yearnshelf

[yearnshelf]

❝ THE USUAL ❞ — kageyama tobio

PROLOGUE

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there’s something so peaceful about the period of time before golden hour.

everything seems to slow down in it’s tracks in your little pseudo pocket dimension. beyond the bedroom pop playing through the speakers and the fragrance of freshly brewed coffee, you can hear everything in this quaint little space — the occasional tentative clink of ceramic, keyboard typing, quiet hums of the chiller.

it’s a fairly slow time of the day, most office workers having already grabbed their midday caffeine pick-me-up during the lunchtime rush and students are back on campus until later in the evening. it’s a pleasant quiet, one of your favourite parts of the early shift as it comes to a close.

which makes the noise outside all the more jarring.

thuds and back and forth movements through the glass windows of the storefront catch your restless attention, your gaze snapping towards the commotion while your hands move on muscle memory wiping down the counter for the nth time.

well this is a new sight.

boxes upon boxes being hauled to what seems like the empty unit next door, guess someone finally decided to rent the space.

“hinata, stop being an idiot and move the box inside before taking shit out!”

your eyebrow raises in amusement at the muffled conversation happening just past the glass doors, their figures just outside of your line of sight. their shadows dance across the cobbled pavement, the afternoon sun casting an orange glow on the street you’ve come to know very well.

if it was any other day, you’d probably be annoyed by the ruckus, but today’s a good one if you can say so yourself. you finally perfected the blueberry cake recipe you’ve been tweaking and nitpicking at for the past two weeks, one less thing to fuss over and you can let your body move on auto pilot for the rest of your shifts. you’ve been working here long enough that you know everything like the back of your hand.

the next project on hand would probably be to switch up some of the wall decorations but there’s no deadline on that— the gentle chime at the door pulls you out of your mental journal, and you reflexively put on a smile like you always do.

“welcome to alchemy’s brew, what can i get you?”

“um,” the raven-haired young man that just came in takes a moment to scan the menu as he walks up to the cashier, eyes oddly focused and determined over a simple mundane task like picking a beverage. you bite the inside of your cheek and try your best to hold back the smile creeping up on your face as you fiddle with a black sharpie between your fingers, cute. “i’ll have a-uh, an iced vanilla latte, double shot with whole milk, to go please.”

you recognise his voice to be one of the two squabbling outside, much more apparent now that you’re speaking face to face. it has a pleasant tone, relaxed and composed, a stark difference to earlier.

“alright! could i get your name please?”

“it’s kageyama.”

with a nod and after ringing him up, you begin whipping up his coffee, back turned towards him as he stands by the end of the counter tapping on his phone. “so i take it you’re part of the crew moving in beside us?”

you don’t see over your shoulder how he looks up with a confused furrow of his eyebrows, “yeah, how’d you know?”

“could hear you guys bickering from in here.”

as you hand his cold cup over to him with a breathy chuckle, your fingertips graze each other’s, and his cheeks flush bashfully with an apology at the tip of his tongue. you probably heard him yelling at hinata, how embarrassing.

his eyes absentmindedly glide over the words scribbled in your handwriting, an effortless slight cursive, and a little smiley at the end lifts his features in a polite surprise.

welcome to this side of town, kageyama ☻

taglist. open (link to form) @wyrcan @asrichin @hiraethwrote @standcom @elliesndg

@cr4yolaas @keicdcat @diorzs

© yogurtkags. please do not repost, plagiarise, or translate my work.

[yearnshelf]

𓈒⠀⠀⠀⠀︵︵ ⠀◟ † ◞ ⠀︵︵ㅤ⠀⠀⠀⠀𓈒 ⠀

THROUGH THE WIND AND RAIN . . .

── TOBIO KAGEYAMA ﹕ 影山 飛雄 ┊͙ HAIKYUU!! ◝✩

𓋜 hq. masterlist // general masterlist.

premise. even while separated by thousands of miles of stretching oceans— there is solace in the rain’s shared song.

content. fiancé!kageyama / f!reader. fluff. established relationship (engaged). LDR + ali roma!kageyama (reader lives in japan, ≠ being japanese). lovesick!tobio :3 !!

word count. 7.6k

soundtrack. absence of you : grentperez.

écoute chérie! ᰔ this fic ended up being a lot longer than i intended . . . anyways !! first fic on this bloggie yayy ‹𝟹

22:58

“Is it also raining over there?”

Your head turns away from your open laptop screen and towards the windows of your apartment, watching as the trickling rain pours down outside your house.

With the curtains drawn open, you have a perfect view of the cars that pass by— watching and listening as their tires splash through the puddles of water that have formed on the street’s open roads, hearing light taps against your windows as streams of droplets hit the streaked, rain frosted glass.

You hear the faint tinkling of showering water vaguely in the background of Tobio’s call too, and your head tilts obviously at the sound, something that your fiancé manages to pick up with ease as he looks behind him towards where you’re staring out at his dark balcony’s windows.

“Oh,” he murmurs lightly, turning back around to face you (or more accurately, his phone screen that has you on it). “It’s raining here too— in Italy, I mean.”

Tobio’s shakily-hand held phone camera soon leaves the dining table it was propped up on, the front view getting covered by the palm of his hand as he makes his way across his living room and over to his balcony, the curtains closed and sliding door locked.

“I don’t know if you can see it that well,” he mumbles. The door to the outside deck unlocks with a light click as he steps outside, slippers padding softly against the smooth stone flooring of his apartment once he crosses over the lip of the door’s frame and onto the balcony. “But it’s pretty heavy over here.”

He flips the camera around, holding the phone up and moving the curtains out of view to show you the rain outside his own home, and just like he mentioned it’s much harsher than your rain back in Japan.

Against the reflective light of the moon in Rome’s night sky is a cascade of water that bombards you from all sides, droplets heavier than the rain you have back in Japan, hitting the cobblestone walkways outside of Tobio’s house with a resounding echo.

The rain falls at a much, much faster pace too as it almost seems never ending, the millions of raindrops bouncing off one another nearly blending into the sound of a single mass against the inky backdrop of the night sky— like a wind chime.

It’s a full moon tonight you realize as Tobio slowly maneuvers his phone around for your convenience, showcasing not only the torrent of rain that blinds his frosted windows but also the surrounding cityscape of his apartment.

You’ve only ever seen it in the daytime through brief glimpses during your facetime calls, but now without the sun and brilliant blue skies as its backdrop it looks completely different, dipped and steeped in a vat of red wine with only the moon and the street lamps to light the way.

You find that by craning your head just a bit to the sides that the raindrops have a special sheen to them, almost holographic in their nature. Single masses that have no one colour to them in their true nature, shimmering with a mirage of light in the afterglow of Rome’s street lamps.

Fractals of tiny rainbows burst at the sides of the water’s tension, and each droplet magnifying the light of the moon and lamps tenfold, merging into what seems to become a single stream of glimmering gold.

Perhaps it’s just a trick of the barely visible light light, or maybe something to do with the fact you’re on a crinkly video call— but the shifting perspective of the iridescent water droplets glowing in tune with the speckles of centuries old stars in Rome’s barely lit skyline is incredible to witness up close, and you’re almost jealous that this is the sight that Tobio gets to fall asleep to just outside his window every night.

The rain pour oddly likens to the same scene you’d get if you took a quaint little snow globe and shook it around vigorously in the palm of your hands, watching as the faux snowflakes inside swirl and whoosh around in the glass dome before falling slowly back down to the base of the globe, the flurry of white snow reminding you of the rain drops you’re bewitched by.

You look down at the engagement ring that sits on your finger, given to you by Tobio two years prior. Smoothing your thumb over the ornately cut princess-styled gemstone on the gold band, you realize it also bares a striking resemblance to the tiny raindrops just outside both of your windows.

Like a little piece of the quiet scenery you get to both wear together, even when far apart— and the constant downpour of rain on both ends of the call may be a reminder of that fact.

Tobio eventually shuts the door with a shiver running up his spine, bringing you out of your thoughts as he steps back inside his apartment.

“Sorry,” he apologizes quickly, breaking the silence. His eyes flit back to the now closed glass door, gaze lingering as the camera slowly begins to walk away from the view— you wonder if he was also admiring the rain shower along with you.

“It just gets kind of cold having it open when it rains.”

“It’s okay,” you smile, still mindlessly fidgeting with your ring. It fits much better on your finger now than before, courtesy of your fiancé having it re-sized for you when you last visited. It’s no longer constricting to wear, yet still loose enough for you to twirl around for fun.

A part of you thinks that Tobio ensured that for you unknowingly.

“We wouldn’t want you to get sick now during the season, would we?”

With a laugh muffled behind pursed lips he sits back down at his small dining table again, the feet of his chair scratching against the hardwood flooring when he scoots the chair in forward, carefully propping his phone upright against his napkin holder. “Y’know, I wasn’t prepared for Rome’s weather at all when I came here.”

“The weather here is a lot more turbulent than in Japan,” as if to perpetuate his point further, the rain in the background seems to pick up speed, the faint tapping against his window from the droplets now turning into more thunderous thumps.

Amused, you shift up against the pillows of your bed, adjusting your laptop sat atop your blanket. Tobio’s lips unknowingly jutt out into a pout seeing you all warm and cozy in bed without him, though if he were to do the same right now he’d probably pass out in the confines of his sheets while still on call with you.

It’s one of the reasons he’s calling from his dining room table and not situated nicely inside the cocoon of his freshly washed bedsheets.

Although tempting, Tobio wants to make sure he gives you his full attention whenever you both call, considering both of your busy schedules and the time zone differences between the two countries you currently occupy makes it hard to coordinate a set time to call each day, and ultimately your lifestyles can’t afford daily calls much to both of your chargins.

It usually boils down to ‘literally whenever we are both free,’ though he admits it’s not nearly as often as he’d like it to be.

Free can mean many things, and unfortunately for Tobio you refuse to call him while you’re in the shower (he doesn’t understand that one, he’s seen all of you and then some anyway), or while grocery shopping (something about you needing full concentration to select the perfect box of plump, sweet strawberries, whatever that means.

Strawberries are strawberries, no?)

“Well how are you holding up over there?” A playful grin slowly spreads across your face as you mess around with the facetime filters, giving Tobio a few silly cat ears and a tail as you sift through the available options.

Your finger drags along the trackpad of your laptop as you doodle away funny little shapes and swirls beside Tobio, giving him a bright red clown nose and some pink cheeks for funsies while he in your mind remains oblivious to your actions.

You let out a quiet giggle to yourself when his facetime background changes from the interior of his Rome apartment to a poorly edited in beach scene ripped straight from Google images, complete with his own coconut drink and a straw on your end of the call.

Tobio’s lips curl in on themselves, his teeth biting at the lower one as if he’s containing a smile of his own while you hum delightfully in idle tranquility, seemingly unaware of his gaze on you.

You’re acutely conscious of it though from the way his head dips down, using his bangs to mask the barely passable snicker he disguises as a poorly trained cough before regaining his posture, a gesture he inherited from his sister.

“Is it hard living by yourself? Living without me?”

Tobio’s shoulders lift in a mild shrug, and the green screened background near his back and arms glitches whenever he makes even the slightest movement. “I wouldn’t say that,” he jokes, stretching up against the backrest of his chair, muscles still sore from his practice matches earlier in the day.

A whine escapes past your pouted lips at his quip as you jeer back to him. “You’re making me feel sad now! Next time I’m not going to pick up your call no matter how many times you spam text me.”

“Hey, hey hey now . . .” His camera suddenly falters, stumbling in on itself from how hard he jerks his dinner table in shock before falling flat on its face, your inexplicable laughter ringing through loudly from the phone’s speakers and into his ears as Tobio props the device back up, fingers covering the camera momentarily before it eventually stabilizes again.

Now it’s his turn to sulk, the corners of his mouth visibly drooping into a slight frown as you continue to chuckle at his misfortune. If he dipped his head any lower, you’d be able to see his blush along the curve of his neck.

“That wasn’t very nice, love” he grumbles, slumping back down into his chair as you smugly hum in response. “Well you’re not being the sweetest either right now, Tobio.”

“Fine,” he sighs, crossing his arms. The loose home shirt he wears flexes with each movement he makes, “I’m sorry— will you still call me tomorrow?”

“Of course,” relief flashes in his eyes for a split second as his chest rises and falls with each breath, “Did you think I was actually not going to pick up?”

“. . . Only a little.”

“I would never do that to you,” Your tongue blips out to him on camera, all pixelated as a small clump of red dots inside his phone’s screen and Tobio can’t help but hide his bashful smile behind his hands again at your cheekiness. “How could I say no to your face?”

“You just did nearly two minutes ago.”

“Well that was two minutes ago!”

The both of you fall into another cesspool of bubbly giggles as you bicker back and forth with one another, your voices accompanied and carried across the oceans with the help of the rain in the background. The white noise drowns out the rest of the world, allowing the two of you to focus solely on one another’s prescience in the few hours you have together in comfortable solitude.

Tobio tells you everything during his calls— and you really do mean everything. He lets you know of every brand deal he’s received, how he figured out that he was putting weight on the wrong part of his foot whenever he dug a ball and now his receives are getting much better now (you can hardly believe that he thinks there’s still even more to himself that he can find improve upon) and the mundane details of his day to day life in Rome as well too.

He told you a few days ago through text that it’s currently raspberry season in Italy which starts in May, the miscellaneous message soon accompanied by a cute photo of him and his teammates out raspberry picking in a large farmer’s field in the countryside of Rome as a team bonding exercise.

You saved the adorable sight almost immediately into your photo album, sometimes finding yourself opening your phone several times throughout the day just to peek at it again whenever you missed his presence.

Now instead of the baseball cap and wicker basket he carried with him in the photo earlier in the week, he sits in front of your laptop screen, fingers reaching below the camera for a moment before coming back up to pop something into his mouth.

Your head cranes a little to the right instinctually, trying to catch a glimpse at what he’s eating before realizing you can’t actually do that over facetime.

“What’re you eating?”

“Raspberries,” he mumbles through a mouthful of them, taking his phone and showing you the inside of the bowl in his hands, light blue on the outside and white in its interior that’s filled to the brim with the fruits. “Ushijima-san told me they’re high in fiber, vitamin C and K.”

You’re reminded of the photo he sent you a few days prior, giggling to yourself in giddy happiness at the fact that he must be eating the fruits he picked with his teammates. “Y’know you can also eat them just because they’re tasty, right Tobio?”

He pops another one into his mouth, cheeks puffing out on the right side like a chipmunk as he chews. “Well, that too is a plus.”

Tobio’s bowl is nearly filled to the brim of the fruits, a hefty serving you presume for a seemingly late night snack for the star athlete. You question his unusual timing since the Tobio you know is all about order in his regimen when it comes to maintaining his healthy figure for volleyball.

“I wanted to feel like I’m eating with you,” he timidly admits when asked, and you tease his sincerity before an idea comes to mind, your fiancé’s head cocking to the side once he sees you leap out of bed in a hurry.

“Wait a second, stay right there!” You shout to him before your body quickly leaves the frame of your laptop screen, leaving Tobio in a stunned silence as he attempts to call back out to you, the padding of your footsteps against the floorboards of your home soon disappearing along with your figure too.

“I’m not going anywhere, babe—” he mutters to himself, squinting at his phone screen as he tries to figure out where you scurried off to. The door to your room is left slightly ajar, but the darkness of your hallway shrouds the rest of your household in his sights.

His eyes take a preliminary glance around your room to fulfill your absence in stead, his view confined to the singular angle your laptop can show him from on your bed as he attempts to scour the small window space he can, checking and noticing for the subtle changes you’ve made after your recent weekly room clean up.

Tobio finds that you swapped out your old floor length mirror for a new one, since the old one had a crack in it after it unfortunately fell during one of your last facetime calls.

He takes note of the many papers that pile on top of one another on your work desk, and his brows furrow at the sight. He hates to think of how easily it could be for you to slip into accidentally overworking yourself now that he’s not around to reprimand you, though he’s not one to talk about maintaining a healthy work-life balance either with volleyball.

Tobio’s gaze soon drifts away from the seemingly massive mound of manila folders and printer paper before stopping momentarily. His eyes glance downwards, a wicker basket woven flower pot caught in his sights, before crawling back up again.

There, sitting on your desk right beside your printer is a familiar looking potted plant; its white petals shimmer beautifully underneath the glow produced by your room’s ceiling fan’s cheap LED light bulb, the golden spun colour of the flower’s bulbs emerging from inside the core atop their green stems.

Three heads of pretty, flowered plants are neatly laid in the small bed of soil in the pot, the dirt dark in colour as the flower’s roots soak in the hydration-rich nutrients from the loam.

Tobio recognizes the species immediately, drinking in its innocuous appearance in your room— the Madonna Lily. Italy’s national flower.

He coughs up his raspberries in a fit of momentary shock, reveling in the discovery as he shoves his phone closer to his eyes to inspect it further. The plant seems well taken care of, blooming well even in a confined office-bedroom space. A small spritzer bottle filled halfway to the top with water sits just beside the stunning flower, meaning you probably had watered it not long ago before your call with him.

Its leaves are vibrant and healthy, and the blossoms open up to the ceiling, revealing their bright golden bulbs from inside.

Tobio’s seen and been given many a white lily in his time playing for Ali Roma, he can barely keep track of the massive bouquets he receives from sponsors and fans at every game with the gorgeous flower, all beautifully tied together with long satin bows accented in the colours of white, orange and green for his beloved team within the confines of clear, wrinkle-less cellophane.

But the lone pot in your room calls out to him especially, it’s beauty and obvious care and attention gone into helping it flourish outshining even the most spectacular of floral arrangements he’s ever been given.

He’s heard from a few of his native Italian teammates that the white lilies of Italy symbolize rebirth and are frequently associated with the rejuvenation of the soul— but they also resemble both everlasting purity and commitment.

And if Tobio had to describe you in two words of his own, he’d pick those qualities of the stunning lily to do so.

A few beats of silence pass of him admiring the quiet entity of life before he hears your rapidly approaching footsteps again, jerking his head away from his phone screen and sadly having to tear his eyes from the plant as the door to your bedroom swings wide open, revealing your pajama-clad self once more as leap back onto your bed, a big bowl with the same familiar fruit he was just snacking on sat in the lap of your legs, the traces of water on your just-washed hands bringing heat to Tobio’s cheeks.

“What’re you doing?”

You hum mindlessly as you fluff up the pillow behind your back for a moment before turning back to him and beaming.

“I’m going to feed you raspberries through the screen,” You take one of the nice big ones for Tobio out of the bowl and show it to your camera, letting your fiancé see the fruit from all angles. It’s plump and juicy, and the nice red colour to it and size is deserving for Tobio, you bet it’s as sweet as him.

You still feel the leftover water residue on the fruit’s surface from when you washed them underneath the pads of your fingertips as you steady the bowl and lower it down to Tobio’s mouth on your screen.

“Say ahhh!”

Even while within the confines of his own home, a blush spreads across the expanse of Tobio’s neck and the apples of his cheeks at your actions, shyly opening his mouth for the camera, head pivoting around his dining room like he’s worried some paparazzi is going to catch him being all cute and sappy.

He straightens up when your hand suddenly retracts from the camera’s view, taking with it the raspberry as your saddened face takes center stage on his phone screen.

Tobio’s eyebrows cinch together worriedly, confused at the sudden change in demeanour. “Why’d you stop, love?”

You huff, cheeks puffing out in an adorable show of stubbornness. Tobio wishes he was there to pinch them in person, and he refrains from reaching out and doing it himself.

“You’re not saying ahhh!”

He sputters a bit on his end of the call, scarlet blush spreading to the tips of his ears. “Do I have to . . .”

“Yes, it’s part of the experience!” You make a point to pick up another juicy raspberry for yourself from your bowl, saving the one previously meant for Tobio and popping it into your mouth, audibly singing in delightful praise at its taste.

“Now open wide, Tobio! Say ahhh~”

The adam’s apple of Tobio’s throat bobs in your peripheral as you lift the same raspberry from earlier up to your camera again, slowing inching to where Tobio’s mouth is hung open on your laptop screen before he closes around the berry, pretending to chew and savor it’s taste as you gleefully giggle at the sight of the ever blossoming red that crawls down his neck and all across the top half of his chest visible through the cut outs of his home shirt.

“It’s yummy,” you hear him whisper, voice low and intimate in the tranquility that lies between you two, feeling separated only by a flimsy screen and not by several countries.

He can taste the tangy sweetness from his raspberries previously still left on the tip of his tongue, though he likes to imagine that it’s left behind from the digital raspberry you shared with him just now.

His tongue darts out to lick his lips subconsciously, swiping across the bottom lip to capture any lingering flavors of the fruit remaining. “I did tell you awhile ago that the raspberries are in season this time of year, right?”

“Yep!” You pop the ‘p’ in your sentence with a giggle, “Don’t you remember the photo you sent me? Of you and your teammates out raspberry picking!”

His eyes roll to the ceiling of his apartment in thought as he recalls the last few days, thought bubbles metaphorically popping up above his head before he lets out a noise of confirmation. “Oh, yeah I did send you that. I’m surprised you remember.”

“You only sent it like, four days ago Tobio.”

He shrugs it off easily, ignoring the pale blush that dusts his nose and cheek bones that you had recalled that photo he sent you on a whim as an update to his life in Italy, and he takes another raspberry out from his bowl, letting the sourish-with a tinge of sweetness flavour of the fruit pop in his mouth once he bites down on the morsel.

The two of sit in comfortable silence as you pretend-feed each other raspberries, with you “feeding” Tobio most of yours and he reciprocates whenever you give him one.

“It’s so we’re even,” he digresses afterwards, and while you eventually do feast the raspberries you hand to Tobio through the scrithy facetime call screen, Tobio saves the ones he feeds you on his end of the line— placing them back into his bowl after you fake swallow the fruit, letting it fall back into his bowl and choosing a different fruit of his own to bring to his lips.

In his mind those berries are specially reserved for you only, and even if you can’t eat them yourself, Tobio doesn’t feel it right to eat them.

The freshness of the raspberries on your tongue sweetens your video call with Tobio just a little more when it seems as the sounds on both your ends heighten frighteningly, the quality of your screen becoming diluted as time rolls on through the thunderous booms that peer outside your windowsill.

Rain hurls down from the sky, blanketing both your hometown and the capital of Italy in its wake, but it’s Tobio it feels as though you’ve both made a small little space for yourselves to shield each other from the storm.

“I saw you on the news again today,” you hum contently as the two of you snack on your raspberries against the backdrop of rain on both your calls, Tobio’s being obviously louder as the storm outside continues to grow more tumultuous the longer your call stretches on for.

This is probably one of your longest video calls together so far, almost reaching three and a half hours when you check the time at the top of your laptop. It’s a surprise that your dingy cell service has managed to hold on for this long in the weather’s conditions.

“They were talking about how your contract with Ali Roma is ending soon, and speculating when or if you’ll renew it.”

Tobio freezes up when you mention the news broadcast, almost scared of speaking up with his throat feeling tight, mouth running dry as he stiffens up his posture. A distinctive trait of his you notice when he’s nervous. “Yeah . . . yeah I’ve been hearing about that too.”

“I mean, it is about you,” you chuckle to yourself, a bit too causally compared to how Tobio feels inside. “So! Have you decided if you’ll stay there for another term?”

“It depends,” he swallows down his worries, eventually gathering the courage to ask “will you be upset if I do?”, hesitance laced in the throes of his words as he waits for your reply in skittish tensity.

It’s been hard for Tobio to dance around the subject ever since news broke out, and everytime he calls he’s unsure how to bring it up.

Ali Roma has helped in advancing his career tremendously, and he’d love to keep moving up the ranks and continue playing on the world stage alongside his teammates— but then there’s you, across the sea waiting for him at home. Cheering him on from not the stands of an Italian stadium but on the couch in your shared home in another country, rooting and whooping at a TV screen whenever he’s up to serve.

He’s been telling his social media managers to try and quell the spread of rumors before he decided on accepting another contract term, scared of you finding out and expressing your displeasure about the renewal before he had a chance to talk it out with you.

Despite Tobio’s endless passion and drive for volleyball, he knew that his heart belonged with you— and he wanted to ask how you felt about the decision before he had the final say.

It’s been nearly three years since he asked you the fateful question of if you’d take his hand in marriage.

He still remembers the way he almost foolishly dropped the ring when he got down on one knee, clumsily taking the box out of his suit jacket’s pocket and hastily recited the lines he had practiced for over a month about your importance in his life and how grateful he would be to marry you— and the way you graciously accepted him with open arms before he was even done speaking.

He also can recall clearly how you nearly knocked him over onto the ground by the sheer force of your glee alone, too enraptured by the high of the moment to notice you had basically caged him in your arms on the dirt trail of your home town’s park.

And while you’re as sweet, loving and as patient as a person can ever be, what with letting him play overseas and all (you’re a literal angel in Tobio’s eyes), Tobio knows that with time, patience can be worn down like running water in a riverbank, smoothing over the stones and pebbles that have sunk to the bottom.

It erodes away the longer you stretch it thin, and your three year engagement anniversary is coming up soon, and yet he’s not there with you. Instead, he’s in Italy, furthering his goals while you’re home, hard at work on your own he knows but he fears that his constant absence has taken a heavy toll on your heart.

He wonders if you’ve grown restless of waiting for your fiancé to come back to your awaiting arms, and if you’re just too nice to admit your frustrations to him directly whenever you call.

And the thought of that worries him. You’ve always been the one in the relation to anchor Tobio’s incessant and seemingly never ending worrying, being the stability he needs when his insecurities overshadow his rational thinking, and it’s more often than not that you’re practically the one holding him together better than himself whenever he’s overseas.

(it’s embarrassing to admit himself how much of a driving force you are in his life.

The gentle guiding light he needs when he goes tunnel vision and can’t see straight or think clearly).

It was you after all who suggested he take the leap of faith to move to Rome and play for Italy, you who gave him the push of encouragement he needed to further his career even when it seemed to go against your own best interests.

And while you’ve reassured him several times over that the length of his stay in Italy and your prolonged engagement means absolutely nothing to you, Tobio worries that soon, you’ll become tired of waiting for a day that will potentially never come.

His greatest wish is to marry you proudly in front of all your family and friends, to entangle your paths forever with each other while you exchange vows written for one another underneath a pretty white arch— and how is he supposed to do that when he’s thousands of kilometers away from you across the sea?

“Hm? No, of course not,” Your airy voice cuts through the rapidly growing thoughts in his head, head tilting on his phone’s screen. Your brow raises slightly as you question him. “Why do you ask?”

“Did you think I was going to be mad at you?”

Tobio brings a hand up to his neck, brushing at the recently buzzed off sections that are already starting to grow back after his most recent haircut. “Uhm, if I say maybe— or wait, if I say no will you—”

You interrupt his soon to be nervous rambling firmly but gently, shushing him with a soothing series of “Hey, listen to me” coupled with a few chants of his name, as if you were calming down a scared, jittery kitten.

Your lips purse in thought, contemplating your next words carefully. You know how Tobio can get about topics concerning your long distance relationship, eventually being able to settle him down so you can speak.

“Tobio,” you start, and his ears perk up intently at his name. “I knew because I know you like the back of my hand, you’re always so nervous to talk to me about anything relating to your work— I also knew about the renewal for a while now.”

“Really?” His eyes widen in shock, and he grabs his phone instinctively as he shoots up out of his chair, the screech of the legs against his floors echoing in the background. “But I haven’t decided on anything yet because—”

“Because of me, am I right?”

Tobio can’t find any way to argue against you when you smile at him so sincerely, it almost feels unreal for him the way you so comfortably can say what he’s thinking.

You don’t look angry, frustrated or even upset in the slightest even if he was technically hiding the news from you so he could bring it up at the right time.

Just what did he do to deserve you?

Thunder booms outside his Rome apartment, the rain crashing down louder than before. The storm must be picking up in strength, and your call’s audio grows distorted and scratchy on his end of the call— the bars of cell service at the top right of his phone are depleting quickly, the connection crumbling with each second.

After a few pressing minutes of “Hello? Tobio, can you hear me?” and “No, not really— wait now I can” from both of you, you finally manage to get a clear, concise point across to your nervous wreck of a fiancé.

“You don’t have to be so paranoid about what I will think,” you tell him, putting the bowl of raspberries off to the side of your lap now as you scorch closer to your laptop, allowing Tobio to see you more clearly now.

“That’s your decision to make, and I’ll support you no matter what.”

Heat singes across your cheeks dreamily at your next words, and you’re a little embarrassed at how your eyes grow glassy at the recollection. “Though, I do appreciate how you always wait to consult me first.”

Your hand goes to caress the outline of his cheek in your laptop’s screen, as silly as it may be to anybody who would witness it, it’s the closest you can get to the real deal in your current circumstances.

Tobio reacts accordingly as if he can feel it himself, stiffening at the gentle brush of the back of your fingers against his skin, and he wishes so desperately to be able to lean into its touch.

He settles for resting his cheek in the palm of his hand as a substitute.

“You’re so sweet, Tobio.”

The tips of Tobio’s own ears bloom a deep shade of crimson red in response, the few parts of his collarbone that you manage to see underneath his navy t-shirt blushing a slight hue of pink as well against his skin as he shyly murmurs a quiet “I miss you a lot, y’know. . . ” amidst the thunderous applause of the whipping winds and roiling crashes of water that pound outside his windows.

He can hear the trees thrashing around outside, their leaves swaying violently against the brick walls of his apartment.

Tobio reaches over to turn up the volume of his phone more to hear you more clearly, not wanting your voice to become drowned out by the storm raging on outside. When he sits back up in his chair, he has to take a moment to calm his racing heart, the thumping beat loudly booming in the back of his mind.

“It doesn’t feel right without you here with me,” he admits, gaze downcast into his hands, clasped into one another as he stares into the abyss of the empty crevices of his palm’s folds. In his mind he imagines his left hand as yours, intertwining with his own so he could run his thumb over the jewel of your engagement ring.

He misses the cool feel of the gold against your warm skin, hoping to one day be able to feel that with your wedding band instead. “I guess that’s why . . . I always want to ask you for permission before I decide.”

His hands clam up uncharacteristically, sweat pooling at the pads of his fingertips. He wipes them in the fabric of his home sweats to dry them, staining the grey linen.

“You— you’re more important to me than volleyball . . . ”

Your heart skips a beat. Then two more, swelling up tightly at his words.

You’ve always known Tobio to be a bit tentative than others about how he phrases his words, him being self-aware that at times he can come off as a bit too forward or overly aggressive on something if his stances are not structured correctly.

Whenever he speaks to your friends, fans or even in his own interviews with highly esteemed reporters, he always takes a deep pause, letting their own questions ruminate in his mind so he can come up with a cohesive response, one that isn’t too self imposing.

But to hear him say something assuredly, even with the unconscious stutter in his words has your face singeing with heat, and the sight of Tobio’s furious blush makes you incessantly wish that you were right beside him to pull him into a long, heartfelt embrace, arms wrapping around your own forearms to satiate the desire.

Goosebumps litter the surface of your skin, and the hairs on the back of your neck stand up as the patter of rain blares through your eardrums.

Tobio’s eyes peer back up to meet your own, and he sees that through the crunchy quality of your laptop’s monitor, your mouth opens to speak. “Tobio . . . I—”

And in an instant, the heralding tone of the call dropped notification pings through his device’s speakers, and Tobio’s jumping out of his seat in a moment’s notice once your face no longer occupies his phone screen.

He swipes downward from his screen, with a tab saying your call together ended at four hours, twenty-seven minutes and thirty-two seconds.

Muttering out low curses in quick succession, he quickly checks his phone app, seeing that your call was severed. The cell service bars at the top of his screen flicker between two and three, the weak connection only further emulated when a large flash of thunder strikes outside his apartment with the enslaughg of heavy downfalls of rain drops pooling in large puddles outside on the roads and sidewalks.

Three booms of thunder follow suit in the course of the lightning, their resounding echo feeling akin to an earthquake and enveloping his house from all sides.

His apartment feels much smaller now with the sea of sounds that crash around just past his brick walls and glass windows. It’s so loud outside now he realizes, monstrously so now that your calm voice no longer accompanies him, and the resounding silence of his apartment now feels empty without your presence.

The vast distance of ocean that separates you two seems more intrinsically noticeable now to him, and Tobio wonders if you feel the same on your end too back home when the line dropped and you could no longer see his face on your own laptop.

“Fuck,” Tobio’s thumb hovers over the call back button, ready to start up another glitch-filled video call when he’s nearly startled once more when his phone buzzes back to life, with your contact name soon flashing across the top of his screen.

He picks it up almost immediately, clearing his throat before speaking.

“Hello?”

“Tobio!” You chirp from the other end, and even without the video accompanying it he can still see and hear the way your smile reveals your teeth in a happy grin and your eyes crease at the ends from glee.

You sound just as relieved as he does, though a lot more sure of yourself than he does. Tobio wonders how you can still remain so chipper after all that while he feels like he’s been left on a lone lighthouse on a rock in the middle of a sea-born typhoon.

“Sorry, the call must’ve dropped! I couldn’t video call you back with my bad service so this is the best I can do,” your voice trails off towards the end of your sentence, your smile audibly dropping to a half one in its stead. Tobio’s tongue clicks against the porcelain of his teeth, swallowing and clearing his throat once more.

He wants to make you feel better, lift up your spirits the way you do his even when the stormy night sky has plans otherwise for him.

“It— it’s okay,” he recites in his mangled attempts to assure you, “the storm outside for me is pretty bad right now, so I probably wouldn’t be able to video call anymore too . . .”

Your disheartened “Aww” from the other end nearly breaks his heart into two, and he can practically envision the way your lips tug downwards, demeanor visibly deflating when he reaffirms your suspicions.

You bounce back quickly though, with a “don’t worry about it,” soon followed by “we can call back when the storm clears up tomorrow, okay?”

He lets out a low hum of agreement, and silence blankets over your call again as the two of you wait and see who has the gall to hang up first.

Neither of you wish for your time spent together to end so abruptly due to the rain, though it’s not anything that’s in your control either.

Once Tobio moved to Italy, the ball was no longer in your court. And the two of you have to rise early for your respective careers tomorrow (technically, now today) as well, once you take a glance at the wall mounted clock in your room that’s almost struck close to twelve in the morning by now.

“So . . .” you drawl out of awkwardness, and Tobio coughs into his closed fist. “. . . So.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow, then?”

“Yeah,” he mumbles meekly, “do you know what time you’ll call me?”

“No,” you tell him sadly, “but as soon as I’m off work, I will.”

“You promise?” He knows it’s childish to ask you ‘to promise’ him such a thing (he’s twenty-eight now for god’s sake), but he can’t help it when you let out a little giggle, his ears burning red again at your giddiness. “Yes, Tobio. I promise.”

“Okay,” his lips purse, but before he can speak you cut him off unknowingly with words woven from the sweetest honey imaginable, causing him to suck in a hasty breath of air in an instant.

“I love you, Tobio.” You sigh, twirling the ends of your hair around your finger as your gaze lingers on the lily sitting atop your desk.

It’s not a replacement for your beloved fiancé, but when the odds are stacked against you, anything to keep a piece of him close to home helps.

“And I miss you, so . . . so you better do your best on your new contract renewal! You gotta beat Shoyo-kun during the next volleyball game or else we’re never going to get married at this rate!”

“O— of course I will!” He sputters out nonsensically as you burst into a fit of laughter once more, knowing that all it takes is saying his old high school rival’s name in the same sentence as volleyball for him to get pumped up.

“Like hell I’ll let stupid Hinata beat me at an international level!”

“Yeah!” You cheer for him, smiling through your teeth into your phone screen, “And then you’re going to come home and marry me, you got that!”

He almost doesn’t seem to know what he’s even agreeing to, only giving you a solid “Yeah!” in return. He might not know what it is right now, but you know that his subconscious does, and that’s enough for you to rest easy for tonight.

“Hehe, okay then! Bye Tobio! I gotta sleep now, mwah!”

You blow him a quick kiss through the line before ending the call immediately afterwards, giving him no time to respond other than a sharp “What— huh?!” before you’re throwing your phone across your bed and burying yourself into your pillows and bedsheets, lightheaded as you inhale the scent sticking to their threads.

It only smells of you now.

You miss when the linen of your bed and the seams of your cushions didn’t just carry your scent; when it also included his as well, back when he slept comfortably next to you and was freely able to wrap his arms around your figure as you both drifted off to dreamland in the comfort of each other’s body warmth.

You miss the liveliness that Tobio brought to your shared home. You fondly remember waiting for him to come home from late practice just so you could indulge yourselves in each other’s presence after his shower, and sending him off in the early morning as you too went about on your own commute to work on your own.

Rain drops hammer down harshly outside your window, and while it may have been a nuisance to deal with any other day and was also the main culprit of your early-ending call, it seems oddly calming now— knowing that on the opposite end of the earth, the rain kisses down on Tobio’s roof top too.

A piece of you stretches from one country to another, showering your love for him even when your eyelids are heavy, voice afflicted with a groggy strain as a yawn slips past your lips.

You’re too tired to take off your engagement ring, normally keeping it tucked away in its velvet box for safekeeping in your bedside drawer as you sleep but for tonight, you choose to absentmindedly play with the gem on the golden band whilst taking a look outside the window through your open curtains.

The night is dreary and stormy, skyline painted a vivid ocean of black and dark blue-ish tinted purple. You can’t even see the thunderous cumulonimbus clouds overhead, the only visible sign of the rain above are the droplets that manage to stain your window prettily in their wake.

Your breathing stills as you settle yourself in bed, readying your mind and body for the long day ahead tomorrow, the rain acting as a backdrop of white noise that carries many sounds in its stormy, splendorous path.

And now, it simmers to a blur in your mind as sleep overtakes your body, and you wait patiently for the rain to carry away your goodbye kiss off to Rome thousands of miles away for your sweet, hotheaded and lovestricken fiancé.

The thunderstorms you and Tobio both bare tonight aren’t the same at all, though it wasn’t always this way.

And you hope that soon you won’t have to bare yours alone, no matter how much the rain crashes outside or the whirlwinds whip and threaten to pull down withstanding trees to the ground with their strength.

Under the storm clouds overheard your roof, the rain’s cataclysmic song sings you to sleep in an odd fashion.

Thunderous, constant, breathtaking and everlasting— all the qualities you find in a certain setter currently situated in Central Italy, who waits for the day he’ll be able to fly back home to you, so that you can be underneath the same clouds and domes of rain together once more.

reblogs ++ comments are greatly appreciated !! ꒰ ˆ ᗜ ˆ ˶ ꒱

© property of mikiruie 2024. all rights reserved.

[yearnshelf]

𓈒⠀⠀⠀⠀︵︵ ⠀◟ † ◞ ⠀︵︵ㅤ⠀⠀⠀⠀𓈒 ⠀

｡ﾟﾟ･｡･ﾟﾟ｡ ♫₊ ⊹ 𝓼𝓱𝓸𝔀 𝓶𝓮 𝓱𝓸𝔀 : 𝓂𝑒𝓃 𝒾 𝓉𝓇𝓊𝓈𝓉 ﾟ。ꪆ୧. 𝓹𝓸𝔀𝓮𝓻 𝓸𝓾𝓽𝓪𝓰𝓮 𓂃 ˖ ˚◞✧

── TETSURŌ KUROO ﹕ 黒尾 鉄朗 ┊͙ HAIKYUU!! ◝✩

𓋜 hq. masterlist // general masterlist.

premise. thunderstorms scare you greatly. but thanks to your cute neighbour, you know you’ll be okay after all.

content. tetsurou kuroo / f!reader. fluff — sfw. reader is a scared of storms, mainly thunder. power outage. set ambiguously post highschool / in a university au setting. some angst if you squint + comfort. neighbours -> lovers.

word count. 4k-ish.

soundtrack. show me how : men i trust.

dedicated to beloved @tetsuskei , happy birthday ! ‹𝟹

écoute chérie! ᰔ updated repost from old bloggie , i haven’t beta it fully and sorry it’s nothing that is quite new but i hope that this one’s still a worthwhile read for you ^_^

03:24

You barely manage to catch the flickering lights of your dining room's lamp glitch out repeatedly from the corner of your eye, the lights inside your dingy apartment appearing to go haywire as constant streams of raindrops pound against the glass of your windows.

With each passing second they seem to multiply tenfold of the previous, their impact upon crashing into each other sometimes merging with one another in sync to form a continuous stream of running water trickling down the brick walls of your complex instead of the constant buzz of millions of tiny water droplets.

The soft glow from your lamp dims momentarily before stalling to a staggering halt. Your hopes of it reigniting by itself are quickly dashed when you see it attempt to start back up again for a few seconds before going completely dead. And after a few seconds of the darkness swallowing your apartment whole a disgruntled sigh escapes your lips as you close your textbook.

“Ah, damn it . . .” You bemoan into the blanketing sea of black ahead of you. “Not again . . .”

Slowly you stand up from your seat at the dining table, cautiously pushing your chair back just a little as to not hit the rest of your furniture before carefully maneuvering your way through the dark of your living room.

“Where the hell did I put that flashlight . . . ?”

You really should've thought to charge your phone and powerbank ahead of time when you heard a thunderstorm was making it's way to your city on the news earlier. Now with a dead cellphone battery and an empty powerbank, you're left to fend for yourself amist the unknown layout of your apartment without a light source.

Scuffling around in the dark, you take a step forward, miscalculating how much distance there is infront of you as you find yourself accidentally ramming your shin against the side of your unusually hard bookshelf, sending you reeling in agonizing pain stomach first and flopping right onto your couch.

Ouch.

Your teeth grind against each other as you hold your shin, wincing while rocking slightly in an attempt to alleviate the pain. “God, that did not sound good . . .” You can't see through the near pitch black lowlight of your apartment, but you're almost certain a nasty bruise may have begun to form on your skin from that.

A few more minutes of stumbling finally merits you to where you had originally intended to end up in the first place— the supply closet.

Feeling around for the door's surface your hand manages to find it's grip onto the smooth metal handle, twisting it open and carefully reaching out into the darkness.

“It should be on the second shelf . . . or was it the third? Fuck, I really can't see anything right now . . .”

Your fingers brush up against the elastic wrist tie of the flashlight (it was on the third shelf after all, go figure) and you impatiently snatch it from off the pile of other assorted junk you've haphazardly thrown in there throughout the years.

All you hear is a soft click within the suffocating silence as you turn on the device before your eyes are bombarded by a bright white flash, the sudden overload causing you to stumble back a bit into the wall of your apartment, blinking repeatedly to soothe the burn in the back of your retinas.

Maybe it's not the best idea to hold a flashlight so close to your face while it's aiming (or pointed) directly into your eyes.

Using your newly gained lightsource you make your way to the fuse box in your kitchen, now being able to easily navigate your way through the dark you give yourself a moment to stop and glare at the corner of your bookshelf that you'd run into earlier.

“Asshole,” you mutter underneath your breath through gritted teeth as you pass it by, as if you’re expecting the sharp piece of oak furniture to respond to you with a mind and voice of it’s own conscience. Though you suppose that’d might be just a little bit creepy considering your current situation.

Opening the fuse box, you shine the glow from your flashlight onto the many circuits housed within, eyes trailing down and scanning each one for the labels of what light they control.

Experimentally switching the one for the living room on, you glance outside your kitchen and into the hallway to check, only to be met with shockingly apparent disappointment as you greet the nothingness of the night that stares right back at you.

Just as a confirmation (and because you're stubborn), you switch a couple more of the circuits on and off repeatedly, disappointment maring your features yet again when they yield no results. “No power at all . . .” You deduce, closing the fuse box’s lid with a begrudging huff.

A deep crackle of thunder booms from the sky outside, startling you as you nearly drop the flashlight in your hands if not for the wrist tie securing it. A few seconds of heaving and checking outside your kitchen's windows— only to see more rain than you could ever possibly need in three lifetimes —causes you to ease up a little.

You feel a chill run down your bare arms, goosebumps rising all over the backs of your legs. The short sleeves and pajama shorts combo you chose to wear tonight probably was not doing much to keep you warm with the raging rain thumping down and the strong winds howling just outside of your apartment.

The sudden sounds of gentle knocking at your door cuts through the silence of your empty apartment, the hairs on your back shooting straight up in surprise. The flashlight in your hand falls and clanks onto the ground, the beam of light switching off on impact.

Cautiously, you make your way over to the door, uneasy as your hands hesitate to lay on the knob. Who else could be up at this late hour?

Your eyes squint through the tiny peephole of your door, zoning in on a familiar head of unruly black hair, donned in a worn out old highschool volleyball hoodie, red and white and matching cat motif logo on the front and back to top it all off. With noticeable bags underneath his eyes matching your own, you can tell that whoever it is has been staying up as late as you have these days.

You can't quite see much or well for that matter through the tiny peephole's space, but he patiently waits outside with an uneasy look on his face, hands shoved into the frayed pockets of his sweater and pacing around anxiously across the small space of your apartment’s door mat.

With your heart rate spiking back down to normal levels, you pick up the dropped flashlight and place it onto your dining table hastily before slowly opening the door to him. Startled, he jumps back a little once he actually sees you in front of him, as if he wasn't expecting you to be awake at this time.

You give him a polite smile, tired eyes lifting with all the glee you can muster up for him.

"Hey, Kuroo. Nice night, isn’t it?”

He chuckles a little at that, bringing his hands out of his pockets when he does, force of habit. You notice the pearly whites of his canines poking out from his lips when he grins. It suits him well.

“Yeah, it is. And you know I told you that it's okay to call me Tetsurou.”

"Right, right. My bad.” You jest, and his smile then melts away slightly, molding itself into a more worried expression that soon dawns his handsome face. “You doing alright?” He asks you worriedly, craning his head aside to check the dark of your apartment.

His voice has a low timber to it, quiet to not disturb the neighbours you presume, but you also like to think it’s to soothe your own jittery nerves. “Heard the entire building's power just got wiped by the storm.” He informs. “Was told by the front desk that it won't be back for another few hours.”

Of course it won't be back for awhile, the electricians can't really do much while the thunderstorm rages outside. You doubt anyone in the building who was asleep by now would even notice there had been a power outage tonight, most people aren't awake at the acceptable hours of 3AM working on their overly procrastinated capstone projects anyways to even care about the torrential rain pouring just outside their windows.

“Can I come inside?” Tetsurou asks you without a second thought on his mind before stopping himself, hurriedly backtracking himself and tripping over his own words whilst making funny hand gestures to explain his intentions.

What was that sign he just made? It might've meant Apple in JSL, his skittishness makes you giggle into your fist. “I mean, if it's okay with you. I know it's late and all, and that you probably want to sleep but I—”

You cut him off with a giggle of your own. “Tetsurou,” you interrupt, his cheeks dusting a light shade of pink in the darkness when you do.

Your laughter. It sounds just like bells to him, akin to the raindrops that hit your windows with a light tinkle each time they fall from the clouds above. Wind chimes in the raging storm that falls around you two and lighting crackles behind him, illuminating your bright face for him. And despite your groggy disposition, he can still make out the tired pleasure you have in chatting with him through your features.

“I don't mind, you can come inside. You must be cold standing out here,” You offer with a lighthearted chuckle. “I know I am and l'm just in the doorway.”

You take him by the hand, his skin is cold and dry, just as you expected from the frigid air as you guide him into your barely lit apartment.

He stumbles a bit through the front door “H— hey!”trying to remove his shoes by the entrance and laying them by the door mat, bringing with him two large blankets tucked securely under his arms you hadn't noticed him carrying in the darkness.

Tetsurou's eyes take a moment to adjust to the darkness, squinting and zoning in on the little stack of books piled up at your desk, the flashlight you were using placed just beside an open notebook.

“You're still trying to work on that assignment?” He asks, setting the blankets down on a chair as you slide into your own, clicking the flashlight on and shining it down on your pages.

Most of what’s written down in the beginning of the pages is legible albeit a bit messily rushed, soon devolving into unintelligible scribbles that he realized must’ve happened once the power went down.

“Yeah, it's due soon.”

“There's a storm outside.” He states matter of factly, chin folded into the crook of his hands as he leans on the backside of the chair. You resist the urge to roll your eyes at the obviousness of the situation.

“And?”

“Just, come here.” You feel his hand reach out into the darkness, standing you up from the table with mild disagreement from you as he reels you into his side. “Relax with me a little, let's go sit on your couch together. I brought blankets for a reason.”

“I can use one while working at the dinner table.”

The frown that tugs at Tetsurou's lips is barely noticeable in the absence of any light, but he whines audibly to let you know his stance on that statement as he squeezes his arm around you a bit tighter. “That sounds uncomfortable, though.”

“It's fine.”

“But isn't it better to huddle together for warmth?” He suggests playfully, “Y’know, no power n’ heat.”

You think his compromise over for a moment, and he senses the hesitation brewing inside your mind because he adds onto his previous offer with a convincing. “I promise it'll be good.”

Lighting flashes outside your window for a split second, followed by the loud seismic boom of thunder that takes you out of your thoughts and causes you to flinch in his hold. Instinctively he jumps in sync, pulling you into a hug as your heavy breathing fills the silence of your apartment.

Seconds tick by on the clock hanging on your wall, as it seems like the heartbeats of both you and Tetsurou meld into one beat. Your heart thrums in your chest in an uneven marimba of beats, loud and reverberating with the near silent ringing that’s paired with it in your ear.

Tetsurou hesitates to say anything for a moment, unease wracking him before he speaks. “Are you . . .” He looks out the window, his voice drawling on low and quiet even though the only two people here are you and him, as if he's about to ask something he shouldn't. “Are you scared of thunder?”

". . . No."

He pauses with what you can only imagine to be an unconvinced look on his face. “That sounds like a yes to me.”

“I'm an adult.” You huff, trying to break out of his hold and back to your pile of due papers. “I don't get scared by thunder like a little kid.” Tetsurou barely catches the “anymore” you mutter underneath your breath over the screech of you pulling out your chair again. His hold on you not only tightens but he drags you to the couch, much to your protests and complaints.

“Y’know, you're not a very good liar,” he grins cheerfully, plopping you down beside him before reaching over you to drape a thick blanket over your shivering body. Were you always this cold?

You try to move your hands to lift the blanket off, to stand up— but it's unusually heavy.

It traps your arms underneath it, feeling like a net he prepared and used to condemn you to the couch with it’s plush softness and cozy knit material. But in a surprisingly nice and caring way.

“Is this blanket weighted?” You ask and he agrees with a hum, draping the other one he bought over himself with a relaxed sigh before shifting his body closer to yours. Heat radiates off of him, seeping into the couch and warming your chilly figure.

“Yeah, I got them on sale luckily. I've found they're really good for rainy nights.” You can't deny that now that you've gotten a taste of what it’s like to be underneath one of these usually pricy blankets and to have this as almost like a barrier from the cold rain and air outside, you're already warmer than you were just a few moments ago.

You wrap the heavy woolen blanket tighter around your body, inhaling the scent it carries with it in it’s fibres. The fabric smells like him. “Thanks, Tetsurou.”

Another crackle of lighting blasts inside your living room through the window, peeking through the gap of your curtains as thunder follows closely in suit. It's louder this time, and seemed to be a lot closer to your apartment than the other ones from before.

Your hands slam over the cups of your ears to shield them from the thunderous booms, they feel weighed down by the heavy blanket as you bury your head into the thick material, closing them as like an extra precaution from the storm outside.

You don't even realize you're shaking until you feel a hand smooth over you back. Tetsurou's.

You can barely make out his voice with your hands blocking your hearing, only the worried asks of “Are you okay?” It's muffled and quiet, and his hand rubs soothing circles into your back as you barely manage to move your head to a nod. More thunder comes and Tetsurou's eyebrows knit together as you frantically switch to shaking your head no, feeling it drop further into the blanket in shame. Your heart falling out of your ribcage in sync with it as the storm outside won’t stop taunting your shivering self.

The small raindrops that crash against your window feel like they're right up against your ears, the bright lighting that races across the sky's edge stings your eyes to look at it, even if you shut them as tight as can be. And that god awful thunder, the thunder that makes you feel like your dingy apartment might crumble underneath it's roar, crashing to the floors below as the trees outside cave in on you from above.

“This is so embarrassing . . .” Tetsurou hears you mutter as you lift your head off of your lap to face him, fear written all over your features and you look like you're about to cry in the presence of your next-door neighbour.

Your voice cracks, and you think you'd prefer if the floor underneath you did fall through after all. “I just really hate storms . . .”

A weak chuckle escapes your lips as you wipe away the tears that prick at the corners of your eyes, attempting to lighten up the situation for Tetsurou. You don't want to make him feel uncomfortable by crying in front of him when you were the one who invited him in, so you laugh off the uncomfortable twinge in your chest for his sake.

“I guess I really am like a little kid,” You joke lightly, a whine trailing off the tail end of your sentence. “Look at me, afeaid of thunder and lighting like I'm still four.”

Tetsurou doesn't laugh at your self deprecating jab, and you feel your stomach drop at the suffocating lack of a response.

Would you have preferred if he laughed? No, not really— but it felt awkward to have only silence between the two of you in the heat of the moment. His eyes seem to twinkle in the darkness when he blinks and he wraps an arm around you before pulling you into his chest, you let out an alarmed squeak involuntarily from his actions, and the heartbeat in your chest magnifies to the sound of the thunder that you're so scared of outside.

His own heartbeat is loud too, now that he has you leaning on his chest like this. The wild thumping and beating, is that from you? You feel stupid for getting excited over that possibility, but as you look up from your spot you catch his eyes, tired and still beautiful as both his arms envelope you in a deep hug.

He covers your ears with the palms of his hands, splotches of red blush and heat crawls up the skin of his neck and ears in the darkness, and he leans into the crook of your neck with a ticklish sigh.

“It's okay,” he reassures you quietly, flinching when you snuggle deeper into his chest, the scent of his home shirt being the same as the one on the blanket he brought over but much stronger.

The refreshing smell of clean linen from his laundry detergent sticks to the thin cotton material of his shirt, and you can't stop yourself from blurting out “Did you just do the laundry before coming over?” out of nowhere.

This time it's his turn to laugh nervously. “Yeah . . .” He reveals, his head resting atop yours, taking in the scent of your shampoo. It fills his senses, it's not overpowering or overwhelming at all.

Maybe because it's you.

“I didn't want to smell bad when I came over . . . Is that— is that bad?”

“. . . No,” you decide, a content smile tugging at your lips as you let your head lay on his chest. “It’s not.”

Suddenly the loud sounds of the storm that had you once afraid and cowering in fear seem to become drowned out from Tetsurou's cupped hands over your ears, but you know they're just as strong now than they were earlier— and perhaps even stronger as the night drags on. But in Tetsurou's embrace, underneath the blankets he brought from home that smell just like him, wrapped up in his arms and snuggled up against his chest; you think you'll be okay.

“Please stay with me,” you eke out without thinking, and a part of you hopes he didn't hear because you're worried you'll ruin the tranquility of whatever you have now— reminding you that this moment is only temporary.

That all will be over by tomorrow morning when the technicians come to fix the apartment's power outage at 6AM, and you'll both go back to treating each other as just kindly neighbours like before.

That you'll pretend you never snuggled together when you had no power and no heat, and you never said the words you're about to say to him now.

"Please, don't go . . .”

To your surprise, a soft kiss is pressed to the crown of your forehead as Tetsurou's wild hair tickles at your skin, the erratic beat of his heart thumping wildly in your eardrums. He looks just as nervous as you do, lips suddenly dry and throat closed up when he tries to speak.

After a disgruntled groan, the two of you laugh as once more does lightning flash across the sky, with thunder coming in it's place moments later, hand in hand as always. Just as you expected.

But this time you're not scared, not when he next whispers out the words you've longed to hear since you were a little kid during these storms, not when he cuddles you closer to his chest and brings his lips close to yours before tilting your chin up and capturing you in the sweetest of kisses, his lips perfectly molding to fit yours as he mutters in between the short breaths of air with a smile that rivals the brightness of the lighting you were so scared to gaze into from outside the windows.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he assures you, and you believe him wholeheartedly. “Don't worry.”

Raindrops continue to fall from outside, thunder and lightning work as a terrifying duo in sync as they torment the nature. But it all seems significantly less scary now.

Underneath the onslaught of rain, with the continuous lightning and thunder you've feared since childhood, and the annoying lack of power— you found something able to strike against even the worst of thunderstorms. Something much better to indulge your night in than your assignments that lay long forgotten beside your flashlight on the dining table far away from you and Tetsurou on the couch, warm underneath the blankets together bundled up to escape the cold air.

You found Tetsurou Kuroo.

reblogs ++ comments are greatly appreciated !! ꒰ ˆ ᗜ ˆ ˶ ꒱

© property of mikiruie 2024. all rights reserved.

[yearnshelf]

#. IT'S NAP TIME !

featuring 𝗯𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝗹���𝗰𝗸 𝘅 𝗳𝗲𝗺!𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿 ıllı. michael kaiser, itoshi sae, nagi seishiro, itoshi rin, shidou ryusei, otoya eita

fluff. taking a nap with your boyfriend it's the most comforting thing, at least most of the time.

MICHAEL KAISER

Your boyfriend takes his one-hour nap during the day, it doesn’t matter if it’s early in the morning or late in the evening—he always carves out that extra time to recharge, unless you’re there.

As he lies sprawled across the bed, his shirt slightly crumpled and hair tousled, you can’t help but climb on top of him. Wrapping your arms around him, you press gentle kisses against his cheek, but he doesn’t stir, not even a twitch. Instead, he groans faintly, burying his face deeper into the pillow, murmuring, “Liebling, nap with me or leave me for an hour. Just one hour…”

But you know better. You know this isn’t just a regular nap. Tomorrow, he’s flying to Japan for this big football project, and the thought of being apart is breaking your heart to pieces. You don’t want to leave him, not even for a second.

Tenderly, you brush the soft strands of his blond bangs away from his face, taking in the calm expression he rarely lets the world see. This time, instead of kissing his cheek, you lean down and lightly bite the soft skin, hoping for some reaction.

“Mmm… what are you doing?” he grumbles, his voice muffled. He shifts slightly, his arm lazily draping over your waist to pull you closer. “Trouble, aren’t you? Just let me sleep…”

You giggle softly, resting your head on his chest your fingers idly tracing the lines of his tattoo. His heartbeat, steady and calm, feels like home. Even if he’s leaving soon, for now, this moment is yours.

ITOSHI SAE

The man lying under your bed sheets values a healthy lifestyle and an impeccable sleep schedule. But you? You value getting your fair share of sleep, even if it’s only occasional. Every time you decide to indulge in a well-earned nap, he somehow finds a way to kick you out of the bed—your bed. He came to your apartment seeking peace and quiet, but he was sorely mistaken. Not under your roof.

Eyes still heavy with sleep, your grip tightens around the pillow in your hands. It’s a weapon of choice because surely a good boyfriend deserves some form of reward now and then. Whether that reward comes in the form of suffocating love or a plush pillow smacking his face depends on the moment.

So you do what any rational person would. You throw the pillow at his head.

It sails through the air, hitting its mark with a satisfying thwack. Sae groans, rubbing his head as he pulls the pillow away. He slowly blinks his eyes open, only to find you standing at the doorway and if looks could kill, he would be six feet under.

He doesn’t say a word. Instead, what does he do? Exactly what he always does, he lifts the blanket in silent invitation—a silent peace offering. How thoughtful. He could have done that a few minutes ago.

You sigh, giving in because, well, of course you do. But not before marching over, slapping his arm for good measure, and planting a quick peck on his lips. It’s the least you can do for a man who’s equally deserving of your love and your wrath.

He doesn’t complain, he never does when you settle in beside him.

NAGI SEISHIRO

Sleeping Beauty, if someone asks you about Disney classics or to describe your boyfriend this is exactly what you will say. You fell asleep at the same time but you woke up because this same princess decided he wanted the whole duvet for himself and you just stared at him and it wasn't weird at all to stare at your boyfriend, not when he's so cute with slightly puffy cheeks and soft lips... Will he wake up if you kiss him?

You hovered your face above Nagi's, just like the Prince did in Sleeping Beauty. Gently cupping his face, you leaned down to kiss him. Seconds passed, and he still wasn’t waking up. Just as you were about to back away, his hands moved, softly holding yours and pulling you closer again.

That’s when you couldn’t breathe anymore. You placed your hands on his chest, breaking off the kiss. What a hassle—he just wanted to take a nap. Now, though, the taste of your lips lingered on his, and it wasn’t enough. He wanted more. Your princess was quickly turning into a beast, especially when you stole the blanket and curled up with it, pretending you hadn’t just woken him up. His gaze shifted to you before he hugged you from behind trapping you in his warmth.

"Whatever," he muttered. He’d deal with this later.

ITOSHI RIN

Your favorite thing to do when coming over to the Itoshi’s household was defiantly laying in your boyfriend’s bed to take a nap after school, while his favorite thing was to sit on his desk playing horror video games or watching horror movies. The amount of time you have heard “Here’s Johnny!” when he yet again rewatched The Shining, while you tried to rest and most importantly trying to convince him to join you under the warm blanket.

Tossing and turning, craving his attention, but Rin stayed focused on the horror movie, ignoring your pleas. Frustrated, you sat up and declared, “I’m calling my mom to pick me up!” At first, he didn’t take you seriously, but as you dialed and started speaking, his body tensed.

“Mom, you’re coming to pick me up, right?” you said into the phone. “Yeah, everything’s fine. I just need to finish some homework. Okay, I’ll wait outside in ten minutes.”

That was all it took. Rin abandoned the movie, snatching the phone from your hand before pulling you into a tight embrace. The two of you tumbled back onto the mattress. Smiling, you ran your fingers through his hair, feeling him relax against you. You always knew how to get his attention—just a little acting and a few white lies did the trick.

“Here’s Rin,” you teased, whispering into his ear as his breathing softened. “Shut up…” he mumbled, still sprawled on top of you. You smiled, snuggling him like a teddy bear, drifting off together. After-school naps like this were the best.

SHIDOU RYUSEI

How naive of you to think you're going to sleep at all when he's here asking you all sorts of things while rummaging through your wardrobe or spinning in your chair talking about velociraptors… As much as you love dinosaurs you would love to have some decent rest, but no your boyfriend decided that this is the right time to tell you about the evolution of the planet, the Big Bang and how these cute reptiles are gone. You feel the bed dip and he is next to you, poking you with his finger like a little kid beginning for some candy.

“Ryu, stop it or I will cause another Big Bang and you will be the first one to disappear,” he stopped and then he was on top of you crushing you with his weight. “Not If we die together~”

With all your strength, you try to shove him off. After a brief struggle, he tumbles onto the floor, smirking when he notices your exhaustion—dark circles under your eyes and eyelids heavy. Finally realizing you need rest, he gets up and gently tucks you into bed. But of course, he’s not done yet. Sliding beside you, he wraps his arms around you in a tight hug. Too tired to resist, you let him stay as he resumes his velociraptor monologue.

“And the way they eat people is cute—” he pauses, glancing at your sleeping face. “But you’re cuter~” he whispers, pressing a kiss to your forehead before dozing off beside you.

OTOYA EITA

Does he really think he can just leave out of the blue because he has “more important” things to do? Yeah, you definitely haven't heard that one before. However, Otoya Eita is nobody new in your life, a boy you've been seeing for a while, and even though you know what he's like, he's been acting like you're in a relationship for the past two months when you're not. You're either officially together or not, right?

He’s bold, you’ll give him that—trying to wriggle his way out when you cuddled on the couch taking a nice and peaceful nap. Now, with nowhere left to run, he’s backed into a corner. You’re staring at him like he’s the lowest on the food chain, and honestly, he finds it kind of hot. Good thing he had gum earlier—never know when a kiss might happen or when a girl might get so mad she leaves you speechless.  

“Amaterasu,” he mutters, locking eyes with you, and you immediately facepalm. “Eita, we talked about this. I’m immune to ninjutsu—you know what, forget it.”  

He blinks, stunned. Your surrender throws him off. You? Giving up? That’s never happened. So why does he suddenly feel like apologizing and staying over?  

“If you wanna leave, just go,” you say, turning away. But instead of moving toward the door, he hesitates. “If I stay,” he finally asks, voice softer now, “Can I sleep between your legs?”  

The things you do for him. Well, you like him, so you’ll try to work it out. Besides, he’s been faithful, most of the time. That’s gotta be worth something. 

©2024 kaiser1ns do not copy, repost or modify my work.

[yearnshelf]

when the music industry’s secret weapon becomes its biggest headache. artists call him the boy savior — but to a manager, he’s their biggest nightmare. she needs a job.

TRACK FIVE: TRUST FALLS includes: language, crude humor, ‘yn’, mid life crisis vibes in the studio: find your wings by tyler the creator

SERIES MASTERLIST ♪ PREV. ♪ NEXT.

a/n I miss having anons come say hi & tell me what ur current fav songs are or ask me a question I’m the most bored I’ve ever been

that one friend who always talking about sandwhitches. we talk about you everyday. thank you for everything. fly high 🕊️

where is the plot, you ask? I was too busy laying down the bricks go wait on that next chapter <3

SORRY! the taglist is 50/50, and full. ♡

@kawoala @vertejay @kaged-kitty @marvellousdaisy @starmapz @potteraep @kameyyy @n1vi @4crewz @heiejdhdh @44ina @in-the-marina-trench @kissunday @sirhamburrger @chososcamgirl @nishiriks @miffiies @perkypeony @rwura @harryzcherry @gloopgoop @tojirin @mochipls @jeonwiixard @sh0ot1ngst4r @enchantingkitty @elliescodex @moonchhu @hqnge @k4ss11333 @levislug @cr4yolaas @hellokittyish @sleepiibunniiii @jayathelostdragon @pinksdump @laaalaaaloooppppsiiieeeee @renardiererin @solaqes @l-ilysm @yooiimiya @tlissablr @your-mum3000 @anqelkoz @starsryi @asuritam @my-starlights @norikuna @mitsuyasluvr @kisakunt

[yearnshelf]

❛ love me like how only you do. ❜

synopsis : 　 through every universe, every cycle of rebirth, he will always find you. in which kazuha loves all versions of you; in every timeline, every universe, every breath or non-breath he takes. 　 ╱ 　 word count : 　 1.7k

characters : 　 kazuha x gn!reader

categories : 　 fluff. mild angst. yearning. royalty au. country x city trope. hospital au. modern au. apocalypse & post-apocalypse aus. idol au. inanimate object / nature au?? lot's of aus. 8 + 1 fic.

warnings : 　rusty writing (it's been a hot minute my bad-). brief major character deaths. mention of blood / injury / violence / drowning. illness in characters + family members. fire. zombies. mentions / vague descriptions of death in general.

dedicated to : 　 @yuomizuu, from your stellaronhvnter secret santa :3c when i saw kazuha on your list, i jumped for joy; he’s one of my top genshin characters & im so happy to have an excuse to write for him! // playlist i was listening to while writing // art by @.mayu_mey on twt

In one universe, Kazuha bumps into you on the street. 

Bundles of scrolls and parchment spill from your arms, delicate writing muddied with dirt as the commotion on the street barely comes to a halt. Onlookers scowl and grumble, moving past without a second thought as you scramble to collect your things from the footpath, movements hastened by the spear-tips aiming your way. 

Cape a deep crimson with delicate fur trim, the Kaedehara family crest is embroidered on the back in gold thread. Kazuha always thought it was unnecessary to flaunt his status, preferring respect of the family name over awe of his wealth. But being a gift from a dear friend, he wears it more often than not. In cases like these, he wishes he hadn’t. Your eyes catch the glint of his garments, and you freeze, petrified.  

Lowering to a crouch, Kazuha waves away his guards with dimmissive hand, gloved hands working to collect fallen sheets. 

“Are you alright?” he asks, voice kind and with a smile. He holds out a scroll for you to take back. Your fingers brush his. 

“Yes…” you mutter back, somewhat sheepish. You quickly rise to your feet and offer him a bow. “My apologies, Your Highness.” 

“No need for it.” 

He offers to walk you to your destination. You decline. He insists. The two of you both make it to the library in quick succession, the others on the road making way the minute the red of his cape is seen. 

“This is quite unnecessary, Your Highness.” Kazuha looks over at you. You smile when he meets your eyes. “It was I who bumped into you. There was no need to escort me back.”

“Ah, but I wanted to.” 

It’s when you’re inside, the door closed behind you, that Kazuha stops to stare at where you’d once stood. His cheeks are rosy with warmth.  

“Are you alright, Your Highness?” one of the guards prods, hesitant. “You seem a bit… flushed.” 

“I’m more than alright.” 

The kingdom falls before he can see you again. 

Flames engulf houses and shops; fire starved and ravenous, it becomes a glutton as it licks up the side of the library. His horse whinnies and backs away when the heat gets to be too much, but Kazuha can’t seem to pull himself away from the sight. He needs to leave. He needs to leave. Run. Run. Run. Run—

Some part of him hopes you made it out unscathed, heart heavy as the shouts of enemy troops chase after him. You would’ve liked the palace archives, he thinks, salt trailing down ash-stained cheeks as the ruins disappear in the distance. 

—

In one universe, you’ve just moved from the city to the countryside. 

As your new neighbour, Kazuha took it upon himself to welcome you. The rest of the area had heard about your reasonings: a relative of yours who owned the house you’d be staying in has fallen ill. You’re here to keep things in order while they receive treatment. 

Basket full of fresh fruit from his own farm, he stands outside your door with a nervous frown. His heart beats erratically in his chest, pulse ricocheting off the bones of his ribs. It’s never like him to be so jittery when greeting others. Readjusting his grip, Kazuha sucks in a breath and knocks. 

You shout back, “Just a sec!” 

There’s a brief moment where Kazuha debates leaving, dropping the basket and running. He digs his heels into the ground. The door opens with a click. You smile and— 

Oh. 

He’s been here before, hasn't he? 

Cheeks turning a soft pink, he grins back, holding out the basket. 

“A little welcome gift,” he says, “from your new neighbour.” 

You take the basket from him; your fingers don’t touch his. Is it weird that he wishes they did? Kazuha comes back the next day, handing you a bunch of mail and a package. You invite him to stay this time. 

Kazuha swears he’s seen you before, that you moving wasn’t a coincidence judging by the butterflies that eat at his stomach lining. Whatever it is, you don’t remember him like how he thinks of you. 

You return to the city months later, leaving the confession on the tip of his tongue. 

—

In one universe, you are the wind that greets him every morning. 

The hospital room is stuffy, void of colour except for the stack of “Get well soon!” cards and deflating balloons shoved by his bedside. He misses the farm, he decides, the vast openness of the trees and fields. The smell of medicine had stung his nose at first; now it’s barely there. Kazuha stares out at the sunrise, smiling to himself when a familiar breeze slips through the crack of his window. Bathed in gold with the sun speckled in his hair, he strains an arm and grasps onto a well-loved notepad and pen. 

“One day,” he murmurs, voice airy as he jots down the date, “I’ll be out there too.” 

—

In one universe, you’re a birdhouse and he’s the bird. 

The seeds are kept well stocked; the shelter you provide is always dry. You both get swept away in a windstorm. 

—

In one universe, he is a star. 

Rubble and debris from what were once towering builds block any type of path you may have been able to venture. Despite the lack of them, the stench of walking death still permeates the air.  

“Shouldn’t have taken that shortcut,” you mumble, grunting when your foot catches on another root. 

The trees grow thicker and you swear you’ve passed this part of the woods already. You grumble a string of profanities, plopping down to the forest floor and leaning against the bark. You look up. 

“You’re here at least.” The words are soft, much too gentle for the atmosphere. Kazuha doesn’t respond. Can’t respond. “You’d scold me for scavenging this late. I know it.” 

The star grows brighter, as if laughing. 

— 

In one universe, Kazuha’s flesh can be tasted on your tongue. 

Tied up in the corner, your arms pinned behind your back, he sits about two metres away in front of you on a broken crate. The gun lays loaded in his lap. Eyes closed with his head down, fingers resting on the cool metal, Kazuha’s lips stretch into a thin line. 

“It’s not right,” he mutters, mainly to himself as you thrash in the corner, desperate to reach him. “It’s not my right to rob you of life.” 

You snarl in response. Eyes bloodshot and crazed, he wonders if you can still understand him. Would you plead for him to shoot you? Would you beg to be spared? Could he bear to do either? He’s going to be sick. 

“It’s not right,” he repeats, shaky hands curling in his lap. “It’s you and me. We haven’t come all this way just to end.” 

The world has taken enough from him. Kazuha refuses to let it take you too; not without him.  

He stands in front of you. The gun lays off to the side. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice screams at him not to fold. They wouldn’t want this, it wails, clawing at the walls of his skull. Another tells him, Do it. And so Kazuha undoes your binds, kisses you, smiles tearfully when your nails claw into his skin. Blood runs down his back, stains his tattered clothing. He hugs you. Your jaws clamp down on the junction of his neck and shoulder. His nose brushes against your jaw. 

“It’s ok,” he whispers to ears that cannot hear reason, hold tightening, “we’ll be ok.” 

—

In one universe, you two never meet. Not face-to-face at least. 

Kazuha smiles at the camera, holding up a peace-sign, before the view switches to another member on stage. The clip goes viral very shortly after its creation. You come across it one day. 

“An idol, huh…” you mutter. 

 You scroll away. 

— 

In one universe, he’s stuck behind a screen, a watcher to your world as you go through the motions of life. 

Fate isn’t his, but he can’t seem to mind. When his splash art first coloured your screen, when he first witnessed that giddy look in your eyes, Kazuha knew he was smitten. 

Even if you ult at the wrong times, run out of stamina in the middle of climbing, skip dialogue, Kazuha is there beside you. For every beginning, end, every plotline in between, he’s a staple of your team. 

One day, you stop logging in. It was gradual at first; daily tasks, some resin here and there, you’d skip a day then come back the next. A day turned into two. Then three. A week. A month. Kazuha still waits. It’s funny how his world comes to a standstill when you do. He hopes you’re doing well. 

—

In one universe, he is a leaf and you are a river cutting through the forest. 

He drowns in your embrace, waterlogged and swept away as you carry him down stream. If he had a conscience, Kazuha would do it again. 

—

In this universe, it’s finally Kazuha and you. (There is no need to say he loves you when his name is already beside yours.)

Kazuha watches as you pack up your things. He stands from his spot next to you, bag slung over his shoulder as he waits. Other students are already leaving the lecture hall, milling about as he admires you from this short distance. 

In this universe, it’s been Kazuha and you since birth. Friends since forever, it surprised no one when both of you confessed. It would be nice if every universe were like this. 

“You’re staring.” 

He blinks, hand finding yours automatically. You squeeze back. 

“It’s hard not to when you look like that,” he teases back. 

“C’mon, the winter festival is starting soon.” You roll your eyes. 

Foot catching on the chair, Kazuha steadies you before your books can fall out of your hands, giggling when you’re quick to apologize. 

“I had a weird dream last night,” he blurts out once you’re back to standing. 

“About me falling?” 

“More than that.” He traces your skin with his thumb, lost in thought before speaking again. “I’ll walk you back to your dorm. Drop off your stuff and all.” 

“Nah, I can just meet up with you.” 

Would it be nice if every universe were like this? That’s silly, he thinks with a smile. No world could make me love you less. 

“I insist.” 

notes : 　inspired by multiverse concepts, including “everything, everywhere, all at once,” arcane, the "do you think we're together in every universe?" trend, and this one poem i read that i can’t remember. this ended up being shorter than i thought it would be, but there are a lot of parallels between scenes and such so i hope those were caught! apologies if the prose doesn't flow too well TwT

[yearnshelf]

like a fever, i ache for you.

how intensely the blue lock men yearn for you. featuring: itoshi rin, itoshi sae, nagi seishiro, mikage reo, michael kaiser 𝜗𝜚 content: suggestive

note. drove myself insane while writing this actually 🧍🏻‍♀️WHEN WILL IT BE MY TURN

itoshi rin sees you in every daydream.

every time rin closes his eyes, you’re there— it’s as if the image of you is permanently burned into the space behind his eyelids, like a never ending dream. (yet, he never wants to wake up from it.) the mere sight of you makes his heart burn and his head spin, and that desperate feeling of wanting you bleeds into his fingertips that makes him reach for you in his sleep. you trap him in his own mind. it feels as if you consume his every thought and occupy the space of every moment he’s awake. you’re a distraction, but one he can’t seem to get enough of.

when he blinks, you’re there, and everything blurs together. he starts to lose sense of where you end and he begins— you’ve become a part of him.

the concept of you even begins to seep into his passions, into his goals. rin thinks of you when he’s on the field, and he can’t deny the rush of adrenaline that shoots through his body at the thought of you cheering for him. he’s hooked to the feeling, he needs more. the thought that you’re only thinking of him too at that exact moment— watching him, holding his dreams close to your heart— that you’re both thinking of each other. connected. it’s a dream that drives him to try even harder.

because you’re not just a distraction anymore; you’ve become his sole focus.

during his next game, he plays with the image of you patiently waiting for him at the entrance of the tunnel. so when he catches his breath after a hard match, his body on the brink of collapsing and covered in sweat, it’s not the sweet taste of victory that revives him. it’s not the cheers of the crowd, praises of his name falling from their lips, that brings him back to life. no— it’s the thought of you. close and real, hand pressed against his chest as you lean in, with your warm skin pressing against his own as you whisper into his ear, “i knew you could do it.”

he knows he'll dream of that feeling from now on too, of your breath against his ear. he can’t escape you— but he doesn’t think he’ll ever want to.

itoshi sae searches for you in the crowd.

without fail, sae’s eyes will always gravitate towards you— even in the chaos of the stadium, even when you think you’re lost in the blur of the people surrounding you. his eyes always seem to find yours. when he finally catches sight of you in his jersey, it’s hard to miss the way his gaze sharpens with intensity, his eyes darkening in a way you’ve never seen before. it’s electric; the only word that could describe the feeling he gets when he sees that you’re staring back at him with the same intensity.

something about you— the way you proudly wear his jersey, and the look of pride that swims in your eyes as you look at him— awakens something deep in him.

sae feels a satisfaction he's never quite felt before you. it’s a possessive and all-consuming feeling. like his ego is inflated to its limits and makes him uncharacteristically greedy for you. his thoughts become filled with the need to become the center of your world, to stake some sort of claim on you so no one else can. (he wants his teammates to see what he comes home to every night.) this feeling that makes him want to throw away all rationale, and before he realizes it, it's this feeling that has him walking over to you before the match even begins.

he doesn't care for the alarmed look on your face as he rips your (his) ring off your finger. around the two of you, shocked gasps fill the stadium, as he loops your ring into his necklace. but they become lost in the background, and his focus is on you. "look at me," and when he brings his necklace up to his lips, your ring now dangling by the string, his eyes never leave yours. there’s an almost dangerous edge to it now— his eyes gleaming possessively at you.

he wants you to think of this moment, to embed it in your thoughts, and crave for him the same way he craves for you.

nagi seishiro can't stop staring at your lips.

light pink lip gloss looks the best on you. it’s a thought that clouds nagi’s mind every time he sees them. the way its glossiness catches the light, making the soft pink of your lips stand out and give it a subtle, irresistible fullness. they’re so plump, inviting, that it becomes dangerously intoxicating. (it must be on purpose, he often thinks, because you smile every time you're applying it on.) he doesn’t care if you notice the fact that he’s unable to fight the urge when his eyes flicker towards them— like it’s impossible to tear his eyes away from them— he wants you to notice.

they’re just so alluring, yet troubling, the way it gets his heart pumping in excitement.

the jealous part of him wants to be the only one to see you like this. because there’s just something about the way you react to him, something about the look in your eyes when you catch on to his wandering gaze. he’s entirely drawn to the way your breath hitches just a little when his eyes flick down to your lips, and then back to your eyes. and the way the corner of your lips pulls into a little smirk at this, eyes focused on his, as your tongue teasingly drags across the gloss to get a taste. his mind becomes overcome with thoughts of you— what would they taste like? would it be something fruity, like strawberry? or maybe something even sweeter, like birthday cake?

but you never give him the satisfaction of knowing, and it pulls him in even deeper. you push away from him, every time, and it’s maddening. it’s always with the same sweet smile and playful glint in your eyes, that you tell him, “it was nice talking to you.” then you’re turning around, leaving him behind.

nagi’s left wondering what it would be like, to see if that sweetness on your lips tastes as inviting as it looks.

mikage reo thinks of you in every song.

with every beat, every lyric, with every tune that floods reo’s ears— there you are, vivid in his mind, as if you were woven deep into the addicting melody. it’s as if the lyrics were written with you in mind, and he’s forever stuck thinking of you. his heart burns for you in the songs that you send, and he clings to every playlist you share. he imagines you in these lovesick songs— having you in his arms, intertwining his fingers with yours as you dance slowly to the tune— like his mind is desperately trying to tell him something he’s still too afraid to say out loud. it’s a silent confession, words he can never bring himself to say out loud, spilling from the speakers instead.

he plays the same song on repeat; he wants to keep hearing your name in the lyrics, and to feel the ghost of your presence as if you’re right there with him.

but as silent as his affections are, reo doesn’t want his desperate longing to be one-sided. he wants to worm his way into your every thought, invade your mind, the same exact way you had done with his. he wants you to see flashes of him when you hear a familiar tune, to smile to yourself whenever you realize it’s his favorite song playing in the background of a random store.

so reo pours his heart into a playlist for you. "these songs remind me of you," and to him, it’s enough. he hopes you can hear everything he feels in the space between the lyrics, to read between the lines of the words as they dance across your screen. every song is a dedication to his love for you. to him, it’s a love letter he can never bring himself to write but can’t help and send. he doesn’t want to speak it out loud— this playlist, with a strange mix of soft longing and quiet desire, does the work for him.

it’s a playlist of his soul’s quietest confessions, and he hopes you can hear how much his heart longs for you.

michael kaiser is haunted by thoughts of your touch.

kaiser doesn’t know when it started— the obsession, the craving for you, the fervent need to feel your skin on his. maybe it was when your fingertips grazed his hand as you passed him a water bottle, lasting for a second at most, but sending sparks flying across his skin where you touched. or maybe it was when you put your hand against his back, palms pressed firmly into the planes of his muscles, as you guided him out of the way (because he was blocking you, but he chooses to ignore that detail.) you’re his manager; you’re simply doing your job.

but he’s started to find himself stuck in the fantasy of your touch— imagining the way your fingers would trace over his tattoos, or having them run through his hair as you brush it out of his face.

and his breath always catches in his throat as he imagines the sensation, having to swallow at how dry and constricted his throat becomes. he thinks of the warmth of your hands, the way your fingers would subtly dance on his skin, and he shivers. he imagines that you wouldn’t rush—no, you’d take it slow. you would let it linger, and maybe he would press his hands over yours to trap it there. just to savor the feeling.

his fantasies of you could never compare to the real thing, though, he realizes one day.

he’s sat on the bench in front of you, tense with heightened sensitivity. the surface of his skin feels like it's on flames from your words, “your tattoos are so pretty,” and from the way your index finger trace over the inked vines that wrap around his arms. his stomach starts to form tight coils as your fingers travel up and up— at the feeling of your thumbs grazing his jaw as you brush his hair out of the way to look at the blue rose — and he’s sucking in a harsh breath as he tries to keep himself grounded. to keep himself from losing his mind. and when you pull away, he can't ignore the emptiness the washes over him.

his heart is greedy and insatiable; he's never satisfied. now that he’s gotten a taste of what it feels like, he finds himself wanting even more of you.

© rindreamery, 2024

[yearnshelf]

it's just instinct, all i want is you.

how long it takes for the blue lock men to realize you’re the one. featuring: itoshi rin, itoshi sae, nagi seishiro, michael kaiser, oliver aiku 𝜗𝜚 content: fluff, suggestive

note. desperate and yearning hcs next??? who knows

it takes itoshi rin 6 months.

rin likes to think that he’s slow and deliberate with his relationships— that he’s not the type to have such decisive thoughts about someone so early on. he’s spent years building up a wall to protect his feelings, and he’s not about to let a (potentially fleeting) person ruin what he's worked so hard to maintain. he's only been with you for 6 months, and he has his doubts about whether you would want to stick around. but all it takes is, “i’m so proud of you, rin,” and his world is completely tilted off its axis.

he tries to tell himself that it's nothing; he's been complimented by other people before.

you probably didn't even think much of it when you told him. it’s just a simple phrase, one of many that people say without thinking. but it's different, it's special, when it's coming from you. your words repeat in his head, like some mantra. it's like his senses are overwhelmed by you. he finds himself focusing solely on your voice, the way you look at him with such gentle eyes, the sincerity behind your words— you. it’s scary how much it affects him. it rattles something deep inside of him, and it shakes him to his core.

he doesn't want to hear it from anyone else, he quickly realizes. those praises don't mean much when it's not coming from you. they don't make him feel unstoppable, like he’s on some high that he’ll never be able to get down from. and he's hit with a jarring realization—

“say it again,” he's standing in front of you, ignoring the incessant flashing of cameras that surrounds him and the deafening cheers of the crowd. he's only looking at you.

“i’m so proud of you,” your voice is quiet, but all he can hear is you, “rin.”

—he's fallen for you, much deeper than he thought he would. he’d be damned if he let you slip away.

it takes itoshi sae 1 year and 3 months.

sae had no intention of falling in love with you. needless to say, his affection for you wasn’t some calculated move. the thought of liking you hadn’t even crossed his mind, and he’s not even sure if he’d ever considered you as a friend. you’ve just been around for long enough that he’s stopped questioning it, that he’s grown to tolerate your presence. at least, that’s what he tells himself. he lets you come over when you want, eat all the snacks in his pantry, use his netflix account— to everyone else, you’re basically a couple. before he knows it, you’ve settled into his life the way a familiar song gets stuck in his head without him noticing.

it’s hard to deny the noticeable shift in sae’s behavior whenever he’s around you.

the way the frown on sae’s face vanishes to a more passive state whenever he’s talking to you, and he's much less irritated at the aspect of having to answer your random (but stupid, in his opinion) questions. he’s not aware, but a part of him subconsciously looks forward to it. “would you still love me if i was a worm?” comes another one of your stupid questions, and he answers without thinking.

“yeah.” the expression on his face remains the same, he’s as indifferent as he always is. but his answer takes both of you by surprise. under his cool facade, his mind is scrambling to make sense of his answer, as if he hadn’t expected himself to say such a thing.

you’re flustered, and it’s evident in the way you stumble over your words. a part of you begins to wonder if that was simply a figment of your imagination, like some hallucination from sleep deprivation. “what— huh?”

so he plays it off, he acts as if he meant to say it. “you heard what i said.” he realizes his heart had decided on you longer than he’d ever been aware of.

it takes nagi seishiro 3 months.

nagi’s used to being alone— he’s used to neglecting himself and every aspect of his life because no one is there to tell him not to do so. he’s not used to having someone be a constant in his life, to have someone who isn’t thrown off by his apathetic and lazy attitude. sometimes he wonders if he acts this way to keep people out, and he wonders why you choose to stay despite. but slowly, you color your way into his bleak routine.

at first, it’s subtle. you linger around him, but your presence isn’t demanding for his attention. you’re there, but you let him be.

and then your presence becomes something a little more prominent. he starts to notice the little post-it notes you leave in his locker, and how you remember to sneak in his favorite snacks. or how his pillows start to smell like your shampoo, and the way he becomes used to having you there in his living room as he plays video games. or even the fact that he finds himself waiting by the gate when classes end, and how he doesn’t mind being pushed around by the crowd as he searches for you in the endless sea of students so he could walk with you. so he could be with you.

he starts to feel like he’s truly living, like there’s something to look forward to every day.

when you say, “see you tomorrow,” he deflates at your words. it’s a weird feeling— he feels weird at the thought that he doesn’t like being alone anymore. that he misses you in the way he misses his phone. he feels bored without you there, and a part of him feels so empty when he doesn’t have you beside him.

when he drops you off at home that day, he realizes it feels strange to be alone again— “can you stay with me?”— he needs to be with you.

it takes michael kaiser 7 months.

kaiser lets his ego get in the way of his relationships. he thinks he can have anyone he wants, and that's why he wholeheartedly believes that he's above the idea of yearning for someone. the idea of wanting someone so much that his thoughts would be consumed by them, and only them? it’s unimaginable. he’s used to being admired, worshipped even, by others. he doesn’t need anyone— he doesn’t need you.

so the prick of irritation he feels, when he sees you laughing at another man’s jokes, catches him off-guard.

it shatters his pride, and he tries to ignore the heat that bubbles under his skin. but he can’t ignore the feeling of possessiveness that washes over him at the sight. you’ve always been his— the heated touches, the way you wear his cologne on your skin, the way you linger around him like it’s natural. you're mine, he always thinks to himself, but he never says it out loud. he’s above yearning— but the idea of you being with someone else makes him feel sick. and he’s not about to let another man take you away.

“come with me.” his voice is sharp and demanding, his mere presence filling the space with an unspoken challenge. but before you can speak, kaiser’s gripping your wrist, pulling you into him without another word of explanation. you don’t fight him, you don’t fight the excitement that it brings you. there’s something in his gaze, something so possessive and raw, that makes you follow him wordlessly. you’re mine, the thought echoes in his mind and for the first time in months, he can’t deny the feeling that has been brewing under the surface.

he yearns for you, and he’ll never let anyone strip this feeling away from him.

it takes oliver aiku 4 years and 2 months.

oliver would never deny the fact that he enjoys having you around. but you’re simply his friend— nothing less, and definitely nothing more than that. you’ve been in his life for years now, lingering in his orbit in a way that keeps you both close, but so far. you’re a constant in his life because he doesn’t need to act around you. he never needs to impress you, never needs to win you over with sugary words. you’ve never given him the typical attention he’s used to, the type of attention that he naturally demands. and that bothers him in a way he won’t admit. yet, it’s this disinterest that pulls at him like gravity. it keeps him coming back, keeps him by your side.

but he doesn’t want anything more from you— he doesn’t need it. it’s these words that keeps him from tainting you.

he doesn't like the dangerous and greedy feeling of wanting to have more of you, wanting to see you in ways that no one else has, and that dangerous feeling that makes him want to devote himself to you wholly. and that’s what gets to him. he’s used to being the one in control, the one who dictates the terms.

it's a futile attempt, he realizes. it's always been you who's had the upper hand.

he can no longer deny that he wants you, more than he’s ever wanted anyone. no one else has his heart racing ‘til he can hear his heartbeat in his ears, no one else has him hooked in the way you’ve been stringing him along. and suddenly, all those meaningless flings feel like distractions, like he’s been wasting time when what he really wants is right in front of him.

it’s not about lust, not about the chase—he just wants you. and this time, he’s not about to let fear or pride hold him back.

© rindreamery, 2024

[yearnshelf]

another night where you fight, another night of silence. another night where miya osamu sleeps with his back to you.

the realization that there is not much more you can do to save your relationship clutches at your chest with an iron grip.

the gravity of it makes you whimper. pressing your lips together, you shakily push yourself up to sit blinking back tears while blindly stepping around for your slippers, willing yourself not to sob—not here, not where he can hear. your toes touch the fluff of them, and you hurry to slip them on. you need to get out of here.

as quiet as possible, you leave your boyfriend in your shared bedroom.

you stumble to the couch and kick off your shoes, blindly searching until your fingers catch the lampshade switch. you yank it to provide some light, rattling as it flings back into place.

you pull your knees to your chest and press your forehead against your kneecaps. a numb part of your brain thinks oh, so this is where this was, when you think of the misery that quieted itself, replaced with a numbness that overtook you during the fight you had with him earlier.

the numbness that made your limbs feel like ice when he clicked off the phone call without even hearing you out.

you wanted to tell him so much, but in the face of his blank gaze and dismissive demeanor, you shut off. you have more fight in you, you know that. but tonight you just couldn’t. couldn’t listen to him tell you that he needed more from you—more support, more time, more patience.

you’ve given him that, right? your brain runs with thoughts you can't keep up with. you gave him yourself. you have, for months, for years. you did what you could. you’ve withstood lonely anniversaries, forgotten birthdays, broken promises. you’ve done everything you could. you gave what you could. you gave everything you could.

i want you to come home, you wanted to tell him eatlier tonight. come home. you’re never home. i know you’re busy at work and you’re doing what you love but please, ‘samu. please. 

love me, too.

your body wracks with a sob, the hurt fresh, as if the words that you never got to say wounded your insides instead. you wanted to tell him that, you wanted to beg for it, beg for his time, beg for his attention, beg for him to love you back. but time and time again he just turns and says he’s tired, he doesn't want to hear it, and the moment is gone, and now the fear of knowing that leaving things unsaid will destroy you, will destroy him. will destroy both of you.

you huddle closer into yourself and sob, a sharp sound in your ears making your head pound.

“babe?” you hear through the ringing in your ears, and suddenly warm hands are on your arms. “babe, what’s wrong?” his voice is calm against your turmoil. “are you having a panic attack?”

“’samu, i’m—” you shudder and he leaves for a moment, flitting to the kitchen to grab you some water. 

“drink, please,” he tells you, gently unfurling you to sit. you comply with shaky limbs, taking the water he’d given you in your delicate grip. a few sips are enough to calm you down, but the fear is still there.

he gingerly takes the glass and sets it aside. he kneels in front of you, taking your hands and soothingly rubbing his thumbs against your skin. his fingers are hot, almost like a furnace, but when you realize that he's not, he's fine, your hands are freezing, you resist the urge to pull away as he warms your palm.

when he looks up to smile at you, you see the exhaustion on his face, and, instantly, you hate yourself for it. for this.

"i'm sorry," you blurt out, a fresh wave of tears threatening to spill over.

his hand leaves yours and cups your cheek. "for what, baby?"

“i love you so much, osamu,” you tell him without thinking, voice thick and wet and miserable. you press the palm of the hand he let go of against his cheek, hiccuping when he closes his eyes to lean into your touch. 

“i love you, too,” he says, ready to apologize for the fight, but it's not about that.

not anymore.

you pull away. the confusion and hurt on his face is making everything worse.

“i love you so much,” you tell him, desperately wishing that he could understand. “but i—” you sob, “but, osamu, i can’t anymore.”

osamu presses his lips together, saying nothing. you hear him sniffle, and his fingers come forward to brush at the tears on your cheeks and tuck a lock of hair behind your ear.

“i love you so much,” you confess. “i would do anything for you. and i have, i have for years. i’ve tried my best, but osamu, i’m so tired,” you sob. your voice feels like its giving out but the desperation makes the words claw themselves out of your mouth. “i’m so tired, i'm so tired and i'm so lonely, and—and—and i love you so much, but i have nothing left to give.”

you pull your hands away to hunch over and cry into your palms unable to face him. messily, you wipe at your face and push your hair back. you give him the most apologetic smile you can muster, but you're unable to see his face through your tears. “i’m so sorry i can’t give you more, osamu.”

you hear him sniffle and when you wipe your tears away with the backs of your hands, his eyes are glassy. then he closes his eyes.

the pain that washes over his face is absolutely unbearable. the furrow of his brow and the wrinkle of his chin, the lines by his scowl that you know is him trying his best to keep it together.

when he opens his eyes to look at you, his eyes are no longer glassy. your heart breaks for the pain he refuses to show. “what’s next?”

your smile is sad and wet with tears. “i think you know.” you brush his hair back and cradle his face with your hands. “let’s… let’s do this in the morning, okay?”

he nods, looking away. he licks his lips and shakes his head, and he turns to face you with a furrowed brow and a little more composure despite his watery gaze. but it doesn’t take long before his face crumples and he rushes to hide his face against your legs. his quiet sobs are pained and miserable, his chest shaking as he cries. 

you press your face against his hair and cry with him.

—

the morning greets you kindly, the soft sunlight bathing your room in a sweet glow. it’s early, but you can’t keep sleeping. there’s a lot to pack.

your eyes feel hot and swollen, and bones feel heavy beneath your skin, weighing you down from getting up from the bed. still, you fight. you push yourself up to sit and notice that you’re alone. unsurprising, really; osamu has been leaving earlier and coming home later. onigiri miya needs care, needs nurturing, so it’ll blossom and grow. you need to stop begrudging him for it.

you finish your morning ablutions in the bathroom and head out to the kitchen, but when you open your bedroom door, the smell of food hits your nose like a smack to the face. your stomach twists when you see a familiar broad back—osamu didn’t leave—and your fingers turn cold.

the door slides shut behind you and he turns. “good mornin’,” he says quietly, shutting off the stove.

“good morning,” you say, walking to your kitchenette. when you see the spread on the table, you gape despite yourself. “osamu. what is—what.”

he flushes, sliding a delicious looking steak unto a plate and setting it alongside the other plates—nearly every single plate you own, you note—and your dining table is bursting with food. “cooked breakfast.”

“for how many people?” you ask, incredulous. “i tried t'remember everythin’ you liked,” he said with a sniff, and your heart crinkles at the edges, because that means something.

“thank you,” you whisper, and you quietly take a seat while sets aside the dishware he used. 

when he finishes, he turns to look at you, leaning on the counter. it takes him a while. “when you leave,” he says, “i’m going to try again.”

you stare at him, confused. you say nothing and wait for him to continue.

“i don’t want you to leave,” he says, and he rubs his face in frustration. “but i know i’ve—i know i fucked up. i love you, and i never should’ve hurt you.” he inhales through his nose. “but i did, and i can’t change that.

“but i’m not giving up on you. not on us. you—” he clears his throat, and the dark circles beneath his eyes makes your heart feel tight. “i’ll… if i have to start all over again, i’ll do it,” he whispers, walking closer and taking your chin in his hand, tilting your face up to meet his eyes. “i’ll win you back.”

“osamu,” you whisper, and his face crumples again.

“i love you too much to let you go,” he says, voice breaking as he fights back tears. “and i know that makes me a jerk. but i’m… i love you, so much—so fucking much, and i hate myself for not making you feel that. for hurting you.”

he gets on his knees and tears are streaming down your face. “leave me if you have to,” he says brokenly.

“if you need space, i’ll understand. but please,” he begs. “please don’t give up on me.” 

he does the unthinkable. he curls over and bows, back curved and forehead pressed against the backs of his hands, pressed against the floor.

the horror that overtakes you is beyond words. 

you drop to the floor to pull him upright, not letting him do this. he won’t do this to himself, you won’t let him. not for anyone, not for you. you pull his face against yours and kiss him as hard as you can, crying as you do.

you won't let him do this.

later, you sit on the couch, arms around osamu’s middle as you lie on his chest. the idea that this could be the last time you held him like this made you want to burst into tears again.

“i’ll make it up to you,” he promises, pushing your hair out of your face, gently guiding your chin up. “please, just… give me another chance.”

you look up at him, and your eyes meet.

—

“hey!” atsumu greets warmly as soon as you enter the restaurant, spreading his arms wide to engulf you in a hug. “it’s so good t’see you!“

“hi, ‘tsumu,” you greet, returning the hug. 

he motions for you to sit as he picks up the menu. “know what you want?”

you nod, not even bothering to pick up the menu. “how are you? how’s training?”

“’m good! training’s good. teammates are pretty good, too.”

"yeah? like who?"

atsumu makes a show of looking at the menu. "oh, i don't you know them."

you roll your eyes at his obvious ploy to get you to start talking. “fine. ask me.”

atsumu instantly leans in, conspiratorially covering his mouth with the menu and whispering, “how are you two? it’s been over a month now, right?”

“oi.” you twist your head to smile up at the newcomer. “stop bothering them, ‘tsumu.”

atsumu glares at his twin. “i’m the one who invited ‘em to lunch!”

osamu rolls his eyes and lays down a platter of onigiri in front of you. he snatches the menu and smacks his brother’s wandering hands with it before they get to close. “these are not for you.”

“but that’s a lot!" atsumu whines. "can’t i have any?”

“no,” osamu says resolutely, then turns to you and gives you the softest smile he can muster, pinning the menu by his side and arm.

"i haven't even ordered yet!" atsumu complains.

osamu ignores him. “let me know what you think.”

“okay,” you say with a smile. 

“and let me know if you need to take out anything,” he continues, “i’ll wrap it up for you.” he leans forward and presses a kiss to your temple. “enjoy.”

“thank you, ‘samu,” you tell him before he turns to leave. 

he smiles back at you and heads back behind the bar.

atsumu has evidently forgotten about ordering, because his eyes shuttle back and forth between you two before nodding considerably. “so i take it things are going well?”

“yeah,” you admit, picking up an onigiri. “going really well, actually.”

“you’ve been…” atsumu searches for the word, “is it still called ‘dating’? you broke up. but… entertaining each other…?”

“don’t hurt yourself,” you joke. “but yeah. let’s call it dating. and it’s going well, thanks for asking.” you take a bite of the onigiri.

“does he still have a chance?” atsumu asks, genuine curiosity on his face.

you chew thoughtfully as you look back at osamu, who’s smiling at a customer. you remember that bright morning, when he helped you pack, helped you move into your friend’s apartment. when he cooked all that food, and you found it neatly packed away in a thermal bag that had a handwritten note, reminding you to eat well.

you remember the next day, when he showed up at your friend’s door, holding flowers and inviting you out to get some ice cream. you remember his messages, his calls, his check ins on you, littered across the days, asking you how you are or if you’re eating or if you need any food.

you could call him if you needed any help, if you needed anything at all.

but reality sets in when you think of how one phone call could be a mistake, it stops you from searching his name each time you pick up the phone.

but in your mind, you see his bent form, his begging, his tears. you remember his smiles and his hugs and his ‘see you later’s, his gradually growing list of unbroken promises. you remember the effort, the time he’s putting into you, putting aside for you. you remember how hard he tries for you.

it's like everything is new again.

his eyes catch yours and he gives you a small wave, and you wave back, your stomach fluttering.

it's not new, you think. it's better.

you swallow your food. it's delicious.

“yeah,” you say softly, “he does.”

[yearnshelf]

DO I WANNA KNOW? — ft. suna rintarou.

synopsis ; no matter how many times you try to end it, you both come crawling back every time.

contents ; loosely inspired by the song 'do i wanna know?' post-breakup. angst. lovers to exes to ??? timeskip!suna x gn!reader. wc: 1.4k.

notes ; ik suna being arctic monkeys coded is an overused headcanon but do i wanna know is such a good song. anywayyy enjoy <3

You and Suna weren't together. Not anymore, at least.

There wasn't any fault on either side, nothing dramatic to split you apart. Just two people who weren't suited for a romantic relationship, as you came to bitterly realize. Maybe you could have made it work with some hard work and effort, but it was far easier to call it quits than risk spilling salt in the wound and ending up hating each other for the rest of your lives.

So you left it there, ending the symphony on a high note. You didn't stop to wonder what might have been, or dwell on the sound of music still ringing in your ears. It was over, there were no more heartbeats, no melodies. Only silence sung through your empty apartment.

You kept the breakup casual, agreeing to stay friends afterwards. Once those words fell from your lips, that was when it was set in stone. The line was drawn in the sand, strictly parting your relationship into the platonic category. Boundaries were made, silent promises to keep some distance between you.

But things were never that simple. After having you be his for so long, Suna didn't know how to let go of you just like that. Even the idea of being single felt foreign in his mind, the thought of you pushing away any chance of him falling for someone else. You were in a similar situation, still craving the addictive kind of love that only he could give you, yet reluctant to go back to how things were.

In the end, staying 'friends' was just a way to carefully avoid acknowledging the feelings still lingering in you both. He never stopped loving you, and you never stopped staring at your old pictures, both longing for the other like a missing limb. And just like clockwork, a phantom pain would strike and you would seek each other out again. The events played out the same way, over and over, like you were following a script.

It would go like this: every few nights, at least once a week, your name would flash across his screen. Suna would stare at it for a moment, relishing the sound of the distinct ringtone he set, so he always knew when it was you calling. It was the same contact as when you were together, the only change being the absence of the heart emoji beside your name.

It felt like your misery was aligned, your loneliness in sync, because every night that he was missing you the most, you would always end up calling.

Suna would answer the phone, seconds before it rung out, and pretend he wasn't waiting for the call. He'd entertain your small talk and excuses, whatever feeble reason you'd come up with to justify ringing him late at night, as long as he got the chance to hear your voice again.

Sometimes it was just that: a phone call. Sometimes, it was only a message. Sometimes, when the loneliness was hitting you both harder than you could bear, he would find some way to suggest meeting up.

It was always something simple, something harmless. A late-night run to the convenience store for snacks, or a walk around that park you loved, or just driving around until you were tired enough to fall asleep. And you would always find some excuse, or some reason to say no, but in the end you would always cave.

Suna would be out of his house in minutes, sliding the key into his ignition. He would meet you outside of your apartment, wordlessly opening the door for you to enter the passenger seat. And the seat would already be adjusted to how you like, because there's no one else he lets into his car, but you’d fiddle with the lever at the side anyway. Anything to pretend that at least one of you has moved on enough to be seeing someone new.

As he drives, his hand would stray from the gear shift, crossing to your side of the car, but never quite reaching your thigh. And you would pretend not to notice the halted movement, and pretend not to feel disappointed when he brought both hands to the wheel.

Maybe he'd make a remark about how it was just like old times, and maybe you would laugh and brush it off, but the story always ends the same no matter how he played the game. He was on a losing streak, gambling away his pride every time you called, but his self-control always seemed to loosen once the sun went down.

It was a little pathetic, when he focused on it for too long. It was no wonder his friends kept calling him a loser, when he came crawling back to you, his ex, the second you rang. At the very least, you were as pathetic as he was if you were the one dialing his number, but maybe that was just because you knew he'd pick up. You got everything you needed, a shoulder to cry on, a person to keep you company, all without the hassle of officially having a boyfriend again.

On his weaker nights, he would get sick of waiting around, and be the one to send the first message. You would answer quickly, although not as quickly as he did. The response would always be the same, and it would always go the same way.

Sometimes, during your meet-ups, you would be the one to cut them short, quietly asking Suna to drive you home. He would try not to look disappointed, and you would try not to slam the door as you left.

On your weaker nights, you wouldn't bother with trying to make up an excuse when he invites you to crash at his place instead. He would say to you “My house is closer”, or “We can watch a movie”, or “You always sleep better around someone else, don't you?” and you would defeatedly agree.

He would take you home—his home, not yours, though it used to be both—and you would leave your shoes by the door. You'd set up the blankets on the couch, and he’d bring you a glass of water, and you'd turn the channel to some trashy reality TV show that neither of you paid any attention to.

If you were feeling particularly down, and he was feeling particularly bold, he'd slide his arm around your shoulders to pull you close. It kills him, not knowing if the way you lean into him means anything, or if you're just craving the contact. He doesn't ask, not daring to disturb the unstable peace that you've built between yourselves, lest the whole unspoken arrangement come crashing down.

In the morning, when you wake up with his arms around your waist and one of your hands gripping a fistful of his shirt, you will peel yourself away quietly, and tiptoe away to find your shoes. He will find you right as you're about to leave, sluggishly running a hand through his hair as he mumbles something about staying for breakfast.

Then, after a brief back-and-forth, you will agree that the night was a mistake, that you're better as something closer to friends, and Suna will restrain himself from kissing you goodbye. You both will retreat to your own beds in your own homes, and imagine there is someone laying beside you to warm up the cold sheets.

Suna will shrug his shoulders when the possibility of a blind date is suggested to him by a friend, as though he has any interest in a partner who isn’t you. And you will nod along to your friends when they tell you to delete his number, even though you know in your gut that you never will have the courage to.

You'll ignore his messages for a while, and he'll pretend that means you've started to move on. You will both go about your lives as you always do, day after day, each acting as though you're doing fine on your own, and lying to your friends when they ask if you've cut contact yet.

But neither of you will be surprised when a week later, early in the morning when you should be sleeping, your name lights up on Suna's screen.

do not copy, repost, translate or use my work to train ai. reblogs are appreciated <3

[yearnshelf]

1 | ANYONE BUT YOU .ೃ

summary. as lines get blurred, hearts get flustered, and a scheme ensues, your brother's best friend suddenly seems way more interesting than he used to be.

content/warnings. 5k+ wc (part 1/3) reader has little to no college friends | reader hates kaiser's guts | PROTECTIVE kaiser lol | | pet names (dollface) & a lot of profanity (it's kaiser) | minimal proofread

💭 masterlist | next part

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I can go with you anymore.”

Your ears were ringing.

After the words hung over the line, a heavy silence descended, punctuated only by the dull thud of your heartbeat echoing in your ears. The phone line seemed to distort, and the world beyond reduced to a distant murmur as a disorienting ringing filled your ears. Yet, despite the shock rippling through, you managed to maintain a facade.

“Ah, I see. It’s no problem. See you around!” Your chirped voice made you cringe internally, but it was a better front than sounding like a defeated kid whose mom said no over a piece of candy at a grocery store.

Before he could say anything else, you clicked the end button faster than he could spew some tacky excuse. Throwing your phone to the side, you settled onto your bed, lying on your back, staring at the uninteresting ceiling of your room.

Sure, it was no problem at all— the music festival was just six hours away, and your date had just canceled on you over the phone. It’s no big deal facing your college blockmates without a companion as initially planned, and it’s totally not a problem that you will most likely be a third– hell, a seventh wheel, actually, and have them talk behind your back – speculating about why you're going alone or if you were just making it up that you had someone to bring.

Yes, it’s not a fucking problem at all.

You don’t even like the artist lineup, anyway (maybe you’re mildly interested with one band that’s attending).  You wouldn’t bother if you weren’t just a sophomore still trying to find a group of friends you can call your own. It's embarrassing enough that freshmen even had it better than you. It’s not a race, for sure, but in college– the truth lies blatant that support systems help. A lesson you learned the hardest way.

“Y/N? Are you in there?” Three soft knocks on your door and a muffled voice, surely coming from your older brother, interrupted your pity party.

“Yes. Come in,” you confirmed. The door creaked open, revealing a mop of magenta hair leaning over your door frame.

“There’s food downstairs. We ordered your favorite.”

“We?”

“Kaiser is downstairs.”

Of course, he is. 

Your brother’s best friend must have really taken it to heart when your mom told him he can treat your family as his own. Too deep into his heart, if you could comment. You see him around the house more than you see your parents, and if that wasn’t tiresome enough, he’s literally a damn superstar in your university. Every corner, every room, in halls and library, everyone can’t seem to be over his name like a broken record.

You wouldn’t be this annoyed, hostile even, if said man was just as nice as your brother. But instead, he was far by the most obnoxious, foul-mouthed, arrogant prick you’ve ever known. Alexis should have never kicked some ball with that conceited oaf a decade ago. Life would have been so much better. But no— reality is, the bane of your existence in the form of blonde hair and sharp blue eyes, is in your house’s kitchen, probably gulping down your favorite drinks in the fridge. 

If you can’t seem to have friends, your older brother seems to be goddamn bad at picking his.

“Hey, dollface. Missed me?” Speak of the damn devil and he shall appear.

The first thing you’re met with after coming down is a sight of Michael Kaiser, sitting high and comfortably on one of the counter’s bar stools. Your gaze trails down to his hand where you see a peek of his crown tattoo— and would you look at that? He’s holding a can of your Coke Zero.

“Oh, so that’s why my life was going sideways again,” you feigned a sigh in disappointment, making sure it was loud enough for him to hear, “because you’re back.”

In your unwanted years of knowing this guy, you’ve soon realized that none of your words, no matter how sharp or snarky they get, would ever faze him. Evidence would be how he just openly chuckled at your remark. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I missed you and your smart mouth, too. Don’t worry.”

“Trust me, worry is not in the list of emotions I would ever feel for you.”

“Well, does attraction make it to the list?”

Years ago, perhaps it would have. Not that he needs to know—no chance. Your silly childhood crush on him was your deepest, darkest mistake. You might be overdramatic, but this was Michael Kaiser, and god, you would rather get caught having feelings for anyone but him.

Rolling your eyes at him, you sneer, “You wish.”

“Oh, trust me, I do wish,” he mocks your tone.

“Fuck off.” 

“That won’t get rid of me, I’m afraid,” he shrugs before winking at you. You shook your head in annoyance.

You took the seat across from him and settled. You were about to lean to reach the box of pizza at the other end of the countertop, when Kaiser reached for it first and placed it in front of you.

You turned to look at him, half expecting a smirk or yet another wink from the blonde, but instead, he was preoccupied browsing on his phone as if his body moved on its own to attend to you.

You shrugged off the weird occurrence and turned all attention to the pizza and its heavenly scent sipping through the gaps of its box, just in time for Alexis to take the seat next to his best friend. You drowned the noise of their conversation as they started talking about last away games.

Your brother and Kaiser had been the most valuable players of your university’s soccer team for as long as you’ve remembered. They were two years older, so by the time you entered university, they were already making big names in the field. Rumors had it that there were already offers lining up at their feet.

If you come to think of it, it wouldn’t be this hard making friends if you would just be vocal about being Alexis Ness’ younger sibling, but the limelight and pretentious popularity it came with was something you wouldn’t wish upon yourself. You wanted real and genuine friends, not people who wanted to be around you because it was a step closer to your brother and his best friend.

Like earlier, Alexis’ voice came reaching your eardrums, snapping you out of your thoughts. After hearing what he had to ask, though, you wished you had a way to physically block out his words.

“Are you not going to get ready for the festival?” your brother asked, meanwhile, his dear friend seemed to take great interest in what you’re about to say as both of them peered over you.

“Not going anymore,” you said, as nonchalant as you could to play pretend.

“Why? You’ve been looking forward to it the whole week.”

Heat crept into your ears and cheeks as embarrassment filled you. Sure, you might not be prancing around being all excited about it, but if your brother was able to notice it, your enthusiasm must have been evident then. God, you felt like an utter fool now.

“It got canceled,” you looked away from them.

Alexis looked at you with furrowed brows, “What do you mean? It’s not–”

“My date canceled on me. I’m not going anymore to save face and not make a fool out of myself. There, happy?” you snapped.

Before you could even feel the guilt from bursting out unprovoked to your brother, you swiftly got up from the stool heading back to your room, leaving the two of them in the kitchen looking concerned contrarily. One with worried eyes glancing at your room hesitantly, and the other one with a clenched jaw and narrowed eyes.

It seemed everyone was testing your patience today, as for the second time, your ears rang—not from a last-minute cancellation this time, but from the persistent sound of your ringing phone.

Your heavy eyes fluttered open, weighed down by the sleep from your ignoring-the-world nap after the exchange with your supposed date and your brother. Disoriented and groggy, you reached out, fingers fumbling to check the caller deserving of your unrelenting fury.

Kaiser, the screen read, and suddenly, the urge to throw your phone at the nearest wall almost overwhelmed your senses.

But you answered the call anyway, because logic says that he was still your brother’s closest, and sometimes, that warranted a call that might be about him.

“I swear to god this better be important–”

“Get ready,” he interrupted.

“What?”

“Look out your window.”

Groaning, you rose to your feet, moving your drapes aside to see what awaited outside.

Outside your house’s gates, a midnight blue sports car, all too familiar, was parked across the driveway. Its owner leaned lazily over its door, one hand in his pocket while the other held his phone pressed to his ear, looking right back at you with that shit-eating grin.

“What the hell are you on?” you muttered into the phone.

You instantly closed the drapes after meeting eyes with him.

It’s infuriating—He’s infuriating. But damn, does he look good when he smiles like that. And it’s not helping your case that he was clad in loose-fitting denim pants and a black shirt, sufficiently showcasing both his tattoo and his lean yet toned build.

It’s sorcery how he makes simple and ordinary clothing look like it was screaming high-end and luxury. Only he can do that, you admit.

“As I said, get ready,” he repeated over the phone, “We only have less than two hours before your music festival or something starts.”

He’s taking me to it? “Why?”

Only one word in response, yet the two of you understood what you’re pertaining to. Silence filled the line for a moment before you heard a subtle click of his tongue.

“Because you look ugly when you sulk,” and he hung up.

You should be irritated at him hanging up abruptly and calling you ugly, but for some reason you don’t know, it puts a smile on your face. 

The first one today.

Kaiser wishes he had a bigger car— which one would deem ridiculous, given that his car could easily match the price of two or even three minivans.

But if it meant having you sit not so close that your scent infiltrates his senses beyond his sound judgment, he’d gladly trade his lambo for a minivan any day.

You were intoxicating— not akin to the grip of liquor, because it would be inadequate in comparison. But rather intoxicating in the same way as the irresistible magnetism that beckons a madman to its vices.

And he must be really mad because you weren’t even sitting shoulder-to-shoulder close to him. You’re sitting comfortably at the passenger seat, a good distance in between, and yet he acts like a raging teenager who got locked up with his crush in the utility room. It is absolutely embarrassing, even for someone like him.

“Did Alexis ask you to do this?” you suddenly inquired, your gaze fixed on your side of the car.

Thank heavens you broke the silence first, because who knows what ungodly phrases he would come up with in an attempt of small talk with you?

“No. Though I bet he would have taken you himself,” he snorted, of course your brother would, “If our coach weren’t so pissed at him these days.”

Ah, so that explained why you hadn't seen Alexis around the house before hopping into Kaiser's car.

Momentarily, you turned to him. It was so swift that he might have missed it if he wasn’t so hyper aware of your every move in this damn confined space. “Is he in trouble?” you inquired to the blonde, your voice concerned and hesitant.

“Nothing you have to worry about, doll.”

“Stop with the nicknames,” you hissed, attempting to intimidate. 

Unfazed, he countered with a cheeky “Make me,” under his breath. His smirk practically audible, even without you glancing his way.

Silence overtook between the two of you once more. You fixated on the road ahead, noting the nearing destination as the glow of the festival stage lights peeked into view.

It’s your chance— your chance to release the words that have lingered at the edge of your tongue since he urged you to get ready almost an hour ago. You stole a glance at the man driving beside you. His eyes focused on the road, his left hand steady on the steering wheel while his timepiece-adorned hand rested comfortably on the gearshift. In another frame of mind, you might have found yourself lost in the rhythm of his long, slender fingers tapping against it. You snapped out of it before he could point it out.

You stole one last glance before turning away to whisper, “Thank you… Kaiser.”

Instead of saying welcome like a polite person would, your companion would of course, choose to say something as, “You owe me something now.”

Of course, you thought. Mentally rolling your eyes, you ask, resigning to his antics, “What do you want?” 

“Call me by my name.”

“Did you not hear? I said, thank you Kai–”

“The one you used to call me.”

Mikka.

It was a silly nickname you gave him– back when Alexis first brought him home for snacks nearly ten years ago. He and Alexis were eleven, and you were barely nine.

You remembered the blonde kid, all sweaty in his mud-stained clothes, clutching a worn-out ball by his hip, his gaze fixed on you with curiosity. “This is Kaiser,” your brother introduced, but the blonde stranger approached you, extending his hand.

“I’m Michael.”

“That’s… long.”

“What?”

“Your name– it’s long,” you echoed, looking up at him, “can I call you ‘Mikka’?”

“What?” Kaiser’s deep voice sliced through your reminiscence. “You had no problem calling me that before,” he pointed out.

“That’s before you beat up the boy you knew I like,” you scoffed at him, a familiar pettiness clouding your mind.

He chuckled at your retort, seemingly lost in his own memories. “Beat him up on the soccer field, you mean,” he corrected, though he wouldn’t particularly mind if it were an actual fight.

“Same thing.”

“Oh, come on! It was highschool!”

“Your point?” you countered.

“He was a snotface, anyway.” he rationalized.

“He was nice to me!”

“I suggest you rather get a dog instead— if nice is all you need. I heard dogs are fun to be around,” he sneered, “What do you think of pomeranians?”

You brushed off his question, preferring the depths of silence over the hypothetical responsibility of tending to a pup that bore more than a passing resemblance to him, both in appearance and, perhaps, in demeanor.

“I knew agreeing to come here with you was a mistake,” you sighed, exasperation lacing your words.

Surprisingly, Kaiser offered no retort. Taking his silence as a cue for your own, you settled into quietness, hoping for a peaceful remainder of the drive. Minutes drifted by until Kaiser broke the stillness with a whisper loud enough for you to catch.

“He was a slimy jerk,” he began, pausing as if hinting his careful choice of words, “and he was nice to you because he was trying to get into your pants.”

“How did you know?” you asked, meek and shy, fumbling with your fingers in your lap.  Seeking love advice and opinions from none other than the mighty Kaiser seemed absurd, but maybe, wisdom might sometimes fare well with age.

“Trust me when I say I know how boys can be,” he scoffed, a displeased furrow settling in his brows. “He wasn't the gentleman you thought he was.”

“And you? Are you a gentleman?”

Before you could stop your thoughts from escaping your rebellious mouth, the words spilled out like water through a breached dam. The lack of response from him compelled you to chew on your lip and fix your gaze on the road, refusing to spare even a glance his way, despite feeling his stare burning into the side of your face.

Meanwhile, Kaiser was aware he might be staring too long at your side for someone controlling a vehicle, but he couldn't help it. Not when you caught him off guard with a simple question, and especially not when you were trying so hard to avoid looking at him, your discomfort palpable in the air. You looked so cute—it made his mouth twitch.

Staring ahead at the road, he contemplated your question, needing no more than a minute to reach his conclusion.

When a man looks at his best friend's younger sibling in a way he shouldn’t, he’s not deserving of the title “gentleman.”

He was far from it, he concluded. With one last glance thrown your way before bringing the car to a full stop, he muttered in an uncharacteristically soft tone.

“Especially not one, doll.”

“Y/N! Over here!” a familiar voice cut through the cacophony, prompting you to scan the crowd until you finally spotted them.

Relief flooded over you at the sight of a familiar face amidst the crowd. Checking your phone had proven to be a wise decision; otherwise, you might have spent the night searching aimlessly through the vast expanse of the venue.

The venue stretched out before you was a kaleidoscope of sights and sounds that danced upon the senses. Laughter and chatter mingled with applause and the occasional roar of approval as performers graced the stage. 

Everywhere you looked there was movement and so much life. Yet amidst the bustling crowd and pulsating music, one figure occupied your thoughts more than anything else.

Kaiser's towering 6-foot frame loomed behind you, his broad shoulders carving a path of confidence through the crowd. He stood behind you like an immovable rock amidst a rushing river. And if your senses weren't deceiving you, you swore you felt the occasional brush of his hand against the small of your back, gently guiding you forward.

He was so close behind you that his breath on your nape soaked into your skin like ointment— warm to the touch, yet icy on your spine.

“Where's your date?” one of your blockmates inquired after the initial pleasantries were exchanged.

The question lingered, and suddenly, all eyes were on you. Mentally counting heads, you realized you were really on track to be the seventh wheel if you attended without a companion. Speaking of companions— you turned behind you with the intention of introducing Kaiser (not that they didn’t know him already), but your intention faltered when you noticed the scowl on his face.

“I’m the date, if you couldn’t tell,” he interjected. 

From his vantage point, he observed the widening of your eyes at his declaration. Yet, when he didn’t hear any immediate retaliation from you, he flashed you— and everyone else watching— a lopsided smirk. He sensed your blockmates’ curiosity lingering, some perhaps wondering if he was truly dating you. But none of them dared to probe further—maybe because he wasn't exactly the approachable type.

After a few murmurs of ‘oh’ and ‘really’ from your blockmates, they returned their attention to the stage, where the next performer was beginning their pre-performance monologue.

You, on the other hand, look like you were out for his blood from how you’re glaring at him. “Are you out of your mind?” you hissed under your breath, just loud enough for him to hear.

Yes. Perhaps he was. Irrationality had seized him upon hearing the question. After all, he was there with you, visible for all to see. Did they not see him? Did he look like a fucking chair to those people? Common sense must be a luxury these days, given its absence in this situation.

Yet, a small voice of reason within him attempted to intervene, suggesting that the question might have stemmed from genuine curiosity.

As his best friend's younger sibling, seeing the two of you together wasn't an unusual occurrence for those who attend the same university. They likely concluded that your presence with him at the music festival was simply a matter of normal friendship (which it was, but they don’t have to know that, nor does he desire for these extras to reduce it to just that).

“I’m helping you save face like you said earlier,” he tells you, still wearing that annoying smirk.

“How does telling them you’re my date help me save face?” If anything, you'd be hiding on campus after his stunt. You could only hope words won’t travel fast.

“Would you rather I tell them I'm chaperoning you because some jerk canceled on you?”

Your words stalled at the base of your throat, unable to counter his remark. That shut you up, much to your chagrin. He was right.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought,” he quipped, grinning at your silence. “Come closer, there’s a lot of people.”

You huffed in irritation and decided to ignore him behind you, determined to make the most of your experience here. You’d let this slide for now. After all, he was here because of you.

But it wasn’t too long before you realized that ignoring him would be as futile as trying to pluck roses without being pricked by the thorns. You knew very well that this man thrives in getting under people’s skin.

“You should be flattered.”

Genuinely appalled, you ask, “I’m sorry?”

“Accepted.”

If it wasn’t night time and the blaring lights were replaced by the sun, he could have seen the twitch that your eye did at his retort.

At this point, murder is a tempting option. Sure, he’s taller and much bigger in physique terms, but you have the rage for it. Just one more insufferable antic—one more word— from this man and the whole university will be mourning their star player’s demise first thing tomorrow morning. 

You took a deep breath to calm your murderous nerves, “Is that so? What part of telling people— oh wait, our schoolmates who are probably whispering behind our backs— that you’re my date, is flattering to you?”

The asshole had the audacity to shrug, “Calling me yours was.”

“Well then, you should be flattered. Not me.”

“You don’t know how flattered I am to be yours,” he mused.

If you didn’t know any better, his attempt at flirting might have sent warmth to your cheeks. But this was Kaiser— no one can tell when he’s being serious or just being his usual menace self talking shit like he’s employed to do so. Good thing you had better plans than spend it on his guessing games.

Just when you’re about to berate him once more, words halted on your throat because of a sight you least expected to see.

Han— the guy you’ve been talking to for almost a month now. The same guy who was your supposed date, to be more specific.

“What? Cat got your tongue, doll?”

If cats come in the form of a familiar man who’s a few good meters away, clearly having the time of his life dancing with someone, and clearly showing no signs of unavailability to go to a music festival he asked you to, then yes, it got your tongue.

You stayed silent far too long for Kaiser’s patience. Your lack of snarky clapbacks were starting to unsettle him more than he would allow. Shifting closer to you, he followed your line of sight to see what got you stunned in silence.

Recognizing what, or rather who, got your attention, he turns to you, his voice coming out too indignant, “Do you know that guy?”

“Do you?” you counter, picking up on his tone being all too casual as if they’re acquainted. 

“He’s last week’s opposing team’s goalkeeper,” or was it ‘striker’? He couldn’t recall, so he’s more or less incompetent to him. One thing he remembers, however, “and he hates me.”

You threw him a glance, “Not surprised.”

“And do I give a fuck,” he shook his head, “Why do you keep looking at him?” Don’t fucking tell me.

Your answer wasn’t any better to what he was starting to imagine, “He was… supposed to be my date to this music festival,” you mumbled, looking down at your feet.

You didn’t want to see the look on Kaiser’s face, fearing you might see pity, and so you nailed your gaze to the ground. Totally oblivious of the man peering over you rather softly.

“Why can’t he then?” he asks, voice an octave lower.

“He said they had late notice training, so he can’t come.” 

“Well, that better be his fucking ghost yapping with a brunette then,” he scoffs, looking straight to the lying man who canceled on you.

Sick of his face and sloppy dance moves, Kaiser turned his gaze back at you, only to be filled with rage because of it.

You look sad— and it made his blood boil. Not towards you, but for you.

“Y’know what? Let’s go there,” he urged, head pointing at where Han was.

Is he fucking crazy? You immediately shook your head at his scandalous suggestion. You might be feeling a little betrayed and angry, but rationality still had its hold on you— and it’s saying to not let Kaiser go with his idea. 

Instead, you tug on his forearm, eyes still on the floor before looking up at him, “Can we leave, please?” 

Kaiser was taken aback by your sudden meekness. He wasn’t used to this— to you, being all deflated and zoned out. He was used to your deadpan expressions and your eyes that seem to roll every time he utters a single word. He was used to you being, dare he say, feisty. 

And he would rather have you stay like that all day long, even when he’s the receiving end of it.

But this? You, saying please to him, of all people? He doesn’t like it. 

If this is how he gets to make you say please, then he doesn’t want it. Fuck that, and fuck that guy. How dare he.

Kaiser didn’t say anything back at your request, but you felt big calloused hands grasp on your hand still resting on his forearm. The next thing you knew, you were walking with him, shoulder-to-shoulder while his other hand was on yours guiding you to walk out of the scene.

“If I see one—just one drop of tear, I swear I am turning this damn car around.” 

Your thoughts abruptly halted at the sound of Kaiser’s threat—his ultimatum, rather. It sounded more like a promise than a threat, and you knew this man well enough to understand that he never ate his words.

You shot him a glance and snickered. There was no way in high hell you’d ever cry in the same space where he was. It was the last thing you’d ever do, even if it meant convincing yourself that what you saw earlier was just a mere look-alike of Han.

“It's nothing. We aren’t even a thing,” you dismissed, your voice flat.

“But you thought you could be,” he countered, and damn if he wasn't right. “How do you even know him?”

“We're kind of talking, well, sort of—”

“Kind of? Sort of?” he scoffed.

“God—it's like a talking stage or something casual, Kaiser! There, got it?”

“That's not exclusive,” he remarked, adding insult to injury.

Irritation bubbled in your throat as his interrogation continued. But even before you could unleash your venom, you caught yourself. He was right. And while this man had never brought you good, it wasn't fair to make him the target of your bad.

“Yeah, it's not,” you admitted, a dry, humorless laugh escaping you. You recalled the brunette he danced with earlier. “I wasn't exclusive material for his reputation, I guess.”

What reputation? “That’s bullshit.” He gritted his teeth, his hand itching towards the steering wheel, clearly tempted to turn back to the festival.

“You said it yourself, he’s an athlete,” you pointed out, “You people never like to go exclusive with someone.”

“You people? Oh, please. Do not insult me by comparing me to the likes of him.”

The sass in his voice drew a chuckle from you. It was amusing how he said it with genuine horror, as if the mere idea of being associated with Han was an insult. “Why? Are you telling me you can commit to someone exclusively?”

“Someone like who? You?” He met your gaze briefly, “Absolutely.”

What the hell. “Stop messing around,” you snorted, effectively ending the conversation.

He was playing a dangerous game, saying that to you. Did he even realize what it did? Did he hear your stupid heart hammering in your chest? It was too loud, too obvious, a frantic drum solo against your ribs. 

And the realization settled— he made your heart flutter. 

His words, so simple, so casually tossed out, had landed like a bomb, sending shrapnel through your carefully constructed walls.

Michael Kaiser, of all people, made your heart flutter.

Suddenly, the air felt thin, the car an echo chamber amplifying the frantic rhythm of your traitorous heart. You knew you should scoff, dismiss it as another one of his infuriating jabs, but the truth was like a hot coal lodged in your throat.

“I’m not though,” he countered, eyes steady on the familiar road ahead. He sounded serious– too serious. 

As you were about to retort back, the car lurched to a stop, announcing your arrival. You glanced out the window, the familiar sight of your house doing little to ease the tension that had coiled tight in your stomach.

“We’re here,” Kaiser announced, his voice a low rumble.

Hurried and flustered by the unexpected shift in the conversation, your clammy hands fumbled with the buckle, the metal cold and unyielding against your sweaty palms. You tugged, then tugged again, frustration building with each failed attempt.

“Easy, doll.” 

Before you could protest, a large hand swooped in, effortlessly unlatching the buckle with a practiced flick. The sudden proximity sent a jolt through you, making your breath hitch. You met his gaze, his eyes a blazing blue as he held your stare for a beat too long before turning away.

Taking a deep breath, you composed yourself. You reached for the door handle, pushing it open and stepping out onto the familiar pavement. Before slamming the door shut, you paused, turning back to Kaiser with a newfound resolve.

Crouching down to meet his gaze, you surprised yourself with the words that tumbled out. “Be careful on your way home and,” you paused, “Thank you... Mikka.”

The nickname slipped out before you could stop it, leaving a blush blooming across your cheeks.

Before Kaiser could react, you slammed the door shut, the sound echoing in the quiet street. 

Mikka. He repeats your words in his mind.

He watched you disappear into your house, a slow grin spreading across his face. Only when you were safely inside did he start the car, the image of your flustered face lingering in his mind.

Damn it, doll.

Meanwhile, you hurried to your room, clutching your chest where your heart still hammered a frantic rhythm.

Why did I call him that? you asked yourself.

The use of his nickname, a name you rarely uttered now, was a stark reminder that the two of you weren’t as close as you were younger.

It’s not a big deal, you tried to reason with yourself. He literally said you owed it to him, and calling it quits would be in the form of a stupid nickname. It doesn’t mean anything. Right— you were just returning a favor.

Your obvious self-deception was interrupted by the incessant buzzing of your phone, tossed carelessly on the bed. Picking up your phone, you opened one of the notifications, your breath catching in your throat.

It was a post on your university's gossip page, and there, plastered on the screen, was a picture of you and Kaiser. 

The image froze a moment in time, capturing him standing protectively behind you, his arms caging you against a barricade. Panic clawed at your throat. This picture, out in the open, could be misconstrued in so many ways. 

What were people going to think? Who took this photo, anyway?

Your eyes darted down the comment section, scrolling through a sea of unimaginable speculations, desperately searching for clues about the culprit.

Just then, a knock on the door startled you.

“Y/N? Can I talk to you?”

It was your brother— and his voice suggested he needed answers too.

Shit.

note. first mini series lmao xD will add cw as i go!

[yearnshelf]

012125. cw | none. just fluff. 731 wc. notes | i got my first strike YEY 🧑‍🦲🔫 @phantasmaebg nighty night zzz

matsukawa issei isn’t the type to openly gush over people, though that’s not the same to say that he doesn’t. you know this. because he’s always gushing about you in his own way, the only form you’ve learned by heart, one you’ve come to fully adore.

when he spotted you across the room, he swore his chest tightened in a way he’d never admit out loud. still, his affection screams — in the spaces that reach you to understand without fail, how honest his eyes are, an open journal of sorts.

you were curled up on the couch, sinking deep into your phone in your hands, your messy hair thrown into a half-lopsided bun, only the upper parts alongside your bangs, sweatpants slung low on your hips, stomach looking so delicate & slightly revealed under your sleeveless top, and headphones perched lazily over your ears.

you look half-asleep, groggy. the sunlight filtering through the windows renders your tired eyes to look more dreamy. your whole skin glowing, lashes glimmer like specks of jewels. you yawn, looking soft and untouched and undone.

something about you like this—so completely yourself—has his heart diving over itself. he has no idea how you managed to look so utterly captivating without trying. his heartbeat races when you stood up, unaware of his presence. and you head to the kitchen, probably going to make something really delicious—like always.

he watches you in quiet reverence, lips pulling a slow grin, nothing but adoration in his gaze.

his arms crossed over his chest, letting the sight of you etch itself into his memory. you’re too caught up in whatever quiet ritual you’ve set out to do in the kitchen, and he finds himself enamored by the way you move—relaxed, deliberate, but so distinctly you.

he always think he loved you most in moments like these, where there was no effort, no pretense, just you being you.

you stopped in front of the counter, reaching for something on the shelf, and the hem of your sleeveless top lifted just slightly. that little sliver of skin caught the light in the gentlest way, and matsukawa felt his restraint falter.

before he knew it, he was behind you, large hands sliding around your waist with the familiarity of someone who’d done it a hundred times before.

you stiffen slightly at first, but then you easily settle yourself, the familiar warmth of his palms sending a shiver of comfort through you. “issei,” you murmur, your voice soft and tinged with sleep, “when’d you get here?”

he tugs the side of your headphones down as you turn to look at him.

“just now,” his voice low and husky, lips curling into a smirk you can’t see. “you looked too good on your own, had to come ruin it.”

you huff, chuckling, your body leaning instinctively into his as his arms loop around your waist, pulling you flush against him. “i haven’t even washed my face yet,” you mutter, reaching up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind your ear.

“doesn’t matter. you’re cute when you’re half-dead, y’know?”

you rolled your eyes, but before you could reply, he leaned in, resting his forehead to the back of your head, then he lowers himself, lips coming to plant tender kisses on your temple, a gentle nibble on your ear, and a shuddering warm peck to your nape.

this makes your cheeks flush, but you shake your head, focusing instead on the task at hand. “if you’re gonna keep distracting me, at least help me cook something,” you say, trying to sound stern but failing—quite horribly, actually— because he pulls you impossibly closer, practically snuggling against you so shamelessly.

“come take a nap with me instead.”

“issei.”

“please. i just wanna—” he inhales, a long, deep breath, and exhales, you feel his chest against your back rise and fall in result, “you’re the only thing i wanna see all day.”

and just like that, any lingering grogginess thawed away, like popsicles melting from the beautiful warmth of everything. like his touch, especially his touch, along the undertones of intensity laced by his words. you turn slightly in his arms, your hand reaching up to playfully flick his forehead, though your smile betrays so many parts of you.

“you’re impossible.”

“yeah? impossible for you, miss.” he quipped back, smiling tenfold.

you wouldn’t have it any other way.

[yearnshelf]

*ੈ‧₊༺ “YOU’RE SO GORGEOUS I CAN’T SAY ANYTHING TO YOUR FACE!”

— karasu and his shy girlfriend!

characters: karasu tabito x fem!reader contents: fluff, teasing, reader visibly blushes a lot notes: i feel like this is my first time writing for shy!reader wth <900 wc | requested

“you’re starin’, babe,”

you’re snapped out of your reverie, gaze clearing out of your daze to look at the man in front of you. your cheeks burn, turning pinkish when a small smirk is thrown your way. “s-sorry! i was just, uh - yeah…” you trail off, deciding not to voice out your thoughts when you realize how weird it’d sound.

your boyfriend raises an eyebrow, skeptical at your deflection but he continues rummaging through his closet in search for a piece of shirt to wear nonetheless, fresh out of the shower after the grueling practice he’s had.

unfortunately for you though, that means he’s only clad in a pair of sweatpants, strutting around in the room with his torso bared for you to ogle at. which also means you have to amass in all the self control inside you and resist from drooling at the sight of all that naked skin.

you failed, obviously.

forcing your gaze down to the book you’re holding, you try to focus back on the printed words to avoid looking his way. suddenly the little bookmark that you’ve put aside on the nightstand appears in your vision, sliding into the space in between the pages before the book is pushed close by a set of fingers.

you look up to see karasu— unfortunately thankfully already dressed— sending you a knowing look, “you’re not even readin’ it,” he points out, making you sheepishly smile as you rest the book on your lap.

‘give it to him to notice even the littlest things,’ you huff at the thought.

he takes a seat beside you on the bed, shoulders brushing each other’s as he rests back against the headboard, throwing you a sideway glance. “ya gonna tell me what’s on your mind, pretty?”

your chin tucks inwards at the nickname out of habit, your teeth absently gnawing at your bottom lip. “you’re gonna laugh at me,” you mutter.

karasu smirks at your reluctance, “try me.”

you take another minute to contemplate before gathering your confidence, turning to sit facing towards him. “can i, uhm…” your fingers shyly fidget with themselves, eyes seeming to find the loose thread on the blankets more interesting than ever. “can i wear your jersey…?”

your voice is so small, so timid that karasu almost couldn’t catch what you’re saying. a flash of confusion crosses his face and he sits up to face you properly, about to reply when you abruptly burst out in a flurry of stutters.

“i-i mean…!” you squeak, “like, i-it’s completely fine if i can’t! i know you always give it to me during your games but - uh, y-you know! i also wanna wear it at home or to bed o-or like—“ his growing smile and glimmering eyes short circuit your brain.

heat creeps up your neck, your face flushing red as your voice dies out of embarrassment. if it were possible, there would’ve been puffs of steam coming out of your ears from how hot your body is becoming.

seemingly unable to control yourself anymore, you let yourself comically slump onto his chest to hide from his view. karasu reaches a hand towards your cheek, uttering out your name in a gentle call.

he does a second try when you don’t budge, sensing the amusement in his tone. you shake your head petulantly against him. “you’re laughing at me,” you grumble.

“what? ‘am not, promise!” the chuckle he’s been holding in seeps out through his breath. “are so,” you counter quietly.

you’re internally praying for your body temperature to go down fast, but his next set of words deems it impossible for it to do so.

“you’re so cute like this, ya know that?” karasu sighs, and your heartbeat quickens a tad bit.

“are you not going to give me an answer?” you mumble, still leaning into his space as you feel him playing with the little strands of your hair, the air around you becoming still yet comfortable.

“and here i thought giving you my jersey during my games already means full custody over it,” he muses. “why would i let ya hold on to it for as long as ya did if it’s not to wear it anytime ya want, dummy?”

another rush of embarrassment washes over you as you think over his explanation. “…you’ll never let me live this down, will you?” you groan.

karasu laughs, hearty and fond. “nah, you look too pretty all red like that for me to stop,” he drawls before grabbing your face in his hands, holding you in place when you make another attempt to hide your blush, overwhelmed at how close and attractive and good-looking and cocky and sexy—

you give yourself a mental slap on the face.

he drinks in your scrunched expression, the warmth from your flushed cheeks flows to his skin as he gives you another lopsided grin. “aw, did i fluster ya that much?” he teases.

“s-shut up.”

©🅁🅈🄴🅂🄲🄰🄿🄰🄳🄴🅂. do not steal, translate or repost my work anywhere else !

[yearnshelf]

…a longing for something just out of reach. shelf restocks. › librarian’s favs. › book series.

welcome to the assortment map, where you’ll be able to navigate through the library in an efficient manner.

the shelves are yours to explore, please see me if there’s anything you’d like to check out. this list is being updated as we bring in more books!

彡 f: jujutsu kaisen! 𓄲 genre: fluff

彡 f: genshin impact! 𓄲 genre: hurt/comfort

彡 f: honkai star rail! 𓄲 genre: angst

彡 f: blue lock! 𓄲 cl: fanfic

彡 f: haikyuu! 𓄲 cl: smau

💌. librarian’s fav! 𓄲 cl: series

[yearnshelf]

yearning is the silent ache of the soul. shelf restocks. › librarian’s favs. › book series.

before entering the archives, please make sure to follow the rules — simply to prevent any mishaps. librarian ieva mentions that this place is meant to safe keep her favorite pieces, but you’re allowed to browse as well.

recent ☰ best selling book series ☰ assortment.

if you see anything you like, you can check it out. if you need a library card, please make sure to pay the small fee.