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syrupyuu · 1 day ago

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— 𝐀 𝐇𝐔𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑'𝐒 𝐅𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐘.

ft. m! yandere! monster hunter × gn! shapeshifter! reader

word count: 16.7k || tags: semi-slowburn, murder, descriptions of gore, reader is briefly decapitated for plot progression. it's mostly wholesome until the ending. partially unedited by time of posting.

𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐑𝐔𝐋𝐄𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊, unspoken ones. Learn fast, or leave your guts in the dirt. Watch the wind. Never name what you can't kill. And above all—never trust the partners they assign you.

Kazu had to learn that last one early.

He'd buried too many half-eaten corpses to believe in coincidence. Most died because they didn't listen—blindly thinking they were apex by default simply for being born human—only to die at the maws of the very monsters they sought to outsmart. He had survived this long because he knew better.

No noise was ever just wind. No body was ever just a body. No "lost traveller" ever truly wandered into black pine territory.

And monsters? Not all monsters were disfigured, snarled and bore fangs—no. Some wore faces that smiled too much, spoke sweetly, laughed and chattered with townsfolk like they'd never eaten raw meat by the handful.

That was why he worked alone, or as close to alone as the Guild allowed. He didn't like watching people die, and he liked trusting them even less. Babysitting rookies was the worst kind of assignment—ink-hands in the Guild always threw him one when they'd run out of uses for their wet-behind-the-ears recruits.

'Toughen 'em up,' they'd say. 'if they make it a week under you, we'll know if they're worth keeping.'

But they never make it a week.

So when he got the dispatch with the latest name—no face, just initials and a curt write-up, like the Guild didn't even believe their own pick—Kazu had already written them off. Some no-name wannabe with a polished sigil and a blade, probably. Here to ask too many questions and fall behind when things get bad.

Maybe he’d play along, entertain them for a day or two, let them believe they were doing the work while he cleaned up the mess behind them—then snap the illusion and scare them off before another rookie's name is crossed off the list.

That was the reality of it. He wasn’t brought in for company—he was called when things had already gone to hell. He was what they sent when there was no one left to evacuate, when the town militia was found strung up like scarecrows, when they didn’t care what did it—only that it stopped, and when failure wasn't an option because someone else had already failed.

He never asked for thanks or waited for gratitude, neither did he want it—not from the Guild or survivors, not from anyone still breathing after dawn.

All he wanted were clean kills, silence, and solitude. That was all for the best.

It was a good run, right up until they handed him you.

When he finally meets you—his assigned rookie—you were waiting for him barely past the treeline, sitting squat against the bark like you had nowhere else to be, eyes so dazed you looked like a lost child—as if you weren't in one of the oldest kill zones this side of the ridge.

For some reason, he got the feeling you'd been here, waiting for him all morning. He'd never admit it, but that thought alone sat bitter in his sternum.

And maybe that was the thing that irritated him—the fact that you didn't look like anything. You didn't carry yourself like a person trying to impress, someone arrogant enough to think they could keep up, or a coward scared out of their mind. Just... neutral. Boring. Calm. The Guild had sent him warm bodies before, all nerves and overeager chatter, but this? You didn't say anything as he approached, only watched him like you were waiting for him to speak first.

He didn't. Yet.

Instead, he took one long look at you and committed everything to detail. Your clothes were Guild-issued but too soiled and dirty to be new. Pack was light. Your boots clearly hadn't seen enough mud, and the weapon hung over your back was sharp but discolored—old, but it hadn't been used for any real work.

That was enough to convince him you weren't a normal rookie, at least not in the typical sense.

"...You're quiet." he says at last, low and flat.

The words leave him without much thought, more observation than accusation, but the moment they do—your head tilted slightly, pupils dilating in the process. Not wide-eyed with fear, or to size him up. You were just watching—curious and placid, but a little too still.

You blink once. Then—like you just realize you forgot to reply, "Oh. Should I not be?"

The sound of your voice startled him more than he'd like to admit—not because it was too loud or harsh, but because it was gentle. Wrong. Gentle never belonged in places like this. Not the kind of gentle that cut through hush like a ripple on a stagnant pond. It was a tone better suited for lullabies and nursery tales, never an occupation where recruits die on the daily, oftentimes without carcass to be spared.

For a split second, he wondered if you could be a mimic. He had seen mimics before, beautiful flesh stitched ones that could copy a human's laugh to the breath hitch. They always got the eyes wrong, though—too lifeless and wild, more reminiscent of animal than man—that was always the tell-tale sign, but those eyes of yours...

They gleamed, like maybe you were just happy to be here.

"I read the handbook," you add quickly, as if that might help. "It said not to speak to superiors unless necessary. That is necessary now, right? Since you asked?"

He stared at you.

You stared back, earnestly—but all that he could think was:

What the hell were you?

He didn’t draw his blade. Not yet. But the weight of it suddenly made itself known against his palm, as if it, too, felt the pressure shift. He didn’t trust instincts blindly, but he didn’t ignore them either—not when they hissed like that, low and certain. There was something off about you, something he couldn’t name outright.

You don't smell of danger the usual way—no sweat, no iron, no nothing. You smelled neutral, neutral in a way nothing in the wild ever was—and even if you were human(which he highly doubt), not even the most hygienic of people could ever bore a scent so... devoid.

And yet, you still smiled at him—softly, without guile. Not the grin of someone winning a game, nor the brittle stretch of a liar. None of that—only warmth, like the simple act of standing across from him in the forest had made your whole week.

"You're Kazu, aren't you? I'm assuming you are." you continue to speak, rocking slightly on your heels and ignorantly unaware of his inner turmoil. "You're way taller than I thought. I mean—not in a bad way! Just. Surprising.” there was no fear in your words, no performance, only open wonder.

He holds his breath for a moment, then lets it out in a thin stream.

"You're not what I expected, either." He says finally—his tone is even, but the statement carried an edge, and he knew it. He meant for it to land that way—a warning. A subtle flag in the earth between you.

You didn't say anything at first, only tilted your head with such an innocent precision it dragged his gut into a knot. "Is that bad?" you ask, "Should I change?"

The question should've been benign, maybe even self-deprecating. Yet the way you asked it—flatly, plainly, like you meant it—sent a subtle chill crawling up the back of his neck. His mind caught on the phrasing.

Before he could stop himself, he muttered, "...What?"

You perk up like a child caught misbehaving, "Sorry!" you say bashfully, waving your hands as though that could brush away the building tension you yourself weren't aware of, "I just thought—you know, maybe I said something wrong, so I could try again?"

You go still for a moment, brows pinching into a tight, thoughtful crease. The change was quick and exaggerated, like watching an amateur actor flick through expressions in a scripted play.

"...If you didn't like my first sentence, I can say it a different way—or in a different tone—or I could even say something else entirely. People usually like jokes first, or compliments—or for hunters—questions about their gear, don't they? Is there a… protocol for this?”

You looked so genuinely curious, face drawn into a serious, almost scholarly concentration, as though the social dynamic of monster hunters was a puzzle to pick apart instead of a living environment. Kazu didn't move. Not forward, nor backward. All he knew to do was watch.

The problem wasn't what you said.

It was how you said it.

This wasn't the oddball rookie trying to prove themselves with overcompensation, or the wide-eyed cadet chattering to fill the space fear usually occupied. It wasn’t that he sensed danger. If anything, that would’ve been easier. This—you—were something else entirely, something fundamentally flawed. You weren't wrong in the traditional sense. You smiled sweetly, your face expressive, but you were... misaligned, like a doll with it's joints screwed backwards. A creature wearing a person's corpse.

And so, without missing a beat, you stepped a little closer. Not enough to be threatening or to trigger a response, but just enough to maybe suggest you didn't quite understand the concept of boundaries.

Then—quietly, like you were admitting to a secret: "I memorized your file." you say, softer now. "..well, what little I could of it. It seems like the Guild doesn't like to share, but they always forget to wipe the backlogs in the archive building." you smile—not conspiratorial, not smug—just pleased with yourself, as if you didn't just admitted to an espionage. "I wanted to be prepared. You've been out here so long, so I thought maybe if I studied enough, you wouldn't think I was useless. Or..." your voice trails off, "..disposable."

He stared at you then, longer than before. Not because he was impressed or because he was moved—but because that word, "disposable", had fallen off your tongue too naturally, with what felt like too much practiced familiarity. It had the same weightless uncertainty, as when a child parrots a word they've heard adults say—only because no one told them not to.

It wasn't pity or concern he felt. No, what stirred in his chest was far from that. Sharper. It was instinct, again—the kind that had kept him alive this long. Something about the way you stood there, proud of the stolen information, easy to be judged, made every hair on his neck want to rise, just barely. You shouldn’t know how to get into Guild archives. You shouldn’t speak of things like that so casually. You shouldn’t be smiling at him like this was a first date of all things.

And yet, you are, eyes wide and waiting, posture open like you didn't fear what he might say. Like you were expecting approval, even.

When he finally speaks again, his voice is dull. Dry. More baffled than accusatory.

"...You're really serious, huh."

It wasn’t a question so much as a quiet, stunned declaration from his side.

For the first time since stepping into the clearing, something inside him shifted. He thought he'd seen it all before: puffed-up swaggers of overconfidence, quiet trembles of fear, the forced calm of rookies too green to realize their bravado was transparent—but you? You weren't faking it. You weren't putting on a show. There was no angle nor bluff to call. You didn't even try winning over. You were sincere, maybe even thrilled to be here.

About him.

About the job.

About being out here—in this forest—like it's some storybook adventure instead of the death sentence it really is.

"Is that a bad thing?" you ask, after a heartbeat of silence.

Kazu doesn't answer immediately. The wind rustles the trees in long, slow breaths above you both, carrying with it the kind of hush that usually warned of something watching. Only- something about you made the familiar forest suddenly feel foreign.

He'd met monsters in his time, had burned things that mimicked wailing infants, hacked apart forms that flickered between man and beast mid-scream. He knew what danger looked like—how it moved, how it breathed and spoke—but you unsettled him in a way nothing else ever had. Not because of how you looked, but rather, because of how carefully you did. Every motion, every word, every tilt of your head came with a precision that felt practiced. It wasn't wrong, exactly—just.. off-mark enough to make him feel like the one under scrutiny, and not the other way around.

You stood there, as you continue to wait for his answer like it actually mattered—your posture relaxed, hands open at your sides, chin tilted up slightly like the breeze was something to savor and not a prelude to something worse. You were smiling again, that strange gentle thing that wasn't quite strained or forced. It sat on your face like it belonged there—that's what unsettles him most.

"No," he says finally, after too long a pause. "it's not bad. It's just... rare."

You seemed to consider that, mouth parting, slightly, brows lifting like you were trying to make sense of something that didn't compute, instead of just listening. "But rare is good, right?" you ask, hopeful.

He watches you, the edges of his mouth threatening something that might've been a frown, or a grimace. In truth, he doesn't know why he's still standing here—still talking and listening to you. Usually by now, he'd cut the conversation short, laid out the bare essentials and set the pace without looking back.

Not to abandon—never that—but to keep things efficient, clean. Detached. The less rookies relied on him, the longer they might last.

But you aren't a normal rookie—it should be a question if you're human at all—and you aren't asking for help, you're just... waiting, watching, and for reasons he couldn't explain, Kazu stayed.

He should’ve left you already.

Should’ve walked away, put distance between you before anything could escalate—but instead, he asks—against his better judgment, before tension sank its claws in deep: “Why are you here?”

The question catches you mid-thought—not enough to rattle you, but enough to give you pause. Then, as if it had been waiting on your tongue all along, you say softly, ‘Because I wanted to be.’

All that did was make his jaw tighten. He almost laughed—wanted to, maybe. Like it was ever that simple. Like this job hadn’t taken better hunters for less.

"No one wants to be here," he says flatly, a little harsher than intended.

You only look at him, unblinking. "That's not true. You're here."

"That's different."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to be." he snaps, turning his back to you. "I'm needed here."

The woods swallowed his words as soon as they left him. He started walking soon after. The underbrush gave away beneath his boots with practiced quiet, and he half-hoped you wouldn't follow,

But you did.

Your footsteps were too light—too agile and exact. No rookie should move like that, unless they'd trained far longer than their records implied—or weren't a rookie at all. When he glanced back, you were still there, eyes wide, feet following in the sunken patches left by his, copying his gait like a duckling after its mother.

'Memorized his file'.

That thought stuck to the inside of his skull like rot. There were only three people still breathing who even had access to those backlogs—and none of them were rookies.

"I know I'm not what you expected," you say after a moment, your voice just behind his shoulder, "but I can learn, fast. I'm not strong or experienced yet, but I'm good at listening. I won't get in your way."

Kazu doesn't answer.

The wind picks up again, rattling through black pines in an uneven rhythm. A murder of crows shriek overhead and vanish eastward. He stops and waits, if only to observe. No movements between the trunks, no scent on the breeze—it's still too quiet, though.

And still you stood there, unbothered, still watching him with a face lacking of any fear or caution.

"I don't care about glory," you add, almost absentmindedly. "or the promotions, or the Guild. Not really. I just want to be there—live life to its fullest. What better way for that than this?"

He turns then, just slightly—enough to look at you again.

Your expression didn’t change. If anything, your eyes softened like it was a confession, not a fact. Yet there was no weight to the words, no illusion nor idealization, only... an honest admission, plain and bare.

"Live?" he repeats, in blatant disbelief.

"Yeah," you confirm, the ring of your voice barely above the rustle of leaves. "live."

You don't elaborate. You don't have to. He's a hunter—he's seen enough to know when people say things they don't mean. The way your gaze held his now—steady and sure—like the pain of it was familiar but not resented, he knew that look. Had seen it in survivors clinging to half-scorched homes, orphans clutching talismans over their late parents' cooling bodies. In inns, he'd seen it in mirrors, sometimes, in the silence that settled after grueling missions. That's the look of something that understood living hurt more than dying, yet chose it anyway.

But something about it felt wrong. Not bad, or fake, not exactly—but out of place—reminiscent of when sunlight shone through carbon smoke. There was something about your posture, something about your manner of speaking that screamed not ignorance, but absence; absence of the after-math that follows when world teaches you what it cost to survive, or worse (at least in his opinion)—like it had, but you liked the lesson.

He should've shut you down right then and there—told you living had nothing to do with this job—that survival wasn't the same thing as being alive—only, he didn't. Again, just for a breath, his hand hovered near the hilt—but for some reason, he hesitated, and whatever instinct had flared… dulled. He let it go.

The way you said it—live—like it was the greatest ambition a creature could have. Not glory, or peace, just the raw, senseless choice to keep waking up, keep walking forward, even if the road clawed at your feet.

"You picked the wrong job." he mutters, voice low—not as a warning, but a fact.

You smile anyway—a faint and soft twitch at the corner of your mouth. You agreed, and you knew.

"I know."

It has been a grand seventy-two days since Kazu first met you, and he still can't sleep right.

It's not rare for him to stay up late, near campfire while the moon rises high, sword in reach as he keeps one eye on the forest, and the other on you—sleeping far too soundly for a place like this.

He watches you often, after the fire has burned low and the woods have settled back into their nightly hum—not out of affection, or curiosity, no. He watches you the way he follows blood trails winding from villages into the foliage, the way a herding dog fixes its gaze on a wolf draped in sheepskin, waiting for the moment the disguise falls away.

Except, that moment never comes.

Every night, you lie down without a sound. There's a distinct kind of stillness to the way you sleep—no tossing, no muttering, no restless twitch beneath the weight of slumber. You always lie there, still, breath-slow and arms tucked neatly like a corpse awaiting burial—more statue-like than human, he thinks.

You don’t sleep like normal people do, and yet, for all his suspicion and certainties—he hasn’t done anything about it.

He's had plenty of time, truly. The hunts you've been assigned to aren't easy ones by any means—terrain scorched beyond recognition, pits lined with organic shredded remains, and guideposts mangled into symbols no human hands wwould've ever carved. These past months, you've been witness to what most don't live to describe: a worm that bawled with human lungs, thumb-sized crawlers that picked through corpses for ivory, a small, child-like thing that bled with tar when struck. Despite it all, you never flinched or faltered, and Kazu... he saw everything.

How you don't breathe hard after a chase, don't get hungry at the right time. Some missions, you take wounds that should lay a hunter low, only to shake it off with nothing but a clean, thin wrap around the injured area.

And once—once, you stood with blood trickling from the side of your neck, soaked in someone else's intestines, but for all your wit—the first thing you thought to do was to look at him and ask, 'Did I do good?' like a damn dog waiting for a treat.

He should've run you through then and there—split you from collar to hip and watch to see what came out—but instead, he only nodded gruffly, and told you to clean up. He hated that he did. Why?

Because he knows what you are. He doesn't know your species. No page in the Guild bestiary matches you exactly—too neat, too clean, too weak—but he knows a monster when he sees one. You're one to respond too quickly, speak too evenly, move too smoothly. Real people stutter. Real people get nervous—and yet, here you are, two steps behind him on every trail, asking for instructions, jotting down field notes like a bootlicking tagalong.

And for seventy-two days, he allowed it.

Worse—he's grown used to it.

Somewhere along the line, he started portioning extra rations without thinking, grumbling reminders when you forgot to clean your blade or adjust your grip. He’s begun watching you not out of threat assessment, but out of habit. He knows the tilt of your head when you’re puzzled, the way your eyes squint and wrinkled when you lie. He's seen you laugh and he's seen you panic, usually whenever you trip over your own words and forget what to say next.

And damn him, but it's start to... affect him.

He's begun warning you about the environment before each job, muttering "Stay close." when the forest starts to get too quiet. He yells less when you mess up, and instead just sighs and mutters under his breath like a parent tired of repeating themselves. He watches you bandage wounds wrong and reaches over without a word, fixing it himself, grumbling “Don’t pull it so tight, you’ll lose circulation.”

You shouldn't be under his skin, but here you are—nestled in his routine, engrained in the way he moves now—his pace slower, stride shorter, all so you can match. Every time you forget a task or miss a cue, he finds himself not scolding, but explaining in that gruff, unchanging tone that tries so hard to pass as cold but is far too careful to be cruel.

You've grown on him how moss grows on stone, and just like that—slowly, without his permission—he's started making room for you in the places no one else fit.

That night, you burn the rations, said you wanted to help—so you took the skillet from his hand and waved him off like it was the simplest task in the world. In blatant horror, he watched as you fumble the firewood, watches the flame lick too high, and watches blackened strips of jerky curl into charcoal at the edge of the pan.

You look at him, sheepish. "...Oops."

His eye twitches.

“You absolute idiot.” The words come out with all the dry finality of a death sentence, but there's no real bite to them. Kazu snatches the pan out of your hand and slams it back onto the fire before the next strip of meat becomes another casualty.

You eye the scorched meat with a grimace, nudging a curled blackened strip with the edge of a stick like maybe, maybe, if you prod it enough, it'll look more edible.

"Okay, so, maybe it's a little... crisp." you offer, rubbing the back of your neck in an abashed apology. "-but crispy's a texture, right? Some people like smoky flavors—very smoky—so-"

He stops, and turns to you.

Very, very slowly.

“I like my food not announcing our position to every goddamn thing in a two-mile radius,” he growls, punctuating the sentence by stabbing a forked stick into the blackened heap. “If something with teeth shows up tonight, you’re on bait duty.”

You hold his gaze, too used to the barbs by now to flinch, just standing there with your hands still curled mid-apology, your head slightly lowered in mock defeat—but your eyes light up. You weren't sorry—not really. And worse? Kazu could tell.

“Sorry,” you offer, belatedly. “I'll do better next time."

He scoffs under his breath and turned back to the meat. It's salvageable. Barely.

You sit back across the fire, cross-legged with your chin in your hands, watching him now in the constant quietly devoted way you always did—as though everything he did mattered, as though even his smallest of gestures carried meaning, as though he was your sole anchor in an ever-changing world that kept shifting beneath your feet. You didn't even try to help again. You just kept watching, happy and content, as if this little moment—burnt food and all—was another page you'd commit to memory.

That moment, it hit Kazu in an instant.

He turns his back on you before another word could be said—ears red.

He hates this. Hates that you're worming your way into his habits. Hates that he's memorizing your tells. Hates that he's begun listening for your footsteps when you wander too far out of sight— but more than that, more than anything, he hates that he doesn't hate it.

He doesn't look at you when he sets the salvaged strips of meat on a flat rock to cool, nor when he pushes the least-burnt portion toward your side of the fire and offers a single word, firm: “Eat.” Not an offer—an order, one you obey without question, because of course you do—you always do. That’s half the problem.

You take the food with a small nod and a faint smile, like he’s handed you something like a rare delicacy—never mind that it smells faintly of burnt bark and overcooked sinew. You always look at him like that—like he’s something to be thankful for, something safe and good—that's the one thing that gets his breath stuck in his throat, over and over, because you're not supposed to think that. You’re not supposed to look at him that way, not with that quiet reverence like he’s someone worth being near. It’s not fair.

He's not good.

He's a killer, no different in theory from the very monsters he slays on the daily.

He's murdered people who died shaking, choking on their own tongues in the name of 'mercy', ended the lives of possessed children too far gone to save. He's buried comrades with trembling hands and dug up others just to bring their bones home—because not all monsters swallow whole. The Guild says “no remains recovered”—but most of the time, that just means Kazu was there first, always the quiet end to someone else's failures, cleaning up the mess no other hunter wanted to claim.

And you—whatever you are, whatever you pretend to be—you look at him like none of that matters. You still sit there with singed fingers and soot on your cheek, anyway—chewing through burnt meat with your usual quiet focus, as if eating next to him is something sacred—like he isn’t already building contingency plans in his head for the day he finally has to gut you,

because he knows it's coming.

There's no perfect version of this story where you're just some weird, overeager rookie with too-clean boots and too-perfect manners. The truth is: you aren't normal, no matter how soft your voice is, no matter how flawlessly you imitate the motion of humanity. The seams are too straight, and timings too perfect. Kazu’s spent most of his life watching monsters pretend to be people—watching people become monsters—and the line’s thinner than most would care to admit.

But you? you walk said line like a tightrope, barefoot yet unbothered. It's really only a matter of time before you slip.

Kazu thinks he’ll be ready for that moment—that when it happens, he won’t hesitate—won’t freeze the way he always feared he might if it came to it. He tells himself he’s just playing along, watching from up close to get a better angle. He tells himself that the extra rations, the shared fires, and the too-soft voice he uses with you sometimes—it’s all a tactic, part of the game. He’s humoring you. He’s baiting you.

Except—he isn’t. Not really. Not if he's being honest to himself.

He's letting you get close—has let you get close, for far too long. Somewhere between all the bloodshed and burned dinners, all the eerily silent and strangely peaceful walks through monster-thick woods, you've become his—but not in the romantic sense. He doesn't want to think so. You're not his partner nor his friend.

You're his problem. His burden.

And he can't stop looking for you in the quiet. Can’t stop listening for your steps behind him. Can’t stop the twitch of his fingers toward his sword whenever you stray out of sight. Not because he's cautious you'll strike him, but because he fears something else will.

That's worse, somehow, because it means it's already too late for him.

The thing is: he's killed monsters—beautiful ones—beings that wore the face of lovers, of children, of family. He's done the hard thing—chosen survival over sentiment. It's what he does. It's what he's good at—and yet, when he looks at you, he can't imagine pulling the blade fast enough. He imagines hesitation, a breath too long, a misstep—and he imagines you smiling through it all, asking him how well you did on your last mission together.

He should kill you. He knows that.

But you’re still here, still warm at his side, still tracing patterns into the dirt with your finger while he watches the shadows.

Maybe that's why every night he doesn’t do it—for every night he lets you sit too close, sleep too near—he trades another piece of instinct for something quieter. Heavier.

The ache of almost trust. The dull, sour fear of knowing he's slipping.

The moment lingers, quiet and heavy, only the pop and crackle of the fire filling the silence he doesn’t know how to break. Kazu stares into the embers like they might answer something for him—like the flicker of flame might burn away thoughts clawing too close to the bone. His arms are crossed, legs stretched out but rigid, still plagued by tension he refuses to name.

Then—quietly:

"Why haven't you eaten yet?"

The question breaks the silence gently. There’s no accusation in it, no challenge—just a simple, observant softness that lands somewhere deep. Kazu doesn’t flinch then, but something in him stalls, just a little.

His eyes shift, flickering to you, then away again. He hadn’t realized you were still watching him like that—chin still propped up in your hand, your legs folded close, voice quiet and steady—not teasing, not overly concerned. Just… noticing.

He doesn’t answer right away. There’s no snap, no bark—just a long, slow exhale through his nose like he’s trying to breathe out the weight pressing behind his ribs. Kazu shifts slightly, glancing at the scorched meat still cooling near the fire. His stomach doesn’t grumble. He’s long past the point where it does.

“I’m not hungry,” he murmurs eventually, his voice terse and under-breathed, almost an afterthought.

Regardless, you keep looking at him, not pushing, not prying—just, there. Present in that quiet, uncanny way of yours. “You’ve been up since before the sun, but I don't see you eat enough.” you say, and it’s not meant as a scold—just the simple truth, and spoken like so. You've been paying attention to things he doesn't even bother noticing anymore.

That only makes something in his chest stir—nothing sharp, just tired, and old—like dust being kicked up from a corner of an old antique.

He huffs softly and reaches out, slow and quiet, picking at one of the less-burnt pieces with his fingers. The movement is unhurried and mechanical, like he’s going through the motions just to take his mind off static in his head. He doesn’t look at you when he chews—doesn’t grimace either. It tastes like smoke, like ash, and if he were to be poetic; like the draining feeling of countless days blending into each other—but it's food, and he's still breathing. That alone should be enough.

"I'll eat." he says after a beat, quiet and evenly. "You don't have to worry."

You blink at him, and although your expression doesn’t change much, something in your eyes softens.

"Okay." you smile, nod, and settle back into your spot by the fire. There's no commentary nor satisfaction to follow—just the ever-present serene expression you always wear beside him.

You're not harmless and he knows that, but you're his monster now, and that—somehow—that’s worse than anything else. because not like this does he know what to do with something that belongs to him. He knows how to kill, how to end, to survive, but this—this slow unravelling of trust—this presence beside him that’s too steady, too real, too there—it unsettles him in a way nothing else ever has.

It’s not a trick, neither is it a treat. It’s just you, sitting in the firelight, asking him to eat, looking at him like he genuinely matters. He doesn't dare meet your eyes on nights like these.

Perhaps that's the worst part of it all—that he's beginning to believe you.

Kazu swallows, jaw tightening. Silence settles again, but not quite heavy and cold like before, just present, as if the forest itself is holding its breath for reasons he'll maybe never know.

But he's doomed, and he knows at least that.

He's always been doomed. This is just a new shape of it.

Nearly an hour has passed since the Guild representative signed off your latest report, wax seal pressed crooked against the parchment. Since then, you still haven't let go of it. The paper's folded clean and careful, tucked between your palm like a precious keepsake rather than the bureaucratic obligation it really is. Kazu hasn't asked to see it—but then again, he never does. The confirmation of another slain woodland creature had barely left your lips before he was already shouldering his pack, muttering something about supplies and the road ahead.

But then—just as the trees thinned and a few dozen rooftops began to peek through the dusk, you heard it.

Music.

Soft at first, just beneath the blacksmith's clangor and the chatter of open-air market, so faint it could've easily been mistaken for wind blowing through chimes—but no, the melody held shape. You could hardly make out the sounds of flute and drum blending into each other, and the faint rhythmic call of strings coaxed to laughter. It was coming from town square—weaving its way through footfalls and merchant haggling, calling out to you before you even realized you’d turned your head to follow.

..a festival, or so you assume.

Noisy, bright, colorful lanterns crowding the streets where kids ran wild along stalls packed to the brim with sweets you've never seen before. For a moment, you're stunned, just standing there to watch.

Kazu doesn't stop walking until your footsteps don't follow.

When he turns, he's already a few paces ahead on the trail, boots scuffed against the worn earth and stray pine needles. You're not looking at him. Your gaze is fixed beyond the forest's mouth, where the muddy path slopes down towards the town below. Lanterns flicker and dance in the air like firefly between houses, while the faint echo of people's laughter rises with the breeze. The town is alive, breathtakingly so: music that drifts through the air in uneven bursts, the warm scent of roasted grain and smoke curling up from obscured stalls.

You stand there quietly, as if caught in a trance.

"There's a... celebration." you breathe.

His exhale is already heavy.

"We're not staying."

But you're already turning toward it, drawn to the distant flicker of lanterns like moth to a flame. Your face contorts to something like a mix of curiosity and excitement.

You turn back to him, "Just for a while?" you plea.

"No." he cuts in, dry and decisive.

"Not even just to look?"

The silence you receive isn't disapproval, but it doesn't feel like agreement either. Recently, you've begun to recognize the way he hesitates—how he tends to let silence answer for him, as though he's giving you space to reconsider on your own—but he doesn't ever say no.

So you decide to press, softer this time: "We don't have to go in if you don't want to, just.. closer, if only for some time."

His eyes narrow, words that you don't catch tumbling out in a barely audible mutter meant more for himself than you, before his voice finally sharpens with resolve.

"Ten minutes," he scowls, not quite looking at you anymore. "no more."

Your eyes widen—not with triumph or glee, but a quiet, grateful kind of wonder. You hadn't expected him to give you anything at all. "Ten minutes," you echo, the words barely louder than a whisper. You nod firmly, like memorizing the moment. "Okay," you smile, "ten minutes."

Kazu grunts, the sound lacking its usual weight. He adjusts his pack, shrugs his shoulders as if the leather strap suddenly itched, and begins walking again—not looking back to see if you're following.

Of course you are.

You catch up to him in seconds.

The two of you walk side by side, though not quite together. There’s a few inches of space between your shoulders that neither of you tries to close, but it’s not uncomfortable—only existing. As the forest thins behind you, giving way to the stir of town life, Kazu remains quiet. The scent of fried oil and sweet batter hangs heavy, slowly drowning out the damp, piney breath of the forest behind your backs.

The town sprawls before you both, vibrant garlands hung in uneven lines between posts and wooden ledges, while lanterns flutter in the wind like little captured suns, flickering warm hues of gold and red. Music spills like water from every corner—laughter, rhythm, the clap of drums over the murmur of voices calling out greetings and bartering with stall-keepers.

It's... a lot. Noise, movement, light—too much to co-exist.

Kazu keeps you in his periphery as the crowd thickens. Part of it's instinct—he always watches, always prepares for the worst—but another part of him, the part he doesn't like naming, is watching for your sake; for the twitch of your fingers, the quickening of breath, the signs of overstimulation in a place far too overwhelming for your liking. He knows what this kind of environment does to people like you, or—he thinks he should.

But you don't stiffen. You don't even show a flicker of discomfort.

No, your eyes go wide—yes, but not in alarm. It's wonder. Your steps start to slow, and you're stopping to enjoy the moment instead of shrinking away. Your gaze skims over paper lanterns bobbing in the breeze, catches briefly on a vendor tossing sugar over skewered fruit, lingers longer on a pair of children darting between legs with streamers in tow. You stand at the edge of it all, breathing slow, your face unreadable—until it isn't.

There's an awe to your expression that hadn't been there moments ago.

Kazu's brows twitch subconsciously, and he... falters.

He'd been half-ready to drag you out himself if your hands started to shake, or if your voice suddenly dropped below a whisper—but instead, you're here, breathing even. Not just holding steady, but enjoying it.

Your reaction isn't dramatic. You're not rushing to join the crowd and tumbling over yourself in excitement, but there's a subtle ease in your movements. You're letting down your guard without even realizing. He catches it, and for a second—he too, forgot what he was watching for.

Once, you glance back at him, not sheepishly or questioningly, it felt more to him like you were just checking for his presence—to see if he's still with you.

He is. Why wouldn't he be?

And like countless times before, he doesn't speak. Neither does he reach for you. He keeps close though, pace purposely matching yours like that's always been how it's meant to be.

This.. isn't what he expected when he chose to keep you around, but it doesn't matter. Not like he'll ever stop watching you, anyway.

"..It's loud." you comment, but it's not a complaint—more-so a factual observation, like how the sky is blue or blood is red. There's a quiet kind of awe in your voice, almost innocent—the type of fascination you'd expect from a child's first time at a candy store.

"I think I like it."

Kazu doesn't respond as he moves to stand just slightly ahead of you, blocking the crowd's spills from touching you too directly. He doesn't mean to hover, but it's somewhat become second-nature by now. Old instincts, conditioned by numerous prior ambushes.

Places like these breed carelessness, only fools would assume a crowd means safety. You're not even fully in the square, just somewhere past the outskirts, standing where trees thin into cobblestone—but the air's already too different. Charged, restless joy of people who aren't watching for danger—ironically, it only makes him more cautious.

You're still holding the report in one hand, but it's become an after-thought. You've forgotten it was ever there in the first place.

“Kazu,” you say, after a moment. “does it ever feel like… like you’re only watching people live? I think I get it—the purpose, the patterns—but joining in… I don’t think I’d know how.”

He doesn't answer right away. Your words feel too honest for his usual brand of snide dismissal, too vulnerable for him to ignore; honesty that didn't expect anything in turn.

He huffs eventually, low. "Then don't."

You glance over, and he doesn't meet your gaze.

"Just look. That's enough, isn't it?"

"Yeah," you murmur, surprised by the warmth curling in your chest. "It is."

And somehow, it really is. You stand together in the narrow space between torchlight and shadow, far enough away that no one notices either of you, close enough that you can hear the music rise and fall like waves against stone. He says nothing else, and you don’t offer anything in return. Something about the stillness between you feels fragile, like a thread pulled taut but not yet frayed. You don’t move, neither does he. The world carries on around you and you let it.

Maybe that’s what makes his throat tighten when he glances sideways and sees the firelight catch in your eyes, even here, far from any hearth. For all that you aren't, there's a flicker in your gaze that makes him forget it—makes him wish, dangerously, that you were.

So when a child bolts from the crowd—skewer in hand, feet pounding past without aim—

Kazu doesn't think. His arm shoots out on instinct, hand closing over your shoulder, pulling you in close—too close. As if he could keep that flicker. As if holding you could make the wish real.

Startled, you look at him in surprise.

"Watch where you're standing." he grunts. It comes off more gritty than it needs to—short, clipped, like he's scolding you, though it doesn't land the way he expects. In the end, that's not really what he meant to say.

You blink. Then, without flinching or shifting away, you nod. "Sorry."

You stand there for a breath—no more—just long enough to feel the weight of Kazu’s hand on your shoulder before it slips away, fingers hesitating for a fraction too long before they release. The pressure leaves behind a ghost of warmth, as if some part of him hadn’t meant to let go so quickly, or had only just realized he’d grabbed you at all.

The child’s long gone, vanished into the crowd like a leaf carried by wind, and Kazu doesn't speak again, adjusting the strap of his pack with a sharp tug, like the motion might ground him—something solid and familiar to occupy hands that had moved before he’d thought.

Your gaze flicks back to the festival.

"They're wearing masks." you observe aloud, head tilted just slightly. Sure enough, dancers in painted crane-faces twirl between booths, steps timed with the playful trill of flutes. Their garments are mismatched but vivid—fluttering robes, strings of beads, paper charms trailing from sleeves like falling petals.

He shifts beside you, clears his throat. “...We should go.”

You glance up quickly. “Already?”

His eyes narrow again—not in anger, just a tic. He doesn’t like repeating himself, but when he exhales, it’s softer than before.

“We still have six minutes,” Kazu mutters.

You gape, dumbfounded. "You're counting."

He shrugs, just enough for the strap of his pack to shift. "Someone has to. I said ten, didn't I?"

You breathe out a quiet laugh and take a few steps forward. This time, he doesn’t follow right away, only watches as you approach the edge of the crowd, where a vendor offers candied plums on polished sticks. The smell makes your stomach twitch with unfamiliar interest.

You don't notice when he appears at your side again. He doesn't look at the plums, neither does he comment on the way you squint on the pricing and freeze when you realize you have no money.

He just pulls a coin from his own pouch, tosses it the vendor's way, and walks away.

You accept the sticks automatically, syrup already tacky on your fingers. "Kazu!" you call, hurrying after him before the moment slips away. You're unsure whether to thank him or question what just passed.

...maybe a little bit of both.

He briefly lifts one hand in the air behind him, but you catch the slight stiffness in his movement and the flush creeping up the side of his neck. It's unclear to you if the gesture is meant as a wave or dismissal, and you don't think he knows either.

"...Are you blushing?" you ask, not teasing—just saying it like you're trying to confirm something you didn’t expect to see. Your words hang there, honest and unembellished, and for a moment, the only answer you get is the stiff set of his shoulders as he keeps walking. His pace doesn’t change, but you notice the way his hand drops a little faster than it should, like he's trying to cut off the motion before it gives too much away.

You glance down at the candied plums in your hand, then back at him, lips parting before the words come without much thought. “You didn’t have to buy them, you know.” Again, it’s not an accusation. Not gratitude either—just fact, like you’re still sorting out what to make of it yourself.

“You wanted it,” he replies, brusque as ever, though his tone lacks bite. His eyes flick sideways, almost too fast to catch, as if he’s trying to gauge whether you actually like it, or whether this, somehow, was the wrong call. But you’re already licking a bit of syrup from the corner of your mouth, head tilting in mild surprise.

 “It tastes like plums,” you manage between chews, the stick still at your lips, “but… better?”

 The second plum stick is still in your hand, warm and sticky. without thinking, you extend it towards him. "Want one?" you hum.

But Kazu only casts it a dubious glance, then snorts. "What am I supposed to do with that?"

"You paid for it."

"I paid for you."

Your head tilts, eyes flicking to him with a sudden kind of confusion.

"..What?"

He scowls. "I meant the plums."

You don’t push—just let the smallest smile curl onto your lips, amused in a way that doesn’t need teasing. Silently, you extend the stick again, patient and insistent. He hesitates, scowls deeper, then mutters something under his breath in what you now consider typical Kazu fashion—before ducking forward slightly and taking a bite straight of the skewer. His mouth pull into a sharp line the moment he chews.

"Tastes like medicine," he mutters with a grimace.

"..really?"

You peer at him, skeptical. “I don’t think it tastes like medicine.”

He gives you a look, flicking a crumb from his glove. “Then you’ve clearly never had medicine.” he jests—you think, and for a split moment, there's the faintest upwards curl on his lips.

You feel the urge to laugh, but manage to hold it in.

"Want the rest of mine?" you gesture, still holding out the second stick.

He rolls his eyes, "No." but he doesn't tell you to stop offering, either—so you just keep walking beside him, still holding the extra skewer in your hand like maybe he’ll change his mind.

The festival continues to bloom around you, loud and alive, music rising from every direction. Drums beat low in the chest, a steady pulse beneath the swirl of flutes and what you think are performative strings that leap with gusts of wind. The same group of dancers from before twirl past with ribboned sleeves and bells wrapped around their ankles, casting ripples of colors across town-square.

Amidst the chaos, someone tosses a fistful of paper petals into the air and children chase them like butterflies. The scent of fire-roasted corn lingers in the space between stalls, mingling with something floral and sticky-sweet—incense, you guess, or maybe sugared rice cakes steaming in their baskets.

You slow down a little, taking it in—not wide-eyed anymore, but still quiet with a kind of awe you don’t really know how to name. There's nothing else you’re supposed to be doing right now. No Guild forms to fill, no other monsters to hunt, no next destination hounding your heels. Just this—music, people, color, your hand sticky with sugar, and Kazu… not exactly smiling, but he seems content.

You glance over again and catch him watching you—he doesn’t even pretend to look away this time.

“What?” you find yourself asking.

He frowns, which is his usual default, but this one... feels different. "...Nothing." he huffs.

You don't push, you've learned not to when it comes to Kazu. Instead, you find yourselves pausing near a game stall—small clay pots lined up in rows, a basket of bean bags beside them and a sign boasting some local dialect variation of three down, prize won. The prizes aren’t anything special, just a mix of wooden charms, glass beads, and poorly-stitched dolls, but something about the way they’re all piled together draws your eye.

Kazu notices your interest and scoffs. "That's a scam."

You squint, looking at him questioningly. "It's a festival game?"

“Same thing.”

Still, you step forward. There’s something oddly charming about the way the clay jars are all different shapes and sizes, and you’re curious if the game’s rigged or just genuinely difficult. The middle-aged man running the booth smiles toothily and offers you a bean bag with fingers bent at odd angles.

When your gaze returns to your trusty travelling companion, he's already fishing coins from his pouch.

You stiffen, brows twitching in uncertainty. "I didn't say I wanted to play."

"You were looking." he says, as if that explains everything.

You accept the bean bag, a little stunned, then weigh it in your hand thoughtfully. It’s lighter than it looks. Your throw isn’t particularly strong—but on the second try, a jar wobbles and tips off the plank, shattering on impact.

Kazu lets out a short breath. “…Huh.”

You look back at him, smug. “Guess it’s not rigged.”

He doesn't reply, but there's the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth,again, almost like he's fighting a smile and losing. You miss your third throw, but the man counts the shattered pot with a nod and lets you pick a prize anyway.

You hover for a moment before reaching toward the back of the pile—picking out a tiny carved animal figure. It's some sort of bird, maybe a falcon, its wings out-stretched mid-flight. The carving isn’t masterful, but the way it fits in your palm makes you like it even more. You turn it over once in your hand, then extend it out to Kazu without thinking.

He blinks at you.

You hold it steady. “For you.”

He stares at the bird, visible confusion on his face. “Why?”

You hum, "You paid."

"That's... that's not—"

“Maybe not. Still.” You nudge the figure toward him a little more insistently, and he takes it eventually—slowly, like it burns. His fingers close around it like he's afraid it'll crumble at first contact.

You walk again, weaving between lantern strings and children in animal masks. The candy’s half gone now. You’ve stopped offering him bites, but you keep the second stick in hand anyway. Kazu still keeps the bird, the little wooden carving finding its home within the crevice of his pocket.

Soon enough, your attention is grabbed once more by a fire dance that's about to begin—spinning performers with flares in each hand, breath soaked in oil and exhaled in long, steady ribbons of flame. The crowd gasps in delight. You flinch at the first roar of fire, and Kazu shifts, just barely brushing against you, a subtle check for any tremble in your shoulders.

But you don't pull away. There's no need to.

“…You’ve got syrup on your face,” he mutters.

You reach up to wipe it away, missing by a few centimeters.

“No—left. More left.” He lets out a soft, barely audible huff, then reaches forward and smudges it off himself with the corner of his sleeve. You stare for a second, thrown off, as he draws back.

“There.”

“...Thanks.”

He doesn’t say anything, but his hand lingers in the air for a second before falling to his side.

Somewhere, another chime rings, delicate and high. You tilt your head toward the sound and spot a charm stall—little paper fortunes hanging from strings, inked prayers written down with careful brush strokes. One of the attendants offers you a reed pen and a scrap of parchment without a word. You glance back at Kazu.

“You write one too?”

He gives you a look. “What would I even write?”

You consider, “Something you want?”

“Don’t want anything.”

You raise a brow.

He sighs. “Nothing they can give.”

You nod, and don't ask again

Either way, you still get to write something. You don't think too hard about it, just let the words come as they are, no frills or poetry—just transparent honesty. A wish small enough to feel like your own, but meaningful enough not to lose its shape if ever spoken aloud.

You hang it on the charm line with the others, a flutter of parchment caught in a passing breeze.

Kazu watches.

When you turn back, he still waits for you, hands in his pockets, one still curled faintly around the carved bird, eyes half-lidded beneath the firelight—but present.

You're more than sure ten minutes have passed by now. You're more than certain he knows too.

"Can we look around a bit more?" you ask, careful, watching his face for any flicker of hesitation, already bracing yourself in case he says no—but still hoping he won’t.

He remains silent for a moment, gaze dragging over the lanterns, over the path ahead, over the swell of people beginning to thicken near another bend in the street. His brows furrow—not in refusal, you think—but in a kind of reluctant resignation.

"..If we must."

You brighten, but you keep it mild. No need to spook him now.

Your pace quickens slightly as you lead him toward the narrower part of the plaza, where booths line both sides of the stone path in loose, irregular rows. The heat from the fire dancers still lingers in your skin with each step. It's only been a handful of minutes since you arrived, but something in the air makes time feel weightless—like it’s suspended between heartbeats and flickering lanterns.

You walk without any real aim, letting the sounds and smells guide you. Kazu doesn’t stop you, just lets you lead, his steps always keeping pace. The bird in his pocket taps gently against his leg.

Eventually, you find yourselves drifting near the eastern end of the square, where the lanterns hang lower and the music grows fainter—replaced instead by the soft ringing of chimes and bells. The crowd here is thinner, older. Couples linger longer at stalls, their fingers entwined as they examine trinkets and charms meant to bestow anything from safe travels to good fortune in love.

The mixed smell of incense and pressed herbs is thicker here, but you don't mind. It's a soothing counterpart to the sugary stickiness still clinging to your fingers.

You stop in front of one such stall—its surface cluttered with bundles of dried sage, lacquered charms shaped like hearts and cranes, and little clay animals painted with looping red strokes that immediately remind you of the wooden carvings from the festival game prior.

The vendor is an older woman with curly hair wrapped into a red scarf, leaning over the counter as you approach.

“Ah,” she beams. “Looking for luck, are we?”

You glance down at the display. The hand-painted sign above it reads Fortunes for Love, Fortune, and Friendship! in charmingly uneven script, flanked by a doodle of two rabbits holding hands.

“Not really,” you tell her, but you’re already leaning in a little closer. The trinkets are small, almost forgettable, but oddly compelling—soft-wrapped bundles and little painted stones, one shaped like a fox head with golden eyes.

“You should try the couple charms,” the woman says suddenly, with a conspiratorial twinkle in her voice. “Always been lucky, those ones.”

You pause, “Couples?”

“Aye.” She nods toward a section near the back of the table, where two miniature tokens are bound together with thread. One red, one black. “To bring closeness and good fortune. Bind them together at midnight, and your paths won’t stray.”

You hesitate. "We're not—"

But the vendor only smiles wider, nodding toward the space between you and Kazu, where your elbows nearly brush and neither of you have noticed.

“Ah, don’t mind me,” she muses. “I’ve got an eye for these things. From what I can tell, you’ve got that look about you.” She titters, tapping a finger to her temple. “That quiet kind of closeness. You kids don’t need to say much, do you? You just are.”

The vendor lady gestures to Kazu with a knowing little nod. “He’s got the face for it, too. All grump on the outside, sweetheart on the inside. I’ve known plenty of men like that. My late husband was just the same!”

You turn instinctively, gaze drawn to Kazu’s face.

He’s frozen.

Utterly, unmistakably frozen—stillness that speaks louder than words. His mouth is pulled taut, his eyes narrowed in that flat, impassive expression you’ve seen several times before—but this time, it feels more defensive than annoyed.

“We’re not a couple,” he says flatly, teeth barely unclenched.

The vendor waves a hand. “Ah, not yet, then. My mistake.”

For a moment, you half-expect him to storm off, but surprisingly—he just.. stands there. Bristling, maybe, but not leaving. His shoulder is still angled toward you, his hand tight in his pocket around that little wooden bird. You can’t read his expression anymore, but you think you know him well enough by now to guess he's probably regretting ever letting you lead him into this part of the square.

Nonetheless, you can't help but smile a little, a bit crooked this time.

“Guess we fooled her,” you lean over and whisper, barely more than a breath.

"She's wrong." Kazu argues back, as if your little encounter with the old lady is something that needs clarifying. For a moment, it almost felt to you like he's trying to shake off the weight of that single word: couple.

"I know," you hum. "does it bother you?"

Kazu doesn’t respond right away. He glances off to the side, jaw flexing slightly.

Then: “…No. Just stupid.”

You nod once, and turn your attention back to the charms. Your finger rests lightly atop one of the braided cords again, this time letting it catch against the pad of your thumb.

The vendor watches you both, smile never fully fading, but she doesn’t push. Just leans back and pretends to busy herself with reorganizing her wares.

Kazu exhales slowly, almost a sigh, and after a long moment, he hands you his pouch and murmurs, “Get it if you want.”

You glance over, "The charm?"

His face twitches. "Yeah. Or don't."

You study him for a second longer, then quietly pay for the set. The vendor ties one around your wrist, fingers light and practiced. You thank her with a slight bow, then take the second cord, holding it out to him like an offering.

Kazu stares at it, then at you. His eyes narrow again, hesitant.

“I don’t—”

“It’s just a charm,” you say, voice soft, not teasing. “You don’t have to wear it.”

You mean what you say, but he takes it anyway.

He doesn’t tie it on right away—rather, he takes a moment to hold it between gloved fingers, examining the threads. You don’t press. He can do what he wants with it.

..But, as the two of you walk away again, returning to the quieter paths threading the festival’s edge, you catch the flicker of motion at his wrist. The cord is there—clumsily tied, looped twice, the knot imperfect but secure.

He notices you looking.

"..Did it wrong." he mumbles.

You don’t laugh. “It’s on,” you say simply, as the corners of your mouth twitch for what felt like the hundredth time tonight.

He grunts under his breath—you don't know if it's in agreement, or just to fill the air between you. Regardless, he keeps walking. The path is narrower here, veering off from the main lantern-lit square, paved with uneven stone and canopied overhead by willow branches that sway like heavy curtains. With the festival’s noise muffled behind you, the hush that settles feels deeper, more natural.

Crickets chirp softly in the grass, and from somewhere out of sight, wind chimes sound with a fragile clarity, barely there at all.

Neither of you say much for a while after that, footsteps continuing to fall in uneven rhythm. There's no conversation to spark when your shoulders brush once when the path narrows again. You don't fail to notice how the charm at your wrist glints just slightly upon being touched by the low light of a passing firefly.

You guess the same can be said for Kazu, because you catch him staring at it, before looking forward again.

"It's dumb," he mutters after another moment of silence, "the whole binding thing—midnight and all that."

You hum, half to show you’re listening, half because you’re not sure what to say yet.

"Superstition," he adds, a firmer now, like saying it with more conviction would make it sound less like a choice he made.

You glance down at his wrist, anyway. The cord's still there.

"Maybe," you say in reply. "but I think it's a nice kind of dumb."

Although Kazu doesn’t answer that, his pace slows a little. Not a full stop, just enough that you fall into step beside him again, his shoulder no longer ahead of yours but level. He draws in a breath like he’s about to say something else—but whatever it is, he lets it go and resumes walking.

You listen to the crunch of gravel beneath your boots, the whisper of wind through distant banners, and something else—his hand brushing near yours again, not quite a touch, but he's close enough for the heat of your hands to overlap.

It stays like that for a while.

Later, you tilt your head toward him, voice quiet and low. “Still want to head back soon?”

His silence stretches, staying quiet for a beat too long. His jaw shifts—like he’s chewing over what to say. Then, without lifting his gaze: "..Let's walk a bit more."

You nod wordlessly. The quiet has settled too comfortably between you to bother breaking it. the world has dimmed here, quieter. Even the festival seems far off, muffled by trees and distance.

Your fingers drift a little closer. The gap between your hands narrows until your pinkies nearly touch, neither side closing the distance. He doesn’t tense, but there's a thin layer of tension in the way he moves.

Contact never comes between you. What hangs is only thinner than thread, but it holds just fine. It just so happens that lantern light glints briefly off the charm at his wrist, tied haphazardly, a loop barely secured.

No one moves to fix the knot.

Hours later, by the time you finally settle for an inn—the cord remains tied, frayed ends brushing his wrist like it never came close to coming undone.

Kazu's hands are soaked in someone else's blood.

It clings to the lines of his palms, thick and half-dried where it’s seeped into his skin and dark as rust beneath his fingernails. It’s splattered across the folds of his jacket, caked on the blade that remains clenched within his palm, smeared across the earth where your body had fallen.

Your head lies in the dirt, just a few feet from where he’s kneeling. Your eyes are closed. Peaceful, almost. Too peaceful for his liking.

He can’t move.

The air is heavy, weighed not only by the scent of copper and soil but by silence as well. It's the kind to ring hauntingly in one's skull, only ever following after a scream.

Your scream.

His breath comes in short, uneven bursts, everything else the cause rather than physical strain, the weight of what had just happened settling in like stone in his gut. The fight with Tarin had been brief, hardly even a fight in the end.

It lasted only a few seconds.

There had been no real contest, no struggle for dominance or skill. Kazu’s blade had pierced through the other man's skull as easily as if it were soft bark, too quick and too clean for what he truly deserved. A single motion, brutal and efficient, born more from instinct than rage, and it had all been over.

He should feel vindicated. Furious. Something.

Yet all he could do was sit there, knees dug into the dirt, staring at the limp body that refuses to die. He watches the faint twitch of your fingers, the barely-there shudder of your chest. It should be impossible. It is impossible. He'd saw the wound, the severing.

But your body doesn't go still.

He stares at it, unmoving, as the blood dries sticky between his fingers. A bitter taste creeps up in his throat, foul in its essence. It's then that without meaning to, his mind flickers—not to the moment of the fight, but to the one that started it all.

It began with a voice.

"Well, I’ll be—didn’t think you’d show up again, Kazu. Haven't seen 'ya 'round these parts for some years now."

A man stood beneath the dappled shade of pine, leaning against a sloped tree trunk. His stance was relaxed, one thumb hooked in the strap of his gearbag, the other hand loosely holding a waterskin. His clothes bore the practical wear of fieldwork—dusty hems, scraped leather, streaks of what looked like dried blood clinging to his inner tunic. His hair was longer than Kazu remembered, sun-burnt at the tips, and messily half-tied.

His voice came from behind, breaking the hush of dusk like a twig underfoot—too easy in its humor to be entirely casual. Kazu stopped dead in his tracks, bootheel pressing into old pine needles as he turned just slightly to confirm the voice. He didn’t need to. He already knew.

There was an easy grin tugging at his mouth, but his eyes—they didn’t match it, steel-colored and sharp. Those eyes were shaped too alert to be relaxed. He wasn't looking at Kazu.

He was looking at you.

"Tarin," Kazu said after a beat, his voice flat with recognition. He didn’t offer a greeting so much as confirm the man's name like he was clocking a piece of intel. Whether that was how he usually greeted old colleagues or just the ones he had reason to be cautious around—it wasn’t always easy to tell, even for him.

The other hunter didn't seem the slightest bit offended in response. If anything, the lack of warmth only made him smile wider. “Still a man of many words, I see.”

Kazu grunted but said nothing.

Tarin pushed himself off the tree and approaches without hesitation, gait easy but measured. Automatically, Kazu stepped half a pace to the side, angling himself in front of you.

“I didn’t expect you this far north,” Tarin remarked nonchalantly, “last I heard, you were working eastern routes—contract cleaner for the old southern garrison. Rumor was, you went solo.”

Kazu finally spoke, low. “I did.”

“Hah,” Tarin exhaled a short laugh, “figures. Coordinating never seemed like your scene."

There was amusement in his voice, but something colder pulsed beneath. His gaze slid past Kazu and landed on you, sharp and deliberate. It lingered too long to be casual, eyes flicking over the guild seal tucked at your hip, the way you shifted your weight, the subtle closeness you kept to Kazu’s side—

"You his new side-kick?" he asked, not unkindly—but the way he phrases it makes his intention clear. This wasn't a genuine question, but a probe.

You hesitated.

There was something in his eyes—not quite humor, nor hostility… yet. It felt more like a weighing—a quiet, deliberate measurement, masked by a lazy smile. He’s not looking at you, but through you—toward whatever connection you might have to Kazu.

Kazu didn’t give the silence time to stretch.

"They're with me."

Three words. Flat. Final.

Tarin raised a brow, not at what’s said, but at what’s not. He held up both palms, mock-apologetic. “Didn’t mean anything by it, just saying. I'm surprised you’re letting someone stick that close. You used to bite the heads off our quartermasters just for trailing behind you.”

Kazu didn’t rise to it. His stance didn’t change, but there was a faint shift—just enough that someone like Tarin would catch it. And he did. His smile dimmed by a fraction. He looked down at the waterskin in his hand, turning it once by the neck, almost absently.

“You headed for the old ridge route?” he prodded, voice turning casual again. “Heard a few things about movement up there, not just the usual strays.” another look your way, then back to Kazu. “You might want a second map.”

“We’ve got it covered,” Kazu replies.

Tarin held his gaze for a long moment, then shrugged. “Suit yourself.” His hands dropped from his belt, the weight of his stare lingering a beat longer than necessary. Then, like it had cost him nothing, he added, “Mind if I stay with you for the road?”

The question hung there, like it wasn't already assumed. Kazu saw the shift of his pack strap, the way he was already moving like he expected to join. He almost said no. It was right there on the tip of his tongue.

“We’re two days out from Western HQ,” he says instead, voice clipped but level. “Keep up, and don’t get in the way.”

The memory loses its grip, lacking in closure. The air has changed. The silence isn’t the same anymore; not quite lighter, but disturbed, as if the forest itself had shifted position while he was locked in thought. His eyes return, slowly, to the ground in front of him.

You lie there, unmoving. The space between your head and your body still hasn't changed. Nothing has moved, yet, something is wrong.

Kazu pushes himself to his feet. The stiffness in his joints doesn’t come from exertion, but tension. The blood has begun to dry at the edges of his gloves, flaking where his knuckles flex. He ignores it.

He steps carefully, almost piously, toward your body.

It's then that he sees it.

A thin strand—no, not quite a strand; something organic, wet, and pale, like a vine or a root—has stretched from the exposed flesh of your severed neck. It snakes out in a cautious, almost tentative motion, glistening faintly in the dappled light that breaks through the treetops. A matching branch extends from your neck stump, twitching once before stilling, as if sensing its counterpart nearby.

His breath stills.

More follow. Fine, translucent threads, branching out like veins or mycelium, begin weaving their way through the dirt. They move slowly, with purpose, like limbs remembering what they used to be. The distance between your head and body isn’t much—barely a few feet—but the quiet persistence with which your biology reaches out to reconnect it is enough to make his stomach turn.

Not out of fear, nor revulsion like he'd expected.

It’s awe—a twisted, reverent kind of awe. Awe that burrows itself in his chest and leaves no room for fear.

He swallows hard.

Your body doesn’t convulse. There’s no violent jerk or grotesque movement. The regeneration is quiet, solemn. A biological process, he supposes. Already, the strands are reaching one another, brushing together with cautious, delicate touches, then winding tighter, almost tenderly. They pulse faintly, like breath, and begin pulling.

Kazu feels his heart hammer once, painfully.

"You know what they are, right?" Tarin’s voice had cracked, caught somewhere between incredulity and desperation, his heel scraping backward in the dirt. He’d raised his bloodied hands, as if it could stall what was already coming. “I’m doing you a favor, Kazu! Why are you looking at me like that?!”

He tried to justify it, even then. As if mere words could scrub clean the horror written into the scene. What was already done is irreversible. Kazu knew what you were—what the Guild would call you if words got out: abomination, liability, target. Tarin had only acted accordingly. Kazu understood that. But he didn’t care.

Not anymore.

Not since meeting you. He's been defying his duties as a monster hunter for a while now.

The moment he turned a blind eye to the odd cadence in your steps. The moment he started making sure you slept first during rotation shifts. The moment he adjusted your cloak in the rain— even to the moment he stitched your arm himself after a raid and muttered about how “lucky” you were to heal so well. Each choice he's since made was a quiet defection to everything he's ever known.

In the past, he used to tell himself it was only tactical patience—that he was only waiting for you to slip—but deep down, he knew the truth: he had already chosen you over the Guild a long time ago.

Kazu drops to one knee again, carefully, the ground still warm from spilled blood. His breath clouds faintly in the cooling air, though sweat dampens his collar. One leather gloved hand hovers above the rejoining strands for a moment, uncertain, then slowly lowers until his fingertips graze the dirt beside them. He doesn't dare touch the threads themselves—not out of fear, but some distorted version of worship.

You’re not screaming. You’re not writhing. Fortunately, there is no pain he can see; just a peaceful stillness still etched into your face, made grotesque only by context. Your head lies inches from reattachment, and already your body has accepted the command. Your flesh has begun to knit, slow and subtle, with a movement that feels less like tissue repairing than instinct falling into place.

A new silence has fallen. No longer one thick with death's undertones following your decapitation—a different kind; silence that watches. That waits.

Kazu briefly glances back at what remains of Tarin’s corpse. It lies a little ways off, face-down in the underbrush, half-concealed by ferns. Blood still seeps slowly from the base of his skull, forming a dark pool that soaks gradually into grass and soil. He remains motionless. Dead. No magic nor crawling resurrection to follow his current state.

It's a morbid little reminder that only confirms what Kazu already knows: some things stay dead. Other's don't.

He turns back to you. The strands have grown thicker now, winding together in wet coils, anchoring your spine to itself. There’s no tearing or tension, only seamless reconnection. A seam being steadily stitched close. The process itself is as meticulous as it is surreal—terrifying only in its elegance.

Kazu breathes in, slow. The iron stink of blood hangs sharp in his nose, but beneath it—faint and earthy, something else has begun to rise: a fungal note, rich and wet. Mycelial. That’s what it reminds him of. He wonders if this is the smell of the forest reclaiming its own.

Had he half a mind, he would be preparing to put you down properly. He would be finishing it—ending this with the same mechanical efficiency he'd shown Tarin. That would be the clean answer. The right one.

But at this point? He's far from sane.

So he lowers himself until he’s sitting cross-legged beside you, if only just to keep watch—not protectively, not yet. Curiously. He's decided to be a witness of what comes next. You’ll wake soon. He knows this the same way he knows how to draw a blade—instinctively. Maybe, somewhere along the way, your rhythms had long since wounded themselves into his own.

He waits only a moment longer, watching the fleshy threads draw closed like the last pull of a careful stitch. It’s not done—not fully, not yet—but it’s enough. The connection has been made. The rest, he knows, is just time. Time and care.

Kazu breathes out, steadies himself, then moves.

The act of gathering you is delicate and measured, you deserve that much. He starts with your head, fingers careful as they cradle it. He lifts it slowly, keeping it level, letting the organic threads still connecting you stretch rather than break. The strands are wet and pale and flex like tendon, but they don’t resist him. They yield, slackening just enough to accommodate his movement. He cups your cheek with one thumb, brushing away a smear of dried blood with the edge of a knuckle, and carefully presses your head against his chest—one arm wrapped beneath it, supporting the base.

Your body comes next.

He shifts to crouch beside it, lifting your shoulders first and then your torso, careful to keep you aligned. Your limbs dangle limply, like a doll’s. Too limp. He doesn’t like that. So he adjusts your arms—folds one across your abdomen, the other beneath it. There you go. That’s better.

You’re not heavy. That's not it. If anything, you feel too light—too insubstantial for something that had the chance to end him—for someone who’s become the axis around which everything else revolves. It unsettles him, this frailty. The soft quietness of your breathing, the looming sense that your body is only borrowing time. That, he thinks, has always been what terrifies him most.

Still, he keeps you close. Closer than necessary, really. He doesn’t realize how tight his arms have wound around you until a twig cracks beneath his foot, snapping him forward, and instinct tightens his grip without thinking.

“…Tch.” He exhales through his teeth, readjusts, and moves.

You don’t stir then.

..Good. He doesn’t want you to see him like this.

The place he takes you isn’t far—just a small cave set into the hillside, shallow but sheltered, obscured by a veil of hanging roots and vine. He's camped there before, some years prior to meeting you. It's a fallback spot for poor weather or retreat—dry, cool, defensible.

He moves quietly, despite the burden in his arms. The weight of you—your blood-soaked cloak, your slack limbs, the faint warmth of your head resting against his shoulder—ought to unnerve him, truthfully. Would've for any other person. Instead, it calms him in a way he can’t fully explain, something about it steadying. Grounding.

Once inside, he lays you down as though you are a relic he dare not mar. Which, of course you are.

The coat goes first—spread out neatly across the stone floor like a makeshift bedroll. He carefully lowers you onto it, adjusting the angle of your head so it rests aligned with your spine, his fingers subtly tucking the cords that have begun to fuse along your neck. He doesn’t rush nor fumble. Each motion is deliberate. Intimate, in a way.

A small fire follows, meant only to sterilize. He sets water to boil, sprinkling in dried herbs from his pouch. Pinebark and feverleaf rise on the steam, filling the cave. When he comes back to you, he’s stripped his gloves, sleeves cuffed past his elbows. None of the marks matter. He’d earn a thousand more to ensure this never repeats.

Barehanded now, he works quickly: he unclasps his satchel, retrieves the sterilizing tincture, and the few supplies he’s hoarded over months—not Guild issue, but things he stole from clinics, traded for in hushed corners of waystations.

Not for himself.

He dips the cloth into the cold, astringent-smelling brew, then presses it to your skin, wiping along the raw edges of your neck where the muscle jerks in shallow pulses.

His hand trembles once before he steadies it. “No sign of infection,” he mutters, almost trying to convince himself, “Tissue’s holding... good.”

He doesn’t look at your face right away. His focus stays on the mechanics—cleansing the blood, wiping away the dirt that clings in the creases of your skin like soot.

It isn’t until he’s halfway through cleaning your chest—until the worst of the blood has been cleared and your breathing, though shallow, has steadied—that his gaze finally rises. He looks at you then—really looks.

Something in him pulls taut.

Your face is still slack with unconsciousness, and although you're still alive—still breathing, that peaceful, calm expression you wear only reminds him of the dead. He stares for a long moment, fingers stilled, cloth limp in one hand. A breath catches in his throat and shaky upon its release. He leans back on his heels.

“You idiot,” he breathes, barely audible. "reckless, stupid thing…”

The senseless accusation lingers for only a moment before it turns back on him like a blade flipped in reverse. He exhales a bitter, humorless laugh, and his fingers slip through your hair, combing gently through the blood-matted strands.

“No,” he murmurs, softer now. “That’s not fair, is it?” his hand stills. “You didn’t let him. I did.”

The truth of it hits like a punch to the chest. His other hand drops to the ground beside you, palm flat against the blood that stains the moss in dark, drying patches. His hand finds the ground there, steadying himself from the slow press of something he doesn’t want to name.

What really gnaws at him—was that he had known. A part of him had, from the very moment he noticed Tarin eyeing you with that predatory gaze barely hidden beneath all his easy charm.

Just like Kazu had, Tarin saw right through your disguise.

It wasn't hard to tell he knew; the tilt of his stance, the angle of his questions—how his eyes had lingered when they shouldn't. He'd notice it all, every single fraction of a second he laid his eyes on the other hunter.

And yet, he let it slide.

He’d told himself it wasn’t worth drawing blood over, that keeping things civil was smarter, that he could control the space between you, that Tarin wasn’t foolish enough to try anything while Kazu was watching.

Ultimately, he just hadn't been watching close enough.

Look where that got him now.

This wasn't a slip, the same way it isn't an accident of timing or tactics, or a failure borne of his oversight.

He made a conscious choice that let someone close enough to hurt you.

Worse than that—he had stood there, thinking he could afford to wait, as if mere caution and observation on his part would be enough. He'd seen the warning signs, knew something was wrong—but didn't act.

He gave Tarin the chance to strike.

He nearly let you die.

For a moment, Kazu is no different from a statue. When he moves again, it's to pull his blanket free, gently spread it over you to keep your limbs from cooling, then sit behind you, cross-legged once more, your head resting just inches from his thigh.

He says nothing when he reaches out, brushing a thread from your cheek. It sticks faintly to his skin—warm, damp, fragile. It reminds him of the way veins are fragile. The way hearts are.

His eyes linger for a moment, and it occurs to him, distantly: he has never seen you look so peaceful.

A flicker of something wicked twists behind his ribs.

“Whatever you are,” he murmurs, eyes tracing the lines of your skin, to the rise and fall of your chest.

“Abomination. Anomaly. Miracle.” his voice sinks, “It doesn’t change anything." he murmurs, barely any louder than a whisper. “You’re still mine.”

He doesn’t realize his hand is still resting against your cheek until the heat of your skin begins to seep through his callused palm, a fragile pulse beneath the thin layer of tissue that has only just begun to re-knit. The contact is absurdly intimate, out of place with the sterile logic he ought to be clinging to—yet he makes no move to withdraw. His thumb drags a slow path across the arch of your cheekbone, feeling the slick tack of drying blood in its wake, and something within him twists so sharply it feels like it might split him down the center.

Minutes drag by. He busies himself with small, necessary things—tending the fire, re-wetting the cloth to dab again at the edges of your wound, checking the pulse in your throat. Each motion is clinical, precise, but beneath the practiced detachment there is a relentless, gnawing preoccupation: the certainty that nothing he does will ever be enough.

He cannot clean you of what you are any more than he can scrub his own hands free of everything he’s done.

The threads at your neck have begun to thicken, taking on a denser, more opaque color, darkening where they knit themselves deeper into muscle. If he listens closely, he can hear the tiny, wet sounds of regeneration: soft clicks and damp little pops, like raw wood splitting under slow pressure. When he glances at your face, your lashes have begun to twitch, small spasms that hint at returning consciousness. He doesn’t know if he hopes you will wake soon or if he dreads it.

With a quiet exhale, he presses the back of his wrist to your cheek—testing for fever, but also reassuring himself that you’re still warm. Still here. Your skin is cool, but not dangerously so, the faint heat of life still pulsing beneath it. He lets his hand linger, thumb brushing the fine edge of your jaw. The sensation grounds him, a tactile proof that you are no phantom.

His mouth is dry. The fire flickers, sending restless shadows crawling up the cave walls—sharp and wavering and alive in a way he feels he no longer is. He wonders, distantly, what this will mean when you wake. Whether you’ll remember what happened, whether you’ll understand that even now he can’t make himself finish it—can’t do the thing he’s been trained to do all his life.

That thought alone leaves him feeling raw, skinless, like every inch of him has been scraped open to the air. He shifts, letting his palm fall away to rest on the edge of the blanket, careful not to disturb the delicate strands still knitting your throat together. The mycelial cords flex with each subtle movement of your pulse—faint but steady, an undeniable proof of life. It feels profane to look at it so closely, yet he can’t look away.

He can’t help but think how grotesquely beautiful it is—this process by which you refuse to stay dead. There’s a gentleness to it that’s worse than any horror, a quiet certainty in the way your body repairs itself. He finds himself pondering if you even need him here, or if you’d have reassembled yourself just the same whether or not he’d laid a hand on you.

Kazu draws in a slow breath, feeling the way it catches on something heavy in his chest. He rubs the heel of his hand against his sternum, as though he could physically dislodge the ache lodged deep in his chest.

Outside, night is falling properly now, blue darkness pooling between the trees like ink poured over the land. The fire offers only a small radius of light, and beyond it, the forest waits, unknowable. He tries to tell himself that’s what he’s listening for—any sign of pursuit, any consequence to what he’s done—but it’s a lie.

The only thing he’s listening to is you.

Your breathing is shallow but even, and every time your chest rises, it loosens something tight in his throat. It is an absurd thing to feel relief over. You were decapitated, he thinks, almost distantly. You should be dead.

But you aren’t.

He wonders if you’ll hate him when you wake. If you’ll look at the corpse cooling somewhere out in the ferns and see only the hunter he used to be—see that, in some ways, he still is. He wonders if you’ll know that, if Tarin hadn’t made the first move, it might have been Kazu himself someday, blade in hand, duty outweighing anything else.

The thought makes him sick.

...He'll remember to properly dispose of that man's body later.

Slowly, he shifts to brace one arm along his bent knee, lowering himself just enough to study your face at closer range. You still carry a strange kind of innocence, even with the dried gore painting at your hairline. The pulse at your throat has steadied to something approaching normal, and he watches it a moment longer than is necessary, almost hypnotized by the fragile proof that you are here, still by his side.

He thinks of all the things he has never said aloud. The long, silent hours spent letting you move ahead on the trail, cloak dragging in the underbrush, the strange pang he felt every time you glanced back to check that he was still behind you. The first time you’d laughed, soft and startled, at something he’d muttered under his breath.

He has spent too long pretending he does not care.

His hand lifts again without conscious thought, fingertips hovering just above the place where the strands of your spine have begun to fuse. He doesn't touch them. Instead, he drags his knuckles lightly along the curve of your jaw, tracing the line where skin and hair meet.

“You’re still mine,” he repeats, softer now—as if by saying it, he can bind the words into the space between you—make it something solid and undeniable. His breath trembles as he draws it in, releases it again.

He wants to tell you he’s sorry. He wants to promise he’ll never let this happen again. He wants to ask you what you truly are, to hear you answer in that low, careful voice that has always felt like a secret kept just for him.

But none of it comes out.

And as if in surrender, he leans forward until his forehead brushes lightly against yours. The contact is brief, the barest graze of skin, but it leaves him feeling stripped to the bone. His eyes close. For a moment, he lets himself imagine that this is something he deserves—that whatever you are, there is still something between you worth holding onto.

When he pulls back, your breathing hasn’t changed. You don’t stir. The cords at your throat flex faintly, still working to mend the last of the damage. Kazu watches them, feeling a strange kind of astonishment hollow him out.

His hand drifts to the blanket covering your chest, smoothing it once before falling away. He doesn’t move to clean himself—doesn’t bother with the blood drying in cracked lines across his skin. It feels almost appropriate that he should wear it, like a mark of what he’s chosen.

He settles in behind you again, one knee drawn up so he can rest his elbow across it, keeping his weight low. His gaze never leaves your face. If anything comes for you now—guild enforcers, scavengers, the rot of his own conscience—he’ll be there to look out for you.

His thoughts continue to circle, uncapable of settling. He thinks of Tarin’s final expression—shock, confusion, that flicker of something almost plaintive. The moment the blade went in, all that pretense had dropped away, leaving only the raw human panic of a person who realized too late that he’d overplayed his hand. Kazu wonders if, in that last instant, Tarin understood how inevitable it had been.

He almost hopes he did.

But then his gaze returns to you, and all that grim satisfaction curdles back into a softer feeling, sick with regret. He can’t pretend this was only vengeance—that it was only Tarin’s death he’d chosen, because in that split second, Kazu had decided to kill for you, to do whatever it took to keep you breathing—even if the price was the last of whatever loyalty he still owed to his old life.

He sighs, dragging a hand over his mouth. His throat feels dry, scraped raw from the inside.

Your breathing hitches.

The first sign is so slight he nearly misses it: a faint flex of your fingers, the slow curl of one hand against your chest. Your eyelids flutter again—this time not a spasm.

Kazu’s heart lurches. His hand drops back to your shoulder, steadying himself more than steadying you. For the first time since he laid you in this cave, he feels an honest surge of relief—hot and almost painful in its intensity.

Your head shifts against the folded edge of the blanket. The damp strands bridging your neck flex wetly as you move. A thin sound escapes your throat—an unformed, husky exhalation—and then your eyes crack open, unfocused and glassy.

He doesn't realize he's holding his breath until it shakily rushes out of him.

You blink, once, slowly. Your pupils contract against the dim firelight, tracking with a sluggish, dreamlike quality. He waits, afraid to speak, afraid that if he breaks the silence you’ll reveal yourself as simply some illusion conjured by the exhaustion and grief of his mind.

But you don’t vanish.

Your gaze drags over the cave, then over yourself—taking in the state of your body, the stitched line of tissue at your neck. Your brows knit faintly, as if puzzled, though there is no immediate panic. He wonders if you’re even fully aware yet of what happened.

Your eyes finally find his.

It feels, absurdly, like impact—like being struck square in the chest. Even half-lucid, you still look at him with earnestness in your gaze—death, blood, the sheer monstrous fact of your survival somehow only sharpening the terrible softness within your eyes.

Kazu wets his lips. His voice feels terribly rusted when he tries to speak.

“You’re awake,” he says. It sounds too small and inadequate for what this moment should be.

Your mouth moves as though you mean to answer. No words come, only a rasping breath. You try again, throat working. He can see your confusion sharpening, awareness creeping back in, and with it, the knowledge of how close you came to ending.

Guilt coils through his gut like a python, twisting until he has to drop his gaze to your chest, to the quiet lift and fall of your breathing. He can’t look at your eyes any longer—he can’t bear to see recognition bloom into fear or accusation.

He feels your hand shift, clumsily reaching out. It lands against the fold of his coat draped over you, your fingers twitching weakly. You don’t try to push yourself upright and a part of him is unspeakably grateful for that. He doesn’t think he could stand to watch you strain right now.

Your fingers curl into the cloth, like you need something—an anchor.

He understands. He feels it, too.

Kazu exhales, long and low. Slowly, he slides his hand back to yours, covering it with his palm. He doesn’t dare squeeze, afraid of jarring your freshly-mended body, but he holds you there, offering what he can.

“You’re alright,” he whispers, some pathetic bastard of a promise and confession. “It’s over. You’re safe.”

Safe, he thinks, but the word tastes like a lie. Nothing is safe anymore. Not you. Not him. Not whatever life might await you on the other side of this cave, if word ever get out of your true nature.

Still, looking down at your hand in his, he knows there’s no part of him that regrets it.

He would do it again, a thousand times.

He shifts and lowers himself further until he’s leaning over you, so you don’t have to strain to see his face. He doesn’t bother to hide the weariness there, nor the raw, inexplicable tenderness that tightens his throat when he meets your eyes.

“Rest,” he murmurs, softer than before, his thumb brushing across the line of your knuckles. “I’ll keep watch.”

Kazu doesn’t say the rest—that he’ll keep watch as long as it takes—that he'll be here, whether you wake in ten minutes or ten hours. After all, he's already surrendered something of himself to you, something that can never be reclaimed, and he is too exhausted to pretend otherwise. In the quiet ruin of this night, he's found something steadier than loyalty or duty—a need so profound it no longer has the shape of desire but of inevitability.

You are his now, the same way he is yours—whichever way the claim runs doesn’t matter. Oath or confession, no words he can dredge up will ever be large enough to encompass the gravity of what he feels.

That is why he sits here, beside you in the dim light. His thumb strokes the back of your hand in an unthinking rhythm, memorizing the minute twitches of your fingers as sensation returns. The world has shrunk to this single point of contact, the slight give of your knuckles beneath his touch, the fragile heat that reassures him you are still real.

He wonders, distantly, whether this is what it feels like to be damned—if damnation is nothing more than the recognition that you will choose the same person, over and over, no matter how much it costs you.

He lets the thought settle, heavy as wet earth in his chest, and feels something give way beneath it—quiet and inexorable. Your breathing evens out by degrees, the shallow hitch smoothing into a steadier rhythm, and he watches each rise and fall of your chest as if it alone could anchor him to what remains of his purpose. The fire has burned low, shadows lapping at the edges of the cave like dark water, but he makes no move to feed it yet. He can’t bear to break the quiet that has settled between you.

In this thin margin of time—after violence, before consequence—he allows himself to believe that nothing else matters—that if you open your eyes again and call him by name, it will be enough to absolve every sin trailing behind him like a long, bloody wake.

His hand tightens fractionally over yours, thumb sweeping a final, trembling arc across your knuckles.

If it is damnation, so be it. If this is the price—this ruinous devotion, this soft annihilation of everything he once thought he was—he will pay it gladly.

When the fire gutters low and the dark presses in, when the guild’s retribution finally comes to collect what he has stolen, he will not run. He will not yield you up to them, or to any other power that dares claim the right to unmake you.

He will be the last line between you and every blade that would see you undone.

#pearl dividers by uzmacchiato #suri writes #oc: kazu #male yandere #male yandere x reader #male yandere x you #yandere male #yandere x gender neutral reader #gender neutral reader #x gn reader #yandere oc #yandere drabble #yandere writing #male yandere x y/n #yandere headcanons #soft yandere #yandere imagines #reader insert #yandere x you #yandere x darling #yandere x y/n #shoutout to my friend who beta read this for me from beginning to end(my man if ur reading this ily <3)#rewatching frieren for the 7477353th time gave me the idea to write this btw #i think i began drafting around a week ago?? so you can kinda see a slight difference in writing style and stuff #again im not a very consistent writer #but like i need to stop abandoning my projects halfway bruh 💔💔#also also TYSM TO ANYONE WHO READ TO THE END!!! i owe u my liver fr („ಡωಡ„)

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cextile · 1 day ago

Text

how can you authentically be yourselves?

one → two → three

how to read this pick a pile reading? ♡ the images above are your pick a pile options - see which pile immediately pulls you in. If nothing stands out right away, take a moment to look at each pile/image. the one your attentions keeps coming back to is likely your pick. if more than one pile calls to you, trust that too. you can read both and take what resonates. and hey, if none of them feel like a match, no big deal. not every reading is meant for right now. come back another time — this reading isn’t going anywhere.

pile one ☆

I just wanna put something out there, and it’s from a place of clarity and not judgement.

A lot of you guys are in denial of who you are, like there is a disparity between who you are and who you think you are – or who you want the world to believe you are. You might have this inflated self-image, and it’s like a version of you that you hold onto because it feels good, but it’s not rooted in truth.

Right now, some of you are letting the idea of manifesting become a distraction from actual manifesting. You are crossing the line between manifesting and fantasizing, and it’s making you hollow from the inside.This is keeping you stuck.

Confront yourself and see yourself as who you really are. Look in the mirror.

Where are you really? And where do you want to be?

Also, you carry this untethered vibe - like you're in your head letting numerous possibilities, things, ideas, and fantasies free flow. But at the same time, you're hyper-defensive and ready to attack, ready to defend your energy, recoil the moment things feel off.

You’ve been holed up in your own world for too long – mentally, emotionally, maybe even physically. It’s time to come up for air. ‘

Socialise, talk to people, do something real and grounded and let the world meet you as the ‘that person’.

btw, being that person' isn’t about waiting until you’ve arrived at some perfect version of yourself – it’s about moving like them now. It’s not about having it all together, it’s about doing the things that align with that energy, even if no one else sees it yet. you don’t become them by chasing a goal – you become ‘that person’ by deciding you already are. the rest will catch up, promise.

So yeah, embody your dream self now. even if you're still growing or finding your way, it’s the small choices – the way you show up – that shapes who you already are.

Grab life by the reins, not just drifting through it like a passenger. embody the energy of a person who knows their worth, who embraces habits that build them up every day.

Start valuing your physical appearance more. Like, you know, brush your hair, get a hair routine (idk why but my cards were focusing on hair soooooo much. Also a little bit on eating healthy & loosing/gaining weight for a good physique), go to the gym and start cherishing yourself as you are.

Nurture yourself , step away from the mental negative rut and do things that give you a happy little buzz in ways that actually matter (I’m not talking about the quick fix scrolls or fleeting distractions), and watch everything change.

Also, I want you to really, really, really, really know this: disappointment, heartbreak, denial, every single negative thing that's seeped in your bones and your expectations of the future is not what's waiting for you ahead.

And I pinky promise there is not going to be any space for disappointment in your dictionary babe. What's ahead is bright – and it’s waiting for you.

read another pick a pile reading by @cextile

pile two ☆

shorter reading than the other piles because i think for alot of the people in this collective - time’s tight, priorities matter, and scrolling through readings on tumblr isn’t one of them.

also this reading had me laughing, fr. like, y’all don’t even know. the cards lined up too perfectly & the message is playfully blunt. also I swear I want to send your reels to explain the vibe better than this long-ass text ever could.

the way you can authentically be yourselves right now is just by working for yourselves.

i rlly like your vibe btw. you guys are actually so funny and weirdly lovable, like if you weren’t so deep in your serious life stuff rn, i’d 100% wanna be your friend. but like… lowkey focus on yourself right now.

now, everything I say is going to lead you to your most authentic self.

for my tarot readers, the king of swords reversed lined up and then immediately the king of cups came out.

it’s like, don’t give up. I know you’re fcking tired, but you’re so close to stepping into prosperity. keep going.

your era of trials? It’s almost over. what’s ahead? achievements. recognition.

feathers in your hat.

so you know, right now? the relationship that matters most is the one you have with yourself.

just keep working on yourself.

like, keep mining for the diamonds and don't give up.

(lmao the image above is all i want to say)

don't get distracted by the vibes. don't party or drink too much. just keep your wits to yourself.

when you have a goal to achieve and you hang out with other people, those people might not have goals. so their lack of direction will serve as a distraction.

guys trust your energy, trust your path, trust your journey.

because if you continue to this path, your era of trials and tribulation will be over.

also, a reminder. don't get into a relationship that is demanding you to put a lot of time and energy into it.

for my people who love toxic men, get into a relationship with yourself right now.

that's the best thing.

good luck guys🍀😊

read another pick a pile reading by @cextile

pile three ☆

hi! so you guys struggle mainly with the inner world, its so rich & chaotic, and that spills into your outer expression.

you guys are like fog - so mentally dispersed. your identity, sense of self is just so spread out and variable that it's actually getting difficult for you to consume and contain it yourself.

so you need to fall back on a structure that is well defined, alright? This structure could have different interpretations for you guys, so I am not elaborating more on that.

you guys have to do shadow work to really understand where this variability, out-stretch in your sense of identity and all your patterns are coming from.

you know, suppressed tension inside of you that you really need to work upon, do shadow work on. it's like, you have tight springs in your body - all this tension, all this trauma, all this negativity - pushed down, waiting to uncoil itself.

so, where you are suppressing things of yourself that do not need to be suppressed, and, you know, not necessary to be suppressed.

but all that’s really happening is you’re still suppressing parts of yourself that never needed suppression. you think you're holding it in, sometimes you don’t even realise that you are holding it in - but what you’re actually doing is holding on - holding on to the idea that there’s something in you that needs to be dealt with.

let go

also, there’s a need to be conscious of what you speak.

not everything needs to be said, right?

a lot of times we say things out of this need to want people to validate our experiences, but you need to understand that not everyone will receive your unfiltered words as you intend them, you risk misunderstanding, misjudgment, and even a warped image of yourself being formed in their eyes.

There is a need of introspection inside yourself, and this need of, like, fixing what you think, nah what you know, is not right about yourself.

It could be a mental rut you need to get out of, you know.

stop letting your perception rot in the same setting. sometimes we get into our own headspace so much that it negatively hampers ourselves, we start bedrotting, letting things stay stagnant, not necessarily in your physical reality, but in how you perceive this physical reality and in your headspace, things need to keep changing and be active.

so yup, you can’t let that stillness calcify. there has to be motion, even if it’s just in awareness. You have to breathe life back into your mind and body.

It could also be that you need introspection in some aspects of your social self - things that are quietly hampering your day-to-day life.

Or maybe it’s your external appearance. Because, let’s be honest, how we look does help boost our confidence. soo if you want to fix something about yourself that you don't like, then you can go ahead and do it.

Plus, try become an Instagram baddie or a Pinterest doll, you know? what I mean is embody a particular aesthetic that makes you comfortable. I’m not saying this to pressure you into conforming to beauty standards - it's more like polishing yourself externally, so that you can feel more confident and comfortable in the environment and the places you move through. So you can walk into a room and not shrink.

again, just to repeat on a similar note - it would really, really do a lot of good if you start exercising, working toward that dream physique, and genuinely putting in the effort to glow up and become your dream version.

make a checklist of all your tasks and responsibilities, and aim to fulfill it - one task at a time. whether it’s cleaning your room, replying to texts, or researching something that matters to you - get it done. it doesn't matter how much it will help you professionally, financially, familially, or in relationships - do it to help yourself. you'll be able to present yourself as a more proud person, as someone who sticks to things and gets them done, right? it’s about stacking those wins and watching your self-respect rebuild.

Also, actually get out - talk to people, smell the flowers, connect with others, and do the most mundane tasks with them. go with your sibling to the grocery store and help your fam out by grocery shopping. ask your friends to meet up for a walk. It doesn't have to be an intense thing - let your relationships flourish amidst the most mundane things.

read another pick a pile reading by @cextile

that's it for this reading. take care of yourself.

with love, Ananya ♡

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ilovebabyonboard · 12 hours ago

Text

Care Package Confessions

PAIRING: Bob Floyd X Pilot!Reader

CATEGORY: Fluff

SUMMARY: On deployment, a misdelivered care package and a too-honest letter you never meant for anyone else to read land in the hands of the one person it was secretly about: Bob Floyd. You weren’t supposed to fall for the quietest guy in the squad, and he definitely wasn’t supposed to find out. But when he reads the words meant only for home, everything changes—awkward glances, missed chances, and a slow, soft unraveling into something neither of you expected

WORD COUNT: 3.5K

WARNINGS: Mild angst, mutual pining, mild invasion of privacy, semi proofread

The sky above the naval air station was a colorless, cloud-smeared expanse, neither blue nor grey—just muted, like someone had turned the world down to half-volume. Beneath it, the base bustled on with its endless mechanical rhythm: the metallic stutter of hangar doors, the thump of boots on concrete, the sharp hiss of hydraulics bleeding into the wind.

And in the middle of it all, a quiet anticipation hung in the air like the scent of jet fuel—subtle, but unmistakable.

Mail day.

On deployment, small things carried a weight far beyond their size. A hot meal. A familiar brand of soap. A joke that actually landed without falling flat. But letters—letters were gold. They were proof that somewhere beyond the scrubby tarmac and sun-bleached barracks, life moved on without them. That they weren’t forgotten.

When Maverick’s voice crackled over the PA system announcing the squad’s mail had arrived, the whole base seemed to shift, like the tide turning.

“Mail drop’s in,” Fanboy announced, bursting into the briefing room like a storm of caffeine and good news. He waved a clipboard over his head like it was a winning lottery ticket. “Confirmed: the boxes have arrived.”

“Finally,” you groaned, the tension in your shoulders easing a notch.

Around you, the rest of Dagger squad perked up, eyes brightening like kids promised pizza at lunch.

Rooster leaned back in his chair with a yawn. “Think my aunt sent that giant tub of trail mix again?”

Hangman drawled, leaning forward across the table. “She’s definitely sending it for me.”

Rooster gave him a deadpan stare.

“No fighting,” Phoenix mumbled from the wall, eyes half-closed. “Save it for the sky.”

You looked back down at your half-finished checklist, trying not to let your hopes rise too high. You’d written home several times over the last month—mostly to your best friend, Em, and your siblings—but you hadn’t been sure if anything would come back. Still, part of you hoped.

A week before the care packages arrived, sleep was a stranger.

The buzzing overhead lights outside your room hummed low and steady, the cot beneath you felt too stiff, and the earlier simulation rattled more than you cared to admit. You’d flown well—you always flew well. But when Bob spoke over comms—calm, measured, steady—you found your own breath skipping beats.

It wasn’t what he said.

It was just him.

Bob Floyd was… complicated in the simplest way.

He wasn’t loud like Rooster or cocky like Hangman. He didn’t swagger into rooms or fill the air just to prove he could. But he carried a quiet presence. Gentle, steady—like the hum of a well-tuned engine or the low static of pre-dawn radio waves.

You remembered the first week, when he held the door open for you even though his arms were overloaded with gear. Then, during briefing, when he quietly corrected a flight schematic with a soft, “Actually, I think this is reversed,” and nailed it perfectly.

Bob didn’t take up space.

He made space.

And that did something inside you—something soft and stupid and utterly inconvenient.

You were trying really hard not to fall for the guy who lent pens with a quiet smile, like it was the kindest thing in the world.

And you were failing.

Spectacularly.

So, when your brain refused to quiet down, you did what you always did: you wrote.

The letter started as a joke.

“Dear Em,” you wrote, “I think I might be in actual trouble. Not, like, Navy trouble. Emotional trouble. The kind where your stomach flutters and your brain short-circuits and your heart does this horrible lurching thing every time a certain someone says your name."

"I’m not saying I’m falling for a naval aviator whose glasses fog up when he’s embarrassed—but I’m not not saying it either.”

You went on, describing the squad: how Coyote bullied you into morning runs, how Rooster couldn’t cook to save his life, how Payback snored like a jet engine about to take off. You wrote about Bob’s laugh—rare, quiet, always a little surprised—and how you lived for the moments when he’d glance up from a mission brief and catch your eye, like it was accidental but not quite.

You cringed as you wrote it but didn’t delete the words.

You signed off: Anyway. I won’t say anything obviously cause I'm not stupid. But I had to say it somewhere. Just in case.

You folded the letter, sealed it in an envelope, and tucked it into the box you’d set aside for care packages.

You thought it’d be safe on its way home before anyone else saw it.

You were wrong.

Because when the mail finally landed, your box from home wasn’t among the pile waiting for pickup.

You scanned the rows of care packages, eyes darting between names and handwritten labels, but there was no sign of yours. No familiar scrawl from home. No hidden treasures wrapped in duct tape and love.

You asked around, casually at first, then with more urgency—“Has anyone seen a box for me?”—but the answer was always the same: nothing.

What you didn’t know was that somewhere else on base, Bob Floyd was sitting with two boxes stacked in front of him.

Two boxes with your name scribbled with hardly legible handwriting on one.

Your family was usually so careful, so meticulous with the labeling, but somewhere in the chaos—a slip of handwriting, maybe a mix-up in the sorting—your package had gotten swapped.

Bob, quiet and unassuming, hadn’t said a word. Maybe he hadn’t noticed at first, or maybe he hadn’t wanted to make a fuss. After all, two boxes might mean double the snacks, double the comfort. But Bob wasn't that guy— So he definitely didn't notice.

Bob kept his eyes fixed on the cardboard box that didn't look like it was for him that was in front of him.

He turned it once, then again, squinting at the name scrawled in permanent marker across the side. He couldn't even tell if it was written in English the legibility was so bad.

He hesitated.

The packaging wasn’t familiar—no handwriting he recognized, no usual return address from his sister or cousin or the couple old classmates who still sent him the occasional care bundle for morale.

Still, he opened it.

The first thing he noticed was the smell: barbecue chips. The second was the envelope, tucked under a bag of off-brand trail mix and a novelty bottle opener shaped like an F-18.

It was handwritten.

Sealed.

He should’ve known right then—should’ve stopped, double-checked the box, handed it off to admin to reroute. But something about the envelope snagged his attention. It wasn’t addressed formally. No full name, no rank. Just a single word in neat handwriting: Home.

And beneath it, in parentheses: to Y/N.

Bob frowned slightly, the crease between his brows softening as he thumbed the edge of the envelope. His fingers brushed the seal.

He didn’t open it maliciously. He didn’t even intend to open it at all. It just… happened. The way you might pull a book from a shelf you didn’t remember placing there. Instinctive. Curious. Thoughtless in the moment, but not unkind.

The paper unfolded like a secret.

He read the first line, and his breath caught.

"WHO IS THIS MYSTERY MAN? You have to send me a photo! A guy with glasses? That’s totally your type, Y/N. Come on, spill the details!”

He read the line again, and again. Then again.

Across the room, you sat half-listening as Phoenix described, in graphic detail, what would happen to Rooster’s skin if he didn’t stop using three-in-one body wash as face cleanser. The squad was in full post-briefing mode—half-buzzed on caffeine, half-crashing from mail day—when your eyes skimmed the room and landed, briefly, on Bob.

He looked… unreadable. His expression wasn’t quite confused, but it wasn’t neutral either.

Just distant.

Focused on something from his package.

You didn’t think anything of it at first.

Not until much later.

Not until the moment when everything, quietly, and without warning, went sideways.

Bob Floyd didn’t mean to read the whole thing.

He really didn’t.

But once the words were in front of him, once he realized it wasn’t just a small note or a postcard—it was a letter—his brain stopped working the way it normally did. Quiet, ordered, methodical.

Instead, it just… whirred.

And then stalled.

And then, against all better judgment, it drifted forward.

At first, he told himself he’d just skim. Just enough to know where it came from, to figure out how badly he'd messed up, and then stop. That was the plan. That was always the plan.

But the second line knocked the air right out of his lungs.

“How tall is he? 6'7 or is that reaching it? Does he do that thing where he pushes his glasses up his nose with one finger and mumbles smart things under his breath? I swear if he wears button-downs off-duty, I’m going to pass out.”

He sat there, frozen in his chair, surrounded by the soft clatter of snack wrappers and paper tearing open and Hangman loudly reading something he swore was a love letter from a high school girlfriend.

Bob didn’t hear any of it.

He just stared at the letter, then read the next paragraph. And the next. And then he was too far in. Too deep. He couldn’t have stopped even if he’d tried.

Each line felt like peeling away the edge of something that had always been sealed off. A secret voice. A map he wasn’t meant to see.

And then came the kicker:

“If you don’t tell me more about what his voice sounds like by your next letter, I’m flying to the base myself.”

He had to close the letter and fold it twice to stop his hands from shaking. It wasn’t just you writing about him anymore—it was someone else talking about him, based on what you’d said. He didn’t know how to process that.

It didn’t take a genius to piece it together. He knew himself well enough to recognize the archetype.

He laid in bed later that night, replaying it all: the teasing, the affection, the familiarity with which your friend talked about him—a man she’d never met. A man you’d clearly talked about before.

That part got him.

You’d talked about him.

To someone else.

Like he was important enough to mention.

Like he mattered.

And for someone like Bob—who spent most of his life blending into the edges of rooms and avoiding attention—that realization felt like someone had cracked a window in his chest and let in the air.

Bob spent most of the morning thinking about the almonds.

Well, technically, they weren’t even his almonds. They were yours. Or, at least, they had been, before the letter. Before the swap. Before his sense of moral order cracked like the seal on your envelope.

Now the bag sat on his desk—salted, honey roasted, your favorite brand, the one you’d mentioned offhand during a late-night flight brief two weeks ago when you were both too tired to filter what came out of your mouths.

You’d laughed and said something like, “If someone mailed me a truckload of these, I’d probably marry them on the spot.”

At the time, Bob had just nodded, like he wasn’t about to remember that sentence word for word until the end of time.

Now, staring at the bag, he felt ridiculous.

What was he supposed to do? Walk up to you like, “Hey, I accidentally read your emotionally intimate letter confessing your crush on me, and now I’m giving you back the snack that came with it?”

Absolutely not.

So instead, he decided on a middle path. He’d ease into it. A slow reveal. A gentle tip of the hand.

He’d just… start a conversation.

A normal one.

With you. Easy.

When he saw you in the hangar, your hair pulled back and flight suit tied around your waist, squinting into the sun with a wrench in your hand, his heart did something embarrassing in his chest.

You smiled when you saw him—bright and easy, like always.

Bob almost turned around.

Instead, he walked forward, almond bag clenched tightly in his hand like it was a rare diplomatic offering.

“Hey,” he said. It came out fine. Fine. Maybe a little high-pitched.

“Hey, Bob,” you said, half-laughing like you were surprised. “You’re up early.”

“Payback's snoring,” he replied, giving you an annoyed look.

That got a laugh.

Bob felt like he’d just been handed a trophy.

You leaned against the bench, eyeing the bag in Bob's hand.. “Didn’t peg you for the almond type.”

He blinked. “Sorry?”

You nodded toward his hand. “The almonds."

“Oh. Right.” He looked down like he’d forgotten he was holding them. “Yeah. Just… had them. Figured I’d eat some.”

Brilliant.

You smiled again, but something in your brow furrowed. “You okay? You look a little red.”

Bob went very still.

Abort mission.

This was a terrible idea.

He wasn’t built for this. He didn’t know how to flirt. He knew how to calculate airspeed and adjust radar parameters and give Phoenix the exact correction she needed mid-dive. He didn’t know how to have a crush on someone who might actually like him back.

It felt like flying with the control stick locked at full sensitivity—every tiny movement sent him spiraling.

So he panicked.

“No, I’m good,” he said quickly. “Just tired. Been a long week.”

You tilted your head. “It’s Tuesday.”

“Exactly.”

You gave him a weird look—half teasing, half concerned—but didn’t push. Instead, you bumped your shoulder gently against his as you passed.

“Go drink some water, Bob,” you said. “You get weird when you’re dehydrated.”

He didn’t respond.

He couldn’t.

Because you touched him and smiled and told him to hydrate like it was the most natural thing in the world.

And suddenly, it was too much.

Bob speed walked to found a corner in the mess hall that afternoon where no one would bother him and sat with his back to the wall, trying not to replay the morning in 4K ultra-cringe quality.

He could’ve told you.

He could’ve hinted.

But instead, he flailed, lied about being tired, and failed to give you your almonds.

He didn’t even eat them. They were still in his pocket.

The truth was: he wasn’t used to this. The possibility of someone choosing him. Liking him not just as a squadmate or a dependable co-pilot, but for the soft, quiet, weird corners of him.

Bob had always kept those corners hidden.

Because when you grow up being the quiet one, the careful one, the one who people always describe as “sweet” but rarely as “someone I’d fall for,” you start building walls without realizing it.

So now, standing on the other side of that wall, letter in hand, he didn’t know what to do except… retreat.

That felt safer.

Few Days Later...

You couldn’t pinpoint the moment the warmth between you and Bob started to falter. It wasn’t a sharp crack or a sudden snap. More like a candle’s flame, flickering nervously in a breeze it didn’t know how to fight — small and wavering until it threatened to gutter out altogether.

After that night, everything felt quieter. Not worse, exactly. Just… off. Like something had shifted beneath the surface, a current you couldn’t quite grasp but felt pulling you both in opposite directions.

He started calling you more on the comms. His voice was softer than before, like a whisper meant only for you, threading into your flight path like a warm hand steadying the turbulence.

Then that first morning after, when you nailed your run and found him waiting on the tarmac, his words were simple but held weight—a compliment muttered low, like he was afraid to speak too loudly and shatter the fragile moment. That small kindness lingered longer than it had any right to, curling around your chest and making your heart thrump in a way that made you both dizzy and hopeful.

That was day one.

By day two, things began to retreat. He was still there — polite, present — but a distance settled between you, thick and cold as fog rolling in over the runway. He stopped sitting near you in the mess hall, his eyes no longer catching yours during briefing. The quiet side comments, the folded arms leaning in close in the hangar? They vanished like smoke.

Day three was worse.

Now, he barely spoke at all except when he absolutely had to, clipped and careful. Words spoken only because the mission demanded it, not because he wanted to hear your voice.

And then, tonight—when Hangman cracked a ridiculous joke and you laughed without thinking—your eyes found Bob’s only to see him already looking away, like your gaze was too bright, too much. Like he couldn’t bear to be close, but didn’t know how to leave.

It was cruelty.

And all of it—every hesitant hello, every half-smile, every empty space where he used to stand near you—was driving you quietly out of your mind.

You waited until the evening, when the San Diego heat had finally broken and most of the squad had gathered in a lazy sprawl out back.

Someone had dragged folding chairs into a circle around a makeshift fire pit. There was music. Half-warm beer. Cheap chips. Laughter, floating light and distant into the night.

You didn’t laugh.

You were watching Bob.

He sat at the edge of the group again—physically there, but somewhere else entirely. One foot out the door.

Just like every other day since last mail day.

So this time, you followed him when he left.

He peeled off around the side of the barracks, quiet and unbothered, like he didn’t think anyone would notice.

But you did.

You always had.

So you stood and followed when he slipped quietly away.

“Bob,” you said softly, catching up behind him.

He stopped, but didn’t turn.

You slowed, letting the silence fill the space between you. Then, steadying your voice, you asked:

“Why have you been avoiding me?”

He exhaled slowly, like he’d been holding his breath for days, the tension releasing in a shudder.

“I’m not,” he said, voice low, careful.

“Don’t lie,” you said, your words fragile but firm.

He didn’t answer.

You stepped beside, coming into his line of sight.

“Did I make you uncomfortable?” you asked, voice barely above a whisper.

His head jerked up, eyes wide and startled.

“What? No. God, no,” he said too quickly.

“Then why does it feel like I said something wrong just by existing?”

He flinched, like your words had grazed a raw nerve.

His hand came up to rub the back of his neck. His eyes darted everywhere but at you.

“I didn’t mean to make you feel that way,” he said, voice rough with regret.

“Then what are you doing?” you pressed, softer now, heart thudding in your ribs. “Because for four days you’ve been—”

“I don’t know,” he cut you off, too fast. Then quieter, almost crushed: “I don’t know.”

His voice cracked like brittle glass.

You didn’t say anything. You just watched.

Saw the weight in his shoulders, the way his chest tightened with something heavy and unspoken.

Finally, he spoke again.

“Your box got mixed up as mine and I—I read your letter,” he began, voice quiet and hesitant, like each word was a step into unfamiliar ground. “And… well, it was the kindest thing anyone’s ever said about me.”

He scratched the back of his neck, cheeks coloring just the faintest shade, like he wasn’t sure if he should be embarrassed or proud.

Bob swallowed hard, eyes softening.

"Maybe it sounds stupid,” he added, voice dropping to almost a whisper, “but it really… meant a lot.”

His eyes finally found yours, soft and a little unsure, like he was afraid you might think less of him now that the words were out.

“I don’t… usually get that kind of thing. You know? Compliments. Or people saying stuff like that.”

He took a breath, a small, nervous smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“So, maybe that’s why I’ve been acting weird.”

He looked down, then back up, like he was searching for courage in the fading light.

“I didn’t want to mess it up. Or make it awkward between us.”

“I was trying to you know— make a move or whatever Fanboy says... but I guess avoiding you just made it worse.”

He shrugged, shy but sincere.

“I’m not good at this stuff.”

You smiled—soft, patient, warm.

“It’s okay, Bob.”

He let out a small laugh, like a relief he didn’t know he was holding.

You bit your lip, cheeks warming under the soft glow of the night. The quiet between you stretched out, heavy with unsaid things.

“It’s my fault,” you said finally, your voice barely above a whisper. You raised a shaky hand to your forehead, like you were trying to physically smooth out the awkwardness curling there. “I shouldn’t have written those letters about you. I’m so sorry.”

You looked down, fiddling with the hem of your sleeve, cheeks burning. “I didn’t mean to make things weird or put you on the spot. I just… I thought it might be nice to say what I was feeling to a friend.”

Your words tumbled out, rushed and shy.

You glanced up, meeting Bob’s eyes, searching for any sign of anger or irritation.

But instead, he gave you that soft, shy smile again — the one that made your heart skip.

“Hey,” he said gently, voice warm and steady, “It wasn’t weird. Not to me.”

He shifted a little closer, like courage was building up inside him too.

“I just… didn’t know what to say, or how to say it.”

He raised a hand to fix his glasses, awkward but honest. “So I did the dumb thing and froze.”

You smiled, relief blooming between you, soft and slow.

“Make a move, huh?” You teased, trying to regain your confidence. Stepping closer to Bob until you were standing just feet apart.

He blinked, caught off guard. "Yeah" He said sheepishly.

You smirked, letting your gaze drop to his mouth before flicking back up. “So why don’t you right now?”

His eyes flicked down to your lips, then back up, and he swallowed.

“Alright,” he said quietly. “But I'm no good at this.”

“Guess I’ll have to teach you,” you said, leaning into his body warmth.

Bob’s breath hitched, eyes darkening with promise.

“Good luck,” he said softly. “I’m a slow learner.”

And then, without another word, he reached out and brushed your hand, fingers lingering just a moment longer than necessary.

Then closed the small gap between you.

#lewis pullman x reader #bob floyd x female reader #bob floyd x reader #bob floyd x y/n #bob floyd x you #lewis pullman #fanfic #lewis pullman x y/n #lewis pullman x you #bob floyd #robert bob floyd x reader #robert bob floyd #robert floyd #bob x reader #bob floyd fic #bob x you #bob floyd fluff #topgun maverick fanfiction #fanfiction

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theegyal · 2 days ago

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THIRD WHEEL ( Stack x OC )

Chapter 3

Stack sat there, speechless, blindsided by the ghostly sight of Janae in that red dress. The curve of her calf, the jut of her hip, the soft giggle of her belly when she had stopped abruptly, totally surprised. Lord, even the deep red on her lips had him damn near dizzy.

"Your toes pretty as hell."

Why the fuck had he said that?

Her toes? Really? Out of everything he could've said—that the dress looked good, that she was killing it, that he'd never seen her look like that. He went with her damn feet.

Black Jesus ! He had Mrs. Mary Kent on her damn knees back in class, sucking his Johnson. But now he was quivering right before Janae ? Of all people ?

He was Elias Stack the fuckin' Moore. He was smooth, direct. He wasn't supposed to say dumb shit like that.

He let his head fall back against the couch cushions with a thud. What was it about that chubby pumpkin that just short-circuited his brain?

Mary, she was different. With Mary, everything was a game. He knew what she wanted to hear, how to push her buttons, how to make her lose control. She was a sleek, polished jewel with an hidden hunger.

Janae wasn't a conquest. She was...Janae. I mean, the shy girl who hide her curves under baggy clothes, the one who look after him like she was his damn mother, the one with fake confidence he wished was real. His homegirl, his buddy. The girl with sass and bad tongue. The girl with satin bonnet who crave cereal at midnight.

However, tonight was different. She didn't hide anything. He'd seen it all. The way the floral dress clung to her soft stomach, holding it like a treasure, her vanilla-oiled and shining big thighs, the way her obsidian skin glowed under the living room blue light.

She didn't try to overplay her charm, rather she tried to muting it, defiance flickering in her avoidant gaze. Contrary to Mrs.Kent, Janae exuded something else. Something fragile, adorably broken.

Stack felt like an idiot because for the first time in three years, he really saw her, and all he could come up with was a compliment about her fucking white-painted toes.

His phone buzzed on the cushion next to him, dragging him out of his thoughts. He scoffed and grabbed it :

Group chat:

TARIQ:

yo party on 9th street

pull up. ton of sweet thang here already and guess who brought the drankkkk 🐍

Stack stared at the message for a second. He wasn't really in the mood, but his leg had already started bouncing. Maybe some distraction would help.

STACK:

Bet. On my way.

He grabbed his keys, hoodie, and stepped out the door, locking it behind him with more irritation than he meant.

The music throbbed in Janae's ribcage mirroring her own heartbeat.

She stood near the drink table, fingers clutching a red solo cup she hadn't sipped from. The party was already dense : bodies pressed too close, laughter too sharp, heat building between shoulder blades.

Every room was too full. Every eye felt like it lingered a second too long.

Grace and Pearline had already vanished into the crowd, loud, lovely and untouchable in their fits. Janae stuck out, not because of the dress, but because of the way she wore it. The cling of it. The way she couldn't unclench her arms from her sides, couldn't stop adjusting the hem like it might suddenly become decent.

"Hey. Janae, right?"

She blinked, looked up — Abraham. Dressed down in jeans and a white tee, low haircut, golden undertones glowing against the soft lights. He was cute in that safe, college-boy way. Tall. Courteous smile. Clean breath.

"Yeah," she said, surprised her voice didn't shake.

"I thought that was you." He chuckled, rubbed the back of his neck. "You look... real good tonight."

Janae smiled, small and unsure. "Thanks."

She tried to will herself into comfort as Abraham leaned beside her, asking polite questions about class, deadlines, interests. She laughed at the right beats. Nodded like she was listening. But inside, her mind felt unmoored, drifting somewhere above her body.

And she felt it before she saw it. A heat at her back.

She turned.

Stack.

Leaning against the doorframe like He wore his short fade cut, clean. That damn half-grin already tugging at his mouth as one of his boys clapped him on the back.

Of course he was here.

Her stomach twisted, not with nerves, but betrayal. He hadn't asked her where she was going. Hadn't commented on the dress. And now, he was here : head tilted, eyes scanning the room. In a weird sense of timing his gaze landed right on her.

And Abraham.

Their eyes met.

Stack didn't react, not really. He arched a brow then he looked away. Nodded to his boy. Kept it pushing like she was background noise. Janae felt her pulse in her ears, loud and erratic.

She turned back to Abraham, forcing another smile.

"Sorry, what were you saying?"

But her laugh came brittle. Her shoulders rigid. Her red cup still untouched.

Across the room, Stack grabbed a beer and let his eyes wandering back. Just once. He saw her laugh at something the tall man beside her said, hand brushing his arm like a reflex.

He felt something tight twist in his chest, then shrugged it off. Whatever. Ain't none of his business. Janae was grown. She could do her.

And just as she was beginning to recover finding footing in Abraham's sweet, if boring, flirtation, something blow up her mind.

Stack, leaned back on the couch, some girl in a halter top perched beside him. She was light-skinned, slim, curly hair bouncing as she laughed at whatever he said.

The girl leaned in close, hand on his thigh. He didn't stop her. In fact, when she whispered something in his ear, he grinned wide and kissed her.

Janae stopped breathing.

Her throat tightened, and the room tilted. The music suddenly too loud, the bass vibrating her lungs. She muttered something to Abraham — she couldn't even remember what — and slipped through the crowd, pushing past dancers, out the door, down the porch steps—

Her heel caught the edge of the last stair.

She stumbled. Then fell.

The sound of her body hitting the pavement was loud. Heads turned. Laughter bubbled up, awkward and unkind. Someone said "Damn!" Another snorted.

Janae stayed down a second longer than she needed to, not out of pain, but humiliation. Her thighs spread awkward, dress bunched up, belly pressed against her knees. She could feel the tightness of her clothes, the stick of sweat between her rolls, the way her arms jiggled when she finally pushed herself up.

She heard someone jogging behind her.

"Janae!"

No. No no no. Not him.

She yanked her dress down, heart beating fast, panic blooming in her throat like nausea.

She felt his hand reach for her but she slapped it away.

"I'm fine." She said, not looking at him.

"You bleedin', dumbass." he scoffed

"I don't care."

"You ain't even wearin' the right heels for all that rushin'."

"Stack. Just go." She said, finding her way out.

She held her head up, limping away from the party, the laughers still echoing behind her.

"Ain't she too big to be wearin' that lil dress?" A random dude snorted, nudging his boy, his grill catching the porch light. "Shit tryna breathe, dawg—ya saw her ?"

Stack stopped instantly, turning toward the bunch of people. Staring at the messy dude.

"the fuck you sayin'?"

The guy blinked, caught mid-laugh. "Bro, I ain't talkin' to you—"

Stack was already moving.

"You laughin', huh?" His voice didn't rise. It dropped low, dangerous. "the fuck funny nigga ?"

He was in the dude's personal space now. He didn't give him a second to backpedal. Stack punched his cheekbone before anyone had the time to blink.

The dude stumbled back, hands flying up. "Ay—what the fuck!"

"She busted her ass down and ya talkin' shit 'bout her ? And yall—"

He turned on the others, catching all their stares. "What's so funny to y'all? Huh?"

Nobody answered. The porch went quiet, the beat inside still banging, but nobody danced.

He looked down the street, saw her walking away, her head down, different from earlier, her stride stiff, shoulders locked tight. She didn't even look back. His heart sank down his stomach, he hated that sight.

He shoved past the gaping circle of partygoers, descending the porch steps two at a time.

The Mercedes keys were already in his hand, thumb fumbling with the unlock. She was halfway down the block, but he got a vehicle so he would be faster.

He caught her quickly then rolled the window down.

"Janae." He called

She didn't stop.

"Come on. Let me drive you home."

Still nothing.

He parked the Mercedes messily and stepped out.

"You really gon' limp all the way back by yourself?"

She kept walking, ignoring his calls. Janae wanted nothing to do with Stack at this right instant. Her knees hurt, her back ache and that image of him kissing that baddie inside the damn house still haunting her.

"J. Stop, listen to me okay ? These folks ain't shit"

Who gave a fuck about some niggas and bitches mocking her ? She was sadly used to it. It was her life. For these people, girls like her should always hide behind lotta clothes, baggy pants, and Princess Diana attire. She was naive enough to think she could wear that dress without being mocked.

Stack didn't have the intention to let her go further in this foggy black night. He caught her wrist, making her body shivering.

"Drop it."

"Can't do that ma'am" he tightened his grip, not forcefully "let's go home together, if you don't want, we can park few streets away and drink some beers—" he released her before scratching the back of his head "I mean, I know you ain't right J."

"Should've seen that earlier" she murmured for herself, not wanting him to hear anything. "Okay for the beers. Blond for me"

"Alright Sister Janae. Let's go to the convenience store"

Back the house party, Pearline was storming on Abraham.

"SO—SO YOU LET HER GO ? AND COULDN'T EVEN HELP HER FROM—FROM—"

Why did she slipped away with that dreadlocsed motherfucker ? She should've been here with Janae ! Well she wanted her friend to have a good time, wanted her to discuss with that church's choir boy Abraham. Flirt, drink. Without any pressure. Pearline was so stupid.

"I don't understand Pearline. She saw an acquaintance, went to greet them and as I waited for her to come back, she was already close the porch steps and—"

"Acquaintance? Whatcha mean ?" The chinese girl asked.

"Well. A brown skin man, with fade cut. Was wearing hoodie and jeans. Didn't seem the type of man she should hang with honestly."

Stack. Pearline didn't need any further description. Janae was safe then, with a broken heart but still safe.

"At least he had guts to look after her. Anyway, could you please excuse me mister perfect ?" Pearline left the chat, her red purse on hand.

They drove to the convenience store by close midnight. Janae didn't seat on the passenger side this time. She went backseats.

Stack pulled the hood over his head, winked at the princess passenger and entered in the store.

"Oh mama, what I'm doin' there..." she whispered, her tone, not even above the night's winds noises.

Drinking beers with him ? In his car ?

Not that she didn't already jumped in that Mercedes before but tonight felt different.

She was sitting on seats where surely many girls laid on.

Would he do her like he did them ? Pushed her on these leather cushions, brushing her skin with his long sturdy fingers, kissing her lips ravenously ? Would he loosened her locs and fisted her hair as he shoved himself inside ? Did he, even like cellulite on ass ? Janae had lots of these.

"Four blond Irish beers and two Calypso rum !" Stack shouted a second before opening wide the car's door. "Took some stuff for ya knees too"

He folded right beside her, dropped the white bag right in front, on the passenger side and tapped his palms on his lap "get you legs on" he said.

"Wh—what ? I can do it myself. Just gimme—"

She leaned forward, trying to reach the band-aids and antiseptic in the bag. Quickly, Stack hovered her sweaty hand with his.

"Janae. Stay fuckin still and put them damn legs on my lap"

He was commanding, leaving no room for resistance. Janae eyes lurked inside the shop bag. Obviously he already took the first-aid kit off.

"I'm 242 lbs Captain America, ain't want you to say I didn't told you huh" she whimpered painfully as she lifted one leg after another. Her knees bloody scraped.

"Tss. Cause' ya think Santa Claus the one bringing yo big ass to bed every time ya knock out on the couch ?"

Janae's mouth dropped open, her jaw hitting almost the floor. He did WHAT ?

Embarrassment immediately clung on her skin. Heat rising to her neck, throat.

She stayed quiet, watching him sanitize the wounds then stick the band tape over them.

"Clean." He happily said, caressing unconsciously her bare thighs, sending shivers down Janae spine.

Abruptly, she removed her legs from his lap and said :

"Only drink the beer"

Stack looked up at her slow, one brow cocked like he ain't quite hear her right.

“Huh ? My ears itching can you repeat ?”

“I’m only drinking one beer. Stack”

“One beer and a calypso ! Got it Sister Janae”

He snatched the bag off the passenger side and dropped it between his thighs, opening the contents.

He passed a blond beer to Janae, along with the plastic bottle of Calypso.

“Stack—”

“You mad I touched you ?”

“Nursed me” she corrected and continued “ and the fuck you mean. You touch every body Stack”

Stack didn’t retort, kept sipping from his rum bottle, his gaze lingering on her.

His eyes drifted from the sweat dripping on her neck to the dangerous cleavage that threatened to spill out her breasts. Lower, rolls drawn waves on her body. Her thick thighs squeezed against each other, hot shining fluid flowing on and between them. Stack mind wandered. Far, crossing lines of indecency and misconduct.

Fuck. He thought, steadying himself, his back against the leather seat.

On another note, he planned to answer Janae with his swagger usual tone. He glanced at her. A thin stream of beer railed over the corner of her mouth. Her pouty red lips twisted before her tongue languidly lick the beer foam.

Shit. A reaction. He needed a diversion as soon as possible. Janae would be creeped out if her eyes happened to land on his arousal.

So he kissed her, one hand clenching the plastic bottle of rum. She tasted sweet and bitter, of the beer she drank.

In shook, Janae only closed her eyes after a minute.

She was a novice. She didn’t exactly know what to do, how to move her lips. Everything felt new. This was her first kiss. Should she open her mouth and let his tongue in — ? Probably no ?

The ache in her belly didn’t hurt. Yes—it was heavy. Heavily pleasant.

Stack pressed his mouth harder, passionately, groaning against hers. His tongue glided along her lower lip, impatient. Janae mewled, excitation rising from her core. He bite her, demanded access. But as soon he was thirsting, ready to put his hot tongue in. His phone buzzed.

The lil vibration brought him back to reality. Precipitately, he jerked back from her body, leaving Janae whining.

Shit. That was hot.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket. Reading the new text.

Mary 🌹:

I could use some company Mr Moore. Heard you got no class tmrw.

Stack tried to quickly hide the phone in his pocket. Too late, Janae already saw the message on screen.

Tag list

@lilbitt @-harmonytbh @solarssins @rkiiives @harleycativy @thelifeoflagab @juniooox @tadjoa @shamansha @brownskincheyenne @freelandgoddess @Ib-xci @blaqgirlmagicyallcantstandit @iammyownlover @stormynovashambler @summrsovrinterlude @prettygirl2800 @puffmamaa @harleycativy @jasssdee1 @itstayleigh @queenofklonnie22 @bigjh @tadjoa @Isc72 @forzaferrariii , @blxckberrie @avidreader73 @partylikemajima @lolalikesgames @ultralspblr @post-woke @jasssdee1 @lizbehave @rkiiives @underated345-blog @thefutureemmywinner @chknnwffls @maddyf22 @jackierose902109

A/N : this tag list includes tag ID from my fanfic Hush, if you want to be removed please tell me friend ❤️

#stack x oc #sinners #stack elias moore #modern au #angst fanfic #unrequited love

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sajaboyscumdump · 2 days ago

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hot spring | thirst! romance saja & abby saja x reader

minors dni— the three of you share a hot spring—but it turns out demons can’t resist touching when their skin is wet.

the hot spring was hidden deep in the mountains— a perfect getaway after their world tour. the stars blinked lazily above, shrouded in mist, while the steam curled around the jagged rocks like fingers coaxing secrets from the night.

"so… we're actually done."

you leaned back against the edge of the rock, steam curling around your bare shoulders. your arms rested along the stone rim of the hot spring, every muscle aching in that delicious post-tour way. after months of late-night flights, screaming fans, tight schedules, and the chaos that came with managing a group of supernatural idols—this silence felt unreal.

"feels weird, huh?" abby slid into the water beside you, his dark hair slicked back, glowing gold eyes watching you lazily. “no mics. no cameras. no rowdy crowds.”

"just boiling ourselves in a mountain spring," you teased.

romance chuckled as he waded in on your other side, a towel slung low on his hips before he let it fall to the rocks. water beaded down his chest as he sank in, sighing like a man reborn.

“honestly, i think you worked harder than all of us."

you laughed. "don’t start. you two and the others are the ones singing your souls out every night. i just yell at people on the phone and try to stop you from fighting over who gets to pick stage outfits."

"you do yell impressively well," romance said with a grin. "makes me wonder what else you’d sound like when you’re—"

"romance," abby warned, but his lips twitched.

"—annoyed," romance finished innocently.

you rolled your eyes, smirking. "don’t test me. i’m still your assistant manager. kind of."

"not right now you aren’t," abby murmured, voice quieter now. "right now you're just… you. with us. no job titles."

you looked between them. they weren’t teasing anymore. the tension was quiet, warm, almost reverent. you swallowed hard.

“thanks for sticking with us,” romance said suddenly. “three years. you never once bailed. even when we were assholes.”

"especially when you were assholes," you muttered.

abby smiled softly. “you kept us sane.”

“you’re… everything,” romance added. “and we’ve been good, haven’t we? behaved? respected you?”

"yes," you said slowly.

"can we stop, then?" romance asked. his tone was low. deliberate.

you blinked. "stop what?"

abby moved closer behind you, water rippling gently. "pretending we don’t feel it. this."

your chest tightened.

romance’s voice dropped. "we're demons. when our skin gets wet.. touch becomes a need. and it’s worse when it’s someone we already crave."

abby’s hands brushed your shoulders, thumbs tracing slowly down your arms underwater.

“we want you. but only if you say yes."

the air felt hotter than the spring itself. you looked between them—your boys, your best friends, your impossible, beautiful headaches. they'd always been close.

too close, sometimes.

this wasn’t out of nowhere.

you’d felt it for a long time.

"then stop holding back," you breathed.

romance’s lips curved, and you felt his hands creep up your thighs.

“atta girl.”

reblog, comment, & follow if you want more <3

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golden-redhead · 2 days ago

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You know, I don't have a problem with Gi-hun sacrificing himself. I think it's pretty in character for him to do that after everything he went through. I also understand that in its own way, sacrifice is an act of rebellion, a fuck you to a system that continued to exploit and beat him down at every chance. I even firmly believe that him choosing a baby, an innocent life, over himself, especially with him being weighed down by all the guilt and regrets, was the ending that made the most sense.

So, no, I'm not one of those people who would say the act itself was out of character or that Gi-hun should have survived no matter what. I think his ending is pretty in line with what we've seen from him through the seasons. It is a culmination of all of his growth and I do think it was, at least on some level, a truly beautiful scene. Although, to be fair, most of the praise should go to the actor who truly can convey so much emotion with a simple look, no words necessary.

What is my issue then? Well, above anything else, what I find jarring and kinda unbelievable about the ending is how he doesn't actually know if he's ensuring the baby's safety.

It just doesn't feel like the same guy who went out of his way to find Sae-byeok's family or ensure that Sang-woo's mother's is taken care of. He knows what the games do to people, he knows how they exploit and exploit until you have nothing left to give. He has no guarantee that this child won't be groomed to continue the games. He has no way to ensure his promise is actually fulfilled.

I won't go as far as to say that it's a shit ending, mostly because I'm still processing and still need to settle on on what I actually think about it. But even though I can absolutely stan Gi-hun for taking a stand, for going out on his own terms, the way it was portrayed feels more defeatist than anything else. And I honestly don't think it was meant to be interpreted that way considering that they still kept this theme of hope prevailing in small ways with some of the surviving characters. Regardless of what they intended, though, this IS how this ending comes off in a lot of ways and I don't think it's unwarranted.

And it shows in how people are reacting, especially since it's A LOT to ask the audience to care more for a random baby than for characters we spent seasons establishing and getting invested in. I think the baby's inclusion in the story, while on paper interesting and in line with the symbolism of the series and fundamental questions this show asks, was... well, maybe not a mistake per se, but definitely a Choice. Not necessarily a good one. Especially since we know that the baby won't die. So at some point, the question became less about who will win the game and more about whether it'll be the sole survivor or not.

I think what frustrates many people the most, though, is that Gi-hin didn't have to die. I think more people would be open for this ending if they showed it as a situation with no solution, no hope. Him or the baby, no loopholes, no other options. But since there was still clause 3 and babies can't exactly vote, the game could have ended right there. The ending doesn't really give us a good reason as to why Gi-hun didn't opt for the option that would allow him to truly fulfill the promise and take care of Jun-hee's baby, give it a better chance at life. Which feels like a strange cop out considering that him doing that IS actually perfectly in line with the message of the show and, even more importantly, with Gi-hun's stance. This is precisely what he did at the end of season 1, choosing to believe and also prove through his own actions, that as long as you're alive, you can still make better choices. You can believe in humanity, even if it seems hopeless at times. Many people won't choose that option. Many will turn a blind eye to all the suffering and will even contribute to it if it means getting ahead.

I don't know, maybe I'm too much of an idealist, maybe I let myself believe in Gi-hun too much, but I think that that message and that Gi-hun, the one who chose to believe even when things sucked and people disappointed him, felt much more authentic to the story's overall message.

Him choosing death when there were still options feels defeatist.

It feels like him acting against the very thing he wanted to prove.

And it would be one thing if the whole message was supposed to be about the games beating this hope and conviction out of him.

It would be one thing if it was truly the only way to ensure the baby's safety and finish that game.

But it wasn't.

And honestly? That feels very inconsistent with the show I watched.

#squid game #squid game spoilers #squid game s3 #squid game s2 #squid game s1 #gi hun #seong gihun #player 456 #squid game season 3 #seong gi hun #sg s3 #netflix #squid game netflix #spoilers

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welostheplot · 3 days ago

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── 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝 ᨒ↟☾.࿔*:･ 𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐦𝐞 𝐢 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐢𝐯𝐞

𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: vampire!ellie williams / werewolf!abby anderson / reader

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘: just when things begin to settle into place with ellie, everything else starts to spiral. prom might be on the horizon, but so is something much more dangerous. and it isn’t just local gossip anymore—it’s hunting you.

𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓: no warnings! a little angst, a little fluff, all good stuff!

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓: 3.2k

𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄: vampire baseball is finally here! i was so nervous about writing it... and then i barely wrote about it. LOL. just know i was bumping supermassive black hole on repeat the entire creation process of this chapter. as always, enjoy!

𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 | 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 | 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫

𝐕𝐎𝐋𝐔𝐌𝐄 𝐈 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄: "you are my life now"

NOBODY AT THE DINER EVER SEEMED TO NOTICE THAT ELLIE NEVER ATE.

you always worried about it looking suspicious when ellie took you on lunch dates like these—her with nothing but an untouched glass of water, while you scarfed down your order.

but here you were—cozy booth, ellie across from you, legs brushing yours beneath the table, with only one plate between you (a turkey burger and fries for you, of course), and no one seemed to bat an eye.

ellie was drawing something on a napkin idly with the end of a ballpoint pen she must've had tucked in her hoodie pocket. her head was bent, stray auburn strands falling from her messy half-up, half-down hairstyle into her face, lips pressed together in thought.

you were pretending not to stare at her while she drew.

you weren't doing a very good job.

in your defense, you really couldn't help it. not when she looked up at you like that, when her eyes softened a little more every time she caught you watching. not when her foot nudged yours under the table, deliberate, teasing.

the old, boxy tv mounted above the counter hummed quietly behind you—some news segment you hadn’t been paying attention to.

not until ellie went stiff in her seat, eyes lifting from her doodle to whatever was playing on-screen with poorly masked interest.

you turned to glance at the tv.

footage rolled of emergency responders gathered outside a strip mall, yellow tape cordoning off a block of storefronts. the reporter’s voice was clipped and urgent.

“...a string of illness outbreaks spreading across nearby towns, including horseshoe lake and boulder ridge. symptoms include sudden, erratic behavior that results in victims strangely disappearing from their households. officials are urging caution, especially in the nearby area, as deaths and—more commonly—disappearances have skyrocketed.”

you turned back to ellie.

she was hunched a little over the table now, napkin crumpled under her fingers.

“you ever hear of a flu like that?” you asked.

she shrugged, still staring down. “nope.”

you frowned. “it sounds serious.”

she nodded once. “yup.”

“…you don’t think it’s something else?”

ellie’s jaw tightened. “why would i think that?”

“i dunno. you tell me.”

she finally looked up. her face was neutral. too neutral. you narrowed your eyes. “ellie.”

“what?”

“you’re doing the lying thing again.”

“i’m not.”

“you are. you’re doing the thing where your voice goes flat and you don’t blink.”

“i don’t have to blink. i’m a vampire, remember?”

you rolled your eyes. “yeah, but you normally still do!”

she blinked. “there. happy?”

you stared at her until she scoffed and looked away again.

“not everything weird happening in town is supernatural, okay?”

“so you have heard something?”

“i’m saying you can’t just assume stuff.”

“which means you know something.”

“i didn’t say that.”

you gave her a hard look. “ellie.”

she sighed, leaning back and running a hand through her hair. “can we not do this right now?”

“that’s not an answer.”

she dropped her voice. “it’s just rumors. freaky stuff happens all the time and most of it’s nothing.”

you stayed silent as she glanced out the window.

“besides,” she added, softer now, “if it was something serious, don’t you think i’d tell you?”

you wanted to believe her.

you almost did.

but her fingers were still twitching on the napkin, and her mouth was pulled too tight around the edges.

“okay,” you said finally, voice cool. “sure.”

ellie looked at you, searching your face.

and for a second, you could’ve sworn she was about to say more. about to confess something.

but she didn’t.

she just nodded, forced a small smile, and reached over to feed you another fry.

IT HAD BEEN THUNDERING ALL DAY.

the sky above jackson valley had been rumbling since early that morning, storm clouds stretching over the mountains, thick enough to blot out the sun completely.

it was the type of weather that was perfect, apparently, for baseball with the millers.

you didn’t even try to pretend like you understood the rules.

just stood on the sidelines, arms crossed, wearing ellie’s baseball cap—she’d tugged it onto your head earlier, grinning from ear to ear—watching jesse wind up and launch a pitch so fast your eyes couldn’t even track it. dina swung, and the ball soared into the air with an explosive crack, cat blurring out of sight as she chased it down.

“are we just not going to talk about how this is literally the most dangerous activity for humans to watch up close?” you called out to ellie, who was waiting to bat next.

“babe,” she said, suddenly right next to you, “i’ve promised you like four times that everyone has complete control of their powers and you won’t get hurt. this is low-risk.”

“you literally dented the hood of my dad’s car just by leaning on it yesterday.”

“okay, medium-risk.”

still, you stayed close to her. noted that, despite her insistence that you were safe, she stood just a little in front of you when riley was pitching.

all of the millers had warmed to you pretty quickly—except for the girl currently on the pitcher’s mound, braids pulled into a neat high ponytail. riley hadn’t said anything to you since your arrival, but the way she moved when she knew you were watching—faster, sharper, like she was showing off—spoke volumes.

as long as you were there, she was going to make it an uncomfortable experience.

but you weren’t here for her.

you were here for ellie, who was currently dragging you toward first base by the hand.

“you’re gonna be my first base coach, ’kay?”

“i don’t know how to do that.”

“just stand here and look hot.”

“ellie—”

she leaned in close. “see? already a natural.”

you rolled your eyes, blushing as she playfully tugged on the brim of your cap.

THEY HAD YOU ACTING AS THE UMPIRE NOW.

you weren't exactly sure why—if you couldn't first base coach, how the hell would you know how to be an ump?

but the role mostly consisted of them calling when anyone running the bases was “out” or “safe” themselves before looking to you for your hesitant nod of confirmation.

they didn’t have to know you were going to nod no matter if the call was right or wrong.

the game went on relatively smoothly, riley whooping obnoxiously every time she made it safely back to home plate, while dina threw curveball pitches with acrobatic flair that made you wince at the thought of ever trying to replicate them yourself.

so far, you'd counted two broken bats and one near-miss collision, and you were—surprisingly—starting to get the hang of the rules despite things being wonky with only five players (the super speed and strength definitely made up for the lack of teammates). joel had quickly caught on to your confusion and pulled you over to where he stood off to the side to give you the rundown.

your dad was going to be over the moon when he realized you could finally somewhat follow along when you joined him for the next rockies game.

you were busy scoffing at ellie's antics—she was making funny faces and waggling her eyebrows at you from her position at second base—when dina froze at home plate.

everyone noticed immediately.

she tilted her head like she was hearing something you couldn’t, her eyes unfocused and shoulders rising with tension.

“…someone’s coming,” she said.

everyone stopped.

no one spoke.

then ellie was in front of you, her arm stretching out, gently but firmly pressing you back behind her.

“who?” cat asked.

“i don’t know,” dina said. “but they’re close. and they’re not friendly.”

a drawn-out, subsiding roll of thunder shook the ground beneath you.

he stepped out from the trees a moment later—tall, wiry, dressed like someone who had been living off the grid. the man's eyes didn’t shine with that familiar golden undertone you had come to associate with the millers. they were deep red.

ellie stiffened beside you.

“easy,” joel said, but you could tell he was tense too.

the stranger raised his hands in mock surrender. “didn’t mean to spook anyone. just thought i’d say hello. is it halftime?”

“no,” jesse muttered. “and your timing sucks.”

the rogue vampire glanced around the field, eyes passing over each of them before finally settling on you.

you suddenly felt very aware of your heartbeat.

“didn’t believe the rumors until i saw it for myself,” he said. “the great joel miller and his coven playing pretend in a quiet little town—and keeping a little human pet while they’re at it.”

the word was said like a slur. your stomach turned.

ellie’s entire body shifted in front of you now, the muscles in her arms taut like she was seconds away from launching herself at him.

“careful,” she said. “you’re in our territory right now.”

“i’m not here to start anything,” he replied. “but word travels. and someone’s building an army. sloppy, newborn types. they’re messy with their work.”

joel’s expression darkened. “we’ve heard.”

“then you should know this little group—whatever they are—they’re watching. and they’ve noticed the girl too.”

you swallowed hard as he fixed you with a wicked grin. “although i have to say, i can’t blame them. she’s pretty. smells delectable, too.”

ellie moved—and it was instant.

one second she was in front of you, the next she was on him, fist gripping the collar of his frayed shirt and slamming him back against a tree hard enough to rattle the branches.

you’d never seen her move like that.

never seen her bare her teeth like that.

“say that again and i will rip your fucking jaw off,” she hissed.

the rogue held up his hands again in mock innocence. “just passing along a message.”

he shoved his way out of her grasp. “don’t say i didn’t warn you, though,” he spat in ellie’s direction before vanishing into the treeline as fast as he’d arrived.

ellie stood there, breathing hard, her shoulders still drawn up tight.

no one moved for a moment.

then joel let out a long, steady breath. “well,” he muttered, “game’s called.”

dina touched your arm gently. “you okay?”

you nodded, but your eyes were still on ellie.

when the girl finally turned back around to face you, the edges of her fury had softened—but something else was behind her stormy expression now. something you hadn’t seen before.

fear.

not for herself.

for you.

THE CAR RIDE BACK FROM THE MILLERS' HOUSE WAS SILENT.

ellie didn’t speak. not once. just kept her hands gripping the wheel, jaw set and eyes straight ahead, like she knew if she looked at you for too long, you might start asking questions she didn’t want to answer.

you didn’t say anything either—not until you pulled up outside your house and she put the car in park, engine idling.

then:

“you gonna tell me what the fuck that was?” you asked, voice charged.

you stared at her, then kept going. “need a refresher? weird dude, red eyes, mentioning something along the lines of a group of vampires trying to fucking kill me?!”

she flinched at that. good.

“you seriously aren’t going to keep pretending it’s just rumors or random freaky shit that just happens to be occurring conveniently a couple miles away from us, right? not after that?”

she stayed quiet.

“ellie, you said you’d tell me if it was something serious!”

she sighed, scrubbing a hand over her face. “it’s complicated.”

“then uncomplicate it.”

she looked at you then—really looked at you. something raw behind her eyes.

“fine,” she said, voice rough. “you want the truth?”

you nodded, chewing at your thumbnail.

she leaned back in her seat, cutting the engine and staring out the windshield like she couldn’t quite bear to look at you as she spoke.

“there’s been… activity. weird shit in nearby towns—people disappearing. then showing up again, changed. and when they’re freshly changed like that, they’re sort of… out of control.”

“like cat?”

ellie gave a terse nod. “yep, like cat. although, we don’t feed on humans, so they’re waaaay more dangerous. we call ’em newborns.”

you swallowed. “how many?”

“we don’t know. a dozen? maybe more. too many. and all of them freshly turned and trained like dogs—violent, erratic, hungry. it’s not random, either. like that guy said, someone’s organizing them. against us.”

you stared at her. “who would do that?”

she didn’t answer right away.

then, softly: “david. and james.”

the names meant nothing to you.

“exiles,” she explained. “they ran with a group out east. attacked us a few years ago. joel and i… we handled it. they didn’t take it well. obviously.”

“so now they’re creating a fucking vampire militia? for revenge?”

“looks like it.”

“and you were just gonna keep that from me?”

ellie finally turned to you. “i was trying to protect you.”

you shook your head, frustrated. “yeah, and that worked great!”

“i didn’t want to drag you into this.”

“you don’t get to decide that for me,” you said, voice rising. “it’s my life we’re talking about here.”

her face crumpled. “i know.”

silence.

you looked away, out the passenger window, rain starting to splatter against the glass.

“so what now?” you asked. “are they coming?”

ellie was quiet for too long.

you turned back. “ellie. what are you not telling me?”

“we’re… talking about leaving,” she said finally.

the words landed like a stone in your chest.

“leaving?” you repeated.

“just for a while. until things cool down. until we know it’s safe.”

“you’re leaving for me.”

she didn’t deny it.

you shook your head, already feeling the tears welling up. “no.”

“hey,” ellie said quickly, “look, i don’t want to. but if it’s between you being safe and—”

“no.”

“you don’t understand—”

“so you’re just gonna vanish?”

“if it keeps you alive? of course.” she said it with finality.

“stop fucking making all these decisions about my own life, ellie.”

“you are my life now. that’s what you’re not getting,” she snapped.

you didn’t know what to say to that. you looked down at your lap. took a breath. “...there’s prom next week.”

ellie blinked and laughed incredulously. “seriously?”

“just listen, okay? i want to go.”

she cut you off again, “you want to go to a high school dance while a mob of crazed vampires has you on their hit list? i thought you weren’t even interested in prom.”

“i want to go with you.”

she went quiet.

“if you’re leaving me”—your voice broke on the last two words—“let’s just go and have a normal night. slow time down before everything gets worse.”

she still didn’t say anything.

“please,” you begged. sobbed, almost.

ellie’s jaw was tight. she stared at the road like it might answer for her.

you could see it—how badly she didn’t want to say yes. how badly she did want to say yes.

then finally:

“okay,” she whispered.

your eyes stung from held-back tears.

“and if anything happens—anything—i won’t wait. got it?”

you nodded again.

ellie exhaled hard, leaned back, and muttered, “fuck.”

YOUR DAD ALREADY LOOKED LIKE HE REGRETTED AGREEING TO THIS.

“are they all gonna be that… sparkly?” he asked, eyeing the window display.

you snorted. “no, just the expensive ones.”

he muttered something about rhinestones being “tacky trash” and held the door open for you with a grumble.

inside, it was a fabric fever dream—chiffon and satin and sequins in every color of the rainbow. some girl was whining from her fitting room about looking fat in her dream dress while an older woman—her mother, you assumed—argued with the cashier about the price of alterations.

you made your way through the racks, trailing your fingers over fabrics, trying not to feel totally out of place. ellie would’ve hated this. too much pink, too much noise. you smiled to yourself just thinking about it.

“whaddya think about this one?” your dad asked, holding up a tragic lime green number with a plunging neckline and a thigh-high slit.

you stared. blinked. “are you trying to get me dress-coded or arrested by the fashion police?”

“hey, i don’t know how this shit works, okay?”

you snatched it out of his hands and shoved it back onto the rack.

the next hour was a blur of zippers, itchy linings, and realizing just how many different shades of navy there were. you tried on everything from a slinky wine-red number to a cupcake-shaped lavender thing that made you look like you were competing in a pageant to be miss teen usa.

an additional grueling 45 minutes later, you finally found one that didn’t make you feel like complete shit. something about the way the fabric hugged your figure made you stand up straighter when you caught yourself in the mirror.

you stepped out to show your dad.

he blinked. “oh.”

you raised an eyebrow. “oh?”

“no, i mean—that’s the one. yeah. you look like… you.”

he never had a great way with words, but you understood his attempt at a compliment. your throat tightened unexpectedly. “thanks.”

after you changed back and paid for the dress (with your dad pretending not to flinch at the total), the two of you sat on a bench outside the shop with plastic cups of mall coffee.

“you know,” he said, glancing sideways, “i thought i was gonna hate today. but it wasn’t half bad. you looked… happy.”

you smiled down into your coffee.

then he added, with all the gentle subtlety of a bulldozer, “so… that ellie girl. is she gonna wear a dress? or a suit or… er— i mean, how does that work?”

you looked at him, mouth open with genuine shock.

he looked panicked.

“i didn’t mean that like—not that it matters! just, like—curious. supportively. in a completely non-offensive way.”

you held up a hand to silence him. “dad, please.”

“right. shutting up now.”

you sipped your coffee.

he sipped his.

then he muttered, “i bet she’d look cool in a suit though.”

you laughed quietly. “yeah, dad. she's gonna look pretty badass.”

this work is mine. please don’t repost, copy, or publish elsewhere without permission. thank you!

𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭: @oneinameliann @taronyuhunter @tenebrisirae @stravvbwerry

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sevarchive · 2 days ago

Text

bllk headcanons! #6

sae itoshi! doing the “whisper affirmations” asmr trend

a/n: this piece was written for a ticket from the ask roulette carnival! the requester got their surprise prompt, and this was the result. to see what their emoji unlocked (or check your own entry), visit their original ticket here!

starring: sae itoshi

SAE ITOSHI is not the type of person who volunteers to be on camera. especially not whispering to strangers on the internet. so when you climb into his lap holding your mic and ask, “can we do the boyfriend affirmations trend?”

sae stares blankly at the screen. “why would i say that to strangers.”

“it’s for comfort,” you explain, already setting up the mic. “people like to hear soft words when they’re overwhelmed. you’d be good at it.”

“i’m literally not soft,” he deadpans, but you just grin and say, “you are to me.” and it’s so unfair how fast that shuts him up.

he grumbles a “fine” under his breath. “but if i sound dumb, i’m deleting it instantly.”

you set everything up: warm lights, pillows, mic on the table, and settle beside him, giddy. he sits awkwardly, arms crossed, eyes half-lidded with quiet regret.

“i’m already regretting this,” he says. “just try,” you whisper. “pretend you’re talking to me.”

he mutters something like “i always am,” but you’re too focused on hitting record to catch it properly.

you pause the recording and scoot a little closer. “okay, what would you say to me if i was having a really bad day?” sae blinks. “…i’d probably make you lie down and hand you your favorite snack.”

you tilt your head. “and what would you say?” he frowns slightly. “nothing? i’d just sit with you.”

“sometimes people need the words,” you say softly. sae stares at you for a beat, like he’s trying to get it right. “…okay. fine.”

he leans toward the mic, visibly uncomfy. “uh… if you feel like a mess, it’s fine. you’re still doing your best.” a beat. “even if you cried over something dumb.”

he shifts a little. “you’re not hard to love. just so you know.” his eyes flick to you, then away. “i mean it.”

his voice lowers, a little unsure but real. “you’re allowed to have bad days. it doesn’t make you weak.” he adds, quieter: “you’re still enough. even when you think you’re not.”

he clears his throat, like it’s too quiet in the room. “you matter. even if you don’t feel useful. or interesting. or whatever.” he looks away again. "you make things feel better just by being here.”

the video blows up in under a day. you wake up to thousands of likes and comments, your dms full of strangers going “i cried at his voice 😭” and “he doesn’t know how powerful he is.”

“why are people saying i’m comforting?” he mutters. “i literally threatened to delete it halfway through.”

“because you were perfect,” you say, tapping a comment that reads “he sounds like someone who doesn’t say much but means every word when he does.”

you peek at him, grinning. “were you thinking of me when you said all that?” he hesitates, then mutters, barely above a whisper, “…yeah. who else would it be.”

your smile turns all mushy. “i knew it.” he groans, tugging his sleeve over half his face. “stop looking at me like that,” he mumbles—but he’s blushing and smiling at the same time, and he doesn’t pull away when you lean into him.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤdedicated to @🍀anon

#sevarchive 🍎#theaskroulette #blue lock #bllk #bllk x reader #blue lock fluff #blue lock angst #blue lock au #blue lock headcanons #itoshi sae #bllk sae #blue lock sae #sae itoshi #itoshi sae x y/n #itoshi sae x reader #itoshi sae x you

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nagiboo · 13 hours ago

Text

“I want to talk to you.”

The words leave his mouth and it felt as if your illusion of a perfect world where only the two of you existed had crumbled with your heart.

“Sure. What’s wrong? You look serious, Sae.”

“This isn’t working.” Ah.

“Huh?” You were confused, as if just a day ago you guys weren’t curled up in a ball, watching your favourite movie with your favourite snacks.

“You’re a distraction.” He stated bluntly, his eyes were as dull and beautiful as ever. He looked like he truly didn’t care.

“You were good to have around at first, convenient even, but now, this has become too much of a burden to deal with.”

The words left his lips as if they were light and meant nothing at all, as if his sharp gaze that bore into your own didn’t shatter your heart to pieces.

“Are you serious?” You sat up from his white leather couch, in genuine disbelief as to how he could shrug you off so easily and quickly.

Sae said nothing, just stared at you. His eyes cold and lifeless.

“You’re unbelievable.” You said, getting up and grabbing your purse. Your voice was tight with utter disbelief and rising hurt.

He didn’t flinch, didn’t blink. He said nothing. He stared at you as if you were some miscalculation in his perfect equation.

“So really, that’s it? After everything, I’m just a hassle? Some burden?”

Sae snickered. “Exactly that.” His voice was mocking, serious. He didn’t realise how hurtful he could be sometimes, and you highly doubt he intended to come off so blunt.

But the damage was done.

That was the last straw, the final nail in the coffin that sent your emotions toppling over, but only internally. You didn’t cry, nor did you beg.

“Then I hope your career is worth it.” Your voice was filled with finality, pushing past him.

The door clicked behind you, and Sae let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He was alone again.

Just like how he thought he had wanted it.

Except, the feeling inside of his chest never lifted.

He only got hollower.

His expression didn’t change, his composure didn’t crack, but his knuckles were stained white from how hard he was gripping onto his training bag.

Where was the relief he so desperately wanted? He wondered.

Being in a relationship was so troublesome, he replayed this conversation and how it would go a million times over in his head. So why did he feel so lonely?

He repeated affirmations to himself, saying that this was for the best. That you were a distraction. That he didn’t actually care for you.

Oh Sae, what a genius you are.

He praised himself in his head.

Sae had made a mistake, and he realised that months later when he had saw you with someone else posted up on your instagram.

Which he admittedly, pathetically, still stalked.

Someone who was just as average as you, lukewarm.

Not somebody who could give you grand gestures, or buy out restaurants for you.

Not someone who devoted all of his time to becoming and maintaining the title of best mid fielder.

Not someone who could get you anything with a flick of his wrist.

He was a normal human.

He didn’t buy you flowers

This man handpicked flowers for you, and you swooned as if it was the most romantic thing in the world.

And Sae couldn’t help but watch from his phone, the little stories you made together. Pictures of this man kissing what use to be his.

He remained expressionless.

But the grip he had on his training bag was unrelenting, honestly. He feels bad for how much he’s been abusing his poor bag. His fists threatening to bleed from how hard they were balled up.

His heart ached, which was weird. Because Sae was above emotions like this.

But, what could he do? He was the one who broke up with you.

So he gritted his teeth, and with legs that were suddenly heavier than any weighted plate, he walked off.

Stupid Sae. What an idiot you are.

made by nagiboo—do not translate my works !!

#itoshi sae #bllk sae #sae itoshi x reader #blue lock sae #sae x you #sae itoshi #angst #no comfort #blue lock #bllk #ooc #breakup

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andy-15-07 · 1 day ago

Note

Hii I love your stories, can you do one of Danny and it’s love island theme and he’s getting voted out the villa and we have good chemistry like we’re couple goals. So we leave with Danny and can it end with smut. Please and thank youu!

Leaving in Love

PAIRING: Danny Ramirez x Reader 💋

WORD COUNT: 972✍️

REQUESTS: Open! 💌 (send yours my way ,I love writing them all!)

🌟 Danny Ramirez Masterlist 🌟

The fire pit was lit, casting golden glows over everyone's faces. It was the kind of evening where tension clung to the air, thick and quiet, and you could hear your own breath over the waves.

"Islanders," the text message had said, "Tonight, one boy will be dumped from the villa."

The whispers had started almost instantly, and everyone knew,deep down,they knew who it was going to be.

Danny.

You sat on the edge of the bench, your hand clasped around his. You hadn’t let go since the announcement. Danny Ramirez, the one guy who made you laugh even when you were trying to be mad at him, the guy who pulled you in like the sun pulling water from the sea.

And now he was leaving.

You could barely hear the host announce his name. It sounded far away. Everything else blurred until Danny turned toward you, eyes soft, lips parted like he wanted to say a million things but couldn’t figure out where to start.

"Guess this is it," he said quietly, squeezing your hand.

"No," you whispered. "It doesn’t have to be. I can leave with you."

Danny blinked. "Y/N, are you sure? You still have a shot at the prize."

You shook your head. "You're my prize, idiot."

He grinned then, and even in the heartbreak, he looked like summer.

The villa lights faded behind you as you walked out together, wheeling your bags in one hand, holding each other with the other. Producers gave you a few minutes alone while they prepped your transport.

Danny leaned against the van and pulled you into his chest.

"So what now?" he asked.

You tilted your head up, biting your lip. "Now you kiss me like we’re off camera."

He didn’t hesitate. His mouth was on yours, slow and deep, and all the weeks of camera-conscious moments melted away in the dark. This kiss wasn’t for the show. This was for you.

His hand cupped your face, fingers threading into your hair. Your palms slid up his chest, curling into his t-shirt.

"I've been wanting to do that without the whole world watching," he murmured against your lips.

"You did a pretty good job faking it," you teased.

He laughed, low and warm, and kissed you again,firmer this time, less polite.

The hotel suite was waiting for you both that night,a transitional pit stop before real life began again. You kicked off your heels, dropping your bag at the door.

Danny came up behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist.

"Remember that first night?" he asked. "You sat by the pool and pretended not to notice me staring."

"I wasn’t pretending. I noticed."

"What were you thinking?"

"That you had the best smile I’d seen in the villa."

Danny smirked. "And now?"

You turned to face him. "Now I know you’re more than just a smile. You’re actually a dork."

"Ouch."

You wrapped your arms around his neck. "A hot dork."

"Better."

He kissed you then, with more urgency. You backed toward the bed, fingers slipping beneath his shirt.

"Wait," you said breathlessly. "Are you sure we’re ready?"

"I’ve never been more sure of anything."

He kissed you again before pulling off your top gently, eyes trailing along your skin like he was trying to memorize every detail.

Clothes hit the floor one by one, each piece falling away like a layer of distance, until there was nothing left but skin and breath and need.

He laid you gently on the bed, hovering above you with that look in his eyes,the one that told you this wasn’t just lust. It was something deeper. He wasn’t rushing. He wanted you to feel everything.

His hands slid along your thighs, parting them slowly, reverently. You gasped softly as his lips followed, planting kisses on the inside of your leg, inching higher, until your breath caught completely.

"God, Y/N," he murmured, voice low and husky, "you’re unreal."

You reached for him, pulling him up so your bodies aligned. "Then show me what’s real."

He did.

He moved inside you with a gentleness that contradicted the fire in his eyes. Every movement was a promise, every touch a confession. He kissed your shoulder as he moved, then your collarbone, and when he looked into your eyes, you felt something inside you shatter,in the best way.

You moaned his name, wrapping your legs around him, grounding him to you. His pace shifted, slow giving way to something more desperate, more consuming. Your nails scratched down his back and he groaned into your neck, the sound making your pulse race.

"Say it," he breathed, forehead pressed against yours.

You cupped his face, kissing him between words. "I want you… all of you. Always."

He pushed deeper, matching your rhythm, chasing something bigger than pleasure,something real.

Your climax hit like a wave, rushing over you with a force you hadn’t expected. You clung to him, eyes fluttering shut as his name slipped from your lips like a prayer.

Danny followed moments later, gasping your name into your skin, every muscle in his body taut as he surrendered to the moment.

Later, lying tangled in sheets and each other, he brushed hair from your face. Your legs were still hooked around his, your chest still rising in sync with his.

"Leaving the villa was the best thing that happened to me."

You smiled, resting your head on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. "Same."

He kissed your temple. "We might not have won the show, but we won this."

You reached for his hand, lacing your fingers.

"Couple goals," you said sleepily.

"Forever," he replied, pressing a final kiss to your forehead.

And in that quiet hotel room, away from cameras, fame, and all the noise, you knew this was only the beginning.

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hyacinth-in-a-haze · 2 days ago

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Yandere patron! X opera singer reader

Tw- controlling and abusive behaviour, power imbalance, manipulation, grooming

“You know, I've given you so much my sweet songbird.”

He sighs, spinning the whisky in his glass as he looks over your head. Taking a sip as he sits before you like a disgruntled father.

“I know Sir,” you mumble, head held down as you stand in front of his desk. Fingers clutching onto the fabric of your evening gown, he's caught you like this on your back to your dressing room, still dressed in your stage gown. With greasepaint melting off your face. There was no one else who could really strip you down to nothing just as he could.

“Are you grateful?” He rests his glass, waiting expectantly for a response.

“Yes sir-”

“Look at me.” He cuts you off, voice still measured and structured but it doesn't stop the anger he feels from being known to you. You look up to meet his smouldering rage.

“I'm grateful Sir. For all that you've done for me.”

“Is that so?”He sighs “Perhaps I must remind you of the extent to which you've been provided for.” He slides the ledger he was writing in across the desk.

“Read it.”

You take the heavy leather bound book in your hands, face becoming pale as you look down rows of figures. The high numbers making your head spin.

“Everything in there is how much I've paid to put you where you are and keep you there. Tell me my dear songbird, did you think your pretty earnings could even pay for the clothes on your back?” he stands up coming close to your face,

“But I thought-” against your better judgement you try to speak

“The only thing your earnings are good for is pocket money. “ He takes a hold of your face roughly “do you ever stop to think how the handlers of your pretty friends really turn a profit from being their patron? They do it by pimping them out to the fattest wallet they can find.” He let's go, pushing you back from him, throwing you onto the floor

“But I've been kind to you, haven't I? Kind and good, looking after you for your own benefit because you're still a stupid little village girl despite how long you've lived in the city. Thanks to my protection. And how have you rewarded my kindness? How did you thank me for looking after you like a father? By betraying me for the first man to say a sweet word to you!” He slams his hand upon the desk, the sound echoing through the quiet room.

You don't know what to do as he paces through the room, brushing a hand through his salt and pepper hair. You've never seen him so distressed as you have in this moment.

“The letters,” you mumble, admitting to the transgression he has been so angered by. The love letters exchanged between you and a fellow singer at the opera House.

He was your age, with kind eyes and your partner in the upcoming opera. When his hands would wrap around your waist and he'd lift you above his head, you felt your heart in your throat. He looked at you with nothing but adoration. The two of you would only exchange stolen moments and sweet letters. But it seems your patron still found out.

He kneels down to your level,

“Are you ruined? I'd forgive you if you were but you must tell me the truth, my sweet.”

You shake your head and his relief is palpable,

“Yes, you're too smart to give yourself away to anyone but me. You just had a little lapse in judgement I understand, it's the production. You got confused thinking your character's love was what you felt I understand."He is desperate as he speaks, trying so much to rationalise away your affection for another man.

He holds your face tenderly as though he did not throw you to the floor just moments ago. “That boy is nothing, do you understand? He could never hope to become anything more than an ensemble member, perhaps a minor character if he's lucky but he will never be a star as you promise to be. He would never be able to provide you anything of the life you're accustomed to thanks to me. Thanks to my love for you.”

“I was the one who found you in that church choir with the voice of an angel, I was the one who convinced your ailing father that you deserved more, I was the one who provided the vocal lessons, dance teachers, the bed you sleep in. Do you understand my songbird? You only stand on that stage because I cleared the path for you, I only just expected your loyalty in exchange.” He is frantic, the calm presentation having long been unraveled.

“I'm sorry.” you look up at him, wide eyed and innocent. Praying that all those acting lessons work to convince him of your loyalty before he decides to take it out on your sweet lover.

His eyes crinkle and mouth falls onto yours, in a kiss that only seems to bruise. When he finally pulls back he is heaving for air.

“I only wish to look after you,” he tucks your hair behind your ear, perfecting the image of you that he has curated for himself. “I trust that this little cry for my attention won't happen once more, I cannot guarantee I will tolerate someone who continues trying to steal my property from under me.”

“I promise,” you mumble softly, the words feeling like a knife on your heart. You could never hope to be nothing more than an automaton in his hands, one for him to turn a key in so you can perform on his command.

He smiles so gently you could almost believe in his forgiveness. He helps you off the floor and takes a stack of envelopes tied together with one of your hair ribbons from his desk. You don't have to be a genius to know those were the letters you kept beneath your floorboard.

“It was a good hiding place I must admit, you made me really search for where you secreted them away like a little rat.”

He hands them to you, each envelope and letter well read and loved. Without needing to say it outloud you knew his expectation.

You kneel before the fireplace and feed the letters one by one to the flames. And with them so went pieces of your heart.Dolls don't need hearts, they only need to dress up and perform for their loving owners.

He looks at you with such love as he twirls your hair with his heavy hand.

#fem reader #male yandere #yandere #yandere imagines #yandere oc #yandere x reader #yandere drabble #older man younger girl #Yandere patron

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meanderingwistera · 20 hours ago

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The Empress

< Previous chapter - Masterlist - Next chapter >

Summary - You have prepared for years to take over your Father’s kingdom. You have studied everything from politics to mathematics to philosophy for your future role as Queen.

But when a proposal too good to pass up crosses your Father’s desk your wishes are pushed aside. You are sent off to marry a King from a larger neighbouring kingdom, despite your protests.

Now you have to navigate a new land, people and a Husband who keeps his secrets far from your reach.

Pairing - King!Satoru Gojo x Queen!Reader

Content - Fluff, a tiny bit of angst, comedy, pinning, talk of sex, misogyny, a more Gojo centric chapter, ultimatums, actual communication, sleeping together (literally)

Word Count - 4.1k

A/N - friendship in marriage is very important

Chapter 4 - Heir

Satoru hates meeting with the nobles. Not that he doesn’t want to meet with his people and hear their problems but most nobles don’t talk about that.

Every single noble except a select few either try to curry favor with him or try to use their age to sway his decisions their way. It is tedious and he is bored out of his mind as Marquis Zenin drowns on and on about his trade plans.

He looks to his right to see Suguru shuffling his papers for the fifth time in the last thirty minutes. His face is the perfect picture of neutrality but Satoru can tell that Suguru wants to get out of here as much as he does.

In a rare turn of events Marquis Itadori is present. He is a rather reserved man and doesn’t make appearances often so this is rare for him. His presence reminds him that he has yet to reply to Lady Itadori’s letters. He wonders when she will be back from her studies abroad.

Satoru didn’t grow up with the man so he may not be able to read him well but he can tell that everyone is tired of Naobito’s soliloquy.

“What a fascinating story Naobito,” Yuki says from her spot to his left, a fake smile on her face. “But I need to attend to my people and will take my leave first.”

Yuki has never been one for social norms so her leaving is not anything new but it does give Satoru the opportunity to end the meeting a little early.

“I believe that we can stop our meeting for today. We will resume where we left off tomorrow, Marquis Zenin.” Satoru says and stands up.

The rest of the nobles follow suit. They all leave in small groups who trade comments back and forth. Suguru stays, his mask slips just for a moment as he sighs, his shoulders slumping slightly.

“Do we have anything else on the agenda today?” Satoru asks, stretching his arms above his head to make his muscles less stiff.

Suguru flips through the pages and responds, “You don’t have anything for the next thirty minutes, then you have your next meeting.”

A whole thirty minutes to himself- whatever shall he do with so much time on his hands?

Satoru decides to just wander around the halls until his next meeting. He lets his feet carry him out of the meeting room and into the open hall. The cold air feels nice on his skin as he walks.

The interior of the castle has always been adorned in blue and silver. A rather cold combination but one that always reminded him of his mother who was partial to both colors. She was the one who decorated the castle and Satoru has never changed it.

Satoru wonders how you would decorate it. That always fell to the Queen to do so he wonders if you would change the colors. The soft emerald of your homeland and the icy silver of Satoru’s intertwined would be a beautiful sight.

Maybe one day that could be a reality but Satoru won’t push his luck.

In his wanderings he finds himself at the doors of the library. The left door is slightly ajar so he walks in. He hears faint talking from the back of the library and quietly paces over. Satoru recognizes your voice soon after hearing it.

Your voice guides him back to where you are. He has always been drawn to you like a moth to a flame. Your calm demour grounds him. Your searching eyes see through his many layers have always made him feel seen in a way not many have accomplished before.

Satoru comes to a stop behind a shelf of books just one row before the one you are in. He knows that he is hiding from you but despite his draw to you he wants to respect the strict boundaries you have set for him.

So he will just listen to you and Riko talk about history books.

“Gojo?” You ask him from the end of the row he was hiding in.

Satoru practically jumps at the sound of your voice. While he was up in his head he hadn’t heard you walk around the corner with Riko. He whips around to grab a random book from the shelf to pretend that he was looking at it.

“Yes?” He responds, the picture of innocence, hoping you can’t see the panic in his eyes.

“I didn’t know that you read romance novels.” You say with a sparkle of amusement in your eyes as you walk closer.

Satoru looks down at the book in his hand, it is a soft green color with a rusty gold color on the edges. He has never personally read it but you don’t know that.

“Just occasionally.” He says vaguely.

“This one isn’t my favorite but it is good.” You tell him and take the book from his hands, studying the cover.

“Which one is your favorite?” Satoru asks.

He is interested in your preferences. Satoru wants to learn more about you and anything to do with you is leagues more interesting than his paperwork or boring meetings.

“I have read so many books that it would be impossible to choose one favorite.” You look up at him and Satoru forgets to breathe for a second. “But there is one I read a while back about a noble falling for their aid. It was quite romantic but probably not to your taste.”

He doesn’t think he would ever dislike what you hold dear to your heart.

“I will be on the lookout for that one- I may end up enjoying it.” Satoru says, regaining some of his confidence.

“I hope so but what brings you here to the library at this time?” You ask him.

“Suguru found a thirty minute gap in my schedule so I was just wandering to fill the time.” Satoru explains and puts the book back to where he pulled it from.

“Your schedule is much busier than mine, but-” He sees your eyes turn a bit conspiratorial as you speak. “I might be able to help if you let me.”

Satoru, taken aback by your offer, gapes at your offer.

“I thought you-” He pauses on the word hate because he feels responsible for what he knows is your misery.

You pick up where he paused, “I know but the people don’t need me to take it out on them. They deserve a Queen who will take care of them just as much as my own people.”

You look wistful. Satoru can see you going back in through your memories to your homeland. He can see the longing in your unguarded expression and it pains him to have locked you in this gilded cage. But maybe in keeping you in just your traditional role as Queen he has been restricting then he thought.

Traditionally the role of Queen is very limited in politics. It was really only his mother who stepped out into politics that were deemed not for women. She actually helped pass the laws that made it so women could inherit their father’s titles if they were named heir.

Satoru wonders what change you can bring, what life can you breathe into his court? He is more than ready to find out.

“I will talk to my council tomorrow about it-” Satoru grins wide, “-but I am sure that they would let my beloved wife help out.”

For the first time since his coronation he watches your face shine with joy. It makes his heart flutter in his chest to see you look this radiant. You are always perfect but Satoru believes that your smile is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.

“Thank you Gojo.” You thank him softly with a smile.

“It’s really no-“ Satoru is cut off again as Suguru rounds the corner.

“Satoru!” Suguru catches his breath only to see you and bow deeply at the waist. “I did not know you were here- I apologize for my actions.”

Satoru watches you blink in surprise then shake your head at Suguru’s apology.

“There is no need for that, my husband’s time is precious and I will let you two go to the next meeting.” You say graciously.

“You are most kind, Your Majesty.” Suguru says and rights himself.

Satoru is practically dragged away from you by Suguru. He gives you a small wave which you return with a genuine smile. As he watches you smile he is sure that this is the right choice because that is the happiest he has seen you since your wedding day.

Satoru will make sure to provide what you need to thrive here, no matter the cost.

“Absolutely not! Your Majesty!” Baron Kamo exclaims and slams his hand on the table.

“A woman talking to us about affairs of state? She must have truly sunk her claws into you.” Marquis Zenin says, rather lazily, reclining in his chair.

Satoru should have him hanged for his comment about you but he can’t cross the Zenin’s and Nobaito is smug about his immunity. Instead Satoru takes a deep breath so he doesn’t do anything he may regret later.

“The Queen is more than knowledgeable about anything you may bring up. She has been given the same education as I.” Satoru looks directly at Marquis Zenin who is undeniably the ringleader. “And over the course of these last five months has studied our history and the land.”

“If she is so knowledgeable then she must know that to secure her position she needs to bear an heir.” Nobaito smirks, “Can her knowledge produce an heir Your Majesty?”

It really shows his restraint that he doesn’t act on any of the ways he has thought about murdering Marquis Zenin. Satoru really should be given some type of award for it.

Clenching his jaw, Satoru switches course, “What compromise would please you all?”

The other nobles besides Zenin and Kamo look anywhere but at Satoru, not daring to make any demands of him. Only these two would have the gall to make demands.

“An heir by winter would suffice.” Naobito says with a light air to his voice.

“You have three months, which should be plenty of time.” Baron Kamo says, his face serious.

Satoru wants to put his head in his hands. You have only just warmed up to him slightly and now he somehow has to tell you about this. He would rather jump out the nearest window; his death would be swift since they are on the third floor of the castle.

“I will talk with the Queen about the arrangements.” Satoru agrees, trying to remember all the diplomacy he was taught when he was younger.

Naobito has a triumphant look on his face as he resumes his story from yesterday. Suguru glances occasionally at Satoru in concern.

Only a select few people truly know what happened on your wedding night. Suguru knows the full extent of it and knows as well as Satoru does that this puts the both of you in a bind. Satoru would never force you and you probably don’t think of him in that way.

It looks like your shaky alliance will be tested.

A light summer breeze blows in through your office window. It gently ruffles the papers on your desk but not enough for them to go flying. The breeze brushes over your face, the warmth spreading over you.

Despite completing your work a few minutes ago you haven’t gotten up yet. You are comfortable here and you also want to stay in one place in case Gojo comes to tell you what the nobles said.

Gojo’s offer almost made your well practiced calm break for just a moment. It was a small start but a start nonetheless on what you want to do. You will have to think of something to repay him with. Leaving him without something in return feels wrong.

Accepting gifts has never been your strong suit. It has always been uncomfortable since you were young. You don’t want to owe anyone a favor or hinder them in any way. Repayment is always on your mind as soon as a gift or something of the sort comes to you.

Gojo is not without. The royal volt is full, the castle is a fortress and his people love him. So what could you give to Gojo that he doesn’t already have?

As if blown in by the summer wind Gojo strides in. His face shows no sign of nerves but you see a mechanical movement to his steps that betray him. You wonder if the meeting didn’t go well. Standing up you incline your head in a bow to him.

“Can I speak with you in private?” Gojo asks, his voice is calm but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

Riko, Nanami and Haibara leave the room quickly after Gojo finishes his sentence. You watch as Nanami pulls the door closed behind him, leaving you alone with Gojo.

His shoulders slump a little as he nears your desk. The nervous energy that Gojo brought with him fills the room and you.

“What’s wrong?” Your voice comes out softer than you meant it too.

“I talked with the nobles about you helping me-” He takes a deep breath, adding to the suspense building up. “-at first they said no then they came up with a compromise, they want a heir before winter.”

You suck in a deep breath.

Before you even suggested that you could help with matters of state you had known that it would be hard to get the nobles to agree but this is a lot harder than you expected.

You have been prepared your whole life to have an heir whether it was for your country or now Gojo’s and now you have a deadline. Looking back a Gojo you see that he is also not too keen on the idea of producing an heir so soon.

There has to be a loophole of some kind.

“We don’t have to do that.” Gojo tries to fill the silence of your pondering. “I will attempt to find another way-”

An idea strikes you as he speaks. You interrupt him- your eyes alight with an epiphany.

“They only said that we need an heir by winter, they didn’t say that I couldn’t help while we try for a child. We will just have to convince them that we are in fact…”

Your voice trails off as you feel your face heat up imagining what would happen if you two genuinely were to be together. Gojo is handsome and you would be blind if you didn’t acknowledge that. Images of him plague your mind.

His hands holding your hips as his lips meet your neck- you blink that away from your sight.

“…trying to produce an heir.” You finish trying to sound calm.

“Right, do you think if I stay in your chambers once a week it would be convincing?” Gojo asks, not noticing your slightly flustered state.

“I believe that would be sufficient.” You clear your throat and get your traitorous mind back on track.

“I will come by tonight then.” He tells you. His anxiety has left his posture and he looks more relaxed.

“That will work for me.” You respond.

For a moment the two of you just stare at each other. Gojo is the first to break the eye contact you two have been making and walk out of your office. You watch his retreating back as the doors open.

Riko walks back in, throwing a glance behind her to watch Gojo leave. Her eyes blink owlishly at you as she tries to decipher what just happened. You just smile and walk around the desk to the door.

“I am done with my work for the day.” You tell her as you pass, she follows you as you walk out. “Please call the maids, I need to get ready for tonight.”

“Y-yes! Your Majesty!” Riko stutters out as she rushes in the other direction to get the maids for you.

This will definitely send waves through the castle rumor mill.

Satoru paces back and forth outside your door. Every so often there is a faint noise from inside your room. He still hasn’t gotten up the courage to knock. The memory of your wedding night, despite the five months between then and now, is still in his mind vividly.

Your tear stained rage still haunts him no matter how many times he tries to forget.

After five minutes of pacing he knocks softly on your door. Footsteps fall softly as he can imagine you walking to open the door for him. Would you be apprehensive to let him in? Or maybe you are just as nervous as he is to see you.

“Gojo.” You say quietly and open the door.

You are a vision in blue. He is sure your maids put you in blue to give him a heart attack when he sees you.

Your nightgown is not revealing as it was on your wedding night, it is still beautiful with long pleated fabric falling from the seam around your waist. The gown is akin to a waterfall flowing down your body. Satoru almost forgets to speak as your face goes from neutral to concerned.

“Are you alright?” You question him gently reaching up a hand to his forehead. “Do you have a fever? You are flushed.”

Satoru is sure that your touch will only increase his flushed face but he lets you touch his forehead in concern. When you retract your hand you look perplexed. And Satoru hopes to keep you in the dark about his heart's desire for you.

“I am fine, just a little tired is all.” He explains. You don’t look the least bit convinced by that but let him in anyway.

You have always seemed to know when he isn’t telling the full truth. He feels your eyes looking at him in a way that is so different from everyone else and he craves that like air.

When Satoru is in your room you shut the door. He looks around at the room and sees touches of you everywhere. The hints of green in the curtains and bed remind him of the colors of your home. But the silver is surprising.

The two colors intertwine together in the way he thought they would.

You walk over to the bed and sit down. He watches you rub your shoulder and he wonders if it’s sore from being at your desk so long. But your body relaxes as you look over at him.

“Are you going to sleep?” You ask him with confusion and a hint of amusement.

“I didn’t know if you wanted me to sleep with you or somewhere else.” Satoru says.

“It will be more convincing if you sleep in the bed with me.” You tell him. “Unless you are uncomfortable with that?”

“Whatever my wife wants she will get.” He grins and walks over to the other side of the bed.

Your bed is softer than his. He isn’t upset about it, quite the opposite since he wants you to have the best of everything. Satoru’s bed is rarely slept in because of the amount of work he has everyday. Most of the time he just sleeps in his office on the couch in the corner of the room.

He swings his legs over the bed and lays down on top of the comforter so you have room without him being too close. After not hearing any movement from your side he looks up to see you holding back laughter.

“What’s so funny?” Satoru raises an eyebrow.

“You can sleep normally,” You lower your hand from your mouth to talk to him. “I will not bite you Gojo.”

“I- just-” Satoru tries to speak but gives up with a huff and gets under the comforter. As he looks up at the ceiling he feels your probing eyes looking at him. “I know that you are not fond of me so I want to give you as much space as I can.”

He doesn’t look at you. Satoru is not one for vulnerability, he hides his heart behind a lot of walls.

It has been the way he has moved through the world since he was young, he needs to hide the vulnerable parts of himself so he doesn’t get hurt. Satoru has a kingdom of people who rely on him and as a ruler you help your people first then act for yourself second.

As he waits for a laugh or a dismissal you do something he doesn’t expect. You don’t say anything- just grab his hand and squeeze it a little. Satoru looks over to see a sad little smile on your face. He wonders if you have been isolated by his actions to help you.

“It is lonely here sometimes,” You admit softly, “I fill my time with books and budgets but I miss my home that is filled with laughter. There was always something going on there that you could get carried away by. Here is very different- it is just you and me in a very large castle.”

Satoru inhales deeply, watching you open yourself up slowly to him.

“At first I was angry. My whole plan for my life was thrown off track and you were the closest thing that I deemed worthy of my rage. But now it has fizzled out into a sense of loneliness. I was not fond before but now I-“ You pause looking for the right words. “I long for companionship, I long for an ally or maybe even a friend.”

He blinks over in surprise at your words. Satoru can see tears threatening to spill over in your eyes. His heart aches at your pain and knowing that he caused it.

“I can be that for you.” Satoru says and it is your turn to look surprised. “Whatever you need, a companion, an ally or a friend.”

“I would like that.” You say with a bright smile despite the tears near the corners of your eyes.

“What do normal friends do? Suguru and I just fight over my unfinished paperwork or fall asleep in the same room.” Satoru asks you to lighten the mood.

You laugh. It is a bit choked by tears but it is the most beautiful sound that has ever graced his ears. If it was a symphony he would listen to it on repeat. Satoru’s idea of how beautiful it would sound is not even close to its beauty.

“I think dinner is a good start and maybe a walk through the gardens here and there?” You suggest, trying to sound serious but he can see the laughter in your eyes as you speak.

“I concur, my Queen.” Satoru agrees with a grin.

“You can call me by my name,” you suddenly sound a bit embarrassed, “that is what friends do.”

Satoru pauses before letting your name leave his lips. It rolls off his tongue like it is the only word he should ever say.

“Call me Satoru then.”

“Satoru-” You say his name in a way he has never heard before- maybe that is the right way it is supposed to be spoken and he has never heard it before. “That’s a good name.”

“My mother gave it to me.” Satoru says and that captures your interest.

“Tell me about her?”

“Of course.”

The morning sun has somehow managed to get through the dark green curtains in your bedroom. You groan a bit at the light and how sluggish you feel. Actually, you feel weighed down by something.

Opening your eyes you see Satoru has fallen asleep with his head on your chest.

You see his white lashes flutter with sleep. His lips are slightly parted as he exhales deeply. As you stare you can help but feel warm, not because of his body heat, but because of what happened last night and waking up to this.

In all your plans for the future you had never thought about love.

You had planned for everything but that. In the back of your mind you had known that you had to carry on your bloodline but you had been focusing on getting the crown first. So now as your heart beats wildly in your chest you are now at a loss for a plan or a mask to hide behind.

Without meaning to you run your fingers through his hair. It is as soft as you imagined it to be last night. While Satoru sleeps you feel a bit bolder than when he is awake.

This is either going to mess up your careful planning or possibly add something new to them.

Taglist- @hyori2 @tenaciousavenueavenue @joyfulweaselbananapanda @miakxn @lovystar @moonz33 @linny-bloggs @straykeeks @vi0let-writes @procastinatingbitch @ughhmenna @sassylav @sugurusladyknightt @kitkatq05

#the romance is romancing finally #blue’s fics <3 #The Tarot Deck #satoru gojo x reader #gojo satoru x reader #jujutsu gojo #gojo x you #gojo x reader #gojo satoru #jjk x reader #jjk #jujutsu kaisen

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