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leriexoxo · 1 month ago

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THIN LINE (enemies to lovers)

Pairing: Seungmin x Reader

Tags: enemies to lovers, smut, bathroom sex, locked in a cabin, unprotected sex, hate sex,

Word count: 3k

Summary: you’re forced to share a room AND a bed eith your arch nemesis over at the ski lodge but whats even worse? Your friends decide to play a prank and lock you both in all day… what happens when you both realize that there’s a thin line between love and hate?

This work contains mature themes, MINORS DO NOT INTERACT!!!

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You honestly weren’t sure how you ended up here—again.

Wedged between Hyunjin and Han on the couch, trying to focus on the movie playing, while Kim Seungmin sat directly across from you, slouched in the armchair like he was specifically designed to ruin your night.

His arms were crossed, brows lifted in that smug, perpetually unimpressed way. He wasn’t even pretending to pay attention to the screen—his focus was locked on you, head tilted, tongue poking at the inside of his cheek.

“What?” you snapped, already on edge.

He smirked. “Nothing. Just wondering how someone so loud can be this boring.”

Jisung choked on his popcorn beside you. “Oh my god, again? You two are gonna combust one day and take the whole dorm with you.”

“Only if she stops being a walking red flag,” Seungmin replied, tone flat. “Not my fault she thinks sarcasm is a personality trait.”

“Says the guy who’s allergic to basic human decency,” you bit back, arms folding tightly across your chest.

Chan groaned from the kitchen. “Can we not have a bloodbath tonight?”

“Too late,” Felix muttered, giggling as he made himself at home on the floor, feet tucked under a blanket. “It’s the sexual tension for me.”

You turned your head slowly. “I will smother you with that blanket.”

But the worst part? The part you’d never admit out loud?

Seungmin’s smirk lingered a second too long. His eyes dropped to your lips before he rolled them and looked away. Barely. But you caught it.

And your stomach did that traitorous flip.

Because maybe you hated him. Maybe he got under your skin like no one else. Maybe every interaction felt like a battle you were determined to win.

But somewhere deep in the back of your mind, a horrifying, devastating thought was beginning to form:

You didn’t hate him at all.

You just really, really wanted to kiss him.

It all started in the group chat.

Which, in hindsight, made perfect sense—because the group chat was cursed.

Chan had dropped a message at 2:16 AM, which meant either he couldn’t sleep or was in the middle of one of his hyperfixation spirals. Probably both.

CHAN: okay but what if we all took a weekend off?? like an actual trip?

CHAN: no work. no practice. just chill.

FELIX: YES. cabin in the snow. hot cocoa. matching sweaters.

JISUNG: i want to sled into oncoming traffic (affectionately)

HYUNJIN: i’ll bring a fur coat and a single dramatic tear

SEUNGMIN: don’t invite y/n then

YOU: literally no one asked you, ratman

SEUNGMIN: yet here you are. typing back. like a fan.

CHAN: i swear to god

You should’ve exited the chat then and there.

But no. Somehow, in your never-ending quest to not be the person who ruins everyone’s plans, you agreed. And then it snowballed—rental links, carpool groups, a Google Doc, and of course, room pairings.

“I’m not sharing with Hyunjin again,” Jeongin had announced during lunch one day, shoveling spicy tteokbokki into his mouth. “He sleep-talks in five languages.”

“I do not,” Hyunjin gasped.

“You tried to summon a demon using a NutriBullet manual.”

“…Okay but it worked.”

Eventually, Chan declared himself room-assigner, Felix offered to help (which was suspicious), and you found yourself sitting on a beanbag in Changbin’s living room as the final list got passed around.

“Oh,” Jeongin said, eyes scanning it. “Y/N and Seungmin, huh?”

Your head snapped up. “I’m sorry—what?”

Seungmin, from the other side of the room, didn’t even look up from his phone. “Should’ve known I was being punished for something.”

“You’re being punished?” you echoed, scandalized. “I’m the one getting stuck with a grumpy possum.”

Felix was grinning like he’d just lit the match on a bonfire. “You two bicker like you’re married anyway. Might as well lean into it.”

“You just want drama,” you muttered.

“I live for it.”

Chan clapped his hands. “Too late now. The bookings are locked. It’s decided.”

You locked eyes with Seungmin then—silent challenge. He gave you a slow blink. And a smirk.

“Try not to cry when I steal all the blankets.”

“Try not to whine when I kick you in your sleep.”

He turned back to his phone. “Better bring a mouthguard.”

Your eye twitched.

And just like that, the countdown to doom began.

You knew the second Chan handed out room keys that something evil was afoot, with the way they all sniggered.

“Wait,” you said,.“Are you really making me do this?”

“It’s just one weekend,” Chan said innocently, like he hadn’t clearly rigged this entire shared cabin setup to cause emotional damage.

“I really don’t wanna share a room with him.”

Seungmin stood beside you, arms crossed, looking equally offended. “As if I’d want to sleep near your snoring. Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Chan,” you hissed. “Please. I’ll sleep on the porch.”

“No you won’t,” Seungmin muttered. “The wolves deserve peace.”

“Seungmin.”

“Y/N.”

Chan, being the absolute menace he is, was already walking away, tossing you both a peace sign without looking back. “Enjoy the bonding, lovebirds.”

And that’s how you found yourself in Room 3 of a very cozy ski lodge, standing stiffly on opposite sides of a queen-sized bed while everyone else cracked beers and turned the living room into chaos central.

You and Seungmin just stared.

“Don’t get any ideas,” he said eventually, dumping his bag by the dresser.

“Relax. I’m pretty sure your resting bitch face works as birth control.”

He scoffed. “Maybe I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“Be my guest. I hope your back never recovers.”

But when night hit and the temperature dropped hard, the passive-aggression gave way to something worse—shivering silence.

You lay stiffly under the blanket, facing away from him, clutching the edge of your side like it was a lifeline. You could hear his breathing. Slow. Even. Too aware.

“Still awake?” you asked, voice low.

A beat.

“Unfortunately.”

“Why are you always such a dick to me?”

He didn’t answer at first.

Then: “Why do you always let me get to you?”

You turned to face him. Moonlight poured in through the gap in the curtain, painting sharp lines over his features—sharp jaw, soft lips, eyes that burned like frost.

Your heart stuttered.

“I don’t.”

“You do,” he said simply. “Every time.”

You opened your mouth, ready to throw another dagger, but his next words shut you up.

“You’re the only one who talks to me like that. Like you don’t give a shit.”

Silence stretched between you. Thick. Heavy.

And then, he moved.

Slowly. Barely a shift, but enough that the back of his hand brushed yours under the blanket. Not a grab. Not a hold. Just a touch. A question.

And you didn’t pull away.

His voice dropped, barely a whisper. “Still cold?”

“A little.”

Another pause. Then, quietly—genuinely: “C’mere.”

You didn’t trust your voice. So you moved instead. Closer. Close enough to feel the heat of him, the brush of his hoodie, the scent of clean detergent and Seungmin, so familiar it made your stomach flip.

His arm slipped around your waist like he’d done it a hundred times. Natural. Easy. Like enemies didn’t hold each other like this.

His lips brushed your hairline.

“This doesn’t mean I like you,” he murmured.

Your voice came out softer than you wanted. “Good. I still think you’re insufferable.”

But your face was tucked against his chest now. And his hand had found the dip of your spine. And the line between hate and want had never been thinner.

You woke to the sound of shuffling.

Then a thud.

Then Seungmin cursing under his breath.

You peeled open one eye, groaning as your body protested the movement. Your legs were tangled with his—still. His hoodie was bunched at your hips. And the bed was warm with his heat, the scent of him still lingering in the space between your skin and the sheets.

“What are you doing?” you croaked.

“The door’s locked,” he grumbled, jiggling the knob. “Like actually locked. I think they—”

He paused. Realization hit.

“Oh, those little shits.”

You sat up, squinting. “No.”

“Yes.”

“Felix?”

“Felix.”

Seungmin dragged a hand through his hair, muttering a string of curses that would’ve been funny if you weren’t currently trapped in a room with your supposed enemy, wearing his hoodie and little else, on a single bed that creaked every time one of you so much as breathed.

You rubbed your face. “They went out for the day, didn’t they.”

“Yup.” Seungmin leaned against the wall, arms crossed. His eyes trailed down—barely a glance—but it made your breath hitch. “We’re stuck until they get back. At least.”

Silence stretched again. Familiar now. Tense.

You pulled the blanket tighter around yourself and tried not to notice how Seungmin’s shirt clung to his chest. Or how his jaw flexed when he chewed at the inside of his cheek. Or the faint pink tint of skin at his collarbone.

The same collarbone you’d fallen asleep pressed against.

“This is awkward,” you muttered.

“Not my fault you made it weird.”

You narrowed your eyes. “I made it weird?”

“Who was the one that curled up on me like I was a body pillow?”

“You invited me over!”

He stepped forward then, slow, deliberate. The air shifted.

“And you stayed,” he said, voice lower now.

Your heartbeat spiked.

He was standing in front of you, close enough to smell the fabric softener on his shirt and the faint trace of your shampoo on his hoodie. His gaze flicked to your mouth for the second time in 24 hours.

You swallowed hard.

“Why do you do that?” you asked.

“Do what?”

“Look at me like that.”

He didn’t answer. Not with words.

Instead, his hand reached out—slow, cautious—and tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear. His fingers brushed your cheek on the way back, lingering half a second too long.

“You piss me off,” he said softly. “But you also make me—”

He stopped.

The air between you was molten.

Then—

You surged forward.

Or maybe he did. You didn’t know who broke first. You just knew your lips crashed together in a messy, desperate kiss, all teeth and heat and finally. He groaned against your mouth, hands gripping your waist like he’d been dying to touch you, and you didn’t hold back. You yanked at his shirt, tugging him closer until you were flat on your back and he was above you, weight pressing you into the mattress, tongue sliding against yours.

It was clumsy. Perfect. Raw.

All that built-up tension—the late-night fights, the stolen glances, the too-close arguments—it spilled out with every movement. His hands roamed, mouth dragging down your jaw, across your neck, nipping at your skin until you gasped his name.

“Seungmin—”

He pulled back just enough to look at you.

His voice was breathless. “Still hate me?”

You pulled him back down by the collar, lips brushing his. “Ask me again when we’re done.”

His mouth crashed into yours like it was inevitable.

And maybe it was.

All those months of biting insults, jabs that felt more like flirtation, the way your eyes lingered when they shouldn’t—it had to go somewhere. And now it was unraveling at the seams.

Seungmin kissed you like he was mad about it. Hands greedy, mouth rough, tongue slipping between your lips as he gripped your thighs and pulled you into his lap. His hoodie rode up your legs as you straddled him, heat grinding against heat through barely-there layers.

His breath stuttered. “Fuck…”

You rolled your hips again, savoring the way his head fell back for just a second, jaw clenched.

“Still think I’m annoying?” you whispered against his throat, teeth grazing the skin there.

He grabbed your ass hard, pulling you flush against his cock. “God, yes. Most annoying girl I’ve ever wanted to fuck senseless.”

You moaned at the filth in his tone.

The shirt was the first thing to go. He tugged it over your head and tossed it without looking, eyes locked on your chest like he couldn’t decide where to start. Then his mouth was on your skin—hot, open kisses across your collarbone, down to your breasts. He sucked a bruise right under your sternum, like he wanted to leave a mark.

“You’re so fucking pretty when you’re pissed at me,” he mumbled against your skin.

You pushed him onto his back, climbing over him with a wicked smile. “Then you’re gonna love me right now.”

He watched as you peeled his shirt up, exposing firm lines of muscle, warm skin. Your palms skated across his chest, nails lightly dragging down until he hissed, head tipping back.

But the second his hands found your waist again, it shifted.

He flipped you—fast, all precision and quiet strength. Now you were beneath him, legs spread, heart hammering as he kissed you again, deeper this time. Slower. Like he was starting to feel it.

His hand slipped into your panties, fingers teasing your slick folds, lazy circles that had you arching into him.

“So wet already,” he murmured, lips brushing yours. “Knew you liked fighting with me. You get off on it, don’t you?”

You whimpered. “Fuck you.”

“Oh, I plan to.”

He shoved your panties down and off, then freed himself, cock hard and heavy between you, brushing your thigh as he lined up. His mouth hovered at your ear, warm breath skating down your neck.

“This isn’t gonna be sweet,” he whispered. “You don’t want sweet from me.”

You didn’t answer. You didn’t have to.

Because the second he pushed into you, slow and steady, the breath left your lungs. He filled you so deep, your hands clawed at his back, your legs wrapping around his waist on instinct.

“Jesus,” he groaned. “So tight—fuck, you feel insane.”

He set a pace that made your head spin—deep, rhythmic thrusts that sent shockwaves through your body. The bed creaked beneath you. The sound of skin on skin echoed through the tiny room. You didn’t care. Couldn’t care. Not when his mouth found your breast again, not when his thumb slipped between you to rub tight circles over your clit.

Your body seized up, nails digging into his shoulders. “Seungmin—don’t stop—”

“Say it again.”

Your head lolled back. “Seungmin—”

He growled. “That’s right. That’s what I fucking wanted.”

Your orgasm hit like a wave, dragging a cry from your throat as your walls fluttered around him, pulsing. He didn’t stop—he couldn’t—driving into you with desperate force until he buried himself deep and groaned, spilling into you with a raw, guttural sound that made your thighs tremble.

He collapsed beside you, breathing hard, one arm slung across your waist.

A long beat of silence.

Then—

“…Still hate me?” he asked, voice rough, but there was a tiny smirk hiding in it.

You turned your head, breathless. “Hate you even more now.”

His thumb traced lazy patterns over your hip. “Good. Round two’s gonna be worse.

The aftermath hit like a fever dream.

Your chest still heaved, heartbeat finally slowing, limbs tangled with Seungmin’s under the wrinkled blankets. Your thighs were sticky, your hair a mess, and the room smelled like sex and trouble.

You blinked at the ceiling.

He was beside you, arm draped lazily over your stomach, breath warm against your shoulder. For a moment, neither of you moved.

Then you spoke.

“I literally hate you.”

His voice was hoarse and smug. “Liar.”

You rolled your eyes—tried to—but the second you shifted your legs, a wave of overstimulation made you whimper instead.

Seungmin chuckled, and you smacked his chest.

But he caught your wrist mid-air, holding it in place. “Shower?” he offered, with zero innocence in his tone.

You squinted at him. “If you think I’m letting you try anything in there—”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You thought it.”

He leaned in, lips brushing your cheek as he whispered, “You gonna stop me?”

Your stomach flipped.

⸻

The shower was supposed to be quick. Rinse and recover.

It was not.

You stood under the stream, head tilted back, when you felt it—his chest pressed to your back, hands sliding slowly around your waist. You opened your mouth to say something, but then his hand dipped between your thighs and you forgot how to breathe.

“You’re insufferable,” you gasped, grinding back into him anyway.

“Mmhm,” he hummed, lips pressing behind your ear. “But you’re still letting me fuck you in a shower.”

And god, he did.

The water was hot, but he was hotter. He lifted your leg onto the edge of the tub, slid into you again from behind—slower this time, deeper, his grip iron-tight on your hips as you moaned into the tiles. The steam made everything hazy, your bodies slick and desperate, and when his hand snaked around to your clit again, you shattered, nearly slipping if he hadn’t been holding you so close.

When he came, he bit your shoulder. Hard.

“Mine,” he whispered.

You didn’t argue.

⸻

Thirty minutes later, you were both semi-presentable, sitting on the edge of the bed trying not to look like you’d just gone three rounds and nearly flooded the lodge’s plumbing.

Then—

Click.

The door swung open.

“Finally!” Jeongin called, bounding in with two grocery bags. “Dude, you will not believe the gas station we found. They sell instant ramyeon shaped like Hyunjin’s face—wait…”

He stopped.

Chan walked in behind him, followed by Felix, Hyunjin, and Jisung. One by one, they froze.

There was silence. Too much silence.

Then Hyunjin’s eyes dropped to the rumpled bed, the haphazardly tossed towels, and finally—the fresh scratch marks down Seungmin’s neck.

“Oh.”

Jeongin blinked. “So the prank worked.”

Jisung howled.

Felix clapped a hand over his mouth, giggling like a traitor, and Chan just dragged a hand down his face.

Seungmin didn’t even flinch. He reached for his water bottle, took a long sip, and threw an arm around your shoulder like he owned the place.

You, still sore and red-faced, swatted him.

He leaned over, lips brushing your ear again.

“Wanna piss them off more?” he murmured.

Your breath caught.

Then you smiled.

“Oh, absolutely.”

⸻

And that’s how it ended: with the group flailing in disbelief, Seungmin smug as hell, and you? Wrapped in his hoodie again, pretending not to already miss the feel of his hands on your skin.

To think… you hated that man.

Until you didn’t

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Authors note: Hey guys, i’ll be posting new fucs every two days so follow me if you dont want to miss them, and feel free to request by sending me your prompts!

If you enjoyed this, please drop a like and REBLOG!!

#seungmin angst #seungmin x reader #seungmin drabbles #seungmin stray kids #seungmin fluff #seungmin smut #kim seungmin #skz seungmin #skz imagines #enemies to lovers #arch enemy

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lurkingshan · 11 months ago

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10 Things I Love About Triage

I am extraordinarily late to this party but I am here to scream about Triage, a show which I started on a whim after a stray comment from @incandescentflower and subsequently finished in two sittings. This drama has been on my list forever (I didn't watch it live because the distribution was wacky) and then it just kept getting overlooked as I fought to keep up with the deluge of Thai BL coming at us at all times. But I am very glad I finally hunted it down and made the time and I would like to tell you why!

Hello Again, Dr. Sammon

I am on record as a Sammon fan. She is one of the best writers working in Thai BL and she has a knack for mystery and suspense. Her narratives are always really well constructed with tight plotting and smart character work, and Triage is no exception. This story feels confident, steady, and complete in a way few Thai BLs do.

The time travel rules are blessedly consistent

Part of what makes the story sing is it's a time travel plot that actually gets the particulars right. In a time loop, the details are everything, and this show understands that. The series of events are consistent, the rules of the time travel mechanics are clearly explained, and when our protagonists learn something new, it always lines up with something we'd gotten hints about before or gives us new context for old information. There are no loose threads in this show.

My boy Tin is going through it

Tin is a fantastic protagonist. He starts the show disillusioned with his work and hilariously grumpy about this time loop situation--he is a busy ER doctor and he does not have time for this--but as he starts to piece together how the loop works he gets more methodical in his approach, and eventually becomes emotionally invested in his mission to save Tol. Tin felt really well-calibrated in that he was smart and he tried all the things you would be shouting at the screen for him to try, but he's still a human being with flaws and insecurities and so he makes mistakes, learns, and has to try again. The show really successfully put us in the frustration with him.

Tol makes for an interesting damsel

Because he's kind of an asshole! Tol is rude and disrespectful when he first meets Tin, he hangs around with some truly awful bullies, he treats Rit like garbage, and he's all around an arrogant dick. Until he isn't. I like the choice to make the focus of our mission such a difficult character, not only because it makes Tin's challenge that much harder, but also because it invites us to consider the reasons why someone might be behaving the way he is and whether they can be redeemed.

This show has everything: action, romance, and agony

It's truly an emotional rollercoaster all the way through, and you can't relax for a moment. The pacing is relentless through most of the show, and even as a bond develops between Tin and Tol and they begin a tentative romance, danger is lurking around every corner. As soon as these boys started making out in episode 9 I knew something awful was coming for me and IT SURE DID.

Jinta, the ultimate frenemy

On that note let's talk about Jinta, my nemesis!! Jinta is some kind of unspecified deity/whimsical god and the one who appears to be responsible for putting Tin and Tol in this loop. Is he trying to help them? Is he trying to torture them? I definitely think it's both! He seems to delight in showing up to taunt Tin as he struggles to figure out how to get through to Tol, and when it's Tol's turn on the merry-go-round he sends him to the darkest timeline for his high stakes final attempt to save Tin just because he can. I love/hate you, sir!

Sing and Gap and the darkest timeline

Speaking of which, can we talk about how appropriate it is that Sing and Gap are a couple only in the darkest timeline? I don't know if people were shipping this for real during the live watch, but I definitely was not and so I started cackling when we got to the worst possible timeline and Sing was suddenly calling Gap his boyfriend. Sammon, you are hilarious and I salute you.

Fantastic side characters

Let's talk about the sides I did love. First of all, aside from his weird aggressive flirting/not flirting thing with Gap, I actually did like Sing's friendship with Tin a lot. I also loved the hospital gang who were around to alternately tease and help Tin, most especially Toy and Fang. Toy is a sweetheart and a gossip who never misses a trick, and Fang is an actual badass who first cracked the case with that evil doctor and saved Tin's life. They are fabulous. Rit was also an excellent character with a lot of complexity and he added some much needed depth to the school storyline (does anyone else think he was basically the proto-DFF Non?). And while Mai and Heart were not my favorite people, I did appreciate that the show gave them a sympathetic portrayal instead of making them evil villains (we had the organ harvesters for that).

That beautiful clocktower

I must give a shoutout to this gorgeous clocktower featured in several important scenes. I got so excited every time it showed up. Fun fact: in the first clocktower scene I was like oh hey I recognize that from gifs, but it can't be that scene because it's too early for a kis--TIN WHAT ARE YOU DOING! (I was right, it was too early for a kiss and Tol was Big Mad but bless you for going for it anyway, Tin).

The romance is balanced and rootable

And on that note, let me give a shoutout to the romance part of this story for actually feeling balanced. This is not an epic swoony love affair, but more a story of two people putting in the time to understand and empathize with each other. Sometimes in these kind of time loop stories the romance can end up feeling very one-sided because one character is holding all the knowledge and all the cards. But in this show we have the neat trick of Tol taking over the loop to try to save Tin in the final arc, which means he got to go through a similar process of getting to know the darkest version of his lover and figuring out how to get through to him. I was delighted by all the events of the long loop playing out again, but this time with Tin being the obstinate one. Tol got a taste of his own medicine and it left me feeling like they were both equally invested in this relationship.

TL;DR: If you haven't watched this yet, you really should! It's a fast binge and a great time with some Thai BL favorites. It's unfortunately still not available for international streaming, but it's very easy to find grey now and it's worth the effort. Go forth!

#triage #triage the series #thai bl #shan recommends #10 things #shan shouts into the void

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albondiguilla007 · 3 months ago

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My favorite Hogwarts Eighth Year Drarry fics

Part l

✨ A Dented Old Street Sign / 27k / Draco knows they aren't the only students who will be completing their NEWTs this year, but they are the only ones whose home fireplaces were disconnected from the floo network by the ministry.

At least, Draco assumes as much until he sees the light falling out from the front door of one of the other rickety old houses in front of them and the three figures cast in its warm glow. For a moment they look like some sort of strange, many legged creature. An acromantula, or a particularly massive Blast-Ended Skrewt. Then Draco hears Pansy make a disgusted sound beside him and the light falls in a less blinding way, and Draco can see that it is actually Potter and the Weasel carrying a large couch between them, and Granger fluttering around them with her wand out, seeming concerned.

✨ Inside Your Mind / 36k / Goyle's taken it upon himself to act as Malfoy's personal, one-man guard and Harry can't help but feel like it's only making the bullying worse.

✨ knickers in a twist / 86k / Draco loses a bet to Pansy and Blaise which leaves him wearing a skirt for a whole week. Harry discovers something about himself.

✨ The Nightmare Club / 85k / Hermione and Ron are going back to Hogwarts to do N.E.W.T.s, Ginny isn't. Harry hasn't decided, until he has, in front of the Wizengamot and now he's responsible for Malfoy as well. A tale of enemies who learn to get along, get it wrong and get it on. Everything is purple, some things are on fire and no-one is sleeping properly. But don't worry, there's tea!

✨ Two to Lie and One to Listen / 84k / It’s weird when Hermione announces that she and Ron have broken up. It’s weirder when this is followed by the revelation that she’s already moved on—and the new object of her affections is Draco Malfoy.

Things only get worse from there.

(A drarry fic featuring fake dating, jealousy and bad choices.)

✨ Love, Pain, and Guitar Strings / 303k / Harry had to do something with his time in the summer after the war, especially since he couldn't sleep. Finding Sirius's old guitar and learning to play solved that problem. Now if only he could solve the problem of Draco Malfoy always seeming to find him when he played it. Or the problem of how he definitely didn't want him to leave when he did.

Draco got lucky, he knew that - really. He was going back to Hogwarts instead of Azkaban. Now if only he could really find the freedom everyone kept telling him had. And if Potter could stop looking and sounding so damned good playing that guitar it would really help him do that.

An 8th-year fic about healing old wounds, gaining new skills, and learning what's most important.

✨ In Deep Water / 39k / Draco Malfoy returned to Hogwarts tall and tense and in love with Neville Longbottom.

✨ A Wizard’s Guide to Co-Parenting with Your Ex-Nemesis / 38k / Harry had expected a few things when returning for his Eighth Year. Rooming with Ron, a cheeky Firewhisky down at the pub, leaving his assignments to the last minute – those were all but certain to occur.

His list of certainties definitely hadn’t included McGonagall’s shake-up of the curriculum, which tasked the Eighth Years with the responsibility of parenthood for three weeks. Caring for a baby Transfigured from a sack of flour would have been alright if: 1) Malfoy wasn’t Harry’s assigned partner, 2) Their baby’s one goal in life wasn’t to spite Harry, and 3) Malfoy wasn’t infuriatingly good at fake parenthood.

✨ It’s No Great Mystery / 57k / Who on earth decided that bringing back the Yule Ball for their eighth year would be a good idea? It feels like the worst day of Harry’s life, watching everyone get glammed up like the war never happened, like the last Triwizard Tournament wasn’t such a colossal failure.

And then it happens again. And again. And again.

✨ Owl Was Well / 66k / Draco Malfoy is not an owl, really he isn’t. He simply assumes the shape of one on occasion when he wants to find a bit of privacy—a goal entirely thwarted because Harry Potter doesn’t understand you can’t just grab any old bird from the Owlery and force it to send your missives and deliver your packages.

✨ 12 Days of What The Fuck / 26k / When Potter starts paying unusual amounts of attention to Draco as the holidays draw nearer, Draco can't figure out where it's coming from—possibly because he's gone stupid from all the fantastic sex. But what happens when he finds out that there may be another motive behind Potter's sudden interest?

Or: A fic in which Potter is hotter than Draco ever let himself admit, Draco didn't fill out that fucking form, and Pansy may or may not lose all of her hair.

#harry potter #ao3 #hogwarts eighth year #drarry #draco malfoy #fanfic recs #fanfic rec

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juyeonszn · 2 years ago

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I LOOK BETTER UNDER YOU

PAIRING choi chanhee x f!reader

WORD COUNT 2.62k

GENRES smut

WARNINGS 18+ MINORS DO NOT INTERACT, mature language, TW: LEWIS STRUCTURES/CHEMISTRY TERMS 🤢🤢🤢, academic rivals to something idk, kev and jichang appearances, chanhee is a cocky little shit, vaginal fingering, edging, exhibitionism lowkey, there’s not p in v action but they are in a public space so…. take with that what u will

SUMMARY aside from excelling at literally everything else, choi chanhee was also really fucking good at getting on your last nerve.

MORE my brain hurts LOL anyway fawntober day???? 7 holy fuck that is actually insane… ANYWAY shout out reese for being my beta as always <3 and also shout out @sungbeam for the idea <3 laurv u bestie!!! pls reblog if u enjoyed :)

PERM TAGLIST @winterchimez @maessseongs @itsbeeble @zzoguri

You felt stupid. Never in your life had you ever struggled to learn a concept, usually understanding on the first go around. This was the case for a majority of your courses. However, for some reason you just couldn’t quite grasp Lewis Structures in your Chemistry class.

Everything else seemed simple enough, your professor explaining them in a way that made them sound easy. They were anything but. You found yourself stressing over whether or not you could fully comprehend the bonds between atoms in time for your midterm. With the way it was going for you, that hope appeared to get less and less realistic.

“Have you thought about going to tutoring?” Your friend, Kevin, asks as you sit across from each other in one of the library’s study rooms, your chemistry textbook opened up to the section on Lewis Structures.

“I mean, no, I haven’t. I just think they’d judge me, considering I have the second highest GPA in our department.” You huff, scribbling down even more notes on the concept, as if you didn’t already have everything you needed to know. God, being a woman in STEM was so hard.

“That’s your problem,” Kevin rolls his eyes, working on his communications homework simultaneously. “Your ego is too damn big. Maybe if you toned it down a notch and set aside your pride, you’d be able to grow the balls to actually ask for help.”

You’re offended, honestly. Because as much as he was right, he was simultaneously very wrong. It wasn’t that you didn’t have the courage to ask for assistance. It was the fact that your biggest rival was the person in charge of the science department’s tutoring lab. He had the highest GPA in your year and you couldn’t stand the thought of losing to him. Let alone showing your weak side.

Aside from excelling at literally everything else, Choi Chanhee was also really fucking good at getting on your last nerve. You were thankful that he wasn’t in your Chemistry lecture, lest he made fun of you for all the questions you asked pertaining to your struggles. He had a knack for crawling under your skin like a goddamn parasite, doing everything in his power to make sure you never felt a moment of peace as long as he was around.

You hated him. You hated him so much for all of the unnecessary competition and constant need to one-up you in every mutual category possible. You hated his overall overachievement to be better than you, to be above you at all costs. You hated his dumb pretty face.

So how could you turn to tutoring after all of that? It just wasn’t feasible. Kevin wouldn’t get it. He didn’t have an arch nemesis holding him back from success.

“That’s not it at all, Kev. But it’s whatever, I’ll figure this shit out myself.”

You could not figure that shit out by yourself. Midterms were a week and a half away, and you were still ripping your hair out over which structures were more dominant and other things of that nature. This was absolutely humiliating. Perhaps growing up as a gifted kid was the worst thing that could’ve happened to you.

With a frown permanently etched on your face, you glance over at your tablemate’s notes. He had messily scrawled examples of those damn Lewis Structures covering the sheet, eyes flickering back and forth between his notebook and the projector at the front of the lecture hall. Oh how badly you wished to be in his shoes, to decipher everything and anything to do with the dot structures presented to you.

Ji Changmin was by no means a genius. His intelligence levels were above average, but that was still below you. How could he understand this better than you? It made no sense. Then again, he was close friends with He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. That had to be the reason why. His friend was practically the Einstein reincarnate.

This meant that you couldn’t even express your difficulties with him either. Chanhee no doubtedly knew that you sat beside his friend. If you asked for his help, it would obviously circle back to him and you’d never hear the end of it. You’d never unhear the taunting voice of Choi Chanhee teasing you for asking Ji Changmin for assistance with fucking Lewis Structures. There really was no winning here.

As the lecture draws to a close and your professor reminds you to study for the fast approaching midterm, Changmin clears his throat beside you with a raised eyebrow. You look at him with thinly concealed surprise. So much for being subtle.

“I saw you looking at my notes,” he snorts. “You know, if you’re having a hard time with this chapter, you should just go to the tutoring lab. I’m assuming you haven’t because Chanhee hasn’t gloated about it yet. But if you were curious, he won’t be there today. He has to go to some meeting for the newspaper. You know that guy’s got like ten different clubs he’s a part of.”

You’re not sure why Ji Changmin would be on your side with this. In fact, it kind of makes you skeptical. You didn’t know how credible he was, so why would you trust this information? For all you knew, he could’ve been attempting to lure you right into a trap. However, despite the bit of laughter he exhibited, he didn’t appear to be lying. You were usually a pretty good judge of character.

That’s how you found yourself showing up to the tutoring lab later that evening.

It was located inside of the STEM building on the fourth floor, along with some of the offices belonging to several professors. You chose to go later at night with the knowledge that most students would be gone by that time. The lab was available for use until 9 PM on weekdays, and it was currently 8 PM.

Your grip on the strap of your bag tightens as you push open the see-through glass door of the lab, grateful for the evident emptiness. Though it also worries you, because there were no tutors around either. Maybe the slowness of a Thursday evening encouraged them to head home early. You decide to wait a few minutes anyway, just in case someone shows up.

That was, unfortunately, a very big mistake. As you’re pulling out your notes and textbook, you hear the low creak of the door opening. You think you might keel over and die when you’re suddenly face to face with The Choi Chanhee.

His lips curl up almost menacingly, crossing his arms over his chest. “Well well well, look what the cat dragged in.”

“Shut the fuck up,” your teeth grit together. “Aren’t you supposed to be in a meeting or something? Why are you here?”

“Ended early,” he shrugs. “The tutors have a habit of leaving prematurely when I’m not around, so I wanted to see if there was anyone here. Guess it’s my lucky day, huh?”

This dude was a walking headache for real. You were seriously going to walk out of the lab with a migraine if he kept talking like he was so fucking smart. He was, but he didn’t need to know that you thought that. His own ego was large enough without you inflating it even more.

“I’m going home.” You state simply, mouth drawn in a straight line. You didn’t have the patience for his aggravating ass tonight.

“Am I really that horrible that you won’t accept my aid? I heard that you’ve been having problems with Lewis Structures. I may like to joke around, but I’m not really a masochist who likes to watch people suffer,” Chanhee chuckles with a shake of his head. “You’re just so easy to rile up.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” you mutter, avoiding his piercing gaze. “But fine. If you’re actually gonna help me, I’ll let you just this once. I can’t afford to have this cost me a perfect midterm grade.”

He grins, something that looks conniving. You hate how much more attractive it makes him. You were thankful again for the fact that there were no other students present. It was embarrassing enough to be seen being civil with the worst person in the world.

Chanhee takes the seat beside you, turning it so he’s facing you. You keep your body squared to the table, flipping your textbook to the page on Lewis Structures and preparing a fresh sheet in your notebook. You feel your cheeks warm up with the attention on you, his arms still folded in front of him.

“S-So I don’t get the— um— I don’t— uh— I don’t understand the dominant— the dominant bonds,” your eyes squeeze shut, mortified by the amount of stuttering and fumbling over your words. “How do you— um— how do you determine them?”

He smiles at how cute you are, a shy side of you he’s never seen before. He was so used to you constantly arguing with him, used to you standing your ground and competing with him even when you knew he’d come out on top. He places an arm on the back of your chair, leaning in to read what was in your textbook although he didn’t need to. He just wanted an excuse to get closer to you.

“So you’re gonna want your formal charge to be as close to zero as possible. In order to calculate that, you’ll have to subtract the number of bonds divided by two and the number of electron pairs from the total number of valence electrons per individual atom,” Chanhee explains, pointing at the formula on the page. “How about I give you a couple examples to work on?”

You nod slowly, afraid your voice might betray you again. He jots down a few molecular examples on your notebook, pausing for a moment to nip at his lip and examine you. You blink, a little confused by the action.

“What are you doing?” There’s a slight crack in your tone.

“I have an idea,” he licks his lips. “To make this more rewarding for us both.”

Your brows furrow, his response further perplexing you. One of his hands situates itself on your thigh, your eyes widening. Of all days to wear a skirt, why did you have to choose today? You glance between his face and his hand, lips parted.

“Ch-Chanhee?”

“Yes, pretty?”

You don’t know why the nickname has your upper and lower heartbeats skipping, sweat forming on your palms. You’d always been too preoccupied despising him for being so much better at everything than you were. But right now, his fingers creeping beneath the denim of your skirt, all of that seemed to fly out of the window. You gasp as his fingertips reach the lace of your panties.

“I can make you feel good,” he says into your ear, thumb massaging your thigh. “I can make this worth your while if you do well for me.”

He was giving you fucking whiplash. One second he was teasing you for coming to the tutoring lab, and the next he was trying to coax you into coming quite literally. You think you’re the insane one, however, because you can’t conjure a logical reason to say no.

“Okay,” you breathe, shakily picking up your mechanical pencil. “Okay, I’ll do my best.”

You begin to work on the first molecule he wrote out, trying to ignore his slender fingers pushing aside your underwear and rubbing your clit gently. Your bottom lip quivers when his lips make contact with your neck, kissing up and down softly with each circle of his phalanges on your sensitive bundle of nerves.

Chanhee presses two fingers inside of your cunt, smiling against your skin when you whimper, nearly dropping your pencil. You fight back tears threatening to spill from your eyes due to lack of reaction, his digits so skilled at working your pussy and looping that knot in your abdomen. Your legs spread wider as you attempt to finish the first example as quickly as possible, so he can knock you over that edge that seems so close now.

“D-Done,” you shiver, lids almost fluttering shut from pure bliss.

Chanhee judges your answer, fingers halting their movements when he recognizes an error. You whine, that taste of sweet release pulled right from under you like a rug. He tsks, kissing your temple as if he hadn’t just denied you an orgasm.

“That’s not the dominant structure. Try again.” He instructs, not continuing until you’ve picked up the pencil and rewrote the Lewis Structure.

You ignore his palm applying pressure to your clit as his fingers thrust in and out of your drooling cunt, lips sucking at the exposed base of your neck, where it meets your shoulder. Your focus zeroes in on completing this structure correctly, rearranging the electron bonds until they’re right. You feel your climax returning when he praises you for getting it this time.

“Such a smart girl,” he murmurs into your collarbone. “Now do the other one.”

He doesn’t stop his assault, increasing the pace of his fingers while you scribble out numbers and draw electron pairs. Your orgasm inches towards you, like a freight train going at full speed. Chanhee curls his middle finger, tripping you up and causing you to write down a wrong number on accident. Ever the perceptive, he relaxes his wrist and retracts his hand, the band in your stomach loosening along with it.

“Please, Chanhee,” you cry, tears beginning to roll down your cheeks. “Need to cum so bad.”

“Mm-mm,” he scolds. “Not until you finish the structure properly. C’mon, I know you can be a good girl for me.”

You force yourself to persevere, bottom lip between your teeth when he slips his fingers back into your pussy. Pretending like you weren’t on the cusp of euphoria was making you dizzy, but it was necessary if you wanted to reach it completely. You couldn’t handle a third denial.

Chanhee speeds up his fingers, adding his thumb on your clit for extra stimulation. It was like he did enjoy watching you suffer. Perhaps he really was a masochist. You scrawl the last electron bond of the structure, releasing the pencil from your grasp and throwing your head back with a low whine. He hums in appreciation at a job well done.

“Oh my god,” you moan softly, looking down at where his hand disappears in your skirt. “Feels s-so good.”

“Yeah?” Chanhee goads, peppering kisses on your jaw and nibbling at your pulse point. “Ready to cum for me, pretty? Gonna cum all over my fingers?”

You can’t even reply, his cocky voice filling your head as he finally permits your orgasm, walls convulsing and clenching around his digits with a wail. It hasn’t even occurred to you that you’re in a very public, very open space, where anyone could walk in at any given moment. Your brain is too foggy from your overstimulated cunt and the comprehension that Choi Chanhee just fucking fingered you to even consider the consequences of the location.

It only takes a few seconds for you to come to, your body catching up with your head. You look at Chanhee with eyes resembling those of a prey cornered by its predator.

“Why is your hand still inside my skirt?”

“‘S warm down there,” he shrugs with a sly smile. “Besides, I’m not really done with you yet.”

“What are you talking about…?” You trail off, throat dry from how winded this guy was making you.

“You still need some practice before your midterm, no? And I kinda wanna see how pretty you look under me.”

#the boyz #the boyz x reader #the boyz smut #tbz #tbz x reader #tbz smut #the boyz chanhee #the boyz new #tbz chanhee #tbz new #choi chanhee x reader #choi chanhee smut #chanhee x reader #chanhee smut #juyeonszn #fawntober.2023🎃

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velenoblu · 1 year ago

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“What are you waiting for?”

“Shut up!”

“…Why it had to be you?”

Day 4: Superhero x Villain - Law x Ichiji

In short, superhero “Sora the warrior of the sea”-Law falls in love with Ichiji Vinsmoke, not knowing that he also has a secret identity as villain Sparking Red. Eventually Law found out but decided to continue the relationship because he can’t bring himself to leave him. Until Ichiji (during a particularly rough fight) discovers the identity of his nemesis but, heartbroken, he can’t kill him because for the first time in a very long time he found himself scared to loose someone.

For more lore (aka the whole plot that I made up in my head around the prompt)👇👇

Trafalgar Law’s life finally seemed figured out: at 26 he has a stable and fulfilling work as a surgeon in the city’s main hospital, a group of friends that care about him dearly and sometimes even some night out with an occasional date. Everything was fine, even nice, until one night a badly injured man arrives at the urgent care of the hospital claiming to be Sora the warrior of the sea, the most powerful superhero of the area. Law (a big fan of him) doesn’t initially believe him until the man gives him a strange key and an address and tells him that someone has to take his place, just to die soon after. At first Law doesn’t really think about it but after the rumors of Sora disappearance he goes at the address and with the key he unlocks Sora’s secret lair, finally understanding that the the superhero is now dead and practically shoved his duty as protector of the city to him. Law thinks “I know a lot about him ((nerd behavior)), and it can’t be to difficult to wear a suit and fight some criminals, and I can’t leave the city unprotected, no?” So he decides to take Sora’s role and, after some initial difficulties, he starts to enjoy this double life, but with the intention of finding someone more suited to the role to take his place.

At the same time he becomes a usual in a new cafe where he meets a handsome blond man elegantly dressed, with whom everyday has a little chat. With a new found confidence, brought by being a superhero generally liked by the majority of the city’s citizens, he asks him out. He is Ichiji Vinsmoke, a young and successful lawyer from a powerful family ((damn Law you hit the jackpot)). They slowly fall for each other and start an official relationship some time later. But around the same time a group of super villains returns to the city, after Sora defeated them a year ago. They are Germa 66, and mostly work as mercenaries for powerful men who don’t want to get their own hands dirty. Law of course tries to stop them, but they are more powerful than the typical robbers he had to deal with until now. Poison Pink is subtly dangerous with her poisons, Winch Green is physically strong and has a long range and Dengeki Blue’s electricity powers are particularly insidious. But the worst is the leader, Sparking Red, because not only he is the most powerful and cruel of them, but he is also very familiar. Behind the funky red hair and the dark sunglasses his voice and appearance are unmistakably the one of his boyfriend Ichiji.

Law is afflicted, at first he doesn’t accept it but the evidences are undeniable and he doesn’t know what to do: Sparking Red and Ichiji personalities are similar in some ways, but where the former taunts him and fights without holding himself back, the latter is kind and loving with him. And Law starts to understand that he really, like really loves him and can’t help but want to be stay with him. He starts to search Ichiji in Sparking Red, and Sparking Red in Ichiji, which isn’t very healthy for a relationship. And Ichiji starts to have suspicions too for his boyfriend strange habits (that he sort of recognizes for having himself a secret identity). He knows that the Sora of the present isn’t the same person of a year ago, but he doesn’t even imagine what the truth is.

So, one day they have a particular violent fight and Sora-Law looses his helmet (that hides his face), and just when Sparking Red is ready to finish him he recognizes Law. And from Law’s expression he understands that the other knew. He finds himself heartbroken in a way the didn’t know he could be. Even when he didn’t wear the suit he wasn’t a very emotional available person, but with Law was different. He thought to have finally found a sort of safe place, far from Sparking Red, the identity that his father made him grow up with for his own benefits, modifying Ichiji’s and his brothers bodies and using violence when they tried to refuse his orders for all their life. So, now that Sparking Red has the order to kill Sora, Ichiji just can’t do it. But he also feels betrayed by Law, and can’t forgive him despite loving him still (thing that he isn’t really programmed to feel in the first place).

SO, the conclusion? Very hard times for them both trying to communicate (they aren’t very good at it) and continue their roles as enemies but also as lovers. But when things start to be even more complicated for them, as Ichiji’s father discovers what is happening to his theoretically perfect son, Ichiji and Law will have to face difficult decisions to remain together and keep the city and their loved ones safe. (Spoiler at the end Judge is dead the Vinsmoke siblings are free and they stay together happy and very much in love)

I love writing detailed plots that will never be an actual fanfics, like see my vision but don’t expect a full story because I can’t actually write it.

#vinshippingweek2024 #one piece #germa 66 #vinsmoke brothers #vinsmoke ichiji #trafalgar law #trafalgar d water law #ichilaw #sorry for eventual grammar mistakes

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youkaiyume · 2 years ago

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Hello, it's been a while since I did a rant. But WARNING for gross medical things:

SO it turns out my old nemesis the ovarian cysts have plagued me again. I found out about three weeks ago when a weird pain wouldn't leave my pelvis and went to urgent care and they suggested a CT scan. ONLY! for my insurance to deny me cuz they think I needed more probable cause for one so my doctor just recommended I go to the ER (which ironically is way more expensive for insurance to pay for than a simple CT scan but they did it to themselves lol).

Turns out I have cysts on BOTH of my ovaries FUN. But the left one is very concerningly big and probably needs to be removed but I can only do so by getting an approval of an OBGYN. So after finding one and waiting for my blood tests to come back so she can determine if she can surgically remove it--

YESTERDAY I had a SUDDEN AND SEVERE pain that hit me. I was at a solid 10 on that pain scale and vomiting and sweating so I drove myself to the ER again for the second time in two weeks. Frustratingly, the MALE doctor came back and was just like "well it looks like while we were doing your ultrasound you weren't consistently experiencing pain" which I was ready to bite his head off because let me tell you. While I was laying stretched out letting them do the ultrasound I was in the worst pain the ENTIRE time. And it was not a short ultrasound. It lasted over 20 mins and even after they asked me if I could survive sitting through the vaginal ultrasound after which would be another 25 mins. And those are painful just for the stick poking around in your yoohoo alone. I begged for pain relievers and when I described it they were like "oh that's labor level pains"

SO Mr. I don't have a Uterus doctor, DON'T TELL ME that your machine says I wasn't in pain. He even hit me with a "well I don't know what your pain tolerance is" as if to minimize or make me feel like I was overblowing what I was feeling. Like, fuck that guy. But because technically the imaging showed that the cysts haven't ruptured or caused my ovaries to twist it was considered "non emergent" and so the just gave me painkillers and then sent me home and reiterated that the only way I could get it removed at this point was to beg my OBGYN and convince her it was an emergency. In the meantime it was "oh you'll have to live with LABOR LIKE PAINS 24/7 until they let you have surgery." In the meantime they said I should only return to the ER after I've took all my pain meds and my pain doesn't improve OR if something worse happens. like a rupture.

WHICH btw are the exact same symptoms I have today so I was like how will I know cuz I can't imagine a worse pain than this one to which they were like "shrug"

I was in tears. Oh but it gets EVEN BETTER. Called my OBGYN this morning and she said my blood tests came back and that unfortunately they detected higher than usual levels of cancer markers in the cyst so that means she can't surgically remove them for me, she has to foist me to an Oncologist so THEY can remove it. She tries to say it doesn't necessarily MEAN cancer but hnnnnnggg that does not help with my anxiety at the moment.

Now calling the Oncologist to make an appointment today was a whole ordeal itself cuz their system kept going to voicemail so I had to call all the departments until they finally let me through but I had to run back to the hospital to try to get my Ultrasound discs for them. But even then they were like "your appointment isn't until next Wednesday" because THATS when the doctor meanders into work. So I'm like OH so like, in the meantime what if something happens??? And they're like well you gotta call back your OBGYN to see if you have other options. Which turns out she is also out. Until Tuesday. So I'm like. Guess I'll die then!

I don't even want kids!!! These ovaries have caused me nothing but trouble!!! Please rip them from my body!!

#And you know when you have nothing to do but curl up and google ovarian cancer #AND it tells you that the longest living patients on average live up to five years #it does make you spiral a bit #I feel like these entire two weeks the entire medical system won't believe me when I say it's an emergency #you sit here with this pain then #you do it #text post #rant #gross medical things

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hangesophtalmologist · 1 year ago

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will death hold my hand if you don’t?

pairing: finnick odair x original female character

tropes: rivals to lovers

synopsis: once the 75th Hunger Games are announced, Finnick only finds one solution to save his mentor and friend: barge into his long-life rival's house and find a way to convince this irritating, egoistic victor to volunteer. Only, he might be the one person she hates the most after the Capitol.

warnings: swear words, mentions of Alzheimer’s

Finnick was practically running in the streets of District Four – more precisely, in the privileged area of the district known as the Victor’s Village. This was not the time to maintain his unbothered, cool persona. Blood was pumping in his veins, chest heaving in the effort of calming the deafening panic that was creeping up in him. This could not be happening, not again. After everything they had been through. He thought, foolishly, that he was safe. Relatively safe. That it was over since he won the Hunger Games – but they never really win. Becoming the shiny toys of the Capitol promised them wealth and comfort. But all the disgusting, overplayed luxury was only meant to hide the sad truth about victors - they remained toys, and at any time could the people of Panem realize they wanted to play with them again.

The announcement of the 75th Hunger Games came crashing down on him like a bomb, crushing his frail illusion of stability. For him, it didn’t matter. He was strong enough to survive at least for most days. No, the suffocating feeling of fear that had paralyzed each of his muscles, only letting his brain run the infinite possibilities of death, sorrow and suffering, had come from his concern for Mags and Annie. None of them would make it past the first day left alone, and even with his help the Hunger Game was a downright death sentence.

But there was a tiny, silly bit of hope that made him jump on his feet, storm out of his house with one name in mind. The one person he spent a lifetime despising, annoying and arguing with, the very person that hated his guts and made him know every day, was actually his last hope. This was the worst idea he ever had, but he had not choice. He’d go to her, do anything she could ask him for – he’d even recognize she was better than him, he’d beg her on his knees if that was what it took. But even with all that, Finnick couldn’t tame down the desperation that clawed at his heart when he pictured her violently telling him off - like he could swear she’d do.

“Naia!” he called, basically shoving the door of a rusty house open and frantically searching the rooms with his eyes. “Naia!”

His feet moved on their own accord, stomping in the home that felt completely empty. His eyes scanned the squeaky-clean floor and the few furniture there was. For a moment, he feared no one was here until he heard a faint voice coming from a closed room. Calming his breath, he approached and went to slightly open the door before he thought better and faintly knocked on the wood.

Hearing no response, his fingers glazed over the handle, but before he even twisted it, his hand was violently ripped away from the door, and he was met with a furious charcoal gaze.

“Where the fuck do you think you are, Odair?”

There stood Naia Calder in all her glory, in the middle of her living room, as tall as him, muscular arms crossed over her chest who was quickly rising and falling, sweaty skin that glistened under the yellowish light and hands wrapped around a blood-stained tissue that left no doubts on which sport she was practicing before Finnick stormed into her house. Hopefully, she would not be tempted to switch to a livelier punching-ball when he states why he came down here.

“Calder”, the man started, his eyes firmly locked on the challenging eyes of his nemesis. “I need to talk to you.”

With a snap, she undid her bands and threw them at his feet, chuckling humourlessly. Finnick clenched his jaw, refrained from rolling his eyes at the action. Instead, his gaze stayed firm on her face. Thick brows that furrowed automatically in his presence, straight nose on which fell during summer a constellation of freckles contrasting with her tan skin, big almond eyes that could set the world on fire with one glare, plump, soft lips that would form the dirtiest insults to throw in the air. It was the same face he has known all his life, and never once was it not painted with absolute disdain when they were face to face.

“Want a cup of tea? A few biscuits while we talk about the weather and tide, perhaps?” Naia mocked as she removed the tie holding her bronze-like hair, her biceps slightly flexing from the movement.

Finnick followed with his eyes the movement of her wavy hair falling graciously on her bulky shoulders. He swallowed thickly, focusing to not let his gaze linger on her bruised, muscular, sweaty body. He did not answer to her sarcasm. There could only be one subject the victor wanted to discuss right after the announcement. They both knew it.

“Please enlighten me on what’s your strategy to politely ask me to go die in their Hunger Games all-stars,” she insisted with a fake pleasant tone. “Almost destroying my front door was a dramatic first step, I’ll give you that. I can’t wait to see what you have in stock next.”

Irritation quickly grew inside Finnick, but he swallowed all the snarky answers his lips were about to let slip out of his mouth. Why was she playing dumb? She knew just like him that this was the right thing to do.

“I shouldn’t even have to ask you to volunteer, Naia. You know they can’t go through this again,” he said through gritted teeth, following her as she walked through her house, picking up clothes and objects he couldn’t care less about.

“Keep going. My life is less valuable than theirs blah blah. Maybe add in a few tears.”

“Fuck Naia! This is not funny,” he shouted angrily, desperate to knock some sense into her. “You’re young, you’re obviously stronger and for fuck’s sake you’re the goddamn golden victor of the Capitol. You know you have a thousand more chance to win than they have to survive the first few hours, so can you stop being selfish for once in your life? How can you send them off to their deaths?”

“Mmh, flattery. Not bad. Don’t like the guilt-trip that much, though. Try again. Maybe I’ll consider it if you get on your knees.”

The lack of interest in her voice made him want to rip his hair out of his head. It was like talking to a wall. It used to be her on the receiving end of his sarcasm, but now was not the time for their rivalry and she should know it. He knew Naia, he knew her bad attitude and her personality, he knew the trauma her Games brought her. But he knew her, and it seemed unbelievable that she would be so set on not volunteering. Was she doing it out of spite, just to annoy him? How could she seem so careless? How could she just fold so neatly each one of her clothes, stack them up on a shelf like she had no other problems in her life? how could she just calmly tidy up her room while he was asking her to-

Suddenly as realization hit him, the world seemed to quiet down and to reduce to the small room he had followed her in. His anger and frustration slowly melt, his frown relaxing and his mouth closing in a thin line. The curse he had thrown floated in the air, then was carried away by the wind. A veil of silence fell all over the little space they shared.

The adrenaline and stress disappeared, leaving him with the excruciating wish he could swallow back every word he just spat as he watched Naia clean her room, slowly, carefully tucking away her belongings in dusty boxes already aligned next to her bed. The man had been too blinded by his despair and frustration to take a real look at her house. It did not just feel empty – it was. She was packing away. She must have started tidying up the second she heard the announcement. God, she even started training the moment she heard it. Naia always intended to volunteer. She didn’t even consider staying back as an option.

“You know Odair, Mags was my mentor too. Annie is also my friend. You’re not the only one who’d sacrifice things to protect them,” she finally spoke after a long moment of deafening silence, dropping the sarcasm but radiating animosity. “Only you can have the audacity to assume I wouldn’t volunteer for them, but I would if you oh-so-rightfully order me to.”

When she turned around to meet his face, the vivacity of the anger and repulsion in her eyes froze him on his spot. Her fingers were tightly wrapped around the wooden frame of a picture. A family picture. Four silhouettes. Now that he could see all her personal belongings, even the torn, washed-out picture seemed to scream at him, especially the small, masculine silhouette he could almost see scolding him for coming here to ask her to leave them behind like he had any right to make that decision for her.

“I don’t know why it seems so unconceivable for you that I would be capable of a selfless act, but I’d advise you to stop thinking of yourself as the fucking hero of this district,” Naia seethed, her voice raising with each word that slipped out of her lips so quickly that it seemed her anger was forming sentences instead of her brain. “Stop getting drunk on every single praise the Capitol gives you, and maybe you will see you’re not that special. Breaking news, Finnick Odair isn’t the only goddamn man on Earth with morals! Will his ego shatter to pieces or will he be able to recover from the devastating realization that he is not thecenter of the world?”

Each sentence felt like a punch to his guts, but Finnick stayed quiet, lips sealed by shame, facing the storm his long-time rival had become. He was only starting to realize now how much the announcement affected her, because even if she had probably called him a thousand time worse names in the past, she would always hide any emotion behind a mask of cold indifference. However, now he could see it. He could see everything. The resentment and frustration dripping from her voice. He could almost see the pieces of her broken heart who had fallen in each box she had filled up. And even as she turned on her heels and slammed the door of her chamber in his face, his gaze caught the way her hands uncontrollably, yet unperceivably shook against the handle.

Guilt squeezed his guts. Finnick realized that he spent so much time seeing Naia as his competition that sometimes, he almost forgot she was human. She was not only his strong, arrogant and deceitful rival, the victor he was always compared to when it came to determining the best golden victor of District Four. She was not just the girl that challenged him, that claimed she was better than him and that showered him with mockeries on his skills and his Capitol-persona. She was not just the girl he spared with every once in a while, to settle who is better. She was not just the girl who had a witty come-back for each of this teasing remarks. She was also just a girl. His old friend's sister. The girl from his district whom he grew up with. And behind the arrogance, the indifference, the rivalry, there was the ghost of the person who went through the same horrors he did, and whose soul died a little in that cursed arena.

And if he could forget that so easily, that told him more about the influence the Capitol had on himself than what he wanted to admit.

Shaking his head to clear his mind, Finnick left the room, uncoherent thoughts trying to form words that would be a good enough apology without causing her to explode, but before any sound could come out of his open mouth, his voice died down in his throat as his eyes landed on Naia. The victor felt like a wave just hit him straight in the face – and maybe it did, only it was a wave of agony, radiating from the scene in front of him.

Sadness was painted all over the tiny room he tried to enter earlier, yet Naia smiled with the tenderness she reserved to only one person. Even his presence couldn’t disturb the peaceful expression on her face.

“Mom, do you recognize me? It’s Naia, remember? I’m your daughter.”

Finnick held his breath, waiting for the old lady sat on a rocking chair to answer. He knew her, of course. Naia’s mother’s house had been a safe haven for all the kids who once needed an escape from home, a hot meal or a wonderful story to let their mind wander in the amazing worlds the creative woman shared with them, all more peaceful than the world the Capitol ruled.

But the eloquent and lifeful discourses of the woman seemed long gone as Finnick watched her babble an unintelligible, uncoherent answer while her empty eyes stared in the void. He knew she had fallen sick, but he didn’t know about her condition. Any physical sickness seemed more merciful than forgetting everything and everyone until an entire lifetime is wiped out from a memory.

Naia caressed her cheek with delicacy. She was not expecting an answer. A moment passed. Finnick knew he should leave, that this was too intimate, but somehow, the memory of the warm and friendly woman who spared him tons of slices of cake when he was young kept his feet fixated on the ground.

When he finally moved, the movement caught the mother’s attention, and a flash of recognition illuminated her eyes. He froze, while Naia’s mouth dropped open in a hopeful gasp.

“Mom? He’s Finnick Odair, the fisherman’s son. Do you remember? He fought with Dan one day,” she said as she signed him to come crouching to her level. “You used to invite him over to eat even though I always asked you not to.”

Well, now he didn’t know if he should be more shocked to be recognized by someone who is losing their memory or to be introduced by Naia in such a gentle, harmless way. He’ll be damned if he ever hears Naia talk about him in such a sweet tone again.

“Hello Mrs Calder,” he hesitated a second, before confidently putting on his most charming smile, the one he knew could win him any mom over. “You fed me well when my dad was at sea. I hope I always thanked you for it because I remember your cooking as the best in the district.”

He held her emerald gaze as the old woman tried to speak, but her lips seemed to be moving too slowly, too harshly to actually mold the sound coming out of her mouth. The expectancy, the yearning himself felt made him realize how much more devastating that feeling must be for her daughter. Suddenly, Mrs Calder clapped her hands, startling him, before bursting into a quiet laugh.

“My daughter can’t stand the Odair kid!” she shouted in a joyful tone, punctuating it with another string of unintelligible sounds.

Even though the old lady quickly fell back into a state of incoherence, when the blond man looked at her daughter, her eyes glistened – he didn’t know if it was with tears or with joy. Naia had the biggest smile plastered on her face, holding her mother’s hands and planting a firm kiss on one of them.

“Damn right I do!” Naia exclaimed, laughing a true, relieved, liberating laugh.

Finnick stared at her, drinking in the sight and the sound. It was the first time in months, if not years, that he had seen her laugh so freely. Simply the improbability of the moment ripped a chuckle out of him too. For all she was annoying and irritating, his rival didn’t deserve the cruelty of this situation. So when she asked him to take care of her mother if he ever wins the games (which she still insisted would be highly improbable), the fisherman’s son did not hesitate. And somehow, he knew that behind all their rivalry and their mutual disliking, there was enough respect between them that they’d trust each other’s word.

But he also knew she probably will make him pay for coming to her house to guilt-trip her into sacrificing herself. Which she had already decided to do despite the unthinkable price she had to pay for it.

#finnick odair #finnick x reader #finnick imagine #finnick #rivals to lovers #ennemies to lovers #the hunger games #finnick odair fanfic #finnick odair x oc #thg series

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sitp-recs · 4 months ago

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Do you know drarry fics with social media? Happy new years!

Happy new year, anon! Absolutely, here are some recs for you. I checked ao3 and found a Grindr long fic im not familiar with but might interest you: Love Bites by mlle_notorious. I also have a texting list here. Enjoy!

In Another Time by amorsindolor (M, 3k)

10 years after the war. Everyone has social media, PTSD, and lives they live.

Come as You Are by @peachpety (E, 3.8k)

If asked, Harry Potter would categorize his high school senior year as normal: football, friends, and one devastating crush on his tutor, Draco Malfoy. When presented with an opportunity to help Draco, Harry rises to the occasion.

AITA for being "obsessed" with my childhood nemesis? By RainstormRadish (M, 4k)

In which Draco asks the internet if he's being reasonable. Only one commenter is sympathetic. They start talking.

Burst of Love by @drarryruinedme7 (E, 4k)

The year after the War is both the worst and best one in Harry and Draco's lives. Draco somehow becomes one of the most requested influencer on Instagram, Harry is finally free and discovers he has quite...a passion inside himself. We all know how this is going to end.

Blind Date, orphaned (T, 8.6k)

Draco’s been working with Harry for years when another one of his relationships goes stale. He has to be married within a year, and though the WizNet has burned him in the past, Draco finds a new possibility in man as desperate to marry as he is.

The Chosen Bun by @hoko-onchi-writes (E, 9k)

It's Draco's first Christmas without Scorpius at home, and his new iPhone is causing him all sorts of trouble. It's just his luck that The Chosen Bun followed him on WixtaGram.

Adventures in Truth and Texting by @fluxweeed (E, 11k)

Former Death Eaters are being targeted with a Veritaserum curse – it’s permanent, and makes victims speak aloud their every thought. Luckily, it’s easier to control when writing – and Hermione is trying to introduce Muggle technology to the wizarding world.

Rush (For a Gap That Exists) by @sleepstxtic (E, 42k)

A story of love and loss that grew amidst the most infamous rivalry in Formula One history: the story of Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter.

Howlr by partialtopotter (E, 47k)

Howlr is the new dating application enchanting Witches, Wizards and Everyone in between. Are you looking for the one or a one-night stand; it’s all here folks.

Dragons Don't Know Paradise by @teacup-tai (E, 51k)

In 2004, when Remus spends two scary weeks in the ITU due to complications of pneumonia and his HIV condition, Sirius walks around the house like a ghost and Harry finds comfort and strength in Draco through a chat in an online LGBT forum.

#asks #anon #drarry reclist #social media

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overheard-at-camp-half-blood · 1 year ago

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How would you rank the godly parents

So here’s a tier ranking

Iris is the only one in the S tier, because she is shown to willingly be apart of their lives as well as treat them nicely.

In A tier, we have Hephaestus, Apollo, Poseidon and Dionysus, all of which have been shown to be somewhat better than the other gods. Poseidon and Hephaestus have both been shown to take somewhat of an interest in their children’s lives. Apollo had a development arc. Dionysus isn’t around his children willingly.

B tier is Aphrodite, Demeter and Hermes, these are godly parents that are not necessarily as horrible as the bottom half, but are still extremely neglectful. Hermes is there, and my mind might change with the show, but he really seems like the average amount of neglectful, it just happened to be his son that snapped.

C tier is Ares and Hades, who I just feel are assholes to their children. I know people are going to say, “Why is Hades so low? He pays attention to his kids.” Yeah… and is extremely abusive towards Nico. Or did we forget that he almost killed Nico? I do think Hades is better than Ares because he took responsibility for some shit, but not all.

D tier is Athena, Zeus & Nemesis, the worst of the worst. Athena… everyone knows my opinions on Athena at this point, but Zeus is the absolute WORST parent in history. Also, Nemesis’s son had to physically disable himself to get his mother’s help.

#percy jackson #annabeth chase #nico di angelo #leo valdez #jason grace #pjo godly parent quiz #PJO godly parents

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arkiwii · 2 years ago

Text

ME WHEN I'M FINALLY DONE WITH MY ARKNIGHTS OC

my god it took too long for literally just a fullbody. usually i do them so fast but i guess here i was lazy. anyway information and stuff and story and whatever below!!

Real name Fortuna, code name Kochosen, is a Liberi (azure-winged magpie) born in Laterano. She had been growing up and thriving to become a doctor. However, after contracting Oripathy in an accident, she has been forced to leave Laterano. Surviving in the wastelands on her own, she discovered her Originium Arts, to manipulate water, which greatly helped her in her journey. She finally joined Yan, where she was able to find some help for her cause, then later, joined Higashi, after helping a whole village from a Catastrophe.

She later accepted to help Rhodes Island as a Medic operator, precisely an Incantation Medic.

Fortuna is what can be said a bad omen... And also a good omen. Back in Laterano, due to her clumsiness, she quickly won the reputation of bringing bad luck around. Her Infection is what truly made her the nemesis of the Leterans, and due to the rules in the city, has been seen as an occasion to get rid of a bad luck bringer. This convinced her that she was indeed one who only cause suffering around, bringing her morale and self confidence to the lowest as she barely managed to survive in the wilderness.

However, when she arrived in Higashi, after catching the first signs of an incoming Catastrophe and having alerted the nearby village, she has been seen as a savior and a good omen. Her help and contribution to the village as a doctor also contribued to this good reputation, and the villagers quickly started to appreciate her presence. After this event, and seeing that her powers and own hands were able to save lives and not hurt them, she questioned herself.

But she doesn't remain less clumsy. It seems all the worst happen to her, like a bad luck magnet. But it seems like it happens to her and only her, and nobody around, quite the opposite even - people around her seem to live rather fortunate events. Maybe by attracting the bad luck to her, the other persons around are left with only good luck...

It's because of her clumsiness that her body is rather... In a bad state. Under the layers of clothes she wears is a wounded, bandaged body, covered in minor scars, bruises, and of Originum crystals. She seems to be used to this however, her only complains are about how her sleep is uncomfortable.

Despite her serious and calm personality, she's not one to be on the smarter side. She still struggles a lot with Yanese for example, and the culture of Higashi. After all, as a Lateran, she finds the food of Higashi "dull", and would much prefer their sweetest snacks instead.

As well, it seems that her Oripathy has caused kleptomania, as she was often caught taking on objects of her interest for no other reason that she felt the urge to take them.

___________

i love birds, i love magpies, i love arknights, boom

here she is

The main ideas for her design and story is... Well, about how Magpies are absolutely dual?? in occidental cultures, they are seen as bringer of death, bad luck, nasty, quite like crows. but in oriental cultures, it's the total opposite, they're seen as a symbol of luck, of love, of balance and such! that's why i wanted to make her being so contradictory. she seems serious but is dumb. she came laterano where she was seen as bad luck, she moved to higashi where she is seen as good luck. her outfit is quite literally a mix of lateran and higashi culture

as for water arts, it's a reference to how luck and fate are like a river, but also to how water arts are both very dangerous and benefic, and also it's a reference to the magpie bridge in chinese culture

anyway, she tries her best, and that she's clumsy and a bit strange doesn't change that she has a very kind heart

#arknights #stalkiwiart #stalkiwi oc #i like bimrbds

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good-beanswrites · 1 year ago

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THE MIKOTO FALLING DOWN THE STAIRS FIC WAS SO SILLY thats literally how i discovered you, never seen a better fic on my dash..... is there any way you could write something similar where fuuta gets water poured on him like a wet cat. now that i know the prisoners will go to ungoldy lengths to cure their boredome i need more content

LMAO thank you so much!! I so glad you liked it -- and I can assure you I would love nothing more than to pour a bucket of water on everyone's saddest wettest cat -- thank you for the request! 😂

“Everyone knows the greatest way to combat boredom is psychological warfare.”

Yuno said it very matter-of-fact. Fuuta nodded in agreement.

Es was left to stare blankly at the two prisoners summed before them. “Is that supposed to explain why my panopticon floor is soaked, or why Fuuta is dripping water all over my office…?”

“It started a few weeks ago,” Yuno added, as if that would help.

“What started a few weeks ago?”

Fuuta shrugged. “Like she said. We got bored.”

“You got… bored.”

At last, Yuno explained. It didn’t take long, she told them, for the usual methods of entertainment to lose their charm. Conversations and games could only hold them over for so long. As soon as they lost interest in those things, she knew it was time to give the mental torture route a try.

“Of course,” Es deadpanned.

“Of course!”

She was an expert at pranks, and from very early on she was able to see that Fuuta would be the perfect nemesis.

You see, everyone else took some time to figure out. She realized Mikoto took the fastest showers and used the most products, so it was easy to swap out one of his bottles just before a rapid wash. His hair was pink for two glorious weeks. She saw that Shidou was as organized as he was independent, so once she started moving and hiding his possessions, it took a long time of searching around in silent, stubborn confusion before he finally caught on. She noticed Muu was particular enough about the way she took her coffee that it only took one tiny tampering and a huge sip was spit directly into Haruka’s face.

But Fuuta? Oh, Fuuta. There wasn't anything to figure out. He was like Mahiru in that way – what you see is what you get. He was unlike Mahiru in other ways – no one would ever dream of pranking her so often. But Fuuta could walk into a joke like no other. His reactions were just as big and outrageous every time. He was practically asking Yuno to prank him. And when had she ever refused a man?

“Hey!” Fuuta’s ears had gone bright red. “It’s not like I’m some pathetic loser!” He stuck his chin up. “I fought back just fine, don’t you worry.”

(That was, in fact, exactly what Es had been worried about.)

Both he and Yuno found themselves on the receiving end of some scares and fake bugs. They both had to struggle through a mouthful of something disgusting at one time or another. Important possessions went missing right at the very worst time. It was awful, they said. It was infuriating. Unbearable. So, naturally, they kept going.

Which brought them to today’s stunt. With a little boost from Mikoto to get everything in place, and a captive audience gathered in the panopticon, Yuno pulled it off easily.

They all peered around the corner at cell 003. Loud snoring echoed from inside, despite the late hour of the morning; Fuuta was the heaviest sleeper of the bunch. Yuno checked that everyone was in place. Then she cupped her hands around her mouth.

“Fuuta!” She called urgently. “Come quick! Get dressed, it's Es!” There was clattering around within the cell. It took everything in her to hold in a giggle as she added, “hurry!!”

The bars swung open, tipping the carefully placed bucket of water above.

Yuno bid Es to picture the beauty of the moment: the ice-cold water falling in a perfect, glimmering arc as it hit its target with a wonderful splat.

Fuuta froze in the entryway. He was missing a shoe. The half of his uniform he’d managed to get on wasn’t even fastened correctly. It, and the pajamas underneath, were entirely soaked through. His hair clung to his face, darkened and dripping. He swept it aside to reveal, in place of his characteristic fierce gaze, the saddest, most bleary eyes the prisoners had ever seen. His mouth gaped open in confusion. He shivered, flinging little droplets into the massive puddle below.

“I should have requested a camera…” she mused. His grogginess had worn off quickly, but there still existed a single moment where she could have snapped the funniest photo in existence.

“Fuck off, it wasn’t that funny,” Fuuta clarified.

“Oh, it really was,” Yuno assured them.

Es delivered their scolding. They said this behavior was immature. They would not stand for nonsense like this in their prison. All further pranks and practical jokes were strictly banned. After dismissing the pair, they crossed their arms.

Damn, they wish they could’ve been there…

#milgram #fuuta kajiyama #yuno kashiki #thank you so much asdfsdf this made me so happy to receive! i had so much fun with this one omg #last time i kept it mysterious but i wanted a clear culprit this time and who better than yuno #i can just picture it 😌#theres nothing quite as satisfying as dumping a bucket of water on your faves #i pictured it in t1 but he would look even sadder and wetter with the eyepatch ;---;#drabbles

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spontaneousglitterbees · 1 year ago

Text

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

The paper has it spelled out like sunrise over a lake; she can’t help but look at it until she has to make herself look away. Her first ‘client’, the fellow student she’s meant to be shadowing for the week, the person she is tasked with protecting if she wants to pass this class after transferring in partway through the semester is none other than–

“Ooh, bad luck.”

(Part of the TAPP AU, also on Ao3)

Ouma’s voice squeaks out from beside her upper arm so suddenly she flinches.

“Oh please, Harukawa, don’t tell me I caught you off guard. That’s like, your entire thing, now!” he sounds so jovial, without a care in the world, but his chest heaves as though he also just shuddered down to the core.

“You did this.” She states it without room for uncertainty.

“Why the hell would I do that?” he flicks his hand toward the sheet of printer paper pinned to the corkboard, the one that has condemned them for the next one-hundred-sixty-eight hours. It’s up there for the whole school to see. “It’s not even my MO to hack this school’s ancient copy machine, or whatever, I’m out for a good time. Besides, I’d like to live, thanks much.”

Maki is entirely unimpressed. “It is precisely your MO to stomp on my nerves in every way you can,” she enunciates with each step forward.

His grip tightens around the handle of his cane, still smiling. His knuckles threaten to rip themselves to shreds.

“Actually,” a voice chimes in, stern but not unkind. “It makes perfect sense, does it not? You are both in Class 79, which ought to alleviate some of the initial awkwardness.”

Silver hair catching the artificial overhead light, teaching assistant and upperclassman Peko Pekoyama overshadows the pair from behind. “Besides, as the Ultimate…” her eyes narrow, incredulous. “... Supreme Leader, Ouma is going to need a security detail someday.”

Maki glares up at her for all of a split second before dutifully lowering her gaze. It's less that the Ultimate Swordsman is intimidating than that she's so... coldly supportive. The kind of person whose praise is lined with mist and whose fury is a downpour. It'd be a shame to disappoint her, especially over Kokichi, of all people.

"Oh, but Peko-peko-chan, don't you know? Maki and I have been sworn enemies since we were kids! You'd really let that mean ol' teacher pair me up with my nemesis?! That's so cruel!" Kokichi leans in on his cane for leverage, arms crossed in front of him as he acts out the phrase in big, encompassing gestures. That's a lie. But...

Unfortunately for both of them, it only seems to reassure Peko that the path forward is clear. "It'll be a fine challenge for the both of you, then. You’ll be able to focus on two objectives at once: gaining experience staying alert, and equal experience working with difficult clients.”

Kokichi scoffs in the background, of course, but it's hardly worth arguing. He tries to get in your head and stay there, after all. If anything, being ‘difficult’ is a point of pride for him. His eye still seems to twitch a little at the admission. It’s probably just the dry autumn air.

Maki, inventing new curses in her head and keeping them there, nods sagely. "Of course, Ms. Pekoyama. I won't let you down."

She looks over to her current mark.

It's going to be a long week.

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

The week starts off innocuous enough. The worst of it comes at the beginning of each day as Kokichi pulls his books out of his locker. Literature, World History, ... Calculus II? Each slams into the floor with a resounding thud, one after another. Some of them won't even see use until near the end of the school day, but he insists she carry them now. Spiteful little shit.

Many of their general education classes are shared to begin with, fortunately, meaning the two of them simply have to walk between classes together for a while. It isn’t quite embarrassing as much as it is frustrating for Maki. Does he even really need a cane, or is it just a ploy to get the teacher’s sympathy? They saunter down the hallway in either case, uncaring of the actual time they arrive. Five minutes late, ten minutes, even; neither incurs a penalty, a bit of an affront to her own persistent punctuality. ‘This school is his’ indeed.

No. The real trouble starts brewing during their free periods.

"The autumn leaves are home to a variety of bug species," lectures Gonta, sitting cross-legged in the courtyard. Kokichi sits beside him, dredging through a pile of leaves; pick up, flip, sort, over and over. Maki remains stock-still and focused on defense. Peko could be hiding around any given corner, assisting a teacher lying in wait for an ambush just to make a point about vigilance.

But it’s a bit hard to stay on edge when things are so… unremarkable. So normal.

"As an example, early-emerging populations of Actias luna in North America lay eggs on the undersides of leaves to keep larvae and pupas safe during winter until the adults appear in March." Despite Gonta’s better efforts choosing a more palatable bug for discussion, neither Kokichi nor Maki seems to be paying actual attention.

"Which has to be why the leaf piles make such a good crunch when you jump in'em, riiiiight?" Kokichi teases, crushing the pile of leaves he's sorted beneath the base of his palm. He throws his back into the motion with a sadistic smile. It breaks into the same mischievous laugh as usual soon after, nishishi~!

Gonta, however, seems unalarmed; perhaps he sees the un-smashed pile, the ones with even just the potential to have 'stuff on'em'. Instead, he smiles. "That might be the beetles, they love hiding in leaves."

"Ewwww!" Kokichi wipes his hand on his pants, despite the distinct lack of bug entrails on them. "Great! Gonta, you can't just ruin fall like that! Now I'm gonna be thinking about nasty beetles when I just wanted to have some fun..." he makes a point to frown, but seeing no real reaction the expression disappears as quickly as it came.

"I not– I'm not ruining fall, it's too hot out to be real fall. It's messing with the bugs’ hibernation cycles...."

Maki finds she's won a fourth consecutive mental game of tic-tac-toe with herself before she finally sighs. Would it be out of line to suggest going inside? Perhaps a more enclosed space will help her readjust to the objective.

Before she can suggest such a thing, Kokichi beats her to it.

“Yeah, it’s waaaay too hot out for September, I’m beat. Harukawa-chan, can we go back inside now?” he doesn’t bother to pout, eyes going from half-lidded to three-quarters wide seeing the barely-contained irritation on Maki’s face.

“Gladly.” She stands without hesitation, turning to Gonta. “Thank you for having us.”

“Of course, is only polite thing to do,” smiles Gonta. Kokichi is a touch intrigued.

“What are you thanking him for, I bet you weren’t even listening! You haven’t taken that scowl off your face all day.” He leans a bit to his left, accentuating the roll of his eyes.

“I knew that you wouldn’t.” Maki says simply, opening the cold glass door.

Kokichi is shocked, appalled he’d tell you, with a loud gasp! Then he shrugs a little. “Eh. I wasn’t bored, anyway.”

Gonta waves, cheerful as ever, as the door swings shut.

The foot of his cane practically skids across the terrazzo tile as Kokichi takes off down the hall.

“What’s got you in such a hurry?” Maki asks before she can think better of it; Ouma is still faster than she’d given him credit for.

“Wouldn’t you like to know, Ultimate Assassin.” The reply comes quick and sharp, bitterness rising in his voice that hasn’t seen the light of day since well before the game ended.

Before she can ask ‘why now?’ or some such thing, as though there’s any logic behind what Ouma does in the first place, he’s looking at her expectantly from his perch just at the threshold of the main library doorway.

“Dunno about you, but I, for one, have homework. I’m looking for a book, silly, don’t you guys use those?” he shakes his head lightly, keeping the door open by leaning on it and waiting for her to go through. It takes a moment of the two staring at one another to determine who is going to relent; Maki walks a step inside as Kokichi beelines for the reading chairs.

Ah, the reading chairs. Only marginally more acceptable than the stiff, borderline crunchy upholstery of most of the furniture on campus. At least there’s no punishment for sitting on these. Surrounded by deep forest green carpets and a dim, subdued atmosphere one risks sinking into should they stay still for too long, the library is quiet. Starkly quiet. The sound of breathing itself seems to echo, not at all damped by the depth of archways and sub-sections of books and books upon books.

Kokichi looks idly up at the rafters, looking for something he must not find.

“What’s wrong?” Maki reluctantly asks, curiosity overpowering her better sense.

“It’s hot in here,” Ouma replies, his voice… uncharacteristically soft. It’s impossible to tell what emotion comes attached, if there is one at all.

“The air conditioning has been broken in this building all day, I hear.”

There is an awkward silence between them, an absolute vacuum of small-talk.

He takes a deep breath, only to look back over at Maki. “Welp. This place is huge, so. Might as well get crackin’, book’s not gonna find itself!” He smiles a little too wide for his face as he launches upright, looking over his shoulder and taking off into the canopy of books. “Be back in a bit!”

“Alright,” says Maki, striding over to meet him. “Where are we going first?”

Kokichi shakes his head. He’s sorely mistaken if he thinks it’ll be that easy to get rid of you. “Hmm, iunno. I’ll know it when I see it,” he chirps as he changes directions, taking a few dizzying turns before coming to a brief pause.

What is his problem? What does he get out of making this difficult for the both of you? Surely boredom can’t overtake the selfish want to do less work… yet, sure enough, he’s speed-walking away again.

Maki doesn’t need to look up to explain the sudden chill down her spine.

“Kiyo-chan! Fancy meetin’ you here,” Ouma laughs, stepping to the shelf opposite Korekiyo as Maki walks up to the two of them.

“Not exactly, Ouma, you know quite well I’ve been tasked with the maintenance of some of the anthropology department’s rarer books,” Kiyo shakes his head, adjusting his mask. “... No, I won’t be taking you to them. I was actually looking for a project on Minoan mythos in relation to pre-Hellenic…” he cuts himself off.

Really, Maki thinks to herself, it’s hard to believe this awkward kid could have been the monster he once was. That’s the thing about monsters, though, isn’t it? In real life they don’t have horns or tails like the minotaur….

“Say. What are you visiting the library for? Your field is not precisely predicated on a large literary basis, is it?”

“Kiyo-chaaaaan! No fair! Are you telling me I don’t look like I read? ‘Cuz I can read plenty, as long as it’s not BORING me to death!!” Kokichi leans on his cane, slightly swaying. “I like libraries. They’re like obstacle courses, and half the time nobody is even in them to get in the way!” he smiles. “But that’s a lie.”

“He’s looking for a book,” Maki chimes in, startling both Korekiyo and Kokichi back a few steps.

“Oh, is that all? What kind of book are you looking for, Ouma? Certainly I could be of assistance.” Kiyo nods, possibly(?) smiling, and at the very least visibly trying to maintain a less standoffish posture.

“That won’t be–”

“Binary star formation,” the two phrases come in at the same time. Kokichi continues, “and the history of their discovery.”

Kiyo stares at Kokichi for a moment, in (confusion? Disbelief? It’s difficult to tell, with so much of his face obscured and those piercing eyes ready to strike at any time…) before nodding. “Of course. I believe I recall where that one is, it was returned quite recently.”

Ouma stares idly into the distance for a split-second, an automaton re-calibrating on the fly. “Right. Duh, but I need it now, so.”

Sure enough, Korekiyo is only away for a matter of minutes before returning with a single large tome. The book seems more focused on general astronomical phenomena, but must have a chapter or two dedicated to binary stars. Should have picked something more obscure, Maki huffs at the thought, if you really just wanted to cause trouble. Let me guess, that isn’t–

“That’s exactly it!” says Kokichi, who excitedly starts flipping through the pages. Korekiyo looks like he wants to scold him, be more careful, but restrains himself from doing so. Nonetheless, the two share a look; Kokichi suddenly feels like maybe he should slow down, lest unsavory things happen to his nerves.

Just a feeling.

Things look, for once, to be going well again. Ouma is reading (or, at least, glaring at a page), freeing up Maki’s attention to better scope out the area.

… At least, until “Kiyo-chan? The text is so small, I can barely read a thing!”

Don’t get involved, don’t worry about it, Maki, you have a mission!

“Then why don’t you take it back to one of the reading areas? It’s certain to be brighter there.” Korekiyo shrugs, back to looking at the shelf ahead.

“Can’t you read it to me, Kiyo-chan? Pleeeease, you have such a nice reading voice!”

Korekiyo stops, for a moment, glaring at Kokichi. “And that’s a lie, certainly.”

“What! You’re calling me a liar! Kiyo-chan, that’s so, s-so,,” the tears start to well up, if only slightly. Is he losing his touch with the waterworks? “Accurate, yeah, but not this time! If I didn’t tell the truth some of the time, it’d make the lies too obvious! And that’s no fun at all.”

“... Ah,” says Kiyo, uncertain of how to take a compliment.

“So?”

“Oh yes, right. Hmm. It can’t be that large of a diversion, surely…”

Such is how Korekiyo winds up over by the reading chairs, telling a dubiously-interested Kokichi about disk and turbulent fragmentations. “Where the instability and arbitrary motion cause a core to split off into multiple masses of gas and dust that collapse into independent protostars,” so the reading goes, “that are close enough to one another they become entangled in mutual orbit.”

Maki can hardly say she’s particularly invested, even if it would be nice to have a better idea of what Kaito’s blathering on about half the time now that classes are in full swing. Still, something in her can’t help but hang on to this itch of unease, as though at any moment something will go wrong. She’s supposed to be watching Kokichi, but finds herself looking more at Kiyo than the surroundings. There is no danger there, anymore, though you’d have been more likely to get hurt than Ouma. But this feeling you can’t… no. That you refuse to name, this resentment, it takes residence in your bones and won’t let go. Is it because he’s been programmed as having been a killer? Aren’t you the very same? And when it really mattered, didn’t both of you decide to k–

The slightest sound makes Maki jump into action, fists at the ready to block an incoming blow, only. Huh. It seems it was just the weight of the book closing.

Kokichi sits up a little straighter, speaking a little louder (before, begrudgingly, quieting down, because this is a library). “Thank you, Kiyo-chan~ That would’ve been soooo boring to get through alone, you know? Nishishi, I’ll still be expecting your application for DICE one of these days! Best not disappoint,” he leans back in the chair, only to swing up to standing.

Korekiyo simply rolls his eyes, but there’s something undoubtedly fond in the gesture. If there weren’t, the fact would make itself known near-immediately; instead, Kiyo simply picks up the book to put it back on the shelf. “Is that all you needed, then?”

Kokichi exaggerates a sigh. “Not by a longshot, but I think I left the rest in Miu’s lab,” he rolls his head back, momentarily looking at the spot where Maki has planted herself, arms crossed. “So I gotta run. Laters!”

As Kokichi is picking his cane back up (and staring at the foot for a moment, making sure he’s placed it on the correct side for now. Working on making the ruse more realistic, perhaps, Maki posits, though she dares not say such a thing aloud), Maki nods in acknowledgement of Kiyo.

After an awkward pause, Kiyo nods back. “Miss Harukawa.”

But the pair are off again, out of the library and en-route to Miu’s lab.

The silence between the two of them is thick. Neither is perturbed by the light traffic traveling in either direction down the hall, staying steps apart but not quite identifiable as a ‘group’. Much remains unsaid between the two. Neither dares disrupt the precarious balance maintaining a stoic facade, and the awkward silence stays.

At least, while only in the company of one another.

“Hey!” Kokichi yells, swinging open the door to Miu’s lab with reckless abandon, startling a very focused Chihiro and Kazuichi sitting at the far end of a long table. “Where’s that boisterous blonde–”

“That is the best most bodacious boisterous blonde bitch to you, ‘ya shitstain.” Miu looks up from her workbench, approaching the opposite side of the long table with a haughty laugh.

“Mm, nope. Too wordy. Might mistake you for a nerd,” he teases, pointing up and down at a Miu dressed in her lab coat and covered from goggles to toe in smears of motor oil.

“Oh please, haven’t you figured out yet that I’m beauty and a brain?”

“And a nerd, yeah, I got that.”

The pair bicker like old friends, though it’s only recently they’ve had a chance to talk over their time in the killing game. Perhaps it’s easier for them to act like it never happened; it’d be hypocritical of Maki to judge.

Although…

“So you’ll concede she’s beautiful?” Maki tugs on her hair, wrapping it around her finger with a smirk. One sentence sparks a good five minutes of playful arguing, nuh-uh yuh-uh, and mild shoulder-punching. In terms of the assignment, it’s permissible, but on thin ice.

The perimeter seems clear in here, anyway, only the five of them. Chihiro and Kazuichi seem too engrossed in whatever project they’re working on to bat an eye at the two’s banter, and there’s no good angle for an ambush. Besides, it’d be irresponsible to initiate a confrontation with so many metal scraps and machines around. Still, she has to remain on alert.

… Though she can’t help but listen when she hears Miu launch into a small tirade: “What I’m always working on, dumbass, and a couple things besides. Picture this: you’re me, and you’re ‘getting a regular checkup’ because you’re ‘recovering from a traumatic experience’ and all that junk. And I’m sitting there, wasting valuable workable time between classes, just for them to call me up to do, like, the same three tests they always do? And I think to myself, man, wouldn’t it be genius if you could just step into a booth, or a pod, or something like that when you get there, and it does all of that preliminary stuff on you at once so you can just be done with it already? And this was like, two? Days ago? So you know I have a prototype.”

Kokichi looks nonplussed, to say the least.

“Haven’t you been working on anything less… totally mundane, than that? Maybe like a shrink ray, or a portal device or a body-swapper, or something exciting?”

“Well, you know I’m building an android, but we all know how you feel about that.”

“I do not need the list of features you’re giving that thing. Nobody, needs the list of features you’re giving that thing.”

“W-W, h-hey! I’m not gonna be weird about it,” Miu pouts, voice getting soft for a moment. “That’s like, totally crossing a line…” only to pick back up. “Nah, I’m not gonna load in any kinky shit until I can ask him about it!”

“Is that finally an answer to the question I’ve been asking for like three months now? We’re going with ‘robots only have dicks upon request?’”

Maybe it’s better to stop listening, actually. Not that Maki is given the choice.

“Point is, I still need a test subject! Why not you, while you’re right here? Every experiment we’ve run so far has been demonstrably fine, quit your worry-warting already ‘ya buzzkill.” Miu scoffs, rolling out a wardrobe-sized booth on a dolly.

“But Iruma-channnn,” Kokichi whines. His eye twitches, scanning the new device up and down, only more resolute that “there’s no way I’m gonna go in there unless it’s got AC!”

“That can be arranged,” says Miu, writing at the bottom of a spare paper. “Now, get over here so we can get this show on the road!”

“Nnnnn can’t make me.”

“Come on.”

“Nah.”

“It’ll be fine!”

“For you, maybe.”

“You know what? Fine. Hey Maki!” Miu calls, waving to where Maki is stationed around the corner. “C’mon, this’ll only take, like, two minutes, you in?”

Great. You’ve been Acknowledged.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Maki starts to stammer, but Kokichi has suddenly lit up.

“Ooh! Do it, do it Maki!”

“I really don’t think I should distract from–”

Suddenly, both Miu and Kokichi are peering over the table, all but pounding their fists against the wood as they chant “Do it, do it!”

If anything, their exuberance makes her want to give in less, but the coast is clear, for now… Chihiro gives Maki a withering look. Doesn’t seem like they’ll run out of steam any time soon.

“... Fine.”

Kokichi and Miu turn to one another and high-five, cheering in unison.

“Great,” Miu breezes by, opening an entrance to the box. “Come on in.”

Maki is immediately enveloped in what at first looks like a photo booth but, upon examination, has too many blinking lights and moving parts to be one. In lieu of a screen, a plexiglass barrier shows off the dim reflections of the moving mechanics, leaving the subject to back up into position. A thermometer pops out of the front panel at the same time as a blood pressure cuff restrains her left arm, a bar descending to the top of her head to record her height. Every metric is recorded on a tiny screen on the outside of the chamber.

Experiment: success. The device certainly does its job. Whether it’s been done well is questionable, but it certainly has been done.

Meanwhile, Kokichi has been lounging in quite possibly the single Good Chair in the entirety of Hope’s Peak, talking to Miu about something indistinct. By the time Maki walks out of the machine a matter of minutes has passed.

It feels like it’s been hours.

And Maki is not happy.

“Ouma? I need to talk to you.”

“Can’t it wait? I sorta–”

“Now. Ouma.”

Kokichi keeps his head down, but follows Maki’s footsteps.

“We’re leaving. Goodbye, Miu. Hope you got your data.” Maki states, perfectly deadpan. She turns, practically dragging Ouma by the wrist.

“Harukawa, I’m sorry i–”

“That’s a lie,” Maki helpfully completes the thought, marching out into the hallway. “You’ve been lying all day, making up any excuse you can to be as distracting as possible just waiting for me to screw up. But it isn’t going to work. We are going, to your room, and you will stay there, and it will be quiet. Do you understand?”

Kokichi stops walking. He does not pull away from her hand any further than the natural distance that comes as he stops, glaring up at her with an oddly-canted eye.

“You think you can ground me, Child-Caregiver? All I want is to hang out with my friends, and get to do it at a decent goddamn hour, and that’s SO bad? Aww, am I inconveniencing you? What would you rather be out doing. Huh? Would you rather be hunting me down for sport–”

Maki snaps out of her shock, shaking her head. “UGH! Not everything is always about YOU, you know!” She storms a few steps ahead.

“Well excuse me if you aren’t exactly open about your hobbies,” Kokichi scoffs, jogging up a few more stumbling steps to meet her. “If you insist on making our little forced-bonding-time absolutely miserable, I guess, be my fucking guest.”

“It’s not about fun, it’s about salvaging the entirety of this semester! Out of all of us, you should understand that!”

“Oh, so there is an ‘us’! I thought it a mere myth on the breeze, oh please, Harukawa, regale me with tales of how our miserable myriad of troubled teens that calls itself a class constitutes any kind of Unit,” he coughs on the end, running out of breath. A bit of spit drips from the corner of his mouth, hastily wiped away by a hand before he makes a big swinging gesture with his cane.

This, it turns out, is a mistake.

First, his cane clatters to the floor. In and of itself, this isn’t surprising; at least it didn’t go through a window or otherwise launch across the hall, instead dropping down at Kokichi’s side.

Then Kokichi falls down with it.

He nearly faceplants, the only buffer coming in the form of outstretched arms in front of him that immediately buckle.

Maki stifles half of a laugh. That’s what your overly-theatrical-ass gets when you try to act larger than life itself. She holds out a hand to help him back up. Frustrated as she may be, she isn’t cruel.

… But he doesn’t take it.

In fact, Kokichi doesn’t seem to be moving much at all.

Thinking fast, she immediately turns him onto his side in a recovery position. Still breathing– heavily, at that, as it’s taking up the majority of his focus just to do that much. It’s a full minute before he starts trying to talk.

“Mmaki’alls sumiki,” is about all he can say, saliva rolling down his face, eyes glassy. One eye moves slower than the other as he tries to look up at her in that disturbingly blank way of his.

He says it again.

She doesn’t know what to do.

In for four, hold for four, out for four.

You can’t react this way to a little surprise. Cool heads prevail, Maki, you know this.

She feels a hand on her shoulder.

“Maki? Thank goodness I was following you. Listen, both of you, I’ve called my classmate Mikan. She is a nurse. What I need you to do, Maki, is help me pick him up. Ouma, just keep breathing…” Peko Pekoyama commands, picking up the cane to carry with her bag as she prepares to pick up Kokichi.

There’s an upset indignant note from him, an ‘uh, no shit,’ that pierces through the existential terror. That’s a good sign. That means not every scrap of consciousness needs to be dedicated just to staying alive. “I ‘ust, ‘eed’an ninit,” he tries to speak again, getting steadily more exasperated with himself. Even so, he does not cry.

No matter how he may want to, he does not cry.

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

Kokichi Ouma finds himself in a hospital room yet again. Maki Harukawa, however, finally finds herself at liberty to have him out of sight as she leans against the closed door.

Now you can panic.

“Maki?” Peko asks, tilting Maki’s chin up to meet her gaze.

Nevermind.

“You did the right thing, initially. Okay? You put him in a position where he could breathe, which is probably the most important thing you could have done.”

Maki stammers, tugging on her hair with an iron grip. “I did not do the right thing, initially. That’s the problem,” she admits, shaking her head. It’s difficult to stifle the ghost of tears blocking out her vision.

“Hm? What do you mean?” Peko asks, guiding Maki over to sit in a pair of chairs beside one of the many windows on this floor.

No matter how hard she tries to stop them, once they start the words won’t stop flowing. “I mean that it’s my fault he’s like this!”

“... Maki, I saw it, it was an accide–”

“In the game, I shot him. Twice. With laced bolts, he. He just took Kaito, and was planning, s-something, and we were all so scared and I thought he was going to kill him so I covered them in strike-nine, and I shot him. Twice! And I went for a third…”

Peko is taken aback for a moment. Class 79 tends not to talk about their experiences in the simulation, so to hear things like shot and kill only confirm every terrible rumor she’s heard about the entire debacle. She blinks, once, then twice.

“Maki, I. I had no idea.”

Maki pulls on her hair, looping it around her whole hand and it still isn’t enough. “I know, I know, I’m an assassin, Ms. Pekoyama, and he’s the only mark I’ve ever actually killed myself.”

Peko is loath to let the silence spread between the two of them, yet she isn’t sure of what to say. Still, she says anyway: “I am. So sorry, that happened between you two. I assure you, I did not have an understanding of this. History, before I suggested you be paired together.”

“A-and now, now it’s my fault he collapsed, because whatever is wrong with him started because I poisoned him, because I’m a heartless, murder machine a-and,,” Maki hiccups, a hand over her face. She hasn’t even gotten this far into the story with her therapist, yet she sees enough of herself in Peko to entrust her with this secret.

“... I know what it is like to live with regret.” Peko offers. “It is never easy to choose one life over another. I don’t think that it should be, either. You should never have had to make that choice, but you did, and you made it as well as anyone could. You wanted to defend your friends, Maki, and you did. You cannot agonize about how things might have been after the fact if you want to move forward.”

Maki just stares at her hands, and cannot scrub away the illusion they are bright, bold magenta.

“... Maki?”

But Maki is far down the hall, watching Kaito close the door to that damn hospital room, because he’s betrayed me, again.

“... I hated him.” She takes a deep breath, and lets the words swish around in her mouth for a moment before spitting them back out: “I hated him. I wanted him to suffer. He was irritating, and a threat, and I didn’t– I don’t understand him, and I wanted him to get away from me and everyone I care about.” Deep breath in. “So I shot him, with a crossbow, and I laced the bolts with the slowest-acting poison I could find, so he wouldn’t know peace the same way the rest of us hadn’t.”

“Ah,” says Peko, surprised but without any tone of judgment. After all, it is Peko’s turn to think, wouldn’t that be hypocritical? “Multiple things can be true at once, you know. Just because some part of you wanted vengeance does not overwrite your intentions to defend. I’ve only ever known you to want to protect the innocent, Maki, and even if you haven’t always been that person, that is the kind of person you are becoming. Every last one of you was in significant distress at that time, and that includes you. You shouldn’t let self-hatred cloud your perception.”

Maki nods ever-so-slightly.

“What you did was. Excessive, yes, and you should not have done it. But it is in the past now, Maki. The fact that you feel remorse for it proves you aren’t ‘heartless’. You made a poor decision, with a high price. All that can be done for it now is to atone in ways you can. Sometimes, remembrance is all you can offer. But you,” Peko points at the flower on Maki’s uniform, “have a unique gift in all of this. Ouma is still alive now. In this life, you can still make amends.”

Maki sniffs, then holds her breath. In for three, hold for five, hold for four, hold forever… the tears just won’t slow. “It was cruel. I, was cruel, I don’t. I don’t want to be that way, not even to him. I-I want to. Amends, I want to,”

Peko smiles. She takes both of Maki’s hands into her own. “Then you will. You’ve already started, after all.”

The more Maki thinks of it, this whole shadowing experience has shown off facets of Ouma’s personality she hadn’t seen before. He does not like bugs, but still tolerates them out of care for his friendship with Gonta. He could have been cruel and smashed all the leaves, but he picked out any that even may have had eggs on them. Kokichi could have been legitimately cruel, yet he wasn’t. Kiyo, quiet as he is these days, is willing to accept him because Kokichi has accepted him in return. Even Miu, after she tried to bash in his skull with a hammer, has come around to not just tolerating his presence, but coming to enjoy it. Enough to make a machine for the medical wing since he, her friend, is in and out of the hospital so often… so he’s claimed.

Maki can only reconcile now that at least some, possibly all of those claims of chronic pain and complications are very real. Part of her knew this all along, but didn’t want to believe it; it’s easier, after all, to lie to yourself. Hadn’t Kokichi said something to that effect, so long ago?

Despite how irritating he is, despite his best attempts to get under her skin, despite being Kokichi Ouma, he’s… admittedly, a decent friend when it counts. And, perhaps, someday they can be friends as well.

“I still. It. It’s so stupid,” she shakes her head. “I-I better not…”

“But you want to say it, right?” Peko nods.

“I still feel. Jealous? Kaito can do what he wants, of course, but ever since the simulation it’s felt like our trio with Shuichi is… different. Like he’s choosing Kokichi over us.” Over me, she does not say. Peko can see it in her watery eyes.

“That, I’ve certainly understood,” Peko laughs. “Sometimes the person you admire can be… short-sighted, maybe. But your admiration is your own, you know. You have to own it, and, if they don’t ultimately feel the same way…” She looks off into the distance. Imagining someone, no doubt.

“... Right. Right, thank you Ms. Pekoyama.”

“Just Peko is fine, Maki.”

“Thank you, Peko.”

“Of course.”

“... But maybe they do feel the same way. You. Never know until you ask, right?”

Peko snaps back to attention. “I… suppose.”

“It’s just a matter of gathering the inner strength to ask, whether you like the answer or not. … I think you should,” Maki shrugs, drying her tears. “And maybe I should too.”

“Perhaps,” says Peko, unshaken as ever, until… she smiles, conspiratorially. “I will if you will.”

“Alright,” laughs Maki. “Deal. But I have someone I have to address first.”

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

Meanwhile, Kaito slowly closes the door to the hospital room. The cool air hits him almost immediately upon entering; the air conditioning must be turned up significantly higher than in the rest of the building. It’s a different room, this time; the slightly different decor is disorienting for a moment, while he allows it to be. There’s something far more important than misplaced flowers and chairs and abstract paintings at its center, though.

“Kokichi?”

There’s a disgruntled sigh from the hospital bed, and an equally disgruntled Kokichi hooked up to not-even-a-fourth-of the equipment he was last time, to Kaito’s knowledge, he actually had to stay here.

“‘eah. Yeah, ‘s me.” He even sounds tired, still slurring words together a touch at this point.

Kaito takes his left hand, the dominant side. The uninjured one.

Kokichi can barely curl his fingers around Kaito’s, for now.

“Like the worst case’a TMJ you ever had,” he tries to smile, but finds the effort fruitless to try. Out of everyone, Kaito won’t mind if you don’t pretend for him. He already knows what you are. “‘Cept it’s everywhere. Mostly.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be talking so much–”

“Tsumiki-chan said, as long as I focus on breathing, I can do what I want. Mostly wanna not-do-things, though. Boring. What’d you do today?”

“You’re asking me?” Kaito laughs, but humors the thought. “Class, mostly. Went out to train with Shuichi, he’s actually coming along pretty well. Still has trouble keeping up with me in the real world, though, lung capacity and all. Been missing Maki, though. She’s really trying her hardest for this class, you know, she’s even talking to that Peko girl right now.”

Kokichi looks away, both eyes now in-sync as he tries to look to the tile floor. “Yeah. She’s still Harukawa, alright.”

Probably not a great time to talk about it, it dawns on Kaito just a little too late.

“What even happened, man, can I ask that? Figure I may as well instead’a dancing around it,” Kaito says, just to banish the thought. To get it out of the way.

Kokichi laughs a little under his breath. It hurts, but there’s a degree to which he can’t help it. “Ask’er yourself.”

Kaito is confused for all of a moment before looking around the–

“Ah! I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you! I-I just thought I could answer any q-questions, so Ouma doesn’t have to-o…” Mikan Tsumiki, Ultimate Nervous Wreck, holds her clipboard to her chest.

Kaito is beside himself, unsure of how to get her to calm back down. Kokichi’s hand squeezes his a little tighter. Give her a moment.

“R-Right, sorry, you were wondering about his condition, right? Ouma’s, I mean. T-There’s good news! And. Bad news, which we’ve already talked about before you arrived, or. I did most of the talking because he’s having a hard time at the moment, but you knew that– Bad news we’ve already talked about, and good news.” Mikan looks up at Kaito expectantly, straining a smile.

“... Do you want me to pick one? Because I’m sure whatever the bad news is won’t look so bad compared to the good,” Kaito nods, resolute.

“Oh yeah, s-s. Sorry. Yeah. SO the good news is this is just a flare-up, probably caused by a mix of stress and the heat outside. He’s been doing a lot better in this building since we have a backup generator for our climate control,” she continues. “But the bad news is that if he doesn’t take care of his condition, he could end up in a full-blown crisis, mister,” a darkness casts over her eyes “and if you do you won’t be able to breathe on your own, then it’s back on a ventilator for up to weeks at a time, and I know how much you hate that.” She picks her head up. “But, hopefully it won’t come to that!”

… It’s a lot to take in at once.

“What. Exactly, is his condition? How could he deteriorate so suddenly?” Kaito asks despite Kokichi’s half-hearted protest.

“It wasn’t sudden. I’ve been feeling it all day… it just got too bad to deal with. That’s all.” Mikan looks over to Kokichi before he relents and nods. “Someone else should know.”

“It seems to be an autoimmune disorder caused by the program. Not one that we’ve seen before, but one that’s kind of unique because of how it happened. The device ‘taught’ his immune system to attack danger that wasn’t physically there, so it started attacking what was there instead. It seems to include some of the signals sent between muscle groups to get them to move, leading to muscle weakness that varies in severity. This would be a moderate exacerbation, I think, so it really could be much worse!”

Mikan is still working on her bedside manner. Kokichi huffs a little, amused, while Kaito is still processing.

“Is. Is it ever going to stop?”

“I think you know the answer to that,” Mikan sighs, a little shake of her head. The same thing Kaito had been told about his lungs. “It’s impossible for us to know, but don’t count on it.”

“So… So what can we do? There has to be some kind of training we can do to make it a little less severe, right?” The impossible is always possible, is it not?

“Well. Physical therapy might help as part of the treatment, but it’s most important he’s taking his meds regularly and getting enough sleep,” she says. “But it’s pretty near impossible to enforce.”

Kaito looks over at Kokichi for a moment, then back to Mikan.

“Maybe, on his own. What if he had a roommate? Then we’d share responsibility.”

“You’re kidding me,” Ouma says, doing his best to sit up a little. It’s more effort than it’s worth, but that does not stop him from trying.

“It’s that, or have you check in even more regularly than you already do. Even if I have to fish you out of the dorms,” Mikan shakes her head, tsk-tsk-tsk. “It’s not a bad idea. I’ll take it up with Administration. Unless you’d rather have an aide following you around…?”

“NO. ‘m good. It’s good. Could be way worse…”

“And I’ll see if I can get you an air conditioner in your room? It is very literally medically necessary.”

“Yessss,” Ouma seems happy enough, and settles down. It’s distinctly possible he’s too tired to put up much more protest, and takes the opportunity to start to nod off.

Kaito smiles fondly, and shakes his head.

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

Several hours later, Kokichi wakes up to the creaking of his door. He tenses, finding that he can, even if it’d be too much to disengage himself from ensnaring wires and monitors. He doesn’t bother. A moment later, it’s clear enough who it is.

“... Hello, Ouma.”

“Harukawa.”

Kokichi stares upward, idly counting holes in the ceiling tile.

The silence is deafening.

“I’m sorry,” Maki starts, a meandering sentence unto itself that unravels slowly from her tongue.

Too slowly, for Kokichi. “Yeah, alright. For what?”

“Take your pick.” The courage she’s built up is thrown to the wind as she strives to just say it, or at least say something.

“Sure. Forgiven. Whatever. Now, what’s it you want?”

“... That’s a lie if I’ve ever heard one.”

“Ooh, she catches on! Maki Harukawa, how do you do it,” he laughs. It’s a strangled sound.

“Cut it out, Kokichi, I’m sorry. I’m sorry about what happened today. I’m sorry about pushing you too far–”

“You didn’t push me too far.” he says, but it sounds… hollow. Sincere, insincere, it doesn’t seem to matter; there’s no substance to it, but it’s also packed with double-triple meanings and spite.

“I’m sorry anyway,” Maki says.

This appears to appease him, if just for a minute.

“I’m sorry about pushing you around, and for blaming you for my own inability to properly focus.” she sighs. “… In my defense, you don’t make it easy, but. That’s not the point. The point is, I should not have done that. I got angry, and when I get angry sometimes I act rashly. So I’m sorry.”

There’s something bigger to that statement, of course. Something he cannot help but respond to with a brutal truth:

“I don’t know if I can forgive you. I want to stop being scared of you, but it’s not. Suddenly okay again.” He turns his head, half-muttering. “I’m not sure I’ll ever really be ‘okay’ again….”

The silence returns.

“... That’s. That’s okay. I mean, if you don’t. You don’t, have to. Respect is earned, and so… so is forgiveness, I think. I hope I can earn that in your eyes.”

“... Alright,” says Kokichi. “Fair enough.”

“See you around,” Maki shrugs, halfway to closing the door.

“And Maki?”

“Yeah?” she pauses.

“Thanks.”

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