#Milk Processing Machine
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swetatiwarib2b · 11 months ago
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4 Things to Consider When Setting Up a Dairy Processing Plant
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Setting up a dairy processing factory requires a great deal of rigorous planning and decision-making. From procuring high-quality milk to ensuring hygiene, the procedure can be complicated. [ Milk Processing Plant and Machines Manufacturers ] However, focusing on the correct areas early on might help the setup run more smoothly and efficiently. Here are four key factors to consider while establishing your dairy processing plant:
Plant Location and Layout. Choosing the right site is crucial to your plant's success. Proximity to dairy farms can assist minimize milk transportation costs, yet access to a consistent water supply is critical for sanitation and operations. The plant layout should be planned to ensure that all processes run logically, from milk reception to pasteurization, packaging, and storage. Key considerations should include efficient space usage, adherence to food safety regulations, and flexibility for future expansion.
Key points:
The proximity to raw milk sources.
Access to services such as water and power.
Efficient process flow to avoid contamination.
Selecting the Right Equipment The equipment you select determines your plant's capacity and efficiency. Milk pasteurizers, homogenizers, separators, storage tanks, and packaging machines are all essential pieces of equipment. High-quality, energy-efficient machinery not only improves operations but also lowers long-term maintenance expenses. It's also critical to select equipment that satisfies food safety regulations and is simple to clean, resulting in high-quality dairy products.
Key points:
Invest on energy-efficient equipment.
Concentrate on cleanliness and ease of cleaning.
Make sure your equipment is scalable so it can grow with your firm.
Regulatory Compliance and Safety Dairy processing is subject to stringent food safety requirements. You must follow local and international requirements for hygiene, product labeling, and staff safety. Obtain the appropriate permits and certifications from relevant authorities, such as the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) or a comparable organization in your nation. To avoid contamination and maintain product safety, make sure your company follows Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP).
Key points:
Understand the local food safety laws.
Secure the appropriate licenses and certificates.
Implement strict safety procedures to protect both personnel and products.
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Supply Chain & Distribution Efficient supply chain management allows you to provide fresh products to market while minimizing waste. Consider how you will obtain raw milk, store finished products, and deliver them to retailers or customers. A strong cold chain system is vital for keeping products fresh, especially perishable commodities like milk, yogurt, and butter. Develop ties with reputable suppliers and distributors to ensure a consistent and high-quality supply.
Key points:
Develop solid ties with suppliers and distributors.
Maintain reliable cold chain logistics.
Prepare for seasonal changes in milk supply.
Conclusion By focusing on these four critical areas—location, equipment, regulatory compliance, and supply chain—you can create a dairy processing factory that is efficient, cost-effective, and capable of producing high-quality products. [ Milk Processing Plant and Machines Manufacturers ] Proper planning from the start will help you avoid costly mistakes and provide the groundwork for long-term success in the dairy sector.
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bigbuyzone · 3 months ago
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Top Benefits of Using a Milk Stirrer Machine
Maximize efficiency and quality in your dairy operations! A milk stirrer machine ensures uniform mixing, prevents milk spoilage, and saves valuable time. Upgrade your process today!
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Mini Diary Plant Nichrome Africa Experience the Power of Efficiency as our Milk Processing Solution Maximizes Output while Minimizing Waste. What Sets It Apart? Remarkably Low Electricity Consumption Despite Its Cutting-Edge Processes. Elevate the Freshness of Your Milk through Precise Pasteurization where the Milk is Carefully Heated to 72.5 Degrees Celsius and Then treated in the Crucial Homogenization Phase. This Ensures Optimal Quality and Texture. From the Homogenizer, the Milk Flows into Storage Tanks, Ready to Transform into Lassi, Dahi, Ghee, Paneer, and Beyond. Nichrome's Comprehensive Milk Processing and Packaging Solution Is a Recipe for Success, Providing the Ultimate Outcome. For more information about mini diary plant visit https://africa.nichrome.com/
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vaspider · 6 months ago
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Listen to me. Listen very carefully:
They are trying to wear you out.
They are trying to wear you out, and they own most major social media now, along with many major media outlets. The disinformation machine is cranking along. You are going to have to slow the fuck down and read things before you help them wear out other people, too.
So you just saw a post about a real scary bill, hunh? Republicans want to make it a capital offense to pet dogs and repeal The Sky Is Blue Act of 1793, declaring the new official color of the sky to be squant? Damn, that sounds scary.
Let's go look up this fictitious "Make The Sky Squant Again Act" on GovTracker* & on the official legislative tracker on congress.gov!
Well, let's see... GovTracker estimates it has a 1% chance of even getting out of committee and a 0% chance of being enacted, while congress.gov says this bill has 2 cosponsors who have been in the House and combined total of less than a month. The bill doesn't have any actual text, and it was referred to 5 different committees.
That fictitious bill and a hundred others like it are quite literally not worth your time, and more than that, continuing to wring your hands about it and tell other people about the scary scary squant sky bill only does their work for them. It scares people, it makes them spend time and energy on it, and it wears them out. It is a legislative Gish Gallop, meant to throw so many things at people that we can't keep up.
Even calling or messaging your Rep in this case means their staffer has to waste time responding to you and letting you know that Representative Buttzonheads definitely won't support making petting dogs a capital offense, a thing that will never, ever happen regardless.
Staying engaged in this environment is going to require protecting your heart and protecting your energy, yes, but also protecting the energy of others. This is why WWII propaganda posters also included ones taking people to task for spreading panicky rumors and undermining morale.
Do you know why most observant Jews don't eat chicken and dairy together, even though the ban is on red meat and dairy together bc you're not supposed to cook the calf in the milk of its mother?** It's not because we think that chicken might secretly lactate or Just Because. It's because the rabbis decided that if I'm sitting out in public and eating turkey and cheese together, someone might glance at the turkey and mistake it for red meat and think, "oh, well, I know that Spider is a good Jew, there must have been a change, or maybe I can just justify it to myself that if Spider does it, it must be permissible to bend the rules just that much." And I would then be accidentally leading my fellow Jew astray. We are responsible for being even more careful for the sake of others than we are for ourselves.
It's the same principle here. We need to really be careful about the information we are spreading and check things past reading a news site. Is it true? Is it relevant? Is it meaningful? Is the news site one I recognize? Can I find meaningful independent corroboration on another site, which is to say, if I find an article about it on a second site, is it just quoting or rephrasing this site?
Yeah, that is a lot. But that's how we keep them from using us to lead our fellows astray.
*GovTracker is an independent site. They explain their methodology in their About section.
**I cannot say enough how I am not at this time interested in going on a Jewish Side Quest About Dietary Laws on this post. Usually, I love it, but hold off this time, please, y'all. Let's stay on target this once.
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sharmajiya · 9 months ago
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Choose the Right Milk Analyzer for Your Dairy Needs
Selecting the ideal milk analyzer is essential for ensuring accurate, consistent dairy quality testing. With a range of advanced features, our analyzers provide precise measurements of fat, protein, lactose, and more. Tailored for dairy farms, processing units, and labs, our milk analyzers deliver reliable results, helping you maintain high standards and streamline quality control effortlessly.
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pranamjiengineeringworks · 1 year ago
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What is the cost of 500 Litre milk processing plant?
Pranamji Engineering Works is a renowned manufacturer and supplier of 500 LTR Milk Processing Plants in India, offering advanced solutions for the dairy industry. With a commitment to quality and innovation, Pranamji Engineering Works designs milk processing plants that cater to the needs of small and medium-scale dairy businesses. These plants are equipped with state-of-the-art technology to ensure efficient and hygienic milk processing, including pasteurization, homogenization, and chilling.
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The 500 LTR Milk Processing Plant by Pranamji Engineering Works is built to meet the highest standards of safety and quality, ensuring that the milk is processed under optimal conditions. The plant is designed for easy operation and maintenance, making it an ideal choice for dairy farmers and processors looking to enhance their production capabilities.
With a focus on delivering reliable and durable equipment, Pranamji Engineering Works has established itself as a trusted name in the industry. Their milk processing plants are backed by excellent customer service and support, ensuring that clients receive the best possible experience. Choose Pranamji Engineering Works for your milk processing needs and benefit from their expertise and commitment to excellence.
Our Related Products are :-
100 LTR Milk Processing Plant
1000 LTR Milk Processing Plant
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5000 LTR Milk Processing Plant
Dahi Dairy Plant
Doodh ka Plant
For more details, please visit:-
Website :- https://www.pranamjiengineering.com/
Contact No. :- 09997737365, 7017598033
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mushlivingroom · 2 months ago
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i loosely followed thedimelions’s tutorial for naturally dyeing a pride flag, with a lot of added research about natural dyes, stains, mordants, sewing, etc, and i wanted to share my results!!
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process, notes, and more pics under the read more🌱
starting off i soaked my fabric (100% cotton acquired from joann's during their closing sale, rip joann's ;-;) in a 1:5 mixture of soy milk and water for 12 hours, then let dry on a clothesline in the sun, then dipped and dried two more times (the proteins in the soy milk help the natural dyes adhere to the fabric, creating darker colors and better colorfastness)
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while that was happening i started making my dyes, which involved simmering my chosen dyestuffs in some water for 30-60 minutes. i didnt time it, just went until the color developed to a point i was happy with
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as far as ratios i didn’t measure, but the more dyestuff = stronger color so err on the side of more
red: turmeric + baking soda, paprika, and yellow onion skin dye as the liquid base
orange: yellow onion skins
yellow: turmeric
green: red cabbage + baking powder (LOTS), turmeric
blue: red cabbage + baking powder
purple: red cabbage
for the red cabbage dyes, i added the baking powders and soda after simmering and just kept adding and stirring till i got the color i wanted. ((BIG NOTE red cabbage, and debatably most of the others that I used, are fugitive dyes, meaning its not a true dye and more of a stain that will fade with time and wash out more easily, especially without mordanting on additives like iron. keep this in mind if you end up doing this project or transfering these methods to cloth you will be using for clothes, ie washing and wearing more frequently))
i also tried to make a pink with avocado skins and pits, which did come out a lovely rosy color, but i didn’t end up using in the final flag, which i might use beet or red cabbage + lemon juice or another acidified for next time to get a more bright pink
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now with my dyes ready and my cloth dried out from its previous soy milk dip i cut it into strips and stuck it in the jars, which were placed in the sun for the day (alternatively, you could simmer the cloth in the pot) and then left to sit overnight
the next day i squeezed out the excess dye and gave the ones with turmeric a light rinse to get the grit out, then hung them to dry
((small note i reused the dyes baths to see what would happen since they still looked just as pigmented, but the colors are much much much more faded on the second go around. all in all its doable, but I wouldn't recommend it.))
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now time to sew! i procured a second hand sewing machine specifically for this project and had never sewed before, but thankfully this required the easiest stitch in the game (a straight stitch in a straight line). i looked up how to sew a flag specifically to get those clean lines rather than just overlapping, and this video was great (shoutout Suffolk Public Library)
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as you can see my flag ended up quite long cause I left a lot of wiggle room, so I just look up flag ratios, trimmed it up (and used the extra strip of rainbow as decoration) then added a white strip folded over to make a way for me to hang it on a stick if I ever so desire.
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and ta daaa! i would still like to clean it up a bit, and do a zig zag stitch around the outside to stop the cloth from fraying further, but im happy with the unpolished look of it. once i figure out how to get a pink I like, and how to get browns and blacks, i want to make a progress flag and trans flag. also just started growing some indigo, so excited to see if I can get some blue dyes out of that.
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swetatiwarib2b · 8 months ago
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Complete Guide to Setting Up a Milk Processing Plant: Equipment and Requirements
Setting up a milk processing plant is a major undertaking that requires careful planning, the right milk processing machines, equipment, and adherence to regulatory standards. Whether you're looking to start a small-scale dairy operation or build a large commercial plant, this guide will walk you through the essential steps, equipment, and requirements needed to get your milk processing plant up and running efficiently.
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bigbuyzone · 26 days ago
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Shop Milk Analyzer Sensors for Labs, Dairies & Milk Collection Units
Ensure fast, accurate, and reliable milk testing with our premium Milk Analyzer Sensors – perfect for labs, dairies, and milk collection units. Designed with advanced technology, these sensors deliver precise results for parameters like fat, SNF, density, and added water detection. Upgrade your milk testing process with trusted and durable Milk Analyzer Sensors – now available at competitive prices. Shop now for better accuracy and smarter dairy management!
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indiantradebirddigital · 1 year ago
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 Top Milk Processing Plant and Machine in India
For Milk Processing Plants and Machines, Indian Trade Bird offers the finest prices. We are the top manufacturer, supplier, exporter, and retailer of cream separators, milk boilers, mini dairy plants, batch milk pasteurizers, powder plants, milk dairy pumps, milk homogenizers, milk chilling plants, curd-making machines, ghee plants, milk centrifuges, can scrubbers, can scrub brushes, evaporated milk plants, egg pasteurization machines, can drip savers, skid mounted process modules, curd separators, soya curd machines, and many more products. You can increase productivity, simplify your manufacturing process, and uphold the strictest safety and hygienic regulations with our milk processing plant and machine. Indian Trade Bird connects you with trusted manufacturers and suppliers, ensuring reliability and superior performance. We are able to deliver every order on time since we have first-rate distribution methods. In addition, the provided machines are assessed based on multiple quality criteria in order to provide hassle-free output.
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fingertipsmp3 · 2 months ago
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Someone really reviewed my workplace saying that service was slow. My love, you visited on a bank holiday weekend, I’m genuinely not sure what you were expecting
#by all means warn the population that it’s busy as hell this time of year and to maybe not descend if you don’t want to experience that#but to disparage our level of service when we are invariably running around like headless chickens trying to get you everything you want#is just beyond#like we hit an average of 1700 visitors (to the reserve) per day last week#even if only half that amount went in the cafe; that means we were swamped#just pisses me off. ‘service was slow’ yeah i’m sorry we’re not npcs who can just immediately hand you everything you want#sorry that there’s a process to this#sorry that we have to do shit like refill milk canisters and replace coffee beans as we go along so that service can continue#and we don’t just stall#i feel like customers often look at me like ‘why is she doing that instead of taking my order’#literally i won’t be able to MAKE your order if we run out of milk right now#also if you’re like 2-3 people behind in the till there’s not much sense in me getting anything for you#there’s only one till so there’s not much sense in going backwards through the queue taking people’s orders when we can really only serve#one person at a time#whenever there’s no hot drinks on the machine i’ll find out what’s next and start making it but again there’s not much point in doing that#if the next person who wants a hot drink is like 4 people behind whoever’s currently paying at the till#does this make sense? i feel like you’d need to see it in order to understand it#the vast majority of people are so incredibly nice because they can see we only have a tiny space to work with#and they can see we’re swamped and they know we are human people who need to drink water#but then you get the odd person who thinks you can just manifest coffee out of thin air#really makes you go like wow. some people just don’t see service workers as human beings and that is straight up bizarre on their part#personal
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solxamber · 3 months ago
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Workplace Hazards: Romance || Idia Shroud
You're a feral SS-class Esper with no off switch. He's an anxious shut-in SS-class Guide just trying to game in peace. Through lies, HR nightmares, dramatic near-deaths, and one candy ring proposal, you accidentally become soulmates. Government benefits may or may not be involved.
Series Masterlist
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Life, in its infinite wisdom, had decided to take a sharp left turn off the highway of normalcy and drive screaming into the wormhole of cosmic horror.
One day you’re just a person trying to buy goat milk, and the next, the sky rips open like a microwaved burrito, belching out monsters that look like someone tried to 3D print your worst nightmare with a spaghetti code of malice and slime. Scientists call them "Gate manifestations." Everyone else calls them "oh no no no NO—"
But humanity, being the scrappy little infestation it is, adapted. Not by solving the actual problem (of course not, that would require shutting up billionaires and redirecting global funds from "missile measuring contests"), but by evolving. Or rather, mutating—suddenly a percentage of the population started exhibiting terrifying, physics-optional powers. 
These people are called Espers—a sanitized title that really just means "Congratulations! You are now licensed to punch interdimensional horrors in the face and traumatize yourself in the process."
Now, if the Espers were just laser-wielding sad little soldiers, that would be one thing. But no, their powers came with a side effect: unmanageable psychic noise. Think psychic radiation plus the emotional intensity of a sleep-deprived theatre kid on their third espresso shot. 
This is where Guides came in. Not to lead anyone (the name is misleading, like “boneless chicken wings” in Ohio), but to stabilize Espers before they exploded into a Category Five Meltdown and leveled half a city block because someone forgot to restock the vending machine.
Guides don’t just talk you down—they shove their psychic aura into your brain like a weighted blanket made of competence and condescension. They are therapists, emotional janitors, and living surge protectors. Some are kind. Some are terrifying. Some, unfortunately, are hot.
So now the world runs on a system: gates appear, Espers go in and fight, Guides catch them when they fall out twitching and covered in monster goo. Rinse. Repeat. Cry. Go to therapy if you’re lucky. Take a nap if you’re not. Don’t die. (Please. HR paperwork is a nightmare.)
And if you’re very unlucky—like catastrophically, cosmically doomed—you fall in love with your Guide.
But that’s not your fault. That’s life now, baby.
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You’re an Esper. A good one, actually. Or you were. You were ranked S-Class and living the dream: minimum paperwork, maximum destruction, and you had a Guide who made you drink tea and pretend your trauma was a garden to be tended. You even humored him and tried to visualize your “inner zen koi pond” until the koi started screaming back. Good times.
But then came The Incident.
Now, to be fair, the gate had looked normal. It wasn’t your fault it turned out to be a Class Alpha Instability Spiral—whatever the hell that means; you don't read the reports, you're just the explosion part of the team.
It also wasn’t your fault the emotional stress made you unlock a new tier of Esper abilities mid-battle. And it definitely wasn’t your fault that you accidentally bent the laws of physics so hard that five square kilometers of space-time decided to just... sit this one out.
But sure, blame the walking psychic warhead. Classic.
Congratulations! You're now SS-Class. The extra “S” stands for “Somebody please help.” Your previous Guide has politely resigned, citing “irreconcilable sanity differences.” HR gave you a pamphlet called So You’ve Accidentally Become a Government Weapon, and you were told your new classification required a compatibility reassignment.
Soul-sorting algorithms that spat out exactly one name. One room number. One very troubling lack of further details. Because while every other high-ranking Guide had reviews, commentary, threat assessments—your new match had... whispers.
"Doesn't take anyone."
"Turned down a whole squad of Espers."
So naturally, you knocked on the door.
Then knocked again.
And on the third knock, after contemplating whether this was some elaborate prank designed to push you into spontaneous combustion, you heard it: a whispered, "Come in," like the voice of someone who’d been emotionally concussed by mere social interaction.
The office was dark. Not ominous-dark, more... someone-didn’t-want-to-pay-the-electric-bill dark. The curtains were drawn. The monitor light was the only glow in the room, and behind it was a figure so slouched, so cocooned in hoodie and existential dread, you almost mistook him for a sentient couch cushion.
Idia Shroud.
SS-Class Guide. The Anti-Social Sorcerer. The Mothman of Mental Stability.
He looked up at you like you were the ghost of an unpaid internship and visibly recoiled.
"Hi," you said, very brightly, like this wasn’t clearly a mistake and the man before you hadn’t just contemplated leaping through the window to escape human contact.
He blinked. Slowly. "You're the SS?"
“Apparently,” you replied, sitting down calmly and very much not vibrating with barely-leashed doom energy. You folded your hands in your lap like someone who hadn’t just melted part of the training center during compatibility testing. “And you're going to be my Guide.”
That clearly short-circuited something in his brain because he made a strangled wheeze that sounded like a laptop dying.
So, obviously, the next logical step was pretending to be emotionally stable.
“Yes, I’ve been told I have excellent boundaries,” you said, lying through your teeth. “I meditate. I go to therapy. I drink water.”
Your nose might have twitched at the last one. Idia squinted.
“I’ve... seen your incident reports.”
Ah. Well. Time to double down.
“And yet,” you said, flashing a smile that could win awards for Most Suspicious Aura, “the test matched us. Fate, right?”
Idia looked at you like fate had personally wronged him.
You maintained eye contact. Calm. Cool. Collected. Just another emotionally well-regulated citizen of the world, absolutely not about to snap and launch a fireball into a vending machine if it ate your coins again.
And to your surprise, after a long, tense silence and a muttered line that sounded suspiciously like, “If I ignore it, maybe it'll leave,” he didn’t kick you out.
He just sighed. Opened a drawer. Pulled out your file like it physically hurt him.
And so it began.
You and the man who looked like a sleep-deprived curse word.
Esper and Guide.
Chaos and more chaos. 
Willing participant and deeply unwilling participant.
Honestly, this was going to go great.
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Idia sits next to you like someone forced him into a live-action horror movie adaptation of his worst social nightmares. He perches at the very edge of the couch, knees turned sharply away from you, shoulders hunched like he’s expecting to spontaneously combust just from proximity. He’s sweating. Actively. You can hear it.
He doesn't look at you—doesn’t dare to. Eye contact might trigger some kind of emotional subroutine he’s buried under six years of anime quotes and avoidance. So instead, he glares at the floor like it owes him money and says in the driest, most pained voice you've ever heard:
“…I’m going to initiate touch now.”
You blink. “Cool. I won’t bite.”
“Statistically, there’s still a 17% chance.”
Before you can ask how he got that number, he reaches over—very gingerly—and clasps your hand like it’s a ticking time bomb. It’s the least affectionate, most clinical hand-hold imaginable. And yet—
Your brain goes silent. Completely. All the psychic noise, the static, the ghost of that one Gate entity that’s been whispering “eat drywall” for three weeks straight—gone. You breathe out, deeply, for what feels like the first time in months.
“Oh,” you say, blinking slowly. “That’s… good. That’s really good.”
Meanwhile, Idia has gone stiff as a corpse. He looks at you, then at your hand, then back at you like you’ve just transformed into a philosophical dilemma.
“How are you alive?” he asks, genuinely horrified. “You’re… you’re an unstable esper. Your baseline resonance is like an overcooked spaghetti noodle wrapped around a hand grenade. You should be fried. You should be paste. What the hell have you been doing for guidance?”
You shrug. “My last guide made me listen to podcasts. And sometimes put a warm towel on my neck.”
Idia just stares at you in disbelief. “A warm towel?! A warm towel?! That’s like trying to fight a house fire with herbal tea!”
You grin at him, relaxed in a way you haven’t been since your promotion. “Hey. I’m adaptable.”
Then you wink.
He jerks his hand back like you just slapped him with a legally binding marriage proposal. “Okay, what does that mean?! Are you flirting? Threatening me? Both?!”
You stretch luxuriously on his couch, now absolutely high on the absence of psychic distress.  “Wouldn’t you like to know, Guide boy?”
He looks at you like he’s re-evaluating every decision that led him to this moment—including being born.
You close your eyes, content, while Idia frantically Googles “how to tell if your newly assigned Esper is insane.”
You don’t need to see him to know he’s panicking.
But you feel better than you have in weeks.
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You exit the Gate with all the dignity of a baby deer on roller skates. Technically alive, mostly upright, and riding the high of “I didn’t die today” like it’s a stimulant. There’s smoke rising from your gloves, your hair’s doing a very bold interpretation of ‘windblown,’ and you’re about three seconds from either vomiting or adopting nihilism as a full-time lifestyle.
And then—you spot him.
Your Guide.
Idia Shroud.
He’s lurking in the far corner of the clearing, half-shielded by a vending machine and what looks like pure, unfiltered spite. His hood’s up, his glowstick hair is practically vibrating, and he’s watching the post-Gate Espers like a cornered Victorian orphan who’s about to throw hands over the last piece of bread.
One comes within five feet of him and he physically recoils, clutching his comms tablet like it’s a crucifix. You're ninety percent sure he hissed.
So naturally, you make a beeline for him.
“Hi honey, I’m home,” you chirp, still crackling with energy like a downed power line.
He jolts like you just poured emotional commitment down his spine.
“Oh my GOD,” he mutters, dragging you by the sleeve like you’re radioactive (which, in fairness, you might be). “What took you so long?! I was standing here surrounded by—by unregulated feelings and eye contact and—oh my god, one of them tried to hug me.”
You let him pull you behind a barrier, where he sits you down with the dramatic flair of someone absolutely done with his entire existence. He doesn’t even wait—just snatches your hand and starts stabilizing you like he’s diffusing a bomb, holding on like letting go might summon the apocalypse.
Instant, blessed silence.
Your brain, which had been screaming like a dial-up modem on fire, goes quiet. Your chest unknots. You remember that oxygen exists and taking it in is actually encouraged. You sigh, blissed out, while Idia makes a face like he just stuck his hand in radioactive soup.
“I know it was, like, a gate collapse or whatever,” he mutters, eyes fixed on the skyline like he’s begging some higher power for patience. “But maybe next time don’t take so long to get out? You were in there for seventy minutes. I counted. Every second was emotionally damaging.”
You grin, eyes still hazy. “Aw. You missed me.”
“I panicked,” he snaps. “There’s a difference. I had a backup plan. It was called ‘run.’”
You lean toward him with a smug little hum. “You care.”
“I don’t care,” he says immediately, voice cracking like a damaged violin string. “I just don’t want you getting so emotionally unhinged you come back here all weepy and soulbond-seeking and—” he gestures vaguely. “Clingy.”
“I’m not clingy,” you say, still not letting go of his hand.
“You’re currently latched onto me like a trauma koala,” he deadpans.
You wink. “So you do care.”
Idia looks at you like he’s actively calculating how many regulations he can violate before someone notices. His expression lands somewhere between “why me” and “I should’ve become a dental assistant.”
But he doesn’t let go.
In fact, he shifts slightly so you can lean against him more comfortably. Not that he says anything about it. No. That would imply emotional maturity and gross things like “communication.”
Instead, he mutters, “You smell like space lightning and poor decisions.”
You beam at him. “Thanks. It’s my natural musk.”
And despite everything—despite the chaos, the imminent paperwork, and the looming threat of another Esper trying to trauma-bond with him—Idia doesn’t move away.
You’d like to think it’s because of your immense charm.
He’ll tell himself it’s just because it’s the most efficient way to keep you from frying your nervous system.
But deep down—deep down—he’s already doomed, and you both know it.
Congratulations. You’ve adopted a reclusive Guide with the emotional range of a scared wet cat.
And he cares.
Desperately.
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You were having a very productive day doing absolutely nothing.
Flat on your bed, hoodie pulled over your face, limbs at the exact angle of maximum immobility, you were experiencing true stillness. The kind of stillness monks meditate decades to achieve. You hadn’t moved in hours. If someone were to enter your apartment right now, they’d probably mistake you for a corpse, but with worse fashion sense.
And then your phone rang.
You ignored it. Of course you did. Whoever it was could wait. You were on a spiritual journey to become one with your mattress. But it rang again. And again. And then came the messages. Ping. Ping. Pingpingpingping—
With the groan of someone who’s known true peace and been dragged back to hell, you reached for the phone.
[Guidia]: B-Class pest in hallway. Halp. He's monologuing. [Guidia]: SOS. EMERGENCY. COME NOW. I’M NOT KIDDING.  [Guidia]: HE'S OUTSIDE MY OFFICE. HE HAS A CLIPBOARD.  [Guidia]: I’M HIDING BEHIND MY ROLLING CHAIR.  [Guidia]: IF YOU DON’T COME I’M FAKING MY OWN DEATH.
You stared at the messages. Debated pretending you didn’t see them. Debated harder. Lost.
Twenty minutes later, you're standing in front of the office building, internally mourning the loss of your free day and dressed like a walking stress nap with an energy drink in hand. You shuffle into the building, make your way to the guide floor, and as soon as you turn the corner—
There he is.
A junior Esper. Knocking on Idia’s door with the determined rhythm of someone trying to summon either a guide or God himself.
You slow down, then stop completely a few feet away, watching the scene with mild interest and the deadpan curiosity of someone who’s just been pulled out of bed to witness this madness.
He looks fresh out of training. Blue hair perfectly combed, posture painfully upright, shoes that don’t have a single scuff on them. He’s also got that nervous, earnest vibe that screams “will fill out extra paperwork if asked.”
You raise an eyebrow. “What’s going on?”
He turns, a bit startled, then gives you a hopeful little smile.
“I’m here to meet Guide Shroud,” he says. “I heard he’s an SS-Rank and that he has only one Esper on his schedule, so I came to ask if he’d consider guiding me!”
You blink slowly. “You’re…?”
“B-Class!” he says proudly. “But I’ve been training hard. My instructors say I’ve got potential!”
You resist the urge to say “uh-huh” and pat him on the head. It is bold, you’ll give him that. You’d admire it more if you weren’t already picturing Idia foaming at the mouth behind the door.
Before you can respond, the door opens a crack—and a pale hand shoots out, grabs your wrist, and yanks you inside like you’re being abducted.
The door slams shut behind you. You spin and there’s Idia, crouched behind his desk, wide-eyed and absolutely vibrating with panic.
“WHY is he still out there,” he hisses.
You shrug. “He’s got dreams?”
“I SAW THE CLIPBOARD.”
“What’s on the clipboard, Idia.”
“I DON’T KNOW. GOALS? AMBITIONS? A LIST OF ICEBREAKER QUESTIONS?”
You give him a flat look. “So you dragged me out of bed—on my day off—because a baby Esper wanted to talk to you?”
“Did you SEE him?! He’s wearing a BUTTON-UP. He brought a PEN.”
“And your solution is what? Hide in your office until he dies of old age?”
“YES,” he says, without shame.
You sigh, long and dramatic. “Fiiiine.”
“You’ll get rid of him?”
“Yes.”
“WITHOUT making a mess?”
“No promises.”
You step out of the office, roll your shoulders, and walk up to the junior Esper with your best tired-but-stern government-employee face.
“Hey,” you say. “Guide Shroud can’t take you.”
His face falls. “Oh. Why not?”
“He’s bonded.”
“Oh.” He looks down, disappointed. “Wait—bonded? Like, permanently?”
“Yep.”
“…To who?”
You tilt your head and flash a smile. “Me.”
A beat passes.
“Oh,” he says again, eyes wide. “I—I didn’t know. That’s amazing. Congratulations! You two must have a really powerful connection.”
You nod solemnly. “We do. He definitely doesn’t hide under the desk every time I sneeze.”
“I hope someday I get to experience something like that,” he says, eyes shining.
You pat his shoulder like the elder cryptid you are. “Maybe. But for now, go back to your training. Don’t skip on the cardio. Gates love people who skip cardio.”
He scurries off with a polite bow and a visible resolve to become the best version of himself.
You reenter the office. Idia’s peeking from behind his chair like a horror movie extra.
“Gone?”
“Gone.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That you’re soul-bonded to me and emotionally unavailable.”
Idia goes still. Then slowly slinks out of hiding and collapses into his chair like a dying star.
“I can’t believe you just lied to a government-registered Esper,” he mutters.
“I can believe I did it to get my day off back.”
“…Fair.”
You yawn, stretch, and head for the door. “Anyway, congrats on our fake bond. I expect fake anniversary gifts.”
“I'm gonna submit a fake complaint to HR.”
“Romantic.”
Idia glares.
You blow him a kiss and leave.
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You realize just how feral Espers are for high-grade Guides when one tries to poach yours in broad daylight, in public, with the social grace of a raccoon trying to steal your fries at a bus stop.
You’ve just finished a gate run, which—if you ignore the part where you took on three more phantoms than assigned, broke your regulator, and got launched through a wall—went rather well. Minor details, honestly. 
Idia, however, is not ignoring any of that. He is, in fact, still cataloging your crimes in a tired monotone that suggests he’s preparing a very long, very strongly worded complaint for HR. Possibly engraved on stone tablets.
“You absolute menace,” he mutters, slumped against the wall beside you. “You promised—promised—you wouldn’t go after the untagged ones unless backup arrived, and what did you do? You ran at it. With a stick. A stick.”
“It was a long stick,” you say helpfully, grinning as you lean a little more of your weight against him, fully aware he’s too drained to push you off.
“I had to leave my desk, you tyrant,” he hisses. “Do you know what it’s like being forced to cross a city-wide barrier while wearing socks with holes in them?! My soul is chafing.”
You laugh, and the sound is light and easy, the kind that says this is all routine for you now—him grumbling, you ignoring, the two of you attached at the hand like mismatched puzzle pieces that somehow just work.
It’s been nearly a year since you first met, and though Idia still resembles flight response in human form, he doesn’t flinch when you touch him anymore. He doesn’t hide behind walls of screens and sarcastic muttering. These days, he’ll even look you in the eye if he’s feeling particularly emotionally reckless.
And today, you’re halfway draped against his side, gripping his hand like it’s your personal grounding wire, while he complains about your irresponsibility with the dulled, weary cadence of someone who has long accepted his fate.
Everything is calm. Peaceful. Slightly sweaty, but serene.
Until it happens.
You feel it first—a disturbance in the air, a sort of psychic shift like a mosquito entering your periphery. And then a hand—not yours—wraps around Idia’s other hand.
You both freeze.
You turn your head slowly, like a haunted doll in a horror movie, and lock eyes with the offending Esper: a stranger, grinning with the unnerving intensity of someone who’s never once respected personal space in their life.
Their grip is firm. Their eyes are gleaming. You get the immediate and unshakable impression that they brush their teeth with motivational speeches and do pushups while listening to alpha wave affirmations.
“Hey,” they say brightly. “I felt your energy from across the lot. You’re an SS-ranked Guide, right? I need a sync. This is urgent.”
You blink. They just walked up. Grabbed his hand. Started a conversation. Like you’re not right there. Like you’re not holding his hand already.
Idia makes a noise. A terrible, high-pitched, panicked noise that sounds like a dying computer fan combined with a stress wheeze. His grip on your hand turns into a death clamp so intense you briefly lose sensation in your fingers.
You can feel his aura spiking erratically, his hair going from blue-flame to fire-hazard, his whole body broadcasting something between fight and flight but mostly error404.human.exe has stopped responding.
The other Esper keeps smiling.
So naturally, your half-dead, gate-fried, emotionally responsible brain decides to handle the situation with grace, poise, and logic.
“That’s my bonded Guide, how dare you?” you say loudly, voice ringing across the field like you’ve just declared war at a royal banquet.
The Esper blinks. “Wait—bonded?”
You stare them down with the weight of a thousand lies and the calm of someone who has absolutely no plan but is fully committed to whatever this is now. “Yes. Bonded. Anchored. Spiritually entangled. Aether-twined in the eyes of the Bureau and every known deity.”
The Esper takes a step back. “Oh. I—I didn’t realize, you weren’t listed—”
“It’s private. Sacred. We don’t believe in paperwork,” you say solemnly, as if this is an ancient vow passed down from your ancestors and not something you just made up to avoid watching Idia break down like a damsel in the middle of a syncing field.
“I—I’m sorry,” they stammer, already backing away like you’ve slapped them with a restraining order made of pure energy. “I didn’t mean to—good luck with your, um. Bond.”
And then they run. They actually run. Kick up dust and everything.
You turn back to Idia, who’s frozen in place like his entire reality has blue-screened.
“What,” he croaks, “the hell was that?”
“A problem solved,” you say, settling back into your lean like nothing happened. “You’re welcome.”
“You told them we were bonded. In public. Do you have any idea what you just—? That’s a federal registration. There’s ceremonies. There are retreats. I’m going to start getting targeted ads for matching sync robes!”
You shrug, resting your head on his shoulder with the peacefulness of someone who knows, with every fiber of their being, that they have zero intention of fixing this. “Eh. If the ad algorithm knows something before you do, maybe it’s just fate.”
“You’re the worst,” he whispers, deeply and with feeling.
And yet, his grip doesn’t loosen. Even with both your hands clasped like that, even after the emotional equivalent of a car alarm going off in his soul, he keeps holding on.
So really, you figure everything’s fine.
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After one little white lie (okay, two), things spiraled faster than you expected. Who knew that telling two different Espers that you and Idia were bonded would spread like someone set the office gossip group chat on fire and dumped rocket fuel on it?
Now you’re both sitting in HR.
The room is sterile in that special, soul-draining way that only HR offices can achieve—walls too white, chairs too plastic, a single wilting plant in the corner that’s seen more existential dread than most therapists.
You’re slouched in your seat, one leg bouncing like a ticking bomb, while Idia sits stiffly beside you, arms folded, looking like he wants to sink through the floor.
He's glaring at you with the intensity of a thousand blue suns. You can feel the judgment radiating off him like he's trying to guilt-force an apology through sheer mental anguish.
"Look," you mutter, nudging his boot with yours. "It’s not that bad."
"You told people we were bonded,” he hisses under his breath. “Twice. You turned it into an office-wide feature presentation. They sent us an official celebration cake, do you understand how terrifying that?”
You grin. “People love love.”
“I’m allergic to attention,” he snaps. “Do you know how many people tried to make eye contact with me this morning?”
“I made your life more efficient. Think about it—if we just roll with it, you never have to guide another Esper again. No more weirdos grabbing your hand in public. No more field calls. No more small talk.”
Idia pauses. You can see the moment he processes it. He goes very, very still, like a prey animal realizing the trap is actually a very comfy bed with Wi-Fi.
“…If I say we’re bonded, you're the only Esper I’ll ever have to guide,” he murmurs, eyes flicking toward the ceiling like he’s consulting an invisible divine entity. “I could work from home forever. No more missions. No more rando Espers breathing at me. I could build an AI version of myself for you to sync with. I wouldn’t even need to be conscious.”
“There you go!” you whisper, triumphant. “Fake it till we make it. Just smile, nod, and look like you tolerate me.”
“I don’t know how to smile on command.”
“Perfect. That’s our natural chemistry.”
Before he can spiral further, the HR door opens and a clipboard-toting, tired-eyed official waves you both in.
You sit. Idia sits like he’s never sat before. The HR guy folds his hands and gives you both that “I don’t get paid enough for this” expression all HR personnel master within the first week of their job.
“So,” he says. “You’re claiming a bond. You understand that means your sync scores, mission pairings, and emotional resonance charts are now considered federal data.”
“Absolutely,” you say confidently.
“Nope,” Idia says at the same time.
The HR guy pauses. “Right. Let’s just verify a few details.” He flips through the clipboard. “When did you begin your relationship?”
“About eleven months ago,” you reply smoothly.
“Two months ago?” Idia echoes, blinking. “Wait, what?”
“Where was your first official sync?”
“Field 17,” you say.
“The cafeteria,” says Idia.
A silence. You shoot him a quick look and whisper, “Why would we sync in the cafeteria—”
“I was thinking of lunch!” he hisses back.
HR guy clears his throat loudly.
“Okay,” he says, clearly fighting for patience. “Can you describe the moment you knew you were psychically compatible?”
You nod solemnly. “He touched my hand during decompression and I felt peace.”
“...When I almost blacked out from terror on field 206” Idia mutters.
You both blink at each other. There’s a horrible, choking silence.
The HR guy just sets down his pen, pinches the bridge of his nose, and sighs like he’s about to file for retirement. “Are you sure this is a real bond?”
Panic grips you like a sudden gust of wind. You think, fast. There’s only one thing left to do, one final act of desperation.
You rise from your chair.
Idia blinks. “What are you—oh no.”
You drop to one knee. “Oh yes.”
You pull out a ring. It’s a candy ring, the one you were saving in your jacket pocket for a sugar crash emergency. It sparkles like cheap sugar-coated destiny.
“Idia Shroud,” you say, with all the theatrical sincerity of a soap opera star in a season finale. “From the moment we synced, I knew you were the only socially avoidant, high-strung disaster I wanted to illegally claim government benefits with.”
Idia makes a noise that’s one part static feedback, one part soul exiting the body.
“Will you continue this extremely bureaucratically convenient charade with me?” you say, offering the candy ring with reverence. “For the tax write-offs and the peace of never having to talk to anyone else ever again?”
The HR guy is stunned. Mouth open. Not blinking. Probably buffering.
Idia stares at the ring. Then at you. Then at the HR guy. Then at the ring again.
“…I hate you,” he whispers, but lifts his hand anyway. “It better be lemon flavor or I walk.”
You slide the ring onto his finger like this is a fairy tale gone deeply, deeply off script.
HR makes a note. “...Right. Well. You’ll receive your bonding paperwork in three to five business days.”
And just like that, the meeting is over.
You and Idia walk out in silence, side by side, your new “engagement” ring glinting like the chaos it truly represents.
“...I hope you choke on candy,” he mutters.
“You love me.”
“No one will believe we’re bonded.”
“Oh, honey,” you grin, linking your arm through his. “They already do.”
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These days, you and Idia have reached what scientists might call a stable orbit, and what HR calls a “gross misuse of company time and space.” But whatever. That’s between you, Idia, and the slowly dying office fern neither of you have watered in months.
You don’t bother him too much anymore—which is to say, you only rearrange his collectible figurines once a week now instead of every time you enter his office. And in return, he no longer looks at you like you’re an invasive species he’d like to report to pest control. Progress.
Sometimes, your days are quiet. Idia’s hunched over in his gaming chair, absolutely violating some poor boss monster on screen while whispering insults under his breath like, “Die, you HP-bloated RNG hellbeast,” and you’re sprawled face-first across the couch like a very emotionally fulfilled potato.
You’ve made a perfect depression nest out of spare jackets, your limbs dangling off the side like you’ve been freshly thrown there by fate itself.
You should be working. Technically. But Idia’s the one who put the “Do Not Disturb Unless You’re On Fire” sign on the door, so really, you’re just honoring the sanctity of that promise.
Other times, you swing by with takeout—because you both forgot to eat lunch, and if left alone, Idia will subsist off instant noodles and spite. You shove a container into his hand and collapse next to him on the couch, your thigh pressed against his as he awkwardly elbows you for space but doesn’t actually move away. Not that you’re keeping score.
(You are. You're absolutely keeping score.)
"Okay," he says, opening his container. "So this season's adaptation is garbage—they cut the backstory arc, the budget tanked, and the studio didn’t even animate the hair properly, it’s criminal. But the original light novel? Peak fiction. High literary art. Shakespeare is in shambles.”
You nod sagely as you munch on your fries. You don’t know what the hell he’s talking about—something about time loops and cursed bloodlines and a vampire love interest who’s actually a sentient program??—but you listen anyway.
Not because you care about the plot.
But because he talks with his whole soul, voice quickening, eyes gleaming like he’s just rolled a nat 20 on the Charisma check against social anxiety. He flails with one hand, gesturing wildly with his chopsticks like a tiny conductor of chaos, while his other hand never leaves yours.
And sometimes, in those moments—when he’s mid-rant, flushed with nerd rage, and you’re half-listening, half-dozing, fingers tangled with his—you catch yourself looking at him a little too long.
You catch the sparkle in his eyes, the way his shoulders drop around you, the way he stops stuttering when he gets excited and trusts you to listen even if you don’t understand.
And it takes every single molecule of willpower in your rapidly melting brain not to say anything.
Not to say how much you like these moments. Not to say how much you like him.
Because, sure, you’re fake-bonded. Pretending. Faking it for HR and for peace and quiet and to stop weird Espers from flirting with your favorite (and only) antisocial Guide.
But maybe—just maybe—you wouldn’t mind if it weren’t pretend at all.
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Despite being a somewhat unmotivated little gremlin who once filed a formal complaint about being asked to show up to a meeting before noon, you have a bad habit of pushing yourself too far when it came to gates.
Not for glory. Not for stats. Not even for the sweet, sweet serotonin of a job well done. No, you did it because you’d seen what happened when gates breached—when help came too late, when the wrong Esper got caught in the crossfire, when someone broke apart in a way no guide could patch back together.
You remembered one of your old friends, a Guide with the sunniest smile and a laugh that always rang louder than anyone else’s. Until one day it didn’t. They’d walked out of a particularly bad gate breach in stunned silence, hands shaking, mouth opening and closing like they wanted to say something—anything—but couldn’t. They handed in their resignation the next day.
So yeah. Maybe you were lazy about laundry and paperwork and showing up on time. But when it came to gates, you didn’t play around.
You fought like hell to make sure no one else had to go through what your friend did. You fought out of bounds. You fought monsters that weren’t yours. You fought so Idia never had to wear that hollow, too-still expression you remembered from that day.
And today?
Today was bad.
A sudden gate, not enough backup, and you were the highest-ranked Esper present. Which meant it fell on you.
You lasted twelve hours in there. Twelve hours of back-to-back fights, suppressing, clearing, burning through your stamina like your life—and everyone else’s—depended on it.
By the time the gate sealed and spat you out, you were barely standing. The world tilted hard to the left, your vision turned into that weird static-y filter they use in horror movies right before someone dies, and your stomach made a noise that might’ve been a scream. You took one step before your knees gave out.
You didn’t hit the ground.
Because suddenly, there were hands on you—arms catching you just before you collapsed, dragging you out of the danger zone with a surprisingly solid grip for someone whose most strenuous physical activity was switching charging cables.
You didn’t even need to see him to know who it was.
Idia. Your Guide. Your terribly anxious, semi-voluntarily associated handler, whose voice was sharp with panic as he dragged you to the safe zone and sat you down with all the gentleness of a malfunctioning robot.
“Oh my god—oh my god, what the hell is wrong with you? Are you trying to die? Is this your new thing? Is this a hobby now?!”
You tried to respond but only managed a weak groan and a half-choke that might’ve been, “I’m fine,” or “I’m dying,” honestly it was 50/50.
He pressed his hands against your temples and started guiding immediately, energy steady and practiced. You felt the tightness in your chest start to ease, your pulse gradually slowing, your lungs actually filling up for once instead of fluttering like a dying balloon.
It was kind of nice. You hadn’t realized how close to blacking out you were until the static started fading. And then—
SMACK.
“OW—!”
“Shut up,” Idia hissed, yanking his hand back after slapping your shoulder hard enough to knock your soul a little looser. “You—you absolute fool of an Esper, you think I have time to be picking your half-dead corpse up off the ground like this?! I have three games on cooldown and a raid to prepare for next week and a life, you inconsiderate idiot!”
You opened one eye. “Wow, you’re yelling so much. Are you worried about me or just mad your stream got interrupted?”
“I’m both,” he snapped, color rising fast in his cheeks. “This—this can’t happen again. If you do this again, I’m gone. I’ll walk. I’ll— I’ll turn off my communicator. I’ll delete my file. I’ll fake my death. I will abandon you.”
You hummed, barely keeping your head upright. “You’d never.”
“I would.” His voice cracked like glass under pressure. “Don’t—don’t you dare test me. I mean it. I don’t want to… I don’t want to see you like that. Not again.”
You blinked at him slowly, the weight of exhaustion settling back into your limbs now that the adrenaline had burned out. And maybe it was the guiding haze, or maybe it was just him, but you let yourself rest.
Just for a little.
Because despite the dramatics and the hissy fit and the aggressively uncoordinated yelling, you knew what that panic meant. You knew what his hands trembling over yours meant.
And if your Guide was threatening to fake his own death for you, well… wasn’t that kind of romantic?
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You took a few days off after The Incident™, otherwise known as You Being A Reckless Maniac Who Nearly Died On The Job While Your Guide Watched In Real-Time. The official report called it “extreme physical exertion in a high-risk environment.” You called it “a regular workday.”
But now, by some miracle of medical leave and your supervisor’s desperate plea for you to “please just stop doing this to us,” you were free.
And what did you do with your precious, well-earned downtime?
You healed your soul.
Which, for the record, looked a lot like wearing the same hoodie for three days, eating spicy chips with reckless abandon, and watching a reality show so unhinged it had to be imported from three countries over and aired exclusively at 3 a.m. due to moral concerns.
It was everything you wanted. Stupid people making stupid choices while you lived vicariously from the safety of your couch.
You were mid-cringe—some poor contestant had just confessed their love to the wrong twin—when someone knocked on your door.
You paused the TV and blinked. You weren’t expecting anyone. Delivery? Nah, you hadn’t even ordered anything today. Maybe the neighbors—
You opened the door and froze.
Idia stood there. Hoodie too big. Hair slightly frizzed as usual. One hand holding a plastic bag that looked like it could house a small cow, the other awkwardly dragging a suitcase. A suitcase.
You stared at him.
He stared at you.
Then, without saying a single word, he walked right in. No greeting, no explanation, just brushed past you like he’d done it a hundred times before and knew exactly where he was going.
He set the bag down with a thunk, the suitcase with a thud, plugged a drive into your media player with all the confidence of someone who had practiced this, and loaded up an anime you didn’t even recognize—something with neon colors, probably three timelines, and a cast of beautiful characters with extremely tragic backstories.
Then he turned to you.
And stared.
Not a single word. Just pointedly stared until you sighed, flopped back down on the couch, and scooted over to make room for him.
He joined you immediately. Threw a blanket over the both of you with the elegance of a man conducting a sacred ritual. Pulled your hand into his and laced your fingers together like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Still didn’t say anything.
You glanced at him. “So… are you living here now?”
No answer.
“Did you bring me snacks at least?”
He reached into the bag with his free hand, pulled out your favorite candy, and passed it to you without looking.
You raised an eyebrow. “You’re really committing to the whole silent anime protagonist thing, huh?”
He finally opened his mouth.
“Shut up. The sad backstory part is about to start.”
And that was that.
Apparently, your healing arc had a guest star now. One with a suitcase, great taste in melodrama, and a grip on your hand that never loosened.
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You wake up with a distinct sense that something’s wrong.
Not life-or-death wrong. Not “gate-breach-imminent” wrong. More like “you-fell-asleep-in-a-position-that-defies-basic-anatomy” kind of wrong.
Your limbs are a mess. There’s a hoodie-clad arm loosely wrapped around your waist. Your face is very much pressed into someone’s collarbone. Someone who is radiating body heat like a human furnace. And you, like the enlightened creature you are, sniff before you register what your eyes are seeing.
Wait.
Wait.
You blink blearily, and that’s when you realize: the human furnace is Idia Shroud.
You’re practically draped over him. Your leg is slung over his hips like you own him. His fingers are curled gently in your shirt like you’re his last tether to life. It’s less “sleepover” and more “Netflix and accidental marriage.”
And just as you situation begins to settle in, he stirs.
You freeze.
He opens his eyes.
And then—it happens.
He makes a sound. A terrible, wretched sound. Like a dying Roomba. Or a haunted fax machine possessed by a demon with asthma.
Then he squints down at you, eyes wild with confusion and betrayal.
And with a trembling breath, he whispers, “…I hate you.”
You blink. “What.”
“I hate you,” he repeats, louder this time, like you’re hard of hearing and he’s your dramatic high school ex. “I hate you. This is all your fault.”
You squint. “Did the genre shift? Are we friends to enemies now? Or, like, lovers to enemies to something worse?”
He sits up with you still partially on him and gestures dramatically at the tangled blankets like he’s presenting evidence in court. “Look at this. Look at what you’ve done to me. I used to be a recluse. I used to avoid human interaction. I had peace. Quiet. I had ten hours of gaming time per day.”
“You still have that,” you point out. “You just make me sit in the room now and pass you snacks.”
“Exactly!” he snaps. “I started liking it! I started looking forward to your dumb commentary during boss fights! I started… craving your presence like some kind of socially-adjusted moron!”
You stare.
He rants on, wild-haired and red-faced and approximately one and a half steps from throwing himself out a window. “You fake proposed to get out of HR trouble! And then you stole my hoodie! And you keep showing up in my space and making it better and more tolerable and I hate you for it!”
Your mouth twitches. “You sure this isn’t just a confession disguised as slander?”
He glares at you. “Don’t flatter yourself. I am merely experiencing symptoms of long-term emotional contamination. Also known as affection. A known virus."
You’re laughing now, arms still loosely wrapped around him. “So you like me.”
“I can’t believe I fell for you,” he groans, throwing his head back dramatically. “Of all the people in this world, I had to fall for the unhinged disaster gremlin who pretended we were bonded because it was ‘funny.’”
“You asked me to keep the lie going!”
“Because you said we were soulmates in front of an HR rep with a clipboard!”
You grin. “Okay, but was I wrong?”
He makes a noise that sounds like a tea kettle having an emotional breakdown.
Then he slumps like he’s aged thirty years in three seconds and mutters, “Just reject me already so I can go die in some cold, dark corner of a server room.”
You kiss him.
It’s soft and simple and smug. Mostly because he’s still glaring at you and now he’s also short-circuiting. His ears go bright pink.
You smile against his lips and ask, “So. You wanna make the fake bond real?”
He glares harder. “You’re the worst.”
And then he kisses you again like he’s never been more offended to be in love in his entire life.
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Idia hated that he was a high-class Guide.
It was like being the rare shiny Pokémon everyone wanted to catch, except instead of admiration, it came with a nonstop barrage of overcaffeinated Espers trying to hold his hand without warning and HR emails that read like increasingly desperate dating profiles: “This one is only mildly feral! Just give it a shot :)”
He didn’t want to “give it a shot.” He wanted to crawl into his anime pillow fort and watch seventeen episodes of Mecha Scream Force: Ultimate Uncut Directors’ Deluxe Edgelord Edition in peace.
And then your file landed in his inbox.
Subject: SS– BATTLE-LEVEL ESPER. NOTES: Known anomaly. Exhibits unpredictable energy flux due to post-gate mutation. Possibly cursed. Re: Sync pair recommendation – IDIA SHROUD. Good luck. [Attached: a video of you almost biting into a monster’s neck mid-fight]
Idia stared at it for a full minute. Then he closed the file, reopened it, and checked the name. His name.
“Whyyyy me?” he whispered to the heavens, even though he was indoors and had blackout curtains drawn so tightly it looked like the void itself lived there.
Clearly, he’d wronged someone in a past life. Probably a whole list of someones.
When you walked into his office, he expected chaos. He expected explosions. He expected you to tackle him to the ground screaming “LET ME ABSORB YOUR AURA” or something equally traumatic.
Instead?
You looked at him, grinned like this was a lunch break, and approached him. 
Then you stuck your hand out like you were offering him a pen.
“Yo. You guiding or nah?”
Idia blinked. The sheer normalcy hit him like a truck. 
You just kept smiling, not even a glimmer of feral gate trauma in your eyes, and said, “Wanna do the hand thing or are you one of those forehead touchers?”
Idia was so caught off guard he actually stuttered, “J-just hands is fine.”
“Neat,” you said, and took his hand like it was no big deal. Like you hadn’t allegedly suplexed a gate beast using only your pinky. Like you didn’t have a file thicker than some light novels.
And… that was it.
You let him guide you. No whining. No dramatic speeches. No weird vibes. Just sync.
When it was over, you looked at him and said, “Wanna grab noodles?” and then skipped off to bother a vending machine.
Idia stood there for several minutes, buffering like a corrupted cutscene.
You weren’t loud. You weren’t clingy. You didn’t even try to oversync. And your handshake? A solid 8.5/10. Firm, but not emotionally traumatizing.
He texted Ortho:
“I think I found a non-feral one. Do you think they’re a spy.”
Ortho replied:
“Or maybe they’re just not like the others.” “Bro do NOT fall in love.”
Idia stared at your file again that night. He looked at the chaos reports, the combat records, the notes scribbled in red pen by HR.
And then he thought about your stupid little grin and how you didn’t even complain when he made you wait twenty minutes while he charged his noise-canceling headphones.
Maybe—just maybe—you weren’t going to ruin his life.
Yet.
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The first time Idia waited outside a gate for you, he genuinely thought, How bad could it be?
Spoiler: it was bad.
He was standing there with his coat flapping awkwardly in the breeze, hunched like a socially anxious gargoyle, trying to blend into the concrete.
But alas—there was no blending in when you were wearing a neon SS-rank Guide badge that practically screamed, “HELLO! I’m high value and emotionally unavailable for syncing, please invade my personal space immediately!”
Espers began swarming.
Like moths. No. Like moths with abs.
“Yo, you synced up with anyone?” said one particularly muscular guy who was chewing gum with the intensity of someone trying to seduce through molar power.
“Wanna test compatibility?” offered another, already reaching out like this was some kind of handshake.
“I could use a cool-headed Guide like you,” purred a woman who looked like she bench-pressed trucks in her downtime.
Idia, for his part, simply froze. Not because he was considering it. No. He was buffering. His brain was lagging so hard it was displaying the mental equivalent of the spinning beach ball of doom. Why were they all so close? Why was that one flexing?
He wanted to vanish. He wanted to dissolve into the sidewalk. He wanted you to COME OUT OF THE GATE ALREADY.
And then, like some kind of disaster-themed magical girl, you stumbled out of the gate with your jacket halfway falling off your shoulder, a smear of monster goo on your cheek, and your smile crooked from adrenaline.
You blinked at the scene. Idia surrounded by sparkle-eyed Espers. And you? You grinned like a menace and called, “Aww, were you being courted while I was gone?”
He immediately flushed three shades of cherry blossom pink and hissed, “W-would it kill you to come out faster?! I almost got bond-napped!”
You just laughed, clapped him on the shoulder (with the force of a medium earthquake), and said, “Don’t worry, Shiny Badge. I’ll be faster next time.”
And shockingly… you were.
Next gate, you practically threw yourself out as soon as the rift closed, stumbling directly into Idia like you were being ejected from a monster meat blender.
He squeaked. You beamed. And every other Esper in a ten-foot radius suddenly looked like they’d just found out their crush was married.
“You happy now?” you asked, trying to wipe blood off your face with a wet napkin. “Did I make it in time to preserve your purity?”
“I am never wearing that badge again,” Idia muttered, clinging to your arm like you were his emotional support chaos.
But secretly?
He was just a little happy you’d listened.
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A few months into this partnership—not that Idia was counting (he totally was, he had a spreadsheet tracking your interactions and categorized emotional events, but that’s beside the point)—he was enjoying what he considered peak compatibility.
You didn’t ask invasive questions. You brought snacks. And most importantly, you didn’t try to poke at his psyche with metaphorical chopsticks like all the other Espers seemed to enjoy doing.
So when a baby B-class Esper showed up outside his office and refused to leave, he had one reaction.
Panic.
He were earnest. Bright-eyed. Starstruck. Speaking through the office door in a tone that suggested he was auditioning for a sports anime.
“I just believe it’s my destiny to be guided by the best! And the system says you have many open slots!”
Idia, crumpled in his gamer chair like a depressed shrimp, texted you in the most pathetic SOS syntax he could manage.
SOS. B-Class pest in hallway. Halp. They’re monologuing.
To his relief and eternal confusion, you actually showed up. On your day off. Dressed in sweatpants and judgment, hair a mess, holding an energy drink in one hand and existential dread in the other.
He thought—great, you’d flex your seniority, threaten the rookie with HR, maybe gently suggest they find a less traumatized Guide.
But no.
You looked at the Esper, and said, “Sorry. He’s bonded. To me. Permanently.”
The B-class Esper’s eyes widened with sparkling heartbreak. “O-oh. I didn’t… I didn’t see a bond registration?”
You didn’t even blink. “It’s private. For, uh… spiritual reasons.”
The kid left with a sniffle and a salute—a salute, like they’d just witnessed a great romantic tragedy.
And you?
You slurped your energy drink and said, “You’re welcome. You owe me dinosaur nuggets.”
And Idia, poor Idia, just sat there in the background with his hands halfway to his face, mumbling, “I’m gonna fling you out the window. Then I’m gonna follow.”
He just curled up in his chair, stared at the ceiling, and began calculating how long he could fake his own death before HR caught on.
And the worst part?
The lie worked too well.
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Idia had survived a lot of things in life.
He’d survived MMORPG guild drama. The Y/N self-insert fic someone wrote about him that got 80,000 kudos and a spin-off comic. That fic someone wrote about him marrying Malleus in a pasta-themed AU that still somehow had an 8k comment thread.
But this?
This was unforgivable.
He was in HR. Again. With you. And no one had even punched a hole in the wall this time. This was all preemptive HR. Preventative HR.
The worst kind of HR, because it meant someone somewhere thought he might be a problem. Him! A problem! As if he didn’t already take up negative space in most social situations!
And you—you, the original source of his misfortune—you were just sitting beside him like you hadn’t just committed the equivalent of marriage fraud by loudly claiming, in front of at least seven witnesses and a vending machine, that the two of you were bonded.
Permanently. Irrevocably. Like a pair of idiot soulmates who'd stumbled out of a romcom written by an unpaid intern.
As if the “we’re bonded, teehee” debacle with the B-class Esper wasn’t enough to shave a year off Idia’s already stress-shortened life, it had happened again.
Some random esper held his hand post-gate when you were both still high on adrenaline and trauma, and instead of, Idia didn’t know, punching them or using your words like a normal person, you just went “excuse me, that’s my bonded Guide, how dare you,” like you were a jealous ex.
That was the moment the rumors really took off.
And now here you were. Both of you. In HR.
Because HR had questions. Many questions. And neither of you had done the bare minimum, which was maybe talking about what fake answers you should give in advance. Like you didn’t even rehearse. Not a single shared Google Doc. No coordinated lies. Just vibes.
So when the HR guy (who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else on the planet, including the bottom of a sulfur pit) asked, “When did the bond occur?” you said October 3rd and Idia, with absolute confidence and zero hesitation, said March 22nd.
There was a pause.
Not a silence. A pause. The kind that echoes through generations.
“And where did it happen?” the man asked again, in the voice of someone whose therapist was going to be hearing about this in excruciating detail later.
You, smiling: “Field 17.”
Idia, barely restraining a grimace: “The Cafeteria.”
Another silence. This one more like an oncoming freight train.
“Do you at least know each other’s middle names?”
Idia blinked. “They have a middle name?”
You, helpfully: “His is ‘Trouble.’”
The HR guy looked like he aged six years in that moment. He pinched the bridge of his nose, sighed deeply, and began massaging his temples in slow, pained circles like a man who had seen the abyss and wished it had swallowed him.
And then.
Then you moved.
Idia saw it happen in slow motion. You stood up. Reached into your hoodie pocket. And pulled out something shiny and crinkly. Something artificial. Something glowing with malevolent intent.
A Ring Pop.
A goddamn Ring Pop.
“Don’t do it,” Idia whispered, “I swear to everything, if you—”
You dropped to one knee in the middle of the HR office like you were auditioning for a live-action soap opera.
“From the moment we synced,” you said, voice loud, clear, and completely free of shame, “I knew you were the only socially avoidant, high-strung disaster I wanted to illegally claim government benefits with.”
ILLEGALLY.
CLAIM.
GOVERNMENT BENEFITS.
In front of HR. 
Idia's soul left his body. Again. He was nothing but a faint outline of smoke and anxiety in the shape of a man.
The HR guy did not react. He simply stared into space like he had become untethered from time and reality. Somewhere in the distance, someone’s computer pinged. A bird hit the window. The printer made a noise like it was trying to weep.
Idia looked at the Ring Pop. It better not be raspberry flavored. The worst possible option. The flavor of betrayal and poor decisions.
“If it’s not lemon, I walk,” he muttered, even as he extended his hand like the fool he was.
You beamed like you’d just won a reality show. Slipped the candy ring onto his finger with great ceremony. He stared down at it, sticky sugar starting to melt onto his knuckles, and wondered what series of decisions had led him to this moment.
You leaned close as you walked out of the office and whispered, “We’re truly fraudulently bonded now. I hope you’re happy.”
“I’m the opposite of happy,” Idia hissed. “I am… anti-happy. I am negativity incarnate. We are legally entangled. We have created an HR file. I’m going to have to explain this to Ortho.”
You smirked.
“Tell him it was a shotgun wedding. He’ll love it.”
You didn’t let go of his hand.
And—God help him—he didn’t let go of yours either.
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It definitely got worse before it got better. 
Ortho, for one, did not let him live it down. Not for a second. There was a party. A full-on celebratory bash. With banners. One of which read “Congrats on Your Emergency Government Sanctioned Soul Marriage!” in Comic Sans.
Idia had tried to crawl into the floor. The floor, unfortunately, remained solid. He was forced to attend the party in body, if not spirit.
Ortho had even made a slideshow, complete with sparkly transitions and lo-fi music, documenting “every known moment of you two being disgustingly bonded.”
There was cake. The cake said “Congrats, You Played Yourself.” It tasted like guilt.
But… after the glitter and humiliation settled… things became weirdly good.
You didn’t treat him differently. That was the weird part. You still flopped dramatically across his office couch like you’d just fought a battle with gravity and lost.
You still made horrendous snacking noises and tried to convince him to watch cursed reality TV. You still made offhanded jokes during his games that were so sharp and stupid that he had to pause the cutscene and stare into the screen like it was a black void of disbelief.
He never laughed—obviously—but his shoulders shook a little sometimes. Just from rage. Definitely.
Sometimes, you brought him takeout. Unprompted. Just dropped it on his desk like a raccoon delivering tribute and started poking through your own container.
You always let him talk about whatever show had emotionally ruined him that week. You even listened. Like, actually listened. Nodded at the plot twists. Called the villain a loser. Asked about the fan theories. Like what he said mattered.
And sometimes, when you were too distracted counting shrimp in your fried rice, brows furrowed like you were solving a shrimp-based tax puzzle, Idia would stare at you.
Not in a creepy way. Just in a very... intense... anime-protagonist-moment kind of way. Like if someone added a wind filter and dramatic music, it would be a whole romantic B-plot arc.
He’d stare and think: Please don’t change. Please don’t leave. Please let this be real, even if it’s dumb. Even if it’s fake government paperwork and Ring Pops and nonsense. Please let this nonsense stay mine.
And then you’d look up mid-chew, mouth full, and say something like, “Do you think shrimp ever get existential crises about tempura?”
He’d immediately look away, ears red, heart a mess.
He was doomed.
Absolutely, sugar-glazed, takeout-fed, soul-bonded doomed.
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There was an emergency gate.
Idia was outside. He’d been outside for twelve hours. That was twelve hours of sunlight exposure, twelve hours of people trying to talk to him, twelve hours of not knowing if you were dead or just being dramatic. Which, okay, to be fair, the line between the two was thin when it came to you.
He paced. He vibrated. He glared at anyone who so much as breathed in his direction. Someone tried to hand him a water bottle and he hissed like a wet cat.
Every five minutes, he checked his comms, even though he wasn’t cleared for internal updates. SS-ranked Guide my ass, he thought bitterly, hands twitching. Can’t even get an accurate live feed on the one maniac I’m synced to.
He told himself—repeatedly—that he was only mad because he had to wait outside for twelve whole hours. That it was purely logical rage. That the sun had permanently crisped his skin and fried his nerves and this was just normal vitamin-D-overload fury.
He was a filthy liar and he knew it.
He was anxious. He was anxious because you were in there alone. Well, not alone—technically there were other Espers—but they were all juniors. Babies. Snot-nosed kids who couldn’t fight their way out of a tutorial level.
You were the highest rank inside. Which meant you would push yourself. Which meant he had to sit there for twelve hours imagining every possible worst-case scenario his very creative and extremely deranged brain could come up with.
So when you finally stumbled out—filthy, bleeding, and doing your best impression of a half-dead Muppet—Idia didn’t even think. He caught you before you hit the ground, arms wrapping around you like instinct.
You were half-conscious, mumbling something about how the last monster looked like your elementary school English teacher, and Idia just about blacked out.
He dragged you to the side with the strength of pure panic and adrenaline. You were barely upright, clinging to him like a sleep-deprived spider monkey, and he was guiding you with shaky hands and a full-body tremble of what the hell, what the actual hell, what is wrong with you.
And then—he slapped your shoulder.
Hard.
Harder than someone with his spaghetti-noodle limbs had any right to.
“Are you out of your mind?!” he snapped, voice cracking. “Do you have a single functioning brain cell?! Were you trying to die in there? Is that it? Were you like, ‘Wow, you know what would be awesome today? Ruining my lungs and my Guide’s entire life in one go’—was that the plan?!”
You wheezed a laugh and gave a thumbs up.
He smacked you again.
“You can’t do that again,” he said, quietly this time, guiding aura flaring warm and sharp around his hands. “You can’t. If this happens again, I swear, I’m done. I’ll walk. I’ll turn in my license. I’ll go live in the woods and talk to raccoons. I’ll abandon you. I’m serious.”
You blinked at him, eyes bleary. “That’s dramatic.”
“So are you!” he snapped, and ran another guiding pulse through your body, scowling.
You slumped into him, letting the energy steady your limbs, and mumbled something about him being overprotective.
He told you to shut up.
You smiled.
He didn’t mean it about leaving.
But you didn’t need to know that.
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You took a few days off after the gate incident. Not that Idia was keeping track. Not that he had an entire spreadsheet titled “Gate Trauma Recovery: Dumb Gremlin Edition” with daily updates on your recovery status that he absolutely did not check every thirty minutes.
But okay, maybe he was spiraling a little.
Because no matter how many games he played or anime episodes he queued up, he couldn’t get the image out of his head—you, bruised and burned and half-conscious, slumping into his arms like you were seconds away from not existing anymore.
It lived rent-free in his head. It had set up a cozy studio apartment in his cerebral cortex and was not paying utilities.
So, naturally, like any emotionally repressed SS-rank Guide with the common sense of a decorative rock, he packed a suitcase.
In went his portable gaming setup. His backup backup controller. Six different cords for reasons known only to the universe. Two sets of headphones. His lucky gamer hoodie. A USB fan (essential). And then a bag of snacks roughly the size of 6 corgis, filled with everything from neon sour gummies to obscure off-brand Pocky flavors.
Then, in a fit of either romance or psychosis (jury’s out), he showed up at your front door.
You opened it mid–reality show binge, wearing pajama pants with some loud pattern that made his eyes hurt. He stood there, suitcase in one hand, snack bag in the other, looking like a socially anxious door-to-door apocalypse salesman.
Neither of you spoke.
Because what was he supposed to say?
“Hi, I couldn’t stop thinking about the way your breathing was shallow and your skin was cold and I panicked so hard I packed my whole life into a bag like we’re running away from a zombie uprising and now I’m here because not seeing you for three days makes me feel like I’m gonna hurl?”
Absolutely not. He would rather eat drywall. He would rather die.
So instead, he walked in silently like a weirdo, set his stuff down like it was totally normal, and plugged in his drive into your media player like this was just a casual day.
You, either out of kindness or shared delusion, didn’t question it.
You just moved things over on the couch to make room and handed him the blanket. Like this was normal. Like he hadn’t just barged in with a small suitcase of emotional instability and bad coping mechanisms.
He put on a new anime. One he’d been saving. One he hadn’t planned on watching until you could roll your eyes and make your dumb little commentary at the plot holes.
You leaned against him, not saying a word.
And he held your hand like you hadn't absolutely blown up his entire emotional firewall. Like he hadn’t nearly lost you. Like this wasn’t already his favorite memory.
He didn’t say a word the whole episode.
But his fingers stayed curled around yours like a promise he was too much of a coward to say out loud.
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Idia woke up with a full-grown human person draped across his body like a weighted blanket with boundary issues.
His brain booted up slowly—first registering the dull ache in his spine from sleeping on your disaster of a couch, then the soft warmth of your face smushed into his shoulder, and finally the fact that your entire existence was currently entangled with his like some kind of romcom final episode cuddle position.
He did not survive twelve hours of panicked gate-waiting, emotional damage, and spontaneous suitcase-packing for this.
Actually, no. That was a lie. He absolutely did. And if anyone dared to move you right now he would bite.
But unfortunately for him—and also, somehow, for you—he had the emotional self-control of a feral raccoon near a garbage can of feelings. So when you stirred a little and blinked sleepily at him, he opened his mouth and said the first thing that slithered out of his traitorous brain.
“I hate you.”
Your eyes focused slowly. “...Huh?”
“I hate you,” he repeated, voice cracking like a cursed record. “I hate the way you act like it’s totally normal to almost die in my arms and then go eat egg tarts like it’s no big deal. I hate that you lie to HR like it’s your full-time job. I hate that you keep doing stupid dangerous things and now I can’t function unless I know you’re alive and breathing and not about to faceplant into death.”
You blinked. Then—as if you weren’t being confessed to in what could only be described as a monologue from a melodramatic anime villain—you grinned.
“You sure this isn’t just a confession disguised as slander?”
“I—!” Idia made a noise so high-pitched only dogs could hear it. “I can’t believe I fell for you. Out of everyone. I fell for a chaotic war goblin who proposes with candy rings and lies to government officials like it’s foreplay.”
You were still grinning.
“Okay,” you said, ridiculously chipper for someone in a horizontal cuddle chokehold. “So do you wanna actually permanently bond and make it official or are we just going to keep emotionally edging each other until one of us passes out?”
Idia stared at you like you’d just offered him the keys to the universe and then spit directly on his soul.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Short-circuited a little.
Then, quietly—so quietly you almost missed it—he said, “...Only if you still have that candy ring.”
You beamed. “I always carry the candy ring.”
He looked like he wanted to crawl under the couch and die from happiness. Instead, he pulled you closer and mumbled against your forehead:
“You are the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Then he kissed you again like he never wanted to let you go.
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You and Idia actually end up permanently bonded.
Legally. Emotionally. Spiritually. Psychically. All of the above.
You signed the forms (well, you dramatically slammed them onto the HR desk and said, “Guess we’re actually married now, huh?” while Idia tried to phase through the wall from secondhand embarrassment), synced up your brain waves or whatever, and boom—done.
And honestly? It doesn’t feel like fireworks. Or fate. Or some dramatic crescendo of music and soulmates.
It feels like wearing your favorite hoodie.
It feels like sleep.
It feels like finally putting your phone on Do Not Disturb and flopping face-first onto your guide.
Gates still suck. They still open at 3 a.m. when you're already two bites into a reheated burrito. They still spit out eldritch horrors that look like tax fraud made flesh. And yeah—you still fight recklessly. You're still you.
But now there’s a pause before you push too hard. Now there’s a voice—his voice—filling your head mid-fight going, “Hey, I don’t mean to backseat or anything, but MAYBE don’t solo the three-headed acid wolf?”
And you listen. Mostly. Sometimes. At least you try.
Because you remember what it was like, the way his hands shook the first time he caught you after a gate—your blood on his shirt, your laugh too weak, your legs folding like bad origami. You remember the way he smacked you while guiding, voice cracking, saying, “Don’t you ever do that again or I’m uninstalling myself from this entire dimension.”
So you ease up. A little. For him.
Life is still a mess. You're still a mess. Idia is a different flavor of mess, like the kind that alphabetizes their video game collection but forgets to eat lunch.
But it’s your mess now.
Sometimes, you watch terrible reality shows together and he pretends not to care but makes offhanded, emotionally devastating comments about character arcs. Sometimes, he lets you nap on his shoulder as he games and blushes violently if you drool on him.
Sometimes, he just sits next to you with your pinkies intertwined and doesn’t say a word—but you feel it anyway. That weird quiet peace. That “please don’t ever go into a gate without telling me again” kind of love.
And sometimes, when the world isn’t ending and your head isn’t splitting and the shrimp-to-rice ratio is finally correct, you kiss his cheek mid-battle and he yells, “This is emotional sabotage during a DPS rotation!” but he doesn’t pull away.
Life is chaos. But hey, at least now it’s your chaos. And you’ve got a socially anxious gremlin who chose you—every unhinged, exhausting part of you—on purpose.
And you’d choose him every time.
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Series Masterlist ; Masterlist
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616ioi · 2 months ago
Note
I think Nagumo's nipples are very sensitive to the touch, he loves having his nipples sucked, licked and pinched on.
❛ #QUAFF! SAKAMOTO DAYS.
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────────── heartily drinking everything he can give .ᐟ.ᐟ
⤿ pairings. nagumo yoichi x gn reader
⤿ contents. sub character, brief drug usage, m!lactation, nipple play, twt link, drabble. this contains mature content, read at your own discretion.
⤿ thoughts. an enigmatic character who's really powerful and has a sensitive body??? yesyesyesyesyes.
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This feels like a fever dream, nagumo thinks, there's no way this is real.
There's no way the medication actually worked. It was simply an inside joke between the two of you. Where you'd pinch and flick at his pink nipples when he misbehaved as you mocked him enough to get him hard — 'I should milk you from here instead, don't you think?'
Uhm, don't even put that thought into his head, please. It's too late now. He took metformin + hormones imbalance + stress = a potentially life-threatening complication, but like, when wasn't he in that situation?
It's your birthday, and you're drunk off him. It's all worth it when he corners you in at your party, teasingly. This is all just a ploy. It's so obviously a stratagem, but you want him just as badly, so it doesn't matter.
Your leg slots perfectly between his, warm hands gripping his sturdy thighs, pulling him closer to you. His breath hits your mouth, drool slipping down your chin as he pushes his wet tongue to yours.
The white collar button-up hugs him loosely, yet your imagination runs wild at the thought of making a mess out of him and forcing him back into the crowded party with his cum dripping down his abs.
You pull away from his mouth, smirking when he chases after your lips, puckering them into a pout. Your hands loosen his tie, but you don't remove it, then your fingers struggle with his buttons before ultimately ripping it down with a somewhat harsh rip, buttons flying.
"Haha, so eager, ung-" the fabric brushes up against him. was that a whine? "It was my favorite shirt..."
You lean forward, nose nuzzling underneath his jaw with affection. He leans into the touch, hips stuttering against your thigh, "Sorry."
Your hands roam around his thin waist, the pads of your finger trailing your name across his body. Marking him. And when you get closer and closer to his chest, his back arches into you before he flinches violently.
"Hm?" You pull away at the sudden movement, eyes scanning his wide-eyed expression, pink dusting his cheeks. He's always had a sensitive chest, but this reaction is new. It intrigues you enough to fully push his shirt away from his chest.
Your lips part at the sight as your breath catches in your throat.
His nipples are swollen. A harsh pink and swollen. There's a certain redness to it. It contrasts so beautifully against the hardness of his muscular chest.
"Look at you..." You mumble under your breath, voice hoarse. Nagumo laughs breathlessly, and he takes your hands, forcing them from his waist to his chest, biting his lip to muffle a needy moan. Your pointer finger tentatively taps at the tender bud, swallowing thickly at his shuddering gasp. "This f'me, yoichi?"
Your hands assess him, fingers pinching and rubbing at the fat of his chest. Absentmindedly toying with him in the process.
You take notice of his areola protruding from the skin away from his chest's normal curve. After hours, days, and months of toying with him, you can recognize that these must hurt.
Your thumb fondles with the chub, humming with enjoyment.
"Ah, hah, yeah.." Nagumo slurs out, head falling onto your shoulder, trying to hide his face from you. He's slightly embarrassed, more than he expected to be. Though it doesn't last for long because you lurch forward, the wet muscle of your tongue gently swirling around the areola. "O-ohh fu-mmngfff! Wai- hold on.."
You open your mouth wide enough to take it all, slurping at him with the tenderness of a machine gun. Nagumo withers uncontrollably, his clothed boner rubbing on your thigh. He doesn't stop you when you press him closer to you, chest leaning further into your warm mouth.
You're eating him up.
Your hand works at the other nipple, constantly pinching with your nail. Nagumo's gasping for air, mouth falling into an 'o' shape as his eyes squeeze tightly. He's actually seeing colors. "[Name], ahh! that's too h-harsh.."
"You show up here like this, now of all times? Oh, yoichi, you're soo cute." Nagumo grunts, a tattooed hand flying to shut the shaky cry that vomits its way out of him.
Wait, he thinks, something is leaking!
You exhale in surprise, eyes widening when something warm hits your maw, mouth naturally swallowing all that shot down your throat.
Sweet...
Your eyes flicker to his face. He looks just as surprised as you, his black eyes nearly rolling back into his head. He grits his teeth, breathing harshly through his nostrils.
"Uhnnn, that- again." He drops his hands, clinging onto the tie that fell over your face, "pretty please. I-I'll do anything, again- ngh!!"
Your lips latch onto the other side, smearing your milk covered muscle to the bud, breathing harshly against it, then nibbling down for more creamy colored liquid to squrt out.
And nagumo's reaction is always surprised. The tremor of his hands, the ecstasy in his blown pupils, the spasms his whole body experienced.
He didn't think it would actually work.
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emotional-moss · 1 year ago
Text
despite the fact that it’s like 2014 in japan during haikyuu i choose to believe that the volleyball teams just. don’t process homophobia. kageyama is too busy thinking about volleyball (and by extension hinata) to worry about sexuality at all and one time he walked in on two girls from his class kissing by the vending machine and they started freaking out and he was like “???? I just want some milk.” hinata is also mostly too focused on volleyball for sexuality like he processes that he likes girls because girls are pretty and make his heart beat faster but also he’s definitely had weird crushes on the tiny giant and bokuto and some other players (kageyama) he just hasn’t registered it yet. tsukishima knows he’s gay (yamaguchi) and considers it beneath him to be mean to someone for their sexuality, that’s just cheap, there are better things you can make fun of someone for. yamaguchi agrees with him by association and also because he doesn’t know WHAT he feels for tsukishima but it’s not platonic and he freaks out about it a little bit but not because tsukishima’s a guy, but because he’s so cool and could date someone better. tanaka and nishinoya are aggressively heterosexual (for the most part. nishinoya and asahi) but are very homoerotic with one another in their aggressive heterosexuality and everybody’s just gotten used to it. asahi is an enormous scary looking grown ass man who has the personality of a baby deer which is already strange so they just shrug and accept it when nishinoya is basically his protector at all times. daichi and sugawara are basically a married couple already by the fact that being captain and vice captain of karasuno is like taking care of a bunch of tall hyperactive preschoolers. it is known to everyone that yachi basically has a flaming enormous crush on shimizu and they all just shrug and accept it because it’s shimizu, who wouldn’t have a crush on her? do you see my vision
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sharmajiya · 9 months ago
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Automatic Milk Data Processor Unit For Dairy
Enhance your dairy operations with our Automatic Milk Data Processor Unit. Designed for efficiency and precision, this advanced unit streamlines data processing, ensuring accurate milk analysis and record-keeping. Ideal for dairy farms and processing facilities, it simplifies data management while boosting productivity.
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band--psycho · 2 months ago
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Poly!141 x Reader -Stop The Wedding (Part 2)
I just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who read Part 1! I hope you all enjoy this part - there are more on the way soon! Read Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11 / Part 12 / Part 13
Please be kind, reblogs are always welcome and greatly appreciated! Thank you for all the continued support 💛
Requests are open so if you have any ideas/requests, you're more than welcome to send them over (thank you to everyone who's requested a story so far, I'm working my way through them!)
I do not give permission for any of my works to be copied or translated onto this site or other platforms!
Warnings: Pettines, hurt, mentions of breakups, feelings of anger
COD Modern Warfare Masterlist / Join My Taglist
It was unusual for the coffee shop to be this quiet on a Friday afternoon, but considering how manic the rest of the day had been, you couldn’t deny that you were thankful for the reprieve. 
There was a quiet lull around you; just the soft murmurs of people's conversations and the familiar hiss that came from the espresso machine as you cleaned it. 
The little bell at the top of the door rang, signaling a customer's arrival; you quickly finished up cleaning the machine before turning to face the customer who’d just arrived with your signature “here to help” smile. 
A smile that very quickly faltered the second your brain processed who it was that stood in front of you. 
Your ex…well one of them..
John Price. 
Captain John Price… 
He looked different, in his eyes mainly…he looked tired, much more tired than you’d ever seen him, even after he’d come back from his deployments.
Mind you, the last time you’d seen him or any of the others for that matter, was two and a half years ago, on what had been one of the worst days of your life. 
“Hey sweetheart,” he said, the familiarity of his voice and the nickname he used to call you, making your heart feel heavy for a brief moment. 
The man standing in front of you; along with the others, Simon, Kyle and Johnny, they’d once been your world. 
You’d loved them. 
You  thought they’d loved you too, that was until John ended things with you; all of the others stood in silence, watching as John broke your heart. 
That was the last time you’d seen or heard from any of them. 
Now, here John stood. 
You considered calling your colleague over to serve John seeing as she was cleaning the tables of previous customers; but you quickly realized that John would probably attempt to talk to you more in that scenario. 
Part of you also thought about channeling all of your pent up emotions into a slap; though that thought soon disappeared too…it wouldn’t be good for business. 
So you simply took a breath and forced a smile onto your face. 
There was no point in making a scene or being rude to John, no matter how much part of you wanted to be. 
You needed to remain professional. 
He was just another customer, that was all. 
“What can I get for you today?” You greeted with a perkiness in your voice that made John raise an eyebrow. 
His eyes stayed fixed on yours for a few moments; before glancing down at your hand. 
Your left hand. 
The one that your beautiful engagement ring was on. 
You remained silent, trying to keep the forced smile on your lips. 
That ring symbolised that you’d moved on with your life. 
You didn’t owe him any other type of explanation. 
“Just a coffee,” he answered eventually, the hurt of your actions clear as crystal in his blue eyes. 
You nodded, taking payment quickly, before beginning to prepare his order; coffee, you knew exactly how John took his coffee, how could you not? 
Whilst you were making the order, you couldn’t help but remember the countless times John had praised how you made his coffee. 
You’d always blush and say that you didn’t do anything special to it; but that never stopped his praise. 
Coffee, a dash of milk and one sugar.
That was the way you’d always made his coffee. 
Which is why you purposely ignored your muscle memory and made a very milky coffee with three sugars in. 
Was it petty? 
Yes. 
Did you care? 
Absolutely not. 
You put the lid on the takeaway coffee cup, hoping that John would take that as a hint to leave. 
“Have a nice day,” you smiled politely at him, handing him his coffee. 
“Sweetheart-” John began, his fingers brushing lightly over yours as he took the cup. 
His actions caught you completely off guard; and you quickly moved your hand away from his, unable to stop yourself from glaring at him. 
‘The fucking nerve of this man,’ you thought to yourself; thankfully being saved by a customer who wanted to order another drink before you could say anything to John. 
You focused on the order that you were making until you heard the bell above the door chime; only then did you allow yourself to look at the door to see John walking away from the coffee shop. 
You couldn’t stop the relieved sigh that fell from your lips; pushing away the slight yearning your heart felt from the brief touch of John's hand on yours.
Tagging:
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