realities’ job here wasn’t to guide us out, it was to learn about this problem and travel around to deal with it. Then I guess there’s no use for Smajor and I after all. Makes enough sense. But I still need to collect him before I go home, so let’s get moving.”

Feeling a little drained from all the talking – as well as feeling redundant yet again – Myth flew up to the portal that once led to his new life. He waited before entering, giving Scott a few seconds to teleport Ghast-sage and Rusty to the inner edge of the portal frame before saying to them, “Escape as soon as you can when we’re on the other side. I’ll still be the one to handle Smajor and the sculk. Protector!” he then called down, watching Hermes pick up his father to make it a little easier to reach their own portal. In an effort to offer the sincerest thing he could think of, Myth said, “Good luck. May the pearlescent moon’s guidance speed your travels.”

He didn’t hear Sausage gasp. The swooshing sound of the teleportation magic was already taking hold.

~*~

Myth was alert for Smajor’s position as soon as the Ancient City came into view through the swirling particles. When he caught movement to his left he spun toward it, spreading his wings to shield Scott and Ghast-sage behind him. He made a shooing motion with his right hand, signaling them to move away. He trusted them to take cover further back or even defend themselves from any encroaching sculk, because he was dead set on catching Smajor before anything else.

With his attention firmly turned away from the portal it was easy for additional figures to slip out of it and also run for cover.

As he leapt toward the suspicious movement in front of him, Myth prepared to utter the unsettling noise that he fully expected to get Smajor’s attention. However, Myth was the one who came up short at the sight awaiting him. At first it seemed Smajor was attacking Sparrow – except he was human again, or human-ish; at the very least, Myth was very certain that Sparrow had been a copper golem the last time he had seen him.

Next he noted the blotches of sculk all over Sparrow’s body, including both skin and clothes. Then there was the distinct fact that Sparrow was standing over Smajor, pressing closer and closer to the fungal mage’s throat with an unusual-looking strand of sculk vein.

Of important note was also that there was absolutely no mycelium near Smajor. His back was against a large unbroken carpet of sculk, and despite the flicker of spores around his hands revealed by the light of nearby soul lanterns, the strand wasn’t converting, either. Meanwhile, there was a visible bubbling effect occurring where Sparrow held it.

When tinier bits of sculk vein oozed out of these bubbles to land on Smajor’s chest and face Myth knew where to focus his attack. He pounced, reaching around from behind Sparrow to grab the strand, grasping it directly next to Sparrow’s hands. Myth registered the wire-like feel of it before activating his powers. Within less than a second the whole length of it was crumbling due to decay.

And as Myth had suspected, Sparrow yelped in pain when the decay touched his hands.

The sculk-possessed humanoid’s instincts were to jump away, but Myth closed his arms around him. He refrained from using any more decay – he needed answers, not a disappearing pile of dust while Sparrow’s consciousness revived elsewhere. He did, however, finally utter the bone-chilling breath of a wither, intending to strike some fear into Sparrow.

It was Smajor who emitted a terrified gasp and began a frenzied attempt to slide away backward. He failed to move an inch. Myth now saw that the fungal mage was not just lying on the sculk but was actually trapped by a sludgy form of it that was clinging to his robes.

Smajor really wasn’t the culprit here. It was Sparrow.

“Let me go!” the now-struggling Sparrow yelled. “Intruders must be eliminated!”

Myth scoffed at the irony. “Well, I guess that means I need to be eliminated, too. Don’t really care for that. How about you settle down instead? We need to talk.” Maintaining a tight grasp on Sparrow with one arm, Myth leaned to the side to grab a fistful of sculk out of the ground. He brought it around to hold it in front of Sparrow’s face. “You might be able to play fungus tug-of-war with him, but I can make it so no one has any ammunition.” He crushed the sculk in his hand. The ashen remains fluttered down before Sparrow’s eyes.

Sparrow thrashed wildly in response, forcing Myth to turn around in an effort to keep him restrained. “No! How could you do that to us?! This is our home! Our domain! You’re the ones who don’t belong here! You can’t stop us! We can keep spreading from anywhere and we’ll keep coming back no matter what you do!”

“You’re right about him and me not belonging. But I think we’re exactly what this world needed: two people who are very good at destruction.” Myth’s gaze flicked to a flurry of orange particles in the distance. In the next second he was shoving Sparrow into Scott’s arms; they disappeared immediately, and once he saw the transporter reappear on top of a sculk-free deepslate wall, Myth plunged his hands into the sculk at his very feet with a roar.

Decay shot across the entire surface in an expanding radius around him. Smajor dropped onto the layer of solid deepslate below as the muck trapping him crumbled away. He coughed from the stale remnants that floated in the air before those, too, dissipated. He stayed where he was, simply watching the wave of decay as it continued ever outward. However, he abruptly scrambled to his feet when he saw other faces peeking out from around a deepslate pillar – one that was partially held up by sculk. He ran toward it and flung his hands out, sending a line of mycelium across the floor and up the pillar, replacing the sculk just as the spreading decay was about to reach it.  Smajor then fell backward, chest heaving before he recovered enough to sit up again.

Sparrow’s distorted voice rang out. “No, no, no!! Where are the guardians of this city?! Rise, Wardens! I command you!” His voice lost all semblance of itself on the final three words.

The ground underneath Myth rumbled and churned. Before he could react, numerous large clawed hands thrust upward out of the resulting rubble and grabbed him, pulling him down through the displaced floor with bits of deepslate cutting at him on the way.

Scott teleported to the spot but even he was too slow to do anything – the deepslate reformed itself into solid ground right before his eyes. Sparrow laughed in triumph.

“Ohmygod!” Ghast-sage shouted from where he was hiding. “Th-They can just do that?!”

Scott squatted to touch the floor. Surely it would start crumbling away when Myth unleashed his powers in order to destroy the Wardens that had grabbed him, and surely he could make deepslate decay just like the sculk…

A sound like the reversed shattering of glass interrupted the horrified silence that had followed. From behind the pillar Smajor had prevented from falling came a small bolt of orange energy that ricocheted rapidly off of thin air. It struck the ground where Myth had disappeared. Scott drew back, startled, but then lowered his hand again. He could swear the surface under his palm was growing warm.

No, it definitely was.

He leapt away a breath before the deepslate turned molten and buckled upward in the shape of a volcanic cone. A blazing form burst from the center – Myth, his wings and upper body aflame in hues of glowing orange. A split-second glimpse of his eyes revealed twin blind embers as he continued soaring straight up. A deafening hawk-like screech rent the cavern. Myth crashed right into the ceiling a second later.

No one saw what happened to him in the aftermath. While they had been watching him, the volcano in the floor had doubled in size and its sides had begun to protrude. It exploded outward, covering the entire area in a blanket of burning lava.

~*~

The next thing Myth became aware of was a voice that sounded an awful lot like Hermes and might have been asking Myth if he could hear him. He lifted his head from the oddly warm ground. At the corners of his fuzzy vision, he could discern the fading light of lava disappearing into cracks before the rest of it began to cool. He was confused by the orange tufts at the top of his line of sight. Groggily maneuvering a hand out from under his prone body to touch them revealed that it was his own hair. He shifted a wing into view. His feathers were orange again.

This universe really was dead-set on wanting him to be a phoenix.

He sat up, keeping his hand to his head, while Hermes kept plying him for a response. Myth’s ears were ringing, so the words weren’t clear, plus he was still processing the fact the young man was there. “Wha… You were… Your own portal…” Myth mumbled. “How’d you… get here?”

Hermes’ voice continued to be muffled by the thankfully now-dulling ring, so Myth tried using his eyes to gain information. He saw the blurry figure of Sausage standing over someone, talking to them. The blur was resolving itself slowly, so Myth squinted at the sitting figure. The red shape that bobbed along with their head movements clarified into a mushroom cap. Myth tried to lunge onto his feet, a warning on his lips.

He fell flat on his face instead. He had been revived once again, yet he didn’t feel particularly refreshed in the energy department this time around.

“Easy, mate,” came a gentle reproach from Hermes as he lent Myth a hand in sitting up again. “You smacked into the ceiling pretty hard. We figured you could withstand the heat better than the others, so we recovered them first. I’ve got to say, the resurrection magic of this world is fascinating to witness.”

Myth looked to where Sausage stood. There were four bodies near him: three laying on the ground with Rusty pacing next to one of them and the last one sitting up as the chat with Sausage continued. Now Myth could tell there was a difference; although there was the white hair under the mushroom cap like Smajor, the clothes were Scott’s.

Myth’s body froze up as a realization began to dawn in his brain, but his gaze was able to slide to the other figures. The identical fungal mage was there, in the same robes as expected with his satchel beside him. Next was Sparrow, lacking the sculk that had marred him before. And then a face identical to his own right down to the orange beard and hair, if not minus the extensive scar, with orange-feathered wings splayed out underneath him, and wearing the Ghast Mage’s robes.

Understanding settled over him. He let a bitter smile cross his face then he slouched, letting an invisible weight off his shoulders. He turned his head as Hermes sat down beside him. “I need you to explain again why you’re here. I didn’t catch it the first time.”

“Sure. We were about to go through our portal but Dad said he sensed something from the Staff and insisted we follow you guys. You were already moving away when we came through, so we took cover to watch what might happen. Dad was trying to figure out what the Staff wanted, then that gemstone in it shattered and released some sort of magic beam out to where you got dragged underground. After that things got kind of dicey because a massive lava eruption happened after you flew out of like, a volcano-looking thing. Or maybe the volcano spat you out and the lava followed. N-Not to say you caused it,” Hermes quickly amended. “I’m not sure how conscious you even were at that point, and that was before you hit the ceiling.”

Myth put a hand to his head as if feeling for a bump, shifting his gaze to his boots. “I don’t remember anything between the Wardens pulling me in and a few minutes ago. But it’s obvious Smajor and I have to go soon. This world doesn’t need two phoenixes and fungal mages.” He started to push himself up, then felt a wave of dizziness, so he sat back down. “…After a little more rest.”

By now Smajor had awakened and was talking quietly to Scott. His movements were sluggish as he picked up his satchel of mushrooms and opened it. However, once he began pointing inside as the two chatted his energy seemed to pick up a bit. Myth kept what he felt was a reasonable amount of wariness, although perhaps he had given enough warnings about Smajor up till then that Hermes and Sausage could handle him.

The former Ghast Mage woke next. He snuck a few glances at Myth between observing the two fungal mages. Myth didn’t feel like chatting with him, anyway, so it was for the best that the other stayed where he was. He instead turned his mind toward composing a strategy for his next move.

As if privy to his train of thought, Hermes asked, “Are you still planning to go back in that labyrinth?”

“Of course. What else is there?”

“Well, I think you should come with my dad and I to Sanctuary. You could rest up a little more so you’ll be in better shape to chase down your unfortunately assigned ward over there when you get separated. It will be more comfortable than sitting around this cave. Plus, these guys will have their hands full going around destroying all the Ancient City portals here. In Sanctuary Dad and I can help keep an eye on Smajor.”

With the amicable-sounding conversation from the two fungal mages floating his way Myth admitted that this would, perhaps, be the better option.

~*~

After swapping clothes with their doubles, Myth, Smajor, and the rest of their new group stood watching from their hiding spot as the rightful phoenix and fungal mage of that universe walked away, Sparrow trudging wearily along between them and Rusty looking over the former Ghast-sage’s shoulder. Sparrow was still dazed from his experience, having been mumbling is distressed sorrow over having fought with his friends, and was apologizing profusely to Scott for trying to kill him.

They all thought it best to not involve Sparrow in the confusion of doubles from other realities; he had no memory of Myth destroying the sculk or of the Wardens dragging Myth underground. All Sparrow said he could recall was some kind of large explosion, comparing it to TNT.

After waiting ten minutes to make sure they were gone, Sausage held the Staff aloft – incidentally showing that it was back to its mossy and red-mushroom bedecked appearance – and a moment later Myth found himself blinking against bright sunlight streaming through tall stands of bamboo. A path with assorted flowers decorating random spots meandered away in front of them, splitting to the left to go up a slope to a small building while the rest of the path passed through a variety of trees, beyond which were the homes and businesses of Sanctuary itself. Myth cast a glance over his shoulder. Behind them was a giant tree stump with a giant white tulip growing atop it. Below the tulip and slightly to the right was a Nether portal.

He assumed this was a coincidence.

Sausage and Hermes walked past behind him, so Myth fully turned to watch and wait for a sign to follow. Now he saw a second, large-ish tree with a hollow in the middle near the roots. Squinting, Myth could see an armor stand inside. It was here that Sausage placed the Staff on one side of the armor stand while Hermes placed his trident on the other. A shimmer appeared over the front of the hollow as they exited.

Sausage smiled as he returned to the visitors, tired wrinkles appearing on his face. “Needs to recharge. Let’s go refresh at the tavern!”

As their host led the way, Myth none-too-subtly tossed glares at Smajor from the corner of his eyes. Smajor peered at him once with a neutral expression then lowered his head, keeping pace between Myth and Hermes the whole way.

The ambience of a breeze off the sea and call of animals hidden by trees and bamboo was a stark contrast to the stagnant isolation of both the labyrinth and the Deep Dark. When they reached the town proper Myth saw people of every race and species going about their day. Some of them called out greetings to Sausage and Hermes. There was a reverence in a few of the tones, as if they were addressing a king – or maybe it was Hermes’ status as a demi-god. Either way, the Protector and his son responded as friends rather than as rulers.

Upon reaching the tavern Sausage flung the door open and cheerfully called out, “¡Regresamos! ¿Cómo están todos? ¡María! ¡Justo a quién quería ver!” He crossed between tables to a person who, to Myth’s eyes, looked like an anthropomorphic rabbit wearing leatherworker gear. She had been helping an Allay change out tablecloths in the booths along the wall, but spoke an excited greeting then began chatting away with Sausage in his native language.

Hermes waved Myth and Smajor toward the bar. The latter hesitated. “Come on. Take a seat. My little brother can mix up some drinks to your liking. Best bartender in Sanctuary! ¡Hola, Rocky! We have newcomers!”

“¡Hola!” said a gravelly voice from behind the bar. From below behind the bar. Myth was about to sit on one of the barstools but curiosity seized him so he leaned over the bar to see what this brother of a demi-god might look like. He ended up making eye contact with a short, green-skinned person wearing similar brightly-colored clothes as the people around town. They uttered a strange sort of chirp in response. “¡Ay! ¡Papá! ¿Qué te pasó en la cara? ¡Y el pelo!”

Hermes laughed. “No, no, hermano– this is one of Dad’s dobles from another reality.”

“Oh. You could have warned me!” The small fellow chirped again. He added a sort of gargling sound afterward, then went about getting some clean mugs.

Apparently replying to these vocalizations, Hermes said, “Something to give everyone a little pick-me-up. No, I think you can leave out the redstone zest for now. We’ve had enough high blood pressure for one day.” He sat down as Myth settled onto the barstool, explaining, “Rocky is adopted from the goblin kingdom. He goes back and forth between languages in the same sentence, kind of an assimilation quirk of goblinfolk when they intermingle with other cultures they’re exposed to.”

Smajor had remained standing, hovering near the end of the bar. When Rocky stepped up onto a wooden ledge to place a mug in front of him, Smajor lightly shook his head. “No thank you, actually. I think I would rather just sleep. Using up my mana twenty times in a row is exhausting.” He continued to avoid looking at Myth – which was difficult, since he wanted to address Hermes.

Rocky uttered a “Prrrt” and stepped down. He then brought the mug over to Hermes and slid it next to where the young man rested his elbow, making an indiscernible comment. He then exited the bar, walking around to where Smajor was. “Follow me, Don Sombrero de Hongo. We offer the most comfortable rooms in all of Sanctuary to visitors.”

“I have no idea what you just called me,” Smajor said wearily. “But, whatever. Show me the way.” As they headed up the staircase Maria followed, one hand casually resting on the pommel of the dagger stuck through a loop on her apron.

Sausage came over to sit next to Hermes. He pulled over the mug Rocky had left, holding it between his hands. “Maria will keep an eye on him. Just in case.” He took a sip from the mug then let out a satisfied sigh. “Ah, it’s good to be home. I’ll start sending explanations about the Ancient City portals to the other empires in a little while. For now, these old bones need to rest!” He sighed again before taking a long, noisy sip of his drink.

Hermes casually cleared his throat. “Speaking of Ancient Cities, I have a proposal for you.” He swiveled his barstool toward Myth. “I have more training to do as Apprentice-Guardian-of-Realities, and obviously that means I have to go visit a bunch more worlds. You want to go around the multiverse in a round-about fashion. So, why don’t you travel with me? Using the Staff to get around will be much more efficient than having to go through that labyrinth over and over again. Sounds kind of lonely to me, really. Might as well have someone along who can vouch for what’s going on in that place. And I can help you avoid any realities that you’ve already been to – by the way, do the mobs in the Superhero’s world have ten powers, too?”

Myth stared back blankly for a moment, confused by Hermes’ blithe tone. The young man clearly hadn’t gotten enough of a taste of how dangerous it was to be around him. “I wouldn’t be alone, technically,” Myth blurted. “I’m taking Smajor. And there is no way I would risk bringing him along with that Staff there to tempt him—”

Sausage, hands resting around his mug again, calmly interrupted, “Well, there isn’t a Scott in this world anymore, so it wouldn’t cause a cosmic paradox if yours stayed here. Under my supervision, of course. Everyone is welcome to take shelter in Sanctuary, after all.” A small smile graced his visage, his age-lined eyes holding gentleness and patience as he looked at Myth.

Old buried resentment threatened to surface until Myth realized that this was a look of understanding and acceptance, not the pleading insistence of a shining seraph who wanted a cursed angel to give up his pain before he was ready. Still, his voice came out in a grumble. “You can’t be implying that I should stay here, too. You and I still make a paradox.”

“I’m the Guardian of Realities! Come on, now! I can cheat a little bit to make an exception for myself! And for whichever of myselves happen to find their way to my doorstep! But, ehhh, it is probably a good idea to leave with Hermes regularly. Just so no overarching multiversal powers-that-be don’t catch on, if you know what I’m sayin’. It’ll be fine! Don’t you worry for a minute! The multiverse has a job for you, after all!”

~*~   EPILOGUE   ~*~

Three months later…

Sausage walked out of the former L.O.R.E. headquarters after bidding everyone farewell, his sunflower-styled walking stick in hand. The items from the rift incident had been carefully packed away to be replaced by an ever-growing pile of charts and arrangements of different colored string across a bulletin board. The latter was to illustrate which realities shared similarities, noted mainly out of the interest in which ones were parallels of each other. The charts recorded spatial coordinates for each reality and the types of worlds that existed within them.

The initial team of two had grown during their travels throughout the multiverse. The debriefing room currently accommodated the likes of Blood Pearl of Mythland, an accomplished reality-hopper herself, who had been seeking a way to save her dear friend the Farmer King of Helianthia from fated doom; a Time Witch named Cleo who was on a quest to fix her own fractured timeline; and Interstellar Paladin Sparklez, who had been attempting to teach the ways of balance to the multiverse after his goddess, Lady Ianite, sacrificed herself to save his world.

Sausage had listened in enough times to acknowledge that Myth had gotten the hang of things, so he felt he could take his leave. He stopped off at the tavern and the bakery, procuring a picnic basket on the way to fill with some supplies, then headed off into a denser part of the bamboo forest outside of Sanctuary. He stopped briefly near a weather-worn stone memorial to check on a patch of unique flowers with an equally weather-worn wooden sign in front of the small border that surrounded them. The two species of flowers, which only grew in that one location in all the world, were thriving as they always had, so he continued on his trek.

A few minutes later the tall bamboo began to be overshadowed by the caps of giant mushrooms. Shorter clusters of them hugged the sides of the path along the way, some of mixed red and brown, some just one or the other at different heights, and even some warped and crimson fungus were there standing out amongst the mundane colors.

Then he reached the main mushroom grove, where the path itself turned to pure mycelium while around it was grass of a rich, deep emerald color. With even more of the giant mushrooms providing shade overhead, the air felt cooler as well as holding a comfortable dew point, making it seem like a completely different biome had been plunked down in the middle of the bamboo jungle.

Sausage leaned on his walking stick as he admired one of the giant mushrooms that had three joined stems, noting how it had the shape of a brown mushroom but with the bright orange specks found on a warped fungus.

A polite yawn behind him made him turn; Smajor stood there holding the last basket that Sausage had brought out, tiny mushrooms piled up to the point they were going to spill out if he tilted it. “Hello, Protector,” he greeted in a neutral tone. He had adopted the title to use for referring to him, never once calling Sausage by name. “What brings you out here?”

“I just thought I’d stop by and check on things.” Sausage held up the new basket, not needing to include this also meant offering his guest some food and drinks.

Smajor gently set down the one he had been carrying then waved a hand, causing two red mushrooms big enough to sit on to spring up behind himself and Sausage.

“Ah. Thank you.” Sausage leaned over to set his basket down on the ground too, then leaned on his walking stick again as he carefully lowered himself onto the provided seat. “It’s looking very nice out here. It feels serene. I’m particularly impressed with that one, there.” He gestured to the three-stemmed mushroom. “It reminds me of a kingdom I once saw. They also had magically-grown mushrooms in different colors, although that was attributed to special crystals that had been planted alongside regular mushrooms.”

“I thought I would experiment a little with the types I can conjure. As for that particular one…” Smajor paused, his eyes seeming to go distant for a second, then he continued, “They remind me of… home. From a long, long time ago. This place is very bright in comparison, so it’s not going to be a perfect imitation. But when the sun sets and the light is just right… It feels like my own little private piece of a twilight forest.”

There was a wistfulness in his voice that reached Sausage’s heart. “I’m glad you’ve been able to make a place for yourself during your time here. You’re always welcome in town, too, whenever you like.”

A frown pulled at the corners of Smajor’s lips, but he didn’t take out any of his bitterness on the well-meaning old man. “No, I’d rather stay here. Talking to nature suits me better than talking to people, and I definitely don’t want to run into Myth by accident. And I don’t want him to come here.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s too busy to pay a visit.”

"Either way, he will never stop looking at me like he thinks I'm going to murder you all if the wind starts blowing from another direction." Smajor sighed in feigned-resignation. "I mean, I still want to see him dead, but since that is extremely unlikely to ever happen, I'll stick with never seeing his particular face again. Out here is my peace, and if you want more reasons to stop feeling obligated to invite me to town, then think of it as me staying out here makes it safer for everyone. I want to keep it that way.”

THE END

[post-A/N: That wraps things up for Myth and Smajor, along with the Past Unmasked timeline! Well, unless I get struck by more inspiration out of the blue. Obviously this went far beyond a couple of darkfics written for the heck of it and an AU based on a friend's artwork, so who knows! But I do want to focus on other Empires S1 stuff and potentially one more fic for Soul Liminality 2, so please stay tuned! I appreciate everyone who has taken the time to read these bizarre AUs of mine, with a special shout out to those who left comments! The encouragement is greatly appreciated! Thank you so much for staying with me through the development of these characters and their wanderings away from canon. I hope you'll enjoy the fics I write in the future!]

~*~*~

Translations:

¡Regresamos! ¿Cómo están todos? ¡María! ¡Justo a quién quería ver!  -We have returned! How is everyone? Maria! Just who I wanted to see!

Hola! – Hello!

¡Ay! ¡Papá! ¿Qué te pasó en la cara? ¡Y el pelo!  - Yikes! Papa! What happened to your face? And hair!

Hermano -  brother

Dobles - doubles

Don Sombrero de Hongo - Mister Mushroom Hat

[callmeannwithoutane]

Manifest at it's finest!

8/8/24

Four years ago, I was heartbroken when I didn’t pass the PUPCET. It was a tough moment, and I felt like my dreams were slipping away. However, I made a decision: if I couldn’t go to PUP, I would enroll at EARIST and set a new goal for myself. I promised that I would work hard, stay focused, and, most importantly, manifest the achievement of graduating with a Latin honor. Specifically, I envisioned myself earning the title "Cum Laude."As I began my journey at EARIST, It wasn't easy to enter in new world in a time of pandemic I was lack of resources and gaining friends. On one particular subject I was scared of it because I knew on myself I was lack of it. I still thoughts I can handle it but because of the time management I was stressed and was not satisfied with my grades. I thought that was my last chance. So, I didn't put efforts on my next following year. Fast forward, when I enrolled on my fourth year when a professor saw my evaluation grade form and said that I have a chance to be in a Latin honor. I was shocked and hopeful as I start my fourth year semester. Finishing this semester wasn't easy and I could say to myself that I am proud of what I have achieve right now. and I am graduating with the honor of "Cum Laude." Reflecting on the past four years, my younger self would be very proud! I am deeply grateful for how God has guided me throughout this journey. Even though my path wasn’t what I originally envisioned, it led me to a place where I could grow, learn, and achieve something I am truly proud of. If earning this honor fulfills the dreams and aspirations of my younger self, then I feel a deep sense of contentment.This accomplishment is a testament to the power of perseverance, faith, and the belief that even when our plans don’t go as expected, we can still achieve greatness. Now, I am finally just grad-waiting on September 8, 2024. Looking forward to manifest a new goal in my career!.

[talldarkandroguesome]

9th of Midyear, Sundas

I sampled my newest lecture at the Nest on Turdas and I believe that it was well received. I focused on the aspect that I know to be the main difference between our Nest and others I have come across. The strength of religious conviction.

Now, I have been talking it through with Zethith and I can see where there can be an advantage to having some aspect of a Nest a glorified sex club.

If someone manages a long-term infiltration of your group, they only truly see the orgies and other mild debaucheries that titillate nobles and other wealthy persons with more time than sense. If you are raided, there is little to be found but some suggestion of people trying to be edgy, you get a slap on the wrist, a fine or a night in a cell, and then you are let go with a verbal warning.

You are less likely to be taken seriously as a threat of any kind by Ordinators when all you are known for is allowing a bunch of people to get together and indulge their carnal desires. It is hardly against the law unless someone can manage to twist the law to some way and have you pay the fine for prostitution without being registered with the guild or as an independent worker.

Since I have such a rigorous screening capability, unless Tanur were to make some large blunder, or a current spiderling decided to turn on us, we do not have to worry quite so much.

Speaking of Tanur, his little gatherings are going fine. I hear that non of my future deathweavers have continued to participate in the activities, save for Ebony, who has made an occasional appearance. I think all of them have decided to concentrate on their more intense training.

As such, I have set for them a new goal. Each of them has been given someone that they must, using any of the pillars of our Prince they choose, to obtain a personal item from them. It cannot be something like a purse or something that any thief might be able to accomplish. I want something that requires getting close.

We shall see, next month, how they have actually done on their goals. I need to start training them how to use the skills they are learning to a more practical ability.

Of course I did my usual observation of their practice in the training room. They are greatly improving. Blaze and Effervescent continue to push each other with their competitive streak. I feel as though there is some sexual tension that has grown out of it and, honestly, I hope they continue to use that to work hard. Prince, he is an interesting fellow indeed.

Once everyone had gone to wash up, he approached me and asked if there were any way to get additional lessons or some private instruction. I felt as though he was trying to seduce me, but I did not say no, only inquired as to whether he had any particular concern. To this he said he was worried about his form. He said that men were not as agile as mer and that he was hoping to build his flexibility and to get help with the magickally based aspects of things, since he did not have a natural gift.

While I do not doubt that he was trying to get more than that of me, if any part of his request were true, I could hardly turn him down. After all, it was my own inability with magicka that had led me to this path and it was the careful instruction of my own teacher that allowed me to excel.

I strive to try and embody Luayl, though I hope to avoid developing romantic feelings for my pupil as he did. Of course Prince is hardly as young now as I was when I started, even making adjustments for the different lifespans of our respective races.

Prince has been told that I must make arrangements before agreeing to his request. If I felt like he could be trusted with my identity, I might try and have him hired on as a bodyguard and he would be able to observe and train more readily. The alternative is, of course, to have set times during the evening where I meet him at the Cathedral of Webs. The thought of so much teleportation turns my stomach. Yet it is the price I must pay if I desire to have the best Deathweavers.

The one most keen for my new lecture series, however, is Ebony. Not a great surprise given how I pulled her from the Maulborn because of her religious following. I spoke of the importance, even as devotees of our Prince, to honor their close siblings of the True Tribunal. Of why it is that the Prince of Dawn and Dusk should be given great reverence and why we had so much respect for the Ebony Serpent.

Ebony spoke to the others about her own beliefs in Lord Boethiah and what had drawn her to such a cause. Of course it was not as powerful for those who were not Dunmer, but I think that it drove the point across, nonetheless.

Like Prince, Ebony came to me after we had concluded our monthly rites and asked if we could talk. She had many thoughts and feelings about having focused her worship to a single Prince. And while I would not normally encourage such things, I did explain to her where in our liturgy we were actually giving honors to the other of the Three and why I felt it was important to retain such words in our daily practice.

Further, I told her that I have my own personal practice outside of my devotional duties to our Prince, wherein I make the appropriate ancient veneration of all Three Princes. I encouraged her to not give up on her desires to venerate Lord Boethiah and said that as long as it does not interfere with her duties in the Nest or in her having the best quality of life, I should like her to resume such worship.

She threw her arms around me, so overcome with emotion that it was not until she had already done so that she pulled back. I touched her cheek softly and told her that it was alright. In this place we are safe. That we can have some trust in the best intentions of one another, if you ensure that the spiders and Daedra are well cared for, at least. But that all us mortals must be allowed to live and work together as a family.

And it made me think, having so many people who no longer are seen to go to jobs, it might become suspicious, even if they do not frequent town quite so often. But perhaps that only leads more suspicion back to us.

Therefore, I have began to work with Tanur on a way to give the appearance of working a regular set of jobs. As he is a merchant, there are many jobs that can be done that give cause for people to be seen around one another.

As such, I am creating a list of potential jobs, some of which will be actual work, for those that would like to have more to do during the day or interact more in the public. For those that mostly wish to spend their time at the Nest and focused on their learning and honing their skills, there are less frequent opportunities, jobs such as courier. A merchant with a delivery service is rather handy. It will allow them all to earn additional wages, should they wish to do so, but also to be able to start to test the skills they have been practicing out with the public.

Zethith is skeptical of the plan until I have done more, but I think they are mostly glad to see me putting more time into my Nest. I think they believe I have been slacking on my duties and not devoting enough time to them. But I am here to prove otherwise!

I must write more lessons and give them more practice time. I want my spiderlings to be ready to start performing tasks assigned to them by the end of the year. There is too much to do that I have been putting off.

[harkovastwebcomic]

Chapter 26 Part 6

Shogun’s head felt suddenly light and his vision turned white. He placed a hand over his eyes and stood silently for a few moments until his senses returned. When he opened his eyes again he saw Goy’s expression was uncertain, torn between anger at Shogun’s demands and discomfort at Shogun’s obvious infirmity. ”Listen to me,” breathed Shogun, his words slow and forceful. “You are going to open that gate right now.” ”The warriors out there are already dead or captured,” Goy responded bluntly.

“Do what I say,” continued Shogun, “or I will kill you right now, you coward!” The soldiers around Goy all drew their swords, ready to defend their leader. Goy raised a hand for them to restrain themselves. ”You can barely stand, let alone fight,” said Goy. “You need to seek medical attention. Shotelis’ grace, man! You’re bleeding!” Goy pointed to the blood dripping rapidly from under Shogun’s armour onto the floor and forming a puddle at his feet. Shogun did not look to what Goy was pointing to, but swayed slightly on his feet. ”Get some help before you collapse,” said Goy. “War requires tough decisions and sacrifices. We can debate tactics later. I have the city’s defences to coordinate. Be on your way.” For a few moments, Shogun glared at Goy, before turning and walking away with an uncomfortable, lopsided gait. ”Should we arrest him?” asked one of the Nymus officers. “I would not tolerate such talk even from a citizen, let alone some foreign scrabber.” ”His warriors have been largely spent,” said another. “He has no particular use to us.” ”Why bother?” said Goy “He looks half dead.” ”But even injured, he is still dangerous,” said another officer. “A wounded Veth is most likely to bite. I certainly wouldn’t want to be the one to approach him!” ”In his current state,” said Goy, “I doubt he even knows what he is saying. Let him languish. By morning he will most likely be dead anyway. Now we have more important matters to attend to.” Despite his confident manner, this encounter had shaken Goy. His decision to close the gates had been taken quickly. Had he truly panicked? Should he have let the allied warriors enter? Perhaps there had been time. Though he would not lose sleep over the lives of mercenaries and Shogun’s thugs, additional warriors on the second line of defence would have been valuable. For a moment he felt himself gripped with doubt. He had set out to save his beloved city from its enemies, but now it was under siege, falling back to its inner defences. They were isolated--even the other city states seemed to have abandoned them. For the first time, he wondered if his judgement had been wrong. Had he led his people down a path of ruin and now it was too late to turn back? He pushed such thoughts from his mind. He was doing what had to be done, what any true patriot would do in his position. The Gods and Shaldemos would not let Yalangov fall.

[quinn-loves-liam]

Hey dumpling, you can totally ignore this but I just wanted to apologize. I know you probably don’t even want to see me in pictures, I really never wanted to hurt you or Liam but Star had me on a choke hold and she was very manipulative, she made me feel like shit for talking to y’all and when she learned that I felt something for y’all she started to say scary stuff and the only way for me to calm her was to say what I said again I’m very sorry and I hope you are doing well

Oh, hey,

I'm not sure where to start, so I'm just going to say it, and I hope other than this, you're doing well. I know it's been quite some time since we last spoke, and I've been reflecting a lot on our past interactions. Recently, you reached out to apologize for the hurtful things you said to both me and my partners, and I want to acknowledge that I appreciate your effort to make amends.

The words you spoke at that time cut deep and left lasting emotional scars. I won't deny that it took me a long time to come to terms with the pain they caused. At that time, I was struggling with feelings of insecurity, unsure if I was a bad person or not, and you used that vulnerability to harm me, regardless of what led you to say those hurtful things.

The fact that you blamed your ex for manipulating you only added to the complexity of my feelings. I couldn't help but question why you didn't communicate with me about this manipulative person or take a different path that wouldn't have hurt me so much.

Since that time, life has taken an unexpected turn for me. I was involved in a car crash that served as a wake-up call, forcing me to reevaluate my life and the people in it. This experience made me realize that life is precious and too short to hold onto grudges or negative feelings. While I can't forget the past, I'm willing to consider giving you another chance.

However, I need you to understand that rebuilding trust is not an easy task. It requires genuine effort and accountability. I want to believe that you've grown and learned from the past, but I can't ignore my concerns about being manipulated again.

One thing that adds to my doubts is the anonymous nature of your apology. You sent it without revealing your main tumblr account, and this makes me question if you're truly willing to genuinely say sorry. I'm aware of how you had several accounts, and there was one in particular that I wasn't allowed to see much of. I even remember when you mistakenly sent me the link to that account once. All of this contributes to my uncertainty about your sincerity. I hope this will help you understand the magnitude of the pain you caused and the importance of making amends sincerely.

If you genuinely wish to be a part of my life again, I need to see a consistent effort on your part. It won't be an overnight process, and I can't promise that things will go back to the way they were. However, if you demonstrate through your actions that you've changed, learned from your mistakes, and are committed to being a better friend, there's a chance for us to rebuild our bond.

Please understand that my decision to reconnect will be based on your actions, not just words. It's essential that you respect my boundaries and give me the space to process everything. Copy-pasting an apology feels less genuine, and it would mean a lot more to me if you took the time to craft a heartfelt message that addresses the specific hurt you caused.

I hope you can comprehend the weight of my emotions and the significance of rebuilding trust. As I contemplate letting you back into my life, know that I'm doing so out of a desire for closure and not wanting to harbor resentment forever. Life is precious, and I want to make the most of it by fostering healthy relationships.

Take some time to reflect on what I've shared with you. When you're ready to demonstrate your sincerity, reach out to me with a genuine and personal message. Let's talk openly and honestly, without any pressure or expectations.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and whatever the truth is, I just hope no one gets hurt this time around.

[robinsdearest]

Three Steps Back (Part 2)

Jason Todd x Reader | Dick Grayson x Reader

Part 1

It had been six weeks since the alley incident. Six weeks since Jason returned to your world. He had reappeared in your memory where you were still lost from his. Your encounter had essentially ruined most of Jason’s progress. More than just a few steps back. 

He lost his older brother: Dick declined Jason’s calls, he refused to join the rest of the family in stakeouts or takedowns, and he has not been seen at Wayne Manor since.  Jason wasn’t positive Dick was avoiding him specifically until the devil spawn approached him after a night on patrol. Damian said Dick wanted space, but Jason didn’t think he had meant the whole damn galaxy. He just wanted answers. He wanted to speak to someone that could provide information, but he refused to speak to you. 

You had flooded his thoughts after that fateful night. His dreams were filled with the photos from his phone, now turned to moving pictures- they felt like out of body experiences, Jason now watching you and circus boy in his place. A third wheel, unwanted and forgotten. Is that how you had felt?

Maybe this was for the best. After all, Jason seemed to remember everything else. Or so he thought. 

Jason tried to go back to the small basics to see if you truly were the only missing piece. He walked his old neighborhood to find the alley where he first took the Batmobile wheels. He instantly knew the route to his favorite cheeseburger diner. He followed the path that led to Dick’s old apartment- the fire escape still creaked on the third step. Jason even borrowed Tim’s bicycle to make sure he at least remembered the simple mechanics. It took him a whole week to go through different parts of memory lane. 

Jason’s head hit the pillow back at his apartment. It’s been an exhausting time- he hasn’t taken any mercenary jobs since meeting you again. It was early in the morning after a particular long patrol night. He just needed a clear head. Jason’s memory held true for even the smallest things. But you were no small thing.  His mind crawls to the saying from one of those cheesy romance movies Stephanie made him watch with her last week.  “Distance makes the heart grow fonder.” Yeah, what a piece of shit. Jason feels sick. 

The phone ringing brought Jason to his senses. He answers with a grunt.

“I want to talk.”

Jason shoots upward from his position, sitting tall. 

“Dick?” Silence must mean compliance. “Sure. Name the time and place.” 

The older man speaks softly away from the phone. Jason can’t make out what was said, but assumes it was with a third person for confirmation. 

“B’s cave. Tonight.” 

And before Jason could ask for more specifics, the line drops. It’s two more steps forward at least. 

With no direct scheduled meeting, Jason arrives to the cave late in the evening. Nerves ultimately kept him home, even if the vigilante convinced himself otherwise.  Tim and Dick are standing by the weapons vault, Dick smiling at something Tim had said to him. The smile fades quickly when he hears Jason. 

“What’s this “oui” bit, French man?” Jason attempts his own joke to ease the tension. “I thought you said it was just you.” 

To Jason’s delight, Tim snickers in response. Dick’s frown tightens. There’s a vein on his neck that could pop at any moment.  

“Timmy’s here for mediation.” Dick nods in the aforementioned kid’s direction. “I don’t have much to say to you in all actuality.” 

It’s Jason’s turn for a vein to pop. “Then why the hell did you call me all the way out to the manor? I’ve got cases to follow.” Lies to cover his own turmoil. 

Dick puffs air through his nose. He can probably see through the lies. “Whatever.” Dick finally turns to face Jason, scowling at his brother. Jason gulps, not expecting the intensity of his gaze. “I want you to know that nothing you say will change their mind. They’ve had a lot of time to think, and I’ve been chosen.” The last word has more venom than anyone would care to admit. It’s said with malice: a choice was made. The ferocity of his voice surprises even Dick. He swears under his breath, putting a hand on the back of his neck. He apologizes quietly.  

“They just want to clear the air. Get closure.” Jason finally registers that circus boy is speaking about you. A twinge of pain has Jason desperately searching for words, but all he can do is nod. 

Dick takes Jason’s response in stride, gliding right past him. From somewhere behind him, Jason can hear Dick lower his voice.  Tim turns to follow Dick, motioning Jason to follow. As Jason turns, his breath is stolen from his lungs. 

You’re sitting at one of the data tables. Your leather jacket is thrown across the back of your chair, and your cheeks are tinted pink- from crying, Jason can finally tell. You’re even more breathtaking than the night he first saw you.  He sits in the chair next to you, there is still a safe distance between your bodies. Jason wants to give you the room to run if you wanted, but he can’t help but need to be close. He wants nothing more than to remember everything. Remember you. 

Dick and Tim both leave the cave for now. Dick is calm as he gives you one last glance before the door shuts; the exes are left alone for the first time. 

You’re refusing to look at him. He cranes his neck to meet your lowered eyes and whispers your name, an easy tenderness rolling off his tongue. 

“It really is you.” Your lip begins to tremble. Jason doesn’t initially understand the feeling in his rib cage. “I was in denial for so long.” Your hands shake with your voice. “I mourned you.” A tear finally falls, and Jason can’t breathe. Guilt. Inconsolable guilt. 

“If it’s any consolation, it’s not exactly what I wanted.” Jason mentally kicks himself. This is not a good time for humor to fill the void of uneasiness. You scoff, causing Jason to flinch. 

“No. Nobody wanted it.” Your tears are flowing faster now. Jason can’t help but feel empathetic. He doesn’t know you, but he feels for you. He hasn’t felt anything for a long time. 

You’re still refusing to look at him directly. You use your T-shirt sleeve to wipe your nose. Adorable, but gross. His eyes refuse to leave your face, searching for anything to help him remember more. 

“You were itchy.” Your sudden confession causes Jason to choke on his spit. He coughs a few times. 

He speaks when he finds his tongue. “Hold on. Itchy?”

Your teary laugh bubbles through him- he can’t help but smile. 

“People say everyone has an itch they can never scratch just right.” You look up at Jason through wet eyelashes. A deep breath in. “You and me.” A deep breath out. “We scratched all our itches. We joked about it all the time actually. How we thought we were perfect for each other. Everything you did for me was just so perfect, even when we were that young. We melded. We scratched each other’s itches, made everything feel just right. Itchy.” 

The way the last word rolls off your tongue burns Jason’s heart. It was said with such familiarity, so many memories embedded in just a single word, an unfleeting feeling. 

“Do you really not remember anything about me?” Your eyes are shining, boring a hole through Jason’s heart. He can’t lie to you.

“I see glimpses.” You nod, letting him continue. “Dreams of possible memories. I don’t know if they’re real.” You wipe your nose again. He stumbles on his next words. “I wa- I want.” Breathe, for crying out loud. “I want them to be real.” A confession of his own that Jason didn’t know he needed to say. He mindlessly thinks he’s going crazy.

You were left with everything when Jason was killed. Jason was left with nothing. You were forgotten from Jason’s memory and from his heart. Jason continued to leave scratches in your life, now turned to painful scars. 

Your thumbs are kneading into your palm. A nervous tick that has Jason’s own hand flexing in response. The action reaches a part of Jason’s mind he didn’t know existed. Is this remembering? It almost surprises him how badly he wants to hold your hand. 

Almost.

Jason reaches forward, attempting to close the space between the digits. Your mouth drops only slightly as you watch his hand inch towards yours. 

A voice stops Jason’s movements, only a few centimeters away. 

Dammit. 

“5 minutes are up.” Tim was always going to keep up his end of the deal with Dick. Damn replacement.

Jason throws a look at his younger brother that the evil genius seems to ignore. Tim shuffles awkwardly on both feet as he watches you gather your things.  You reach down to grab Jason’s hand. Yours seem much different than his: small, gentle, soft. But it fits so perfectly in his own. Itchy. The breath in his throat catches when you squeeze his fingers. 

“Take care of yourself, Jay.” 

As you walk away, the smell of your perfume trickles around Jason’s nose. Almost comically beckoning him with a cartoon finger to follow you. The nickname sticks to his ears, making them ring. Maybe Jason really is going crazy. 

Tim nods in your direction after you place a hand on his shoulder with a simple thanks. The two men watch you exit the cave, eventually out of sight but never out of mind. 

Tim whistles a small tune after a beat of silence. 

“Dick suggests you forget about it. Everything. The photos. Everything about the two of them, the two of you. Move on; move forward.” 

Jason knocks the table a few times in contemplation, giving an apathetic hum. If he is going crazy, Jason will need help.

“And what do you suggest, Timmers?”

Jason rolls his eyes when he’s met with silence. Tim whistles a long, low trill, almost as if he’s giving himself time to think. Jason dares to look towards him, yet the younger man is doing nothing but grinning ear to ear. 

“You’ve never been too keen on following direct orders.” 

[thousand-winters]

Hunter’s relationship with authority and safety

Have you noticed how Hunter's default is looking for the nearest authority figure when he's uncertain or, really, just in general need of guidance?

Of course this has to do with how he was raised, he has a military upbringing after all, and even if it's not... ideal a lot of the time (mostly because the authority figures around him usually suck), I think it works as his safety blanket.

I mean, it's not even like he doesn't realize he has a particular relationship with authority himself:

“Teens are probably into the same things as me..”

... Oh, baby. You’re certainly doing your best, at the very least. 

In any case, I think it's interesting how this caracteristic of his shows in different situations and with different people.

1. Belos

I doubt I even need to say anything to get my point on this one, but for the sake of being demonstrative, I’m still going to.

Hunter was very loyal to the Emperor's Coven in general, but his biggest connection inside of it was obviously Belos. Not only because he's the emperor, but because he made him believe he was his uncle.

To put it bluntly, Belos had him on a leash. Every little mistake he made was a fatal flaw in Hunter's eyes because that's what Belos led him to believe. But even if that got him hurt and punished, Hunter trusted that it was right because Belos was his uncle and cared for him, right?

He was terrified of failing the emperor and flinched often enough to assume physical harm wasn't something uncommon, so you can argue that he never actually felt safe there. But there's safety in following a path that's been laid for you. The certainty that what you're doing is what's best because someone older and wiser says it is. And like that, there's no room for doubt.

There's safety in certainty.

And for Hunter, even if his conviction started to shake through the season, it took something truly big to break the gigantic amount of trust he had in Belos.

2. Darius

Being the Head of the Emperor's Coven, Hunter technically is the superior of all the other Head Witches. And yet it's terribly obvious for everyone that, at the end of the day, he's just a child.

Now, Darius is an interesting case. Because Hunter has seem him in a potition of power for longer than he has been a Coven Head himself or because, cold as he might be towards Hunter, he doesn’t seem to be as dismissive of him as literally all the other Head Witches, Hunter seems to care a lot about his approval or, at the very least, his opinion. 

He was clearly mad at the way Darius was doubting his worth, but he still believed in his judgment. He was clearly distressed enough by it that he put aside the pride he was trying to maintain to plead him for a solution. Some guidance that would help him to become worthy.

Now, by this point, he's willing enough to break rules on his own to do what he believes is the right thing (defending the Emerald Entrails, keeping Flapjack), but I think having an adult he could trust in on his corner definitely helped him a lot as well, as someone so used to rely on what others tell him to do.

He has no obligation to still listen to Darius now that he's out of the coven, but he still does, perhaps because he has evidence that Darius can be trusted to guide him to the right path, even as unintentional as his encouragement of Hunter's rebellion was.

3. Willow

So Willow's actually the reason why I even started thinking about this. Hunter always refers to her as “captain”, no matter if he’s talking to her or about her with someone else. And it’s not like he doesn’t know her name, the second thing she did after meeting him was introducing herself and Gus. He’s comfortable enough using “Gus” when he’s not putting up a wall, like on those first seconds after being found in Labyrinth Runners where he calls him “Augustus”. And yet, no matter the circumstances, even when there’s no longer anything Flyer Derby related happening, Hunter always, always calls her “captain”.

With her, you can tell he’s not exactly trying to put distance between them or anything; after all, he uses it on a vulnerable moment, when he’s trying to get her to take the team and leave him to deal with Darius. It feels like he’s saying “I trust you, please, trust me too”.

Because Willow is cool and reliable, she’s the captain! He trusts her, and as such, acknowledging her authority is important.

4. Hexside

I always get a little bit frustrated when consuming media in which the protagonists are children/teenagers because they RARELY try going to an adult first before doing crazy stuff. Sometimes they have good reasons not to, sure, but most of the time it’s just... a choice. 

It happens really often, to the point I was genuinely shocked during Labyrinth Runners because I’m so used to kids trying to solve problems by themselves that the fact that Hunter’s first impulse to help Gus is “let’s find a teacher” caught me by surprise. I mean, it’s been... what? Two days tops? Since the adult he devoted his whole life to shattered his trust in a horrible way, I kinda expected him to be more distrustful. 

It makes sense though. He might not know or trust these adults, they have no reason to care about his safety, but Gus is one of their students, and after the immediately protective stance they took with Edric after discovering Adrian's deception (which Hunter might have been on time to witness) he probably knows he can trust them with Gus's. At that moment, his priority is helping Gus.

Where am I going with this?

His trust and his loyalty tend to go to people he knows (or thinks) will help him find the right path and do good things. That's not to say he doesn't trust people who aren't in charges of power, he obviously does, but because of his background, I feel like he particularly relies on authority figures more than in others.

And it's not inherently a bad thing! He should have been able to trust these figures to have his best interests at heart. Unfortunately, the Emperor's Coven is such a bad environment for... anyone, really, but specially for a kid growing up.

Now that he's out of there and has more people looking out for him, I think things will get easier for him. I do wonder if at some point he will switch from "Captain" to "Willow". If he does, it would be really interesting to see what drives that change.

[ednito]

My crane and his relationship with animals.

Lately I've been thinking about scarecrow as a whole and how certain cranes have an animal companion of some sort, whether its a crow or a horse some cranes always have some sort of help from an animal counterpart. Some instances like in nolanverse, it's just used as a tool, I might argue for the asthetic while others like in codotverse scarecrow has a strong attachment to their pet crow. Though others I believe dislike crows all together like year one, it's not stated, of course, but to me I greatly believe he both is frightened by crows and hates them with his whole being. This has made me consider MY scarecrow, how he feels about crows or other birds, his feelings on animals all together, really.

Originally, when I was first forming his character, I had the mindset that he didn't really care for anything, that he doesn't hate or love music, food, clothing, animals, etc. So of course he wouldn't like crows or horses or anything of the sorts, I had imagined that he was pestered by them growing up and that animals might have been the few things he actually actively hated, birds specifically. But now, developing him more I've changed some aspects of his character and his feelings on animals. I do still believe, for the most part, he doesn't really have much care for most things- but I don't think he can't care like his previous self. I think for him, it takes either something traumatic for him to care or it takes a lot of time and commitment for him to form feelings. I do believe he uses some animals as tools when being scarecrow, having a murder of crows follow particular people around that could be targets or could have something of interest for him, he might have them help trick others, make them laugh at his victims. A mutual companionship, I think, but certainly not friends. Wild crows, he's fed and trained since babies. Really, I imagine he stumbled upon them on accident and took them out of an odd compulsion. I think they might have reminded him of old friends he had in his younger days.

When he was much younger, when he didn't have the anger he has now and still living with his grandmother he often times was outside in the fields either working or just being there reading the few books his grandmother allowed him to read. It's there when taking a nap in the grass he found a nest of field mice, a small family in fact. At first, he knew if he kept them alive, they could run a risk of ruining the crops, and great grandmother would surely be furious but he couldn't bring himself to hurt them, not even touched them. Over time he'd bring them some food from his lunch and eventually the mice would trust him a little more over time, Jonathan felt he had found a small family to contribute to, one that wouldn't hit him or call him names, but be there for him. Though all things come to an end and one day, he was forced to watch the field mice get crushed by large rocks, killed by the boys at his school. That day, it was the foundation of the road that led him to his path of anger.

I think my crane would say that he'd feel indifferent about animals, not having a strong opinion. But deep down, he'd have feelings he wouldn't be able to describe, sympathy perhaps, envy? Who knows. Never in his life have he inflicted his rage onto them. He's never had to. For him, he knows animals don't have the self awareness to understand right from wrong, that for them, life is black and white. They act on instinct and don't have it in them to truly be evil, unlike people. They don't have the ultimatum that people do, to dance or not. They don't understand what they can be bad or good, and taking advantage of that? Hurting them and such? He would never admit it, but it angers him greatly.

Of course, this starts getting into his beliefs on life and his feelings with people, and that is a post for another day. :]

[makeste]

“but I thought about how I needed to say this”

a.k.a. yet another meta dissection of The Apology. I actually wrote most of this up on Friday night based on the original Japanese (@pikahlua​ has an excellent translation up here, and I also used @hanashimas’ translations as a reference as well), but I wanted to wait until the official release, though that turned out to be a mixed bag to say the least lol.

I would also recommend reading @pikahlua​ and @class1akids​’ breakdowns of this scene (here and here, respectively), because they are excellent, and because if any scene deserves to have as many meta breakdowns written about it as possible, it’s this one.

anyway so here goes.

Caleb did a more accurate job with this than the fanscan, even if he did try his best to take us out of the seriousness of the moment by throwing in that swiss cheese line lol. anyway so there are two things I want to talk about here. the first is the line about Izuku not remembering, which I thought was a nice touch. of course he doesn’t remember what Kacchan said back then. he wasn’t exactly in the soundest emotional state after seeing one of the people he cares about most taking a near-fatal blow that was meant for him. I’d be shocked if he remembers anything about the aftermath (including the way he flew into a mindless rage afterwards) right up until the point when he entered the OFA Interstellar Party Void with Tomura. anyway, so I thought that was a nice callback.

and speaking of emotional states, the other thing I wanted to talk about is the part that Caleb got right which the fan scanlation didn’t. “but I had more to say.” in other words, “stop trying to win on your own” wasn’t just a one-liner; it was meant to be the beginning of a much longer speech. “there were other things that I needed to say.”

like, can we just stop and talk about that for a second. because basically what this means is that in that instant, when Kacchan pushed Deku out of the way and got impaled, his one and only thought was that he needed to apologize to Deku. his life was presumably flashing before his eyes, he had no idea if he was going to survive or not, and the only thing on his mind was how urgently he needed to make things right with his former childhood friend.

moving on!

so I have a confession to make, which is that I am relieved to see Katsuki describing this as the reason why he bullied Deku, as opposed to Horikoshi trying to retcon it into some sort of “secretly he was just trying to protect him and keep him out of harm’s way because he was worried” thing, which ngl would not have gelled very well with me. the thing is that I’m really not a fan of the whole “Kacchan Did Nothing Wrong” mentality that some fans seem to have. like, I have seen all sorts of convoluted attempts to find excuses for Katsuki’s shitty behavior, but in my view those attempts undermine what I love about his character in the first place. Katsuki is such a great character specifically because he is not perfect. his redemption arc is so compelling because he was such a giant asshole at the start. he was completely at fault, and he acknowledges this, and takes full responsibility for it. and that is fucking fantastic.

his arc is so great because it doesn’t rely on garnering sympathy by giving him a Tragic Past, or by trying to foist the blame for his behavior over on someone else. it’s an arc that acknowledges that redemption isn’t something you achieve by making people feel sorry for you; it’s something you have to earn by actively working to change and do better. and by forgoing the “misunderstood/tragic past” route, Horikoshi is making a statement that anyone can go down the wrong path, but that more importantly, anyone can also choose at any time to turn away from said path. there is only one requirement for doing so, and that is realizing that you’ve done wrong, and deciding that you want to change.

anyway, so in chapter 284 Kacchan of course had that whole speech about Deku not taking himself into account, and mentioned how that made him want to keep his distance. and a good chunk of fandom took this to mean that Katsuki’s bullying was actually a misguided response to Deku’s reckless tendencies -- sort of an “if I show him how weak and powerless he really is, I can get him to accept the reality that he’s quirkless, and that being a hero will just get him hurt or killed” type of thing. and I won’t lie, for a good while I was wondering myself if Horikoshi was really going to go down that route. and like I said, I am honestly relieved that he didn’t. not only for the reasons stated in the previous paragraph, but also because the message that would have sent -- that there are certain circumstances in which bullying can almost be excused because the bully had Good Intentions and was just trying to save the other person from themselves, and so it Wasn’t That Bad, Actually -- is all kinds of fucked up to say the least. so yeah, I’m glad we ended up steering well clear of that.

(ETA: this post was long enough already so I edited out the 3 additional paragraphs I originally wrote analyzing the dialogue from 284. but just to be clear, I’m not trying to imply that Kacchan worrying about Deku’s recklessness is a retconned thing that Horikoshi only threw into the story recently, because there are multiple instances throughout the story where he clearly is worried and in total denial of it. but I firmly believe those feelings are not what led to the bullying. they’re two separate things. Kacchan worrying about Deku is what prompts him to yell at him in chapter 1 when Deku comes to save him. but it’s not what incited him to burn his notebook and taunt him earlier in that same chapter. that action had a much meaner and more selfish motivation behind it, and I’m glad Horikoshi didn’t try to change it up last minute, because it wouldn’t have felt right.)

thankfully as of this chapter I think we can safely cross that out as a possibility, as we’re given the true explanation straight from Katsuki himself. and the truth is that he bullied Deku out of insecurity and jealousy and fear and intolerance. there was nothing noble about it. there were no good intentions concealed in his actions. there are no justifications given, no excuses offered, and no mitigating circumstances to be considered, other than the fact (which neither he nor Horikoshi bring up) that he was and is still a child, and that children make mistakes.

it’s an explanation that challenges many of fandom’s ideas on who is and isn’t eligible to be redeemed. there is no Ozai in Katsuki’s backstory. there’s no great tragedy that he spent a lifetime trying to rise above. the only villain in Katsuki’s story is Katsuki himself. the only darkness that he has to overcome is his own. and it’s challenging, because I think many people believe the only way someone can be redeemed for doing bad things is if bad things happen to them in return. but what Horikoshi is saying here is that that’s not the case. bad doesn’t erase bad. and the one and only way to truly earn redemption is by doing good.

and that’s what makes this such a phenomenal scene for me. by not shying away from Katsuki’s flaws and failings, and having him take full responsibility for them, Horikoshi keeps the apology from being self-serving, and underscores the true depth of Katsuki’s character development. the level of self-awareness he has here is something most people can only dream of. which is very fitting, as that’s perhaps the most important takeaway from his character arc -- that it’s only by acknowledging your own weaknesses and flaws that you can learn to overcome them and reach your full potential.

one last thing to point out here, which is that in the panel where Katsuki finally acknowledges his terrible treatment of Deku, Deku is not even visible. instead, Horikoshi drew the panel from a perspective that makes it appear that Katsuki is addressing this particular line not just to Deku, but to all of his classmates.

again, he shows him taking full responsibility and admitting his wrongdoings in front of the people whose opinions and approval he cares about most. and just to clarify in case there’s any confusion from Caleb’s translation, Kacchan’s wording makes it very clear that he wasn’t just “mean” to Deku, but that he full-on bullied him (he uses the same verb -- “ijimeru” (苛める) -- that he did back in chapter 284). there’s no attempt to downplay his actions here.

moving on now, this chapter also reaffirmed another thing about Deku and Kacchan’s relationship which I was glad to see revisited -- Kacchan’s unwavering belief in Deku’s ability. this is one of those paradoxical things about their relationship which I’ve always been fascinated by, but which is also kind of hard to explain, because I don’t want it to come off like I’m trying to put a positive spin on something which was unequivocally awful. like, please don’t think I’m trying to say that Katsuki’s bullying of Deku was in any way a good thing. but that being said, there’s also a strange irony at play here, which is that Katsuki’s jealousy and insecurity also betray the fact that even at his very worst, he never once underestimated Deku. he has always believed in Deku’s strength, even when that strength pissed him off and made him afraid and uneasy.

no one else -- not All Might, or even Deku’s own mom -- believed from the get-go that Deku could become a hero. but Katsuki never once counted him out, even when he was calling him a pebble in his shoe. he confesses here that even though he “tried to act superior by rejecting [Deku]”, in truth he was never able to shake the feeling that Deku was above him. long before he ever understood the concept of “win to save”, he knew instinctively that there was a strength in Deku’s heart that couldn’t be measured, and which had the potential to surpass even his own strength. and I’ve always felt that this was so important, because it’s the one aspect of their early relationship that hinted that on some level, however subconscious, Katsuki held the same type of faith in Deku that Deku always held in him. it was one of the few things that hinted at there being a possible path towards reconciliation one day. and it paved the way for the most important shift in their relationship to date, when Katsuki finally realized who Deku got his quirk from, and responded not with resentment or spite, but with acceptance.

moving on, I also really love the way we see them portrayed at the different stages of their childhood throughout this speech, and how it perfectly lines up with the dialogue. from small children (when Katsuki talks about his insecurities first manifesting), to middle schoolers (when he talks about the bullying), to high schoolers (when he talks about the past year and everything he’s learned at U.A.). Horikoshi really didn’t have to go that hard, but he did, and that’s why we love him.

and then we finally get to That Part.

where do I even start with this there are so many things omg.

the bow. this is the one and only time Katsuki has ever bowed to anyone of his own volition as far as I recall. and this absolutely is a bow, just to be clear, even though his form is straight-up garbage (very Kacchan-esque, with his feet and arms spaced apart because he’s still a punk after all). this is Kacchan showing more humility and respect than he’s ever shown to anyone else in his entire life.

regarding “Izuku”, I actually have mixed feelings about this to tell the truth. I think it was a good call here because it was incredibly effective in setting the tone and showing just how serious Kacchan is. however if he continues to use “Izuku” rather than “Deku” from here on out, that would give the impression in hindsight that all his past usage of “Deku” really was meant as an insult, which would undermine some of my favorite scenes. I would really like to believe that since DvK2 or thereabouts, Kacchan has (mostly) been using “Deku (affectionate)” rather than “Deku (useless loser)”, lol. but if he switches to the “nicer” name on a permanent basis following his apology, it implies that the previous nickname was indeed being used cruelly. and so honestly I hope this was just a one-time thing, because I do think that in Katsuki’s mind, the name “Deku” hasn’t been meant as a slight to him for a long time now.

“my truth/this is what I truly feel” -- the word Katsuki uses in Japanese is honne (本音), and if you’re familiar with the concept of honne/tatemae, that’s the same “honne” he’s talking about here. it means that he’s casting aside all of his walls and facades and expressing what he truly feels. and of course, one of the fascinating things about Katsuki’s character is that he’s the exact opposite of most people in that he chooses to put his meanness on full display to the public, and ironically it’s the kindest parts of himself which he tends to keep the most carefully guarded and hidden away. this also means that while his rage and anger are very often insincere and put on just for show, those relatively few occasions where he lets his humanity truly shine through are pretty much 100% genuine, as is the case with this one here.

and Deku’s face says it all when it comes to how powerful those moments can be as a result.

and this, right here, is why it wasn’t enough for Katsuki to atone solely through his actions, and why he needed to actually say the words as well. it’s not that the words are more important; obviously the actions are far and away the most important part, and carry far more meaning. but the reason why Katsuki needed to say the words as well is simply because Izuku needed to hear them. needed to, and deserved to, because this is one of the most important people in the world to him.

and so he deserves to know that the relationship isn’t just one-sided, and that he is just as important to Kacchan as Kacchan is to him. he deserves to know that Kacchan understands how horribly he treated him, and that he’s sorry for it. and he deserves to know that Kacchan, without any expectation of it changing their relationship -- meaning that he will continue to feel this way regardless of what Izuku says or does from here on out -- cares about him. now more than ever, with AFO out there doing everything in his power to make Izuku feel as alone as possible, this is something that he really, really needed to hear.

so this part has some interesting wordplay which neither Caleb’s translation nor the fan scanlation was really able to get across. basically, in the Japanese version, when Katsuki talks about “those ideals”, Horikoshi uses the kanji for “ideal”, but pronounces it as “All Might.” obviously the meaning of this isn’t too hard to decipher, as we all know how much both boys admire All Might. to them, he absolutely is synonymous with the Ideal. so this is a way of showing that respect they both have towards him, even as Katsuki goes on to point out the one fatal flaw that All Might was never able to overcome.

and speaking of interesting wording, as others have noted, at this point in his speech Katsuki switches from “temee” (which he was using earlier during the “your strengths and my weaknesses” part) to “omae” (“omae” being a less insulting word for “you”, though still very manly and tough-sounding), which is definitely a big deal. though fwiw this is not the first time he’s used “omae” for Deku (he switches to it briefly right after DvK2, when he tells Deku “you had the strongest guy lay the groundwork for you -- don’t lose”, and then later when they’re walking back to the dorms and he says he’ll learn and get stronger by watching everyone around him just like Deku did). it’s definitely a good choice on Horikoshi’s part though, as it makes this last part of the speech sound more earnest and sincere.

just a quick note, he does indeed use a plural pronoun here, as in “the obstacles that you can’t overcome, we will overcome.” but as @pikahlua​ pointed out, the “we” here is ambiguous -- it could either mean “we” as in class 1-A -- “we will overcome them for you” -- OR it could mean “we” as in all of them -- class 1-A and Deku. “we will overcome them together.” idk about you, but I know which one gets my vote.

anyway, and so this is the line that finally wins Deku over and allows him to let go of his fears, however briefly. what I love about this is Kacchan’s utter conviction. one thing that Caleb’s translation doesn’t quite get across is Kacchan’s use of the word morenaku -- “without exception” -- when he talks about how they’re going to save everyone and win. it echoes that same sentiment he showed back during the Joint Training arc -- that it’s not a perfect victory unless they save everyone. every last person. and he explicitly lists Deku among their number, just so there can be no doubt.

and Deku’s response to this (or at least his thoughts, since he’s not really able to get many words out) pretty much brings everything full circle here.

he acknowledges that everyone else has gotten ahead of him. which is especially meaningful given who he’s standing directly across from. because for most of the series, as we all well know, it’s been Kacchan who was woefully lagging behind Deku in the character growth department. but now Deku himself is acknowledging that not only has Kacchan finally caught up at last, but that he and the others have surpassed him. which is only temporary, I should add, as I have zero doubt that Deku will catch up again soon. but the fact remains that just as Deku’s rapid increase in strength and skill left Kacchan scrambling to keep up earlier in the series, Kacchan’s extraordinary character development has now left Deku in that same position. as All Might once put it, “when he’s starting at level one, and you’re already at level 50, it’s only natural that you’ll be growing at different rates.”

and what’s so wonderful about this though is that the two of them are finally approaching that point where they’ve both caught up to each other and are finally starting to level out. Deku is a full-on badass, and Kacchan is out here talk-no-jutsuing with the best of them. the two of them have been chasing and chasing after each other this entire time, and now they’re finally just about ready to meet in the middle at long last, with each of them fully embodying both of those two crucial aspects -- win, and save.

just about. because Deku still needs some help catching up. but seeing as help has already been offered -- and accepted -- I can’t imagine it will be very long now, and I can’t wait to see him finally overcoming those fears and doubts with his friends by his side. it’s going to be such a powerful moment.

and last but not least,

or, as I prefer,

you had one job, Caleb. flkjsdlk.

but at least this provides a good opportunity to note that unlike the “we’ll help you handle it” line earlier in the speech, here the phrasing is left up to interpretation, as he doesn’t use a pronoun. so it could be “we know”, or, as the fan scanlation put it, “I know.” or it could be both. regardless, it’s good stuff.

anyway, and so Deku passes out, and in the process Horikoshi gives us one last parting metaphor, just in case anyone still thinks Kacchan is all talk because they haven’t been paying attention for the past 322 chapters (more likely than you think). once again, Katsuki’s actions speak louder than his words (even his nice words) ever could: he is literally there to catch Deku when he falls.

so that’s it! my sincere thanks to anyone who actually read through all of my endless ramblings about this scene which I have been waiting for since day one. props to Horikoshi for taking on an impossibly difficult task, and pulling it off with all of the emotion and care and nuance that I’ve come to expect from his writing. imo he delivered on every single level with the exception of the aftermath, which I don’t consider to have actually happened yet. Deku’s part of this is definitely a “to be continued.” but yeah, as far as Kacchan’s part goes, 10/10. so fucking proud of this kid.

[parvulous-writings]

Stars //Sith!Obi-Wan x Pregnant!Reader

Request:   Heya! First of all, I just want to say, wow!!! I loved wvry word of the Vader x Reader you did, and reading your notes, I really don't mind it as an AU! I've never really read anything to do with Sith Obi-Wan before, though to be fair I only just got into Star Wars again 😅 This isn't really a request, but from what I can see from your posts, you seem to really like Obi-Wan, well, Ewan Mcgregor in general 😂I wanted to ask if you could write another x Reader, but this time a Sith Obi-Wan AU?Thanks for reading! -Red ❤ p.s, @rey-is-not-a-skywalker, you're welcome for requesting the sith x reader, I guess you're obsessed as I am 😂 p.s the second, I'm loving the new pfp!

Requested by: ​Red

Summary: The reader has some news for Sith Lord Obi-Wan Kenobi

Warnings: The reader is AFAB, pregnancy

Words: 1.7K

Notes: You would be correct in assuming I love Obi-Wan and Ewan McGregor as a whole. Also I’m glad you like the new pfp! I am also in love with it! :)  Did I self indulge with this oneshot? I think you know the answer. Leave me alone, I am too much of a simp at this point.  I have never been pregnant, so some of this may be inaccurate. 

Not my gif

An old Jedi’s fall from grace was a never a pretty sight to see, it was no glorious tale to tell from any side. It was full of hurt, pain, hatred, suffering. This was more than true for the fallen Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. His downfall was the least expected out of those who turned away from the light, he had always been the most loyal of men, the most faithful of soldiers.  Perhaps, in part at least, this was what drove him away from his original allegiance. He was an exceptional leader of course, the most fantastic of generals, but besides that, in the larger picture, to the Jedi Order as a whole he was nothing more than a faceless defender of the galaxy. Just another of the tens of thousands Jedi.  Another factor that led to the man’s path to the dark side, was you. What you made him feel. The passion, the love. An indescribable feeling, all he could say about it was that it was truly wonderful. He did not mind the fear, or the hatred that came with it, for you made it all worth it. The massive highs compared to the lows outweighed them greatly, and thus he gave it all for and to you. His passion, his loyalty, his love. Everything he had, every fiber of his being, he gave it all to you. If he could turn the worlds on theirs heads, and you gave the word, he’d do it. 

You had initially been shocked at the man’s sudden change of life-plans and of loyalty. Though, the more you thought about it, the more you began to convince yourself, perhaps he had made the right choice. He wasn’t so uptight in regards to public affection now- he’d often smother you with kisses in front of company, or hold your arm or hand as you wander about in cities or halls. Despite the Sith being the darker beings of the Force, the life you now lived was almost... Peaceful. After a while, you very much enjoyed it. There weren’t so many rules now, and you both felt free.  Though, not everything about your new life was free or peaceful. There were times that Obi-Wan was pulled away from you much like in the way he was during the times of the Republic and the Jedi Order. He’d be wrenched from your embrace for weeks or months at a time, and the holocom conversations you shared were not the same as actual conversations. The comforting presence you both gave to one another were missing, and it was painfully obvious to the pair of you. 

One particular night, whilst Obi-Wan had been away, you were staring out at the stars- each of them twinkling from their position on the blanket of the night from their positions thousands of light-years away. They fascinated you every night, though you knew some of the planetary systems by name and had visited a few yourself, you couldn’t help but imagine what could be hiding away on them,  what could be awaiting discovery. They also distracted you from something plaguing your mind on this particular night, something you needed to get off of your chest. It had been bothering you more and more over the last few days, ever since you had made the discovery. 

You are brought from your train of thought by the bleeping of your comm. You move leisurely to answer it, there was only one person who could be calling you at this time of night, but you knew he wouldn’t mind you taking a moment longer than usual. You answer your lover’s call, and a murmur on the other end of the line hushes- he must have been talking to someone as he awaited your answer. “Ah, my beloved.. I thought you had fallen asleep.” He mused quietly, his smug expression clear even through the blue hologram, and you can’t help but chuckle at him.  “No. I was looking out at the stars,” You tell him, plainly. Sunsets and night skies held a special place in both of your hearts; you had spent many nights on Coruscant looking out at them, telling each other the wishes you had made on shooting stars that you rarely saw. You heard Obi-Wan sighed quietly. He knew your habits when he was away, and what they meant. “I should be returning soon, my dear.” He assured you, lowering his voice to nothing more than a whisper. “I am trying to get this done, you know, but it’s not as easy as-”  “I know, I know.” You cut him off, wrapping your arms around yourself, looking down at the floor. Out of the corner of your eye, you see Obi-Wan’s brows furrows, clearly he’s noticed your odd behaviour. 

“Something’s bothering you.” Obi-Wan notes, tucking his hands into the sleeves of his long robe. “Tell me,” He demanded. Though his tone was soft, it was still very much a command. You start to shake your head at him.  “I would rather not... Not over the comm.” You start, looking over to his projection. He looks even more concerned than before- partially because you disobeyed an order from him, and partially because you were willingly withholding information from him. You never did either of those things, not with him. You were both in balance, and trusted each other completely. He knew this had to be incredibly serious for you to say something like this.  “Then I shall return immediately.” He no longer cared for his assignment; he would much prefer that he knew you were safe and out of harm’s way. You start to shake your head more frantically.  “No, Kenobi- you must finish the task the Emperor has given you, he-”  “Can wait.” Obi-Wan finished abruptly. You could tell from the way he stood and held himself- chest out, shoulders back, spine rigid and straight-  that he could not be swayed on this. “He can wait.” He repeated, wanting the words to sink in, for you more than himself. “I will be returning, whether you agree with me or not. I will be back by the morning.” And with that, those final harsh words, he ended the call. You sighed quietly, running your hands over your face in exasperation and stress. You hadn’t wanted to pull your lover away from the mission he had been given, you had wanted to wait just a few more days till he returned as had been planned. You sighed deeply, moving away from the comm, heading towards bed as you strip off your clothes.  You nestle under the covers, wrapping your arms around yourself for some comfort. 

By morning, you were well rested. As your eyes started to crack and flutter open, you became acutely aware of the arm around your waist, and the head buried into the back of your neck. You shuffle slightly to look over your shoulder, smiling slightly at the peaceful expression on the face of the sleeping man behind you. By rights, you didn’t even have to turn over to know that it was Obi-Wan, you knew the feel of his aura and his touch. Still, it provided a sense of comfort, knowing with more certainty that it was him. You shuffle round to face him fully, brushing some of his auburn locks away from his closed eyes. His nose scrunches ever so slightly at the contact; and he too starts to wake up. It’s a slow process for him, and always had been. Even during his time serving the Order; though your mornings together were few and far between, you had noticed this little pattern of his. His eyes crack open like yours had done, and a drowsy smile moves over his lips.  “Good morning, darling...” He yawned softly, before pressing a gentle kiss to your jaw. “You look stunning...” He told you, his lips still pressed against your skin as he gave you the compliment- no doubt the first of many that morning.  “You flatter me, Obi..” You murmur in reply, and presses kiss after feather-light kiss over your jaw and neck.  “I speak only the truth for you, my love...” He trailed off for a moment, as he started to push himself up onto his elbows. “Now... Onto business...” He mused, “You still need to tell me what’s bothering you.” He pointed out, and he was right, as he often was. “So, I would start talking, my dear.” 

Though his demeanour is playful, you know you shouldn’t argue this time around. You sit up, leaning against your pillows as your try to think of how to start talking about your recent discovery- despite it’s wonderful connotations, it was not as easy as one might think. “Obi...” You begin.  “Darling.” He replied, hardly missing a beat.  “I have some... Rather pleasing news.” He nods, prompting you to continue. “You... Are going to be a father.”  It takes him a moment to actually register your words, for their meaning to sink in. He practically tackles you back into the bed when it clicks somewhere in his mind, the widest smile on his face. He’s laughing breathlessly, hardly able to believe the news or contain his excitement because of it.  “Is it so?” He asked, his hand splaying over your stomach as he spoke. “My, my...” He mumbled- and it was moments like this that showed how much he had changed from his old ways. Had you given such news to him whilst he was still a Jedi- he would have panicked at first, asked if you wished to keep the child, and if you had done he would have likely asked you to leave to a slightly more rural planetary system. He had no fear now, and so didn’t need to ask you. He accepts it with ease in these times, and is more than happy to receive such news.  He had no fear in rearing a child now, so long as you wished for it too. He paused as this thought washed over him, then gave you a curious look. “Are we... Keeping the child?” He asked, and you couldn’t help but chuckle.  “I think we could be wonderful parents... If you’re not away so much.” You poke your finger into his chest.  “Alright... I will discuss it...” He mused, resting his head near you abdomen, gazing at it in wonder. He could hardly believe that your child- the fruits of both of you- was growing there, and he was more than just excited to meet his child. He pulled you close again, whispering sweet nothings and reassurances as the morning wound on, till you eventually fell asleep again in his arms, comforted by his presence. 

[phenomenal1500]

Under The Influence | Erik Killmonger

Chapter 2: ~Burn It All Down~

For Chapter 1: ~Long Live The King~ click here. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Nah. I'm your king." He yelled and turned around, his dark eyes landing on his new adviser in front of him while he walked up to her.... the words secretly being meant for her in particular.

~~~

Out of the corner of her eye she could see that Shuri, Nakia and Queen Mother had already fled through the cave's tunnels while the rest of the Elders quietly walked away from the tragic event, softly crying or visibly angry. She would've loved to do the same, to show emotions and grief for her former king and the Warrior Shaman, but she couldn't, not when the murderer of T'Challa and Zuri was standing right before her with his hand held out for her to take it.

Venery looked up with hesitation and back at his hand covered in dried blood before forcing herself to take it. She had to stay in character, be loyal to the throne, that was the oath she had taken after all.

"I will walk you to your room and send someone to patch you up before we start the ritual, your highness." She slightly bowed with her head, really trying to keep her voice from breaking. She felt like such a betrayer to Wakanda and all the kings that had once ruled over it.... she felt like such a failure.

"Aight, princess. Lead the way." He gave her a small smirk, showing off his golden fangs while his muscles flexed with every breath he took. If they weren't in the situation they were in right now, if he wasn't the bad guy.... if everything was different, she would've given into the fact he was really handsome, but everything wasn't different. This was the situation they were in, he was the bad guy, he did kill Zuri and T'Challa and he was the new king now. The new king she had to serve no matter what happened.

The woman managed to pull her golden eyes off of him before turning around, not saying a word as she began to walk. Not that she was able to say anything either, her voice would definitely crack if she did so and she didn't want him to already doubt her loyalty on the first day. With burning eyes from the tears that were forming and an unsteady breath, she picked up the path that led back to the palace with the man following her closely.

Killmonger didn't say anything either as he walked behind her, giving her time to silently grieve or just process what had taken place at the Warrior Falls.

He didn't mean to hurt her or anyone else the way he did, but he had waited his whole life for this moment and he had to do it.... no matter how much it disgusted her or the rest of his people. Not that he truly cared that much about their judgements though, the thing was just that she was his adviser and he needed her by his side to remain seated on his throne.

He had to make her trust him and he had already gotten off to a bad start.

Killmonger knew she was astounded by his actions and he was right. Everything about the man truly disgusted her, but even then.... he did have the right to take over the throne. The right to take what belonged to him as well. He had done nothing wrong according to the law of Wakanda, but Venery still had a bad feeling about the king.

After following the path of the grey smooth stones back to the inhabited city again, they ended up on the airstrips just in front of the palace and she opened the massive and heavy glass doors for him.

"After you, my king." Her hand waved through the air elegantly as a sign for him to step inside first, but the man was stubborn though.

He hovered over the woman's smaller frame, placing his hand right next to her head. "Nah- after you, princess." He sighed for her to walk and she nodded slowly, awkwardly slipping past his body to walk in.

Together they continued to walk through the gigantic halls and into the elevator and at the top floor, they finally arrived at his room.

Ven unlocked the door and stepped inside to check if everything was okay. The room was semicircular on the side where all the windows were, a circular balcony attached to it, and the color scheme of the king's room was green, white, gold, and black. The walls were decorated with many different kinds of Tribal paintings belonging to almost each Tribe he now ruled over, and in the center of the only straight wall was a very large double bed set against it.

"This is the room you'll be staying in." His eyes scanned the room once he joined her inside. "If you  need anything just knock on the door on the opposite side of yours. That's my room."

Before she could flee from the room and go back to her own to break down there, he kicked the door shut with his boot and she backed away from it.

"Listen, girl.... we need to talk." He leaned against the door and crossed his arms, his voice confident and calm. "Tell me what's bothering you."

"Bothering me? Sir, you...." She went silent, knowing that whatever she was going to say next was going to be bad talk about Killmonger and he was standing right there.

"We're in a safe place with just you and me, princess. It's okay to speak your mind." He walked away from the door, circling around the woman before sitting down on the huge double bed. His legs were wide, his elbows resting on his thighs, and the eye contact they held never broke. "Again- what's bothering you that you want to talk about?"

She inhaled deeply, not knowing what to do so she simply decided to be honest.

"I.... I served T'Challa for a long time and I feel like such a betrayer whenever I think about serving you the same way. I want to, I truly do because I believe your motives could be good ones and till know you did nothing wrong, but I have this bad feeling.... like I'm living on the border of right and wrong. I don't know whether to serve you and be loyal to you or stay loyal to-...."

"A dead man?" He interrupted her, still in that same controlled and calm voice while he leaned forward a bit. "Being loyal to a dead man is what you're doing right now. He's gone and I'm sorry, but it had to be done." She lowered her head, fighting the tears and clearing her throat so her voice wouldn't crack.

Whatever she was going to do, whatever she was going to say, she in no circumstances was going to look weak in front of him.

"Perhaps you're right." She sighed, still feeling like a betrayer as she looked at her feet. However, in the meantime that Venery was struggling with her thoughts, Killmonger leaned back and stretched his arms which suddenly reminded her of his wounds. "Almost forgot, let's get you patched up, my king." She held out her hand to him and he took it, standing up so he could follow her.

~~~

"Welcome to the City of The Dead." She smiled when she saw the beautiful temple appear before her eyes after the long stairway they had to climb and she turned around to face her current king. The man had begun to act more calm and more controlled when he figured what was about to happen, finally feeling a bit of peace since this was what he had trained for all his life. Together they walked into the sacred temple and she helped him get ready for the ritual. "As per tradition, you must undergo the ritual where all Kings of Wakanda must go through by drinking the fluid of the Heart-Shaped Herb. It will grant you visions, a moment to speak to your ancestor's spirit within the Ancestral Plane even, before officially being crowned as king and Black Panther."

He hummed and carefully laid down in the circle filled with terracotta coloured sand encircled by the shamans, royal guards and his adviser.

"Allow the Heart Shaped Herb to give you the powers of the Black Panther and take you to the Ancestral Plane." The woman shaman chanted and then ordered the others to bury Killmonger after the herb's fluid that he drank began to take effect on him. Venery helped, gently covering his face while the rest covered his body. Once Killmonger was completely buried in the sand, everyone was silently waiting for him to wake up and Ven kneeled down beside him once he started to breathe heavily.

He was.... scared?

Before she could reach out to rest her hand on the accumulated sand to hope it would somehow comfort him, he suddenly arose from the sand and it shocked her. She stumbled backwards and he wiped away a single tear that he tried to hide. It appeared something changed him in the time he was in the Ancestral Plane.... He looked like a whole new man. Powerful. Ready to conquer the world, but yet hurt. Traumatized. It made her curious about who he had talked to that made him change like this?

"Breathe, my king." She reached out to touch his shoulder and he faced her before she could even do so, hyperventilating and shaking. He suddenly noticed he scared her away through all the panic he felt at that moment and held out his hand which she took carefully, stroking the palm of his hand. "Just breathe, my king."

Taking a deep breath, he suddenly felt the power of the heart shaped herb coursing through his veins and he smirked a little, clearly enjoying the wave of power.

"The Heart Shaped Herb did that?" Killmonger began to walk toward a dirt plot filled with the heart shaped herb and glared at it while the female shaman that had followed him nodded to confirm he was correct. "This is all of it?"

"Yes. So when it comes time for another King, we will be ready." She stated and Venery joined them instantly, knowing that what she had said wasn't going to appeal to him at all.

"Another King....?" He narrowed the gap between the shaman and him with a dangerous look in his dark eyes. "Yeah, go ahead and burn all that."

Ven furrowed her brows as she heard Killmonger order the rest of the shamans to burn all of the herbs and she couldn't believe what she had heard. She knew he wanted it to be done in order to cement his status as king over Wakanda permanently and to prevent anyone from ever opposing him, but she couldn't let it happen.... it was something holy to them....

"My King, we cannot do that. It is our tradition-...." She stepped in front of him and he clenched his jaw, really trying not to harm her in any way while she tried to go against his commands.

"When I tell you to do something, I mean that shit, girl. Burn it all!" He growled lowly as he leaned into her ear and her heart stopped for a second before she automatically nodded, frightened of what would happen if she didn't agree with him.

"You heard the king-...." She felt a lump form in her throat and repeated the order to the other shamans so they would finally take action, burning the whole garden while Killmonger observed the landscape to make sure all of them are burned down.

"I'm sorry my kings." Ven whispered softly while watching all the beautiful flowers turn into ash.

[sup-hoes-its-me]

Golden (Kakashi x Reader)

A/N: you are in a relationship with kakaski, but after an accident, you have amnesia, and can’t remember him anymore. angst baby. Very feminine Civilian!reader (you own a bookstore, so cliche lmao) essentially, this series is mindless romantic indulgences i wrote mostly for myself, but if other people can enjoy them then i did my job as a fanfic writer.

A/N: im definitely not writing a fanfic for every song on fine line...haha

Word count: 5600

_____

He lay awake at night after the incident, imagining the moment he truly knew he was in love with her. Completely infatuated with this beautiful woman working at the bookstore. It was the only thing he could do now that his entire world had come crashing around him. With everything that happened in the hospital, this was the only way he knew how to cope.

He drifted off into the dream once again.

__

Kakashi stood by the front gates of the village, a paperback book he had just bought in his hand, folded over so he could read with one hand. One more time before he left for this mission, one he knew would last longer than anyone would like, he visited the old bookstore in town. He wanted to think he just stopped by to stock up on reading material, but that wasn’t it.

It was always about her.

When he saw Y/N running up to him, her apron nearly falling off and her hair in disarray, his eyes widened and he set the book down by his side. She was out of breath when she got to him, pressing her hands to her chest to get herself put together. Her brows furrowed deeply as she lifted her eyes to meet his.

“Kakashi,” she exclaimed.

“What’s wrong, Y/N?”

“I know you’re going on this long mission and you won’t be around for a few months, and I can’t stand the thought of you leaving without me telling you this,” she said, and he would be lying if he said he wasn’t insanely curious what she had to say. She was a sweet village girl, and he frequented her store, quite a bit actually. On occasion, he would drop by a few times in a day just to say hello. He definitely wasn’t slick.

He waited for her to continue and she didn’t hesitate. “Every time you leave, I get this pain in my chest. I worry about you day and night because I know the life of a shinobi is never guaranteed. I just couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t tell you this time, if I kept acting like the coward I am.”

“I see? Well, what’s on your mind?”

“I-I’ve never felt this way for anyone before, and I don’t know how to deal with it, so here goes,” she told him, taking a deep breath before her next words, “I think I’m in love with you, Kakashi Hatake. I think I’ve loved you since the first time you stepped foot in my parents store.”

“I…”

What was he supposed to say to that?

“You don’t have to say anything back. It doesn’t bother me, I know how closed off you ninja are. Just please, take my words and hold them close on your journeys.” She paused, clenching her soft fists by her sides. She wasn’t scared of rejection, not at all. She was only scared that Kakashi might not care about her words at all. “Please, don’t forget someone loves you.”

In that moment, he felt his heart stop beating, only for a second, but he felt it. Shifted awkwardly, not wanting to let off that he was getting even a little emotional at her declaration. He was tough as nails, the copy-nin. Not some lover boy, even if he wanted to be. Even if he wanted to swoop in right then and kiss her to pieces.

All he could say was, “I’ll keep that in my mind. Thank you, Y/N.”

“You’re welcome. Now, don’t fool around out there so you can come back to me in one piece!” she laughed, feeling tears bubbling up in the corners of her eyes.

He found himself smiling back at the young woman. “You got it.”

__________

Kakashi was never really one to express his feelings. Generally, he kept them inside to mourn alone. It was just in his nature, it was nothing personal with the people he knew and trusted. There was just something about Y/N that made him drop down some of those thick barriers.

His girlfriend was a normal woman, working long shifts in the village bookstore since she was a teenager. She never attended the academy, wasn't chakra sensitive, nothing in particular was so outstanding that she was noticed. Nothing on the surface, actually.

It was her smile and her laugh, the way she could make anyone feel like they were important and wanted, that attracted Kakashi to her in the first place. From the first time they met as teenagers in the bookstore aisles, he knew he was caught in some sort of trap. For a minute, he compared the feeling to that of a genjutsu, even though he knew that was far from a possibility.

To him, when she smiled, it felt as if everything was going to be okay. All the pain and suffering disappeared when she was around. He really couldn’t understand how that could be happening, with the world crumbling around him everyday.

That was a particularly rare attribute among ninja folk, whose lives led them to believe that happiness wasn’t achievable and death was common; pain was so normal for him. It was refreshing to have someone around who didn't think like that, that could change the tone of a room in a moment with just an ounce of positive energy. Y/N was innocent to the majority of these harsh realities that the ninja faced, for the most part.

As with most people in the village, her parents lost their lives during the invasion of the nine tails. She was alone for a long time, but despite that, she tried to find joys in reading, in stacking new books on shelves, in talking to unique individuals that would stop by. And as she aged, she realized her most favorite customer was one with a masked face, and a love of gushy, perverted novels.

She was even friends with some of his closest friends, Gai, Yamato, Sakura. She reached out to them, getting visits here and there while she worked during the day. After he informed his closest companions of his blossoming affair with the bookstore girl, they just had to get in an insider view. They kept visiting after the first meetings. Sakura bringing lunch, Yamato helping her with repairs, and Gai just bringing his brightest smile and a boatload of jokes and giggles to share at the front counter.

It was only a matter of time before they fell into some weird friendship, a civilian and one of the top shinobi of their village. He was gone half the time on missions, and sometimes, when he was ANBU, she wouldn’t see him for weeks at a time. Occasionally, when a mission was long and difficult, she would hear pawing at her window late into the night. When she pulled back the blinds, a small dog would be sitting there with a folded piece of paper in his mouth, waiting for her to take it.

She loved those letters, they became her prized possessions. There was nothing else she loved more in the world than seeing his kind words written out on paper, his declarations of love that he would never dare say aloud. To him, it was easier to say those things on paper, to not be around when she read about his feelings for her. He was still attentive and kind to her in person, but the letters spoke with a romanticism that he couldn’t.

Y/N practically glowed when she spoke to him, so in love with him she could barely keep it restrained. He knew this. He knew she was as deeply in love with him as he was entranced with her. It had been 5 years since they started dating, and he prolonged the inevitable path of marriage as long as he could. Having a girlfriend was one thing, but marrying someone felt like a burden he couldn’t shoulder. He wanted to, but it just seemed like too much work, too much risk.

After years, he realized the waiting just wasn’t worth it. They were only getting older as the time went by. She just warmed his empty heart, he knew that was something only she could do for him. He needed that.

And that's why he sat in the comfort of Ichiraku, Sakura by his side, sipping on some soup. She was the only one he truly trusted with this knowledge, the only one who could give him genuine advice. He just needed to tell someone what he was about to do. He sat there, his fingers hovering over his pants pocket, eyes trailed down at the table.

"What did you want to talk about, Sensei?" She had asked.

"You really like Y/N, right? Think she's good for me?"

She smiled with a small nod. "Of course. Y/N is so sweet. She makes you so happy I can tell. I think it's really good for you." It was true. Sakura didn’t know what her sensei was like before he met the woman. That was years ago before she was even born. What she did know is that someone with that much pain seeping from his heart could use some love in his life, a stable shoulder to lean onto. If anyone was stable, it was her. Without any cares in the world other than worrying for her boyfriend and keeping her business afloat. Her trauma was behind her, unlike some of the shinobi that carry those with them for the rest of their lives. Guilt, anger, resentment.

He pulled a tiny, drawstring bag from his pocket and fiddled with the strings between his fingers. "When I was in the Land of Fire last month, I picked this up from a merchant," he explained, pulling open the bag and pouring out the contents. A small ring clicked against the bar table. "Take a look, tell me what you think."

She dropped her spoon and reached over for the ring, holding it gently with the pads of her fingertips. It was beautiful. It sparkled like sunlight hitting clear blue waters. A stone rested in the center, flecks of lavender and blue floating in the sparkly gem. When she turned it in the sunlight, more colors appeared and changed, morphing into something spectacular in every sense of the word.

"Kakashi-sensei, it's gorgeous. Are you going to give this to Y/N?"

"After all this time, it seems inevitable really. Time flies."

"Oh my gosh. I'm so happy for you. She's going to be ecstatic, I just know it. She loves you more than life itself." He liked hearing that reaffirmed for him, even though Y/N frequently told him how she felt, daily ‘I love you’s. Unlike him, those words were not rare, but each time it filled his chest with warmth.

He smiled fondly, watching as she continued to turn to ring in her hands. He never thought this would happen to him: marrying someone. He didn't want to lose anyone else. He didn't want to put that risk on someone, especially Y/N. He had suppressed his feelings for her for a few years before he finally succumbed to the urge to tell her. Finally, after years of longing and avoiding the obvious, she became his, and he was undoubtedly hers.

It was a hard decision. He knew it was wrong to risk it, put her life on the line, but now he felt ridiculous sulking around waiting for something that was never going to happen. Nothing had happened to Y/N yet, and it had been years. She was gonna be fine. He was only being paranoid, he had convinced himself.

"Tonight. I'm going to help her close the store and do it then."

"You're a good man, Kakashi. She’s so lucky to have you protecting her and watching out for her, ya know? You two balance each other out perfectly,” the girl sighed. If only she could find a love like her sensei had with his significant other.

"Thanks, Sakura.”

They finished up their conversation, and he paid the bill for her, feeling so high that a bit of money from his wallet didn't even bother him. It was slightly later than he was supposed to go see her. The bookstore should have already closed by about 10 minutes.

All he could think about on the way there was how she would laugh about him being late, as usual. She would hug him to say hello, like she usually wound, and then give him a kiss on his masked cheek. He would help her quickly reorganize books before pulling out the ring. To him, it wasn't really about her saying yes at all so much as this moment, proposing to the love of his life, meant he could leave his curse behind and be happy for once with someone he cared about. She was his savior, an escape from a mindset so ingrained he couldn't fight it on his own.

But when he walked up to the front of the store. He noticed the lights still on even though she would have shut them off by now. The sign out front still flipped to open. He didn’t think it was too weird at all, he just thought maybe she was waiting for him to come along to finish up.

As he walked in though, he noticed the whole reams of paper strewn across the floor. Piles of books were aggressively thrown from the shelves, scattered around the floor like someone side swept them from the stands. Ink stained the checkout counter where she normally sat, inkwell tipped over the edge and dripped onto the carpet which she took care to keep clean. It was disastrous getting stains out of that carpet, she always said to him.

Most importantly, on some of the papers scattered around, he spotted blood splatter, drips of half dried blood present all the way from her desk to the back door. He felt panic rise up from his stomach all the way to his throat, and his heart raced. It was rare something made him truly terrified, and this was one of those moments.

He searched, god, he scoured that entire building over and over again for the woman. He checked every aisle and under every table. He ran upstairs to her apartment and checked in the few small rooms she had, scared she was cowering in her bathtub or hiding under the bed. He ran to the neighboring stores, asking if they'd heard from her, and received nothing but empty words. He just wanted her to be anywhere that he could find, anywhere but in the arms of someone evil.

His Y/N was gone, and he was hopelessly at the mercy of his curse once again.

______

He wasn't even allowed to go on the search mission for his girlfriend. Instead, Tsunade sent Yamato as well as a few chunin who knew Y/N enough to recognize her but not enough to fail at being objective. Apparently, the copy-nin wasn't in his right mind to go on a mission right now, especially one that was so personal to him. All his missions for the foreseeable future had been cancelled and another jounin was set to replace him. He could only sit back at home, guilt ridden and feeling useless, unable to help, unable to search. He did this to her. He knew that putting his heart into someone else's hands wasn't right, that it would only lead to her suffering but he couldn't listen to his own experience. He didn’t think it could happen to Y/N. he thought he could protect her.

But fate finds a way, it seems.

He trusted Yamato and the others to find her, but it was nothing like going himself. He wanted nothing more than to see the men who stole her away taught a lesson for what they had done. He wanted to cradle her in his arms and kiss her head, and promise something like this would never happen again. At least, that’s what he wanted to do. He didn’t know how he would react in the moment, despite developing quite good self-control over the years. How could he contain himself when the perpetrators caused his beautiful girl to bleed, and no doubt suffer?

Sakura felt the worst for Kakashi, knowing what she knew. She could imagine him heading to propose to his little girlfriend whom he loved more than anything in the entire world, and see only her blood splattered across the room and endless signs of a brutal struggle. Not to mention no one had a clue why they stole her or what was happening where no one else could see. The medical nin nearly shed a couple tears when Kakashi rushed into the Hokage's office without announcement, proclaiming that his girlfriend was gone, kidnapped from her own store where she worked alone all day.

Tsunade, despite barely knowing the girl, knew it was important; for anyone to be stolen from their village was serious enough. Although she felt for Kakashi, she had to keep him calm while she worked on finding the subject of his affection. She sent out teams immediately, and stressed that Kakashi was to remain in the village until everything was resolved one way or another. She didn't want any accidents because of a reckless, emotionally compromised shinobi faltering.

It only took the teams a single day to find their target.

Shikamaru and Choji were the ones to come back first, and in the larger boy's arms rested the limp, unconscious body of a missing woman. Ever so gently, he had her head tucked away against his chest the entire way home, trying his best not to hurt her anymore. Even if she was unconscious, he wanted to respect the body. From the moments they spoke before, she seemed like the nicest girl. He felt awful. She wasn’t the one putting her life on the line, she was the one that shinobi were supposed to protect. And they failed her.

When they walked through the gates of the village, Kakashi was already rushing up to the gates waiting for their arrival. He caught up to the boys and reached out to take her body from his arms, just to cradle her against him. It was the least that he could do was take her to the infirmary. To feel her faint heart beating against his chest. He was surprised when one of the chunin sadly shook his head.

"Kakashi, she's alive, but trust me, you don't want to see what they did to her," Shikamaru warned, and Choji flinched, just thinking about what her poor face looked like when they found her. Shikamaru knew for a fact that if his girlfriend was ever handed off to him looking so pitiful, he wouldn’t be able to control himself. He didn’t want the same to befall on his sensei. "Just trust me, I cannot let you see it, for your sake. Let Choji bring her to Tsunade."

He felt a burning in his stomach, pain creeping up in his abdomen like he was going to throw up all over the dirt path they stood on, but he did his best to remain calm despite the mix of emotions running through his head. He watched as the Akimichi carried her quickly off to the hospital. Kakashi didn't miss though, the blood stains on his tunic surrounding the area where her head was resting, circling her face. She had bled a lot in her time away, he realized.

God, he felt sick. So fucking nauseous.

"What happened?" he breathed heavily, words slipping through.

"Apparently, the guy had a grudge against your clan for something your father did to his family. Killed a criminal brother or some shit. When he heard wind of your girlfriend he knew he would take his revenge. Didn't want ransom, fame, nothing, just to torment you and torture her. Disgusting bastard."

There was one thing he wanted to know on top of his worry about her condition. He’d been thinking about it for the entire day she was missing. Obsessing even.

"What did you do with the man?" He hoped that justice had been served, and he couldn't imagine the two boys doing anything less.

"A man that would do that to a woman doesn't deserve his life," he muttered, his eyes trailed off to the village, “I made it painful.”

Kakashi nodded to him, and together they stood there in silence for what felt like an eternity.

“Sensei?”

“Hm?”

“I’m sorry.”

____________

When he got to the hospital, Choji was directly quickly to a special unit with particularly fancy machines around the room. Sakura was standing beside her own mentor awaiting the arrival of her friend. The moment she finally saw Y/N's exposed face, she cried. Tears fell from her eyes and she leant over the hospital bed to get a look at all her wounds. She looked alien, and the amount of blood that stained her hairline and cheeks was thick and heavy. Choji had tried to wipe it off, but he just couldn’t get it all.

"Y/N! Oh my God, what did they do to you?" She cried, running her hands shakily over the contusions and the cuts and the bulging areas near her temples. Her body was no better but her face is what hurt Sakura the most. It was hard to believe that all the life had been drained from her body after this one incident.

The light had left her body. Her familiar glow emanating from her soft skin was missing. She looked cold and dead. For the first time, Sakura saw her without her smile, without any bit of optimism. It felt like she was staring at an empty shell of the woman she knew.

"Sakura, get the IV ready. I need to get to work."

And so she did what she does best. Healers at work in their element fixing broken bones, burst capillaries in her head, torn skin. Everything they could. It took hours, and her face still wasn't completely healed in the end, just less swollen. She still had some bumps and bruises but those weren't going to be so bad. They could heal by themselves with a few days of rest and care.

She would be okay, they decided after a while of treatment, and moved her into a normal hospital room, under watch of nurses every so often, no visitors allowed either. Not for the first few days, much to Kakashi's displeasure. He was really getting irritated with the way everyone was keeping him from seeing her. Shouldn’t he be allowed? Essentially, the only family she had left? In reality though, he was scared.

But did he even want to see her again? He loved her, would do anything in the world for her. If only he had the guts to just give up on her and let her meet a normal man from the village, let her marry him and just forget all about their relationship. Then, nothing like this would ever happen again. She would be safer without having connections with him. He was so upset with himself for letting this happen.

He hated himself. It had been a long time since he genuinely thought those words. He hated himself more than anyone else. He let this happen, he was to blame for all this mess. A monster.

He headed back to his apartment that night and stared over at her tiny pile of belongings in the corner, ones she had left over his place as time went on. They still didn't live together so it wouldn't be the worst thing if he broke up with her. She would be hurt, probably cry for a few days, a week, maybe a month. He didn’t know. All he knew was that a little bit of crying was a lot better than getting fatally injured.

Just return her belongings in a box, and never go back to that fucking bookshop where he fell in love with her. He could get his novels directly from Jiraiya if he wanted them.

Tsunade already told him it would be days before he would be allowed to see her again, something about the healing process and that her chakra wasn't enough to fix everything. Based on what Shikamaru had told him, the way he acted- it must have been pretty bad. He couldn't even imagine her face beaten and broken.

All he knew was that in 2 days, he would be allowed to see her again, to possibly talk to her and apologize for what he had caused. It was the least he could do. At this point he couldn't imagine giving her that ring. How could she accept when he was the reason she was abducted and tortured?

He barely slept that night, but it didn't matter. He didn't have anything to do. He was given time off work until everything was resolved. He wondered if it would have been better to have a mission and forget all about the situation for even a couple fleeting moments.

He was just so tired of these feelings. He felt suffocated, and unlike himself. He was finding it hard to be cool, calm, and collected like usual. He just felt terrible. Too terrible to eat, too terrible to sleep, too terrible to do anything but stare up at the ceiling and wonder what could have been.

______

It was time to head to the hospital and see her. Yamato had come to his apartment so they could go and see Y/N. Tsunade gave him the green light first thing that morning when he reported to her. The wood style ninja wanted to see her as well, just to say he was happy she was recovering and even tell her that next time she needed help, if Kakashi wasn't around, to run to his apartment. He would always open his arms to help. So many shinobi of the village, after this incident, would be willing to drop everything and help. Her bookstore would probably always have eyes on it from now on.

Word travelled fast between the shinobi and soon enough almost everyone was giving Kakashi sympathetic looks, patting him on the back and apologizing to him for something they knew nothing about. He just wanted to get to her and say sorry for everything he had done. For not being there sooner, for his father and his clan causing this whole thing. He just needed to see her face. He couldn't get her out of his head.

Sakura was standing outside the room when he arrived. She was biting on her nails, which was oddly uncharacteristic of her. She rarely got nervous enough for habits like that to arise. She was normally so confident. That was the first of the red flags.

"Kakashi-sensei, Yamato. You're here to see Y/N, aren't you?" she asked, her voice quiet and hesitant.

She let him Yamato walk past her into the room but she raised her hand before Kakashi could walk in. She gave him one of the most sorry, pitiful looks he had ever seen, and her lip was quivering just a bit. It was barely noticeable but Kakashi was talented at noting the smallest things.

"Kakashi, I'm really sorry about everything. Lady Tsunade did everything she could. When you go in there, just please don't get upset. It's not as bad as you think. I'll explain everything later, but I want to see how she reacts to seeing you first," she bit out, her words mending together awkwardly.

He figured she was just nervous about her condition or maybe she was still bruised and bandaged up. If she was in a full body cast, he wouldn’t care. As long as he could see her. He couldn’t understand why Sakura was so worried. She would still be beautiful to him. She could never lose that shine that she carried regardless of her external features.

"Hmm. I'm sure it will be fine."

"I'm serious. Don't get upset and alarm her, it's very important you be careful."

"Gotcha."

She watched as he walked past her into the white room, sunlight leaking onto her bedside. The woman was fond of staring out the window since she woke, comforted by the familiarity of the village and the birds that flew by. That was the one thing she needed. Comfort.

Yamato sat at her bedside, and she seemed to be talking to him quietly. Her brows were furrowed deeply and she seemed strained, thoughts running through her brain.

"Kakashi-" the man began to say, desperate to say anything to his friend before the inevitable, but was interrupted.

"Y/N, I was so worried about you," he said, words tumbling out before he could even think. He just had so much to say. He continued, "I need to apologize for what happened. I know I should have been at the shop earlier to help you close, I just got caught up in something. It was my family's fault for your kidnapping. I cannot believe I dropped my guard and let this happen to you, baby-"

She looked at him, but without an ounce of the fondness he was so used to. Instead, his girlfriend just looked confused.

"I… I'm sorry but, Sir, do I know you?"

No.

Not this.

He pleaded in his head that this was not happening. That somehow he had misheard.

"It's me, Kakashi,” he replied softly, almost pleading for her to say something else.

She smiled sympathetically, peering up at him with a little glimmer of that kindness he knew in her eyes. He could tell she was confused, and he began to feel his heart break. "Uh, I'm so sorry but I don't remember you. We're we friends or something?"

"Yeah, I guess you could say something like that,” he muttered, his eyes turned to stare at the white tiles beneath his feet.He couldn’t look at her anymore.

"Yamato, you're friends with Kakashi-san, too?" She asked the brunette at her bedside, sitting in a chair wiping his sweaty palms on the thighs of his pants. He felt himself becoming nervous, especially when he felt Kakashi watching him. Why did she have to ask him that question? Why did she have to address him by his name so casually? He could feel Kakashi begin to bubble up emotions he hadn’t felt from him before.

"Yes. We are all very close friends, Y/N. You were closest with Kakashi actually."

"Then how come I can’t remember any of you?"

"I don't know." He felt fear creeping up his neck, Kakashi overwhelming his senses. The grey haired man just stood there, his eye flickering between the love of his life and his friend who apparently her brain thought was more important than him. Did he not look friendly enough to talk to? Was Yamato more inviting than he was, was that why she stopped talking to him? “I really wish I could help you there,” he mumbled.

She turned back to Kakashi and smiled, but it wasn't the one he knew from her. It was different. He hated it. He didn't even want to look at her anymore.

"I hope I remember you soon, or I'll just have to get to know you again, Kakashi-san," she chirped, reaching out to touch his hand which rested on the edge of her bed. The reaction he had was immediate and almost startling. The second her hand touched his, her warmth pressed to his cold fingers, he yanked his hand away and shoved it into his pocket.

He didn't want her to touch him. He didn't want anything other than to leave. Fuck getting to know him again. That wasn't an option.

"I need to go. I've got a mission I need to prepare for."

"Okay! Goodluck out there," she called to him as he turned on his heel to leave. He grit his teeth, feeling another wave of emotion overtake him. As he stepped outside the door, Sakura was still waiting there for him, her arms crossed over her chest sheepishly.

"Will she ever remember me again?" He asked simply.

"I don't know. She's got retrograde amnesia which can sometimes be permanent depending on the damage done to the brain. We couldn't fix it, no matter how much we tried. She doesn't remember me either. She doesn't remember Gai or Naruto or even Tsunade. She only remembers the village and a few bits and pieces that she can associate with it. Of course she remembers her name and her bookstore, but specific people and memories are essentially gone for now."

"So she's lost to us?"

"She can still get her memories back, but it will take time," she explained. "Sensei, I'm so sorry. None of us wished anything like this on you. I told Tsunade about the ring you were going to give her and the proposal, and we mourned for you. I'm so sorry." She felt so bad, and they did cry for him. They cried for the girl who got to keep her life but lost her soul.

"I have to get back to my apartment and clean up a few things," he dismissed, turning his head away from his student as well. He felt his heart clench in his chest as he walked away. The ring still sat deep in his pants pocket and he wanted nothing more than to throw it in the river.

He wished he was the one who forgot everything. Maybe this pain in his heart would subside. Maybe all the guilt would be washed away once and for all.

Part Two and Three are out.